From White on White
XXX
It burns you, the memory of the night before
we spoke, burns you, the salt
of the mouth which bit
before it kissed.
You don’t have room to die
with the morning, you only have a hole
in which to hide your tears,
a dry branch for chasing off the flies.
The soul’s task is to unlearn
animals are the great marvel,
no memory of having been brother
to the morning star.
Perhaps already quenched or crumbling to dark.
Eugenio De Andrade
Split Opened Salt on a Shaken Wound
“It burns you, the memory of the night before
we spoke, burns you, the salt
of the mouth which bit
before it kissed.”
I felt your glare rocking the
tables, sliding for salt, drawing
the lines of my mouth over the folds
of the night.
You wanted to kiss, the night we
shared memories of the ocean’s
mouth spewing its salted spit.
The salt kissed mouth of your loins
still burn and bite at the memory
of my bare breasts rising each time
you spoke of your ocean’s
polished pearl. But when you kissed,
your lips shed. Now, the memories of you tearing
at the dead, burnt salt layers of your mouth,
hungry for something I couldn’t give,
rough fuck the sockets of these small moons.
You burn me, you burn, burn, me, burn, burns.
The memory of the night before we spoke
still tumbles into the mouth of my clavicle and bites,
split opened salt on a shaken wound.
But who wouldn’t want to keep that blooming porcelain buried inside
their mountain, or that stiff bodice straddling their head, horned horse?
Brandy Adams
I tried the recursive method that we were asked to do in for calisthenics, and this is the outcome. Normally, I would not post something like this but I would like some suggestions on what to do with it. There are moments of the draft that I like but I am stuck. Thanks!
I would assume that, as an early draft, this piece tends toward the overwritten with an eye toward future cutting. That said, I would recommend a bit of concision, if for no other reason than the lesson to be taken from Andrade’s poem. With a work this strangely lyrical, oftentimes, it’s a good idea to keep the thing brief, to allow for a kind of mental break as well as avoiding the very real possibility of becoming bogged down in language divorced of meaning. Of course, your draft stems this tendency with the injection of an overarching narrative, but I think it might be more rewarding to pursue Andrade’s style a bit further with your revision. Consider letting go of the neccesity for chronological and spatial bearings, even consider jumbling some of what you have here—in an effort to, if only temporarily, loosen your own predilection for structure from the work.
ReplyDeleteEspecially considering the subject matter, which seems somewhat similar thematically to the Andrade piece, it might be beneficial to delve less emphatically into the illustration of a scene that, however cinematically ripe, tends toward the cliché—if for no other reason than this same ripeness. Maybe identify one or two strange elements from the draft, one or two minor instances from the entire patchwork of its plot, and extrapolate on these with a concentration toward delineating their particulars, and giving less concern to their logical, obvious connections?
Also, I vote “no” on the title.
I enjoyed the recursive method you exercised here, Brandy. Especially in the first and second stanzas. The one point at which I think it gets to be too much is “You burn me” and the repetitions thereafter. I see why, but I think maybe it’s a little arbitrary and it trips me up, unlike the repetitions before, which actually flow really well and keep the eye moving. If that was your goal, keep it, but personally, I think you can toss it.
ReplyDeleteThere’s some fantastically strange imagery here, too, for which I wanted to compliment you. “But when you kissed, / your lips shed,” “the lines of my mouth over the folds of the night.” I can’t list them all, but definitely keep working with that kind of wordplay. You’ve taken some cliché and sometimes overused words and concepts (ocean, kiss) and turned them interesting with fresh language. Great job.
For a third draft, I think you need to triangulate. Add a third subject. So far we’ve got speaker and object of the speaker’s statements. So who else? How could a third dimension help the draft?