No
doubt about it, Movie could learn a thing or two from Poem. And I
wish it would, but it’s arrogant – at least Hollywood Movie
generally is. Meanwhile, until Movie wises up (and deepens down)
the poetry monde might as well borrow a little business savvy from
the movie world. Here, Speechless launches a column to
advance a modest (budget: $0) pre-publicity blitz for books
upcoming. Sneak Previews will present a sampling from manuscripts
accepted for publication, with information on publication dates and
readings.
Sarah Maclay: Hello Dear, an Etymology
Sarah
Maclay’s manuscript, Whore, won the 2003 Tampa Press Poetry
Prize and will appear mid-February in hardback, later in paperback,
from UT (University of Tampa) Press. (This year the press broke
with tradition and awarded two prizes – the other to California poet
Julia Levine for her manuscript Tether.) Debut
reading: 2/27/04 in Jeanette Clough’s and Jim Natal’s Poem.X
series, Barnes & Noble, 3rd Street Promenade, Santa Monica. Los
Angeles poet, scholar and archivist Bill Mohr will also read.
WHORE
It
comes from hore in Old English,
hora in
Old Norwegian,
but the
Latin references charity –
at the
root it's carus – dear,
as in
Hello, whore. Hello, dear.
As in
loved one, sweetheart, precious,
as in
rare – therefore expensive, dear,
cher,
cheri, a luxury
when
given freely,
pitting
charity against law.
(A
version of "Whore" appeared in Solo)
MOTHER-OF-PEARL
So
let's call them something other than clouds –
Mirror,
shell, flame. The sky's idea of hair.
And you
know the way the voice sounds
when
it's cried all day:
like it
could comb stones.
Imagine, then, I'm driving to this sound
which
is its own kind of rough velvet
under
an amber sky, and the dj
has a
jones for just this sort of thing tonight
as I
circle the block, looking for parking
and
must circle several times
because
of the gray, lithe limbs,
as
though a body had many arms –
and
each was nearly satin, raised,
tree
after tree, with its endless
offering of leaves.
This is
the way I walked into our rendezvous,
carrying a miracle
in the
inner lining of my pocket. So don't ask
why
those kisses under the streetlamp,
borrowed moon, under the arms unable
to
retreat from their suspension, permanent
in
gift, don't ask why everything that followed
made me
your mirror, shell, flame. I will tell you:
The
sugar fell all the way to my ankles
and I
had to eat.
NIGHT SONG
Spring;
the air is October.
The
night-swathed maples linger in mid-breeze
and
everyone seems to be sleeping
or
away.
and my
belly, the whole middle of my body
swells,
as when I carried you –
or
later, like your body
as it
passed into night.
I was
your mother,
and
night passed through me, into night.
No one
can touch me.
No one
can touch me.
 Sarah
Maclay’s poems have appeared in Hotel Amerika, Pool, Spillway,
Solo and Poetry International – where she now acts as book review editor
– and are forthcoming in Ploughshares and Field. An essay, "The
Root of Saying," will be published next year in The Writer's
Chronicle. She’s a native of Montana with degrees from Oberlin
College and Vermont College. She conducts private poetry workshops
and teaches courses in writing and speaking at FIDM.
What
"I" Dream To Save "Myself"
In the
bare alcove of a shared
dorm,
taking a bottom bunk,
I can
make myself content, I think,
until
I'm coaxed
into
the suite of rooms next door. It is a sign,
I
think, to see my blond ex-friend,
clothed
in the plummish
velvet
and white-feathered tight-fitting jacket of some lost
decade-lost before either of us were born-
stepping from the Greyhound
with an
air of easy inheritance and a kind of fluffy, smug
(and
matching) arrogance, worn lightly.
She has
come as if to a costume ball.
What
interior goes with that clothing?
I want
to say indigo-just for the sound-
but
that would be a lie.
And of
course she disappears just as
the
rooms next door open onto
a
'sun-drenched kitchen,' even a stable.
I
consider the stable, with its old, cut stones:
a
daybed in the stable-
a
simple, airy room apart.
Yes,
maybe
near a gazebo
or a
sunroom with its twining leaves.
And
then I come to the masculine
mahogany chamber-seems to be a drawing room-
I try
the couch and aha! it's a comfortable
hide-a-bed which I might not consider
except
for the truly unexpected view-
permanent sunrise, or is it sunset? Violet over the water,
a palm,
a mountain-
a
mountain snowy as Fuji-
behind
the lake, or bay.
It is
as though a kind of hope has been scorched there.
All
contradictions can live in one place,
and
even, to the left, tall, tall as a palm tree, taller,
a
clock-tower, moving its Swiss hands
over
the nearby city.
It is
an illusion, but I have to admit
it is
beautiful
and you
are not even here.
What We
Leave Behind
Valets
untuck their shirts
before
the wedding
guests
arrive,
as I,
who am not invited, cross
the
grounds in tennis shoes and shorts
to hike
the terraced Buddhist gardens
higher
up the hill,
to the
hidden spots
where
gangs have scrawled graffiti,
where
the chapel-hut is now fenced in;
to the
top of the canyon,
where
there's a view of the city
serpented by smog
and its
dried-out hills
and the
shifting downtown skyline
where
birds plummet from the tops of buildings
like
tiny men
in
formal suits
and
rust appears in the mirrored
pool by
the curb
and I,
who am not invited,
pass
the altar of this private ceremony-
not the
one about to occur,
but the
one that must have happened:
she has
left the clippings of her hair
on a
concrete bench
in
front of the mansion,
left
the ends of her hair in scraps
like
stray, abandoned twigs.
She
must have knelt.
Mother-of-Pearl
So
let's call them something other than clouds-
Mirror,
shell, flame. The sky's idea of hair.
And you
know the way the voice sounds
when
it's cried all day:
like it
could comb stones.
Imagine, then, I'm driving to this sound
which
is its own kind of rough velvet
under
an amber sky, and the dj
has a
jones for just this sort of thing tonight
as I
circle the block, looking for parking
and
must circle several times
because
of the gray, lithe limbs,
as
though a body had many arms-
and
each was nearly satin, raised,
tree
after tree, with its endless
offering of leaves.
This is
the way I walked into our rendezvous,
carrying a miracle
in the
inner lining of my pocket. So don't ask
why
those kisses under the streetlamp,
borrowed moon, under the arms unable
to
retreat from their suspension, permanent
in
gift, don't ask why everything that followed
made me
your mirror, shell, flame. I will tell you:
The
sugar fell all the way to my ankles
and I
had to eat.
Yard
Work
I'll
clear the old, putrid fruit,
the
carcasses of bees where oranges have fallen
and the
drying turds the dogs have dropped.
I'll
sweep away the fallen avocado leaves
grown
snowy with their infestations,
snip
the stems of toppled flowers, toss them.
I'll
yank the hose across the grass,
turn
the rusty faucet,
let the
lawn moisten
to a
loose, runny black.
I'll
water the rosemary
till I
can smell it on my fingers.
Time to
grab the trowel.
Time to
dig,
to take
off the gloves,
let the
handle callous the palm,
fill
the fingernails
with
dirt.
Time to
brush the trickle from the forehead.
Time to
plant the bulb,
to fill
the hole with loam and water,
covering the roots.
Time to
join the soil to soil
until
the night is jasmine
and a
thickness like a scent of lilies
rises
off the bed;
until
the stalks of the naked ladies fall to the ground,
twisting on their roots;
until
our broken fists lie blooming.
(This
poem first appeared in Poetry International.)
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