Friday, May 27, 2011

Audio: Lightness

For today's multimedia piece, I chose a song. I wanted to revisit this one (I wrote it last summer) and record it differently (with a lighter hand, fittingly).

The song is called "Lightness," and is all about how light we feel when we stop trying to control all of those things outside of our control. Meeting uncertainty with an open mind and capable attitude can be so freeing (I know a lot about uncertainty as an adjunct instructor and freelance editor!).

Have a listen here.

I hope you enjoy this one. What light/lightness is bringing you pleasure these days?

Thursday, May 26, 2011

The. End.

The. End.

And from that day forward, they lived
happily ever after.
The. End.

They had found one another again,
and swore not to live apart
another moment.
And from that day forward, they lived
happily ever after.
The. End.

This strange woman moves me
as no one ever has, he said
to himself.
They had found one another again,
and swore not to live apart
another moment.
And from that day forward, they lived
happily ever after.
The. End.

What a beautiful voice, he thought,
and how beautiful she sounds
crying over me.
This strange woman moves me
as no one ever has, he said
to himself.
They had found one another again,
and swore not to live apart
another moment.
And from that day forward, they lived
happily ever after.
The. End.

Here he was, spreadeagled in the snow,
and he heard her voice calling out,
please stay with me!
What a beautiful voice, he thought,
and how beautiful she sounds
crying over me.
This strange woman moves me
as no one ever has, he said
to himself.
They had found one another again,
and swore not to live apart
another moment.
And from that day forward, they lived
happily ever after.
The. End.

Her tears had collected in his footprints,
frozen in the cold. One day, he slipped
on his own steps.
Here he was, spreadeagled in the snow,
and he heard her voice calling out,
please stay with me!
What a beautiful voice, he thought,
and how beautiful she sounds
crying over me.
This strange woman moves me
as no one ever has, he said
to himself.
They had found one another again,
and swore not to live apart
another moment.
And from that day forward, they lived
happily ever after.
The. End.

She cried through autumn and winter,
sat outside and cried until the cold
drove her inside.
Her tears had collected in his footprints,
frozen in the cold. One day, he slipped
on his own steps.
Here he was, spreadeagled in the snow,
and he heard her voice calling out,
please stay with me!
What a beautiful voice, he thought,
and how beautiful she sounds
crying over me.
This strange woman moves me
as no one ever has, he said
to himself.
They had found one another again,
and swore not to live apart
another moment.
And from that day forward, they lived
happily ever after.
The. End.

She cried in the spring amidst the tulips
and clover. She cried in the
sticky summer heat.
She cried through autumn and winter,
sat outside and cried until the cold
drove her inside.
Her tears had collected in his footprints,
frozen in the cold. One day, he slipped
on his own steps.
Here he was, spreadeagled in the snow,
and he heard her voice calling out,
please stay with me!
What a beautiful voice, he thought,
and how beautiful she sounds
crying over me.
This strange woman moves me
as no one ever has, he said
to himself.
They had found one another again,
and swore not to live apart
another moment.
And from that day forward, they lived
happily ever after.
The. End.

He couldn’t remember her, so every day
he asked why she was so sad,
why she was crying.
She cried in the spring amidst the tulips
and clover. She cried in the
sticky summer heat.
She cried through autumn and winter,
sat outside and cried until the cold
drove her inside.
Her tears had collected in his footprints,
frozen in the cold. One day, he slipped
on his own steps.
Here he was, spreadeagled in the snow,
and he heard her voice calling out,
please stay with me!
What a beautiful voice, he thought,
and how beautiful she sounds
crying over me.
This strange woman moves me
as no one ever has, he said
to himself.
They had found one another again,
and swore not to live apart
another moment.
And from that day forward, they lived
happily ever after.
The. End.

He lived next to a girl who cried every day
since she was born, her eyes pink
as begonias.
He couldn’t remember her, so every day
he asked why she was so sad,
why she was crying.
She cried in the spring amidst the tulips
and clover. She cried in the
sticky summer heat.
She cried through autumn and winter,
sat outside and cried until the cold
drove her inside.
Her tears had collected in his footprints,
frozen in the cold. One day, he slipped
on his own steps.
Here he was, spreadeagled in the snow,
and he heard her voice calling out,
please stay with me!
What a beautiful voice, he thought,
and how beautiful she sounds
crying over me.
This strange woman moves me
as no one ever has, he said
to himself.
They had found one another again,
and swore not to live apart
another moment.
And from that day forward, they lived
happily ever after.
The. End.

