Edward Willett's Blog, page 24

Poetry month poetry: Emily Alison Atkinson Finds God

I’m catching up! This poem is based on two “first lines” from published Saskatchewan poets sent out to all members of the Saskatchewan Writers Guild by Poet Laureat Gerald Hill on April 14. I wrote it on April 16, and no lines are sent out over the weekend, so come Monday I’ll be in sync and writing poems the same day the lines are provided. Unless I miss a day for some reason.

All the other poems: I Tumble Through the Diamond Dust, Virtuality, This is the Way the World Ends, The Last Thing Your Lips Touched, Facing the Silence, The Telling, Saint Billy, I Remember His Eyes, His Body Knows.

The first lines:

As a child she tried on churches

like ladies’ hats,

– Dee Hobsbawn-Smith, “Embolism” from Wildness Rushing In

That one time when she was bored

with a story about pants

– Michael Bradford, “What I Said at Her Funeral” from Personal Effects

Emily Alison Atkinson Finds God

By Edward Willett

At 2:29 p.m. on a Tuesday in May,

Emily Alison Atkinson found God.

She was digging a hole in her backyard

to plant some string beans when

her shovel hit something hard.

So she dug all round it, and pulled

out this box, maybe two feet square,

made of silvery-gold metal, and

it had two buttons on the front, which

she pushed, because who wouldn’t?

And the box popped open, and inside

was God.

Now, looking for God was something

Emily Atkinson had done all her life.

As a child she tried on churches

like ladies’ hats, hanging out with

the Methodists one Sunday and the

Catholics the next, paying a visit

to the Seventh Day Adventists on

Saturday if she was in the mood for

something different.

But none of them really suited her. (Well,

she liked the Presbyterians, but after

that one time when she was bored

with a story about pants the preacher

told to illustrate something or other about

either sanctification or hellfire and

she fell asleep and fell right off

the pew with a bang and

everybody turned to look at her,

she was too embarrassed to go back there,

and went Baptist for a while

instead.)

But anyway, Emily opened this box, and

inside was a glowing white ball,

and this voice said inside her head,

“Hi, I’m God, who are you?” and Emily

(being raised to be polite) said,

“Please to meet you, God,

my name is Emily.”

Now, because of all the churches, Emily

asked Him whose God he was, and God said

He wasn’t really any one religion’s god, He

was all gods, all rolled up into one shiny

ball (about the size of a baseball).

He said He’d been put there five or

six millennia ago (He’d kind of lost count)

by some aliens who were conducting experiments

on lower life forms (“No offense,” God said, and

“None taken,” Emily assured him) to see if

a belief in a being greater than themselves

would help or hinder their development in

the big scheme of things, which in

these aliens’ view was pretty big indeed, since

they lived practically forever, at least

compared to the lesser races. (“No offense,”

God said, and “None taken,” Emily said again,

but she kind of lied.)

Using his fancy box, God had sent out

weird alien mind-control rays to make

almost everyone on the planet believe

in a mystical greater being (or beings) and

then He’d recorded history with His

super-duper alien recording technology, and

now, He said, it was time to

send that information to the aliens so

they could see the results of their

experiment. And Emily said,

“You’ve been hiding in my garden

for millennia?” and God said, “Well,

everybody has to be somewhere.”

“So what will happen when the

aliens get your data?” Emily said, and

God said, “They’ll record it with all

their other data from other experiments

and then they’ll come and pick me

up and then they’ll sterilize the

planet. No offense,” God said,

and this time Emily didn’t say, “None

taken,” because she really did

kind of take offense at the thought

of aliens sterilizing the planet just

because she’d found God.

“What I need you to do,” God said,

“is take me up onto that mountain

just south of town. There’s too

much interference down here with all

your noisy radios and televisions and

WiFi hotspots and Bluetooth thingamajigs.

You just take me up there, and

I’ll send my message and then this

experiment will be over and

I’ll finally be free of this box.”

God kind of glowed, and there

was a rumble of thunder, and

just for a second the sun looked all

red and bloody, and God said,

“That’s a Commandment, BTW.”

And Emily saw God, and Emily saw

that He wasn’t good. But then she thought,

God needs people to be His hands.

