I joined a poetry critique group about three months ago. Deep in the pandemic, with numbers falling (on a good-news day) or rising (um, you get it), a few of my fellow writers began to gather every other Tuesday evening to recite, analyze, and otherwise play at poetry. The group is small but mighty. By that I mean there is some incredibly thoughtful, inventive work going on there. It's been, to say the least, exhilarating to discuss poetry in all its forms at this lovely early-in-the-week meetup. Bleary though my eyes may be from endless daytime Teams calls, I find this new endeavor to energize me.
What is there to write about in a pandemic? Contrary to what you may assume, we tend to pull unexpected, lyrical threads, and as writers, we simply follow them wherever they may lead. I found, knocking around in my subconscious, an evening spent many years ago with my brother at a psychic's house in New Jersey, where she read my palm and named people I'd known and, eerily, would come to know over time. I discovered a small remnant of a story in the back of my mind, taken from the same time period as the novel I'm working on, but about totally different people. I also had the opportunity to connect with an artist friend and write something about a painting she shared with me.
It's all been very interesting, a way to connect, slow down, and savor the syllables.
Some samples of my poetry may be found below.
Broken - 1942
Ah! Sleep
The measure of me
Rest and find the beyond
Dive into sweet surrender
The old French song
The lights, the girls
Faraway, the guns
Closer in waking
Quiet you say
Sleep
The empty cartridge rolls to my feet
Mud splatters my
Uniform nothing
But rags like me
The boom - there is no French word!
Boom Boom Boom
Rest now you say
Twenty-five years gone by
I lay my head on your naked
Breast
And sleep
We have fireworks
You shake me awake
Something ripping the air
Sky turning over
Get under the blanket she says
Before dying
Rest she says
From beyond
We were never one
No baby
To tie us
Together
I leave her in the bed
She is
No more
The measure of me
Old French song
Singer on the stage
Gone all gone
Sleep.
(c) B.A. Calhoun - 2021
Stroke
Her front door was mildewed aluminum
In the center, an S in a circle
It banged away in the night wind
We forgot to latch it shut
My brother brought me forward in the oven-warm house
A misaligned hen to his rooster, both of us served up to her
She wore no kerchief
No bracelets clinked together
She looked nothing at all like the
Gypsy he'd promised
A frayed housecoat fell around her too large
Snaps fastened up to her parchment throat
Come here she said not getting up from her kitchen chair
Fingers graze my good palm
Jagged dance, an attempt at a graceful swirl
Unkept nails scratch soft skin
You said goodbye to a man
He broke your heart
And just as I was about to sigh
Of course you would say that
She breathed the name of his mark
An eagle, wings spread
Full
Just below his beltline
No one knew but me
And his thousand other lovers
She named a flower I once kept
Nailed to my bedroom wall
In another city
In another time
My brother smiled
But did you see the stroke I asked
My brother frowned
Her fingers dug into my palm
Of course of course she whispered
I snatched my hand away but she fast-caught the edge of my sleeve
The working side of my mouth curled in disgust
No let's go
You were late she said
You were told to come
The door banged
The stitching on my sleeve opened the tiniest of tears
I told you, my brother said
I told you
(c) B.A. Calhoun - 2021
Allegiance Revisited
Remember
Allegiance comes
Lips parted
An altar not unlike
Marriage
Suggests itself at first
And then becomes passion
Remember
Faith comes
Fawning
In mountains of guilt
She parts her robes, forgetting her torch and crown
And you rush in
Here in the now of time
I beg you
Stay, stay
The mountain will come to you
But you pull on your hat
Your gloves
You take up your handmade sign
And it is then that I
Realize
I am the one
Who must
Remember
As you walk into the night
And make yourself part of Forever
(c) B.A. Calhoun - 2021