Letter to Kate
For William Blake
My Catherine Sophia,
as you would be known.
You were just Kate.
Child of Pity, full of mouth.
Widened but illiterate.
My ravishing apprentice,
who never refused me.
The first five years between us
may have been frightening, but
they were useful to you.
I turned you from a shaky
X
to a sturdy Mrs. William Blake.
Mrs. Catherine Sophia Blake.
My Katie Blake.
And your talented integers
covered with paint would
play like a girl on the
etchings of my heart.
No one would know,
you were my relief.
“Stay Kate! Keep just as you are –
I will draw your portrait –
for you have ever been an angel to me.”
Do not let those be the last words
I utter to you.
Let them be my first words to you.
“Do you pity me?-
Then I love you.”
Child of Pity, full of grief.
The five days after I had left you,
you stayed at my bedside,
doing what I asked of you.
Not as a pet-named lapdog,
But head resting on your hands,
head turned to the side
face slightly turned upward,
As I etched your portrait on the
sky of heaven.
And your mind filled it with color.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
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Reach for the clouds. . .
Tickle your toes. . .
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RICK: Hey Rick? DICK: Yea, Dick? RICK: See that sky roll on by? (points) DICK: ...Oh, my... RICK: Don't i-t'almost makes yer wanner....
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there ain't no other place like you to roam. where I dug in my heels and said "No, I won't come home!" Dancing in the warb...
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hunger is sometimes preferable to loneliness. a stomach will twist- but hands become dirty and heavy when full of coins.
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Another Indian woman living on our block has hair swept back and braided has jeweled toes, is in all yellow traditional regalia, and walks w...
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driving home from the farmer's market- I can't see anything- through this storm- I come home to sleep- with you-rest in your arms fu...
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like me- it serves as a question as well as an appropriately foolish letter in bad company it only teams up with words like yodel, ...
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Out the window, I thought I saw Emily pale, gawking. a green T-shirt. bouncing firey springs on her head.
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In my dreams I am the fictional version of myself. The one I seek to be in my short-stories and prose. The one who gets her point across but...
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nipped at the ankles which is how I wander through life sometimes I must be pushed through a door finally opened after years of knock...
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Tickling toes- there was something about that barefooted madness something about that wistful waist-high wishing and wooshing in the woods, ...
don't be lonely!
ReplyDeleteand this really was a fabulous piece :))
lol. thank you.
ReplyDelete"My ravishing apprentice,
ReplyDeletewho never refused me."
I adore that bit.
As I etched your portrait on the sky of heaven, and Blake, too?? Very nicely done. I know you said you studied or rather have your degree in Literature, something I had only hoped to tackle in my dreams, but you have done it, and a success you are. Blessed to have known you for such a short time as a poet.
ReplyDeletethank you, yes I actually studied Blake closely for one of my classes, as he is a favorite of mine. I did a close study of his light and dark imagery in his chimney sweeper poems, and in his poem London. I really attempted to pick apart Blake's opinion of his own city, and his stance on the plight of the forgotten and neglected.
ReplyDeleteI had a ball doing it.
you humble me, I am always lamenting the fact that I do not yet have my MFA--which in my mind would be a ticket to writing full-time,
I guess having a B.A. is an accomplishment althought some academics would have you believe differently...