January 6th:
foreign host

About 40% of the words I hear are scrambled or otherwise unheard. It's a really isolating feeling, but I generally manage. This one is mostly about how it feels to be so far away from other people, and how important I think it is to understand others.

January 14th:
u district, 8:34 am

Some girl asked me for change. I never give money to panhandlers, but I gave a pocketful of change to her. Later I figured out that I did so because she had on a velvet cloak and looked dignified.

January 16th:
agoniste

There's a bunch of background here in myth. The Hellenes are also known as the Greeks, and Aulis is the place where the Greek ships became becalmed on the way to fight the Trojan war. Agamemmnon decided to sacrifice his daughter Iphegenia in order to make the winds blow again. in most popular retellings of the myth, she is saved and the priest sacrifices a hind instead; other, somewhat older tellings say that she was killed. I identify a lot with this old legend, and when i wrote this I was thinking about how sacrifice would, in the best case, free all of one's virtues into the fire, flaming and coming back new-made.

this poem is also a reference to a running theme in my poetry--the theme of sacrifice, both fathers sacrificing daughters and one sacrificing oneself. This is probably one of the most positive poems I've ever written on the subject, the difference being that the sacrifice is both willing and happily gone to.

An agonist is the muscle that relaxes when its opposite muscle contracts. I love the sound of the word, particularly after the silent e is added, which raises the last sounded vowel.

January 17th:
in excelsis

In excelsis means 'in the highest'.

i can't really decide what I'd like this one to mean. There's a strong thread of abandonment here. The first of the two most striking interpretations is that the winged woman is a pre pubescent girl, "shrouded and shuttered" with the taboos against childhood sexuality. At menarche, a male figure deserts her (probably her father) who is threatened by her new sexuality. she ends the poem by burying her need for a father figure deeply, doomed to forever search for a father-replacement.

the other of the interpretations is far more personal. I am the fantastic creature, come to earth and refusing help from even the most trusted source. In order to experience life as a human, I leave behind the wings that visibly marked me as different, but it's taken too long and the trusted one has gone on without me. In this interpretation, the end is far more hopeful than in the other interpretation. She still has hope, and in the time she has spent alone she has learned what it is to live and die as a human.

January 18th:
clinging

This was written on the heels of the last one, as I was working on this file at about midnight.

This beginning place for this one was a conversation I was having with shannon in which I kept on feeling like I was missing signals. This one was an indulgence for me--very personal and not terribly metaphorical. The form is one I'm fond of--each stanza shortening by one or two lines, the end stanza making one statement that refers back to the beginning stanza.

there's a whole lot about my life in this little poem. It's raw, but then so am I.

January 19th:
shallows

A few months ago, i was well and truly obsessed with the myth of Charon, the boatman who ferries souls over Lethe to Hades. This is, probably, the conclusion of that series. It's an acknowledgement that I'm on the edge of something new, that, perhaps, I will not need all of the mechanisms I have, all of the Charons that have kept me safe.

It also acknowledges that Shannon has been an excellent guide, giving me a map of the dangerous shallows along the coast of my mind. I ask for forgiveness for sleeping too close to the sea--being mired in the depths of my own mind.

January 20th:
on waking from a dream I am drowning

I don't quite know what to make of this one yet. I've been dreaming about water, lately, and it shows in my writing.

January 23rd:
Prometheus
Ehlene

Prometheus is an example of me writing song lyrics. i don't do it very often, and I generally dislike the results. This song's about my ex Trav, about whom my feelings are still mixed. As is obvious from the lyrics.

The High Priestess, the Fool, and the world are all tarot cards.

Ehlene is a weird one. It's based on a dream I had about sitting on a big rock next to the ocean and watching someone fly, joined by a creature with the wings of a bird and the tail of a scorpion.

in this poem, the interpretation of the dream is that the person flying is Shannon, and the creature he is joined by is my version of Aphrodite. The paintings he puts back together are my past experiences, put back in an order that makes sense.

Like I said, it's a strange one.