FOOT IN THE DOOR
THE ONES THAT GOT MY FOOT IN THE DOOR
OF MFA WRITING PROGRAM – POETRY
VERMONT COLLEGE
Special thanks to Ralph Burns and David Jauss, who had the audacity to suggest these as application to grad school, to think I could ever get in, confident I will do well in the program. And I was just thinking, ‘God, just help me get my BA!”
“One After Another”
“Bath”
“Climbing”
“Revolutionary”
“Hammock”
Copyright protected 2005.
ONE AFTER ANOTHER
“She reminds you of Mary Garden, Isadora Duncan, Lysistrata, Sappho, all packed into one dynamic personality.”
– Edna M. Levey, on Margaret Anderson
1.
Mary in that dress, silken seduction
a statuesque operatic diva in a splendor.
A continuous wrap,
the Salome dance of seven veils
erupted like a volcano in her on stage.
"The character of a woman shows in her thighs.”
Isadora’s technique standing still for hours,
her two hands folded between her breasts;
she found power in her solar plexus.
From her heart to her navel
she found her spring,
the spring of a woman’s movement.
The spring became capillaries,
an elaborate splash in all directions,
blood pumping faster in an unleashed dancer.
She tapped an audience’s fury unaccustomed to the vivid,
the woman neither nymph, nor fairy, nor coquette.
With a passion for scarves that trailed behind her,
she didn’t dream she’d leave a life behind tangled in one.
2.
Margaret began The Little Review in 1914.
Twenty-eight, a tall blue-eyed blond,
she presented a palette of modernist culture:
Des Imagists, Ezra Pound, Amy Lowell, H.D.,
black writers of the Harlem Renaissance,
T.S. Eliot, Wyndham Lewis,
Djuna Barnes, Janet Flanner, and Stein.
She brought out Joyce’s Ulysses,
made sissies out of censors and judges.
The issue that brought her out,
brought her to court, was the passage
that made men see girls lean back everywhere:
“lean back more and more to look up after it,
high, high, almost out of sight,
and her face was suffused with a divine,
an entrancing blush from straining back.”
Margaret met Jane in the middle of that.
A contrast to blond and blue-eyed femininity,
Jane was the handsome sort,
a little stout to Margaret’s lean,
her close-cut hair a hint of a pompadour,
prone to tuxedo jackets and bow ties.
Jane shared The Little Review,
and an enormous bed with Margaret,
a bed William Carlos Williams envied,
"We poor men would look timidly at it and marvel.”
3.
I built a life around my books.
I imagined Paris in the twenties and thirties,
when a lot of lesbians let loose.
I made a culture out of my den,
made art out of a strewn-about chaos.
I used to tell you I could probably buy another house,
put myself through grad school,
in the time and money it took to find me.
We sometimes speculate how cherished we’d be,
had we met in our twenties or thirties,
found our paths before we got chaotic.
I’ve done a lot of reading, heard a lot of music,
read some of my own poetry out loud a time or two.
I marvel at Margaret Anderson and her Little Review,
how she’s described as “Mary Garden, Isadora Duncan,
Lysistrata, Sappho, all packed into one dynamic personality.”
I’ve got news.
You and I place our hands between our breasts.
We know the mantra of “dress to peel,”
the hot and cold of muscle and meat,
your long, luxurious legs,
my hands summoning whispers out of nowhere,
your little octopussy.
We know the leaning back,
the bending loins, the head over the shoulder,
and we know a tiny bead of sweat is a river.
I bought a Picasso silk scarf,
window frame size, its image a curvy, Cubist style,
a transparent stained glass effect --
hot pink, periodic blues
grace a form in a fedora, striped necktie, yellow daisy in a lapel.
A woman peeking around a wall, one eye wider than the other.
I was drawn immediately to it,
asked you, “Is it not ridiculous?
I’ve never bought a silk scarf in my life.”
“Oh, go ahead. Why not?
It’s not like you’re buying a Picasso.”
It was the fedora and the daisy.
You wear a fedora like you’re from another era.
And the daisy!
You told me when we were in that questionnaire phase,
that place before the dresses left,
before we undressed,
your favorite color is a bright yellow,
your favorite flower the daisy.
