Andrea Wolper
Confluence
And how did Philip Levine get in my head?
And how is it that I opened the book to the page where he wrote exactly
the words I've been struggling to find?
About how every day I look at the mountain and how the mere act of seeing it, it...
—and you see, this is where Philip Levine succeeds, and I fail.
No matter that he was writing of the Diablos
and I the Sangre de Cristos--
Now, there's a funny confluence:
The Devils and the Blood of Christ--
they are mountains, that's all
neither demons nor saints
they endure in their silence
in their silence they endure
they have watched the invaders
who brought them their names
come and go, come and stay,
stood silent and sure above
beauty and chaos
beauty and chaos
These silent mountains!
They just endure.
They remain.
They don't care.
And still I spend my brief time struggling, searching for a few significant words.
Needles
My right hand wears a crown of thorns
My left foot the headdress of a warrior
I think of a picture I've seen,
a Hopi figure; it isn't Kokopelli
though there's flute music here –
it's meant to be soothing.
I prefer silence.
From my hands, feet, ears
left calf, right arm,
third eye, crown chakra –
the needles go about their job
rewiring, clearing, balancing,
triggering images,
waking dreams, memories.
My freshman creative writing teacher
A sudden flash of Ganesh
The chlorine smell of my
childhood pool, and me
holding my breath, pushing down, down, down
to touch the bottom with my hand
The last time I had acupuncture
My father died, the same day
To my left, a woman snores
under her blanket. It wakes
her from her dreamy travels.
She turns her head toward me
and asks the time. Her eyes
look like my grandmother's eyes.
A man comes in and lies down
on the table across the room.
A slender woman coughs; she seems
not quite bird, not quite bull,
and reminds me of no one.
The man waits patiently for the doctor.
We all want so much to be healed.
My right hand wears a crown of thorns
My left foot the headdress of a warrior.
Widely known as a singer and songwriter working in jazz, improvisation, and experimental music, Andrea Wolper is also a writer whose published work includes journalism, poetry, and two non-fiction books (Routledge; Watson-Guptill). In her Cento project she combines poetry and texts with composed and improvised music in a variety of musical settings both conventional and unconventional. One of her original songs, "Nevermore," was inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven"! www.andreawolper.com
Confluence
And how did Philip Levine get in my head?
And how is it that I opened the book to the page where he wrote exactly
the words I've been struggling to find?
About how every day I look at the mountain and how the mere act of seeing it, it...
—and you see, this is where Philip Levine succeeds, and I fail.
No matter that he was writing of the Diablos
and I the Sangre de Cristos--
Now, there's a funny confluence:
The Devils and the Blood of Christ--
they are mountains, that's all
neither demons nor saints
they endure in their silence
in their silence they endure
they have watched the invaders
who brought them their names
come and go, come and stay,
stood silent and sure above
beauty and chaos
beauty and chaos
These silent mountains!
They just endure.
They remain.
They don't care.
And still I spend my brief time struggling, searching for a few significant words.
Needles
My right hand wears a crown of thorns
My left foot the headdress of a warrior
I think of a picture I've seen,
a Hopi figure; it isn't Kokopelli
though there's flute music here –
it's meant to be soothing.
I prefer silence.
From my hands, feet, ears
left calf, right arm,
third eye, crown chakra –
the needles go about their job
rewiring, clearing, balancing,
triggering images,
waking dreams, memories.
My freshman creative writing teacher
A sudden flash of Ganesh
The chlorine smell of my
childhood pool, and me
holding my breath, pushing down, down, down
to touch the bottom with my hand
The last time I had acupuncture
My father died, the same day
To my left, a woman snores
under her blanket. It wakes
her from her dreamy travels.
She turns her head toward me
and asks the time. Her eyes
look like my grandmother's eyes.
A man comes in and lies down
on the table across the room.
A slender woman coughs; she seems
not quite bird, not quite bull,
and reminds me of no one.
The man waits patiently for the doctor.
We all want so much to be healed.
My right hand wears a crown of thorns
My left foot the headdress of a warrior.
Widely known as a singer and songwriter working in jazz, improvisation, and experimental music, Andrea Wolper is also a writer whose published work includes journalism, poetry, and two non-fiction books (Routledge; Watson-Guptill). In her Cento project she combines poetry and texts with composed and improvised music in a variety of musical settings both conventional and unconventional. One of her original songs, "Nevermore," was inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven"! www.andreawolper.com