Writers
Posts tagged 2012
Poem: Needling
0Dominique Larntz * January 23, 2012
Needling
Let us be free of being
fooled by form
as we fumble a frown
down onto the fate
that has been
plated before us.
That frown–our judgment–is
the very tool we learn with.
The bias cuts will stretch but
you may need to drape the pieces there
for days before you adorn them.
If you go with the long and cross grains
your movement will depend
completely on the weave.
So if you wish to stretch
beyond your judgments
try cutting on the bias
by finding the edge
and creating a new fold
before getting snippy.
Poem: True Love
0Dominique Larntz * January 22, 2012 * “Love Songs To My Body”
True Love
There is a line in True Love
that goes:
You have the freedom
to choose me or not choose me
and when you say no to me
that is my opportunity
to sit as still as a gaze,
with all the urgings and functions
of my love for you kept in
the form of single drops
even though I know
altogether they make up
an ocean.
Poem: Groupthink Question
0Dominique Larntz * January 21, 2012 * “Love Letters To My Body”
Groupthink Question
Hey letting go
how’s it going?
I am just shredding
the checks politicians
wrote with their
contributions to me
that I cannot cash.
I am only steeping
in a clove bath of sass
trashing some neighbor
who helped me
really developed me
but they forgot
to cover up their
fracture during
the dance.
So we jumped on that.
We keyed on that.
We held on to that.
Mistake.
Poem: From Pond to Wind
0Dominique Jones * January 20, 2012 * “Love Letters To My Body”
From Pond to Wind
My pond heart
reflects on the effects
evaporation
will have upon it.
Rings from the stories of
hitting stones have
expanded and shallowed
and slowly eased.
Sure the silt could get
stirred up again;
the potential’s
always there.
But the wettest heart faces,
in its later years,
a change in state,
its turning from pool to sky.
And I wonder as I merge
with the air, how it will feel
for each drop to let go of a tide
and become the atmosphere.
Poem: Still Well
0Dominique Jones * January 19, 2012 * “Love Letters To My Body”
Still Well
It doesn’t come as a shock to me
that I keep getting visits–
less frequently–
from panic and the visage of pain.
Dressed up still
in their Sunday bests,
I have learned to preach
from them and to them less.
I’ve discovered I am not
descendents of theirs;
they just stop by from time to time.
Since they exist, however,
they are as welcome
in the holy structures of my soul
as any other entity.
I imagine grief sitting there
stiffly on a wooden pew,
smelling a little dampness
from my pond heart outside
and staring through the complicated
stained glass of my eyes,
trying to be silent
as a Summer afternoon,
to hear my
higher self tell it
all is well.
Poem: Regression Analysis
0Dominique Larntz * January 18, 2012 * “Love Letters to My Body”
Regression Analysis
There was a physical tension–
squeezed and dry from deep inside my cells,
where my body was precisely pinched.
This morning I awoke–
and I was so grateful to feel open again!
I relaxed further by asking life to
soak me with good feeling
until I had extra happiness overflowing
like a newly submerged sponge.
Last night I missed a wonderful few hours together.
Oh, we snuggled and smiled–but my outpouring
was only as nutritious for our souls as styrofoam.
Today I feel delicious again.
I made us breakfast and joyfully.
It could have been anything for anyone.
I can be with you only when I am with myself.
The difference is in me; not in what I am doing.
Poem: More Traveled
0Dominique Larntz * January 17, 2012 * “Love Letter to My Body”
More Traveled
The concert of contentment
plays in the chaos
of this day when there is so much
energy and so little focus.
So what if I don’t finish
and I travel a path
on which I help a few folks
and it is hardly noticeable?
And those fellows
do new things for me,
teach me a couple facts,
and I come back
to this same chair,
write a few more notes to you
and you hear some little phrase?
Poem: Slips
0Dominique Larntz * January 16, 2012 * “Love Letters To My Body”
Slips
I am looking
at the bottomless greed
all around me.
It exists in my own heart
even though it has healed.
I have given away many more things
than those I silently slipped
into my youthful pockets.
I don’t even think about wearing pockets
anymore.
I understand now
the other bottomless thing
is everything.
