Carousel

An otherwise ordinary day,
blades of grass leaning
into the light. Sky meets surface
only at the horizon. My hair is pocked
with dew burns. My vision folds in
like dry-edged petals.

The spinning starts, a slow, sickening
rotation. Men with the heads of kangaroos,
bison and zebras force their way
inside my legs. I climb onto their backs
and ride them, one by one, not sure
if they are humans under the spell
of animals or vice versa.

Whose spell am I under, fur between
my fingers, skin against my thighs?
When will the looped circus music stop?
I toss my head back and feel myself
opening under the sun.

* * *

Process Notes
I wrote this piece based on Read Write Prompt #81, and I have to admit that entering into the image was a little harder than I anticipated it would be. Partly that’s because I’ve been ill since last Thursday, and I’ve had a migraine since then as well, so I haven’t felt up for much of anything, including writing poetry. But a giant yay! to Read Write Poem for making me get my ass in gear and at least eek something out today in time for this week’s Get Your Poem On post.

I am not sure if I will keep this piece in its current form. I have to give that some thought. I might even expand it. Who knows.

Oh, and here’s a little bit of information about carousels. I was lazy with my research because of the migraine, so I only consulted Wikipedia. This information didn’t overtly make its way into the poem, but I am sharing it anyway, since I find it interesting. You can click on the link to read more.

The earliest carousel is known from a Byzantine Empire bas-relief dating to around 500 A.D., which depicts riders in baskets suspended from a central pole. The word carousel originates from the Italian garosello and Spanish carosella (”little war”), used by crusaders to describe a combat preparation exercise and game played by Turkish and Arabian horsemen in the 1100s. In a sense this early device could be considered a cavalry training mechanism; it prepared and strengthened the riders for actual combat as they wielded their swords at the mock enemies.

“You talk about pregnant raindrops and chaos and auditory canals and ‘the passing of time’ as ‘an orifice,’ when you could really just be talking about humidity and ears.”

“Weren’t these characters hurting each other in the last version of this story? Bring back the violence!”

“It’s your story, your voice, your choices, and I don’t want to question them, but why these words?”

(Click on the excerpt to read the piece from McSweeney’s in its entirety.)

Where did your mother live?
     In Oklahoma.

Where did your mother live?
     Lying on the grass, head resting on the neck
     of a horse who was also lying on the grass.

Where did your mother live?
     The back of a girl’s bicycle, candy
     cigarette in her mouth, her older brother peddling.

Where did your mother live?
     A photo the size of my thumb, both her arms caught
     in movement, mouth open, smiling
     at someone off camera.
     Behind her, a window and waning crescent moon
     drawn on a cardboard backdrop.

Where did your mother live?
     Behind the barn.
     In the pasture behind the barn, touching
     the soft sides of animals who never spoke when spoken to.

Where did your mother live?
     A Headrick School photo dated 1941, blond hair
     twisted into a knot and held in place with a dark clip.

Where did your mother live?
     In California, where her family moved
     during World War II, into a neighborhood
     Japanese Americans had been forced
     out of when they were rounded up
     for internment camps.

Where did your mother live?
     Back in Oklahoma, in a kitchen with her parents.
     Corky the cockatiel calling “hello!” from his cage
     as her father poured the day’s first cup of coffee.

Where did your mother live?
     Baseball caps. Short shorts. One-piece swimming suits.
     Penny loafers. Pillbox hats. Leather pumps.
     Falsies the shape and color of tipis.

Where did your mother live?
     The beauty shop, hair being curled into a flip,
     a 1956 Saturday Evening Post calendar on the wall
     over the hair dresser’s shoulder.

Where did your mother live?
     Inside my father’s crooning voice.
     Inside his pressed shirts and pleated pants.
     Inside his handkerchief folded and tucked in his breast pocket.
     Inside his promises of gazebos and international travel,
     of circle drives and a world free from democrats.

Where did your mother live?
     At the club, where she begged my father
     to dance after Irv Wagner played the spoons.
     And when they danced, the light fell
     over them like a soft frame.

Where did your mother live?
     At the lake, my father’s shadow darkening her pale body.

