Poems
copyright 2006 Elizabeth Slaughter-Ek
| Movement Where do the quick minded go When things get slow around here When it picks up, do the slow witted souls spin from waltz to jitterbug without a pause Whose feet am I stepping on when I dance? Whose brain am I stepping on when I think? When the mind bends around a notion, this motion, does speed count for anything Points are not awarded for the time elapsed Ribbons are not given for the dancers who collapse |
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| When These Things Cease When these things cease to amaze me, bury me: trees, light on the water, light on the leaves, the bowl of stars, the shining silverplated moon; a cloud of pigeons ascending between high-rise buildings; the sweet movement of a summer evening, a summer night; and the spectrum of the seasons; the sharp cracking utter stillness after ice storms; the unexpected, the sublime, the sudden sureness belonging to animals. |
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| Reading Between The Lines Riding the trains, I watch the faces of the people, making bets with myself: Can I see their history or their futures in their face? Older ones are harder They catch me staring. I try to see the child, or at least decipher the young man the young woman limned in those faces like an optical illusion. I smooth wrinkles, tighten skin; eyes widen and flash. When I see pictures of an earlier someone I know the recognition hits in a jawline, in the angle of the head. I can see where the new began to turn to the old. I can see it in my own pictures, in my own skin. I want something to remain hidden in my face written on my body even as the tattooed lines of age claim me. |
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| Block Other poets must know this: the art of catching hold when the poems fan your face on their way by. They listen and hear them. What's the trick? I grope and oh . . . a poem, but wait too late There are poems braided in my hair. Peering out, behind my eyes. In my skull, they are churning, a big brain soup. All around my head they hover but I can't hear what they say. |
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| The Weight I didn't understand the world was so full despite having flown halfway around it until living in this barnacled shore, this town, this wheeling chaotic anthill; these hardened shells of buildings. If I relax my mental vigilance the enormous realization: all these brains humming in tandem, random bursts upon me; a dizzy array. Everyone stomping on the earth. Even God: a little mad with this immensity. |
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| Timber If I fell in the forest, would the trees hear? Would they see the slow crashing, lumberous descent, the mutilation of the undergrowth? A great groaning need to rest. The trees stand silent; mute and sentinel. They see as a crowd sees. A thousand leafblinks later, my body, felled, lies riddled and decaying and my eyes watch those falling around me with some similar indifference. If I fell on a crowded street, the trees would bend and sigh Littering the lined cement with the shadowed seeds of beginnings. Staring at those who stand there, the unresponsive silence of my kind fells me daily. |
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| Object Give them what they want Smile and look back over your shoulder Swing your hips as you walk away When you look at them keep your eyes lowered Don't forget to bat your lashes shave your legs bind your feet Giggle when they stare laugh at all their jokes allow the whistles Flattering takes you everywhere and leaves you cold Don't object |
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| Relationships When they don't pan out and you know it in advance, are you psychic? Or just realistic? One friend calls me cynic. One says, at least I never whine. Too true; I bitch instead, twice the mileage from the same complaint. First impressions leave me cold. My blood is stilled within me; sluggish red ropes. This winter, this cracked ice reality encasing me. I gobble experience with impunity leaving a shriveled, withered husk for those unlucky enough to come after. That's what dating's for. |
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| Adagio No fireplace to turn and burn in front of now. Music washes over me, no flames in point counter point companionship. Slow moving masses of glass; my windows breed a clearness in my head winter breathes a frozen breath. The veins in my body: wide and running with crystal water. I am so cold, so warm. I think you can see through me, I am that translucent. |
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| Speaking in Tongues I'm learning a new language, in the process, forgetting the one I already knew. Two words for one thing they cancel each other out I'm left gaping like a fish no bubbles, no sense The brain deflects and rejects and the new words sputter to a stop. Can I be content with everyday phrases the way I am in the tongue I have now? I'm only fluent in my dreams. |
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| What No One Knows I hear the buzzing recede, There's no sound now. In the absence of sound, you hear more; In the absence of light, you see more. I'll tell you a secret; the sky isn't black at night in the desert, the stars shine it white. Kill your engine, turn off the lights the biggest of ladles low to the right, the hum of crickets, stars, more stars. In the desert at night, silence becomes its own kind of sound; Your ears stop up with the noise; while stars replace your eyes. |
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| My Tongue pink muscle flutters and flaps tries not to spit wants to escape its confines hides below my teeth would roll in circles if it could never thinks of exploring what lies behind it |
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| Impressions of Oregon White thunder crashing, the green and green of a thousand leaves in my womb in my hands in my heart. I can feel myself leak out and run downriver with ice mountain water. Here is majesty; here are choirs of angels. The numbers of movements amaze me, rob me of speech: how can I see so much? My eyes become my face, become my skin. A solitary bird above the car, warm above the heated asphalt of the road: a hawk? a falcon? I do not know its name and am ashamed but it's name isn't necessary, just it. It is flying the natural speed limit which we exceed as humans, that has been our way. Later, as the sun eases over we walk a well-worn path away from the water, through, around, over, under forest high in the mountains, so high I can almost hear the four-part harmony, a silverquick snake stops and watches us watching him. Does he find us as astonishing? |
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| I Never Thought I Would Grow Old Surrounding myself with the fires of learning I buried my head in the books. When I speak or espouse what I know to be true All I get are contemptuous looks. Beauty is in the eye of the seeker But age; in the eyes of the young What is relevant now, though then I knew not Is the length of song I have sung. The lyrics and melody fall by the side The rhythm is scattered and flown If I don't have the time to finish my song Then the truth and the beauty are blown. |
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| All Poems Copyright 2006 Elizabeth
Slaughter-Ek Did you like these? There are more where they came from. |