My Poems

Evanescence
Fixity at Sur Mer
Alchemy
Immobility
for a moment only
The Measure of the Year
Departure


Yay for me! One of my pieces below, Alchemy, was recently chosen to be published in a volume printed by Poetry.com. Even more recently, the same poem was selected to be recorded on a volume of spoken word pieces! How cool!


Evanescence

The rain makes adequate use

of its time on earth--

falling into trees, onto cars and houses
touching everything it can
before it hits the ground
(only to be sent up again
to repeat the process).

While we, despite many opportunities

to do otherwise,

sit, knees touching, eyes not meeting
wondering if and when
this process we created will turn out.

The rain falls, unhesitating,
as we waste another chance
to touch the earth.

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Fixity at Sur Mer

You stood towards the end of the jetty--

that slippery crag of a penisula--

farther than I dared to tread.

That strange man,
young son on his shoulders

walked horizon-ward and on

till those rocks were merely stones

on the windblown Atlantic.

Near the shore, I stood--afraid.

avoiding ghastly images:

that child, crashing, loud;

breaking as a wave upon the rocks.

Too soon, I thought, for me.
I cannot catch that which God won't yield.

And in between--you.

braced against the wind;

backlit, disappearing in the sun--

asked me to be careful.
How could I heed your warning
when all I wanted was to run

over sea-soft rocks

to you, and past

to catch the boy?

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Alchemy

For 80 seasons
I've sought solace at this window--
sent here first as a child, discouraged
lying in half-light, prone on a daybed,
hoping all the teasing would soon be over,
daydreaming, without a well to make my wish;
growing up, watching fantasies
float unattained out this window,
hoping that the trees would catch them,
and hand them back, fulfilled;
relentlessly crying stale tears to no avail.
The trees don't care;
they don't change, and cannot hold.

A dime for every drop
and I could buy a better scene to contemplate.
Better yet,
I could toss each shining piece
one by one out this window,
until my vista turns a sea of silver,
outshining the overcast,
and blinding me when the sun comes up.

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Immobility

It was January, a Monday,
and I knew you'd be leaving again soon.
Outside, the freezing rain
punctuated my stillness with question marks.

But in the dark morning,
blanketed against the outside cold,
you touched my hip with a warm hand,
saying, Your tattoo is right there,
(a spot I cannot locate without light)
while your mouth, even warmer, against my shoulder
brushed away with an evanescent answer
the questions I could not ask.

In our unlit bedroom,
your hand on my side-
you, identifying that mark,
a dragonfly, put there years before I knew
you'd come along;
you, in the dark,
mapping my body faultlessly--
left me frozen,
crying, Stay, with silent lips.

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Strings

I spend each day in a clumsy wandering
wavering
as I reach to grasp balloon-strings
slowly as they rise
Once I am lifted in the air I
can't
help but look back down
at the sodden dismal earth
that sent me up again
(what goes up)
In a way it seems like
all
I've tried to do has drained
and gone to dust in my fingers...
Decisions, answers feeling
right
turned GOLD to BRASS (and sometimes back again)
And I rise higher in flight like
Icharus
(must come down)
not aware that it is
my incoherent heart guiding the balloon
this time

heedless I must return to the
tangible reality of the ground

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for a moment only grasping for something but loneliness escaping with a cigarette rain like tears and a grey sky like my temperament maturity came with a price and now i'm going poor inside my egg-shell mind who is the sphinx this time around maybe the double-entendres will drift and the purposes original will remain there's usually something lurking and BOOM i haven't been paying enough attention i hear its supposed to be special or fireworks its surprising how much fun it still is even though we're old security fails me and let things pass on naturally finding it impossible to clear my head tomorrow yes tomorrow

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The Measure of the Year

Crisp air and trodden, dry leaves are
instruments for contemplation
through days that have lent themselves
easily to tears, then exaltations.
Giving up to thoughts, like whirlwinds
raging harmonies of a dream
so highly prized, quietly sought
in the still left behind despite the breeze.
Yielding to the fall, to solace
then remember--Spring is distant
and the days now cold insinuate
somehow he can serve what heat the days can't.

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Departure

Swerving, determined black car
makes a customary pilgrimage to the grocery store--
adjusting itself on the road
to restrain its driver's eyes from the distracting night sky.

Dimly-lit Italian restaurant on the corner
evokes a twinge in passing,
a somber recollection of shared calamari,
cut off by the changing stoplights and the automatic door.

Dizzy flourescent lights
divide accordingly--you, me,
these aisles, fifty or sixty miles of highway--
like the distance between produce and frozen foods.

Quivering, half-filled shopping car
reveals the paradox: I shop for one,
planning dinner, while you sit at home,
eating your mother's baked beans.

You left to live with her--
and three obnoxious plastic bags
are all that come home with me today.
I swallow tears with my convenience food.

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*Disclaimer: These are my poems, © 2001, Kristen Corbi, all rights reserved. Please do not take them. (Not that I think you can make any money off of them or anything.) But if you'd like to buy them, feel free to let me know...

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Last updated December 22, 2001.