Poetry Snapshot

This is a poem that is evolving out of some of the Tomales/Flynn exercises (did I drink the Kool-Aid, or what?). It needs enough work that I was tempted not to post it, but there are some things that I am enjoying playing around with, so I'm going to make a commitment to it by posting it here. That's like a promise that I'll revisit it later, right? The original exercises that gave birth to this were, in some ways, similar to what I know about the Artist's Way in that it was just about getting things going, putting pen to paper and not lifting it up or correcting anything. We did about half a dozen seven minute exercises all centered around the postcard that you see copied above. I'm really sorry I didn't get the name and artist. If anyone knows, please fill me in!

Seven Minute Writing Exercise

The first seven minutes is a black and white postcard,
Three quarters of it beach, one quarter sky
A figure in front, bent over, looking down.
On the right, beyond the horizon, plume of flame,
Black smoke filling the right hand corner.

I don’t have to be looking at the picture to tell you
That I would not be looking at the plume of flame
Beyond the horizon either. I would be the guy
Looking at the sand, whatever those little shapes
Will turn out to be. Then again, I say that, but also

I think about the fire trucks and how I cannot resist
A fire truck, in seven minutes I cannot tell you
All the ways I love fire trucks so I will just say
A firefighter is someone who shoulders so much
Responsibility, without any kind of power to abuse.

Or like my boyfriend with the ground floor apartment
Across from the fire station on 1st between B and C
Used to say – “It’s the boots.” But he could say that
Because in those days he wore boots too and because
Even though loving a guy who smoked in the shower

Was not that different from staying in a building
That was burning down, still I stayed until he took steps
To start evacuating the building. And what I think about
When I look at the postcard again, is how maybe I didn’t
Mention that it’s aligned vertically, though you know

That mostly it’s a landscape surprised by a man looking
At his feet, and you’ll know about the plume of flame
Because we’d probably all mention that about the postcard
The way I doubt that I could say more than a sentence or two
About Pauly without mentioning the drinking, or how

With him Avenue B and C were the three quarters of the picture
That were sand, just so you know where he stood, and maybe
It’s not me looking at my own feet, or what’s in front of my face
After all. Aren’t those his boots that have been taken off
And sit pointing towards some other future, and isn’t he

The one looking into the horseshoe shape in the sand,
A shape that can be either good or bad, depending on whether
You let the luck run out like sand. Isn’t that him
Looking so intently at his own bare feet, the way
He looked at my face the last time I was in town and said,

As though he had never even seen me before
“You are a very powerful woman.” making me less
The person who carried him out of the burning building
And more the one who gave him a ticket for torching it in the first place.