You make a Mary blush unwrapped,
an Isadora wonder where the spring is;
make a Lysistrata listless, her lips lost.
Honey, Sappho barely brushes the surface
you bring to my skin,
your hands, your glorious, uproarious laugh,
my “Oh!,” my hips on high,
my slow descending deep.
I only thought Margaret had it all,
her little review a vault into the modern,
her looks, her leaning back,
her smooth, forward embrace
finding creativity in a crevice,
a split in a groove,
how “Life is just one ecstasy after another.”
BATH
1.
My bath is simple,
a bar of soap,
an aging washcloth,
a tub of water
nearly too hot to test,
and a towel barely a wrap.
Shower curtain open
to the edge,
door open.
You used to fret
in the beginning,
watching me drag
a razor over my legs,
without watching,
wondering how it is
I never cut myself.
A swipe, swipe, I’m done.
It’s the after bathe
I savor;
bent-over torso
in a lotus position,
palms a pedestal
to my cheeks;
so meditative
in my stare,
you once told me
sometimes you think
you’re climbing
a staircase
to reach me.
You say, “I’m jealous,”
how it’s easy
for me to go away,
drop off to sleep,
drop in to a world
so wide,
you have to touch me,
bring your lips
to my ear,
be the close call,
to bring me back.
2.
You roll
a porcelain steel door
on its track,
locking into the wall
until no steam shall pass;
draw a bath like a chemist,
and an artist.
Floating
your curvaceous
form in a mix
of salts,
steam, sweat,
and bubbles,
you bloom
in a heavenly scent,
making the room
an orchard.
A bath is your best refuge.
I hesitate to enter
your fruitful kingdom.
I ask if you want
a peach scrub-down
for your back,
and you sigh
in relief.
Our best talks
are during a bath,
or in bed.
My fingers
fold over your back
weary from work,
and I think to myself,
‘How is it stress
reaches a strength
capable of putting knots
in your skin?”
I recall how once,
I didn’t know
what people meant
when they said
a therapeutic massage
relieves tension,
how day-to-day,
we forget
what makes us tick.
You say, “Melody,
it means a lot to me,
how we have this quiet time.
Sometimes, the world
is just too much,
and any little touch
puts me back in touch
with what I want.”
I tell you, “Dear, you
just uttered a triple rhyme,
and not a day goes by
when I don’t want to make
a poem out of us.”
CLIMBING
For L.
1.
Two tablespoons of olive oil
sizzle in a skillet,
skinless chicken breasts
in garlic,
oregano and lime,
a dash
of salt and pepper.
In your hair,
I see subtle spices.
You’re salt and pepper,
subtle cinnamon
on a head of paprika.
You only think
you’re a brunette.
I am fast
becoming salt white,
insisting I am
only blonder.
I spray the chicken
with aerosol butter.
The sizzle succumbs
to volume.
You’re behind me.
I sigh,
what in another life,
was a hiss,
when I was bitchy
at the step
of anyone
in my kitchen
2.
I don’t like olives.
I rarely even sip wine.
If you come near me
with Chinese food
or any “ese” in cuisine,
I’m apt to tighten
my lips in suspicion.
But, I cook in olive oil,
red, white and tarragon wine,
maybe toy with soy sauce,
blend spices that would
bring Emeril to a standstill.
My idea of measuring
is what my small fingers
brush in a pinch.
3.
You ask, “What’s cooking?”
taking a peek
over my shoulder
after our lips meet,
and the breasts sizzle
to a higher pitch.
“Are you following a recipe?”
“Do you really want
to ask?” I laugh,
“What’s that thing I do?
I don’t have that;
I’ll use this.
This for that,
that for this.”
“Melody, I love you
for that!”
“For what?”
You turn off the flame
beneath the skillet,
move it to another burner,
turn me around,
my waist in your arms.
“For this,” you say.
We kiss until we pause
to catch our breath.
You say, “If not for the stove,”
and I finish the sentence,
“we’d be on the floor.”
“Melody, you can change
any recipe you want,
as long as you want me.”
4.
