Communication

by Mel Trent

 2010 by Mel Trent SPAEL graphic 2010 Mel Trent Cover photo and author photo 2010 by Mel Trent All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. Printed by Lulu Press in the United States of America

Table of Contents Prefacei Pound for Pound1 Insonic2 Solidarity3 Autopsy4 Translated5 Two Haiku6 Pages7 Wordless8 Transience9 Illiterate10 The Art of Communication11 Listen 12 Synonyms13 Misunderstanding14 Hart15 Rust16 Airwaves17 Theory of Gravity18 An Ode to Text Twist19 Idiomatic20 Villanelle21 Perspective22 Sestina23 Point of View25 Across My Universe26 An Eloquent Silence27 Between the Lines28 SPAEL (Society for the Prevention of Abuse of the English Language29 Written in Blood30

Preface The American Academy of Poets established National Poetry Month, to be celebrated every April, in 1996. Back then, I still considered myself primarily a poet. Every day of every month was full of poetry, reading it, writing it and occasionally reading my poems to an audience. I didn't need to set that month aside. I've actually only been aware of National Poetry Month for something like five years. With poetry slowly falling out of favor in my life, except in the form of music, I would half-heartedly celebrate with a blog post or maybe a skim though a book of poems. This year, I wanted to do something different. Though I haven't written much poetry in the last several years, I still contend that writing poetry is an essential exercise for fiction writers. I missed writing poetry. What better way to celebrate National Poetry Month than to write thirty poems in thirty days? The point was not to make them the best poems I had ever written; the point was simply to write them. And I did. The theme was largely an accident. At the time these poems were written, I was thinking a lot about language and communication. Three poems or so into the project, I realized they all touched on that idea. It seemed natural, then, to keep on in that vein. The thirty poems in this collection were all written in April * 2010. For the most part, one poem was written each day. I did miss a Sunday somewhere and doubled up the next day. Theory of Gravity took a couple days to complete, so there were others completed in the meantime. Except for the second of Two Haiku, the poems are presented in the order they were written. This whole endeavor has been rewarding on many levels; the most important, for me, is the act of writing, of communicating. Do all of these poems work the way I want them to? Maybe not, but that's the joy and the frustration of communication. June 2010 Raleigh

Solidarity, The Art of Communication, Misunderstanding and Hart all underwent rewrites in mid June. Hart (formerly Unspoken) was rewritten extensively but retains the (sorry) heart of the original.

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Pound for Pound I buy my words a penny a pound the smallest ones I can find and then I press them, extracting the oil that smoothes my journey through this iced ether of communication there isn't room in my pen or on my tongue for anything bigger than this little whisper in words too faint to to touch the inward facing world but I keep sending my signals one day something might answer

Insonic not necessarily the airy sound of whooshing words or the breathing beat of sentences strung so tensely along my spine but yet definitely the hollow hubris of holding conversations on only one side; it isn't as though I'm not listening, it's that you have so little to say

Solidarity you listen for words of comfort or greeting from any tongue willing to speak but no one does; tight-lipped grimfaced eyes cast down and anchored to their feet don't look up don't smile don't speak and the night goes cold for the lack of a language to share

Autopsy tender little morsels of words cut down to sounds torn and bled dry analyzed discussed explained until there's no life left in them

Translated you see the sun silvered through a veil of cool clouds I see a hole in the sky you see the ocean stretched between two shores, connecting distant and disparate lives I see blue green emptiness you see crumbling buildings and busted windows I see portals through which I can touch the past

Two Haiku conversations are ripples on the pond's surface not yet deep enough

communication under the noise of your voice ephemeral words

Pages we're not on the same page not even in the same chapter this book of mine isn't like yours at all but funny how we seem to strive to tell the same story so many different words for one thought no wonder none of us are on the same page

Wordless wander where winds whip wildly and watch the waking world warm wonder why or why not and when one answer won't wither the doubt be silent

Transience there's a world inside my outside there's a world in which no one lives but me dreams and memories like yesterday fade into tomorrow leaking into now it's just now nothing but now so speak to me in your images of trains and fences roads and bridges faces and the emptiness and the fullness of your momentary vision and I will look into your inner world, take the language of your art and translate reality into one whole now inspired by the photographs of Andrew Ross http://www.andrewross.com/portfolio_transience.html

Illiterate you can't read my mind you can't read my eyes you pretend that you know what I'm thinking so you don't have to hear me say it

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The Art of Communication people are talking, typing saying what nothing comes through but noise chatter key board clatter 140 characters real time updates constant connection but there's no connection is there anything worth saying through the noise?

