The Seesaw of Undertow (by Krysia Jopek)

photo of Krysia Jopek by Steve Yau


The Seesaw of Undertow

A. Have I once again miraculously turned the corner of belief, climbed out? And for how long this time before the trap-door snare descends to snap the neck back under the forest? So terrifying and cruel the way it just happens, and no one has even spoken a word.

Now I will be capable of caring for my fellow human, the garden, the seedlings, myself, write again, or doodle philosophically or only in bare color.

But, first, what should I wear to accept the marvel of upright vertical? Can I afford [justify] new shoes? No one will recognize the entirety of the trauma, it can be assumed.

B. Things were very sketchy for a while, you should know. If only I could have thrown the dies upwards to tell you, spell out the odd, unexpected destruction: go no further. The aft self-imposed chaos [an amputation], and the chronic, ever-defiant desire for explanation, the strange beauty of a logic that doesn’t exist.

The gadgets have multiplied while the others were left for dead, sleeping. Strangely some may provide a sense of solace that we are all in this together for a fraction of a second, repentant and brave.

C. I have sewn the holes in the tablecloths that tell the history of the village and its awkward inhabitants: a gossamer thin in the spring just-budded leaves, that astounding inch-worm, chartreuse green from a year ago before so much ice and snow.

I am writing, oddly, to ask you to help me remember [not forget] those pages in the book I tore out and folded, so that you could know and tell me in your own version, your unusual interpretation of the facts.

Maybe sing a background song that is soothing but upbeat—and coax like sudden sunlight over the majestic teal–its constant grandeur yet shifting metronome [through the one hundred and forty four windows], its waves pulsating the distant [key of ] sea.



(c) 2013 by Krysia Jopek

Krysia Jopek’s poems have appeared in Columbia Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, The Wallace Stevens Journal, Phoebe, Murmur, Windhover, and Artists & Influence. She has written reviews of poetry for The American Book Review and a review of literary criticism for The Wallace Stevens Journal. Maps and Shadows, her first novel (Aquila Polonica 2010), won a Silver Benjamin Franklin award in 2011 in the category of Historical Fiction. The Glass House of Forgetting, her second novel (literary fiction), is forthcoming.

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Affirmations [2] – Key of S (by Krysia Jopek)

photo of Krysia Jopek by Steve Yau


Affirmations [2] – Key of S

I have wrapped the fallen in the requisite white cloths and written a sentence for each in permanent ink that even the torrential rains couldn’t disturb.

 

You will tell me: what it was like there stuck above glass waiting for the silk sandfall to slip sane-ness [sameness] again.  It must have hurt very much, which is why you do not talk.

 

So you invented a chain of catharsis, a different fence, safe, for becoming someone brave. Tiny dramas  that found you noble in behavior and thought, a team player on your own team for once, an origami uniform with the most unusual font [fountain]. I know.

 

I have such secrets stitched in the hem of my too-long skirt. There is a danger of stumbling into stone, so I pick up the fabric and tip chin back to sky. 

 

There are pens, too, sewn into the borders. Sometimes they are heavy. Sometimes they sprout sudden blackbird wings, musical notes. You have seen [heard] them and looked away to grant me some privacy, and I must thank you for that.

 

The sun has poked its head, made its grand entrance, bells and whistles, bagpipes and gamelan. The children have lined up for the parade, ready to catch candy, their own surprise.

 

Like you, I shall be human again.

 

You must tell the others I am coming, that I am on the way not spoken, the way not broken, the way the sun came back. You must speak of the silk that was stuck, how it still slips through the hourglass.

(c) 2013 by Krysia Jopek

Krysia Jopek’s poems have appeared in Columbia Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, The Wallace Stevens Journal, Phoebe, Murmur, Windhover, and Artists & Influence. She has written reviews of poetry for The American Book Review and a review of literary criticism for The Wallace Stevens Journal. Maps and Shadows, her first novel (Aquila Polonica 2010), won a Silver Benjamin Franklin award in 2011 in the category of Historical Fiction. The Glass House of Forgetting, her second novel (literary fiction), is forthcoming.

Affirmations [1] (by Krysia Jopek)

photo of Krysia Jopek by Steve Yau


Affirmations [1]

No one was left standing at the edge of the battle. The men, horizontal, wept in fox holes.

 

The sky sings rain to green and clean us.