Poem: Breadmaker
0Dominique Larntz * January 15, 2012 * “Love Letters To My Body”
Breadmaker
I don’t know the reason
but there were many youthful years
when I could not be consoled,
and now all I need
in order to feel peaceful
is the hint that yeast exists
for the bread of joy to rise
from the core of my heels
to the crust of my hair.
The only gluten I can find
is your daily offering of love
that I have been
so lucky to discover,
kneaded faithfully
throughout the later decades
of this life that would be
unwise, bereft, and unbaked
but for the skillful addition of you.
Poem: Calyx
0Dominique Larntz * January 14, 2012 * “Love Letters To My Body”
Calyx
I am walking uphill on my high
desert winter stroll,
hardly noticing it.
Just as this desert willow
has no idea whether I am
ugly or beautiful,
successful or abysmal,
vain or humble,
violent or kind,
female or male,
if I have a diversified portfolio
or if I have given away my last penny,
I can hardly grasp things about its life,
such as if trees have statuses.
Do they think the redwood
is more evolved than bamboo?
For that matter, is it possible
planted life perceives moving,
mammalian life as less evolved
since we decay back into soil
and eventually–
in an old tree’s time frame–
become plant food?
For now, though, I touch the trunk
of the desert willow on my path,
and we meet, both alive.
No matter what we perceive or call it,
we share in experiencing life and death,
and we complement one another in breath.
Poem: Does Nothing; Everything Is Done
0Dominique Larntz * January 13, 2012 * “Love Letters To My Body”
Does Nothing; Everything Is Done
Part One:
I thought I was too late,
and it was a blight on our home,
and I kept apologizing to everyone
but instead it was effortless.
Nature had pushed everything back
this year–from the Spring gusts
to the late blooming tomatoes
that gave us their last fruits
in early December.
I only cleared out a little of the garden
before the freeze and a month
of heavy snows pulled a crisp sheet
overtop the vines and trellises
outside our door.
So my clearing task waited.
Now the desert has returned
to its bright dryness
and when I went to shear the plants,
they did not need to be cut.
They simply fell apart in my hands
like solid dust, and I knew that this
was the perfect time
to clean up the garden.
Part Two:
I piled the branches into bags
and they reminded me of the
passageways in my brain,
and I could see how some of the
energy of my youth had been spent on
fruitless seeds of hatred, eager and petty and
destined to turn as gray and brittle as these annuals.
Planted in the imbalanced nutrient bath
of our warring culture, these resentments
were inconsolable in my youth,
which was always mysterious to me
because I was reaching for reconciliation
as truly as any annual will reach
to find balance somewhere in its soil.
But with the dormant season,
nature offers transformation
in the roots and stems of ourselves,
leaving the perennial parts strong and vibrant.
I find the things I can release
surprisingly woody and weak,
in my relationships and in my life,
and it is at this time,
now,
that I can quietly and easily pluck parts of
my character that have always vexed me–
alongside the annuals–
on a gorgeous wintery, solitary afternoon.
Poem: Mass Commercialization Disperses Back Into Family Gardening
0Dominique Larntz * January 12, 2012 * “Love Letters To My Body”
Mass Commercialization Disperses Back Into Family Gardening
My counter,
the smallest
of laboratories,
is the perfect example
of high entropy,
crowded again
with oats and cranberries;
vodka sauce and figs.
Or is it the smallest?
From two hundred years past,
tell me the science fiction writer
who would have imagined
the double-ovened joyous
holiday we have any day
while watching a big screen TV
in the great room and washing
tomatoes grown organically
from containers on our back porch
because the mass shipped
tomatoes have no taste.
I try organizing the cupboard
fairly well, watching for signs
of perfectionism
or hoarding in my psyche,
noting how they can
relate like two opposite points on a line
or two points that meet on a circle
when that line is shaped
to be curved beyond a bowl.
Naming myself on that continuum
likely fails to add flavor
to any dish produced in this lab.
Better to place my attention
on more physical details–the smell
of lemon as it cleans the disposal,
the richness of the blossoming
orchid on the shelf, the feel of the jar
of chipotle as I twist the cap open
to add it to our eggs in the morning.
Chaos like ours, like mine,
exists well beyond–and well within–
the projects and recipes and tools and tastes
at my fingertips.
Poem: Zygote Dreams
0Dominique Larntz * January 11, 2012 * “Love Letters To My Body”
Zygote Dreams
I.
