By Nancy Klepsch.
We, the poets and writers of Breathing These Words, are proud to present to you a collection of our work. The poetry presented below is representative of poets who responded to our community-wide call for entries on topics related to Breathing Lights. Each of us was able to share our voice about a vacant building in his or her own neighborhood.
Michael Lopez, for example, a writer and a staff member of a not-for-profit architectural firm, tells us about 3209-3211 Seventh Avenue. Sandra Rouse, neighbor and community organizer, provides us with a slice of life off of Jackson Alley. jill hanifan, poet, professor and director of the Writing Center at the University at Albany, submitted her neighborhood poems to us, where we learned more about empanadas, and “…strobe-lighting retro tables filled with couples equally long-haired/hip enough for goat meat.” Poet Ginny Folger tells about “The House on Strong Street” in Schenectady, where “This house stood when women at last gained the vote, when they marked their ballots and made their choices.” Therese L. Broderick in her poem “Dar A Luz” celebrated “…the owners, tenants, landlords, and renters, Who mopped their thresholds clean.”
We also worked with youth from Troy and Schenectady as well as senior citizens from Albany. We had the joy of popping up at the Troy Farmer’s Market and watched in bemusement as a woman said, “You’re writing poetry,” as if it were a crime. As the great Audre Lorde once said, “poetry is not a luxury.” I have a feeling, too, that we are going to rely on poetry more in the next few years.
We poets make sense of our world through our poetry. We write. We share. We dream, and we write some more. Most times, quite frankly, we are speaking to other poets. But, with this grant, it was different. We were given a voice. A light was shined on our work and we were given a place. For me, “I live in this city so deliberately/ that I found my grace on the corner/ of Sixth and Swift/ three blocks from the river tidal/ and all my dreams ebb and flow/ like a river feeding my city with/ new and deliberate possibilities.”
I hope this work resonates with you, makes you think, care and believe. I want this work to inspire you, and, by the way, have I told about the vacant building on First Street that’s a real keeper? “Home is like art like love is like love.”
SAMPLE POEMS FROM ‘BREATHING THESE WORDS’
My Yard on Jackson Alley, Troy NY
Sandra Rouse
looking out on my back lot
as shadows stretch from west to east
a glimpse of cold sunset
cool yellow sun
low over the Hudson
pitches a slice of lavender
on the breast of snow
unmelted a week now
it was a winter instant
no one around
it was like time forever
and yet
the flash of a moment
it was my spot,
my home place
and yet the world
###
Abundance
Michael Lopez
Seventh Avenue is flayed,
Its past and present
Exposed
Its future, hidden,
Deep in muscle and fat.
Long brick row houses
With doors at each corner
Are clustered here,
Just as they’ve been for a century.
They are rectangles, pure, with simple algebraic expressions,
But the builders, as if saddened by
The resulting plainness of this worker housing,
Permitted the merest ornament:
An oculus, a pediment, a bracket.
The bay windows at 3209-3211 Seventh Avenue
Are made graceful by woodwork with curving joints
As fine as the growth rings on a clam shell.
In 1915, Margaret F. Judge
Would have walked from here
To one of the brick collar factories along the Hudson River
— Searle and Gardner; Wilbur, Campbell, Stephens; Van Zandt, Jacobs & Co. –
All massive, smudged and resolute.
Making a shirt collar took 24 steps.
Margaret Judge would have helped cut or stamp or wash or press
The hundreds of collars produced each day by hundreds of women
Who dressed hundreds of white-collar men
Who did not live on Seventh Avenue,
Among the mason, the carpenter, and the boiler maker.
In 1955, Margaret Judge no longer lived at 3209-3211.
Those high, stiff collars were relegated to heirloom photographs, and
The factories that made them lurched toward obsolescence.
That year, two families, the Roys and the Delleos, lived at 3209-3211:
Donald A. Roy worked at General Electric,
Fred Delleo was a chauffeur, John Delleo was a laborer.
In 2005, the entire building and its address,
3209-3211 Seventh Avenue,
Vanished from the city directory.