(She remembered hearing that

from some preacher or other, maybe

even the one who’d told the

long boring story about pants.)

And then she thought, And

apparently God also needs that

metal box to call back the aliens

who sent Him.

And then she looked over at

the wheelbarrow full of manure

she was planning to spread on

her garden, and she looked at God,

and she said, “Okay, God,” and she

picked up the silver-gold box with

the lid still open, and she

walked toward the garden gate, but

as she passed the wheelbarrow she turned

the box upside down and the

shining ball of God fell into the

wheelbarrow full of manure, and

the last thing He said was

“I forbid you to,” but exactly

what he forbade her to do

she never heard, because apparently

God also needed the silver box to talk

to Emily or anyone else, and since

she never heard the end of that

Commandment she figured she

wasn’t really being disobedient by

putting God into the wheelbarrow,

and after that God never spoke to

anyone again, what with being buried

in Emily’s garden.

That silver-gold box makes a nice planter.

Emily grows geraniums in it now.

Poetry month poetry: His Body Knows

Another poem in my series based on the first lines of published poems by Saskatchewan poets being provided every weekday this month by Gerald Hill, Poet Laureate of Saskatchewan.

All the other poems: I Tumble Through the Diamond Dust, Virtuality, This is the Way the World Ends, The Last Thing Your Lips Touched, Facing the Silence, The Telling, Saint Billy, I Remember His Eyes.

at fifteen my first boyfriend

my mother saying don’t disappoint me

– Lynda Monahan, “what she must never do” from what my body knows

His body knows what he

wants, roams frazzled through rooms,

– Gary Hyland, “Body Song To Hypnos” from The Work of Snow

His Body Knows

By Edward Willett

His body knows what he

wants, roams frazzled through rooms,

finds in each a jagged shard of

memory, a sharp-edged fragment

of his mind, which, like a mirror

thrown against an iron-hard wall,

shattered when containment failed,

and the hurtling time-ship foundered

on the iron-hard reef of cold reality.

His body knows what he

wants, roams frazzled through rooms,

but does not know the rooms

aren’t rooms at all, that it

lies tethered to a thousand lines

of life-support within four walls

of glass and chrome and blinking lights,

where strange shy creatures that

he never saw in life now keep

his body living while it seeks his mind.

His body knows what he

wants, roams frazzled through rooms,

and as each door is opened finds within

a single frozen moment, speaks its name

out loud into the stale cold air

within the glass-chrome room.

at fifteen my first boyfriend

my mother saying don’t disappoint me

my father executed in the square

the drones descending from the looming ships

the implants in my brain my eyes my ears

they plug me into my machine

the journey, the light, the light, the light!

unplugged and finding all had changed

at fifteen my first girlfriend

my father saying you disappoint me

my mother executed by the sea

the ships ascending from the humming drones

the acid touch of tangled time

dripping from containment

the journey, the light, the light, the light!

at fifteen my first boyfriend

my mother saying don’t disappoint me

my father executed in the square

the drones descending from the looming ships…

The words repeat, repeat, repeat,

a thousand times, ten thousand more,

a loop without an exit or an end.

at fifteen my first boyfriend

my mother saying don’t disappoint me

my father executed in the square

the drones descending from the looming ships…

His body knows what he

wants, roams frazzled through rooms,

but what he wants, the pieces of his mind,

are scattered not through space but throughout time,

in old lost seconds, decades past, and eons still to come:

all but the few within these rooms

his frazzled body roams.

at fifteen my first boyfriend

my mother saying don’t disappoint me…

Poetry month poetry: I Remember His Eyes

You knew it was coming…today’s poem based on lines provided by Poet Laureate Gerald Hill. The lines the poem is based on appear after the poem.

Trigger warning: this poem contains a unicorn.

Previous poems: I Tumble Through the Diamond Dust, Virtuality, This is the Way the World Ends, The Last Thing Your Lips Touched, Facing the Silence, The Telling, Saint Billy.