We were thin enough then,
we once fantasized
about wearing layers
that betrayed our forms,
but loose enough
to make an embrace
a subtle press of palms
to breasts,
breasts to breasts,
and we’re coming
all over the place,
in full view of the world,
not even a voyeur
can be sure
we’re two femmes
making out in a dress.
5.
The first time
we found out we can make
anything a bed,
we’d just gotten
all dolled up,
surprised we’ve got legs,
and a hem
can make a brush
against our skin
a quick call.
We were excited
about it being our first
anniversary,
anxious to get out,
celebrate us,
how we went beyond
the cursory,
found out if we’re thirsty,
all we have to do
is drink.
The wine connoisseur
between us,
you brought out the Chablis,
brought deftness
to the corkscrew,
pulled out the cork
without a pop,
or a piece in our glasses.
We’re in a Latin tango,
can’t tell who’s in the twirl,
or who choreographs
the next step.
We’re a new mix of kisses
and neck and neck,
and any part of us
that lands in our hands
makes our bodies spoon,
and we’re like two swoops
of a ladle in a bowl
of hot soup, our swallows
bringing our heads
to fall low,
hesitant to leave our lips,
but desperate
to separate legs
and lips,
and our loving
from our dresses.
Is it pure luck
a table is near,
how we’d be in the sink,
if we didn’t think
quick enough
to take a swift sweep,
brush aside the condiments,
utensils, and sauces,
step out of our dresses
in what seems one
swell swoop,
and we’re climbing
our climaxes
on the table?
REVOLUTIONARY
“Before I was a feminist, I suppose I was an angel, a poet, a revolutionary.” - Nicole Brossard
1.
It’s miraculous,
how a gif image
of you pulls deeper
than film,
or real time.
But, ironically,
a film is lifted
from my eyes,
how, my first glance
is always on that
flash of a smile
of yours.
I just now realized
your eyes
appear blue-grey
to my vision,
and that flash of a smile
that goes with your eyes
reminds me
I am in a similar eye
with my Linda.
2.
I worried, at first,
am I twisted?
How my attraction,
then more innocent
fascination for you,
makes me feel
I see more of you
than you put
on the page
or screen.
I’m beginning
to see the context
of Brossard’s “Arial Letter,”
how women,
particularly lesbians,
especially a melody
or two,
are desperate
to find a language
to map
the travels of our love;
how letters become
arial to our lives,
and love transcends time,
generations,
genders,
and gestures
beyond biology.
We’re a psychic sprawl,
a new mathematics,
a science
to why our senses
merge or separate
between us,
or inside.
3.
Tonight is the first time
my glance
at your picture
shifted from that
grab of a smile of yours.
It’s the first time
I saw more flesh tone
to your face,
than pale.
But, more moving to me
is the palm of your hand.
How the folded
tips of your fingers
are a playful tease,
accenting your
“permanent shock”
I acknowledged
a 14 year old can be,
or be thought,
erotic.
Not imagining being
with a 14 year old,
but being one,
being 14
and erotic.
I didn’t have an erotic clue
in me until I was
nearly thirty.
4.
But, your fingertips!
Pinky and her sister
folded into your palm,
forefinger and her sister,
and, well, that
ambidextrous thumb,
outright!
A view of the tips
and your palm,
you still have that girl-hood
smoothness,
and I think it’s safe
to assume you know
how every inch
of a lover’s skin
is a room of its own,
and the only thing
that blesses you
for those tips
are those who linger
over you,
slowly, subtly
teasingly inside you,
make you arch your back
to blast you
deeper,
deeper inside;
and in a brief moment
of consciousness,
you see
you’re inside
who’s inside you.
5.
It’s the flip side
of your palm
that broke through
my heart’s race,
how your smooth
fingertips tipped me over,
made me take off
my cover.
Because, dear,
you make me realize
I do not always want
to see too clear,
or be too calm
in my composure
over you.
I glance at the flip side
of my own palm.
still smooth, not flat, or taut.
Concentric circles mark my knuckles
at the bend of my fingers;
wrinkles like lines
of a tree trunk,
and I can only dream
I age as beautifully
as a grand oak tree
rooted from an acorn,
in its happenstance
burial in soil rich
enough to embrace
its birth.
6.
