A Machine They Call Pauline

This week we wrote ekphrastic poetry.  I love writing off of paintings, but some how life sucked me up and spit me out this week.  So, here is my draft, a little late, but inspired by my friend's visit to the David Hockney exhibit in the Bay Area, my longing for a swim, and my terribly inability to park my car correctly (which I always blame on seeing things too much in refractions).  Oh, and there is a little shout out to one of my favorite poems by Gertrude Stein (from Bee Time Vine). Hope it makes some sense!

A Machine They Call Pauline
after David Hockney’s “Green Pool with Diving Board and Shadow”

Blue shimmering shadows like luminous
cobwebs              I float between what’s above (light)
and what’s under (weight).  Nothing looks the same

under water nothing sounds the same under water

In the on land exercise we are asked
to leave the busy bee hives of our minds
Be wholly in your body she screamed  her
bare feet heavy on the hard wood floor

under water nothing sounds the same under water

Hive explodes into the honey of thought
follow a black line long enough and you’ll
find a fold into another life gone
cooler, mind gone hollow as a rung bell.

under water nothing is the same under water

Dear Christina Aguilera -

New poem for today.  We were writing off of Julia Bloch's incredible book, Letters to Kelly Clarkson.  I chose to write to Christina Aguilera.

Dear Christina Aguilera -

We first really met on a treadmill.  That black line that stutters and blurs out of motherhood.  This was after my second child and I’ll admit, I was blurry as the rain spackled glass I was looking through.  I’m sure we’d met before back in your Genie days.  You are like one of those Russian dolls continually walking out of yourself.  I was listening to a mix I’d put together I called don’t fuck with me I’m sleep deprived.  And every time your song came on, I’d look at the album cover on my iPhone (you, sleek as a gazelle). Then, I'd look into the dead eyed glass in front of me and run for it. You know Christina, I never got through that space between what I perceived and what was real.  That black line in the brain that is continually moving past.