Read Write Body Poem #6: Blood
This poem was written for two prompts: Read Write Prompt #96: Spam. Spam. Spam. and for the latest mini-challenge from Read Write Poem, which was to write seven poems about the body in the context of October. I was trying my damnedest not to write another diabetes poem, but this one insisted on being born, so I let it go, writing on the theme of “blood” for my sixth poem. Enjoy.
-Nicole
P.S. If you want to read everything else I wrote for the mini-challenge, click here.
——————————————————-
My blood, it tells on me. Feed the meter, and I can keep parking here
on Earth so long as I
do not keep dumping sugar into my river. I wonder if
by 2020, they will figure out a way to tell
what poisons me, to sketch out the
reprobate carbohydrate faces of my miscreants
on wanted posters in full living digital color
in the Cyclops eye of my glucometer display. Then I might see
some specifics. Maybe a
cosmoramic display of the jelly donuts,
the orders of crème brulée, the chocolate mud pies, or the
giant plates of linguini that passed into my body
without being stopped at the doors
of my lips.
But right now, it can only hint at my dirty secret:
how I occasionally tie up the bouncer
with a dash of capriciousness. You can see the mischief:
it saunters and slinks its slutty self into my wicked smile
with the smoothness of liquid vertebrae and
settles into the minor key curves that inhabit my eyes,
which are now backlit by wanton desire
spoken in tones of unchecked fire
and elusive serpent crawl. Look again, and you’d also see
devil horns sprouting from my crown, poking up past my hair –
black and slick,
striped with copper, fuchsia, and wild. The horns
compete with my highlights with their own screaming red libido,
thrusting their tips to the sky like a pair of
unchecked, curved erections. And once my Kundalini
has been kidnapped, disguised as a pointed red tail, and
slithered backwards out of my spine, I then let the insolent and irresistible
march through my doors, put their feet up on the couches,
piss all over the bathroom floors, and insult the DJ. When they
are done, they always exit slowly and quietly in small crowds
out of my body, leaving their only evidence in my blood
like an impish teenager spiking the punch on prom night. And that
is what the meter reads – samples from
the river running inside me that carries
the translation of my breath,
the proteins and traces of spirit that
reassembled themselves to build me,
and the small sugary time bombs
that tick in my arteries.
Written 10/14/09
© 2009 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.
Wonderful food imagery,great colour and texture.Liked the meataphors..giant plates of inguini,not stopped at the doors of the lips,sugary time bombs,curved erections in the sky,kidnapped Kundalinis and backlit wanton desire. A strident rhythm throughout the poem…good for performance…Loved it.Wild! Especially spiking the punch
Some great use of language here. Very visual, too.
It is a such a visual piece!
exulting mixture
From spam to “a cosmoramic display of the jelly donuts“! Very nice, Nicole. Food and sex very compellingly combined.
I love that first short statement, “My blood, it tells on me” and how the rest of the poem becomes a torrent of response like the river into which sugar is dumped. There are many terrific metaphors throughout this, but the fundamental irony of diabetes, of sweetness being a contaminant and a poison is pervasive, and you use it very effectively to heighten the other tensions you address, such as between inner self and outward projection, decorum and sincere passion and/or desire, and the pleasures of a life fully lived versus the ascetic denials of one sort or another that might “preserve” it.
I cannot go into great detail as to why I liked this. Suffice it to say that you snagged me with that opening salvo and pulled me in from there…
Great imagery and descriptive phrase used here…also very interesting subject matter.
The imagery flows like a metaphor for the river carrying all the food. I really enjoyed reading through your poem. It was a feast of words! Thank you for sharing Nicole. =D
I think that opening is really great: “My blood, it tells on me.” It’s the job of the poet to lure the reader from the very first words, and you have done so very effectively. I am sorry to read about your diabetes. It’s courageous to write about a personal infirmity. The great poet Gwendolyn Brooks said that all of us are infirm. Maybe all of us at RWP should write about our infirmities.
–Therese L. Broderick
i really liked that first line…..but it is all a good read..thanks for sharing