Guest Poet Carol Ann Livingstone
I LIVE IN MANY HOUSES
It has been long
since the stinging sweetgrass
brushed my legs,
but not so long since you
and I touched.
I think of both and
try to decipher
which is home?
and I understand that all
that is love is home
all the sweetness of you
that can be touched and felt
all the sting
of feeling the distance
all of the dreams and desires.
I spend hours in fantasy,
it is where we have been
and where we will go
that creates our world as
we know it.
today
I live in many houses.
September 1997
Carol Ann Livingstone's Questions:
(1) does the reader have to understand fully what I am talking
about in order to appreciate this poem? It is a poem with much personal meaning and very
little explanation.
(2) Is it more descriptive than poetic?
Correspond with Carol Ann Livingstone at:
sanjose@cybermedia.com
with your ideas about this poem.
DARK NEST
Amongst the lingering smells of you warm
Sweetness comes a
Longing.
It is intoxicating, like your presence
When good feelings surround you.
I want to wrap myself completely
In this shroud, nightly.
And pay homage to the dark nest,
The comforting engulfment of your arms
And Pray.
This conscious earth,
These massive crowds of life,
Please be with me in this confusion.
Our union guides me and completes me
Gently folds me into peace.
I inhale the sweetness of you and am
Comforted once again.
September 1997
Carol Ann Livingstone's Questions:
Question: Does the shift in rhythm and thought pattern work- or is it too
disjointed?
Correspond with Carol Ann Livingstone at:
sanjose@cybermedia.com
with your ideas about this poem.
VELVET
Velvet
A Heavenly Suspension
Embryonic Fluid arms engulf
When I slip away from warmth
Safety
Familiarity
A cold cavern of midnight black
Swallows me
Empty
Panic Grips muscles and tendons
Shallow Breath
Startled I make the leap back
To find I never left the shelter
Velvet beneath me
A Heavenly Suspension
A sinking so gentle it overtakes me.
September 1997
Carol Ann Livingstone's Questions:
(1)Does the punctuation, or lack of it, work?
(2) This poem is meant to be in a formation, each
line centered one above the other. It tends to work
better when it is arranged visually in this way.
(3) Is it any good??
Correspond with Carol Ann Livingstone at:
sanjose@cybermedia.com
with your ideas about this poem.
The Albany Poetry Workshop