Not Gonna

‘Some things,’ the father said, ‘a girl don't flaunt.’ 
But straightaway she told him, ‘I don't care,
Not gonna live but in the world I want.’
And then her father asked, ‘Who else was there?’
To that she wouldn’t answer but to say,
‘My baseball hat, my bicycle and me—
That’s who was there. All them others—they
Don’t matter. Thumped me good, but you should see
What I done them.’ The girl’s father sighed,
Admitting—as he wiped her bloody nose—
‘I wish we’d learn to live, some, side by side, 
But life is real, earnest, mostly prose.’
  ’Supposedly, but that don't make it true,’
  She said. 'Just means there’s blood in poetry too.’


February 5th 2024
By me, Patrick Gillespie

• This sonnet is for my friend, Mr Thomas, and for the sake of the line “Life is real, earnest and mostly prose”, and comes from Richard Sewall’s biography, The Life of Emily Dickinson. I’d like to think that Emily would approve.

like petals

          Now, finally, she’s home—
Midtown Manhattan, thirteenth floor. From
Her kitchen window she can almost glimpse
The autumn leaves of Central Park, falling
As windows, streetlights, advertisements light
The brazen interruptions of the street
And crosswalks. She could see it all—there where
A taxi driver whistled at her ass;
The bus stop where the teen-aged boy had told her
To smile; the woman with the Pomeranian
Who said she’d once had posture just like hers
And recommended her podiatrist.
“To think what shoes have done for my career!”
Adding, “Between us women.”
                                        Taking off
Her skin is never easy. She’s worked hard
To wear it tight at hip and thigh. First, over
Her head, then shoulders, breasts and belly; left
Then right, hitching her hips, until her skin
Lies at her feet. As any woman does
She keeps a shade of skin for each occasion
While wishing she could just be comfortable
In any skin at all. But next are muscles.
The rectus femoris of her legs and soleus,
The fanning terminus of each that binds sinew
To bone. She gently peels these from each other
And with a surgeon’s patience she unties
The tendons anchoring bone to bone. Each muscle
She peels away reminds her of an oyster—
They’re just as slippery and jelled between
The fingers, and somehow smell of brine
And seaweed. If she isn’t careful, sometimes
She’ll pinch them absentmindedly and bruise them.
Asked if she is sore she’ll answer, lying,
“I pulled a muscle exercising”. And always
There’s blood. Her lover claims he wouldn’t mind
But he has never seen her in this state.
She mostly keeps the blood from staining clothes
But when she’s taking off her muscles one
By one there’s always blood that soaks into
Stray garments or a bed sheet (the muscles
Themselves she spreads like garments). 
                    “You’re a bicep,”
She says, “and you’re a gluteus medius.”
Her favorite muscle is the gluteus maximus—
A great thick slab of blood and tissue—hers
And his alike (although she’s never seen him
Shed his skin). Her uterus is beautiful
And her favorite organ. She likes
To spread it out the way she sees it diagrammed
In writing and anatomy—the stalk
Of the vagina branching into ovaries—
The fimbriae like petals. She cherishes
Her heart, lays it on her pillow. (There
To dream, she likes to think). The hands are tricky—
The ulnar and the thread-like median nerves;
So many that you’d think a woman’s soul
Were at her fingers tips. She peels away
The brevis and opponens pollicis
And lastly plucks her tongue and eyes out. All
That’s left—her brain. She sometimes wonders whether
Those skulls with holes in them were womens’ skulls—
A way to free themselves from even that:
To pluck out brains and all.
          But drilling holes
In skulls, she thinks, is gruesome. She’s content
To peel off nerve and sinew. She stands
Before the mirror and admires herself
(And is, at last, herself). Her glistening bones
Are white. Tomorrow she will have to do
What she’s undone and cover up her lovely bones—
Restore the bloody garment strip by strip
And choose a flattering skin. She wouldn’t mind
To someday let her lover see her for
Herself (for who she really is) but then,
For now, enough to let him think he knows her.
She doesn’t want to scare him off. So many boys
Are squeamish.
          Still standing at the mirror she
Admires her pelvic bones. How could a baby,
She wonders, ever fit through those? She stretches.
You wouldn’t think a skeleton would stretch,
But now she feels light-hearted. She skips
Into the living room. Next to the couch
She’s stacked her favorite books. She doesn’t care
For horror. She’s in heaven reading fantasy
And science-fiction. If not these, she’ll read
Non-fiction—How to Simplify One’s Life:
Ten Easy Steps! She worries she owns too much.
Her life is cluttered by possessions. She
Could be a world traveler, raconteur,
An expat artist in Seville if only
She didn’t own so many shoes (the shoes,
The books, the plants, the litter box and cat).
If not for these she’d be by now a novelist,
Pianist, a Nobel winning Chemist
(If only she could lose a little weight).
Who’d ever think the xiphoid process
Could itch? She scratches with a chalky finger—
Scraping bone on bone.
                    She can’t help but worry.
What if she never finds a lover willing
To see her as she is?—accept her?—love her
Despite her flaws?
                    But if he’s willing, she’ll
Disrobe for him. She’ll show him how the body
Falls from bone like blood-soaked petals—and just
As beautifully; and if he lets her, she
Will strip him, layer by layer, to the bone
And snug his beating heart next to her own;
And then what’s more, she’ll trade a floating rib
For his and his for hers; and if they’re buried
Together (all their bones a jumble) this
Will be the explanation—that just like this
These two made love. These two were lovers after all
And soulmates.
          Such absurdity, she thinks,
Is better left to romance. Out of habit
She airily licks a bone-dry finger’s tip,
And parts the pages of her favorite book
(A little something, she admits, escapist);
But life can be so ordinary, hers
Especially. She’s almost grateful being
Alone; able, without explanation, to say, This
Is who I am.

