Poetry from Julie Jordan Scott

Pronoun Play with Whispers - and More; Whispers - A Poem

Tonight I was working on graphics for the National Poetry Month series I'm creating in my Word-Love Writing Community on Facebook. It started with reading interviews of Celeste Ng, author of Little Fires Everywhere

 It turned into a dance of sorts with feelings deep inside my belly and this poem is the first creative expression to be conceived and (at least a first draft) born of it.

I guess this is what happens when one stops blaming herself for every ill will that occurs in her life. Sometimes other people are at cause of the pain that appears in your life, my love. This is one of those cases.

Whispers: A Poem

They never let me say it

They never let me face them and declare it

They never wanted to engage in the possibility

They might be wrong to behave

the way they did and probably still do

You don’t have to protect the world from harm

You were not made to sacrifice everything for everyone else

You do not deserve to be slashed open in order for others to thrive

You may

She almost wrote trust but that’s too big

That’s too big I cannot and I will not and no, you can’t they can’t

Make me trust because it is too

Say the word

I won’t they never let me say it

They never let me face them and declare

It they never wanted to engage in the

Possibility they weren’t safe to be trusted

Because they are dangerous because

They have never engaged in the truth of the dark

They have only been reckless in the lies of the dark

Whispered what they thought would get them what they wanted

In the dark, not the subtle nuances of the curved lines

That can’t be explained

How dare they say,

How dare you say

How dare he say

I can’t yet say it.

==@==@==@==@

And this is the point I chose to step back and go with what was able to be said. 

I will return to hear what more is out there - waiting to be translated. 

Words Pour Out (Day 3 National Poetry Month)

This poem poured out of me, took me by surprise.

I realized afterwards I have written some prose about my near death experience, but poetry.... I hadn't been ready. It reminded me of how long it took me to write about autism in my family. It felt like it would be too painful and the emotions might sweet me away.

It took a search on Flickr for the word "Fall" to bring forth this poem that had clearly been waiting for me to write this:

September 30, 2011: a Giant Sequoia fell and no one knew why. She is standing in the upper left part of this frame. . Estimated age? Close to 1800 - 2000 years.   Poem #3: Fall: Words Pour Out . Sixteen months after the shutter clicked this Giant fell. I haven’t visited  in eight years  or ninety six and then some months and I wonder if she is still there, decomposing across the hundred giant trail?   Five months ago I  wasn’t breathing well and I had a fever and I went to the hospital and had a nurse named Paloma who waved to me so sadly as they wheeled me into ICU and I didn’t understand why. At first I just got so cold before the nurse came to cover me as I shivered  without control it felt like the ocean was folding over  my body and water was  filling everything but I could not think or speak or register blood oxygen so the people in masks and scrubs filled my  pretty hospital room and now when I think of people dying so quickly I think I came so close and I didn’t and I’m so sorry they did   I want to walk the  trail again, touch her tree skin, pay my respects tell her I remember “Julie - wake up” “Her heart rate goes low while she sleeps-  watch out for that”   They whisper as if I’m nothing more than a pronoun   These memories fall and I can’t do anything to stop them. . --       ReplyForward

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Shame + There is Nothing Wrong with My Carefully Curved Hair

More narrative, confessional poetry on April 2, 2020 and wow, this felt exhilarating to write. I am sharing the two versions here as I feel compelled to do so as I specifically describe these as "rough drafts" there is space for variety. The story of  shame shows up in most families and friendships. Often it isn't intended -

Though sometimes the shame culture, like rape culture, is so entrenched the people swimming in that water doesn't recognize they are swimming or their is any water there at all.

The quote I started with is here - and below the first draft I will post the Brene Brown quote and prompt.

Lastly, I will share another prompt in case you would like to write to shame, also.

 

There is Nothing Wrong with My Carefully Curved Hair

It felt like a slap in the face

Starting with the sneer-mask he wore

and the continental divide I heard

in between consonants.