There once was a boy with no memory.
He fiercely loved his routine, for
it always felt new.
He lived next to a girl who cried every day
since she was born, her eyes pink
as begonias.
He couldn’t remember her, so every day
he asked why she was so sad,
why she was crying.
She cried in the spring amidst the tulips
and clover. She cried in the
sticky summer heat.
She cried through autumn and winter,
sat outside and cried until the cold
drove her inside.
Her tears had collected in his footprints,
frozen in the cold. One day, he slipped
on his own steps.
Here he was, spreadeagled in the snow,
and he heard her voice calling out,
please stay with me!
What a beautiful voice, he thought,
and how beautiful she sounds
crying over me.
This strange woman moves me
as no one ever has, he said
to himself.
They had found one another again,
and swore not to live apart
another moment.
And from that day forward, they lived
happily ever after.
The. End.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Inside Voices

Inside Voices

We don’t know silence here,
we can’t, but we can imagine
it by gathering the available
quiet and pulling it towards us
like stacks of poker chips.

We draw it into our bodies,
the quiet. To listen better,
we make ourselves quiet,
ease air down the trachea
without letting it scrape

against our throat or mouth,
soft-pedal our brain so it
doesn’t crackle as we think.
What parts of yourself
did you trim away when told

to use your inside voice.
Where do our voices hide
within us, our noisy bodies.
What could we feed them
in order to coax them out.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Cymbalism

Cymbalism

The darkness is radiant with streetlights.
The houses have their windows open,

the neighborhood is listening to itself.
A band is practicing in a basement,

their noise amplified and contained.
Bagpipes blast through a screen door,

a recording. A dog’s screechy exclamations.
A landline ringing four times, ceasing.

The band has finished. The clatter
of a cymbal against the floor, it must have

fallen, they must be packing up,
snapping shut the latches on guitar cases.

The white dog down the street bounds
out through a door held open for him,

and he charges the lawn, the bushes,
the pavement, driven by glee and gratitude

that is irrepressible. Who can he thank
next. Where should he direct all this joy.

Friday, May 20, 2011

Video: Blogging Panel Footage

On May 5, I was so happy to host an Arts and Culture Blogging Panel as part of Paging Columbus (a literary arts event series I've been organizing). It was a fantastic evening--panelists included Melissa Starker, Bethia Woolf, Jim Ellison, Meghan Willis, Aaron Driggers, and Matt Kish (who was a Storialist-linked artist way back in 2009!).

Here, I've included Part 1 of the panel--the panelists introduce themselves and their work, and talk a bit about how they make the time to blog. How about you? How do you create space in your life for blogging? Hope you enjoy it!

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Stay Put

Stay Put

Stay put. Don’t go anywhere.
Don’t move your musculature
one iota, one picometer.

Can’t you hold still, exactly
as you are now, only frozen,
fixed this way so that

I can return to you and know
you, exactly as you were
when I stepped away.

Forbid your hair to grow.
Do not disturb the pleats
around your eyes.

Be like this photograph
of yourself. No flinching
as I watch you.

For god’s sake, get a hold of
your atoms, before someone
or something else does.

Monday, May 16, 2011

More Hours

More Hours

It’s not more time we should wish for,
but more versions of us
that we could release.

A succession of selves to help us
split what we do, launching
in different directions

one after another, as a line of planes
filing down a runway
and lifting from the earth

out into every country and context.
Think of the lives you could
make with your selves,

every level of learning and ignorance
you could set out to earn,
every love and profession

you could cover yourself in, like clothing.
Would our staffs of identities
be able to comfort each other,

should any one of us express a desire
for more hours in the day,
more time to get it right.

Friday, May 13, 2011

Audio: More Sticks

Happy Multimedia Friday! Blogger mysteriously ate my post for today (there were technical difficulties, apparently).

For today, I wanted to share some audio with you. I recorded "More Sticks" for you. When I wrote this poem last summer, I was thinking about how there will always be more inspiration and ability...sometimes, when we create something, it feels like we have emptied ourselves. We have. But the good news is....we get refilled (if we want to)!

As Annie Dillard says (in one of my most favorite pieces about writing EVER), "One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. "

Have a listen to "More Sticks" here. Hope you like it, and that you are feeling full and refilled.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Necessity Is a Mother

Necessity Is a Mother

No metronome?
Ask your household items
to step in.
Keep time to the constant drip
of the bathtub
faucet. Tighten it for a slower
drip, a slower
pace. Angle the fan toward
the blinds,
so that the knotted cord taps
the windowsill.
Turn the knobs of the stove
so that the flame
tries to ignite, but let it tsk
tsk tsk without
ever catching. Practice that
in a well-ventilated
area. Bribe the neighbor kid
with sugar wafers,
give her a knitting needle
and saucepan
and stomp your foot to pass
the rhythm to her.
Sit in your car. Alternate between
your blinker
and your windshield wipers.
In this life,
we want things we do not have.
These needs
become our gifts, our instruments.

It Remains to Be Seen

It Remains to Be Seen

It remains to be seen,
the unknown. We do not see it,
and then there is a great unveiling,
a new being before us.