          like petals | April 14 2023
          by me, Patrick Gillespie

• I wrote this poem yesterday, in one sitting. I was inspired by another poem that I misread—a particular line. I was so taken by the image of a woman taking off her skin that the poem more or less wrote itself. I’ll be adding it to my collection of noirish poems: witches, monsters, and the weird.

Erlkönigin

• This poem is based on the Goethe’s famous poem – Erlkönig.
• Schubert wrote an equally famous song for piano and voice based on the poem. Here is an orchestrated version (not orchestrated by Schubert). For those who don’t speak German (I do, by the way) this comes with English subtitles.
• Here is an AMAZING animated excerpt. The complete video, for a price, can be found at http://www.theerlking.com/.
• And here it is sung by Jessye Norman.
• I just recently posted an astonishing new video based on Goethe’s poem, you can watch it here.

[Not a great reading of my poem – but here it is. There are a couple of mistakes and I may try it again when it’s not midnight.]

The Seven Tales of the India Traders: The Third Day

Told on third day, after Pu-liang Yi’s Story of the Second Day

Said one trader to another: “Mistress Pu-liang Yi’s has left me as thoughtful as the nightingale that sings of nothing but thorns and roses. Let’s hear a fable of amusement!” Then the other traders agreed that they should hear Liang-chieh next.  “It has been good day for travel, let’s have a goodly fable to match it.

Liang-chieh’s Story

I cannot match Yün’s thoughtfulness and I do not have Mistress Yi’s depth of feeling. I am as shallow as a ditch. But you say I have humor and wit! Ha! Didn’t we see the sun until its very nose sunk into the southern plains and didn’t we see how the birds followed after it? When I was a child I wished to be a poet but my father said he would sooner clothe an ox in tailored silk than raise his son a poet. He made me a merchant, bless him. Here is my tale!

The Monkey and the Crane

“Ha!” said the Monkey. “Love is just a word!
“What good’s a thing that can’t be seen or heard?
“What use? You cannot shake it from a tree
“Or root it from the earth. What use to me
“Or anyone? The tiger still must hunt,
“And if you cry out “Love!” it will not blunt
“Her appetite. She’d eat me all the same
“And leave me no one but myself to blame!”

*

The Crane was next. She said: “I know
“That love will never melt midwinter snow.
“It is not rain to April buds or earth
“To summer growth. The measure of its worth
“Cannot be judged by any worldly art
“Yet love is life and summer to the heart.”

*

The Crane and Monkey were the last to speak,
Then Lao-tsu said: “I see that some are meek,
“The lion and tiger proud. The hummingbird
“Is quiet. The elephant is loud. A herd
“Of bison will uproot a field. A crow
“Will squat unnoticed even in the snow.
“As all of you must know I have two suns.
“When one is in my hat the other runs
“From east to west. When one sun sets I lay
“The other in the east to rise. This way
“The sun is out no matter what the hour.
“Yet I have had no time to pick a flower
“No time to rest beneath a shaded wood
“Or sleep. Sleep would be nice. So, if I could,
“I’d like to find out two from all of you
“To whom I’ll give my suns. Between the two
“The world should still have sunlight while I rest.
“I cannot say which one of you is best
“Yet given what each said on love I’ll choose
“The monkey and the crane—the two whose views
“Were most extreme. I find each sun a jewel
“And hope if either animal’s the fool
“The other may be wise. At least one sun,
“That way, remains—a better end than none.”

*

Though the other animals feared the worst
The Crane and Monkey stayed apart at first,
Just as the Monkey’s sun set in the west
The Crane was taking hers from out her nest.
By turns they kept the sunlight round the earth,
That was, until, the Monkey’s usual mirth
Made his sun seem the brighter one to him;
And so, one day, he swung from limb to limb
Until he found the jungle lake he knew
The Crane most liked. From there he climbed into
A nearby tree until she was in sight.