You once posted
a photograph of you,
torso as smooth
as fresh oil to a canvas
can paint
the vast ecstasy
and tease
of your shoulders,
your arm across
your breasts,
their curves more
erotic than the tips,
hips wrapped in a crisp,
white sheet,
and that Britpop
Damien Hirst
tattoo
that‘s always a tease
in the summer,
the way it barely peeks out,
and it’s only my
curiosity that sees it.
7.
So, my dear,
you are a fantasy
of the real thing.
We’re none of us angels,
except in our hearts.
You have all the angles,
and curves,
and more.
You are a poet,
a revolutionary,
and you spin me around
in a turn,
a turn about;
you make me not
want to run,
but, what was it?
Didn’t you tell me
it’s not all that scary?
That, the more I really share,
and how I wear me,
is revolutionary?
HAMMOCK
For C., a Muse, 2004
You’re hot as it is,
when you show up for class
in an arousal tame
in your arm and hip tattoos,
and a t-shirt tucked in a tie,
skirt below your navel.
I’m often a voyeur,
and it doesn’t feel ironic
how the erotic
in passing for a boy
makes your attraction a juice
befitting my swallow,
praying for a sponge,
but wanting
the fruit in the pulp.
When you wore a blouse
more hammock
for your breasts
than clothes,
I thought your breasts
were a vision
best savored in a blazer,
shirt unbuttoned
in its subtlety
just before your cleavage,
leaving room to wonder,
not wander lasciviously,
as if lust is all
that’s vivid to us.
Sometimes, I feel
like your mother,
wanting to come to class
with a spare shirt,
say, “Put this on, dear,
or you’ll catch a chill.”
Then, I blink,
think, you
wear debauchery well,
in that hammock
of a blouse.
And these comments, along with portfolio, suggested by review board why I got in. Beating out Goddard’s acceptance and enthusiastic invitation by four months.
Essay for Application to MFA in Writing – Vermont College
When I am asked, “how long have you been writing seriously?” my response is double-edged. In one sense, I’ve been seriously involved in writing since my twenties, in the mid-seventies; however, I began “writing seriously” in the last five years. The distinction is, during the early eighties, I read at poetry readings with a reputation for putting into words emotions persons in the audience a decade younger than I experienced. A woman in her twenties recently told me I have a way of mirroring youth culture as it is now. I’d like to think of myself as an eclectic, somewhat collegiate, creative collagist of experiences; but a recorder of experiences accessible to many, in terms of gender, generation, and fans of genres different from my own.
My writing is experiencing simultaneous transitions. I admire form, classic in the Marilyn Hacker sense. I crave balance, as in Mary Oliver’s poetry. Mary Oliver manages a distant emotionality in her writing; but makes a heart beat stronger with her lines ostensibly about nature, but with a subtle, spiritual settling of a personal life around that. I return to books in my personal library, read poets referred to me by students, writers, and professors guiding me to take different, risky paths. So, my “study” in writing and literature is daily. I’d like to call myself a sponge of study, but that is a further reason why I keep a journal, a record of what comes my way, influences me, or drives me to pursue something new.
The experiences that appear particularly relevant to my application, are the writing classes taken in the last four years, particularly the poetry classes conducted online, and an independent Creative Writing Project under the guidance of Ralph Burns. The online classes also left me with surprisingly mature critiques from students thirty years my junior. I am more open to exposure to poets I appreciated before, but couldn’t grasp as possible influences.
I thrive on feedback and direct criticism of my work. One of the most important privileges I receive is honesty, a succinct bluntness to make my eyes open a little wider. Examples are: from Ralph, “What are you hiding, Melody?” And from a student, “Aw, c’mon, Mel, this is crap! I know you; you’re above this! What are you really trying to say?” usually when I slip into the trap of trying to wrap an elaborate form around my poetry.
I am strongest when I “let go,” in a sense, of restrictions of form, and story, and fear. I am stronger when I look differently, and evolve my Melodious musing. I am strong when I take in my world, and the world outside of that. I am weak when I slip too long on personal trappings, or try to compensate for that by thickening it with pattern.
Regarding devoting at least 25 hours per week to my study and correspondence with my faculty advisor, I do that now. I wrap my life around study and correspondence around my and others’ writing. It is a way of life for me.