What we know was once
what we did not, and it stood
beside us, hiding, cover ready
to be plucked off

like a canvas tarp draped
over patio furniture. We cannot
sense every covered truth clustered
around us, hovering.

Like mice, for every one
we see there are ten living with us
where we can’t see them. We don’t
know how to look

for them. Right now,
all around you, pockets of darkness
so near to you that you could reach
out and pet them.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Good Taste

Good Taste

Good taste, good mouth
closing around it,
good, decisive esophagus,
such a commanding swallow.

Good anatomy on you,
well-proportioned,
and good skin for covering it
all up, good clothes
on top of that.

Good figure and posture,
good skeleton poking through
in all the right places.

Good ear for language
and music,
good, trusty cochlea
curled up and sleeping
in the warmth of the bony labyrinth
inside of your head.

Good head on those shoulders,
good skull and good old groovy brain.

Good on you for succumbing to evolution
and getting born and being so essentially good
about living with others that you will love
so temporarily.
You make it look so easy,
so good.

Monday, May 9, 2011

Awareness Awareness Day

Awareness Awareness Day

To raise awareness about awareness.
To cultivate our sensitivity,
our ability to see who is struggling
and who is nearly levitating,
they are so happy.

To practice focusing up and out.
To notice which trees are flowering
and which have been torn away.
To shine a light on how late
it stays light.

To look at what is missing,
and who,
to acknowledge that all of this
is the result of actions and events.
What have we caused.
How do we respond.

To test our antennas.
How perceptive are we.
To take inventory
of necessary recalibrations.

To thumb through dormant thoughts.
What is in us and what do we want.

To open ourselves
to what is here and also what is coming
for one entire day.

Friday, May 6, 2011

Video: Calling

A new video poem for you today, brand spankin' new.

Hope you like the video for "Calling." I shot the footage last week on a sunny drive--so many of my poems are driving-related (because I drive quite a bit right now--I teach about an hour away).

I had the most fun with the music this week...I had been missing my guitar, so I did a little tinkering and experimenting. It's fun for me to create music that has no words (I'm not sure how well these little soundtracks stand on their own, but it's nice to try something new in terms of process).

Next week, I'll be presenting at Pecha Kucha here in Columbus, and I'll be mentioning this poem (not necessarily the video)--I'll be talking about generating inspiration. I'm definitely looking forward to it!

Very happy May and Friday to you. Hope you enjoy this video, and that your weekend is wonderful.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Poor Thing

Poor Thing

Yesterday, in the afternoon rain,
I passed the small pond
in the middle of campus.

In the grass near the water,
a goose, barking,
swiveling its head
and throwing a strange, low call
in every direction.

A few of us stop and watch.
I think she’s looking for someone,
a woman says,
her nest is back there.

I look it in the eye
and try to read the expression there.
It seems tense,
as all birds do
when we want them to.

What do you want, goose.
Would it be better if I left.
What can I do, my dear,
poor thing.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

All Thumbs

All Thumbs

If everyone is dirty, no one is dirty.
The dirt on my face is on yours
so we don’t think to wipe it away.

Much strangeness can be erased
when it is shared. For instance,
let’s say that none of us can play

volleyball, we hated that week
in gym class every year, did not
know where to stand or how to hit

the ball, our hands never folded
gracefully into one another, thumb
over thumb. So we are all thumbs

when it comes to volleyball.
And look, it is gone. Together
we can be comforted by inability.

Goodbye, pressure. We can all lift
it above and away from us, a crowd
surfer we pass overhead to the edge.

The other good news: if an oddness
of yours cannot be shared, we can
applaud it. We need you so much,

you are a volleyball champion
even though the sport went extinct
many years ago, you are an anomaly.

You retrieve the ragged net, and we
gather around you to watch you jump
and tap the ball with fingertips, as if

you were full of helium and pushing
yourself away from the sky. Your hands
help you back to the ground where

we love you because you are unlike us.
And yet, you are here among us, who can
be anything but (blissfully) not everything.

Monday, May 2, 2011

Name Dropping

Name Dropping

Those words that are closest to your voice,
they can come tumbling out,

can be loosened by almost any conversation.
You don’t have the energy

to guard them, so out they come, handkerchiefs
knotted together and slipping

from between a magician’s lips with the hand
of a volunteer. What words

do you say so easily, too often. Names of places
you have visited, maybe,

or have lived in: Big Sur, Bellingham, Venice,
Block Island, Lincoln Road.

Friends that you allude to, their language
that you borrow and parrot,

or their manner of speaking, their joke you take
and make your own. We drop

names like this only because our heads are full
and we use our mouths to hold

what won’t fit anywhere else within us, and even
then, can barely be restrained.
The Storialist. All rights reserved. © Maira Gall.