Today, no one is home.
The fire department has posted
A square, red sign with a big “X,”
Warning that the building is vacant,
Too dangerous to enter.
Next door is
A community garden,
Where people have tended
Broccoli and cabbage and tomatoes,
Defended by a sign posted on the fence
That reads:
“Do not steal our meals!
Gardeners have grown
This produce to feed
Their families.
If you’d like to grow
Your own too, let us know!”
3209-3211 is not so much vacant
As it is a blank page, used by
Children who have painted the boards
Covering the windows.
One child has drawn
A little frame house,
With smoke billowing
From the chimney.
Next to it
Stands a Christmas tree
Jammed with round ornaments,
An oval rug
And presents – over-sized Legos and a giant gift,
Wrapped in striped paper.
On a board next to the front door,
Is a painting of
Slim, sinewy
People with no faces.
They are moving, arms raised,
Knees bent.
They are dancing,
And will dance
As long as the building stands.
# # #
new takeaway
jill hanifan
the empanada shop is open early nightfall
blinks and twinkles traffic signals
twinned headlights and ruby tail lights
flashing in the panes of glass
strobe-lighting retro tables filled
with couples equally long-haired
hip enough for goatmeat
we are waiting at the counter folding
a takeout menu and slipping it
into our huge fiber dyed free trade bag
big enough to fit a baby
and a tablet
and still show you your reflection
living in harmony with the earth
# # #
august
jill hanifan
i
in a flash the city skyline
bleached to an afterimage
this is deluge
this is flooding
this is no street but summer steam
what’s drenched
is washed and wrung
and pinned to a line
ii
the corner store door
opening from the street
like a hatch
a security camera
pointed at the beer cooler
watches everything
i wait in line
hearing angel choirs
tinny stop and start
like rehearsal
iii
three crows peck at a bit of meat
from their deliberations
candidates will be chosen
iv
bus eighteen delaware
ave to the shop and
save genuflects
at every other stop
like a pilgrim
fairy who played jazz from an open window
sunset gold horn traffic jamming
on the avenue the city parallel parks
against the curb and from above a soft hello
the door is open
the number you played last night is still dancing
up around the streetlights i thought
i heard the key click
a few bars back
# # #
The House on Strong Street
Ginny Folger
One hundred years ago
this house was young
fire trucks were pulled by horses
and Barnum & Bailey
rode the circus train to town.
Elephants marched
through unpaved streets,
and twelve thousand escaped
the big tent fire,
while this house stood.
Women did not yet have
the right to vote; politics was
the exclusive domain of men
making deals in smoke-filled rooms..
A local woman filled this house with
the sweet aromas of baking bread
and cherry pie, with the plaintive cries
of waking babies, and the giggles
of children playing hide and seek,
while this house watched.
In the 1918 pandemic, when Schenectady
was the region’s hardest hit city
this house heard the whispered moans
of a family sickened with the Spanish Flu,
took notice when half of General Electric’s
work force was out sick, listened
to the sobs of the grieving, and
drew close to comfort the remaining.
This house survived.
.
This house stood when women at last gained
the vote, when they marked their ballots
and made their choices. It shook with the laughter
of parties, smiled as a bride wed her groom,
offered a big comfy chair for the husband who
came home weary after a day building
locomotives at ALCO. Now ALCO is no more,
but a new enterprise is beginning,
while this house still stands.
This house stands weary and worn.
But this house stands. It watches, it listens,
it breathes. It breathes with
the purity of light.
and hope of redemption.
This house breathes.
This house watches.
The house survives.
This house still stands.
# # #
Ginny Folger
My mother was born in this house, he said.
His eyes inspected it from roof to gardens.
She told me it was in one of the upstairs bedrooms
that she drew her first breath.
We’d heard a ghost story or two about the house,
sometimes wondered who might have died
within its century old walls. We imagined spectral
footfalls in night noises.
Never thought about who might have been born
here. Didn’t think about a laboring woman
birthing a daughter, who in her turn
bore this son standing outside this house.
