A Capital Affair

Tags

character sketches, creative process, Elaine Stirling, humour, narrative poetry, novel writing

I paid a call today
upon a gentleman
of capital repute who
spends his days upon
an island in a mansion
noncorporeal and pores,
or so I’m told, over his assets.

I found him, though,
outside with no portfolio
in sight, on a wrap-around
verandah, in a linen suit and
boater’s hat, a ten of hearts
stuck in the band.

The purpose of my visit, Sir—

I know why
you have come,
he said, and bade
me sit upon a swing
of woven cane that rocked
with some ferocity whene’er
I took my feet from off
the floor—but worse,
in planting firm my soles,
the swing rebelled
and threw me off.
Three times I flew
across the porch, a
squawking crane, before
the gentleman whose laughter
shook the eaves and smelled
like cedar chips and tide
pools of Madeira said:

The swing is quite a
marvel, no? It will slow
when you let go. As I have
told 10,000 presidents and
plutocrats, the most important
things in life revolt against
both feet upon the ground.

A maid in lace
arrived with tea while I
swung back and forth so
hard my bones were
loosening the sea and sky
the mansion and the questions
I’d intended to put well to him
swirled in hurling tones of
puce and pome—bleeaaaagh!

Your tongue, I heard
the fellow say. Rest it in
the center of your mouth.
Let go your need to prattle
and opinionate. The world
will turn just fine without
your constant, cranking,
over-educated urgency.

I did as he suggested
and eventually, the motion
of my ever-present, non-
directed, aggravating
energy decelerated and…
I found myself in poplin
with my slippered feet
a-dangling, no evidence
of anything, apart from
strange attire, embarrassing.

The gentleman
picked up the tiny
silver tweezers from
the china bowl of
sugar cubes. One
lump…or thousands?

Your word, he carried on,
as Word will do, preceded
you. I understand you’ve hit
a juggernaut of flaccid minds
and rubber necks, and now
you know not where to turn
to think without upsetting
apple carts and moral
codes and labour laws
and anti-trusts and love
affairs and laissez-faires…

I knew from his biography
the gentleman was sharing
all he’d struggled with in nearly
fourscore years of life until
a clot no bigger than a lentil
reached his heart and showed
him with a flash of light so
blinding white he thought
he’d died (he had) but in that
great illumination too he knew—

And there he stopped.

He knew. He knew.
Knew what? The cost?
I finally ventured.

Yes. Of what,
do you suppose?

The swing that held
me with such stillness
creaked and started to
lurch forward, and my feet
so nearly touched the floor
I felt its grain and heard
its oaken warning: No!

I lifted limbs
with gratitude
and tucked them
underneath my skirt
and drank my sweetened
tea and thought of all
I had been trained
with humourless
rigidity to think

of me
of him
and systems
we call politic
and passionate
and treacherous
and lecherous

and just as quickly
as I thought, the issues
I’d assigned such gravity
they flowed away. For free.
No cost to me or him
or anyone. And in that
nearly total clarity,
a question: Do I
have to…?

Die to see the light?
he said and took a walking
stick with silver tip from
near his chair.

I don’t believe he
answered, not in words,
and neither spoke for hours
while we toured his private
island, though I see here
in my notes, I wrote:

