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.