Doing My Exercises

I understand that life is like a pawn shop—when you want something new you are required to leave your gold-plated watch behind. So I knew when I began working full time, the benefit of having insurance and being able to support myself would require a shift in my daily living. That is to say, I no longer have long stretches of time to loaf around my house and look out the window and explore all the emotions I can feel about a mourning dove sitting on a dead tree branch.

What I was not prepared for was the great way in which my writing would suffer. I learned something new about inspiration: she will absolutely not tolerate a schedule or anyone wearing dress pants. She does not enjoy cream colored walls and rooms with no windows. She likes to inhabit the mind voluntarily, and would you believe she is passive aggressive? These days, she drives off in her 1964 Mustang for the afternoon, and just when I am falling into bed exhausted, she comes home and turns on all the lights and makes quite a bit of noise taking off her shoes until I pay attention to her and get a pen.

I fear my poetry has lost all of its stamina—so this morning I tried an exercise. I read a writing prompt that suggested turning music on shuffle and using whatever the first phrase is as the first line in your own poem. It was interesting to force myself to make art no matter which words I was given, which can, I believe, be done. The results for me were, although not my best work, valuable enough to share in the name of completing the workout of my creativity. I will be honest in voicing my disappointment that the songs that came on were what they were and not something more interesting, like Sting, JohhnySwim, or Jeffery Martin. But, I suppose everything old can be new again.

Below are my three poems, and the songs that I had to use as inspiration.

Song One
Mine by Taylor Swift
Lyric: “You were in college...”

Tulips

You were in college
when the rust began
to blot across your skin
the ruddy, tough disease
flaring with rabbit quickness
soft, determined claws
covered in eye-catching fuzz.
Everything about you got stiff
as if there was too much
rain—not enough hands
to dry off your joints—
the helpful elbows, prayerful knees
and your most important jawbone.
Your countenance turned colors
around circumstantial evidence
until I could not look at you
and see you—but something vast
like the Keukenhof in April.

Song Two
Do It Again (Reprise) by Elevation Worship
Lyric: "You never will forget..."

Surgery

You never will forget
when they told you to strip
and stand in line for examinations,
prodded your bones, made you prove
that your feet weren’t flat,
exhumed a story from you
regarding your scars
            you cut your leg
            riding a bicycle
and the lie would do for them.

A few know the truth about your knees.

Sometimes when I am driving alone
at night, I look out the windshield
and ask God why I am one of them.
Sometimes He is silent, and sometimes
He brings Mars so near to the Earth
I can see it even with my blurry woman eyes.

Song Three
River Lea by Adele
Lyric: “Everybody tells me it’s about time that I move on...”

Everybody tells me

it’s about time that I moved on.
That I have been the spreader
of pain, dandelion lungs
singing a great ode on melancholy.

I have been John Smith
blowing up the tender unknown
salivating over the color of dirt
letting a new language drip from my tongue.

I have been a huge, patient bear
standing in the constant water
using her hands and open face
to catch salmon in her majestic teeth.

But I have also been an orange,
peel removed and left to compost

to bring someone else to life
and forget the fingers that broke

my pithy globe into edible portions
like when Jesus fed the multitudes

except with me, there was not enough
left over.