The Persistence of Memory (A Poem)

Woah, almost forgot to post this week!  Power outage didn't help at all, the day I would've spent completely writing was spent trying to survive heat and darkness, so my full-writing-day won't come for a while.  But I have a poem to post anyways!  I did some last minute revisions to it; as usual, it's not perfect, but it's alright at the least.  I've probably given other poems the same title this has, but oh well.  There's not much to say about this, which I actually think is kind of one of the problems about it - its stuff I've written about before.  The first two stanzas are my favorites, because those are more in line with the image I had in mind of living a moment, and then, instead of writing it down in a poem immediately, letting it sit for a while (fermenting maybe?), and coming back to it later, not trying to preserve it but just getting everything you can out of it.  Actually, that description might be a pretty good target for my revisions!

I'm working on a couple of short stories right now, so maybe hopefully one of those will be here in the coming weeks.  I'm really working on style and tone these days, and I'm being a real perfectionist about it, but hopefully that won't deter my writing too much.  I also might start posting novel chapters from the novel I wanna start writing very soon.  But all in all things are normal, so as per usual, please criticize my writing!  Hope you enjoyed it, I'll be back with another next week.
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The Persistence of Memory
by Matthew Stalbaum

Poems written at ease, though
In a strange tongue
Under light of ink & memory
--The rush of immaculate preservation gone
No glass cases or magnifying lenses

Only a slight dusting off, a quick breath,
And rotating a memory in hand, peering
Into all sides for the edge
Missed before, finding it
As the angle seen before is reversed,
And dust continually clouds the surface.

For all that comes out
In fog and shadow, there's comfort
Knowing it was at least lived
Under light of the sun & moon,
Taken as slowly and plentifully
As time allows.

And for all that grows clouded
In the glass, perhaps there's something
To be read in the shadows, filled in
By imagination, truer than the truth.

Another Glass Please (A Poem)

Well, I failed in my dream to have a short story ready for my last day of this week-long posting marathon, but oh well.  I was having some major problems restarting the story I was working on before my laptop crashed, but now I think I've got it, thanks to reading some Ray Bradbury for inspiration.  So hopefully within the next 2 weeks I'll have that story posted here.

As for this poem, I don't know, I have mixed feelings about it now.  I like aspects about it - I just added the division between the 2 parts, and I like the disparity of the images between them, but like some of the other poems I posted this week, the ending feels a little off to me.  Even when I was writing it the ending ended up being a little rushed.  I was writing 2-3 other poems at the time too, along with getting down some notes for some stories I wanna write soon, so I just kinda rushed this one to an ending.  My problem is that the ending is too clean - it gets the general idea I want at the end of this poem, but the tone is all wrong I think.  Like everything I write, it just needs a little work. 

Anyways, this is the last post for the week!  I wanted to have something completely new today, like a poem about race, since I talked about race on Nobody's Rambler today, but I couldn't think of anything.  I'm gonna admit, my brain's going to mush a little bit these days, and keeping up with my work is getting kinda hard.  But I'm gonna stay back on track here from now on, so count on another poem next week!
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Another Glass Please
by Matthew Stalbaum

I.
I'll be fine, I'll be fine, for some
It's a danger, a numbing of spirits,
Dousing the fire, and the world
Becomes a dream in haze, blurring
By the light of smoke & shadows--

Edges round out, lose their cut,
And skin becomes as loose as cloth, distant,
To be shed by shutting the eyes
Walking in darkness in nothingness,
Becoming it & dissolving--

II.
I fall, but only to feel

To touch and know what touch is,
To feel my breath as it builds, then waits,
the exhale
a low moan to feel it
Vibrate in my chest like electricity.

It burns, it boils, deeply,
And my heart grows hot from the coals,
Too hot - I cringe
I writhe, I shake my hands, my head
Grasping blindly for the words
That aren't God, aren't the glass, but perhaps,
For once, maybe only now
Are me. 

Earthly Bodies (A Poem)

Is it obvious I've been reading Pablo Neruda?  There was about a week when I was just reading his poetry, mostly just his love poetry.  The man definitely has a way with words that I don't have, but I've gotten to the point of my jadedness where his love poetry seems to be missing something - it's all so perfect and beautiful!  I've also been reading The Color of Love, an anthology of love poetry a friend gave me.  Some of the poems in that are really amazing, but I will admit that they all center around this perfect woman, who has all of these beautiful features, who might as well be clothed in light and elegance.  These days I want a different kind of love poem than that, one that's more honest, closer to the reality of our bodies.  This poem is one of my 1st attempts at that, although it's definitely only a 1st step, just looking over it makes me see numerous places for improvement, though I don't have the energy or the inspiration to make those now.  I think part of the reason why there's so much bad love poetry is because we idealize each other in our poems - no one writes about the imperfections of his lover, but about how perfect she is.  So I wanted the figure of a woman who's just come from the fields, still drenched in sweat and covered in dirt, and still beautiful because of it all.

