Lindsey Smith -- bytheirlimping@hotmail.com



Junior, The Pacific Community Charter High School
Mendocino County
Point Arena, CA

 

Buttress Mattress in Watercress: Thoughts
on Writing, Process, and Community

By Lindsey Smith   

My first poem was titled "I Am Fox."   I was five years old and it was my beginning.   I still know it by heart.

I am addicted to the sound of words.   I love to write poems that are full of visual images, words strung together, words that make sense because they sound good together, "buttress mattress in watercress," not because they ordinarily make sense.   To me words that are rolled together, crafted, woven and bewitched are the highest form of art.   Words are like clay; when I read my poetry at a slam or for a small audience I can shape the words, roll them around on my tongue, bounce them off the roof of my mouth, light as air, or make them fall to the floor with a heavy thud.

Words are like a river running through me, they are always going through my head.   I never see myself as being "bored" because when there is a dull moment I just get into my boat and start floating down the river of words.   I fish words out and start combining them, playing with the way they sound together, rolling them around on my tongue, spitting them out.   It is often in these "dull" moments that I get the inspiration to write.

Many people say that to be a writer you have to practice, practice, practice, and constantly challenge yourself.   That is not the way that I write. Writing is my form of play, and I don't believe that playing is something that you have to discipline yourself about and practice continually.   I always look for ways to improve my writing, to bleed more life into it; I do not see that as practice, but as a new way to play.

I write in my journal every day, but my journal is just margin notes about my daily life, inspiration, for future poems and novels.   I don't force myself to write poetry or fiction everyday, only when it comes to me. Everyone has a gift that guides them, and gives them direction; writing is my gift.   I can't force my writing, I have to let it guide my pen and tell me where I should go.

I love writing poetry and fiction equally, but poetry allows me to express myself differently.   Writing is what I love most and one day I want it to change from being play into being my life and my work.   I want to write novels, weave all my life experiences into them, bring in my poetry, my stories, my journal entries, my dreams and aspirations.   But I have not had enough life experience to do that yet, so all my writing energy, my river of words, is expressed through my poetry.   Poetry allows me to tell my stories, to express myself in just a page, or just five lines of seventeen syllables.   I feel that poetry has more flexibility than fiction, I don't have to have a beginning, middle and end; I don't even have to tell a story, I can just play with words if I want to.   Poetry has no bounds, no limits.   It can go wherever I want it to, and it can take me wherever it wants to.

            Poetry is just as much a part of my community as the beaches, the fog, and the redwood trees.   A love for poetry is fostered in my community by well recognized poets like Stephen Kessler, Fionna Perkins, Blake More, and Randall Babtkis, and by the people who stand on the street corners singing and rapping and yelling their poetry to the world.   I feel lucky to live in a community where poetry is cradled and loved and encouraged to grow.   There are "Third Thursday" Poetry Readings at the City Art Gallery in Point Arena, there are contests sponsored by the Art in the Redwoods and the Redwood Coast Review, there are poetry slams between the schools, and poetry read on the radio.   There is poetry for peace, and poetry for the ocean, and poetry for every walk of life that exists around here.

            I was lucky enough to participate in the PEN Authors Lecture Series that was sponsored by my school, the Pacific Community Charter School.   Among the five wonderful writers that visited us, three were poets.   We were exposed to the very different, yet stunning, styles of Quincy Troupe, Jane Hirshfield, and Willie Perdomo.   Before the poets visited our community we read their works, critiqued them, wrote poems in their styles, and then we finally were able to meet them.   I can say that they all influenced the way that I write today.   If it weren't for the love of poetry in my community I wouldn't have been able to experience these big time writers in this small town.

In October I was the first place winner in the youth division of the Art in the Redwoods/Redwood Coast Review poetry contest.   It was the first poetry contest that I had ever won, and I won it with a very controversial poem that I had written.   When my poem was published in The Redwood Coast Review in December the community received it with mixed reactions.   There were those who viewed it as inappropriate and criticized me for writing it.   I'd be sitting in a café and hear a hushed whisper of, "I've read her poetry," followed by glances of disapproval in my direction.   Teachers judged me for it, and I was frustrated that those people didn't see the metaphors and messages behind the poem's controversial front.   But I have also been approached by people who loved the poem, said that it had meaning to them, or spoke to them about their life.   People supported me and stood behind me and cheered me on.   That only happens in a community that loves and supports poetry.  