“You are so vain, I can’t believe you,”

 I wanted to use an

curling iron to make

my hair curvy on purpose instead of

wavy with a mind of its own.

“If you curl your hair you are vain”

“If you curl your hair you are bad”

“If you curl your hair you are shallow

and clearly don’t belong here.”

These are the meanings I served on my

buffet plate of “don’ts” and “how

ridiculous can this sister be?”

This was after the time I walked

downstairs to see my other brother

modeling the white denim skirt

I had been proud and happy to

own until the I saw it fit him, too

What twelve-year-old girl wants

her finally stylish skirt to be worn

by her eighteen-year-old brother

who carefully laid our all my

failings in beauty, style or

feminine grace in one scathing sentence

after another.

“You are fat, never dainty or sweet.”

“You are fat, how can you expect

to be happy or loved or cared for”

“You are fat, just shut up and go

back upstairs so none of us have

to look at your embarrassing excuse

for being a part of this family”

so I slinked back up the stairs.

These are the meanings I served on my

buffet plate of “fat” and “ugly”

and “you don’t belong so for

God’s sake don’t even bother”

“how embarrassing can one

person be – go away and stay

away.”

 

Note to Shame

Dear Shame,

It is normal for a teen-aged girl to curl

Her hair with an assortment of goodies:

Tools not unlike her brother’s wrenches to

Fix a car, she likes to fix her hair and put

It in different new styles it doesn’t make

Her bad or wrong or dull it makes her an

Artist, a sculptor, a connector to other

Perhaps lonely girls who enjoy making

Their hair more pretty

And by the way, I’ve chosen not to

Pull the “blame game” lever –

Especially with long ago history,

But the images are still burned

Into my mind’s eye and shouted

Into my heart’s ears.

Dear Shame, I am sure

you remember - 

He wore my denim skirt

I had been so proud to own

Only moments before it transformed

White skirt, a badge of shame,

A bullet of humiliation

No one protected me from receiving

Dear Shame, you opened the door 

decades later

the echo of the unspoken pain

flew from my lips in a gust

of wind on the day after

Christmas –

I can’t

Remember how I said it, I just

Know I said it, with the ferocity

Of a lightning bolt or a tornado

It wouldn’t ever be unsaid now.

The memories charred and scattered

around the countryside, wrecked and scrambled

This unforgiveable outburst

would have become a legend

Of embarrassment and a shame joke

Told over and over and over again

But now, my words open and pungent

they became a closing chapter, a 

stand taken, finally a protector - 

myself - even as I 

I apologized on cue about my clumsy

Confession and normally not

Allowed tears in our family rule book of life

But no one rushed in to fix it or

Deny it so I was able to consciously

Claim this as both a confession and

a wordless apology, wrongness wiped

away – memory and story intact but

sting, minimized. Just. like.that.

These images will also be shared on my Instagram Account. Follow me there for more writing and poetic inspiration every day.

Coffee, Desire and 3 of Me

It has been a long time since I have written poetry about coffee. Makes me wonder if that former beau of mine from 18 ish years ago still carries around that other coffee poem.

I doubt it. I hope not. But now, in April 2020 and time of the pandemic most anything that seemed like science fiction is now possible.

Including me writing a poem told in two versions and three voices and... coffee.

Coffee, Desire and 3 of Me

Me, to Self: What is my heart’s desire right now?

Me: A cup of coffee

Me: That means I need to get up and walk across the room and fetch it myself

Me: I would rather stay here, under my blanket, computer across my lap, writing.

Other Self: So your heart’s desire is to sit there, under your blanket, computer across your lap, writing.

Self: I think she thought this was a simple desire, so she wrote it in her journal. She got her ass up and out of bed about thirty minutes ago to brew coffee. I think right now what she wishes is she would magically have someone who would appear to bring her a cup of coffee.

Other Self: This I know. But is a cup of coffee really worth a heart’s desire?

Me: Now I feel like my heart’s desire is to lift the computer off my lap to visit the restroom. Then I might do a livestream.

Other Self: Please, be consistent.

