So I am looking at this memoir, as a small slice of time, and inciting incident. I was really a stupid girl in 1980. I was in college at Santa Monica College as an Art Student. My art teacher wanted me for a muse, and then he got me. There is only one problem. It was one of the #MeToo horror stories. For what he did. So I was looking at a link yesterday, and since I am so many years away from this experience, now, and can write this book – the inciting incident is used to explain how one survives a breakup.
At UCSB Edgar Bowers was my poetry teacher. I wrote a lot of poetry around this relationship, and I don’t think I still have many of those, especially one that was my favorite called “Hyacinth Gaze” — but, they were all poems because I was deeply in love, at 22. I’ll be writing the novel live, into WP. So, I am going to use the Spotify Anchor deal to record! As in like yay and thank you to WordPress and Spotify. Come to think if it, there are many poems in my old blog Valentine Bonnaire I can record along with lots of Depth and Ecopsychology things I wrote over there, but anyway, two more poems from the time I was in a terrible relationship in my twenties. The kind that scars your heart very deeply. Sears the soul actually. So that link is here: https://valentinebonnaire.com/2015/05/10/pieces-of-silver/ for the poems I will read today.
The three poems I could find are here: https://valentinebonnaire.com/2016/09/05/trois-poemes-dune-rose-shattered-1981-where-i-laid-me-down-to-sleep-for-novel/
The last novel I wrote in Nano was 2013, and also relates to this time.
So I wrote these poems, looking out to sea.
#1
Inside this sargasso sea of strangers
a couple pairs
off a couple the eyes tend to meet
then lower
these minds met one unlocking the other
slowly letting the facts sink in
one taking the lead one following
one decision was reached when we
sped down freeways laughing
sped around looking for any destination
I fought the pull as long as I could
other people’s histories are so charming
this kind of curiosity tends to kill
maybe it was your BMW your hand
shifting gracefully in time to
blasting
blast me apart yes it was the way you
drove and drove me to this
I guess I knew that you would
make love to me the way you drove cleanly
slide inside your kind of knife
leaves only invisible scars
these kinds of wounds heal by themselves
in time
or maybe it was your camera a dangling
appendage most powerful its own kind
of magic that must be it I thought you were
some kind of well-traveled magician
well versed in the arts are you just like me
in that you always get what you want no
matter what the cost? I love the fact that
only certain people meet only certain people sleep
together out of need why out of all the other
people in the world certain people slip into each others
or maybe it was San Francisco never mind the
east coast that always held the greatest fascination
beatnik dreams never mind if you were
too young at that point it’s really fun to absorb
someone else
inner secrets inner core the inside of a
chambered mind never mind the heart because
osmosis that’s it everyone wants that kind of
total immersion that kind of meshing that click of
gears the hum of the motor telling you you’re
alive again I don’t blame you for that
just when you drive in the spikes of truths
those kind of thorns do it slowly and savor it
because I will be if we get lucky
it’s too bad we can’t turn it around and just go back
to LA freeways when I didn’t know you so well yet
just to the point when I began to want to want you
a little for the thrill of it
how much are you going to cost me in the long run
now that we’ve paid the price of admission?
~
*so, that was written when I had moved north to get away.
And:
#3
“come winter I will teach you how to prune the roses”
will it be that way before harsh weather
when the frost sets in before the fog and the city
smiles for christmas
coming
will it be that we hold hands and laugh and decorate
another bed in a different space across the pages
of our lives & Times
will it be that you will still be laughing
striding in the sun grey with the rain
I’ll bring the white birds out
I’ll bring the box with lights, the symbols
maybe we might wish together once again
amid the wrappings and unwrappings
by the lights of other candles
will it be that we still care for tastes of tongues
and softened lights and softer words
i’ll go out into the garden planting
all kinds of bulbs they’re going to flourish
under my hands they will in every shade of rose
and when the skies grow deeper black before the morning
will it be that way
will it be that you are there to chase away the cold
and colder silence of alone-ness
will it be that i will find you watching
my movements through teh rooms with sadness
will it be that you’ll be sitting
obscure (a little anyway) in light
outlined in silhouette against the glass of
other windows
ringing in another year
~
*this poem was written in January of 1981.
That year, I had my first Christmas tree in college. With him.
So as a writer, when you look back at older work, I mean. That’s right where you were. My journals tell the tale. Call me Ishmael.
Adrienne Wilson 