Geoffrey Himes: Pick of the Week [ed. Terence Winch]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Swimming Pool

 

The diver was a knife that slit the surface

with the merest sliver of a splash.

 

Her zaftig mother was a pudding oozing

through the poolside plastic webbing.

 

The diver's boyfriend was a mannequin

in bronze tan and vermillion trunks.

 

He ran past the mother, leapt, grabbed his knees,

and landed with a cannonball tsunami.

 

I was a chimera, dog's head and walrus body,

swimming laps through the chlorine blue.

 

I knew the mother and the boyfriend would tire of the sun

and leave the pool to me, the diver and the indigo dusk.

 

The diver bounced on the board, lifted off, hinged at the hips,

straightened like a blade and sliced into the bubbles.

 

I stayed in my lane, scooping with my hands,

swimming toward her, away, toward her, away.

 

Water was our world. Water was our language.

Water was our worship. Water was our embrace.

 

I could be the spoon to her knife.

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Geoffrey Himes’s poetry has been published by December, Gianthology, the Loch Raven Review, Survision, January Review, Salt Lick, the Baltimore City Paper, and other publications. His poems are included in the anthologies Singing in the Dark and Poet Trees: Poetry Hiding in Plain Sight. His song lyrics have been set to music by Si Kahn, Walter Egan, Billy Kemp, Fred Koller, and others.  His book on Bruce Springsteen, Born in the U.S.A., was published by Continuum Books in 2005. He has written about popular music and theater for the Washington Post, New York Times, Rolling Stone, Smithsonian Magazine, Paste, Downbeat, Sing Out, and the Nashville Scene since 1977.

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                      Paul Cézanne, Woman Diving into Water, 1870. Pencil, watercolor, and gouache on paper. National Museum of Wales, Wales, UK

 

Comments

[gracecavalieri]

Geoff has the gift of telling story within verse. He can manage characters, situation, plot in couplets or music -- a zeitgeist in poetry and song. Was wunderkind. Still is!

[Denise Duhamel]

Terrific images--blurred as if underwater--and then crisp as the speaker comes up for air!

[Mary Louise Kiernan]

Oh, my! It's below freezing but this poem generated steaminess!
I did not know of Mr. Himes. Thank you for introducing me to him!
Mary Louise

[Eileen]

I love this poem

[Terence Winch]

You're welcome, Mary Louise

[clarinda]

I love this poem. Marvelous images, esp. the mother oozing thru the webbing. Dang, I wish I could do a jacknife like that diver. Being only reluctantly a land animal, I love submerging in this terrific poem.

[Peter Kearney]

The poet kept scooping like a spoon, and it seems the diver kept diving like a knife. No wonder the water seemed to him to draw them together.

[Anne Harding Woodworth]

This poem lacks nothing. There’s Freud, sex, childhood, adulthood, longing, and lots of water. So much packed into nine and a half couplets. Very nice.

[april havoc]

The zaftig chimera is what it is, and like a spoon and knife but with a forked tongue as admirable poets all have.

[Dr. Earle Hitchner]

Geoffrey Himes breaks the tacit, time-immemorial "rule of three" (who makes these rules anyway?) regarding alliteration in his opening couplet: "slit," "surface," sliver," and "splash," with a tucked nod to consonance ("merest") amid the sweetly singing sibilance. His sure strokes show there need not be any stolid standards. I admire his serious-minded fun with words, a playfulness depicting deep-water desire. The aqueous awkwardness of the mother (“pudding oozing”) and the boyfriend (“cannonball tsunami”) leaves a lane open to the narrative “I” doting on the diver. The description of knife-like diving and spoon-like scooping makes a compelling cutlery couple. The water table is set--at least in the lap swimmer’s mind. “The Swimming Pool” adds a fresh swoon to sought-after spooning. Kudos, Geoffrey! (For those unfamiliar with his music criticism, I recommend reading “Why We Still Need Music Criticism” in the March 28, 2016, issue of PASTE magazine, for which he wrote “A Curmudgeon Column.”)

[Angela Ball]

Terrific poem. Much enjoyed.