LONG SENTENCES
Maybe it's because a big blockbuster is coming out which is a C.S. Lewis adaptation, and also that someone keeps telling me how they hate that author for being so overrated and for writing such long sentences, but I have been inclined to write poetry/prose in one long sentence as of late. Here are two and in each I try to tell a whole story in one breath. These stories are, of course, not true so if my mother or father happen upon this blog they can rest assured that I did not reveal anything sensitive about either of them. Purely fiction, of course.
my god
i go to my parents’ church, that’s with a capital C, to make my father happy, help him to save my soul, which I know is humming along just fine, to a different tune, without the stamp of approval of the pope, who wore a nazi uniform, and I see you there, on the cross, and I follow you, but not into these trappings, not here, not where I am only welcome as a nun, covering up the sins of the fathers, or a mother, or a virgin, or a virgin mother, but that’s it, and the old man sitting next to us mutters, the motor of dementia making audible his thoughts, that women should not be up there giving communion, it’s not their place, everyone has a place, a role, and I know, I’m being judged for wearing jeans, for not dressing up for God, but my god does not see denim, stained glass, gilded dogma, and my children blink in this light, eyes shine guiltless, without fear, know god doesn’t have a name, or can have whatever name she wants.
Black Bra
To my gay male friend from college I invited to go shopping with my mother and I when I needed to buy a black bra for a dance because I was wearing a black dress, and you had a chance to endear an Irish Catholic mother to you, and instead you decided to shock her, pretending you too were shopping for a bra, only yours needed to be leopard, and maybe it was a defense mechanism, and you were being funny, and I laughed and wanted you to shock her too, only now I’m 33 and I’m going to movie with my male gay friend and a female straight friend too, and my mother says on the cell as I try to find a parking spot, “Good thing you’re going with another person, you don’t want people to think you’re a fag hag,” and I’m running late, and I know she’s kidding, and I know she’s not, and I blame her, and I blame you, and I blame me too as I try not to laugh and say, “Mom, that’s not nice.”
Phew.
my god
i go to my parents’ church, that’s with a capital C, to make my father happy, help him to save my soul, which I know is humming along just fine, to a different tune, without the stamp of approval of the pope, who wore a nazi uniform, and I see you there, on the cross, and I follow you, but not into these trappings, not here, not where I am only welcome as a nun, covering up the sins of the fathers, or a mother, or a virgin, or a virgin mother, but that’s it, and the old man sitting next to us mutters, the motor of dementia making audible his thoughts, that women should not be up there giving communion, it’s not their place, everyone has a place, a role, and I know, I’m being judged for wearing jeans, for not dressing up for God, but my god does not see denim, stained glass, gilded dogma, and my children blink in this light, eyes shine guiltless, without fear, know god doesn’t have a name, or can have whatever name she wants.
Black Bra
To my gay male friend from college I invited to go shopping with my mother and I when I needed to buy a black bra for a dance because I was wearing a black dress, and you had a chance to endear an Irish Catholic mother to you, and instead you decided to shock her, pretending you too were shopping for a bra, only yours needed to be leopard, and maybe it was a defense mechanism, and you were being funny, and I laughed and wanted you to shock her too, only now I’m 33 and I’m going to movie with my male gay friend and a female straight friend too, and my mother says on the cell as I try to find a parking spot, “Good thing you’re going with another person, you don’t want people to think you’re a fag hag,” and I’m running late, and I know she’s kidding, and I know she’s not, and I blame her, and I blame you, and I blame me too as I try not to laugh and say, “Mom, that’s not nice.”
Phew.
posted by J.B. Rowell at 7:40 AM
4 Comments:
J.B.- Love the bra one especially. I have the opposite problem. I tend to write in short lines. And although I can capture power in the shortness, I'd like to explore longer writing with some meat in the lines.
Hi Michelle - thanks - I like short lines in your work - today's poem post (poest?) of yours was especially effective - I've had that feeling - nice ending too.
I like the rambling nature of the language in these poem--the thoughts do not ramble, they have great coherency. I think this technique is definitely worth exploring for you.
Thanks Amy - it's sort of how I talk. :) I'll try some more . . . love your blog - great poem posts.
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