OF MFA WRITING PROGRAM – POETRY
VERMONT COLLEGE
Special thanks to Ralph Burns and David Jauss, who had the audacity to suggest these as application to grad school, to think I could ever get in, confident I will do well in the program. And I was just thinking, ‘God, just help me get my BA!”
“One After Another”
“Bath”
“Climbing”
“Revolutionary”
“Hammock”
Copyright protected 2005.
ONE AFTER ANOTHER
“She reminds you of Mary Garden, Isadora Duncan, Lysistrata, Sappho, all packed into one dynamic personality.”
– Edna M. Levey, on Margaret Anderson
1.
Mary in that dress, silken seduction
a statuesque operatic diva in a splendor.
A continuous wrap,
the Salome dance of seven veils
erupted like a volcano in her on stage.
"The character of a woman shows in her thighs.”
Isadora’s technique standing still for hours,
her two hands folded between her breasts;
she found power in her solar plexus.
From her heart to her navel
she found her spring,
the spring of a woman’s movement.
The spring became capillaries,
an elaborate splash in all directions,
blood pumping faster in an unleashed dancer.
She tapped an audience’s fury unaccustomed to the vivid,
the woman neither nymph, nor fairy, nor coquette.
With a passion for scarves that trailed behind her,
she didn’t dream she’d leave a life behind tangled in one.
2.
Margaret began The Little Review in 1914.
Twenty-eight, a tall blue-eyed blond,
she presented a palette of modernist culture:
Des Imagists, Ezra Pound, Amy Lowell, H.D.,
black writers of the Harlem Renaissance,
T.S. Eliot, Wyndham Lewis,
Djuna Barnes, Janet Flanner, and Stein.
She brought out Joyce’s Ulysses,
made sissies out of censors and judges.
The issue that brought her out,
brought her to court, was the passage
that made men see girls lean back everywhere:
“lean back more and more to look up after it,
high, high, almost out of sight,
and her face was suffused with a divine,
an entrancing blush from straining back.”
Margaret met Jane in the middle of that.
A contrast to blond and blue-eyed femininity,
Jane was the handsome sort,
a little stout to Margaret’s lean,
her close-cut hair a hint of a pompadour,
prone to tuxedo jackets and bow ties.
Jane shared The Little Review,
and an enormous bed with Margaret,
a bed William Carlos Williams envied,
"We poor men would look timidly at it and marvel.”
3.
I built a life around my books.
I imagined Paris in the twenties and thirties,
when a lot of lesbians let loose.
I made a culture out of my den,
made art out of a strewn-about chaos.
I used to tell you I could probably buy another house,
put myself through grad school,
in the time and money it took to find me.
We sometimes speculate how cherished we’d be,
had we met in our twenties or thirties,
found our paths before we got chaotic.
I’ve done a lot of reading, heard a lot of music,
read some of my own poetry out loud a time or two.
I marvel at Margaret Anderson and her Little Review,
how she’s described as “Mary Garden, Isadora Duncan,
Lysistrata, Sappho, all packed into one dynamic personality.”
I’ve got news.
You and I place our hands between our breasts.
We know the mantra of “dress to peel,”
the hot and cold of muscle and meat,
your long, luxurious legs,
my hands summoning whispers out of nowhere,
your little octopussy.
We know the leaning back,
the bending loins, the head over the shoulder,
and we know a tiny bead of sweat is a river.
I bought a Picasso silk scarf,
window frame size, its image a curvy, Cubist style,
a transparent stained glass effect --
hot pink, periodic blues
grace a form in a fedora, striped necktie, yellow daisy in a lapel.
A woman peeking around a wall, one eye wider than the other.
I was drawn immediately to it,
asked you, “Is it not ridiculous?
I’ve never bought a silk scarf in my life.”
“Oh, go ahead. Why not?
It’s not like you’re buying a Picasso.”
It was the fedora and the daisy.
You wear a fedora like you’re from another era.
And the daisy!
You told me when we were in that questionnaire phase,
that place before the dresses left,
before we undressed,
your favorite color is a bright yellow,
your favorite flower the daisy.