So, let me know how I'm doing with this whole love poetry thing!  The name of the blog isn't badlovepoet for nothing, and I am lacking the inspiration of an actual lover, but hopefully you enjoyed taking less than a minute of your life reading it.  Leave any criticisms or comments you have here before you go off to explore the rest of the internet, and I'll be back tomorrow with yet another poem! 
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Earthly Bodies
by Matthew Stalbaum

Dirt-stained, your skin bitter
& clammy, rough, caked with the fields
you worked & the sun's heat
baking you a ruddy brown - I'd have you
no other way.

I'd taste you before the shower, even better
if you washed in the hard rains, clouds steeped
in your bones, your breath free,
your heart strong.

When you smile beneath the layers
of Earth on you, sunken into your skin
until you smell of it, taste of it, look of it,
are you ever more yourself than now?

The idea for this started somewhat playfully - who would think to write a poem about a manicurist? - but after rereading it, I think it gets a little dark in those first few stanzas!  I'm definitely gonna edit this a little more (I'm mainly posting it now to see if anyone will respond with their thoughts on things before I make any changes).  I think this is the first poem I experimented using dialogue in, which came from reading some Langston Hughes, and this one poem by William Carlos Williams that I can't remember the name of, but it involves a sick baby and the inflection of the dialogue makes the last line almost unbearably tragic.  I like the dialogue in the last stanza, but I'm a little iffy about the other instances it's used in.  The main thing I wanna do in editing is cut down the disparity between the last stanza and the rest of the poem - I realized just now that only in the last stanza does the Manicurist get a personality and become a character, whereas before he's just this shadowy, almost menacing figure.  By the last stanza I realized I wanted to get the communal aspect of getting a manicure, but I didn't go back and add that tone to the rest of the poem, so it jumps from a really creepy exploration of time and decay to this wise manicurist.  As the directors say, I'll fix it in post.

As usual, please leave criticisms!  When they come (on those rare days) they really are helpful.  Help a young poet become the next Walt Whitman by letting him know your thoughts on his poetry.  Feel free to tear it apart, massacre it, beat it with a shovel - it'll only get stronger, trust me.  See you again tomorrow with another poem!
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The Manicurist
by Matthew Stalbaum

he will continue cutting, he will continue
whittling down their nails, polishing
& coloring to hide the smoker's
yellow crusting at the edges, smoothing out
the wrinkles of tired joints with the pad
of a thumb, to hide their work & toiling
--mmm, those look real pretty now!

they will continue coming back, their nails
& their wrinkles & the yellow stain now covering
the polish again--I tried quitting
but it doesn't hurt anyone--weekly, monthly
they will continue coming back

and he will continue cutting, continue

talking, about what their dreams really mean
(not the truth of all things, but a truth
for sure), about the flame in their eyes
they never bothered to see, the lightning of touch,
and he will talk on about certain eternal things
as they wish to god their nails wouldn't stain
so easily--the staining might as well
never come off!

Lively Hands (A Poem)

My post on Nobody's Rambler tonight was about handwriting vs. typing, so here I decided to post a poem I wrote recently that's about the hands that make art.  Unfortunately I've been feeling a little out of sorts all night, so I couldn't really give this the look-over it deserves.  The format needs some serious thought, as does the ending.  But all in all I like the idea of the poem, so I'll keep working with it.  Actually, this is really similar to my poem from last night, with its insistence on reality as something to be treasured.  It's probably pretty obvious by now that I've written quite a few poems with this theme at their heart, along with poems that involve manipulating the physical form of art - painting, writing, etc. - into the scenes they would describe.  I seem to have an obsession with hands in that way.  Maybe sometime I'll try to write something that deals with hands in a completely different way, if only for the challenge.

