Category: Poetry

a poem: a loss and freedom

Audra EdmonsonLeave a comment

I’m terrified of marriage
Strange for a woman to be
In this day and age
Although not really but
The stereotype dies roughly
So here I am
Not quite that stereotype
Not quite that other
Just in between
Really scared
Scared to lose myself
I lose myself a lot
On shabby streets
In between meetings in the hallways
In conversations where I nod a lot and
Smile
Too hard
In between the sheets
I lose myself
So marriage will only
Exacerbate
That. I will lose myself to another
Person
I guess people who love don’t mind
Giving up themselves
Don’t mind losing that bit of their identity
Indeed give it as a gift and receive in return
But I have never seen another person
Being
Man or
Woman
Or tree
Or bird
Or animate kind
Whom I would willingly trade the bit of me for
That bit of me is all I have
That small pocket
Blue and ragged
I can’t give it up.
And who are you to ask it of me?
Not yet, not yet
Cries the not-yet bird
Until you meet the one
The one
Cries the-one bird
I imagine them in cages
But maybe the bars are blocking me in
Maybe I have it all
Turned around
I don’t want to get married to
A person
But I want marriage
So I am not alone.
and who would marry someone so silly anyway

-a.e

a poem: buzzed

Audra EdmonsonLeave a comment

(written while in Korea, a few weeks before the anxiety set in)

The buzz of the computer screen is my only comfort when i’m feeling emotional
is it poetry? or prose? or just the ramblings of a lost little white girl alone at her computer, lit up by the dim screen, her eyes slowly degenerating
because she won’t wear her glasses, picking at her face because it is a small punishment for the pizza she ate instead of working out, listening to
classical music because something in her soul is begging for the old days when things made sense and were longer. lasted longer. now our
collective attention span is about three minutes. but tomorrow she will wear black eyeshadow and think about bukowski and spit at the world,
but smile at her students because it’s her damn job and she’s too afraid to be jobless.

-a.e

a poem: soul functions of writers

Audra EdmonsonLeave a comment

soul functions, like bodily functions,
cannot and should not be controlled
repressed or held back.
i try to explain what it’s like to be a writer
to imaginary people who ask, since one day
i imagine i will be a writer and people will ask.
i tell this imaginary person that i write because
there are things inside of me that must come out.
like when you have to puke or sneeze.
if you try to stop that, your body will revolt.
and it will happen anyway.
not writing what’s inside of you is like that, but
a bit more delayed. maybe.
if you don’t write what’s there, it will stay inside.
and instead of going out nicely onto a page,
cleanly
it will come out in other ways.
you will puke your guts up onto a person,
a relationship, a job, yourself, breathing in
terrible vice, alcohol, junk food, dating,
bad tv,
because you can’t breathe in anything else.
words going out are your oxygen, so
breathe in deep friends, bring it out.
bring out the cancer inside and put it
nicely onto this page, where it becomes
something clean.
a true metamorphosis.
the alchemy of our time.

-a.e

a poem: more like noise

Audra EdmonsonLeave a comment

Poetry is more like noise than anything else.
Some poems lilt.
Some hum.
Some stutter and choke.
Some beat like drums.
Some beat like hearts.
Some are just white noise, and you wouldn’t know it for a poem.
Some are the prettiest sad songs you ever heard all wrapped up in one, and after reading it you can’t quite remember where you are.
Some are like the buzzing of cicadas, ugly but meaningful.
Poetry is more like noise than words.
So let me add mine.

-a.e