The oppressive silence poem - Writers Forum

lin · 10-20-2007, 02:16 PM

To explain the title of the post, this is probably the last poem I read in public. Several years ago and I haven't written much poetry since. (Little Mexican towns not being a hotbed of interest in poems in English)

But when I finished it, I immediately dashed down to an open reading at Bumbershoot, the annual Seattle arts festival. I got up and read the poem and there was total silence. No eye contact. I said, "Thanks for that great wave of apathy" or something and exuded stage left.

The next reader was a fifteen year old girl reading a poem about being dumped by a jerk. It got a warm applause.

I MIGHT have been the subject matter. What do you think?

BLOOD SIMPLE

I saw it first seeping
through the coarse dark
hairs between her legs,
blood thicker than water, slicker than my own,
blood gorged with life, charged with death

Did she bleed because I pierced her?
Or because she lost the child?

She bleeds red from her loins,
white from her breasts,
salt blue from her eyes,
ice green from her guts.
she bleeds copper-gold,
bleeds a dark, tarry black.
I don't know where to look.
I close my eyes to the colors and listen
for a steady dripping that deepens into thunder
as the world throbs hard in my ears,
swollen with its blood and births,
pregnant with its goods and evils.

You can taste it in the wine,
in the host of old recipes;
in any meat, any fish, any fowl.

It's a fine old stock for certain soups,
just lick it off your own fingers.
Blood on your tongue
is more a ritual than a sin,
more an initiation than a crime,
more a meal than a curse.
Under the acrid organic blend
are faint motes of other men.
Past the tongue there is no taste,
just the thick flow down the throat
and on through--a very mixed blessing
that merely keeps me alive.

Does she bleed to feed me because it's too late to die?
Or just to go where I can't follow?

It has a smell of sweat and urine,
of rot and germination,
of fish and death and sweet-sick pollution,
of things already eaten and already passed,
of water already broken,
of air already breathed too many times before...
of corruptions still in progress.
In short, of all turned earth, of everything alive.
The odor washed away by the rivers,
lost in the clean, sharp wrack of sea.

I look up into the rain, sniff running water,
hold up my clean hands to the sky.

Does she bleed some tainted form of water?
Or a more fluid form of flesh?

This dripping tactile glass of hours
winds the months, plots the periods of years,
tells the torture of aborted time,
always unfinished because never begun,
a clotting, cloying cycle
by which life loses itself in the dark.
It's an almanac I can read off the sheets
when I can't see the stars,
bright cardinal points without which
there would be no returning.
Ebbing or stemming, she's always been bleeding.

Is the spoor is getting richer?
Am I getting warmer?

In the desert blood doesn't last long at the surface.
It sinks away grain by grain,
flows into underground rivers,
forms deposits of need and blisters of wealth.
I touch the stains as gently as the sand.
Sticky and hot, it makes me feel porous
and touches my life like gravity,
draws me under, where springs flow
and mirages are formed.

Does she bleed from sin and rupture and long run downhill?
Or just straight out of her heart?

The spoor leads me up into the trees,
red splashed behind the green
like a feldspar fleck in stone.
There's bright sign on the trail,
but maybe just from other climbers.
Yet there is blood on these rocks,
bones frozen deep in the crevices.
The very particles of the stone are tiny animals,
drowned and drifted and crushed together;
lives not so much lost as collected and concreted,
all their fluids petrified, then crumpled like cloth
lifted by their dry weight, changed by their very elevation,
bursting forth and flowing red in their own heat,
spreading out to harden in black scabs.
The slickrock is carved in old flows,
flirts the eye upward like any cathedral.

Has she bled all over the sumacs?
And smeared the Western sky?

Above the trees, the trail is blackened and burnt,
runs cold as each peak points higher and thinner and paler.
Blood drops freeze into sharp crystal shards.
They glow in slightest light,
I see them sown through the snow
like rubies preserved in amber.

Am I losing the scent?
Or is she running out of blood?