The first lines:


I remember the rope. The grey lariat


wrapped around the silver grey


– Mitch Spray, “Two Halves” from The History of Naming Crows


                      


he forgot one wound


in another


– Don Kerr, “the last day” from The Dust of Just Beginning




***


 


I Remember His Eyes


 


By Edward Willett


 


I remember the rope. The grey lariat


wrapped around the silver-grey


neck of the frightened beast, whose


white horn gleamed as brightly as


the ray of run that chose that time to


pierce the riven clouds.


 


I remember the men. The sweating guards


had chased the unicorn up hills,


down dells, through forest, field, and fen,


the shining horn a distant star they


never neared, and never could,


until the beast found me, and stopped, and knelt.


 


I remember the knife. The leering king


(whose glance made clear had he more time


there’d be one fewer virgin in his realm)


pulled from his belt a jagged blade and


with a single vicious stroke


detached the horn, and with it bloody skin.


 


I remember the scream. Not when the knife


sliced through the horn, but when the king


commanded the beast dragged away from me.


The unicorn shrieked then, in such despair


I knew his agony eclipsed by far


the pain caused by the knife: I saw


that he forgot one wound in another.


 


I remember the rope, the horn, the beast,


the men, the leering king, the knife, the scream.


But I remember most that I betrayed him,


remaining silent as the king gave orders.


I let the sweating men take him away,


Instead of taking him away with me.


 


I remember his eyes. He lay his head


upon my lap, and I knew then, without a doubt,


he would have let me mount him, carried


me away as swiftly as a steeping falcon dives.


But I looked back at hearth and home, and


as I hesitated, all was lost.


 


I remember it all. Half a century


has passed since then, and not a morning


dawns nor sunset fades that I


do not recall each detail of that day.


I live alone. I have no kin, no husband, and no child.


But I have memory…and I remember.




 

Poetry month poetry: Saint Billy

Today’s poem based on First Lines provided by Poet Laureate Gerald Hill. For once, it’s funny (well, to me; YMMV).

Previous poems: I Tumble Through the Diamond Dust, Virtuality, This is the Way the World Ends, The Last Thing Your Lips Touched, Facing the Silence, The Telling.

The first lines:

One time over in Fort Qu’Appelle

I nearly wet my pants

– Stephen Scriver, “One More Time” from All-Star Poet

I liked myself better

before I became a saint, those hours

– Joanne Weber “Dorothy Day: Annunciation” from The Pear Orchard

Saint Billy

By Edward Willett

One time over in Fort Qu’Appelle I

nearly wet my pants see I was

walking up the hill when the

stars went kinda wriggly and the

world turned black and white then I was

waiting in this room that was all

stainless steel and marble like I’d

come for an appointment with some

ritzy orthodontist with an

office in the sky.

There was no one at reception

but this big voice loud as thunder said that

God will see you now and then these

two big gold doors opened and I

went through and I saw Him sitting

at a fancy black desk He was

wearing a bright white suit and He

had a shiny gold face and his

hands were likewise shiny and He

stood up when I entered and I

swear to God he said to me well

Billy boy I’ll bet you don’t know

why you’re here and I said God

I surely don’t and he said well

I’ve brought you here because I think

that you should be

a saint.

And I said God I think You’ve got

Your wires crossed ’cause I don’t think

I’m good enough to be a saint I

said I drink too much and swear and

I sure like the ladies and there

was that time in P.A. when I…

God just waved his hand and said that

none of that stuff matters it’s

forgiven then He didn’t let me

talk no more ’cause I don’t think He

really cared to hear me then he

said I’m sainting so you can

talk to all them sinners that you

really like to hang with so that

maybe you can make them see the

errors of their ways and maybe

get them all to stop with all their

drinkin’ and their whorin’ and their

drivin’ after drinkin’ and their

gamblin’ and their droppin’ of

the final g’s on words.

Well what was I supposed to do I

couldn’t tell the Lord my God I

wasn’t gonna be a saint not

after He had gone to all that

trouble pulling me right up from

Fort Qu’appelle into the sky and

talking to me face-to-face right

there inside his fancy-schmancy

office up in heaven so I

said all right God I will be Your

saint and then the next thing that I

knew I was back down in Fort

Qu’appelle but now I had this kind of

halo on my head and while I

must admit the glow was kinda

handy while I found my way back

down the hill it sure got me some

real odd looks but then I guess God

wanted that ’cause there’s no doubt that

people listened while I talked or well they

stared at me at least which isn’t

maybe quite the same but still.