 

I sent you many letters, 26 to be exact, A-Z. Why won’t you read—are you lazy, bored, or afraid?

 

Facebook creates community yet procrastinates people. The happy medium? Yes, for everything: the steadying branch you whittle and own.

 

When I grow up, I want to be a lunch box that children open, peer inside.

 

I have told all the others.

 

Why can’t you determine the real me of three and show me—hold the mirror up and see yourself?

 

I swear I see you there—hiding—in your skin as if you belonged.

 

I am writing many sentences. I am writing. Many. There are sandwiches for everyone. Yes, a picnic in the rain. Bring your sadness. Bring your laughter and surprise. We will be wise again. I promise.

(c) 2013 by Krysia Jopek

Krysia Jopek’s poems have appeared in Columbia Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, The Wallace Stevens Journal, Phoebe, Murmur, Windhover, and Artists & Influence. She has written reviews of poetry for The American Book Review and a review of literary criticism for The Wallace Stevens Journal. Maps and Shadows, her first novel (Aquila Polonica 2010), won a Silver Benjamin Franklin award in 2011 in the category of Historical Fiction. The Glass House of Forgetting, her second novel (literary fiction), is forthcoming.

Questions (by Krysia Jopek)

photo of Krysia Jopek by Steve Yau

Questions

Does it hurt very much, the missing limb of your tree?
Does the birdsong soothe or simply remove you?
I have moot questions, a hobby like whittling.
And when there is nothing left, where shall I go with such
Emptiness? If the throat closes, will the birds still sing?
I dreamed the dog ran out in the snow of two houses ago
And did not return. He is here, but I already miss him.
The children are careless, and I envy them that.
I will go to the hospital with people-sized peonies.
The crimson silk petals, a bed for fear and forgetting.
A handful of dust? A handful of musical notes:
Stay with us. Stay singing, adding up the figures
Into a shifting sum.



(c) 2013 by Krysia Jopek

Krysia Jopek’s poems have appeared in Columbia Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, The Wallace Stevens Journal, Phoebe, Murmur, Windhover, and Artists & Influence. She has written reviews of poetry for The American Book Review and a review of literary criticism for The Wallace Stevens Journal. Maps and Shadows, her first novel (Aquila Polonica 2010), won a Silver Benjamin Franklin award in 2011 in the category of Historical Fiction. The Glass House of Forgetting, her second novel (literary fiction), is forthcoming.

Choices (by Krysia Jopek)

photo of Krysia Jopek by Steve Yau

Choices

You came here [to the poem]  a) to discover yourself  b) because you are restless  c) bored  d) okay with how things have turned out  e) it’s inevitable. 

You are moving various objects and pieces of furniture about the house because you are  a) confused  b) trying to stay busy  c) creating/forging Order  d) All or   e) None of the above.

 

Someone else is/is not [circle one] necessary to solve the hurt puzzle splitting inside the headache you live inside, the Rooms that take you. Again—[while you] believe  a) in self-punishment  b) purgation of the hardest kind  c) plagiarism  d) partner in crime of gut laughter spilling all the edges blind  e) the talk of love of strangers.

 

This someone else will/may hurt you with words of the past and the future. But unfolding Now. In real time. Like music.

 

Can you be saved  a) now?  b) in the crowd of sleeping  c) wow  d) alone e) how?

 

And what will you tell the Others?  a) I was restless, bored  b) it was the best I could do  c) I didn’t know  d) we talk stranger  e) I am here Now   f) where you are, too.

 

Did you   a) Fall asleep?  f) Forget me / your medication [circle one only please]   c) Scrape across the ice of winter, subsequently bruise both knees?   d) Dive back down into what you deem ecstasy  again?   e)  Please tell me, are you out there [under the full moon somewhere] lurking? Your silence a second guess laugh at nothing.

(c) 2013 by Krysia Jopek

Krysia Jopek’s poems have appeared in Columbia Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, The Wallace Stevens Journal, Phoebe, Murmur, Windhover, and Artists & Influence. She has written reviews of poetry for The American Book Review and a review of literary criticism for The Wallace Stevens Journal. Maps and Shadows, her first novel (Aquila Polonica 2010), won a Silver Benjamin Franklin award in 2011 in the category of Historical Fiction. The Glass House of Forgetting, her second novel (literary fiction), is forthcoming.