Me: I promised myself and no one else, really, I would livestream poetry. Today. Jane Hirschfield.

(and I poured myself a cup of coffee on my way to livestreaming.)

Other Self: How are we supposed to get anything done around here?

Self: Be patient. She will be back. Eventually.

Heart’s desire is…

a simple cup of plain, bitter but effective… coffee although

that means leaning out of comfort into the cold to fetch it

when I would rather stay here, under my pink and purple

blanket. Here, writing with my laptop, about desire when

I made a different choice.

My heart’s desire is…

to reach over and across and under the insignificant

and stretch into the living rooms of those who are also

alone while I drink

my cup

of coffee

= = = = =

 

Can't Call it Failure Exactly: April 1

years ago when I could hold you up to my shoulder

I whispered out the window to you and the sunrise

“I will do my best to be here for you, always”

As soon as I those words fall off the tips

of my fingers onto the keyboard, I am lying.

the liar me said to you and the sun and the

dried up desert soil and the squirrels running

in it “I will be here for you” and today

the droning words inside me mutter

“you have failed again, failed again, failed again.”

because I can’t fix it, can’t fix this, can’t

no matter how much I wish it were different

you have been courageous and you are trying

and I watch you walk away, in tears I cannot

begin to stop.

portable wisdom in a cup clichés forgive me

much more easily than I forgive me

truth if there is such a thing is we are all

wishing we could fix it, fix this, make this better

anything would be better than this

waiting.

In April, 2020. I will be writing poetry based on wisdom from poets past and present combined with the wisdom of Brene Brown.  These poems will do their best to be unromantic narratives from life right now, in this moment, that people may return to later and... if not enjoy exactly - perhaps see themselves within the words.

Untold: A Poem's Unfolding

Day 1 for several writing challenges was yesterday and yes! :I wrote this yesterday. Enjoyed the heck out of the process and it may not all fit here on in instagram post… I’ll experiment and if not, I will post on my dusty poetry blog. What I can get here, is here - thanks entirely to (these are all housed on Instagram, FYI)

#1wordpromptchallenge #1word = begin + #septemberfalls19 + caves and sheds + #worthyshares #worthysharesSept2019 = aesthetic

Is this fictional or confessional? Your guess is as good as…. :-) enjoy and thank you for reading. Would love to know what aspect of this mashup work best, in your estimation. And here... we go.

UNTOLD: a Poem's Unfolding

I’m afraid to begin, nervous to write it because

to write it means I will have to return to  the darkness the

bitter reality I work so hard to stay away

from the mixture of mud and blood torn from the bottom of my right foot

to put it on paper, to move my pencil back and forth and up and down

requires I solidify the “it” I’m not ready to name

Understand with me, it is more comfortable to dig a shallow 

hole in wet ground, take the shovel from the dusty, spiderweb 

covered backyard shed, a catacomb of rusty unused words, a messy cave

in the middle, no one ever gets to that midpoint  anyway

her aesthetic doesn’t shimmer here

It is safe

to say those things that ought to just go unsaid

suddenly I am strong,  standing at the

podium offering thanks, my heart pounding in semi-disbelief

because I don’t win anything I belong in this hovel, this

hollowed out place only for me, my shape lives

in the in-between that people don’t ever seem

to get to, their calendars punctuated with

exclamation points, not the fleshy commas, hidden.

The not having the answers to the nosy questions

such as “what do you mean by messy anyway?” and

everything stops waiting for you say “messy is calling”

the glint of the star the sheriff wears,

he is the one who notes the list of marchers

in the parade, the handprints left behind

the flag bearers by the windows, the smudges

of pencils, erased not quite forgotten frustration at

not getting it right. Getting lost in in

the ghostly pounding of fists against injustice

sneering down his nose, remembering observations

“she was an angel, such a dear… she always” add the

next glowing moment for recollection. On replay. Repeat.

