Sunday, March 27, 2011

The Moment In Question


wish a dollar for every wave that's made it to the shore even of the oceans where i've gone underneath

where they've warned of the undertow, and not listening, bravado like an underslung jaw, the highkneeing over the curvelet short surf petering out at the sandcrabs

the further motion five feet above the chest go headfirsting into the transparency what an illusion

and finding the face now pressed into the silica a man's length away from breathable air and rubbing it into you the lesson 

how do we lung the sunlit atmosphere when below it wanting to converse in its comfort on a beach chaise

-- a monkey on a warm tree limb -- but only recalling that looking up into a watery sun moving with the rip along and farther away from the call This way!

an imperative This way!  just a bit to the shallows to stand and be upright at the first inhale.


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20 comments:

  1. AnonymousMarch 27, 2011 at 12:18 PM

    Thanks for linking this up with One Shoot. A bit of prose-poetry, makes for an interesting form and an effective delivery; stirs questions, as the existential ever should--certainly, a touch of the existential always stirs the thought processes in the creative...Nice work!

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  2. hedgewitchMarch 27, 2011 at 1:31 PM

    Read it four times and still not sure where to put the pauses for breath. So hard to emerge dripping and upright from an undertow one has more in common with than the land.

    And I'm diggin the Glenn Miller. The drama, the staging, the ultra-cute boy singer like a plump ice cream cone of white civilization goin for the jungle beat and not melting. Very nice.

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  3. Templeton's furyMarch 27, 2011 at 1:33 PM

    i love this

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  4. Steve IsaakMarch 27, 2011 at 2:04 PM

    Wonderful, image-rich piece.

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  5. orfeenixMarch 27, 2011 at 2:27 PM

    If you're drowning,i hope you will meet a sweet little mermaid!

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  6. AMMarch 27, 2011 at 9:44 PM

    wonderful flow of words. and i'm going back to read it again :)

    love it.

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  7. Tess KincaidMarch 28, 2011 at 5:38 AM

    Underslung jaw and lung the atmosphere. Some delicious writing here, TF.

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  8. gautami tripathyMarch 28, 2011 at 8:22 AM

    A poem which stays in mind!

    limitless space

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  9. Isabel DoyleMarch 29, 2011 at 6:54 AM

    brings back layers of memories of body surfing and dreams - great poem

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  10. AnonymousMarch 30, 2011 at 4:04 AM

    There is a delicate form of the empirical which identifies itself so intimately with the object that it thereby becomes theory.

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  11. TrulyfoolApril 1, 2011 at 12:38 PM

    cianphelan (Chris),

    Thanks for thoughtful take on this. I suppose I would call it a prose poem, although if I had been asked before you said that, I might have called it 'free verse'.

    It ain't "verse" in any regular way, but I felt the rhythm of it. Prose poems -- to me, anyway -- might be more 'blocky' in shape, and perhaps even more surreal or extreme.

    Picking hairs, and maybe eccentrically.

    Anyway, thank you so much!

    Trulyfool

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  12. TrulyfoolApril 1, 2011 at 12:41 PM

    Joy,

    I'm answering this days after I switched away from the Glenn Miller clip. I do love it, too! I think this one or one a bit longer through youtube shows the 'bass player' in the band to be a very young Jackie Gleason!

    (I would definitely find it hard to spell Kalamazoo underwater. Especially with punctuated shouts.)

    Trulyfool

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  13. TrulyfoolApril 1, 2011 at 12:45 PM

    Templeton,

    Thank you greatly! Use it with your students -- also, without scissors.

    I love all my books equally, and just this week had to harvest the shelves in order to make room.

    A chilling experience!

    TFool

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  14. TrulyfoolApril 1, 2011 at 12:51 PM

    Steve,

    If left to my own devices, my prose first comes out in academic high register, filled with abstraction.

    I have to sock it around a bit. Some lessons are hard.

    TFool

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  15. TrulyfoolApril 1, 2011 at 12:52 PM

    Isabelle,

    As the oxygen was almost gone, I did get a vision of one!

    Truly

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  16. TrulyfoolApril 1, 2011 at 12:56 PM

    Aparna,

    Thanks for glomming onto the rhythm! It does take breath to 'go with' this, but then the somewhat desperate speed may be the point.

    By all means, read and read!

    Trulyfool

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  17. TrulyfoolApril 1, 2011 at 12:57 PM

    Tess,

    That's praise, indeed, from someone whose poetry is always tasty!

    TF

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  18. TrulyfoolApril 1, 2011 at 12:59 PM

    Gautami,

    I've had such beach images in mind for many decades. My ideal would be lying warm on the beach during my 'final hours' . . . when I'm 90, that is.

    Trulyfool

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  19. TrulyfoolApril 1, 2011 at 1:04 PM

    Isabel,

    Yes. Body-surfing. Transistor radios. Coke and chips. Coppertone. Girls adjusting their straps. Zuma. Malibu.

    All day.

    Trulyfool

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  20. TrulyfoolApril 1, 2011 at 1:12 PM

    Me Dude,

    There is a delicate form of the empirical which identifies itself so intimately with the object that it thereby becomes . . . reality!

    I distrust the word 'theory' but I'm carried away in flattery by what clearly is your praise!

    I think I've been raised a rank or two!

    Trulyfool

    ReplyDelete

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