Poetry is a form of glue in my community; it brings people together.   One poem may link five, ten, fifty people together because it means something to all of them, evokes a memory, or insights discussion and conflict.   The words from a poem unwind from the page in a string, a string that wraps around my community, wrapping tighter and tighter until we're standing shoulder to shoulder, all brought together by poetry.

Intoxication (Drunk Eyes)

I find something so wonderfully intoxicating
about drunk men.   To dance and turn the lights
down low, sleep under the table and on the couch
fully clothed, evokes a feeling of closeness.
Arguing of bathrooms, the haunted corner room
and the percentage left.
I like the smell of their breath; the drunk men.
The look in their eyes.   The smile on their face.
I drink in their drunkenness until I'm visually drunk,
my eyes stumbling in their sockets, and slurring their words.
I like the way nothing matters to drunk eyes, race, beauty,
personality.   Everyone is beautiful enough to dance with.
To turn the lights down low, and sleep under the table
and on the couch in just a bra, with.
I like the lingering feeling that drunk men leave me
with.   The feeling of being foolishly, yet appropriately
loved.   And in their presence, I pray
for a rainstorm so I could have the freedom,
under their drunk consent, to run in the yard
in the rain, laughing like a small child.
Run until I fall down, lie there
with the rain washing the liquor out of my eyes,
until my eyes are sober again.

Blessed are Those Who Listen to the Words

I blow the powder from my thumb
it floats slowly against a black screen.
My lip print indented on the page
a cream colored, foam-textured fossil.
Gasoline on concrete is an overdone
metaphor of the silver screen, like the one I just used.
The black screen again, as my friend of Hand would say
the white albinos with red eyes are bringing me files.
They called to say that the buttress
mattress in watercress was on sale at the 5&Dime.
We jittered and snickered we're addicted
to the sound of words strung like Christmas lights.
Popcorn burning, it is not a good smell,
like the pause in time before a pregnant woman dies.
The hair on his lower arms is
soft; it grows darker slowly, I notice.
Stop looking,
it is just a trick of light and shadow.
My lines running closer and closer together, it is a mass,
people murmuring beneath the incense
" beati quelli che ascoltano alle parole "




Tell Me Another Fantastic Untruth

I am a body bag
I stuff dead people inside me
Outside me, zip in comes Jimmy
Zip out goes Mary
I once met the National Symbol of Scotland
The Loch ness Monster
We had tea together by the side
Of Loch Ness
It told me it was tired of being
Overexposed; it needed a press diversion
So I spent the next two hours
Making a loud commotion- by the side of the Loch- naked
I am a revolving door
Spin me around
Push and pull me by my handles
Get trapped, suffocated
Inside the revolving door of my mind
Dark, still, acrid smelling like the
Chamber of a just shot revolver
Sit in the gunpowder smoke of my thoughts
Whawhamp! You hear your heart
Reverberating against the inside of
My metalicized, chamberized brain
The dark becomes light
The light of hundreds of small
Crystals glowing in a match light
Whawhamp! Your heart Whawhamp!
Reverberates against Whawhamp! The
Crystals Whawhamp!
Park bench, New York City
The homeless man next to me talks
Does he remember his childhood?
The hot summers in the Bronx
When someone would bust the fire hydrant
And everyone would run in the cold
Whawhamp! Park bench
London, raining, red double-decker bus
Old gypsy woman muttering,
One eye rolling, accosted by the
Uptight Queen's English woman with
The tartan Coach purse
Raining, red double-decker bus
Whawhamp! Gone.
I am a body bag, zip in comes the Old Gypsy Woman

Ghazal Me Down

I boil the coffee over on the first morning
and on the second Thursday I boil my heart over.
The red jello is like silk, and I am such
a texture person, I've always liked skin to skin.
If I cut, pasted, took and retook, directed my life
it would be a sizzling foreign film.
Color animates me, it fills my soul and stirs me up
and now I feel incomplete without it.
The water has no temperature in my memory, it just sizzles
on the concrete, meaning it was cold;
I can still feel the hot concrete.
She was my mother; I think it bothered her that I called her mamma
attachment isn't her thing, but American thriller movies are.
I am the center of a vortex
of eyes, as I sway.
People often mistake my thinking face
for one of anger.
I have not kept one of my
plethora of new years resolutions.
I could have been one of three,
I could have been Erica, I am Lindsey instead.

