i was exiled to my room by the tv
and all i think about is the word courage
and maps
i just found your poems in my inbox
and they brought me back to a place
where tears draw river lines
where it all happened before i even knew
and it feels like the place that i trip on
when i let my face hang too long in the sun
if i let myself feel happy
then i forget the edges
it’s all sun in the middle
all sun in the middle
and the edges are charred like the edges of a map being burnt
so if he really wants to come find it, he will
the trails that lead home
to your fingers tracing the lines
on my back, the ghosts,
all that ever mattered
nothing that will ever hold
tears that stain then dry
you knew were there
she never knew or knew why
(the you here is myself)
you could never find the voice
to tell her the right tone the pitch strong enough
that it would never leave her
like a song haunting in the hall
like a chorus in her hair
why is nothing ever enough?
(the you, someone else)
your lips to my ear
i can’t save you.
i can’t save you.
like the poplars cut down
in the morning
i slept through the decapitation
my impotence
and on the map there was a bridge
and on the bridge there was a woman
and she fell to die
i called out
for
the old woman
was my love and
my lover
i worry you’ll never know
and all that will stand in the way
—
i found late summer
pressed between two poems
a wish blown
caught and flattened
the white burst stuck where
‘the stars will come out over and over’
and ‘the hyacinths rise like flames’
—
she told me to cry her a river
so i drew her a map
but the map made me cry
all over the dead riverbed
the one that was carved
like the crow’s feet at my eye
—
(the ability to do something frightening) (strength when faced with pain or grief)
(an unpleasant emotion caused by the threat of danger) (perceived danger)
and then what if i burn the maps
take them out of my backpocket
finger the softened paper
the creases folded and refolded
how we respond to the struggles that affect our lives.
‘…this calls for a certain amount of delving into the past, and for preparedness to meet the unexpected.’
when does the memory have a pulse? how many collaborators must it have?
the collective nature of the activity of remembering
i haven’t dug my well deep enough
no means for proper assessments
perhaps annette kuhn’s layout for memory work and a photograph but as a poem
1. consider the human subject(s) of the photograph. start with a simple description, and then move into an account in which you take up the position of the subject. In this part of the exercise, it is helpful to use the 3rd person (‘she,’ rather than ‘I’, for instance). To bring out the feelings associated with the photograph, you may visualize yourself as the subject as she was at that moment, in the picture: this can be done in turn with all of the photograph’s human subjects, if there is more than one, and even with animals and inanimate objects in the picture.
(david’s writing about the photographs of men together)
2. consider the picture’s context of production. where, when, how, by whom and why was the photograph taken?
3. consider the context in which an image of this sort would have been made. what photographic technologies were used? what are the aesthetics of the image? does it conform with certain photographic conventions?
4. consider the photograph’s currency in its context or contexts of reception. who or what was the photograph made for? who has it now, and where is it kept? who saw it then, and who sees it now?
he’s my last grandparent
but i can’t sentimentalize him
or make him the lesson i have learned
can’t be urgent chasing life, death
but maybe this is my excuse
often chasing secrets, mysteries, trying to reveal, uncover, travel deeper results much like the surface of a photograph. all grain and fiber, dust and scratches. a surface revealed more closely as the surface. and nothing more beneath.
We have to be, have to be errant 