CREATING A CHAPBOOK 

POEM ONE - The poem below is going into a chapbook I am working on in my Editing/Publishing class:

 

ONE TRACK PEN 

And then I stopped and grabbed the pen.

The pen startled me, the way it seemed to move on its own.

The writer’s rush I call it, like the lightening in a receiver’s cleats. 

The pen wanted to go in one direction, my mind in another.

My mind struggling to be erotic and sensual,

the pen taking the piece in wild chaotic circles. 

I am an “x” and I’ll consider the pen to be a “y”.

I attempted sensual and erotic, the pen wrote orgy and porn.

Becoming irritated, I capped the pen.

                                                                                                         

Like a child having a tantrum it dropped to the floor and popped off its cap.

Then the hand jumped in and placed the pen on the paper.

The paper was a light shade of pink and had a sultry, silky texture. 

Wild as fire, the pen spread its words all over the paper.

The hand seemed to weep at what the pen had written.

“Y” had taken my mind’s beautiful bronze breasts and turned it into bodacious boobs. 

The pen had become more desirous of pleasing the paper than doing as I wanted.

The paper took on a hue like blushing cherries.

The pen had its way and soon spewed all over the cooing paper. 

I had enough, pitched the dried up pen and moist paper in the trash.

I sought out a new pen, feminine and slender to the touch.

The new pen and I were joined by the muse. 

We three, more alike than different,

created poetry filled with beauty and music.

We three, intimately entwined 

pleased each other.

I moved, the pen moved, the muse stayed.

This poem was born of a shitty first draft.   At first, there was a man in the poem… but too much dialogue…so I took the man out and put in the pen instead (with a male persona).  I think the tercets work well with this poem as do the variety of the line lengths.  The pen basically comes to life with the use of some action verbs.  I like how the poem ends with a new pen that is more compatible with the writer and I think it leaves the reader with a feeling of calm and contentment after the craziness.   This piece has multiple meanings,.. the writing process / choices / sexuality ... is ambiguous, and each reader will come away with something unique.  I really like the last five lines, but should I leave them out??

POEM 2 - I would also like to include this prose poem in my chapbook.   

DOG POUND 

She had a feeling the day would be strange when she woke up late that Sunday.  The alarm clock read 10:30.  She would not be able to get ready on time to attend the 11:00 o’clock mass at St. Ann’s church, the very church she was married in last July.  She dreaded walking in late because she did not want to be known as the late girl.  The television was on in the living room of the small, nearly furnished apartment.  The smell of coffee and cigarette smoke wafted past her nose.  “Did you fall asleep watching movies again?”  “Yeah, come sit with me on the couch and watch this.” As a quick flash of skin engulfed the big screen, she quickly covered her eyes with her hand and walked into the living room.   “I can’t watch that!  I’ll go blind.  Sister Gabriel will roll over in her grave.  You will go blind.  And then we’ll have to get a dog and name him Boy because you won’t know where he is and will have to call, ‘Here, Boy’.”   “It’s just a little girl on girl stuff.   It’s really hot.”  He was smirking.  “Marc,” she said as he paused the video, “why do you think girls dig other girls?”  She went on telling him her theory of how women ‘turn’, unlike men who are born ‘that way’.  “The girl snaps, gets fed up with the testosterone mentality and falls in love with her own kind.  Simple.” 

He watched her reach over to the cricket keeper, gently remove one cricket and place it in the aquarium with their tarantula.  He was perplexed as to why she was being so loving to the cricket when it was going to have the life sucked out of it in a few minutes.  Snapping back to the present, he continued to try to convince her that the movie would help them, when sweat began to bead up on his forehead and seep through his sweatshirt.  He sat up, stared at her with eerie unblinking black eyes, and faintly whispered, “I don’t feel good.” She froze in terror as she watched his eyes roll back in his head while his jaw stiffened and his limbs seized up as he fell off the couch onto the floor.  His body continued to move in frightening jerking movements.  He smelled of urine. 

In the emergency room she was trying to get the attending physician to check her husband’s eyesight.  The doctor insisted on sticking with his assumption that you can’t test a person’s eyesight when they are unconscious.  But she persisted, “I think he’s blind.”  “Young lady, seizures don’t cause blindness,” the doctor tried to convince her.  The ride back to their apartment was so quiet they could hear each other breathing.  “Where are you going?” he asked as she turned west when they lived east.  “We’re going to the pound to get Boy,” she said matter of factly.  “I am not blind!”  “Yes, you are!  Quit arguing with me!”

 

This piece is part autobiographical, part fiction based on a real occurrence. Being brought up in the Catholic faith can be very intense at times … resulting in late girl. This poem was not meant to be humorous. When I wrote this I was dealing with my husband’s latest seizure. The seizure wasn’t caused by him watching porn but at least this gave a reason for the seizures for which the cause is unknown. The seizure episode in the second paragraph was as real as it could be, being very painful to recall in the first place. If you look deep into late girl’s mind…maybe she is thinking that her husband being blind and having a seeing-eye dog would be easier to deal with than an unexplained seizure disorder and the accompanying short term memory loss. Maybe she needs a simple answer. Is this piece too long for a chapbook? Also, should I give him a fictional name like Larry or something ??