*

“Ha!” He cried. “Your sun is not so bright!
“I’ve seen mine up when yours is in your nest
“And even when mine’s setting in the west,
“Yours rising makes not half the fire of mine!
“This afternoon I’ll climb a mountain pine
“That’s stretched its limbs as far as heaven’s roof
“And there I’ll lift my sun to yours as proof
“That mine is like a plate of beaten gold
“And yours a tarnished copper dulled and old.”
“Oh!” the Crane replied. “I had not thought
“To set one sun against the other! Not
“Because I was afraid! It may be true
“That your sun’s brighter, just that I know too
“It is not light but warmth that brings forth life.
“Yet if it puts an end to any strife
“I’ll grant your sun’s the brighter of the two.”

*

The Monkey thought on this. “This will not do!”
He said at last. “It stands against all reason!
“As any fool knows well the hottest season
“Is when the sun is brightest in the sky.”
To which the Crane responded: “Then why not try
“Your sun against my own where all can see?
“The world be judge instead of you or me.”
“Agreed,” the Monkey said, “as long as they pick mine!”

*

Instead of finding out a mountain pine,
When it was next the Monkey’s turn to take
His sun, he put it back instead to make
It climb again (though now from west to east!);
And to be sure its backward motion had not ceased
He sat and watched until he saw each sun
Was climbing slowly toward the other one.
The animals had never seen them both
At once! The smallest hid in undergrowth
And those that couldn’t just as quickly ran
Into the jungle fearing the work of man.
The Monkey saw and jeered at every one.
“Ha!” He said. “I see that even tigers run!
“Why if I’d known it was so easy, I
“Would long ago have put them in the sky
“And left them there.” To which the Tiger said:
“You silly Monkey! Tell us why instead
“Of gloating, why you’ve put both suns together.”
“Simple!” said the Monkey. “Tell me whether
“My sun’s the brighter or the crane’s!” And when
The Crane came next the Tiger asked again
The reason but she said the same. ‘The two
‘Of us alone could not decide. We’ve come to you!’

*

Then all the animals began to talk
And there were some who even dared to walk
From underneath the jungle shade till one
By one the others came to pick a sun
Until, as with the Crane and Monkey, they
Were at a loss to choose and could not say
Which one was best. The Snake, the first to speak,
Said: “I’ve seen both already at their peak.
“If any one of you were made to crawl
“As I, you’d know the earth is cold. For all
“The light reflected in a field of snow
“There’s nothing lives for long where those winds blow—
“The earth is made no warmer by that light
“When even through the longest summer’s night
“It’s warm. I’ll take the moonlight in July
“To January’s sun!” The Owl said in reply
That she liked neither sun. She said:“I knew
The world without them, for then I flew
“And there was never sun to light my way.
“What needed I the sun to hunt my prey
“Who hears the fieldmouse toeing through the wheat?
“In the dead of night the tiger’s not so fleet
“As I! Let all this daylight be undone!”
To which the Tiger said: “I like the sun
“That burns the brightest burning like my heart.
“I like it glistering on the breath at start
“Of day or brightly watching like my eyes
“At evening from the fields before it lies
“In shadow. When it speckles through the tree
“Against the forest floor it looks to me
“As though a tiger left his paw prints there,
“Aglow, before returning to his lair.
“I like the sun that’s burning like my heart.”
The Elephant spoke next, saying: “I part
“With all of you in what you’ve said. Of all
“I can remember best and best recall
“A time when there was both a night and day.
“The dust I throw atop my back to stay
“The sun was what the night was to the earth,
“A cooling balm against that heat as great in worth
“As all the world’s waters. There is none
“Who live for long where there is only sun
“And wind. This world without the passing night
“Is like a desert, the sun like a blight
“And all reduced to dust. Surely we must drink
“To live, and sleep at night. I cannot think
“The world was always meant to have two suns.”

*

“Ha!” said the Monkey. “Where all this runs
“Is anybody’s guess. It should be plain
“By now the sun belonging to the Crane
“Is neither warm nor brighter than my own!”
To which the Crane replied: “I should have known.
“To teach a Monkey reason can’t be done!
“Why I could sooner teach a snail to run
“Or an ostrich to dance a roundelay!
“If nothing else this, at least, is plain as day!”

