by Eve Castle
When he died an oak tree sprung
ramming its way in one mighty heave
through living room floor, pressing
upper branches, greenery and limbs
flat to the ceiling.
For a second I wondered:
would it break an opening
for something to come through.
I climbed the rubble at its great base,
a mountain of dirt and broken wood slats
and with meager arms rounded wide,
I gauged its circumference. Its bark
scratched at my cheek, at my ear.
Floating nearby was his fading voice
and the faint scent of his skin. As I listened, I
heard his laughter resonate deep in that trunk.
My edges trembled but the oak's leaves
didn’t rustle, didn’t stir.
I tried to capture the enormity of grief when losing a loved one. When I closed my eyes and tried to envision it, a mighty oak suddenly in the middle of your "home" is what came into my head. I imagined the destruction it caused and how small one would seem compared to it and how hard it would be to get your arms around it. At the end I tried to capture how the oak (grief) is unmovable. This poem has seen several transitions. At one time I tried to make it about any kind of grief and not just grief associated with death. At one time it was also third person as if I was an onlooker on someone else's grief. Changing it to be directly about the death of a loved one and making it first person (I climbed the rubble...) strengthened it. I hope that anyone who has experienced the enormity of grief from a significant loss will appreciate the imagery here and find that they can connect with something in it. This one was published in Illya's Honey, 2009.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Saturday, September 15, 2007
On the Balcony
by Eve Castle
There is a void
no cigarette can fill.
Alcohol ignites thoughts of dead futures.
Music is life.
Soaking, ripping, surging
through a night of worries
through a life of doubt,
a buoy among men,
but not tonight
not on this balcony.
One final stirring pulse
tomorrow
is still fading
dreams die to one more measure
stepping forward
eyes closed
you draw in smoke
you exhale breath.
I wrote this poem originally on a napkin when I was with a friend who had suffered a significant loss and was just starting to work their way through their grief. We are no longer in touch... life has moved us on different paths - but at the time I wrote it I was experiencing their grief with them and it became mine as well. Music is a healing power but when someone is so buried in a loss that music does not penetrate then it takes something stronger. I like to think that I provided that strength at that time but if so, there is no evidence of that - quite the contrary... but this is a blog about the craft of writing - not about me - so I'll move to why I'm here tonight to share this poem.
I had a conversation with someone about poetry and we discussed when a poem is finished and I used the analogy of an "adopted child." If you adopt a child you have to accept that they are not perfect, that they are messy, that they can be loud and obnoxious, or they can be too soft-spoken and spineless for your taste, but ultimately, they are your children... you love them, you raise them, you adopt them into your life and give them your name. You try to raise them right, you show them a path that is meaningful, that should make them successful... but you may still end up with that stubborn one, or the one that doesn't pick up after themselves... at some point you have to say, they are who they are, but they are mine. You let them be. So this one, I adopt and I'll let it be and hope that someone reading it will get some value from it.
As for notes on where it stands now... I will say that instead of "ignites" I originally used "inspires" but ignites connects better with the cigarette image. I also eliminated the word "somber" that I had originally placed in front of "night" and "life". Afterall, the poem goes from cigarettes, to alcohol, to music... and talks about dead futures... you don't have to tell the reader it is "somber" - they should pick up on that. The very last word is "breath" and that is the original word. I played with "you exhale life" based on some feedback at a poetry workshop, but ultimately came back to breath. Breath is life... it just seems right.
This is my adopted child, good or bad, with all of its associated memories and feelings, with all the energy I had to give poured in.
There is a void
no cigarette can fill.
Alcohol ignites thoughts of dead futures.
Music is life.
Soaking, ripping, surging
through a night of worries
through a life of doubt,
a buoy among men,
but not tonight
not on this balcony.
One final stirring pulse
tomorrow
is still fading
dreams die to one more measure
stepping forward
eyes closed
you draw in smoke
you exhale breath.
