pins:

where is your sun-umbrella
your pancake batter & cuban posters
twirling nylon delights, graffiti vapors
slowly taking shape or a shadow darker
interrogating every permanent marker
where is your pin on the map
your piñata of adulthood swinging low
plait crowns and toothpaste ribbons
playful mettle & mottled syntax
your canary post-it note & brass tacks
where is your old moonwalk
your jubilance in the silk blindfold
chinoiserie, laughter, held-breath, applause
some fabricated tale in hand, a spin before you fall
you’re not the only one at the party to hit the wall

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epilogue :

epilogue

I imagined tenderness
sweat and agony
the new pain of straddling
another destiny
and the roar
of monsters chained
at the end
of the last cavern where there are only bones
a fable of conquest
with ample evidence that it did not appease
that mythic hunger
but required instead a surrender
far more ultimate in terms

I glimpsed horizons
of need and canons
the knocking
of a breeze off the ocean
a tide of admissions
wet as envelopes
seals and confessions
a cursive front
a borne rhythm on and on
the easy lapping of War ships
when there is no enemy
and the end, the end
I longed for

I wrote backwards
an enduring alphabet laid
out to dry, as fitting
on a short line
a fleet of armies and arms
wanting to hear your last serenade
a flag on the island
in the wind, what was only natural
but the jungle is sold
and the last wildness is in your eyes
still I wish I could meet you again now
for the first time
and explain everything from the beginning

Copyright © 2018 · Elizabeth Ganot · All Rights Reserved ·

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London :

London was an idea, or an eye
a stone thrown that could sink no deeper
a jar without a lid, a sound out of the speaker

beyond the bridge of murky sea-crossed mosaics
a spine bent back with words half-read
Jimmy’s strings you could not follow, a metronome of something lead

You and I outside in an English garden
a taste you told everyone was only earl grey and cream
a peak fare to the next junction, the blue eggshells of something broken free

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third story apartment :

my days like wooden matches within strike
pressed for moments, inciting fire by hand
fingertips to every surface flintlike
letters now tinder sparked from my inkstand
penned to entertain all foraging eyes
that graze upon a world of sights perceived
open, as is pleasant to imagine
them often, open, to contest and prize
effulgent fates that glow and are believed
to be bright, though suit a dream wherein

music through the window came at once to
fill airy corners of successive rooms
where memorizing the floorboard’s sinew
we fell out of step to our tuned heirlooms
for a verse we were relieved to forget
until melody found our reaching ears
open, as is very pleasant to keep
them often, open, for reminding yet
now without child’s strain to cement that hears
echoes through walls, isolating the deep

nuances on a tabletop resting
where sunlight is smoking when we awake
from dreaming to find our fingers testing
phrases we constructed before daybreak
building stories on our youth’s hammering
through connecting doors to architect’s play
open, left open, as is pleasant to
them often, ajar while all clamoring
intelligent arrangements steal away
home, though it was our homeless words we knew

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MARCUS (mumford)

a radio toothache, hours were not sailboats
mind spinning, trying to brush something off
July got caught under a rudder of ghosts
hours were not parachutes or goalposts lost
we gave them a chance to land on the cross
for a song to mark us then and mark us now
a stain in your cheek with all the old gloss
to one thing we constantly took on the brow
as gentlemen of the road always allow
on mint occasions, a sonnet echo
for a song to Marcus then and Marcus now
enameled moments stole a page although
I’d find the past written all over your face
no bookmark needed, I’d remember the place

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springtime :

the answers changed when Jacarandas turned
away to light crosshairs tied back with a ribbon
I set aside Japanese astronauts
if rust was imagined, that barn door bang notion
a stab in the dark, I had no ghost in the hall
no Poseidon seaweed, No Earthly Good reason
no filament stars, no hiccup dandelions
a stayed course of stars, of emperor butterflies

of history and hamartia basking
against stolen observations from Macallan
to Macchiato, the great sunrise shot
I was still hoping to tip the cross-fade scales and
ask you in the Springtime to sail your ghost of hymns
even though there are no seasons in Hawaii
your ocean of milkweed and postcards make me question
handwriting in blue ink everywhere, salt, and space

