This Week's Been Awesome

It's been a while since I've written a non-poem entry - well, I guess along the way I realized what I wanted the intention of this blog to be. On that note, what I have to say is very much poetry related! This entire week thus far (Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday) has been ridiculously fulfilling! On Monday, Steven and I saw Andrea Gibson. THE Andrea Gibson! Her performance was so amazing that anything I say will fall short of the praise it deserves. I think "Ashes" and "Jellyfish" were my favorites -- but honestly, EVERY poem she read was absolutely magical. And between poems she was hilarious; her humor was just as infectious as the intensity of the poems she shared with us.

While in line waiting to meet her, I realized that I didn't have enough cash to purchase one of her books nor her CDs, which was a complete bummer. Also, I wanted to take a picture with her, and I turned on my camera in line to see if all was running smoothly. I was terrified when I saw the "Out of Memory" notification, and I frantically deleted pictures I didn't need in my sim card. While doing that my camera had the nerve to say "Battery Exahusted" and turn off on me, never to turn on again that night. After Steven was done talking to her, he literally introduced me to her! I was shaking as I shook her hand, and in the midst of my nervousness and star-struck awe towards Andrea, I told her the whole story about how amazing she was and how my camera died. She laughed and was very sweet about it -- but I know that I did indeed make a total fool of myself. I did end up getting a picture with her though! Steven's friend Idris took it for us!

On Tuesday I was joined by Rohma, Mehreen, and Veena returned to the same venue for the Beltway Poetry Slam. All of the contestants were amazing, and there were some who were especially moving. Mehreen was definitely one of them! She shared two of her soulful poems and I swear I felt chills as I heard her read. There was also someone who looked 15 years old and who was basically slamming and rapping interchanably, and his pieces were absolutely genius. A man named Clint won the slam that night, and rightfully so. One of his poems was about being a teacher and how he responded to a student who asked why they had to learn about the classics in class. I loved it!

The feature poet on Tuesday was Ed Mabrey. I knew nothing about him stepping into The Fridge, but I definitely felt his heart when he recited his poems! One of his poems was about a lesbian and the torment she had to face growing up -- I was in tears once again just as I was when Andrea Gibson was in town. So, I'm definitely an Ed Mabrey fan. I was once again nervous while we stood in line, eating free cake, waiting to meet Mr. Mabrey. He was very, very friendly, sweet, and down-to-earth. You could tell that he actually wanted to meet people and have conversations with them. He accepted my friend request on facebook! I am so pumped about life right now!

And today came as a total surprise. As a requirement for many English classes here at UMD, students are to attend "Writers Here & Now" programs in which fiction writers and poets are featured. Today's poet was Patricia Smith, who to my very pleasant surprise I found to be a slam poet! Her work was chock-full of humor and yet so passionate! She also wrote more serious poems about Hurricane Katrina which definitely made me tear up again. Yes, I'm adding her to my I-LOVE-YOU-MY-SLAM-POET list.

Well, I really needed to share that! I have so many academic priorities I'm totally ignoring this week, but you know what? Poetry's worth it, doesn't matter when.

Love and Good Night,

Gowri Nadmichettu

Blind Observation

While your fingertips graze the engravings

of your doctorate degree,

and while you tell me that I'm not seeing

what I really ought to see –

a list of values so precise

of little value to me –

my lens is set on 40x

and my vision takes careful steps –

retrograde, delicately –

balancing on microtubules,

the same ones you dryly dissect.

Dodging vesicles, then, I row,

through a huge ionic lake;

at each turn I make by lipid shores

I see something sweet metabolize

for critical – beautiful – energy.

Ripples of reticula approach

and lead me to the envelope

which contains the message

that you've never quite transcribed properly

but stained time and time again –

methylene blue, acridine orange –

but not even once with your wondercolor.

I Am Not Alone

I get this sensation sometimes -

this dark sensation -

that starts as a tiny tingle

and matures into a sturdy pull

on the tender fibers

of that pounding muscle that lets me breathe.

It tugs,

stringing a part of me into

a black hole

where I don't even understand the stranger

laws of physics

for me to rectify them.