 

 

His Landlady Brings Him Breakfast in Bed
and His Window Frames the Eiffel Tower like a Picture

See the toe tree flaming with the pissed off moon
ajar radically the mangoes protest and throw
my underwear out the window, a flock of
colorful birds, decapitated, squawking on the
doorjamb.   Would you like the jam, spread onto
the pop music like a rape of the '80s.   Run
because the faux-hawk is like the blood
in the juice spilling from the armpits of the
stone monkeys.   Life is what you play with it,
a jumble of body parts, disconnected under the hood
like a flash of planetary inspiration the flamingos
say "yeah" and jump rope across the patio.
Inspiration dribbles out my left ear, as
my creativity hacks for its last rasping breath.   The
ferns offer free tattoos every Friday night on the
camel's back.   Don't smoke, you'll hack and turn into
Audrey Hepburn.   Cosmic rays of the egg yolk
moon tan us through our space suits, our
moon boots clicking; high heels in a sweaty salsa club.  
Walking through a cacophony of
hands all taking a piece of you, not giving
high pancakes the syrup, but pouring mixed
margaritas from the bathtub faucet.   Sludge
pours from the bottle to heal the wounds,
animal cries of excruciating pain as the
eyes unfocused, unscrewed, and fall apart onto the face
of the clock as time slits its wrists and says
"shut up foo'".   Juice the baby cantaloupes and then
see the protest, the anarchists marching in unison
to the tune of Moon River, down the crowded
cookie.   History becomes irrelevant, like you can't
the ant, as miniscule moments race by.   Hurry, take
a photo of the free show, it'll become rabbits in
combats soon.   Cuticles like cherries, ripening off
the legumes sucking nutrition from each other.   There
are not enough books to dance on until their pages
fall out down the waterfall of dust and bones and
smitedly spite.   It turns into drool, cemented drool,
in the form of an unripe apple thrown into the
neighbor's pool.   Come here, kitten, they cajole in
response to the onslaught.   Screw competition, I'll
do whatever I never wanted to do.   Stone love.
Sono stanca delle poesie di morire.  
Sempre, sempre, sempre.   Basta!!!

 

 