I wrote this poem originally on a napkin when I was with a friend who had suffered a significant loss and was just starting to work their way through their grief. We are no longer in touch... life has moved us on different paths - but at the time I wrote it I was experiencing their grief with them and it became mine as well. Music is a healing power but when someone is so buried in a loss that music does not penetrate then it takes something stronger. I like to think that I provided that strength at that time but if so, there is no evidence of that - quite the contrary... but this is a blog about the craft of writing - not about me - so I'll move to why I'm here tonight to share this poem.
I had a conversation with someone about poetry and we discussed when a poem is finished and I used the analogy of an "adopted child." If you adopt a child you have to accept that they are not perfect, that they are messy, that they can be loud and obnoxious, or they can be too soft-spoken and spineless for your taste, but ultimately, they are your children... you love them, you raise them, you adopt them into your life and give them your name. You try to raise them right, you show them a path that is meaningful, that should make them successful... but you may still end up with that stubborn one, or the one that doesn't pick up after themselves... at some point you have to say, they are who they are, but they are mine. You let them be. So this one, I adopt and I'll let it be and hope that someone reading it will get some value from it.
As for notes on where it stands now... I will say that instead of "ignites" I originally used "inspires" but ignites connects better with the cigarette image. I also eliminated the word "somber" that I had originally placed in front of "night" and "life". Afterall, the poem goes from cigarettes, to alcohol, to music... and talks about dead futures... you don't have to tell the reader it is "somber" - they should pick up on that. The very last word is "breath" and that is the original word. I played with "you exhale life" based on some feedback at a poetry workshop, but ultimately came back to breath. Breath is life... it just seems right.
This is my adopted child, good or bad, with all of its associated memories and feelings, with all the energy I had to give poured in.
Monday, September 3, 2007
Veritas
by Eve Castle
In that verge, when closed eyes sense morning
and deepness lingers like the scent of fresh washed hair
she arrives and whispers along my skin.
I lie still like a bandit
listening to my knowing breath
seeing beyond clouds
but clarity is the startled sparrow
taking wing, its song fading into mist.
This is one of my oldest poems. I actually took this one to a couple of poetry workshops and got some feedback. There was discussion about whether the bird referred to was a song bird (the original bird I had in the poem was a swallow) and at that time I also had a line "aware of my thirst" just after the line "seeing beyond clouds." I dropped the thirst line later, but even before that, I did change the bird from swallow to sparrow to remove any thought of the act done with the mouth/throat ("her" arrival is very sensual and I didn't want to continue to promote that line of thought - yes, there were of course men interpreting the poem at the workshop! Pretty typical, at least from my experience.) In any case, the actual inspiration for this poem did come to me one morning in my bed and it hasn't changed much from the initial order it arrived in.
One point made at the workshop that I resisted until much later was the use of the word truth. I originally had "a truth arrives" and the word 'truth' and its relationship to 'clarity' later in the poem was discussed.
Also, I realize that it is more common to hear the word verge as "on the verge" but I prefer "in that verge" because to me that is more intimate and that's the sense I want here, that this is a very intimate moment. This is one of the reasons I used first person as well.
What is the moment? The moment that something becomes totally clear... a moment of certainty/clarity... a moment where truth is plain or clear. I lie still (like a bandit - something of value has my attention), I listen to my "knowing" breath (this breath is different due to the clarity/truth that has arrived), I see beyond clouds (things that are in the way or things that make something difficult or unclear). I am "on the brink" in that moment (original title was On The Brink) but that moment of clarity, the moment that whispered along my skin... soon flies away... veritas (little truths). One can also see this as arrival of the muse, that moment that is so clear, where truth fills you.
This poem was published in a chap book, Gabe's Poets Still Searching, December 2009.
In that verge, when closed eyes sense morning
and deepness lingers like the scent of fresh washed hair
she arrives and whispers along my skin.
I lie still like a bandit
listening to my knowing breath
seeing beyond clouds
but clarity is the startled sparrow
taking wing, its song fading into mist.
