Cottonmouth Country

(I commented on Chandlers and Brittany Burkleys Blog)
Fish bones walked the waves off Hatteras.
And there were other sighns
That Death wooed us, by water, wooed us
By land: among the pines
An uncurled cottonmouth that rolled on moss
reared in the polluted air.
Birth, not death, is the hard loss.
I know. I also left a skin there.
-Louise Gluck

To me this poem is talking about the chances we take in life and how sometimes those chances seem like we are tempting fate, flirting with death. We continue on this path until death comes for us. Its sudden and quick- usually, but that doesnt make it any easier on the ones that loose us because of death it makes it the hard loss. The structure of this poem is different. It has sudden breaks in the line and isnt a very long poem which further creates the allusion to me of a sudden quick death. I also find it interesting that a cottonmouth is mentioned in this poem since it is a snake and most people are afraid of snakes and of their deathly bite.

The Book

I held it in my hands he told the story.

He had found it in a fallen bunker,
a book for notes with all the pages blank.
He took it to keep for a sketchbook and diary.

He learned years later, when he showed the book
to an old bookbinder, who paled and stepped back
a long step and told him what he held,
what he had laid the days of this life in.
It's bound, the binder said, in human skin.

I stood turning it over in my hands,
turning it in my head. Human skin.

What child did this skin fit? What man, what
woman?
Dragged still full of its flesh from what dream?

Who took it off the meat? Some other one
who stayed alive by knowing how to do this?

I stared at the changing book and a horror grew,
I stared and a horror grew, which waws, which is
how beautiful it was until I knew.
-Miller Williams

This poem is really weird and a little gross, but I decided to do it anyway. I really liked the structure of this poem. It was done in a way to tell this story of how this book changed the more that was found out about it. It's almost like there is two lifes now with the book. The life of the man who wrote in it and the life of the person whos skin was used to bound it. It really makes me wonder why. why did this happen? What purpose did it serve? Its horrible that someones flesh was used for the binding of this book. I love books but I wouldnt even want to touch a book binded by human flesh.

It was a dream

in which my greater self
rose up before me
accusing me of my life
with her extra finger
whirling in a gyre of rage
at what my days had come to.
what,
i pleaded with her, could i do,
of what could i have done?
as she twisted her wild hair
and sparked her wild eyes
and screamed as long as
i could hear her
This. This. This.
- Lucille Clifton
In psychology they say that people either dream in symbols or they dream events based on what has happened in their life. Im guessing that Clifton is dealing with some guilt in her life. It sounds like the person she is talking about is her conscience. The lines in which my greater self rose up before me accusing me of my life... makes me think that she is dealing with a lot of guilt over something she has done and her conscience is helping her deal with it and possibly helping her to set it right.
The structure of this poem is very strange. There isnt capital letters at the begining. the two parts are broken by one word what, I think that the reason this poem is structured this way is so that more emphaisis is placed through out this poem.

Untitled

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said: "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter-bitter," he answered;
"But I like it
because it is bitter,
and because it is my heart."

Jacey and I decided to pick this poem as the poem to teach to the class. It is a rather unusual poem, It doesnt have a title and its quite short and random, but I believe it to have a lot of meaning in it and that it may be viewed in many different ways. I think the meaning of this poem is Heartbreak. A bitter heartbreak in fact. I have read books dealing with heartbreak and bitter break ups and reading this poem has made me think of these books. The lines But i like it because it is bitter and because it is my heart really shows that feeling to me of a sweet bitterness. Heartbreak happens, but its something that everyone will have to deal with in their own way, some people cry and wallow in self pity, others rebound fast and others joke about it. There is also the expression of eat your heart out and that made be what this poem is about as well, since the character in this poem is literaly eating his heart out.