.
They moved out when she was sixteen, he said.
She’s an old woman now, living far away.
He poses for a picture,
sitting on the front steps, looking outward.
# # #
Onset
Ginny Folger
Go ahead now. Take the sweater out of the closet.
Put your arms through the sleeves. Admit, just
to yourself, that you are an old woman now,
your youth and vigor spent.
November’s air whispers through the leaky panes
of your old house, makes you shiver, distracts
from what you were thinking.
So many things distract you now.
You used to boast that you were the last one
to feel the cold. You were a furnace
as you slept beside him. Now the embers
cool, and memory clouds.
The frost moon foretells winter’s onset;
you are unprepared for its diminished light.
# # #
Ginny Folger
I want to shout where are my peonies?
What the hell have you done
with my peonies
and what has happened
to my Tropicana Rose?
my peonies
my roses
my garden
my house
why is that ugly furniture
sitting on the front porch?
Does a pair of cardinals
still nest in the rhododendron
that grows up against
the back windows ?
# # #
Answers
Ginny Folger
Can a jar filled with questions float
in an air filled with shadows?
What hides inside locked rooms, forbidden
books, this grief of waiting?
Am I a strongbox, filled with unchosen obligations?
Is there a secret key?
Is what remains unresolved in the heart written
in a foreign language? Who has hidden my Rosetta Stone?
Shall I unearth every pebble? Or shall the golden key find me
only after I abandon the search?
# # #
Summer Pastime
Ginny Folger
Two old women sit
on a porch shaded
from the early summer sun,
half dozing, one still in pajamas.
Bits of conversation pass
between them. Perennials bloom,
settled into long-fixed patterns:
daisy, veronica, lavender.
Clouds move toward them
in invitation or warning.
One, they agree, looks like a fish.
another like a genie.
A bird alights on the porch rail.
A gentle breeze ruffles their hair,
smoothes wrinkles from their cheeks
whispers not yet, not yet
# # #
Ann’s Things
Ginny Folger
Her chintz chair
patterned pillows
damask linens
chalk figurines
crusty paint cans
all come arcing down
tossed from the second story
by two young men
she never knew.
Strings of colored beads
bags full of old clothes
unwrapped bars of soap
drop like stones
into the open backs
of trucks reading Got Junk?
Her other remains
lie quiet without
even the breath
of a whisper
to raise in protest
or warning.
# # #
Dar A Luz
~to give birth, to give light
Therese L. Broderick
November summons us to furnish a shrine
In memory of neighbors who once lit our city’s
Stoops, porches, and doorways
Hanging oil lamps or lanterns, garlands or candles.
Dar a luz.
For the owners, tenants, landlords, and renters
Who mopped their thresholds clean,
Who daily swept their windblown steps
And rinsed off yellow welcome mats,
I set down this photo—
My great-grandfather’s own shining home.
Dar a luz.
Beside it, place a vase arrayed with the stems
And blue blossoms of late-autumn asters;
Then drape it with a necklace, links glistening
With polished crosses, stars, crescents, ovals.
Dar a luz.
Now in honor of valiant mothers,
Who among us can spare a glossy cookbook
Or a scrawled recipe for lemon pudding?
On behalf of brave children
Some spinning tops, shimmering marbles?
Dar a luz.
Lastly, for the sake of peace: someone provide
A few stark silhouettes—newspaper clippings
Of young men headed to Albany Armory,
From their sidewalks waving farewell
To best friends, cousins, brothers, baby sisters.
Dar a luz.
Tonight, windows aglow with brand new batteries
Illuminate our view of Pearl Street,
The beaming port, the valley’s glimmering river.
They magnify our gifts, swelling dim to bright
In time with the waxing, orbiting moon.
Dar a luz.
Let us behold—let us stand with—let us stand for
And occupy every fresh reflection, reluciente, reborn.
# # #
Mary’s First Home
Jill Crammond
was a milk house
was a dream house
was a cow eating sweet grass,
a red-wing blackbird far off and off-key.
