POEMS for LENT • BEETLES

"Beetle" by Troy's Work Table.

Sidewalk chalk wash, sidewalk chalk, chalk pastels, and charcoal pencil on 12" x 12" concrete board.

---

"The men then sat upon the rotten floor, / and talked of how the beetles had got in, / and how they grew within the grain of oak and beech." —from "Beetles" by Ada Ludenow, as found in Small Events

---

As in yesterday's "Hive," today's "Beetles" is a sonnet breaking out of its form as it explores insects.

---

Numbness and not noticing what goes on around us leads to "disaster" in this poem.

---

I hear echoes of Kafka's The Metamorphosis and Orwell's Animal Farm in these lines. Yet the compression of the ideas of these works into such a small space lends the poem power and authority.

I echoed works by Albrecht Dürer and Shitao in my chalk drawing interpretation.

---

I heard the words of this poem scuttling about in my head throughout the day.

POEMS for LENT • HIVE

"Hive" by Troy's Work Table.

Sidewalk chalk wash, sidewalk chalk, chalk pastels, and charcoal pencil on 12" x 12" concrete board.

---

"what we serve, preserve, avowed in Latin murmurs" and "alchemical, nectar-slurred, pollen-furred, / the world's mantra us, our blurry sound" —from "Hive" by Carol Ann Duffy, as found in The Bees

---

"Hive" is one of the shorter poems in The Bees. It's a fractured sonnet of sorts. (Not all of the poems in this collection are about bees, but enough of the poems are that it is the predominant theme.)

---

This poem is filled with a wonderful buzz of language—rhymes at the end of lines, rhymes within lines, vowel sounds that excite the eye and tongue, simple words joined into compound words, the use of f and h and m and v to give "breath" and  "murmur" and "hum" to the poem.

---

This poem is a reminder to me that we each have a place to be within community, that we are "concelebrants." It is a nice pause within a week of reading poems mostly focused on loss or questioning existence. It is a poem that affords one a space to sit and reflect on the joy of being alive.

POEMS for LENT • EVOLUTION

"Evolution" by Troy's Work Table.

Sidewalk chalk wash, sidewalk chalk, chalk pastels, and charcoal pencil on 12" x 12" concrete board.

---

"So our toes and fingers were all roots, once touching, / and a body sometimes grown up / to a standing beast that later came loose from the earth, / nails painted red." and "Only real life has slower zig-zags, leaving its burn marks on us," —from "Evolution" by Allan Peterson, as found in Fragile Acts

---

This is such a strange poem. Flora begets fauna. Lightning becomes bone marrow.

(Who is the mad scientist / Creator here?)

Yet, in the strangeness is comfort and familiarity. There is a sense of belonging and a sense of home.

---

Forsythia are to Carson and Yoon as azaleas are to Yoon and Peterson.

---

Ultimately, I feel as though I have crawled out of the primordial slime of this poem and into a space that I don't necessarily understand but thoroughly enjoy. I am these bones. I am these words.

POEMS for LENT • BELL THEORY

"Bell Theory" by Troy's Work Table.

Sidewalk chalk wash, sidewalk chalk, chalk pastels, and charcoal pencil on 12" x 12" concrete board.

---

"(I touched the globe moving in my throat, a hemisphere sinking.)" and "Lie on a field lined with golden bells, loved." —from "Bell Theory" by Emily Jungmin Yoon

---

This poem rings and sings. There is rhythm and there is rhyme. There is exploration of language. And it is beautiful.

---

There is darkness. There is misunderstanding. There is insensitivity. There is racism. And it is ugly.

---

There is a reaching back. There is a being now.

---

There is some sort of balance that is found. There is a power that is reclaimed.

---

Like "Not the Forsythia" there is a field of forsythia. Once again we are amidst its blazing yellows, and we are amidst "vibrating bells in their mouths."

POEMS for LENT • THE MALDIVE SHARK

"The Maldive Shark" by Troy's Work Table.

Sidewalk chalk wash, sidewalk chalk, chalk pastels, and charcoal pencil on 12" x 12" concrete board.

---

"But liquidly glide on his ghastly flank / Or before his Gorgonian head;" and "Eyes and brains to the dotard lethargic and dull, / Pale ravener of horrible meat." —from "The Maldive Shark" by Herman Melville

---

The beings of creation are mostly indifferent to our presence.

There is beauty and horror in existence.

There is a dance between the pilot-fish and the shark they "serve" that we do not and cannot comprehend.

POEMS for LENT • MY SPIRIT SAID to ME

"My Spirit Said to Me" by Troy's Work Table.

Sidewalk chalk wash, sidewalk chalk, chalk pastels, and charcoal pencil on 12" x 12" concrete board.

---

"The next morning, my friend and I have walked down / from the village to help gather, when we hear the killing / committee coming for us.” and “I linger out over the sea, and my soul’s helper who has been / with me through the stories of my being says, 'You can go / back and change the story.'" —“You Can Change the Story, My Spirit Said to Me as I Sat Near the Sea” by Joy Harjo, as found in Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings

---

I like poems that challenge my assumptions. This poem by Joy Harjo does that. It blends the dream world and the real world. It brings mythology into our midst.

Simultaneously, this poem proposes things that I actually believe: (1) that there is value in the stories we tell ourselves; (2) that there is power in the stories we tell ourselves; and (3) that we can change the stories we tell ourselves, and therefore change the value and steal the power for ourselves.

---

The trickster in this case is a victim of violence and therefore “flips” the way that I expect the story to function. The trickster is not the protagonist, but a “minor” character, who nonetheless causes the story to move forward.

