This poem was written for both this past Monday’s Big Tent Poetry Prompt and last week’s We Write Poems Prompt. Two ThreeFour visual versions of the poem, plus the original text of the poem, appear below. Click on each graphic to view it large (you might be able to even go larger, depending on your browser).
Visual Poem, Version 1 (Click to View)
Visual Poem, Version 2 (Click to View)
Visual Poem, Version 3
Visual Poem, Version 4
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When the stars bleed through pinholes
like a heroin serenade walking up the tracks
of an earthquake arm where veins are fault lines
and bruises are epicenters where footfalls land;
when parking lot lamps like whiskey lights
strike matches in the darkness below those stars
and cut their own amber sorrowed glow with the
straight spine shadows of their steel pole bodies;
and the bottles shine and call to you,
green bottle fly,
effervescent empty like the drunk drown
that they used to carry;
and you are cleaner than the world,
and you are sixteen years old,
and you wring scars and blood out of your wings nightly
when no one is looking;
when the drought pools inside your belly,
resting below your sternum,
little ribcage light sitting atop your spleen
like a throne, the little god you throw petals to,
offer your scars like penance to,
your blood like incense to, and get back
blessings of tears like Holy water from;
that, my friend, is when the bottle breaks,
the fingers speak, and the hand screams,
wrist to palm connecting with a fluid joint
fury. There is no shriek like glass
unraveling itself onto asphalt, below whiskey parking lot
lights, below those molting trickle-down junkie stars,
at shopping cart feet round like your days
that never end and swallow themselves until
tail becomes head and you walk on the bumps of the bone,
up the spine of the Ouroboros, never finding exit. You are
still the cleanest thing alive, but
try to tell them that,
No Scars, No Blood, No Bones,
No Ragged, No Wings. Every cut, every jaw of glass
lying open and unhinged on the pavement,
is your testimony.
Written 6/21/10
© 2010 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.
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Notes:
For the Big Tent prompt, we were instructed to freewrite and then construct a poem from our freewrite with the statement, “I want to write about __________ but I don’t know how”. In my case, I chose an incident from when I was sixteen, at work at my first after school job at a local grocery store. It was already past sunset, and I’d been sent outside to gather carts. I was angry, upset, and full of pent up everything from what was happening at home. I spied some beer bottles on the parking lot pavement and…well, you already read the poem. And I grabbed four of the words from Irene’s Wordle over at We Write Poems: drought, drown, circle, and sorrow.
I hope you enjoyed the read.
-Nicole
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Nicole, You have managed to stun me again. The beauty of your visual pieces combined with your words read in any order. I am wowed, and humbled by your work. “There is no shriek like glass…” You have intense images here. This is excellent writing. Love love love it!! ~Brenda
It still feels painful and raw. But writing sort of expunges those pent-up feelings and is a kind of exit and transcendence. Intensely wrought Nicole.
I am left speechless and awed by the images in this poem.
http://inthecornerofmyeye.blogspot.com/2010/06/drought-wordle.html
something I’ve never been able to grasp beyond the clinical. You’ve given it voice.
of the three visuals, the second image seems a little too serene, but I enjoyed reading the poem(s) it created. the third is a great, dynamic, graphic. somehow the first appeals to me more, though, maybe it’s the font you used. (would it have worked to tilt the bottle a few degrees?)
Nicole
I love all 3 of these the last being my favourite!
Awesome work!
Pamela
This is intense! You’ve managed to articulate feelings that aren’t very easy to articulate and it made for an utterly brilliant read.
“no shriek like glass” is beautiful.
I’ve watched this visual poem progress from two to four over the past few days, letting it sit in my brain. I think your original piece captures best the emotion of the cutter for me, that overwhelming overstimualtion and the need to find the release. all versions are mesmerizing, though.
and as for the word-poem itself — wow. the ending brings me to tears:
You are
still the cleanest thing alive, but
try to tell them that,
No Scars, No Blood, No Bones,
No Ragged, No Wings. Every cut, every jaw of glass
lying open and unhinged on the pavement,
is your testimony.
A strong and energetic piece – it spills as easy as blood and dark as night with a bit of chill.
hi nicole, capturing a 16 yr old’s heart on a plain ol day… at 16 we are so raw… and parking lots hey, it’s not paradise… but you have captured the two beautifully… what is it abt the crash of glass… you’ve caught it like the flash of sunlight… there’s nothing so sad as an empty bottle of whiskey… a lot of images to consider nicole takes time to absorb…and that is good to stop slow read and consider… the best for me “… at shopping cart feet..” i like this passion that floats over and spills out onto the paper…
There is so much here that I find it hard to know where to begin. Image upon image, sight, sound, and feeling all married together, tumbling over one another, colliding together and becoming testimony of a moment. Can I just say Wow! ?
Elizabeth
I am amazed and awed at your writing, presentation, and the sheer splendour of presenting your poem four ways, four ways, that read one after the other, incantate, chant, resonate at deeper and deeper levels. This is a poem that is shouting its breaking. That’s glass on the pavement. That breaks its anger across the pages of photographs. This is you at sixteen and you now, creative woman, channeling that energy into poetry, collage, photograph, spilling out. All magnificent, Nicole.
Strong and solid writing. Thanks for sharing…
Powerful piece, exorcising demons of the past.
Wow. Love this, especially the image or a drought pooling inside the belly.
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