Lesley Wheeler
4 poems
**
R e s o l v e. / .S o l v e .F o r
We deem ourselves impure.
We consider leaving each other for dead.
We sit on curbs and think of anything but morning.
Do you know what it’s like to not think about morning? We can tell you what it’s like.
It's decidedly without rubric, and so disheartening you will want to burst.
We've discovered our strength is in wants; can we hold your hand?
**
S p e e c h
I.
....................As I told you, you are a mountain. About now you should begin to feel the paths worn ....................into your sides. An empty ache, it’s not the right season. Empty half-circle trails, only ....................wind racing your surface in dusty squalls.
....................You can't remember if you know me from life or from photographs, but you ....................shouldn’t stop dreaming of afternoons with moisturizer and high trombones.
....................Anything to fill what’s collapsed in me, a restoration of self, courtesy of you.
....................The girl begins a hesitant dance, and something about the relation of arms to elbows ....................reminds me that the triangle is the Strongest Shape. Nowhere to fall except where it ....................is, no matter who watches or where it wants to be.
II.
....................Heavy limbs and rain, I look out your window. I haven’t seen a bird in days; that ....................means you probably haven’t either.
....................I see you on autumn sidewalks who don’t have enough leaves to rake, and I can tell ....................it’s heavy lifting just to keep your body on speaking terms.
III.
....................You can read the trees like translations of my departures with your new eyes, each ....................angle a disambiguation. Eventually, your notions will resolve down to this: loneliness ....................upon re-arrival, and losing containerfuls of yourself to vehicles taking slow drives ....................over bridges at night.
....................Later today, I’ll open my window and see a cardinal.
....................All the paths are laid out in branches, each one heavy with mythological queens, ....................whose names include night in most languages and sing in quick-tempered flits of ....................you's and we's.
**
P l e i a d e s
I.
..............................With wings I
..............................round the corner to where I dream
..............................of birthing backwards.
..............................No small hand or wet head,
..............................a full feeling
..............................slows itself still.
..............................At the hospital with friends,
..............................a wait for something to happen, a wait for
..............................our opportunity to view the unnamed.
..............................A year spent in lonely places.
..............................Sage and almond for speed,
..............................strangers sleeping in familiar positions and
..............................losing fruit in the bed sheets.
II.
..............................We cannot land here.
..............................It seems too busy,
..............................to close to where we finish.
..............................Breakers wash blue. And
..............................in the hallway convex
..............................mirror I merely hold
..............................up my skirt. Nothing serious,
..............................really.
..............................If only the buildings would
..............................lie low for one second, we
..............................could see where the hills are and claim
..............................clerical error for what we don't want--
..............................dusty hours, something for the pain,
III.
..............................the birds can listen, the birds are listening.
..............................They wait for us to follow the sailing seasons
..............................of antiquity, for our migration from.
**
P r e s s. * .i f .y o u .a r e .s a t i s f i e d .w i t h .y o u r .m e s s a g e .
I took time to realize that a termination is not a blood letting or cleaning; it doesn’t happen once every two years, and it may not happen at all. Can the process be warmly encouraging, even elective?
One last letting, a
covert spill.
A person in
parts, is easier to digest.
Compact, bare bones-- the letting is
a preview of a human, an excerpt
..........of form and size,
..........small bones sticking between teeth but
...........................................not breaking, not bending.
He’s having trouble with with.
He tells me this on the phone.
.....................................I would sit with you, but I can’t handle it.
....................................I’m sorry I can’t be with you today; I’ve fucked up again.
I had hoped we could be association, not opposition. With you.
I need to tell you that our smokestack
...................is so tall now; the
...................only thing in the sky.
No you yet, only circling crows and clouds.
...................The last time I saw a whale made
...................of clouds,
...................it swallowed a swarm
...................of birds like plankton.
I associate to purity of self first, familiar names of people second.
I never thought I would own
a thing like this.
Now I see it daily.
Before you looked closely at me, you did believe that my veins were filled with air.
Each one floated me a tiny bit (always up), all together I hovered.
I thought you may be right, the way I was always a few inches above, what else could
explain it? Blue air, not blood filled me.
Here, there is no air.
I’m swimming through fine, gold threads underwater. Taut enough to slice the tip of
my nose off or the top of my ear, it’s a welcomed, clean, state-shift, because I know
you can’t swim, and neither can parts.
You smell like wild carrot and nutmeg. I see you on the shore as your
Greco-Roman self,
..........proud swagger and fooled heart.
You would sink and be
..........swallowed if you tried to trail.
You are small sticks, pieces of bark and dead grass, all brown,
..........that stick to wet parts
..........on banks.
**
return to sawbuck 1.4
**
Lesley Wheeler is finishing up her BFA thesis at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY, and will be graduating this May. Last summer, she completed a two-week writer's residency on the Wave Books Poetry Farm in WI. She is a 2007 NYC Teaching Fellow. Feel free to contact her at lesley.wheeler@gmail.com.
**
R e s o l v e. / .S o l v e .F o r
We deem ourselves impure.
We consider leaving each other for dead.
We sit on curbs and think of anything but morning.
Do you know what it’s like to not think about morning? We can tell you what it’s like.