You make a Mary blush unwrapped,
an Isadora wonder where the spring is;
make a Lysistrata listless, her lips lost.
Honey, Sappho barely brushes the surface
you bring to my skin,
your hands, your glorious, uproarious laugh,
my “Oh!,” my hips on high,
my slow descending deep.
I only thought Margaret had it all,
her little review a vault into the modern,
her looks, her leaning back,
her smooth, forward embrace
finding creativity in a crevice,
a split in a groove,
how “Life is just one ecstasy after another.”
BATH
1.
My bath is simple,
a bar of soap,
an aging washcloth,
a tub of water
nearly too hot to test,
and a towel barely a wrap.
Shower curtain open
to the edge,
door open.
You used to fret
in the beginning,
watching me drag
a razor over my legs,
without watching,
wondering how it is
I never cut myself.
A swipe, swipe, I’m done.
It’s the after bathe
I savor;
bent-over torso
in a lotus position,
palms a pedestal
to my cheeks;
so meditative
in my stare,
you once told me
sometimes you think
you’re climbing
a staircase
to reach me.
You say, “I’m jealous,”
how it’s easy
for me to go away,
drop off to sleep,
drop in to a world
so wide,
you have to touch me,
bring your lips
to my ear,
be the close call,
to bring me back.
2.
You roll
a porcelain steel door
on its track,
locking into the wall
until no steam shall pass;
draw a bath like a chemist,
and an artist.
Floating
your curvaceous
form in a mix
of salts,
steam, sweat,
and bubbles,
you bloom
in a heavenly scent,
making the room
an orchard.
A bath is your best refuge.
I hesitate to enter
your fruitful kingdom.
I ask if you want
a peach scrub-down
for your back,
and you sigh
in relief.
Our best talks
are during a bath,
or in bed.
My fingers
fold over your back
weary from work,
and I think to myself,
‘How is it stress
reaches a strength
capable of putting knots
in your skin?”
I recall how once,
I didn’t know
what people meant
when they said
a therapeutic massage
relieves tension,
how day-to-day,
we forget
what makes us tick.
You say, “Melody,
it means a lot to me,
how we have this quiet time.
Sometimes, the world
is just too much,
and any little touch
puts me back in touch
with what I want.”
I tell you, “Dear, you
just uttered a triple rhyme,
and not a day goes by
when I don’t want to make
a poem out of us.”
CLIMBING
For L.
1.
Two tablespoons of olive oil
sizzle in a skillet,
skinless chicken breasts
in garlic,
oregano and lime,
a dash
of salt and pepper.
In your hair,
I see subtle spices.
You’re salt and pepper,
subtle cinnamon
on a head of paprika.
You only think
you’re a brunette.
I am fast
becoming salt white,
insisting I am
only blonder.
I spray the chicken
with aerosol butter.
The sizzle succumbs
to volume.
You’re behind me.
I sigh,
what in another life,
was a hiss,
when I was bitchy
at the step
of anyone
in my kitchen
2.
I don’t like olives.
I rarely even sip wine.
If you come near me
with Chinese food
or any “ese” in cuisine,
I’m apt to tighten
my lips in suspicion.
But, I cook in olive oil,
red, white and tarragon wine,
maybe toy with soy sauce,
blend spices that would
bring Emeril to a standstill.
My idea of measuring
is what my small fingers
brush in a pinch.
3.
You ask, “What’s cooking?”
taking a peek
over my shoulder
after our lips meet,
and the breasts sizzle
to a higher pitch.
“Are you following a recipe?”
“Do you really want
to ask?” I laugh,
“What’s that thing I do?
I don’t have that;
I’ll use this.
This for that,
that for this.”
“Melody, I love you
for that!”
“For what?”
You turn off the flame
beneath the skillet,
move it to another burner,
turn me around,
my waist in your arms.
“For this,” you say.
We kiss until we pause
to catch our breath.
You say, “If not for the stove,”
and I finish the sentence,
“we’d be on the floor.”
“Melody, you can change
any recipe you want,
as long as you want me.”
4.
We were thin enough then,
we once fantasized
about wearing layers
that betrayed our forms,
but loose enough
to make an embrace
a subtle press of palms
to breasts,
breasts to breasts,
and we’re coming
all over the place,
in full view of the world,
not even a voyeur
can be sure
we’re two femmes
making out in a dress.
