Tag: Poetry

a poem: my personal gravity well

Audra EdmonsonLeave a comment

(written just after I decided to leave Korea)

I sit in bed and type.
Typing is different than writing.
And I don’t write much.
Mostly planning.
Making words pretty.
Like that will make them more
Real.
Make my lists fancy.
And they will get done.
Make my dreams sparkle.
And they will come true.
I add a sticker
Here
And
There, just there.
It means I am trying to
Put my mark on it.
Make it, bend it into
Reality.
But reality bends us.
Right?
Or do we bend it when we move?
When we dream, do the stars tremble
In their courses?

Dreaming must be dangerous then
To move galaxies and bend solar systems
Into our own making.
We move, we bend time and space,
And the universe heaves
Infinitesimally.
But it moves. Every breath a great
Wind birthed.
Every flutter of fingers
A small gravity ripple.
Making waves in our own personal
Systems.
What manner of magic is that?

What manner of creature am I
To sit in bed and type,
When soon I am planning
To quit my job.
Leave this country.
And go home.
Because my body is breaking.
And I don’t know how to fix it.
How to fix my cage.
The bird inside is fine,
Thanks very much.
It’s just this shabby old
Ill-treated cage rusting and falling apart.
Squawking in the night.
Hinges snapping.
The caged bird sings.
Angry.
Defiant.
Raging against the cage that breaks.
Wishing others could see inside the cage.
But they only see
The breaks.

-a.e

a poem: earl grey

Audra EdmonsonLeave a comment

Earl grey tea has a
great meaning to me
i first had it when i was a teenager,
sitting on the old, rough blue couch with the small
embroidered orange triangles,
reading On Langauge by Mario Pei,
that bastard, so in love with language
he infected me with it for years,
anyway i was sitting out with my mom,
which was unusual since i almost always
stayed in
my room alone
and i had bought this tea
because i wanted to be cs lewis, i think,
or something so i wanted tea
but i was a luzianne kid, raised by
an army brat mom from florida and a
dad from lousiana who had sweet tea in his
veins from his momma, so we only had luzianne
and sometimes lipton but lipton was bad quality
we knew.
earl grey was exotic, poor little me,
thinking it was exotic, i laugh now but
it was an eye-opening experience
only on my tongue so what do we call that?
tongue opening? awakening? lifting soaring lilting
the bitterness making my mouth pucker so slightly
the orange so slick and sweet, just a hint,
and the smell, like old books, or maybe that was just Pei
sneaking in again, the old bastard,
and i fell in love with two things, that night sitting
in the old blue couch
languages and tea,
and my mind was on fire from both.

 

-a.e

a poem: here and elsewhere

Audra EdmonsonLeave a comment

When I read or write, I am there and elsewhere.
I am there, sitting or lying, reading or writing.
There in my body, I am.
But I am also elsewhere, and sometimes I don’t recognize myself at all.
I don’t see my hands as part of me. They are ghosts, making words.
The words themselves are more real than the sounds or black shapes that make them.
The flow of energy that words create is the only real force.
The flashes of feelings and images half-formed in my head as I read are more real than the texture of the pages or the tapping of my finger against the screen.
It’s a strange sensation, to be here and elsewhere. To be not entirely in myself.

-a.e

a poem: between

Audra EdmonsonLeave a comment

(Written a few days before the New Year)

There is some hanging in the air today.
Something amongst the wind in the willow
Something resting between gusts
Something waiting
Coming
A storm
The new year twirling
Green sticks
Waving, flapping,
Too light on this dark day
Overcast, chill,
Willows are not happy trees
They mourn
They sigh
Perpetually complaining
But today something is hanging between the breaths
Of their sighs.
And I am holding my breath
Waiting.

-a.e