Where did your mother live?
     A black-and-white geometric print dress, disco ball
     earrings and strappy silver heels;
     Bloody Mary in one hand, menthol cigarette in the other.

Where did your mother live?
     The living room where my father’s heart failed.

Where did your mother live?
     In my father’s absence.

Where did your mother live?
     At the dining room table. At the dining room table
     with her hand on a remote control. With her hand on a drink.
     With her hand on the phone, waiting for it to ring.

Where did your mother live?
     In Oklahoma.

* * *

Process Notes

I was visiting Barbara Jane Reyes’ site when I saw her poem “One Question, Several Answers,” which she wrote after poet Claire Kageyama-Ramakrishnan. This striking piece deals with the narrator’s father by asking the same meditative/nearly obsessive question: “Where did your father live,” to which the narrator provides various answers throughout the poem.

Even though this week’s prompt at Read Write Poem — brought to us by RWP community co-manager Kristen McHenry — was to write about what we have never told our mothers, I was so captivated by Reyes’ poem that I decided to imitate it as my contribution to RWP this week. I changed my question to “Where did your mother live.” Even though the piece doesn’t deal with what I’ve never told her, it does deal with her, perhaps even touching on what I’ve never seen in her or what I haven’t stopped to see in a while.

Like all poems, this piece isn’t strictly autobiographical (or in this case, biographical). It’s got a narrator, and that narrator is doing the talking, not me per se. However, this particular poem does come pretty close to being autobiographical. I used old photos of my mother as the basis for many of the images in the piece.

And in case anyone wants to see Irv Wagner play the spoons, check out this YouTube video:

My husband hands me the animal.
A soft neck roll and a dead eye,
a lustreless fur that I must touch
to strip and salt and peg to dry.
He is away all the day in the dust.
a eucalypt oil smell taints his neck
he comes to me
bones meeting mine
a hard fit
a green lawn at the edge of a desert
my heart, inexact

(Click on the excerpt to read the rest of Ivy’s poem at Cordite.)

But then a funny thing happened: Their poems evolved from “bad” to “sort of great,” Gardner says. “What we were really doing was throwing out rules that were constraining and ridiculous and weren’t fitting anymore. Once we did that, we could do whatever we wanted—we weren’t trying to ask: Is this magazine going to like this? Is this poet going to like this? Is my teacher going to like this? We just got rid of all of it and went nuts.”

(Click on the excerpt above to read the entire Poets & Writers piece.)

It was a long drive from the city
through the string of farm towns,
and then onto the high plains,
and up and through the hills.
There were cars behind me,
but the road ahead was empty,
an abstract stroke on vellum.

The wind picked up, and clouds,
untethered, gray and barren,
scudded across the horizon.

(Click on the excerpt to read the entire poem.)

Must we go over this again?
I first saw him in the mist, near the blooming
onions, and a new bibliography
for my life was written.

What my muscles misunderstood
draped between him and me
like a veil of notes, all off key.

I took “seep” for sepia
and the trees behind me shed their
colors at my feet.

I took moribund for “more abundant”
and let my breasts grow
to the size of gourds ready to split.

It’s been years since I bellydanced under
a tonnage of coins, each coin taken
into his mouth for good luck,
the vellum-thin
fabric cinched at my waist as a tether.

It’s been years since I heaved for the muted
trumpets in his voice.

Your threats and convoluted
note-taking mean nothing.
I bark at every hand that’s ever bled me.

* * *

Process Notes

I wrote this piece for this week’s Read Write Poem prompt, brought to us by Jessica Fox Wilson. This is a word-based prompt using words from two Read Write Poem participants, Beth and Claudia. Click here to see the prompt.

I know the poem contains many anachronistic elements, and that’s intentional. I have another piece about Persephone that’s the same way. Maybe I will go back and change those elements that aren’t historically accurate. I haven’t decided yet.

When you know what a poem is trying to do and understand how it is working, then you become useful. The poem has every clue you’re ever going to get. Stop worrying about what’s not there. You can do what you want with a poem, but it’s only OK if you take it back to the poem and the poem says, “Yeah, that’s OK.”

— Sharon Bryan