The RetroLounge Daily Poem Thread (Sat 9/20/2008)

[RetroLounge]

Creed

I believe the chicken before the egg
though I believe in the egg. I believe
eating is a form of touch carried
to the bitter end; I believe chocolate
is good for you; I believe I'm a lefty
in a right-handed world, which does not
make me gauche, or abnormal, or sinister.
I believe "normal" is just a cycle on
the washing machine; I believe the touch
of hands has the power to heal, though
nothing will ever fill this immeasurable
hole in the center of my chest. I believe
in kissing; I believe in mail; I believe
in salt over the shoulder, a watched
pot never boils, and if I sit by my
mailbox waiting for the letter I want
it will never arrive—not because of
superstition, but because that's not
how life works. I believe in work:
phone calls, typing, multiplying,
black coffee, write write write, dig
dig dig, sweep sweep. I believe in
a slow, tortuous sweep of tongue
down the lover's belly; I believe I've
been swept off my feet more than once
and it's a good idea not to name names.
Digging for names is part of my work,
but that's a different poem. I believe
there's a difference between men and
women and I thank God for it. I believe
in God, and if you hold the door
and carry my books, I'll be sure to ask
for your name. What is your name? Do
you believe in ghosts? I believe
the morning my father died I heard him
whistling "Danny Boy" in the bathroom,
and a week later saw him standing in
the living room with a suitcase in his
hand. We never got to say good-bye, he
said, and I said I don't believe in
good-byes. I believe that's why I have
this hole in my chest; sometimes it's
rabid; sometimes it's incoherent. I
believe I'll survive. I believe that
"early to bed and early to rise" is
a boring way to live. I believe good
poets borrow, great poets steal, and
if only we'd stop trying to be happy
we could have a pretty good time. I
believe time doesn't heal all wounds;
I believe in getting flowers for no
reason; I believe "Give a Hoot, Don't
Pollute," "Reading is Fundamental,"
Yankee Stadium belongs in the Bronx,
and the best bagels in New York are
boiled and baked on the corner of First
and 21st. I believe in Santa
Claus, Jimmy Stewart, ZuZu's petals,
Arbor Day, and that ugly baby I keep
dreaming about—she lives inside me
opening and closing her wide mouth.
I believe she will never taste her
mother's milk; she will never be
beautiful; she will always wonder what
it's like to be born; and if you hold
your hand right here—touch me right
here, as if this is all that matters,
this is all you ever wanted, I believe
something might move inside me,
and it would be more than I could stand.

Meg Kearney

*******************



Meg Kearney’s first collection of poetry, An Unkindness of Ravens, was published by BOA Editions Ltd. in 2001. The Secret of Me, her novel in verse for teens, was released in hardcover by Persea Books in 2005; the paperback edition, along with a teacher’s guide, came out in 2007. Four Way Books will publish her next collection of poems, Home By Now, in fall 2009. Meg’s picture book, Trouper the Three-Legged Dog, is forthcoming from Scholastic (date TBA). Her poetry has been featured on Poetry Daily and Garrison Keillor’s “A Writer’s Almanac,” and has been published in such publications as Poetry, Agni, Ploughshares, and The Gettysburg Review. Her work also is featured in the anthologies Where Icarus Falls (Santa Barbara Review Publications, 1998), Urban Nature (Milkweed Press, 2000), Poets Grimm (Storyline Press, 2003), Never Before: Poems About First Experiences (Four Way Books, 2005), Shade (Four Way Books, 2006), The Book of Irish American Poetry from the Eighteenth Century to the Present (Notre Dame Press, 2006), Conversation Pieces: Poems That Talk to Other Poems (Knopf, Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets series, 2007); Sinatra: But Buddy, I’m a Kind of Poem (Entasis Press, 2008), and The Best of the Bellevue Literary Review (Bellevue Literary Press, 2008). Her nonfiction essay, “Hello, Mother, Goodbye,” appears in The Movable Nest: A Mother/Daughter Companion, edited by Marilyn Kallet and Kathryn Stripling Byer (Helicon Nine Press in fall 2007). She is also co-editor of Blues for Bill: A Tribute to William Matthews (Akron University Press, 2005).

Meg is Director of the Solstice Low-Residency Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program at Pine Manor College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, as well as Director of Pine Manor’s Solstice Summer Writers Conference. For eleven years prior to joining Pine Manor, she was Associate Director of the National Book Foundation (sponsor of the National Book Awards) in New York City. She also taught poetry at the New School University. Early in her career, she organized educational programs and conducted power plant tours for a gas & electric company in upstate New York.

She was a fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts in 1999, 2000, and 2001. Recipient of 2001 Artist’s Fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts, Meg also received a New York Times Fellowship and the Alice M. Sellers Academy of American Poets Award in 1998; the Geraldine Griffin Moore Award in Creative Writing from The City College of New York in 1997; and the Frances B. DeNagy Poetry Award from Marist College in 1985. She is a former poetry editor of Echoes, a quarterly literary journal, and past president of the Hudson Valley Writers Association of upstate New York.

Meg was born in Manhattan and grew up in the Hudson Valley, seventy-five miles north of New York City. She currently resides in New Hampshire with her husband, writer Mike Fleming, and their three-legged black Lab, Trooper.


*******************

:hi:

RL

[lizziegrace]

1. Retro, I love this one...

Sounds like something a mutual friend/poet would have written. Especially that normal is a cycle on a washing machine.

:hug:

This is great. I'm sending the link to a few friends.

:)

[RetroLounge]

3. Yes, it has that flavor to it...

:hi:

RL

[Haole Girl]

2. I think I need to read this in parts

and after coffee. Didn't make it past "whistling "Danny Boy" in the bathroom..."

It's good. Very good, though.

:cry:

[RetroLounge]

6. ...

:hug:

RL

[Tuesday Afternoon]

4. I believe

this is just about the most perfect,
the most beautiful thing I have ever read.
Really, even with this big hole in my chest
and I must have ZuZu's petals
and I want a bagel from First and 21st.

Truly nice. Thanks, Retro.

[RetroLounge]

5. Glad you like it...

:hug:

RL

[CaliforniaPeggy]

7. My dear Retro...

This is really powerful.

Amazing, wonderful, beautiful!

Especially the ending:

...and if you hold
your hand right here—touch me right
here, as if this is all that matters,
this is all you ever wanted, I believe
something might move inside me,
and it would be more than I could stand.

So much strength, and beauty. Thank you.

[RetroLounge]

8. Thanks for stopping by and commenting

:hug:

RL

[RetroLounge]

9. kick

:hi:

RL

[BarenakedLady]

10. Awesome

So much so.

[RetroLounge]

11. Hey! How are you!

:hi:

RL

[blueraven95]

12. ...

:hi:

[RetroLounge]

13. ...

:hi:

RL