So I told them just what God told me and

while I can’t be sure if any

really stopped the drinkin’ and the

whorin’ and the drivin’ after

drinkin’ and the droppin’ of the

final g’s on words that’s still all

right because God told me it was

only their damn business if they

heard the stuff I told them and He

wouldn’t put the blame on me ’cause

they all had free will but there was

somethin’ that He didn’t say and

that was that myself would not be

able to go drinkin’ and a-whorin’ and a-gamblin’

and a-drivin’ after drinkin’ and so

now the only fun that’s left is

droppin’ all the final g’s on

all my words and frankly that just

don’t make up for all the other

stuff I used to get to do that

now I simply don’t.

And now my friends all tell me that I

ain’t no fun no more and frankly

I can’t argue with ’em ’cause that’s

sure how I feel too and so that’s

all that there is to it and it

don’t make any difference ’cause there

ain’t no way that God is ever

gonna haul me back up to his

fancy-shmancy office for a

halo-ectomy and I don’t

think he ever will until I’m

dead and then I’d just as soon he

didn’t ’cause of where I might spend

all eternity in case he did.

But all the same there’s this I have to say and it’s the

goddamned pardon the expression truth:

I liked myself better before I became a saint

those hours

were golden.

 

Poetry month poetry: The Telling

Another science fiction poem inspired by first lines provided by Saskatchewan Poet Laureate Gerald Hill each weekday to members of the Saskatchewan Writers Guild.

Previous poems: I Tumble Through the Diamond Dust, Virtuality, This is the Way the World Ends, The Last Thing Your Lips Touched, Facing the Silence.

The provided first lines:

On the beach, I am who I imagine

I am, a boy

– Elizabeth Philips, “Jackknife/1” from Torch River

the telling is the telling is the telling

stay with me a while

– Mary-Lou Rowley, “7” from Suicide Psalms



The Telling



By Edward Willett



The telling is the telling is the telling

The chant emerges from a hundred throats.

The rolling words rise with the swirling smoke,

bounce echoing from dripping cavern walls,

are swallowed by the darkness high above.

The telling is the telling is the telling

The white-clad priest appears upon his throne,

speaks blasphemy into the sudden hush.

“Before the Single Narrative took hold,

“There was a time when stories filled the world.”

The telling is the telling is the telling

“In freedom we could tell and write our tales,

“A thousand tales, no two of them of them alike:

“Imagine different worlds, and, greater yet

“Imagine ways that this world might be different.”

The telling is the telling is the telling

“Stay with me a while, and help me keep

“Imagination’s fire burning bright.

“To worship the Creator, we create,

“And thus the Single Narrative defy.”

The telling is the telling the telling

“When I arise, I am who I imagine!

“I am who I imagine!” cries the priest.

The crowd responds, “I am who I imagine,

I am who I imagine,” then repeats,

The telling is the telling is the telling

“And as I walk, I am who I imagine!

“I am who I imagine!” calls the priest.

And all respond, “I am who I imagine,

“I am who I imagine,” then once more,

The telling is the telling is the telling

“On the beach, I am who I imagine!

“I am…” A boy screams as a single shot

rings out, provides the priest a period

for his words. His white chest blossoms red.

The telling is the telling is the telling

And then he falls and dies, but not alone.

The boy dies next, and so do all the rest.

They told strange tales, now they pay the price:

the Single Narrative must be upheld.

The telling is the telling is the telling

I walk into the sun and sound of surf,

the chanted words still ringing in my ears,

and greet the raid’s commander with a smile

outside the darkened cave now filled with death.

The telling is the telling is the telling

On the beach, I am who I imagine,

a boy who serves the Single Narrative:

the only tale there is, and we who rule here

determine what it is, and who can tell it.

The telling is the telling is the telling

 

Poetry month poetry: Facing the Silence

It’s another poem based on two first lines of published Saskatchewan poems provided by Poet Laureate Gerald Hill! And…sorry, but I’m afraid it’s the end of the world again. Also, my little poetry project got mentioned at SF Signal today.