5.
The first time
we found out we can make
anything a bed,
we’d just gotten
all dolled up,
surprised we’ve got legs,
and a hem
can make a brush
against our skin
a quick call.
We were excited
about it being our first
anniversary,
anxious to get out,
celebrate us,
how we went beyond
the cursory,
found out if we’re thirsty,
all we have to do
is drink.
The wine connoisseur
between us,
you brought out the Chablis,
brought deftness
to the corkscrew,
pulled out the cork
without a pop,
or a piece in our glasses.
We’re in a Latin tango,
can’t tell who’s in the twirl,
or who choreographs
the next step.
We’re a new mix of kisses
and neck and neck,
and any part of us
that lands in our hands
makes our bodies spoon,
and we’re like two swoops
of a ladle in a bowl
of hot soup, our swallows
bringing our heads
to fall low,
hesitant to leave our lips,
but desperate
to separate legs
and lips,
and our loving
from our dresses.
Is it pure luck
a table is near,
how we’d be in the sink,
if we didn’t think
quick enough
to take a swift sweep,
brush aside the condiments,
utensils, and sauces,
step out of our dresses
in what seems one
swell swoop,
and we’re climbing
our climaxes
on the table?
REVOLUTIONARY
“Before I was a feminist, I suppose I was an angel, a poet, a revolutionary.” - Nicole Brossard
1.
It’s miraculous,
how a gif image
of you pulls deeper
than film,
or real time.
But, ironically,
a film is lifted
from my eyes,
how, my first glance
is always on that
flash of a smile
of yours.
I just now realized
your eyes
appear blue-grey
to my vision,
and that flash of a smile
that goes with your eyes
reminds me
I am in a similar eye
with my Linda.
2.
I worried, at first,
am I twisted?
How my attraction,
then more innocent
fascination for you,
makes me feel
I see more of you
than you put
on the page
or screen.
I’m beginning
to see the context
of Brossard’s “Arial Letter,”
how women,
particularly lesbians,
especially a melody
or two,
are desperate
to find a language
to map
the travels of our love;
how letters become
arial to our lives,
and love transcends time,
generations,
genders,
and gestures
beyond biology.
We’re a psychic sprawl,
a new mathematics,
a science
to why our senses
merge or separate
between us,
or inside.
3.
Tonight is the first time
my glance
at your picture
shifted from that
grab of a smile of yours.
It’s the first time
I saw more flesh tone
to your face,
than pale.
But, more moving to me
is the palm of your hand.
How the folded
tips of your fingers
are a playful tease,
accenting your
“permanent shock”
I acknowledged
a 14 year old can be,
or be thought,
erotic.
Not imagining being
with a 14 year old,
but being one,
being 14
and erotic.
I didn’t have an erotic clue
in me until I was
nearly thirty.
4.
But, your fingertips!
Pinky and her sister
folded into your palm,
forefinger and her sister,
and, well, that
ambidextrous thumb,
outright!
A view of the tips
and your palm,
you still have that girl-hood
smoothness,
and I think it’s safe
to assume you know
how every inch
of a lover’s skin
is a room of its own,
and the only thing
that blesses you
for those tips
are those who linger
over you,
slowly, subtly
teasingly inside you,
make you arch your back
to blast you
deeper,
deeper inside;
and in a brief moment
of consciousness,
you see
you’re inside
who’s inside you.
5.
It’s the flip side
of your palm
that broke through
my heart’s race,
how your smooth
fingertips tipped me over,
made me take off
my cover.
Because, dear,
you make me realize
I do not always want
to see too clear,
or be too calm
in my composure
over you.
I glance at the flip side
of my own palm.
still smooth, not flat, or taut.
Concentric circles mark my knuckles
at the bend of my fingers;
wrinkles like lines
of a tree trunk,
and I can only dream
I age as beautifully
as a grand oak tree
rooted from an acorn,
in its happenstance
burial in soil rich
enough to embrace
its birth.
6.
