The RetroLounge Daily Poem Thread (Mon 1/7/2008)

[RetroLounge]

Experience

When I think of everything I've wanted
I feel sick. There was this night in winter
when Jennifer Scanlon and I were driven
out to the desert to be the only girls there
when the boys got drunk and chose
the weakest among themselves to beat
the living shit out of over and over again
as the dumb night continued in its airy way
to say nothing. I wanted so badly that night
to believe violence was a little bell you could ring
and get what you wanted. It seemed to work
for those boys, who'd established order among
the disorderly wilderness using nothing
but a few enthusiastic muscles. Even after
he'd begun bleeding from his nose, the boy
stayed. It was an initiation is what he believed.
Thank god time erases everything
in this steady impeccable way. Now it's like
I never lived that life, never had to, sitting
on a tailgate while Jennifer asked for advice
on things she'd already done, watching the stars
waver above us. adoring whatever it was
that allowed those boys to throw themselves
fists first at the world, yell every profanity ever
made into the pried-open ear of the universe.
It often occurred to me then that if only
we could get quiet enough, we'd hear
the universe calling hack to us, telling us
what to do next. Of course, if we'd been quiet
we wouldn't have heard anything, and that
silence, too, would have ruined us.

Carrie Fountain

*****************************



Carrie Fountain's poems have appeared in Cimarron Review, Black Warrior Review and Marlboro Review, among others. She was a fellow at the James A. Michener Center for Writers, and Artist-in-Residence at the Frank Waters Foundation. In 2005, she received Swink Magazine's Award for Emerging Writers and the Marlboro Poetry Prize. She lives and writes in Austin, TX, where she writes a regular poetry column for the Austin American-Statesman and is Co-Managing Program Director of Grrl Action, a writing and performance program for teenage girls.

:hi:

RL

[Tuesday Afternoon]

1. uh---

I want to say nice.
the girl parts are.
the boy parts --
uhm
well,
boys will be boys.

I like the way she captured a frozen moment in time.

[RetroLounge]

2. ...

:hi:

RL

[hisownpetard]

3. Interesting. Am not familiar with this poet and want to go back and read it a couple

more times.

Thanks for posting it, RL!

[RetroLounge]

4. Just found her myself

:hi:

RL