This is one of my oldest poems. I actually took this one to a couple of poetry workshops and got some feedback. There was discussion about whether the bird referred to was a song bird (the original bird I had in the poem was a swallow) and at that time I also had a line "aware of my thirst" just after the line "seeing beyond clouds." I dropped the thirst line later, but even before that, I did change the bird from swallow to sparrow to remove any thought of the act done with the mouth/throat ("her" arrival is very sensual and I didn't want to continue to promote that line of thought - yes, there were of course men interpreting the poem at the workshop! Pretty typical, at least from my experience.) In any case, the actual inspiration for this poem did come to me one morning in my bed and it hasn't changed much from the initial order it arrived in.
One point made at the workshop that I resisted until much later was the use of the word truth. I originally had "a truth arrives" and the word 'truth' and its relationship to 'clarity' later in the poem was discussed.
Also, I realize that it is more common to hear the word verge as "on the verge" but I prefer "in that verge" because to me that is more intimate and that's the sense I want here, that this is a very intimate moment. This is one of the reasons I used first person as well.
What is the moment? The moment that something becomes totally clear... a moment of certainty/clarity... a moment where truth is plain or clear. I lie still (like a bandit - something of value has my attention), I listen to my "knowing" breath (this breath is different due to the clarity/truth that has arrived), I see beyond clouds (things that are in the way or things that make something difficult or unclear). I am "on the brink" in that moment (original title was On The Brink) but that moment of clarity, the moment that whispered along my skin... soon flies away... veritas (little truths). One can also see this as arrival of the muse, that moment that is so clear, where truth fills you.
This poem was published in a chap book, Gabe's Poets Still Searching, December 2009.
Friday, August 24, 2007
Sight
by Eve Castle
Crumbling brick
one wall left standing,
blind woman
body and cheek clinging
seeks Braille with raw hands.
A vision of lukewarm days
rises
in the empty stomach
of her naked starvation
and the wall
wet
with cutting rain
is her truth,
and hollowed eyes
striking upward
acquiesce
in abandonment
in grief.
There is so much to this little poem. I'm not sure how much to give you without spoiling the impact. You can imagine that the wall represents "hope". Lukewarm days comes from the book Steppenwolfe by Herman Hesse. His character Harry couldn't stand lukewarm days (days that were not pain-filled or pleasure-filled) because the wolf in him wanted passion. The story Steppenwolfe was about being part man/ part wolf... so for me in this poem lukewarm days represents "nothing special". Then later in this poem the Catholic in me comes out and if you envision every picture you ever saw of Christ on the cross where he is still alive, he is looking upward and that's what I saw in my head when I wrote the last part of this poem. Acquiesce was such the perfect word here... better then relent or surrender - because it's closer in my mind to acceptance. This poem was published in a chap book, Gabe's Poets, Still Searching, December 2009.
Crumbling brick
one wall left standing,
blind woman
body and cheek clinging
seeks Braille with raw hands.
A vision of lukewarm days
rises
in the empty stomach
of her naked starvation
and the wall
wet
with cutting rain
is her truth,
and hollowed eyes
striking upward
acquiesce
in abandonment
in grief.
There is so much to this little poem. I'm not sure how much to give you without spoiling the impact. You can imagine that the wall represents "hope". Lukewarm days comes from the book Steppenwolfe by Herman Hesse. His character Harry couldn't stand lukewarm days (days that were not pain-filled or pleasure-filled) because the wolf in him wanted passion. The story Steppenwolfe was about being part man/ part wolf... so for me in this poem lukewarm days represents "nothing special". Then later in this poem the Catholic in me comes out and if you envision every picture you ever saw of Christ on the cross where he is still alive, he is looking upward and that's what I saw in my head when I wrote the last part of this poem. Acquiesce was such the perfect word here... better then relent or surrender - because it's closer in my mind to acceptance. This poem was published in a chap book, Gabe's Poets, Still Searching, December 2009.
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