over and over a flower pot
drops
off the balcony with each
roll of the dice
there is a significance to outlines
this scholarly work titled a stone covered in moss
like an old hotel filled with birthday cakes & unlit candles
if I could I would throw this piano across room
being little again in a field
of giants among giant foot prints
not surprisingly, I don’t trust the little wolf
(he /she) has an atlas in its mouth like a rolled up newspaper
& what to do with the garden of broken shells
life re-arranged like a trick room for a blind person
I start my day with a list of taboos and shoes
of course I grew up in a house of echoes
even then it was all about economy
mostly they come to me at night, the fleshy gardenias
varieties not of earth, floating lotus like faces
to experience prayer as actual
I imagine the body house
and make ridiculous vows: to love only what is formless
as a girl I split the stems of field daisies with my fingernail
hooked heads, the size of dimes, together in a chain
unable to leave well-enough alone, a kind of greed really
to appropriate and inhabit shame of being
i.
let go said the want birds let go—
his name rolling around in your mouth, the bonding metaphor
as if the more I deny, the harder it is
consequence and possibility —
let go, let go said the want birds beautiful day someone else has imagined
I clean the refrigerator, throw out everything you’ve touched, the bag of party ice frozen
(solid block), coffee, bread, the day to day that kept us going
it’s okay, I self-talk, sorrow has edges.
ii.
said / I could die now.
iii.
the dim room, furniture missing
rage like actual fire brought to essence you can go fuck yourself
dream of running away
in the morning find a dried snail stuck to a box of my writing
its long dead mucus cracks as I take the shell and throw it out
a certain burning and the throat makes no sound
what I could not take as a given was you an afterthought,
all the misgivings around me, turn here
no allowable anger, the cup empty, turned down, not even receptive
the noise heart retreat heart, making unkeepable promises
like the dream where my brakes don’t work; there’s no stopping this,
the dream going on, the dream going on without us — the echo of singularity
Gretchen Mattox is the author of two books of poetry, "Goodnight Architecture," New Issues Press, Fall 2002 and "Buddha Box," a Green Rose Prize Winner, New Issues Press, Spring 2004. In conjunction with F.A.C.E., the French American Cultural Exchange Program, poems from her forthcoming manuscript, "The Flower Compass Sutras" were translated into French, summer 2009. She joined 12 other poets and 7 translators at the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France to celebrate the project.
Gretchen is also the recipient of numerous awards including residencies at: Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Edward Albee Foundation Fellowship, and Yaddo. Her work has been honored as a Poetry Society of America West Winner and the Agha Shahid Ali Scholarship recipient at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown.
In addition to her M.A. in Creative Writing from N.Y.U., Gretchen Mattox holds an M.A. in Psychology from Antioch and is currently at work on clinical hours towards licensure as a therapist. She lives and works in Santa Monica, California.
ISSUE:
S P R I N G
2011
THE NEW
RULES OF
W R I T I N G
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