My father is wholeness
and my mother is love
and all the damage
in the world can only kill me
it cannot unmake me.
II.
I sleep to repair
and remember who I am –
where I was conceived –
and to even out the tremors
of variety and experience
that for a brief instant
allowed me to construct
a story only as permanent
as weather.
III.
I awaken over and over
into the spirit of conception –
now, eternally –
that returns us
to comfort.
Poem: Meditation Today
0Dominique Larntz * January 10 * “Love Letters To My Body”
Meditation Today
Allowing is less
the big breath,
the effortful death
of expectation–and more
the inhales and the exhales
you watch without drama,
easily, like the place
at the top of the pole where
the nylon string attaches
in a tetherball game.
Poem: Neighborhood
0Dominique Larntz * January 9 * “Love Letters To My Body”
Neighborhood
There is so much I can’t do today
that I am reminded
to think small
and then to think even
smaller.
I remember being eight years old
in elementary school.
The teacher polled us
on what we wanted to be
when we grew up.
I said I wanted to be president.
That stands as one of my brightest
negative moments
in socialization
as a child.
While I would have
voted for me,
it was obvious
even the teacher
was shocked
at such a desire
and would not
have cast a ballot
my way.
While my campaign
ended there,
I still find myself
returning to
the intersection
of the avenue-of-where-I-think-I-should-go
and the boulevard-of-the-way-I-was-made
thinking I can re-route the-avenue-
of-where-I-think-I-should-go
to be anything other than
a traffic circle
bringing me again
to the same,
gentle, right turn.
An exuberant day
can make any future appear possible
and it’s easy to forget that to manifest
a career takes twenty-to-forty years.
Life also brings days like today–you
can call it depression, low energy, tired.
And I wonder how I can be
of service in my life
and in the world on such a day,
when I feel I am no good
for doing anything.
And it takes me a long time–until 3 PM–to
even be able to formulate that question.
Almost before the question is finished,
life has offered three lousy drivers
in oversized vehicles.
Each encounter necessitated
that I slow down
in order to avoid collisions.
I cry a little because I realize those drivers
will never see that I saved their lives.
They will probably never know
the mistakes they made.
I am humbled by my small destiny
on my neighborhood roads today,
and the invisibility of it.
I look into the heart of my eyes
and I wonder how many times
in the future I will be able to see
the same humble moments in others.
I wonder how many times
I will be able to see the deftness
and joy that others have felt
as they have traversed this planet,
making the world a better place
in a thousand quiet, transparent acts.
I may be slow to see
and to appreciate
how much
the small
and the smaller still
delights the pathways
of our lives,
but my eyes are
in the neighborhood.
Poem: Past Shame
0Dominique Larntz * January 8 * “Love Letters To My Body”
Past Shame
My little shame
goblin friend,
with your black-lit
punch card eyes
and your cascading
motherboard pigtails,
not only is it
appropriate
for my past
to say no
to me, but
it is time for me
to say no
to my past.
Poem: The Hero’s Welcome
0Dominique Larntz * January 7 * “Love Letters To My Body”
The Hero’s Welcome
When you are a little older
you may also be sad to look back
and find you have been judged
for extending a helping hand
during an evening’s walk
to a woman who has driven herself
kilometers too far
onto the twisting road
with all the signs that read
“Watch for falling rocks”
in either direction.
It has crushed us,
and it may do the same
to you, to help pull her awkwardly
through the unsteady window
from underneath her
boulder-topped car just
before a tons piece of granite
takes one more topple-turn
that would have crushed
her body completely
had you not wandered along
at the precise moment you did,
and to have her fix her gaze upon you
and instead of thanking you,
or thanking life,
or even exhaling,
she will tell you you can’t set her down,
can’t let go of her hand,
can’t call anyone for help,
that you must carry her with you,
and she will say,
as if she is joking,
I have to wonder
if you know
what you are doing.
She will ignore
the piece of the mountain
crushing the place where
her fragile body
was imprisoned
a moment ago.
She focuses only on
your aptitude and confidence
in your rescue role,
as if you are auditioning
for all future heroism
and the important thing
is your individual prowess
and not this beautiful
grace.
Poem: The Way For Me
0Dominique Larntz * January 6 * “Love Letters To My Body”
The Way for Me
When anxiety is eating me,
wrapping its toes around my ankle
like it is trying to warm up its feet,
I know now I need to stop
and then do the opposite;
comfort myself.