"When I return to present earth time, I can still hear the / singing." Even as the poem comes to a close, the worlds still merge and weave, wax and wane, in their encounters with one another.

I am satisfied with the conclusion of the story within the story. There is justice on the backside of potential injustice. There is truth in the telling.

POEMS for LENT • THE TOWERS

"The Towers" by Troy's Work Table.

Sidewalk chalk wash, sidewalk chalk, chalk pastels, and charcoal pencil on 12" x 12" concrete board.

---

“while others walked dead / into a fiery brisance, lost / in an eternity of Vermeer.” and “Apollo was at Ground Zero / because he knows everything / about bandaging up wounds. / Men dug hands into quavering / flotsam, & they were blinded by / the moon’s indifference.” and “your wings of beeswax & crepe singed beyond belief.” —from “The Towers” by Yusef Komunyakaa, as found in Warhorses

--

As far as I am concerned, Anne Carson’s poems in Red Doc> are hampered by form. In Yusef Komunyakaa’s “The Towers,” form helps to confine the poem and give it life.

There are two columns of poetry. The left “tower” begins with the word “yes,” while the right “tower” starts with the word “no.” Both reflect upon the everyday and ordinary lives of the men and women who died on 9/11 in the attack on the World Trade Center. Both reflect upon those of us who are mere mortals trying to reach for the realm of the gods—whether victim or infidel; whether working in the tower of Babel, striving for greatness in the afterlife, or attempting to touch the sun like Icarus.

---

There are so many poems in Warhorses that I could have chosen, but this is the one that speaks most fully to my heart.

It is a marriage of form and language. It is a marriage of contemporary America and ancient Greece. It is a marriage of questions and answers. (And then more questions.)

Ultimately, the poem feels holy to me. Sacred space on the page for now-hallowed ground.

POEMS for LENT • NOT the FORSYTHIA

"Not the Forsythia" by Troy's Work Table.

Sidewalk chalk, chalk pastels, and charcoal pencil on 12" x 12" concrete board.

---

"he doesn't let the herd eat the forsythia but / knows they like to be / amidst its blazing yellows." and "A / lone white one (Io) glows / like an idol and is Ida's / favorite." —from "Not the Forsythia" by Anne Carson, as found in Red Doc>.

---

From yesterday's dead goat to today's live musk oxen.

---

When Red Doc> was released, I ran and and bought it immediately. I was looking forward to it because it was promoted as a sequel to Anne Carson's earlier novel in verse, Autobiography in Red, which is one of my favorite books of poems. And then I opened the book and encountered its layout and form.

Supposedly, the format was "randomly" selected by the word-processing software that Carson was using and she was so enamored with the form that she kept it. In fact she dedicates the book "for the randomizer." I was angry at what I saw as the clunkiness of the form and what I perceived as the laziness of the poet.

With all of that being said, I recently decided to try my hand at reading the book again. It's a bit of a difficult read at times because the line breaks don't really follow the rhythm and meter of the words on the page. In other words, I have to read slowly and deliberately and "against the grain" to hear what is there. There is reward in such slow and attentive reading. It opens up the text despite the "randomizer" and the poet "getting in the way."

(Let's just say that I'm learning to like Red Doc>.)

---

I love the simplicity of the scene of "Not the Forsythia." G (formerly known as Geryon in Autobiography of Red, as well as in the poem by ancient Greek poet Stesichorus that was the inspiration for Carson) and Ida (a character new to these poems) are standing in a field as G watches his herd of musk oxen and Ida sketches them.

It is a scene of observation and beauty, of watching the world and being in it. Meanwhile, there is a simple conversation going on between G and Ida, and then misunderstanding perhaps. Or something else?

POEMS for LENT • BUZKASHI

"Buzkashi" by Troy's Work Table.

Sidewalk chalk wash, sidewalk chalk, chalk pastels, and charcoal pencil on 12" x 12" concrete board.

---

"She knows / not to be devoured is a perfect sentiment" and "He turns her face to the window: mountains / oddly still in the milk broth of oblivion." —from "Buzkashi" by Diana Khoi Nguyen

---

For me, this poem is a punch in the gut. It's imagery is both brutal and beautiful. It is about existence.

I don't completely understand the poem, which is why it intrigues me. There is a cultural barrier. There is a sports barrier. Until I knew what buzhashi was, I misunderstood the poem to be about the preparation of an animal for a meal. Now that I know it is not, the loss is tempered a bit by a potential win.

There is beauty at the edge of the abyss. There is longing for more time.

POEMS for LENT • ASH WEDNESDAY

"Ash Wednesday" by Troy's Work Table.

Sidewalk chalk wash, sidewalk chalk, charcoal, and chalk pastels on 12" x 12" concrete board.

---

"By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return." —GENESIS 3:19

"Teach us to care and not to care / Teach us to sit still. // Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death / Pray for us now and at the hour of our death." —from "Ash Wednesday" by T. S. Eliot

---

I've never really been one to give up something for Lent. Instead, I am more inclined to add something, usually an in-depth study of sorts.

This year, I have decided to delve into a new poem for each day of Lent. Two years ago, I spent my Lent in the poems of Robinson Jeffers. This year, my plan is to work through different poets and spend some time with each of them, and one of their poems that moves me, for a full day.

---

It seemed appropriate to start this Lenten journey of poetry with a poem about Ash Wednesday, so I turned to T. S. Eliot. "Ash Wednesday" wrestles with faith in the language of holy text and in the rhythms of ritual and rite. There is a "turning back" (repentance) and a bursting forth toward God and the holy. There is the collapse of one's self in the acknowledgment of one's sinful self and moving into the grace and mercy offered by the divine.

"Lord, I am not worthy."