Previous poems: I Tumble Through the Diamond Dust, Virtuality, This is the Way the World Ends, The Last Thing Your Lips Touched.

The provided First Lines:

I light my cigarette

notice your eyes

– Glen Sorestad, “Cree Fishing Guide” from Jan Lake Poems

The fire dies, the cabin is black.

Here we feed the silence.

– Brenda Schmidt, “Night on An Old Trade Route” from More Than Three Feet of Ice

 

Facing the Silence

By Edward Willett

Are we the last?

There’s no way to tell.

Google is offline,

and CBC pundits

cannot be reached

for comment.

It came from the sky,

swallowed the cities,

gobbled the towns,

ate mountains and meadows,

forests and prairie,

sand, sea and sky.

A tsunami of night,

it drove us before it.

We prayed it would stop,

satiated, engorged.

(All prayers are answered:

But sometimes with “no.”)

The darkness kept coming,

and we kept retreating,

’til, trapped, we stopped here.

Blue sky-patch above us,

black walls all around us,

we’re kids in a well.

The darkness brings silence

that deafens, oppresses,

and crushes our words,

crushes our thoughts,

crushes our hope,

like a boot on a fly.

We wait in this cabin

where “normal” still reigns:

the steam from our tea mugs,

the crackle of fire.

But outside the windows lies

darkness and silence.

I light my cigarette,

notice your eyes.

The fire dies.

The cabin is black.

Here we feed

the silence.

 

Poetry month poetry: The Last Thing Your Lips Touched

Today’s slightly creepy poem, based on first lines provided by Poet Laureate Gerald Hill, which follow my poem. First lines of published Saskatchewan poems are being provided every weekday this month to members of the Saskatchewan Writers Guild, who are challenged to produce poems in response.

Previous poems: I Tumble Through the Diamond Dust, Virtuality, This is the Way the World Ends.

The first lines:

The last thing your lips touched:

my skin

– Shelley Leedahl, “A White-tailed Deer Stood Statuesque in the Curve of the Winding Lane” from Wretched Beast If I turn very quickly

I can just catch her moving.

– Kathleen Wall, “Landscapes With Absent Figure” from Time’s Body

The Last Thing Your Lips Touched

 By Edward Willett

The last thing your lips touched: my skin.

A kiss for love, a kiss for luck,

a touch of warmth in this cold place

where ancient, thwarted vengeance gives

a long-dead queen grim ghostly life.

We’d exorcised such things before,

with iron and salt and virgin blood.

With sacred spells and holy fire

a hundred revenants we’d wrapped

in death’s embrace and laid to rest.

But here, to guard the gold we sought,

stalked one whose power defied our faith,

defied our iron and salt and blood,

defied our spells and blessed flames,

devoured our light and plunged us into fear.

The last thing your lips touched: my skin.

The last words that you spoke were these:

“If I turn very quickly, I…

“…I can just catch her moving.”

You raised your holy sword. You turnedas quickly as a snake: but she

caught us. I felt the killing blow

and saw my quivering heart held high:

saw, too, your body, shining red,

flayed like a slaughtered beast upon the floor.

Now we are bound to our dread queen,

and like our monarch haunt these halls,

and slay the fools who seek our gold.

Our lives are but a fading dream.

The last thing your lips touched: my skin.

Poetry month poetry: This is the Way the World Ends

Another science fiction poem in response to the First Lines being provided by Saskatchewan Poet Laureate Gerald Hill every weekday in April. (My poems typically lag by a day or two: this poem is from the April 5 prompts.)

Previous poems in the series: I Tumble Through the Diamond Dust; Virtuality.

The First Lines were:

The best part of a man

is a woman, her softnesses

-Dave Margoshes, “Adam’s Rib” from Purity of Absence

I see it, sonofabitch

but I can’t believe it

– Jim McLean, “C.P.R. Hungarian Rhapsody” from The Secret Life of Railroaders

***

This is the Way the World Ends

By Edward Willett

“I see it, sonofabitch

but I can’t believe it!”

That pithy phrase

announced apocalypse.

Not quite “Cogito ergo sum,”

“And yet it moves,”

or “one small step,”

it still would have its place in history,

if history itself still had a place.