Forgetting the hollow pit in my stomach from the

pounding on the window, his begging me not to

call, not to ruin her life, to sacrifice myself instead,

shroud pulled, silence while outside mysterious

shadows except for the poignant iphone glow

no one will read this mess, no one wants to know

she sat on the stairs he made for my

production and she now slept there, spent.

exhausted calling her friend compassion, familiar

knocked on my hearts hearing. I heard the lament

taking shape, a litany a prayer a catechism

 she didn’t know how.. the list, lengthy and

right then, in that dark pre-dawn when I

listened in disbelief to the snores beside me

and on the other side of the window and

wall, she slurred words, aimed at

getting back out, over the fence which

I was metaphorically sitting on

feet dangling, heart, skewered, pain

on hold. As long as it stayed there,

numbness glistening would win and

the smiles might could continue.

she leapt back over the gate sometime

before daybreak. And repeated. Three times

I know of but no one wants

to hear that mess. No one  wakes up saying

“tell me again, the messiness of standing

beside the deputy, his gun belt leather creaking

as he says “You know how men” obviously I

must not, seeing this evidence, sir

“are, when they are” damaged, left behind,

highly practiced consumers of high drama

tragedies devoid of gentle, lasting love

“offered sex.” Aggressive sex, officer?

where 911 is called and pacts are made

and eye glasses are broken and lies are

believed and restoration lies dormant?

Thankfully the middle will go unnoticed.

People want the introductory hook and the

punchline. Those are the undroppables.

Those are what the best stuff is made

1. beginning (forgotten middle) end.

aesthetics not (buried in sheds or caves)

victorious conqueror, hailing the gently

falling beams of light, everlasting romantic

not mud or blood but blind forgiveness.

Yes infinite sojourn into that truth

untold

Memory Insists: National Poetry Month 2/30

Two days in! Still at it! I know, two days is nothing AND it is a something! I have found poems literally waiting for me to find my way to them. Love when this happens.

Memory insists I lean back to

sit back on my heels and look again.

Look more deeply.

Behind the steering wheel of my car

I pause. I had forgotten this road, the

Fast way home, was closed. Still.
Finally my car lurches forward,

I turn the steering wheel toward chores

And lists and an infinitely growing pile

Of laundry and find myself stopped

Again, another red light –

another missed opportunity to sail

through a “free pass and arrive earlier

to save the dirty dishes in the sink

60 seconds more quickly”.

I take a breath and look up

I see the almost three dimensional rays

pouring from gaps in the clouds pronouncing this

new day has arrived, right on time like always

I remember Samuel used to encounter clouds

and rays like this and point excitedly,

“Mommy, its God!” he would say.

I knew pure bliss with him in those moments

And now in recollection even though

At seventeen-years-old he has subscribed to God’s absence

even in sights such as this one that enthralled the

seven-year-old boy he once was.

Memory insists I sit facing east at

this precise moment so my lips will

spread into smiling at both moments

Because memory insists

Take 3 – Stranded (A Poem)

This poem took 3 tries to write and a lot of inner talk until I allowed the words to flow from me.

The prompt came from Diane at Urban Siren Creative and her SagitarriUs Challenge.

The image is one I first created in 2009 and I found when searching after a time when my children and I were literally stranded on the prairie in South Dakota, miles from people we knew. 

 

Take 3 – Stranded

She was the kid who never made it through a sleepover.

It was a visceral thing: She needed to go home because

There was a never-absent belief that if she left for too long…

Upon her return the family home would be empty of the people

Who at least pretended to love her

They would leave for better spaces and a different, much

Better and probably blonde thin daughter/sister would

Replace her awkward, brunette and perpetually pudgy self

Adult Her isn’t comforted by the fifth grade and the seventh grade

and the fifty-six-year-old defection and subtraction of friendship

She has survived other circumstances. Cancer, death of friends, bankrupty.

There are fundraising marathon sleepovers for cancer survivors but

Never a tea party for “stranded survivors” – those who were exiled,

Dead-alive by those who pretended to once at least care about them.