So anyways, I hope you at least enjoy reading it.  I just realized I didn't make my usual plea last time for comments and criticisms - please let me know if you don't like anything about this poem!  Comments really are appreciated, more so than you know, and criticisms even more so.  If something doesn't sound right to you, or an image just sounds plain dumb, like me know!  Otherwise it'll just keep being dumb, and then I'll keep being dumb, and that just doesn't seem right.  Either way, I hope reading it wasn't a waste of time!
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Lively Hands
by Matthew Stalbaum

Ink can only move from a hand that moves
from a hand that's moved limbs & time
moved across sea-breezes & over sweaty brows
over a chest to feel a reassuring pounding
a troublesome, wearisome pounding;
Hands that have moved precisely
recklessly randomly joyously
that have regretted where they've gone
& found secrets still in shadowy pockets;
Hands that moved quickly conscious
of time too conscious perhaps--
Hands that have lingered over a page
a flower a shoulder that got lost
in the silence of touch in the thoughts that follow
an absense of thought - hands that have
fallen to feel weightless, rise to feel gravity.

From these hands ink dances, music leaps,
paintings breath lustily (smelling the beach,
hearing the seagulls soar by, feeling the sand
slowly pull at sinking feet),
these hands stretch a note, a bridge,
the crossing of a T
until it curls at the ends, bounces
at the ends, waiting to be sprung
or unwound--

Hands don't decide these things,
they set motion, & worlds spin from them. 

Ode to a Rose/Return from an Unexpected Hiatus

So, as all of you millions of faithful readers may have noticed, I was gone for quite a while!  At first it was a bit of, well, not so much writer's block as poet's block - I did a good deal of work with fiction writing at the beginning of my summer break, but just didn't have the heart for poetry.  I couldn't get a feel for the tone and style I wanted, and even though I had some ideas written down in my moleskine, I couldn't find the right words for them.  Then my laptop crashed, so for a few weeks I really couldn't post anything.

But the break was good for me - I read some things from my poetry collections, started getting a feel for stanzas and lines again, and before I knew it I was writing poetry in my moleskine, which is something I hardly ever do.  Normally I'll write a line or two and save the rest for when I'm at my computer next, most poetry teachers will tell you to never compose a poem on your computer, but it was working for me for the longest time.  Now I'm just in a moleskine phase I guess.  I would write a line, then want to keep going, and suddenly I'd have 2-3 pages filled with a poem!  Most of them I'm not sure how I feel about, but I think I need to accept the fact that I'll never be happy with my own poetry - the perfectionistic eye of the writer always finds something wrong, something lacking, something not quite right.  Oh well. 

To make up for my extended absence, I've decided to post something here everyday this week.  Now now my dear, devoted fan-base, don't get too riled up, I'll mostly be posting the poems I wrote these past few weeks, and a lot of them are still rough in my opinion.  But I'm going to keep working on writing a short story or two, so maybe I'll have some fiction to post by the end of the week or by next week. 

As for tonight, we have "Ode to a Rose," a poem that I can't remember the specific inspiration of at all.  It probably came from me reading Pablo Neruda, along with wanting to write love poetry lately.  After all, the name of this blog is badlovepoet, but so few of my poems talk about love!  From where I found this in my moleskine, I'm going to guess I came up with the idea while reading Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin, which was a beautiful book, and really made my break from writing hard.  What I can remember, this poem kind of came about accidentally - I wrote down another idea I had, then had this idea, which I didn't intend on finishing at the moment, but the inspiration for it just caught me.  I need to work on some parts still, and give the format a bit more thought probably, but overall it's not a bad little poem.  Actually, technically I don't think it quite counts as an Ode, but the title really does catch the tone of things I think, so maybe it's just good enough.  Anyways, I'll quite rambling and leave you to the poem now, see you tomorrow with some more verses!
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Ode to a Rose
by Matthew Stalbaum

A rose, such things that stand
pretty, or prick,
but never at the same time;
Whose petals are want to hold close,
lean out, fall in a faint like handkerchiefs
-dainty for the sake of being dainty;
The source of many roselia:
Rose poems&Rose paintings&Rose perfumes,
fake roses (without enough sense
to die), bouquets smothered in green
leaflets for those Reds & Pinks to stand
like Princes, crowning over the rest;
There are those carnations that pose
for a while, passing poetry off
for only half the time.

I envy the last, lost, untouched rose
lying in some nameless wood, never to know
the plucking of hands, &eyes, &lips, never
to become a thing of wonder, only to be
a rose, a red flower unfurling its petals
to feel a bit more sun - in its time,
wilting, like a contented sigh,
soon to brown, crease, shrivel, die,
petals failing and falling, but to know
the Earth still, to rise again, another rose,
to know the Earth still.