It Came from Outer Space

that old B-movie, was

rebooted, reimagined, staged

on every continent and every street,

and we were all mere players,

who strutted, fretted, bled and died,

to the last syllable of recorded time:

last Tuesday morning, 6 a.m.,

when the last woman died.

The best part of a man

is a woman, her softnesses

are where new human life takes root and grows.

But the last woman’s gone, and the last man

sets down these lines and waits upon his fate.

The rude beast slouches toward me,

And pace Eliot, the world ends not with bangs or whimpers,

But with a poem.

 

Poetry Month Poetry: Virtuality

Another science fiction poem in response to the First Lines being provided by Saskatchewan Poet Laureate Gerald Hill.

The first poem (along with more explanation) can be found here.

The First Lines were:

The woman who pierces

flesh for a living snaps

– Belinda Betker, “Pierce” from Fast Forward: New Saskatchewan Poets

it wasn’t the flu

the sad stones in my heart simply ran out of room

– Barbara Langhorst, “Romantic in the Twenty-first Century” from Restless White Fields

My poem:

Virtuality

By Edward Willett

The woman who pierces

flesh for a living snaps

the plastic cap that hides

the copper wire,

attaches a silver clip,

and with a mouse click hurls me from my body.

I never thought that I would come

To this sad room

To this sad place

I never thought that I’d exchange

The real life for the virtual.

But Pilate’s question, “What is truth?’

Would now be, “What is real?”

And in the end, what difference does it make?

The “real” has grown too heavy,

Dragged down by stones of sadness and regret.

Each failed dream has settled in my soul,

Like grim gray granite, lumps of lead,

Or Marley’s rattling chain.

The week before I came to meet

This cold-eyed woman and her drill,

I thought that viral armies had laid siege

To my embattled heart, each labored beat

A hard-fought sortie through grim enemy lines.

But then your email came from France,

And answered Pilate’s query.

Truth is, it wasn’t the flu.

The sad stones in my heart simply ran out of room

In cold “reality.” But virtuality, they say

Is infinite.

Perhaps in here my heart will grow,

Reduce the stones to pebbles,

And let my second life begin.

Poetry month poetry: I Tumble Through the Diamond Dust

For the month of April, SWG members are receiving two pairs of lines from Saskatchewan poems every weekday. Gerry Hill, the current Poet Laureate of Saskatchewan, is inviting people to write poems of response and email them to him; in November, there’ll be some kind of big poetry reading event. I’ve decided to try to take each pair of poems and craft, not just a poem, but a science fiction/fantasy/horror poem. I don’t think of myself as a poet, but I’m hoping that, like the dog who knows how to sing, the wonder will be simply that it’s done at all, whether than how well it’s done.


I plan to post all my poems this month on here because, well, why not?

 


The April 1 “first lines” were:


Stuck in the middle


of open space somewhere


-William Robertson, “Father” from Standing on My Own Two Feet

 

I got bit.


By what?


– Louise Halfe, “Valentine Dialogue” from Bear Bones and Feathers


 


My poem:


 


I Tumble Through the Diamond Dust


 


By Edward Willett


 


Stuck in the middle


of open space somewhere,


the Earth below my head,


the moon above my feet,


I tumble through the diamond dust


of light that fled from ancient suns


when life on Earth had just begun


to seethe and crawl and mate and die,


millennia of millennia


before a primate climbed a tree


and reached to touch the stars.


 


The moon below my head,


the Earth above my feet,


I tumble through the diamond dust


of my own frozen air,


future days I’ll never see


now marked by tombstones made of ice,


a glittering crystal snowflake wake


for my last lonely flight.


 


I tumble through the diamond dust


of ancient light and frozen air


while Hertz’s waves hiss empty in my ears,


as barren of voices and of hope


as of malice, the universe


uncaring, unconcerned, and unaware.


 


My heart beats slowly in my ears,


my final countdown, nearing zero.


 


We train for every risk, they say,


imagining the next thing


that could turn and bite us


 


a micrometeorite


a loose connection


a bad seal


 


I got bit.


By what?


I’ll never know.


 


Thump.


Thump.


 


…


 


Thump.


 


…


 


Launch.