Maybe the kid who begged to be taken home for fear of being left

Was the wisest of us all – or at least the one with the widest future view.

Or perhaps many of us are stranded together

We just haven’t figured that out yet

And are beginning to awaken to the reality we

Are the life raft. We are the search party.

Our collective heartbeats are the search – and

Now, coming to be, the found lights.

No longer. Stranded.

 

Notorious: Educational Failings - Written on World Autism Day 2018

It is a blur.

Smudged in my eyes and ears by my then five-year-old son’s crying.

Shrieking. No attempts at shielding his fear and horror as he stood in a corner.

Surrounded by men, towering over him, keeping him there.

I reached between them and relieved my son of their imprisonment.

Another day, another time, called to school because of his behavior.

Shrieking. No attempts at shielding his fear and horror as he stood in a corner.

My heart beat now, stuttering, rising still in my chest, ten years later.

“He insisted on swinging” someone said as I held his quivering, still

Crying self on my lap. Intuitively I rocked him, held his ear to my heart.

Smudged in my eyes and ears by the cause of his being held prisoner

In a corner with a school psychologist and an administrator as jailers

Was his desire to swing? A roar, again, in my ears.

Wait his desire to swing? On that swing, to the north of the slide?

My daughter reported seeing him dragged across campus.

(later I would learn swinging calms the vestibular sense for spectrum kids)

It is a blur. I question my accuracy but I remember quite clearly.

Another day, another time, called to school because of his behavior.

This was all because he wanted to swing.

“He insisted on swinging” someone said as I held his quivering, still

And he wanted routine.

He begged his teacher to let him stay with the other children.

Another day, another time, called to school because of his behavior.

Sent home, again. Not educated, again. My fault they inferred, again.

And he needed to feel safe. “I like him” his teacher said

“He doesn’t behave like this at home.” I said.

Silent glares. My then five-year-old son’s crying.

Crying self on my lap. Intuitively I rocked him, held his ear to my heart.

Smudged in my eyes and ears by my then five-year-old son’s crying.

And he was punished. He begged his teacher -

For something kindergarten educators.

Shrieking. No attempts at shielding his -

Another day, another time, called to school because of his behavior.

Should have recognized. It is a blur.

My heart beat now, stuttering, rising still in my chest, ten years later.

School psychologist. Notorious. Don’t tell me he couldn’t see what this was.

Must have recognized

For Maire and Diane: Poem 1 of 30 for National Poetry Month/ 2018

Last night I sat here, in my recliner, like I am sitting here now

Comfortably watching time evaporate when I lifted my chin and noted

The light to my daughter. “Look, Emma, the light…”

and continued reading, aiming for the completion of my endless to-do list

I almost didn’t translate

almost missed the invitation - the curling come hither finger of dusk, the finite time of blessed transition

reconnecting me to my

Four-year-old fear of lightning bugs

My willful thirteen-year-old insistence it was

Perfectly acceptable to try out my mother’s Virginia slims in the upstairs bathroom

My grieving twenty-eight-year-old walking into the light,

praying please god for something to change this outcome

It never occurred to me to care about

The inner workings of what makes the cereal bowl

being released from the bowels of the dishwasher sparkling clean

or why when I turn the key to my almost sentient Mazda the

engine rises up, singing, without complaint.

Why is it at 3:44 am I awaken and decide to google “worm holes” so I might come to understand the unfathomable nature of the depths of space even the most brilliant minds can’t deciper?

Neither outer space nor inner abyssal are tangible to me.

Both need artificial light and tools to touch them.

If I was honest, I would confess I really don’t care until

I hear… well, the mist of the question floods the crest of my shoulders in solicitation –

In the looping intersection between the highest note of the mourning dove’s song and the middle of the universe’s wormhole, the miles away train whistle abrupts the still ocean waters of the unreachable aqua pits and the gentle force of the sun saying her daily goodbye  pushes me to lift my body from its resting position into this revelatory moment -

This is where it taps my heartbeat,

Oh yes, my God

My abba

My infinite

We are all connected