Diane Ward: Pick of the Week [ed. Terence Winch]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Diane Ward, McGinty's Pub, Silver Spring, Maryland, Oct. 2018. Photo by T. Winch

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Never Walk Out of Your Life

 

consumer, you are biologically

natural and acceptable

 

and I am imitating a man

imitating a toddler’s attempt to walk

 

there are tiny white shoes that

fit my fingers – yet they’re useful to me

 

I am the armchair spectator as my life

collapses under the weight of desire, one deepest level

 

the flight circumnavigates my bed,

my table, my toilet, my self

 

your one syllable is sentence to me

your no-more-forgetting, a world

 

the lap is lost when you stand – a joke

until the body’s consumed by lap when it’s down

 

there’ll come a time: no amount of

bracelet enhances the arm devoid of content

 

there’ll come a time: to mention the name will be

proof of no claim to its object

 

I am bound by doors so seriously, to enter your

apartment is to enter the creation of your life from your body

 

in anticipation of the burst declaring movement

imperceptively portrayed, we, for one, can wait

 

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Diane Ward was born in Washington, DC, and currently lives in Oakland, California. She attended the Corcoran School of Art in DC and earned a doctorate in geography at UCLA. Her publications include a collaboration with Tina Darragh and Jane Sprague, #8 in the Belladonna Elders series; No List (no list) from Seeing Eye Books, Los Angeles; Flim-Yoked Scrim, Factory School; and When You Awake, New York: Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs. Several of her poems have been set to music by the Los Angeles composer Michael Webster, including “Fade on Family,” which was performed in 2005 as part of The Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound series at the Schindler House in West Hollywood. “InHouse,” a constructed poem, appeared in Kindergarde, the first avant garde anthology for children.

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                  front: Rebecca Levenson, Diane Ward, Bernard Welt, Susan Campbell; back: Tad Wanveer, Terence Winch,  Phyllis                         Rosenzweig, Doug Lang. Self-timed photo. Terence Winch's apartment, 1920 S St. NW, Wash. DC, early 1980s.

 

Comments

[Barbara Henning]

I love this poem. Thanks, Diane & Terence

[Chris Mason]

Wonderful poem, thank you.

[Terence Winch]

Thanks for leaving a comment, Chris.

[Terence Winch]

Barbara---I suspected you would like it.

[Phyllis Rosenzweig]

Thanks, Terence. Wonderful poem and great photo.

[Terence Winch]

Thanks, Phyllis. Blame it all on Diane.

[Becky Levenson]

Love this, thanks

[Terence Winch]

Becky---thanks for checking in!

[James Sherry]

I'm definitely committed to my life. As I feel it slipping away, I too am eyeing those doors. Thanks for posting.

[Terence Winch]

James---thanks for stopping by.

[Bernard Welt]

I've read this at least 12 times now (I wasn't exactly keeping track, but I'm under- not overestimating). It's full of amazing things. It moves in so many directions but feels completely resolved at the end, like it reached its goal. I'm going to hang onto it as an example of what poetry can do with the ordinary language we all talk.
You made a good poem!xo

[Terence Winch]

Thanks, Bernard, for your comment. But you have to read it at least 20 times to really get it.