Injurious self-government
is all I need to overthrow.

~~~

One of my creative processes in writing long fiction is to create character sketches in poetic form. This is one of them.

© Elaine Stirling, 2014

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No Claim

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Elaine Stirling, poetry, sonnet

You will not see a flake of snow stand tall
upon a pedestal, proclaiming to
have grown the crocus, though it’s clear to all
when winter’s passed the marriage of the two.

Fire does not boast to ash the ravages
it laid across the land, nor medals pin
to lightning bolts for active services.
What’s burnt lies cold for new fires to begin.

The moribund of all is elsewhere born
with fingers, fins or manacles. No count
to keep, no need for sheepish glances torn;
desire will dispense her full amount.

The grapes we stomped have nearly turned to wine;
the stones we cast have laid a path sublime.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2014
While I would have loved to photograph the crocuses from my garden, they’d have needed stems eight inches long to reach above the snow. The beautiful blooms featured here come from http://www.sodahead.com.

Homage

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Elaine Stirling, poetry

I

The blue light
of a late winter dawn
spills across
this page of poetry
you wrote
for somebody
named Emily.
She lives, I think,
in Massachusetts
and wishes she could
meet Emerson.
I have a hatchet
somewhere that he
gave me for my
birthday, along with
a cipher I have
yet to figure out.

II

As much as I would like
to associate with poets in
a great round room with
a roaring fire and straw-
covered jugs of chianti
at each table, I must
make do with the idea
of conviviality. Budding
talent slaughtered by
desiccated lovers with
the latest technology is
only slightly less gristly
than the sonnets they
compose. Walt, tucking
into braised kidneys,
tells me, don’t worry.
They too shall pass.

III

Attaching nationality
to poetry will get you shot,
but only if you choose
the right regime. There is
some cachet, I understand,
in suffering, though I much
prefer the counsel of the
poet from Minnesota who
enjoins us to make peace
with our fathers, and then
come back to write. All I can
say is, thank God I only
have one father.

IV

When no one says
a word, you’ll know
you’re getting close
to the indivisible.
The eastern tinge
sits light upon the
actions of all of us.
When you feel your
eyes sting and the small
hairs rise, reach quickly
for a pen or a canister
of flour and the memory
of your first kiss. It means
Kabir has come to call.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2014
Image by Lisa Bobechko, © 2010

Messenger

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Elaine Stirling, narrative poetry

I must not rouse
the hungry mouths
in bringing you this letter.
They’re lying all around you,
dozing, snoring lightly, rippling
like the edges of a tattered
Gypsy skirt.

Rodrigo says,
if I disturb a single
eyelash of the ones you
said you’d feed, or rattle
window sashes of a single
lover’s dream, he’ll burn
what I have written, and
I’ll have to start again,
and I said to Rodrigo,
can such a love exist?

He laughed at me.
You call this love?
The tanks are moving in.
They’re lowering the flags.

I tiptoe through
the curves and ranks
of all the sleepers you have
gathered and determine
they are decoys—no,
not even that, they’re eider
down, no substance, past
cardiac disturbances, mere
whispers of the ghosts of the
memories of a climax, and I think,
my God, do these phantoms
really keep you warm?

At last, I reach your ear
pressed to the ground. Your
knees pulled up, fatigue has
built a womb for you. I slide
the sharp edge of the letter
through the space between
the membranes that divide
you from the world we built
together, and I struggle with
the urge to wake you and to
watch you read the list of poets
who’ve petitioned for your freedom,
but the tanks are moving in,
and they’re lowering the flags.

You roll onto your back.
I disappear.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2014
Image from the archives
of Spanish Civil War photos

My Treasure House

Tags

Elaine Stirling, humourous verse, poetry

I locked myself
out of my treasure
house.

With nothing
left to do until the
locksmith arrived,
I spent my time
justifying
margins
left right
center
profit
why I love
and why I ache
and why you’re wrong
and why I wait…

until I tired,
oh, I tired
of the locksmith
never coming and
the race to prove,
disprove, improve,
approve, and said
to hell with it, and
stole my way
inside

to find
that hordes
of mongrel graces
had preoccupied
the treasure house
while I was gone

and all
of them with google
eyes and hairy
scary countenances
stared at me and asked
me why I’d stayed
away from riches
that belong
to me
so long

and all
that I could
think to say was
I have been
preoccupied.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2014
Fans of H.P. Lovecraft will recognize the scary beast image as one of Chthulhu, who’s quite adorable when you get to know him.

Oculus

Tags

Elaine Stirling, poetry

I am the eye the center calm that draws
to me in perfect objectivity
the curving stem and cherry scents of you.

I am the eye the aperture that paints
in reverent perpetuity the finch
that lights serene blue-gold upon your palm.

I am the eye the outer storm that tears
with searing perspicacity the leaves
of you I pressed now crumbling in my heart.

I am the eye the inner form that clears
unerring with bold certainty new space
for sketching in fresh silhouettes of you.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2014

Off the Hook

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Elaine Stirling, form poetry, rondel

http://www.susanmurrayart.com

I let the world off the hook today
and let it fall into the sea;
too tough to eat, too small to see,
I do not like the taste of gray.

Extinctions and injustices have been at play
since long before I piece-meal sold my empathy.
I let the world off the hook today;
I do not like the taste of gray.

Columbus sailed without my say:
who isn’t driven by economy?
Awareness near became the death of me.
From here on, peace will guide my way.
I let the world off the hook today.

~~~

This 13-line poem is a rondel that repeats two key lines and adheres to a rhyme scheme of Abba abAB abbaA. It’s a great outlet for when you’ve had too much of something and feel the need to rant.

© Elaine Stirling, 2014

Conundrum

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Elaine Stirling, poetry, Shakespearean sonnet

That I should seek to hurt has never been
the truth of me, but needs I must slice through
this skin wrapped tight that I might breathe and win
some small new capacity; and there you
stand convenient, holding to a future
happiness that will not tolerate my
currency. I gaze upon your stature
and find none of me. Now you’ve laid us by,
reduced my choices to a larger hope
or none, the yes of who I am or naught.
Lose, you say, that exclusivity, grope
beyond the casing of the shell that’s caught
you, bullet-like. Your words reverberate
inside this chamber, mocking: it’s too late.

~~~

Author’s Note: I debated with myself whether or not to post this poem, as there is a tendency, I find, in the poetic community to assume that the emotional states depicted are those of the poet. This simply is not true. What I write of love, joy, and absurdity are my true states. The rest, like this one, are a novelist’s indulgence. Sensing a character’s inner state by means of poetry is rollicking good fun and practice. I’m also seriously blissed at the moment because I’m reading a book called Living With Shakespeare, and feel like I’ve wandered into a master class, only no one’s noticed yet to kick me out. It also explains my current run of sonnets, a form that used to send me running fast in the opposite direction.

© Elaine Stirling, 2014

Tax Season Sonnet

Tags

comic verse, Elaine Stirling, parody, poetry, Shakespearean sonnet, things I can almost say straight-faced, wordplay

Fully tend to that which lies upon your
plate, no better, worse than any other
task. Befriend the picayune and franc d’or
tacks & bytes of commerce, and don’t bother
to swell up for any cause but love, since
indignation only speeds deduction
of the ultimate variety. Mince
the words you cannot claim; calm in action,
sort expenses and receipts of kindness.
Every payment you send out returns ten
fold in revenue. Learn to audit less
by grudge & more by comedy, so when
tax season comes around, in filing
you’ll see, nothing done with love is taxing.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2014

Passages

Tags

Elaine Stirling, poetry, sonnet

I used to think I wrote the doom of you
with every push of panicked verse, a birth
conceived in gloomy beds; and in my fear
of causing further pain, seeming untrue,
I pedaled back, subtracting from my worth
what only multiplies. You did not hear.

Big plays in small spaces accelerate
the spinal flow from tail to brain. No fires
burn for long where comprehension turns its
back, intelligent, superior. Fate
relies on the misapprehended, tires,
twists me back, where playback loops inhabit.

What I could have said, I’ll find the language
for and say it now. This is my passage.

~~~

© Elaine Stirling, 2014
Image of English maze from http://www.conversationagent.com