Sandy Weisman: World, oh World... and other poems
World, oh world
Eels leap toward the light, as if
it were love. Wild screams
over the St. George peninsula,
lightning like a rifle at my side.
Wind thrashes the imagined
order, drafts toward upheaval.
The sea itself ventures out,
shudders. Compared with yesterday’s
balm, that I can no longer think of, this
weather defines the knot tangling
within me. No bird will call today.
Not the osprey, nor lonely guillemot.
The world erodes toward sorrow. What
can be done, can I do? I am ironing
the pillowcases. I have always been
ironing the pillowcases.
But When I Came To
Sandy Weisman is a poet and visual artist, who currently makes artist books and mixed media collages. She is interested in the interplay between word and image, incorporating her own poetry into her visual art. Weisman has a background in textiles and art education. Her work has been shown in the Boston area where she maintained a studio for many years, and her poetry has been included in several journals and anthologies in more recent years.
Weisman moved to Maine in 2010 after leaving her work at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, where she was the Director of Education in the Curatorial Programs office. She is the owner of 26 Split Rock Cove in South Thomaston, (www.26splitrockcove.com ) a private artist studio space, retreat, and workshop venue.
But when I came to
what I’d been told
and found it
to be untrue, untrue
over and over and finally
mostly untrue, with some truth
mixed in – and now I can see
more of it to be mistaken for truth
and I had not been allowed to judge it
for myself, so I threw it
all out, as much of it as I could
throw out without throwing
my very self out.
I began again
to teach myself
and found so many thoughts
all different sorts of thoughts are true
and not true at the same time
and I could finally agree with myself
that what I had been told
was the way it was.
Shivering
Transformations
We tell stories.
We tell stories to make sense of our lives.
We tell stories to communicate our experience of being alive.
We tell stories in our own distinct voice. Our own unique rhythm and tonality.
Transformations is a weekly story-telling column. The stories are written by community members who are my students. Our stories will be about family, love, loss and good times. We hope to make you laugh and cry. Maybe we will convince you to tell your stories.
— Kathrin Seitz
“Everyone, when they get quiet, when they become desperately honest with themselves, is capable of uttering profound truths. We all derive from the same source. There is no mystery about the origin of things. We are all part of creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians; we have only to open up, only to discover what is already there.” — Henry Miller
Kathrin Seitz teaches Method Writing in Rockport, New York City and Florida. She can be reached at kathrin@kathrinseitz.com.
Morning begins dark indigo,
cobalt, cerulean, sapphire, royal,
azure – the fleshy rim of light
along the back. Clouds chug by.
When children color
they never blue this space
between the earth and the top
of the paper, they call sky.
From my bed the steely ocean’s
sheen, shivering – only birds punctuate
this blank heaven from which our dead
mothers look after us.
Blizzard
Coronets of clouds, blasts of breath,
comes a Nor’easter and fury
howling at the corner of my house
snow just one part, evidence
that whites out the familiar.
TV brings news while I watch the facts
outside – boundaries that disappear.
First the stone wall, its geometry
no longer hard edged, vertical. Gone
now the garage door, erased.
And gone the neighbors’ houses,
my world closing in – a hearth holding
– and empty of the living.
I am afraid more than once of this
wildness that does not care for me,
that spends itself on itself.
No dog or cat or deer about, no tracks
of rabbit or squirrel or fox or geese.
Is this beauty, these screaming gods,
this mad work? When will I again
praise the world and my good fortune.
Event Date
Address
United States