Creation Story on Magnolia Drive, Cleveland (by Philip Metres)
Philip Metres - poet, translator, educator
[photo taken by Jesus Crisis at Cleveland's Literary Cafe on 9/11/2008]
Creation Story on Magnolia Drive, Cleveland
The dregs of dried jasmine in the sink, pear slices over flakes in a wooden bowl.
Once there was a woman floating in a cloud, looking down. Someone carrying a cello along the sidewalk, against the wind, as if she were dragging a partner in a marathon
dance, trying not to fall. Once a car turned over, woke from its dream, and wandered backward down the drive. Once a turtle sat sunning in the middle of the street, neck outstretched, eyes closed, holding up the world.
Once there was a nickel, a dime, slipped into the parking meter: fifteen minutes of borrowed time. Fennel spines sticking out of a paper sack, a drought-split tomato bigger than a fist. Our local gangster, gold chains around his neck, cradled the cardboard carton, fingered each egg for cracks.
Mid-morning drizzle, back home, you talking pathology blues to your sister on the phone. And wind shushing the willows. On the floor below, the Greens outlining the risks of transporting plutonium. And wind shushing the willows. Dumping the rancid vegetables in the backyard. A stopped-up toilet, rising out of itself. And wind shushing through willows, working to strip the branches bare.
Upon a time once. Once there was she, once there was me, and not yet three: oil of safflower, sweet almond and sesame. And lovely flanks, and a rough tongue tracing a flower. Calendula and rosemary: not yet three. (You were falling, falling). And downstairs, someone cleaning dishes in a kitchen. And hair sweeping over legs like a silk fan. And thunder, and thunder, and a ripple and shudder of the blinds, O and O and O—wind breathing sweet magnolia.
This piece appears in Metres' prize-winning collection To See the Earth
(Cleveland State University Press, 2008)
and is included in the Crisis Chronicles Library by permission
All rights remain with Philip Metres
Visit Philip Metres online at www.philipmetres.com
Follow his blog at http://www.behindthelinespoetry.blogspot.com/
Drop him a line at pmetres@jcu.edu
Order To See the Earth and other fine books by Philip Metres from Amazon:
Categories: Cleveland,Metres (Philip),Poetry,2000s,American
Thanks, JC JB, for the digital hand! I hope you're doing well. I've been underground (as in, Notes from Underground) and really out of poetic commission of late, so it's nice to see words bloom when this tree's been hibernatory.
This one goes out to the Friends Meeting in Cleveland, who offered for us to live as semi-proprietors in their wonderful digs on Magnolia Drive. If only there were more Friends (Quakers) in the world...
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You're welcome, Philip! I consider it a great honor to feature your work here.
Sometimes the creative field needs to lay fallow for a period - and before you know it, the ground's more fertile than ever.
And peace and best wishes to the Friends. I don't know any locally. But when I was in prison, several Friends with whom I was penpals were invoved in prison "ministry" and protesting wrongs like the abuse of prisoners and the death penalty. They were also strong proponents of education and sent free books to inmates.
Things have been busy at home, since my wife's daughter and four of our grandchildren (ages 6, 5, 4 and 3) moved in with us recently. But I'm hoping to write a blog about your brilliant reading at the Literary Cafe on 9/11 in the next 24 hours, if humanly possible.
http://crisisblog.crisischronicles.com
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I love this poem and especially that the form. My background is in prose and I'm much more used to paragraphs over stanzas. (Now that's written, that's sounds rather silly but it's true!)
I suppose it would be called that hybrid, prose poetry, simply because of the paragraphs.
Regardless the imagery here is beautiful. I particularly like the turtle in the street, the shushing willows, and "not yet three."
Please give us more Metres!
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Poet Lament
Working out from the first line to the last
this poem was it written on a day much like this one
the theme and the rhyme scheme seems like one that eye have made
every now and then eye go ahead and write them
sure that it was not the same as one so smartly penned then
the prose poem was created for people who make idea poems
then write the feelings deep inside
they do not always make a rhyme
but always a lament
Working back from the last line to the first
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Thank you, Pinky and Charlax!
I called it a "prose poem," though some might say that's a contradiction in terms. And though I'd call this piece very poetic, I would definitely not call it prosaic. So maybe "prose poem" is not the best description.
This piece is very different from the two Metres poems I've posted previously: The Ash Tree and Patronymic.
He granted me permission to include five of his poems in the library - so there are two more to come in the near future. All five come from his book To See the Earth, which is excellent throughout. I had a hard time deciding which five to feature here because I loved them all.
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Like this.. somehow brings to mind a hint of the hindu legends of the avatars of Vishnu for me... bizarre as that may sound. I think it is the car turning over and seemingly suddenly becoming a turtle .. almost like a dream... that reminded me of it... the rest has a remotely asian quality about it that kept me there.. Anyway .liked this.
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Cool way of looking at it... thanks, misbegotten!
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One of the secret base texts for this poem is the Iroquois Creation Story. Happy Indigenous People's Day, everybody!
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