*

The Tiger interrupted both. He said:
“You’d better look into the sky instead
Where both your suns have nearly reached high noon!”
Then both the Crane and Monkey saw that soon
The suns would have to meet! As if to flee
The Monkey clamored to the nearest tree.
The Crane cried out and leapt into the air;
Both knew well there was little time to spare.
The Monkey climbed the limbs by twos until
The suns hung just beyond his outstretched hand;
And even when he did his best to stand,
His tail wrapped round the branches topmost stem,
He could not grapple either one of them.
The Crane, as quickly as she could, tried too
And strained against the winds until she flew
Beside the suns but then she could not choose.
She cried “I cannot tell whose sun is whose!”
And sure enough the Monkey could not say.
He pointed, scratched his chin, looked this way
Then that. And by the time they both decided
It came too late for next the suns collided!

*

So much light none had ever seen. And still
The sky grew brighter by the moment till
There came a sound as if two great bells
Had each been struck. Then like cockleshells,
Each thrown against the other mid-air,
The smaller of the two was shattered, there,
In countless pieces, scattered through the sky!
Not a creature dared to lift an eye
But stayed where each had fled and not a sound.
Just the Monkey who’d fallen to the ground —
Felled branch by branch until he’d struck the earth.
He checked if he was still his usual girth —
His head and then his bottom. All was there.
And looking he could do no more than stare.
His sun now glowed a thin and papery light —
A watery silver hardly half so bright
As what it was. He saw the sky aglow
As with a sparkling dust. It seemed as though
The brilliance of his sun was swept away
And all the pieces sprinkled through the half-lit day.
His fiery sun was gone.
And yet the Monkey thought he’d never known
A sight as beautiful as stars and moon,
And felt content to stare all afternoon.
“Ha!” That’s all the Monkey ever said.
Some held it came from landing on his head.
But others said they’d rather grasp the joke –
And though they tried the Monkey never spoke.
“Ha!” he said. That was all. The other sun,
Jolted from its westward course, had spun
Unbroken far into the southern sky.
Yet even so the Crane still flew close by
As if she feared to let it from her sight
Unless it whirl unwatched into the night

*

Lao-tsu didn’t see the suns collide
But napping in a meadow close beside
A brook he’d woken up to find a moon
And stars had splashed the fading afternoon
With light — some stars were falling from the sky
And some left sparkling trails where they passed by.
He rubbed his eyes before he looked again
And stared, his mouth agape, and knew by then
Some unknown mischief had unfixed the world.
It looked as if a giant’s rage had hurled
The sun as far as earth and sky still met.
He thought it seemed to topple there and yet
He still could see the crane against its light
Before it finally rolled into the night.
“Where are my suns?” he cried and rushed to where
He’d left them in the crane and monkey’s care,
Yet not a single animal would say.
The snake lodged underneath a rock to stay
Until the sun returned. The owl had flown.
The Tiger skulked the jungle’s dark alone.
The elephant recalled a darker night
Before the monkey’s sun had left its light
In splintered pieces. Alone among them all
The monkey sat absorbed by what he saw,
Unmoved from where he’d fallen from the tree.
He’d curled and propped his head against his knee
To watch the spinning stars. Lao-tsu cried:
“I see the crane fly south and thought she tried
“To catch the sun before it slipped away!
“I see, as with the remnants of the day,
“The night is dusted with a glittering light!
“I see a ghostly ball ascend the night
“As if it were the shadow of a sun!
“From this I cannot reason what you’ve done!”
The monkey only looked dissatisfied.
“Ha!” he said before he moved a branch aside.
Then Lao-tsu stared at him a little while
And could not say if it were simply guile
Or if the monkey also couldn’t reason why,
Till finally both sat gazing at the sky
Together with their backs against the tree.
There was a moon and countless stars to see.
Then he finally spoke once more that night,
He said: “The sky and earth will of themselves be right.”

“Ha!”

Here Ends Liang-chieh’s Tale

Followed by Ji-Yuan’s Story on the Fourth Day .

As on a sunny afternoon…

Opening Book: The Green Gate Page 74-76

Opening Book: All Hallows’ Eve Pages 62-71 (Part 3 of 3)

Continuing Part II.

Opening Book: All Hallows’ Eve Page 52-61 (Post 2 of 3)

Continuing Part I.

End of Part II

Continue Part III

Opening Book: All Hallows’ Eve Page 43-51 (Post 1 of 3)

The first third of the narrative poem – All Hallows’ Eve. I wrote it as a way to teach myself Blank Verse. There were several years between the start and the finish – though I wasn’t working on it all that time. The poem was inspired by Keats’ Hyperion. I wanted to match its length and bring blank verse back to narrative. If you hear any instructor, critic or reader bemoaning the death of narrative blank verse, send them here! It’s alive and well in me and my poems.

End of Part I

Continue Part II

Opening Book: Come Out! Page 41-42

• I changed a line in this poem:

From: From off the floor where still its veins had bled.
To: Off the floor where still its veins bled through.

• I think this was my twentieth try at reading this. What I would really love is for an actress or another reader, a woman preferably, to give it a try. If there are any takers, and if you like the poem enough, let me know.