Monday, October 13, 2014

Branch 1: Locks and Keys

My life had found itself collected on a beautiful and challenging path for the last to years with a woman, I still to the moment, have a great love for.  It had found its' apex however, where the understanding of love needed to shift. And, in some sense, it is now a new beginning .

Recent additions to life:
-Teaching American Lit & AP Lit/Comp
-Brown Belt in Kung Fu
-Single/New Apartment
-Reinvigorating my Poetic Spirit

I wrote this piece early yesterday.  It began as a free-verse and went through many shifts, pauses, stops, and changes.  And, at that final moment in time, yesterday, my eyes finally saw it for what it was becoming-- what it  has now become, a "Concrete Poem."

This is a form I have very rarely wrote in since elementary school or workshops in college classes.  It designed itself, however, as I wrote through my 2nd draft in pen and paper and ended up as the following below.

Can you see the images?  What are they?



It is still a draft obviously, but it felt good to take creative ownership of my new space.
Could not quite get the right format below, so I also attached the above picture.
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Through the Gate


It has been a summer-spring of two years,                     
Two years of…                                                   Vertical root                                       vertical feet
Vertical trunk                                     vertical chest
Vertical branches                             vertical hands
        And                                                         and
Vertical leaves                                   vertical minds




gravity cannot
                                                                        water
growth of                                                            be out-longed
                                Still the                                                                 or out-timed.

                                of vertical                                                            to now face
                                Two years                                                           and force.

The                                                                        the
Leaves                                                                  minds
Branches                                                             hands
Trunk                                                                    chest
Roots                                                                    feet

The exiled-exhale of two twined lungs that now push out and away.
Chest concave                                                                   the closing of eyes
Shoulders dissolve and            leading to                     the closing of windows,
Ankles sink                                                                        doors, and  curtains.

Through the gate, keys are re-exchanged and the unlocked becomes
once                                                                                                       again.