I can cook a warm, mellow meal.
I can decorate a room.
I can sleep too long in a clean bed.
I can write
anything.
Poem: Bearing Witness
0Dominique Larntz * January 5 * “Love Letters To My Body”
Bearing Witness
Does my body bear fruit
like citrus, with some
squeezable, zestable,
usable outer peel
protecting an inside
so irrevocably liquid
that all you have to do is
twist your hand a bit
to release its juice
along with its
dozens of seeds
and possibly so sour
or so sweet
that it transforms the taste of what it is mixed with
and it cleanses what it rubs against
and it stings wounds it drops into,
and are there many chances–
from all those citrus seeds–
for propagation?
Or does my body bear fruit
like a peach or a plum
with a soft outer skin
that reveals strength
and density
and sweetness
all the way to
a central core seed,
one purpose from which
this type of fruit
propagates?
Or does my body bear fruit
like a coconut,
growing a series of shells
around sweet water
high up in a palm tree
until the day it is ready
to trust that falling
is part if its nature
and it joyfully releases its hold
from the branch
where it has suckled,
and it turns
to embrace the ground
as it stops resisting gravity
and holding onto the trunk–
with its singular seed,
complex and protected
inside many layers,
knowing others
of its kind have been
picked up by waves
and traveled ten thousand
ocean miles to germinate
on a beach
far from
where it started?
Poem: Mindful
0Dominique Larntz * January 4 * “Love Letters To My Body”
Mindful
I just noticed
I was not
noticing
my body
here
right here
under
my
squeezed
mind.
Poem: Incarnation
0Dominique Larntz * January 3 * “Love Letters To My Body”
Incarnation
Stay. Sit with me
for a while.
Dreamworld is still
upon me
and I have not yet
encountered
the corsetry
of the ego,
in its military motions
and ambitious amplifiers.
The voice of life
is gentle,
supporting even
that folly.
If we are one,
we are more
like water
and less like
lions.
I am not sure
how to classify water.
We like to make movies
about predators like lions,
zooming in on how they
hunt and strike and eat
their prey.
Water does lots of things.
Maybe it preys.
It also forms us, fills us,
refreshes us,
grows and houses
our life
and the lives
of species
we have yet to
discover and name.
I praise the water
in me, the water outside of me,
that links me to every
being on this planet
and to the cosmos.
I know
I cannot stay
in this body–
in this life–
forever.
I don’t need
what people say
I need.
I do have the deep
desire to survive
that every life
shares–the blade of grass
that bends
instead of breaks
when your foot
descends
and the palm tree that
arcs into a parabola
when a hurricane hits
its beach.
But life made us mortal
and only our delusions
make us otherwise.
At this moment,
I am friends with life
and life has brought us
together, two bodies,
holding at least
as many states
as water.
Poem: Magic Spaces
0Dominique Larntz * January 2, 2012 * “Love Letters To My Body”
Magic Spaces
I find space in the most mundane places.
I have found too much air in ziploc bags in the freezer
after celebrations so we could tetris leftovers more frugally.
I have found I can pause between inhale and exhale
and calm myself down to my toes.
Today it was in the laundry room where I discovered
two huge drawers under the washer I never knew existed.
This makes me question the definition of mundane.
Healing is found in the same way for me.
The things I am not doing are better for me than the
things I am supposed to do.
Sometimes when I get very still.
Very still.
I can ask, and my body will present an idea to me, one all my own
that appears like an image in my mind. An ‘of course’ that was there
all along, like those drawers under my washer and dryer, a place
to keep the things that will scrub away the years of abuse
and hardship my inner and outer world have heaped upon this
magical, wondrous, gorgeous, moving coalition of cells
that has befriended me in this life.
Carrying the most precious messages of all.
Poem: This is Where I Live
0Dominique Larntz * January 1, 2012 * “Love Letters To My Body”
This is Where I Live
I love my rich body,
and its pleasure
in pouring
into the world
like water.
I can sense a way
to hold myself
as I have spiraled
about you
and as I have been
the sweetest love letter
enveloped within
your arms.
There is no gratitude
physical enough
or loud enough
to express
the truth
that we ache
and arch
and reach
into mature creatures
as we see the seeds
of our identity
in the eyes
of our lovers.