It's decidedly without rubric, and so disheartening you will want to burst.
We've discovered our strength is in wants; can we hold your hand?
**
S p e e c h
I.
....................As I told you, you are a mountain. About now you should begin to feel the paths worn ....................into your sides. An empty ache, it’s not the right season. Empty half-circle trails, only ....................wind racing your surface in dusty squalls.
....................You can't remember if you know me from life or from photographs, but you ....................shouldn’t stop dreaming of afternoons with moisturizer and high trombones.
....................Anything to fill what’s collapsed in me, a restoration of self, courtesy of you.
....................The girl begins a hesitant dance, and something about the relation of arms to elbows ....................reminds me that the triangle is the Strongest Shape. Nowhere to fall except where it ....................is, no matter who watches or where it wants to be.
II.
....................Heavy limbs and rain, I look out your window. I haven’t seen a bird in days; that ....................means you probably haven’t either.
....................I see you on autumn sidewalks who don’t have enough leaves to rake, and I can tell ....................it’s heavy lifting just to keep your body on speaking terms.
III.
....................You can read the trees like translations of my departures with your new eyes, each ....................angle a disambiguation. Eventually, your notions will resolve down to this: loneliness ....................upon re-arrival, and losing containerfuls of yourself to vehicles taking slow drives ....................over bridges at night.
....................Later today, I’ll open my window and see a cardinal.
....................All the paths are laid out in branches, each one heavy with mythological queens, ....................whose names include night in most languages and sing in quick-tempered flits of ....................you's and we's.
**
P l e i a d e s
I.
..............................With wings I
..............................round the corner to where I dream
..............................of birthing backwards.
..............................No small hand or wet head,
..............................a full feeling
..............................slows itself still.
..............................At the hospital with friends,
..............................a wait for something to happen, a wait for
..............................our opportunity to view the unnamed.
..............................A year spent in lonely places.
..............................Sage and almond for speed,
..............................strangers sleeping in familiar positions and
..............................losing fruit in the bed sheets.
II.
..............................We cannot land here.
..............................It seems too busy,
..............................to close to where we finish.
..............................Breakers wash blue. And
..............................in the hallway convex
..............................mirror I merely hold
..............................up my skirt. Nothing serious,
..............................really.
..............................If only the buildings would
..............................lie low for one second, we
..............................could see where the hills are and claim
..............................clerical error for what we don't want--
..............................dusty hours, something for the pain,
III.
..............................the birds can listen, the birds are listening.
..............................They wait for us to follow the sailing seasons
..............................of antiquity, for our migration from.
**
P r e s s. * .i f .y o u .a r e .s a t i s f i e d .w i t h .y o u r .m e s s a g e .
I took time to realize that a termination is not a blood letting or cleaning; it doesn’t happen once every two years, and it may not happen at all. Can the process be warmly encouraging, even elective?
One last letting, a
covert spill.
A person in
parts, is easier to digest.
Compact, bare bones-- the letting is
a preview of a human, an excerpt
..........of form and size,
..........small bones sticking between teeth but
...........................................not breaking, not bending.
He’s having trouble with with.
He tells me this on the phone.
.....................................I would sit with you, but I can’t handle it.
....................................I’m sorry I can’t be with you today; I’ve fucked up again.
I had hoped we could be association, not opposition. With you.
I need to tell you that our smokestack
...................is so tall now; the
...................only thing in the sky.
No you yet, only circling crows and clouds.
...................The last time I saw a whale made
...................of clouds,
...................it swallowed a swarm
...................of birds like plankton.
I associate to purity of self first, familiar names of people second.
To better understand, I cut long pieces down, swallow, then sit and think about them.
Dreams of parts come in fits. Nightly I navigate bouts,
and still wake up with rounded edges and a feeling of relief.
and still wake up with rounded edges and a feeling of relief.
I never thought I would own
a thing like this.
Now I see it daily.
Clouds re-arrange when I look at them,
like cartoon chalk lines on a blackboard which move on their own to
make something new. I named it.
like cartoon chalk lines on a blackboard which move on their own to
make something new. I named it.
Before you looked closely at me, you did believe that my veins were filled with air.
Each one floated me a tiny bit (always up), all together I hovered.
I thought you may be right, the way I was always a few inches above, what else could
explain it? Blue air, not blood filled me.
Here, there is no air.
I’m swimming through fine, gold threads underwater. Taut enough to slice the tip of
my nose off or the top of my ear, it’s a welcomed, clean, state-shift, because I know
you can’t swim, and neither can parts.
You smell like wild carrot and nutmeg. I see you on the shore as your
Greco-Roman self,
..........proud swagger and fooled heart.
You would sink and be
..........swallowed if you tried to trail.
You are small sticks, pieces of bark and dead grass, all brown,
..........that stick to wet parts
..........on banks.
**
return to sawbuck 1.4
**
Lesley Wheeler is finishing up her BFA thesis at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY, and will be graduating this May. Last summer, she completed a two-week writer's residency on the Wave Books Poetry Farm in WI. She is a 2007 NYC Teaching Fellow. Feel free to contact her at lesley.wheeler@gmail.com.