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often we are off:

offbeat, offkey, often we are off to see
dirt cheap wizards behind neon signs
in flickering electric memory
in polka-dot colors, chromatic designs
outside a chorus of whizzing rhymes
we find ourselves without a home
without the words we used to use
we find ourselves quite free to roam
on brick-road metaphors, if we choose
without very much at all to lose
from empty pockets of childhood bliss
with ruby shoes along strange terrain
where we lose ourselves in a poppy kiss
consulting exposed histories in the rain
to sing along, a horse without a tether
in a wonderful land of because, because
we can meet, I swear, whatever the weather
we can meet by the music of whatever once was

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dear december 2014 (tall stars and sparkling trees)

Dear mountain mosquito melody-
Dear spongy expiring peppermint tea cake-
Dear last day of the year-
Dear statements like pages in a magazine you might flip through-
Dear December 2014-

The day after Christmas is all tags and names and half written lists strewn across the table with some thick coil or ribbon untied in every corner of your heart and mind. I try to bundle the year- to pack up the pile of mornings- to close the box on a solid idea I can stamp a clear label on and send on its way. The gifts of the year are hushed, collected, burnished with past efforts and future inspirations. What you hold onto is the present.

The last day of the year ends with a country bonfire- with tall stars and sparkling trees on the side of the mountain I’ve called home for the last few years. The bright trails drifting up beyond the ceiling of stars are better than fireworks. I let the the conversation around me warm my cheeks well past three in the morning. I watch as a young man named Leif prods and shakes off sparks into the darkness. His face reminds me of a young Vincent Van Gogh. I feel good about meeting him on such a starry night. As the year closes, I am reminded that we are lucky to have each other to influence and inflame each other forward. Ezra Pound wrote in a letter to Harriet Monroe “My problem is to keep alive a certain group of advancing poets, to set the arts in their rightful place as the acknowledged guide and lamp of civilization.” I continue to hear these broad announcements that our modern years are full of darkness- but I am hopeful because I still see a light in people. It’s there. And I believe we can still help each other keep the fire alive and keep it bright.

Here is the last poem I wrote in 2014-

Epilogue of Sundays:

the home haircut of ideas, the morning was discussed
the loose wiring of ambitions, that befriender of genius
waiting on a weekend electrician for Ezra’s lamp
a cagey dawn in episodic tantrums that squarely passed

so you think you can write poetry, in your latest craze
illuminate sunsets and blasphemy and science and haze
lay bare obscurities to satisfy the erudite
out of Homer lots and home garages, romance the dendrite

with the last volt and pixel and the bright stain in your cheek

helping fireflies escape their mason jars can take the whole week
as whatever light you are chasing leaves no sign to stop
the last offer can be left open on the modern desktop

love and sparks into the darkness,

Elizabeth

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straw :

hot infant bright spark of a kindling birth
on a starlit night amidst sin on earth
in a poor pagan pinch of salty time
past a modern ritual lost in rhyme
of god’s dark decrees for a kingdom bright
for your near escape from an endless night
where you swore to abandon your wicked ways
you swore it forever on innocent days
as if inside a dream of straw and gold
we only dreamt before we grew too old
where fanatic salvation set us free
with tart knowledge from a defiant tree
in a jungle dense of mystery missed
on the face creation so feverently kissed

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baste stitch :

decemberpic

december strays away, yarn to splinter
room to room, embroidery and crochet
sunlight unwinds Dante, west from winter
a decorated past, paper mâché
sugar plum out of luck, you seek and hide
rummaging to spare one crown for a king
apparitions you couldn’t pin aside
in craft drawers, while a mother is birthing
a decoupage, spools of eternity
carols, apparel, round saviours and stars
seamless in pattern, you could not pull free
from calendars that pulled a thread of scars
day after day, hand-stitched and brow-knitting
tailored, timeless and strangely befitting

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epistolographer

Elizabeth Ganot · Letters from Islands · Poems and Seasons

pins:

epilogue :

London :

third story apartment :

MARCUS (mumford)

springtime :

often we are off:

dear december 2014 (tall stars and sparkling trees)

straw :

baste stitch :