Drafts again -

"I was like a pelican, I needed a long run before I could fly, but I always knew I'd fly, he said...."

Winter Hides Wings

You are
Fragments
Of real,
Figments,
Filaments
From home movies,
Written
And produced
By me,
(You were busy)
Cornered feelings
Compost for next year.
Pigments
Fade from rose
To grey roll calls
With no answers. 

Wings without bird,
Wings pinned
To my wall,
Bird without wings
Plummets
Belly first,
Falls 
Into next spring's nest, 
Spilling eggs,
Breaking
Next year's birds
On the ground 
Never guarentee 
spring,
Winter steals wings.

Draft 2

Your Morning Cup of Air

Brave,
You said
I was wonderful,
And brave...
The night
You came to me
To say the words
Men say
When they
Deliver a blow,
Hoping you'll not
Join the fallen,
Fire a shot
Or bleed..

You could not see
That I'm not brave at all
And do not know.
I will no longer cry
Where you can hear;
Only at night
When I sit
In indigo,
Knowing 
How many little pieces 
I've lost to
Your insistant excavations, 
Shattering 
Parts
Where entire
Was the only place
I loved from.

You invest
More in me
Than I do in you,
You said,
Investment banker
To stars
You invoke
In poems
I've just forgotten.
You can relax,
And breathe
I will not love you. 
As your place in me 
Narrows 
Your morning cup of air's
Now free. 

pearlbamboo

copyright  e.p. hodges

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Rewritten - I'm doing that now, going through work done since August, a few things from before, rewriting, editing, with an eye towards performance down the line. 

Although I wrote this before I met bird, it's bird who's been the steadfast muse, most excellent, a most excellent bird in his manner of be-musing me.  Thanks, bird.

My friend said, "You want a muse?  That's really as radical as wanting a wife...."

"Will you be my muse?
I've always been the muse,
The juice,
The edge of the fire,
The match
That combusts
The flame
For others.
I want a muse...
 
Thrusting my hands
In my hair,
Pulling it back,
Hard,
I walk away,
Watching the street
From the window,
My foot tapping
In 4/4 time. 

Turning back,
I fix him
With my green-edged eyes.
"You are my muse,
You know,
Even if you don't
Give me permission.
You are my muse,
The energy
That burns
With mine
In the refiner's fire,
The honey
Pouring over me
Coating
The barbed wire
Threading my veins.

You feed me,
Lead me
To places
I didn't know
I needed to see,
You are tall grass. 

His voice soft,
He said,
"I'll be your muse.
Turn your face up
Towards mine
And I'll fasten
This star
In your hair
For light
And then
Bring you coffee
And kiss you.
Will that
Get you through
What you want to write
This afternoon?"

pearlbamboo

copyright  e. p. hodges

A protected post follows.

If you think you should be on my protected list and are not, please let me know by leavring a comment.  

Here's a genuine bird and lil IM poem, edited and neatened up, written three nights ago.  He gave it to me, for "P-bam," a gift from the bird.   We've not written like this since September, so this was a treat. 

I am troubled
And must sit with it,
Held in deepest rose.
Only this
Will comfort me
While i wait for indigo
Or morning, 
Time of solitary bloom,
Or going home ...

Running through sunrise,
I step on cracking places,
Hard
As my heart was
Yesterday,
Tomorrow's indignities, 
I'm torn,
Edges
Carefully sewn.
In stunned focus
I fall Into roses,
Further than thorns grow,
Turning 
Towards sundown,
Even at dawn. 

Having made the rounds of several open mike venues as an observer, I've been playing around with reading.   I did a cold read of an unfamiliar poem two weeks ago for Acie's new cd on the Calumet region of northern Indiana/south Chicago.  I heard it today and Acie, a stern judge, calls "magical," making my own act a hard one to follow.  

Some I like a lot, some so so.  Some I will need to read aloud one hundred times, then read again another hundred or so, until I breathe them, until they are part of the air, and only then will they sound true to me.  But this feels like a good start....

If there is something you especially like, or vice versa, tell me.  No honest opinion is unwelcome.... (this is true)

You'll find these new mp3's here.

pearlbamboo

I wish each and every one of you
the happiest and most peaceful
of new year's.  

Lily

                       Ecological Redemption

Written after Acie and I went last weekend  to see this remarkable wetlands area,

surrounded by the remains of Big Steel, factory after factory laid waste now, only the

Gary Works up and going, the old Acme steel plant to be a museum if funds are found.

The southern border of the 300 acre Big Marsh is a huge hill of landfill, seeping crud of

all kinds into the water table. 

                  Big Marsh Looking West At The Acme Steel Plant

Lake Calumet, across the road, was saved from being dredged for an airport not so

long ago and the Big Marsh itself, was only recently saved from draining to make a

bus barn for the Chicago Transit Authority. Another victory was the extension of the ban

on landfill within the region.  The edge of the landfill on the south of the marsh is within a

few feet of the water.

Here are Sierra Club photographs of some of the water fowl and fauna of the

Calumet wetlands.

This is only the beginning of a poem, not there yet, but looking as if it will make it.

.

The Big Marsh

The Big Marsh,  

Wetnurse to lives

Linked in webs

Of perfect tension

draft - no title, but

it's for bird, who be-muses me so well, 
on Christmas Eve, 2005

Forgetting the nature
Of those of us
Whose childhood
Was left out in the rain,  
I opened
To your torn heart,
A tired flower 
With a fresh cut stem,
Living carefully
In a simple glass
Of sweetened water,
I bloomed,
Temporarily,
Remembering 
All the new roses
In my grandma's yard
When I was small,
And every day was rain.

pearlbamboo

copyright  e.p. hodges  

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