You once posted
a photograph of you,
torso as smooth
as fresh oil to a canvas
can paint
the vast ecstasy
and tease
of your shoulders,
your arm across
your breasts,
their curves more
erotic than the tips,
hips wrapped in a crisp,
white sheet,
and that Britpop
Damien Hirst
tattoo
that‘s always a tease
in the summer,
the way it barely peeks out,
and it’s only my
curiosity that sees it.
7.
So, my dear,
you are a fantasy
of the real thing.
We’re none of us angels,
except in our hearts.
You have all the angles,
and curves,
and more.
You are a poet,
a revolutionary,
and you spin me around
in a turn,
a turn about;
you make me not
want to run,
but, what was it?
Didn’t you tell me
it’s not all that scary?
That, the more I really share,
and how I wear me,
is revolutionary?
HAMMOCK
For C., a Muse, 2004
You’re hot as it is,
when you show up for class
in an arousal tame
in your arm and hip tattoos,
and a t-shirt tucked in a tie,
skirt below your navel.
I’m often a voyeur,
and it doesn’t feel ironic
how the erotic
in passing for a boy
makes your attraction a juice
befitting my swallow,
praying for a sponge,
but wanting
the fruit in the pulp.
When you wore a blouse
more hammock
for your breasts
than clothes,
I thought your breasts
were a vision
best savored in a blazer,
shirt unbuttoned
in its subtlety
just before your cleavage,
leaving room to wonder,
not wander lasciviously,
as if lust is all
that’s vivid to us.
Sometimes, I feel
like your mother,
wanting to come to class
with a spare shirt,
say, “Put this on, dear,
or you’ll catch a chill.”
Then, I blink,
think, you
wear debauchery well,
in that hammock
of a blouse.
And these comments, along with portfolio, suggested by review board why I got in. Beating out Goddard’s acceptance and enthusiastic invitation by four months.
Essay for Application to MFA in Writing – Vermont College
When I am asked, “how long have you been writing seriously?” my response is double-edged. In one sense, I’ve been seriously involved in writing since my twenties, in the mid-seventies; however, I began “writing seriously” in the last five years. The distinction is, during the early eighties, I read at poetry readings with a reputation for putting into words emotions persons in the audience a decade younger than I experienced. A woman in her twenties recently told me I have a way of mirroring youth culture as it is now. I’d like to think of myself as an eclectic, somewhat collegiate, creative collagist of experiences; but a recorder of experiences accessible to many, in terms of gender, generation, and fans of genres different from my own.
My writing is experiencing simultaneous transitions. I admire form, classic in the Marilyn Hacker sense. I crave balance, as in Mary Oliver’s poetry. Mary Oliver manages a distant emotionality in her writing; but makes a heart beat stronger with her lines ostensibly about nature, but with a subtle, spiritual settling of a personal life around that. I return to books in my personal library, read poets referred to me by students, writers, and professors guiding me to take different, risky paths. So, my “study” in writing and literature is daily. I’d like to call myself a sponge of study, but that is a further reason why I keep a journal, a record of what comes my way, influences me, or drives me to pursue something new.
The experiences that appear particularly relevant to my application, are the writing classes taken in the last four years, particularly the poetry classes conducted online, and an independent Creative Writing Project under the guidance of Ralph Burns. The online classes also left me with surprisingly mature critiques from students thirty years my junior. I am more open to exposure to poets I appreciated before, but couldn’t grasp as possible influences.
I thrive on feedback and direct criticism of my work. One of the most important privileges I receive is honesty, a succinct bluntness to make my eyes open a little wider. Examples are: from Ralph, “What are you hiding, Melody?” And from a student, “Aw, c’mon, Mel, this is crap! I know you; you’re above this! What are you really trying to say?” usually when I slip into the trap of trying to wrap an elaborate form around my poetry.
I am strongest when I “let go,” in a sense, of restrictions of form, and story, and fear. I am stronger when I look differently, and evolve my Melodious musing. I am strong when I take in my world, and the world outside of that. I am weak when I slip too long on personal trappings, or try to compensate for that by thickening it with pattern.
Regarding devoting at least 25 hours per week to my study and correspondence with my faculty advisor, I do that now. I wrap my life around study and correspondence around my and others’ writing. It is a way of life for me.
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