The rock turns to ice, then to sleet,
then to snow, to white air
But still I can breathe,
even while my lungs freeze
I stand above it all, blowing frost clouds at the sky...
and see blood on the moon.

Is the purpose of blood to cool the brain?
Or merely to feed us then waste us away?

lin · 10-20-2007, 02:18 PM

It's a pretty good fit in my volume, "Engines of Desire". Which might account for the lack of critical acclaim for that book.

Baron · 10-20-2007, 02:35 PM

Quote:

Is the spoor is getting richer?
Am I getting warmer?

One too many "is's" here?

This is a powerful read, lin, but I think that I can understand why it was met with silence. If the words were actually listened to at the reading then it would need some thought to gauge a reaction.

cinder and smoke · 10-20-2007, 02:41 PM

This is most definitely a memorable piece because of the subject matter. Good job and thanks for sharing. I like reading poems about things that are hard to take in. Makes for a far more interesting read.

Eiji Tunsinagi · 10-20-2007, 02:46 PM

This is a very interesting piece, and certainly not bad...I can understand the silent reactions of the uninitiated deep into poetry though. It's one of those things.

Ilasir Maroa · 10-20-2007, 04:37 PM

Um, wow, i can see why this got such absolute silence... and it wasn't because it was good(which it was). I don't think most people are really gonna appreciate the subject of this poem.

(the smileys aren't meant to be negative)

wheelz1138 · 10-20-2007, 04:52 PM

I believe the intensity and length of the poem could be a turn-off for some readers. I don't think it is badly written, just a bit too much to take in to become a poem that doesn't have to be studied to be understood fully.

lin · 10-20-2007, 05:35 PM

Now you tell me

Sen Yama · 10-01-2008, 08:32 PM

I see nothing wrong with the poem itself, which leaves two things: delivery and audience. If your delivery was off, or choked, they might have lost the meaning. But I favor the fact that it could be the audience, the silent reaction was probably because of the images. I read my peice 'sometimes we shouldn't remember" in a public forum once, and got about the same responce. After I got off the stage though, three or for people came up to me and told me how good the poem was. The point is, some poems are good, but do not evoke clapping because of the mindset they put you in. When you hear them, all you can say for a while is 'wow'. Sometimes you need to think about a poem like that before you can respond in any way, even clapping. (I think I need a paragraph break in here somewhere)

Ana Kata · 10-01-2008, 09:33 PM

I would have clapped your face off, if it makes you feel any better. The audience must have been full of little bitches.

Shyox · 10-01-2008, 11:37 PM

Powerful imagery, but it runs on for miles. I see why it does, and it keeps up the stream of good images, but it is really a hike to finish. I think most people took it the wrong way. It really wasn't that bad, I thought, maybe to a few poofs or something.

The opening was good, not sure I'm getting the same meaning as everyone else from the poem, but eh.

comma127 · 10-02-2008, 02:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lin

through the coarse dark
hairs between her legs,

This revolts me

Quote:

Originally Posted by lin

She bleeds red from her loins,
white from her breasts,
salt blue from her eyes,
ice green from her guts.
she bleeds copper-gold,
bleeds a dark, tarry black.

This makes me see colours

Quote:

Originally Posted by lin

It has a smell of sweat and urine,
of rot and germination,
of fish and death and sweet-sick pollution,
of things already eaten and already passed,
of water already broken,
of air already breathed too many times before...
of corruptions still in progress.
In short, of all turned earth, of everything alive.
The odor washed away by the rivers,
lost in the clean, sharp wrack of sea.

This brings me face to face with the decay of life

Quote:

Originally Posted by lin

In the desert blood doesn't last long at the surface.
It sinks away grain by grain,
flows into underground rivers,
forms deposits of need and blisters of wealth.
I touch the stains as gently as the sand.
Sticky and hot, it makes me feel porous
and touches my life like gravity,
draws me under, where springs flow
and mirages are formed.

This makes me feel connected to the earth, I don't know why

I many have totally missed the contention of your poem but there are bits in here that are awesome