What I am Supposed to Be
Inspired by the style of Willie Perdomo

Strawberry-peach smoothie colored hair
Slightly damp from an LA nap
Rings your pretty face, just like your mirror's
Your hair is me at my happiest
Your glittering slate eyes love me back
And I've never put you into words before
Though this is supposed to be what I do,
Supposed to be what I be, what I am
What I am not
You keep me from being the bitch that
I am, I can never be mean when your tiny head
Rests on my bony shoulder
Or you beg me to play ghosties
Just one more time, Zeezee
So I work on keeping only good words
Coming out of my mouth when I'm around you
Because I've told you 1,000 times
Little girls do not use language like that
And I should live up to my standards
I don't mind setting a good example around you
When you sleep
I sleep
On the couch, all out like a cat in the sun
BBC Recordings Vol. #1 coming through my ears
You jump on me to wake me up
And I stretch, you meow and I say
"Hey, you speak my language!"
After that we eat frozen yogurts
Out by the pool.   You pucker your tiny, rosebud mouth
You say, "Cold Auntie!   More Auntie!"
You giggle as the frozen yogurt
Slides down the back of your throat
You pretend to be one of the dogs, Ozzy, Abby, Sweatleaf
You make me laugh with the tennis ball in your mouth
Someday you will appear on print
In one of my novels, because this is what
I am supposed to be, want to be, will be
A writer
You tell me at 7 o'clock
"Jackie!" as you dance your little butt
Around the living room, yelling "Wisconsin!" when it's over
I could compare myself to Jackie,
A spoiled, self-centered, unaware girl
But I prefer to think of myself as more of a
Kate type; I admire her more than Jackie anyhow.
So we go to the park one afternoon,
The day after you scratched Ally at day care
I say to you, "You don't do that anymore, ok, baby?"
You say, "Yeah, Zeezee."
And when you fall down, your perfect knee
Impeded by the concrete
Your screams pierce the air, not the loveliest sound
I've ever heard, I want to pick you up
And take it all back, all the scolding I did before,
Because you're just a little girl,
But I'm working on that, hang in there,
One day I'll learn to be nice.
I could be a horse, but maybe I'm more like an elevator
Down to the ground to pick you up,
Up on my legs to carry you around
Soon you'll be too heavy for this
So I enjoy it while I can.
You mimic the way I talk
Saying "thurrs" instead of "theirs"
People tease me for talking like a rapper;
I don't try to bring out the ghetto in me,
There isn't any ghetto in me, if there was
I would have just said
"thurr ain't no ghetto in me."
So I make a conscious effort to say
"theirs" instead of "thurrs" when I'm around you
So people won't tease you about how you talk
When you grow up.
You bang on the color-coded
Lil'Tykes piano in your bedroom
And I tell you that it sounds pretty
Though it isn't like any pretty I've ever heard.
When I want to sleep
You're crawling all over me
When I want to play
You're in a funk, an obstinate
Two-year-old tantrum, your fiery hair
Reflecting your mood, your Chicano skin
Burning with anger, your slate eyes
Flashing like an Arizona summer lightning storm
And when you pull out of it
Your hair is like the desert sand after the summer storm
Your skin is like the tan I will never achieve
Your eyes are like serene lakes, and your laugh
Oh your laugh!
It's just like your Mamma's and your Auntie's,
And it's beautiful.
Some people would feel ashamed
That a two-year-old can beat them at basketball
All I feel is pride, and a bit of sadness because
I know you will never play in the WNBA
You'll be too damn short
As we play basketball you stop and point
"Look Zeezee, snake!"
And there it is, a garden snake
Smaller than my arm, elbow to hand
You walk over to it and squat
I slowly back away, tripping over dog bowls,
Crashing into your slide
Until I'm cowering by the garage door,
As you try to catch the snake and
When it gets away you come crying to me.
I hold you and tell you that you'll catch it next time
Though I not-so-secretly hope you'll never see it again
"Where it gone?" you ask me
I tap my teeth with my nails while I think
"I don't know, baby.   It went home to be with its Mamma and Papa."
As soon as I say this, I regret it
You ask me to sing the song,
The one about Mamma coming home.
I sing it until I can't breathe and collapse
On the steaming LA pavement.
We go out to buy groceries and I push the cart
As you run on ahead, your big-booty style
Wad of diapers waddling as you walk
I used to walk like that, my diaper butt
Sticking out like the bumper on a car.
Now my walk is fast, maybe because I'm short
Or maybe because I'm uptight
Or maybe because I'm so used to keeping up with everyone else
But my walk has a little attitude,
A little bit of the San Clemente,
Boobs-out-butt-out strut.
I am most like a rose, sweet, but with too many thorns
A rose who wants to be a hibiscus,
A beautiful, colorful, fun, tropical flower
A rose who can't be anything but a rose.
The last time I saw you, you had grown
You no longer called me Zeezee, a name I love.
You are now old enough to say Lindsey,
A name I tried to get rid of in 1st grade.

Una Poesia per Emanuela, A Poem for Emanuela
In italiano e inglese, In Italian and English

Sulla autobus ho letto la tua lettera.
Mi dice "credi sempre in ti stessa perchè sei è veramente
una splendida persona"
Piango sommessamente; non voglio nessuno mi sentono.
"C'è un detto italiano che dice 'partire è anche un po' morire'"
È la verita, ho pensato, partire è anche morire
perche quando una persona parte
si lascia alle spalle una partita della sua anima
Mi ho girato indietro a guardare la partenza.
On the autobus I read your letter.
You told me "always belive in yourself
because you are really a wonderful person"
I cried softly; I didn't want anyone to hear me.
"There is an Italian saying that says,
'to leave is also to die a little bit'"
It is the truth, I thought, to leave is also to die
because when a person leaves
they leave behind them a part of their soul.
I turned around and watched the departure.



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