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Listen pretend for a moment that I am gifted with eloquence and that everyone wants to hear my thoughts on topics mundane and profound who will win the next game and can we save ourselves from nature's capriciousness my every word conveys so concisely what I'm thinking what I'm feeling what I'm wanting you to know but for all my gifted tongues and the language at my command I know that you are only hearing and never listening

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Synonyms how many words exist for me to say I hate you I love you I want you? loathing and odium adoration and affection desire and lust but why one and not the other? is what I call green the same green your eyes signal to your brain? in Japanese there is no word for green it's all blue and in Russian the word for war is the same as the word for peace and only context clarifies I lust to wage peace on your blue leafed trees

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Misunderstanding I follow the map of your words and the compass of the context trying to trace the link of thought to thought to the words you speak but the map is outdated the compass has too many points and I get lost on the back roads

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Hart you left so much unsaid bits of thought unfinished as if when you threw yourself to the sea you threw your pages out ahead and dove down through glittering confetti white jewels your last thoughts on fire while you cooled in dark depths did you clutch at them gasping and grasping in those last seconds the last words you might have given, though unrequited, to the one you loved and to the ones who loved you or did they only weigh you down, those unspoken words? bright pages float on the surface like placid birds sleeping on the waves ink seeps into the salt while below you watch your words, unspoken, swim

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Rust hiding in the shadows on the fringes watching the wheels and listening but never sharing shy and frightened by the loud noises but year after year of silence weighs me down as my voice rusts in my throat

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Airwaves vibrating patterns recognize the emptiness across which they quiver and build into frequencies funneled onto channels I tune in to listen to the voices but all I hear is noise

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Theory of Gravity is there a theory for you seriousness or your heft or for the importance of coming to an understanding? and what would that theory state about your tendency to sink? would it be able to measure the force which attracts your mass to mine? or is it an ugly equation attempting to define a concept the mind is incapable of imagining because it occurs in more dimensions than we can perceive? the gravity6 of your gravity7 gravitates3 to gravity1 and the gravity8 of your voice has no gravity2 gravity 1) the force of attraction by which terrestrial bodies tend to fall towards the center of the earth; 2) heaviness or weight; 3) gravitation in general; 4) acceleration of gravity; 5) a unit of acceleration equal to the acceleration of gravity (g); 6) serious or critical nature; 7) serious or dignified behavior; 8) lowness in pitch, as of sounds

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An Ode to Text Twist blurry rub bur blur ruby bury bury the blurry ruby in the bur then rub away the blur rub the ruby blurry and bury the bur in a blur bur the bury blurry ruby rub until they blur

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Idiomatic I have a habit of coming apart at the seams of starting before I can begin and thinking before I speak I think my natural state is unraveled pieces scraps of sound instead of whole words

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Villanelle close your eyes, open your ears listen to the voice of the night open your mind to what no one else hears though the darkness is deep, forget your fears a luminous mind has ample light close your eyes, open your ears though all reason disappears keep your heart from flight open your mind to what no one else hears trapped in silence for so many years but no longer afraid of your plight close your eyes, open your ears. follow the road where it veers trust instinct and don't fight open your mind to what no one else hears ignore the jeers and the cheers all criticism's nothing but blight close your eyes, open your ears open your mind to what no one else hears

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Perspective I want to distort your perspective, rearrange your context and mix your blacks and whites into shades of grey there's nothing to gain from seeing only one side even if the world were flat, there would still be two sides

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Sestina ink stains my hands like blood I stand back and admire the marks I've left on the page but as I watch the ink dry I find comprehension has gone I can no longer read my own words no sooner than my eyes dry I run to press my face to the page what I once could admire now sinks a chill into my blood once like precious gems, these words now like rain drops are gone taunted by the blank page until mind and logic are gone what spills from tongue and blood are no longer fluid words but corpses, desiccated and dry they are nothing to admire I was my words flesh and blood of ink never dry left on every page for all to admire and now gone where have they gone? my fragile words too shy to admire 23

themselves, blush dark as blood mouth silent and dry hell is a blank page I turn every page looking for something to admire I can't turn these symbols into words the conceit of art is gone drained of blood and dry on every page I splash my words ink is my blood

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Point of View we watched the same words unfold across the page, saw the same syntax in the same context but eye witness accounts are never reliable

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Across My Universe words are not flowing their endless rain has dried up and I'm scavenging in muddy pools to dig them out even when my world tilts at impossible angles no words come tumbling down I pick and pull at them plant them in rows along the page shaping them into sentences paragraphs stories but they remain silent scabs of ice over the dying river of my fiction

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An Eloquent Silence what to say when it seems there's nothing left to say the conversation winding down to awkward glances at hands and watches saying more in the way we don't talk than when we open our mouths

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Between the Lines language is more than words it's a soft smile on full lips and warmth that rises to the eyes it's a quiver in a voice a glance averted a tremble in a hand language is spoken by the whole body immersion is the best way to become fluent

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SPAEL (Society for the Prevention of Abuse of the English Language) abused and disused unable to get enthused overused and useless not soothing or choosing their use they want to ooze through a sentence shout out the news lose their inhibitions and swallow before they chew you've been so in the dark but now you know their plight so please join the fight and help prevent word abuse

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Written in Blood I've spilled so many gallons of ink translating and transcribing the visions in my head it's been enough to fill my veins I have words in my blood in my eyes on my tongue in my skin and in my breath I have stories to dream poems to bleed more ink to spill in my quest to communicate

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About the Author

Mel Trent lives and works in North Carolina. Her fiction, poetry and photographs appear regularly in Piker Press (www.pikerpress.com). She blogs irregularly at The Thoughtful Trickster (www.ravensghost.wordpress.com).