Mary hasn’t been home in ages,
has forgotten where the poison ivy creeps,
or where her garden grew.
These vines,
these roots,
these crumbling footings.
Coming home is a photograph
is a study in the blues and greens of grief.
Is this true for you?
The re-collecting of fragments
as easy as whistling
as unpredictable as where the sound goes.
Home. Home. Home.
Say it.
Say it enough.
Say it until your heels ache,
until it is hone.
Is alone.
Gone.
Mary says now
she is a house.
She is plaster walls and wood floors,
carpets and quilts,
refrigerator of family photos,
that one night ending
in a hole in the wall.
# # #
For Sale by Owner
Jill Crammond
By day it poses as a subtle ranch–shuttered, mellow: a perfect child tucked in a church pew. Joggers barely see the house. The mailman makes a show of dropping letters in its black box, rushes to his truck, shudders at what he has done, where he’s abandoned his stack of correspondence. At night the monsters emerge eating café curtains, picking their teeth with slats from white plastic shades. Arborvitae lock arms, conceal weapons beneath dense canopy. One by one, the cedar shakes belie their Cape Cod charm, hurl weathered squares through our windows. Washing for bed, bits of the house burst through the bathroom mirror. A glass knob sinks in my eye socket, key inserted. The last person standing thinks quick, turns the skeleton. Security restored.
# # #
Sixth Avenue
Nancy Klepsch
Even with empty pockets
we own the sky here
kiss it like Hendrix
the tremolo of guitar
All of us can stretch arc
kowtow to the catechism
of this river-scape
bob in its tidal
name waves
call the clouds cousin
round light snatch sunset
For less than 50 cents
Roddy’s Confectionary once
saved my life
For less than $2
Egg rolls & Swedish Red Fish
were my fortune
Light surrounds you
and now even I belong
# # #
ANOTHER TROY: THE REMIX
Nancy Klepsch
“Look at your building. You are the city.”
– Muriel Rukeyser
Another Troy despised
by the same old pirates
broken brick built broken
backside and despised
Is art enough
my six-foot tall broken mirror
Is love enough
Do you know how to love love
my electric back porch
deck eaves and gutter diving down
faster and you with your new face
Look at my building and
Rise Let It Rise
from soot smoke and ash
broken glass
homes are like art like love is like love
precious moldings medallions dear
shelter salvaged stone
my poor love
Never despise my building to fix
my building to love my
building to make my own
# # #
All Buildings Are Equal
Nancy Klepsch
All
buildings
are equal
Homes are
like art like
love is like love
Precious
Moldings
Medallions
dear shelter
Salvaged stone
my poor love
Do you
know how
to love
love
Look at
my
building
and rise
Let it rise
From soot
smoke and ash
Broken glass
Never despise
My building to fix
My building to love
My building to make my own
# # #
Collar City
Nancy Klepsch
Nothing is fixed
Like wool and yarn
we all stretch a bit
Warp wise or weft wise
We are better off outstretched
I used to take you on and off
like a shirt collar
until you milled me
at intervals on the selvage
of the cloth
It hurts me so to see you like this:
Broken bottles and dreams
boarded up
I used to see you with family
full and prosperous
bragging about the kids and
the cost of private school
Nothing is fixed
except of course this river
rise and fall egg and dart
all in one day
altering me in places
where I can still see your stitches
# # #
I live in this city: thinking about Thoreau
Nancy Klepsch
(with an emulated line from Thoreau)
I went to the city to live deliberately
to seek shelter with urban souls who
built dreams from broken beams
I went to the city to live deliberately
to fall asleep to the sounds of
speeding cars wayward girls and
the click-clack-click of high-heeled ruffians
I went to the city to live deliberately
to walk cobble-stone streets
alone and free
buy fruit and veggies consciously
love my neighbors continuously
I live in this city so deliberately
that I found my grace on the corner
of Sixth and Swift
three blocks from the river tidal
and all my dreams ebb and flow
like a river feeding my city with
new and deliberate possibilities
# # #