And dammit then it stabs

like I did something real bad

I mean something like threatened its family

or set its house on fire

only I'm sure

it's the sole of its kin

and it lives and thrives in me

(and many others, I've heard).

Either way, it keeps stabbing

and then I feel it scrape

like it's carving a pumpkin,

cutting out the flesh and soul

from my expression

leaving me with a hollow smile

for display.

Sometimes, many times, it even finds its way

to my tear ducts

and pricks them with little spears

until they do what they naturally do

under stress.

This sensation even bullies me into leaving the house -

it grips

my wrists

so tightly

and after a beastly struggle

I free myself

and my legs carry me to an open field where

I sit down, catching my breath

feeling safe

for a moment.

I almost feel all better until I realize

that it wanted me to run here

it wanted me to smell the blossoms around me

and notice that they were all

forget-me flowers

and he-loves-me-not petals.

A second later, I hear it

a susurrus in the closest shrub

a snicker

and I see it

a smirk

then a set of teeth

sinking

into my fading smile.

Restless

Music unravels from white sheets

in the summer's night wind.

Treble clefs split from staffs

and five lines become the five fine teeth

of a comb that runs through my hair,

leaving pretty notes to braid themselves

near my roots.

Chords become reins around my ankles

and hasten the tempo of my wandering pace

towards anything but

four walls and a closed door.

So I run

down the muffled carpet

and across the pavement’s pitch,

half steps turning into to whole steps,

my bare feet keep going

till city lights barely linger,

and there are only woods

I keep running –

the entropic ensemble

of ruffling maple leaves

and lilting katydids

urges me to sing lead in

the loudest lullaby,

so my feet belt out the lyrics

in stride with the wind’s rushing harmony,

fine-tuning my freedom at each refrain.

So I keep racing

past the trunks of hemlock trees

and then I charge up the first incline I see;

as I reach the hill’s top with my arms stretched out,

hugging the songs that might otherwise escape me,

the forte of the black sky stops me –

its booming base

the night’s final crescendo.

And then

as sweet sound still reverberates

between silver stars,

I let myself fall on the arches

of quarter rests

in the fireflied grass of June,

tucked in by the acapella beams

of the moon.

Subtlety

Love is catharsis

But only from eyes to heart

And from sigh to smile.

I Guess I'll Just Listen While You Make Everything About You

I’m sitting here smiling sweetly

at you.

My eyes are fastened to yours

even though your line of sight

never bothers to collide

or make a vertex

with mine.

My lashes flicker anytime

your head tilts a bit

or you put some em-pha-sis

on certain words –

yup, I’m still content

Right?

I mean,

maybe the small curvature around my lips

that makes my smile

a smirk

(a very, wow-this-is-ridiculous

or a very, can’t-hear-a-thing-you-say

type of expression)

isn’t evident to you

because what you’re saying is really important –

I mean, even if

your larynx

ran out of sounds to play

your mouth would still keep running

and I’d bother to read

your lips

but my rods and my cones

are in different zones

and I’m a bit too busy smirking

at you.

Your hands make motions

as though you want me to understand

but lord knows

you just want to continue

conducting your orchestra of beautiful rhetoric

and repeating your flawless rendition

of hackneyed phrases

like “I, I, My, My”

or pretty scales of do-re-mi me me me

oh yes, sing on please -

I’m still smirking so blatantly

at you.

And it’s lovely how you don’t notice –

no, no, don’t stop your ramble

don’t take a breath

god forbid

you’d forget what you were saying

or your train of thought

derailed

for even a second

because that’d leave my ears

with an eerie silence

and it would be a sudden shame

to be deprived of my supply

of gorgeous background noise

that I use to muse

while I smirk shamelessly

at you.

Blown Away

From the breadth of his clasp

he handed her a bouquet of seeding dandelions.

They sat on the slate-colored patio

confronted with a spotless fescue yard.

When they gave air to the silky parachutes,

he saw her float in a white dress on each one

While she wished, her eyes sealed tight,

that he would stop loving her with this much might.