more rain and more poetry

I am okay with rain, but would love a bit of a break to plant my garden. However, the rain which keeps me indoors has a side benefit: more writing time without guilt or distraction. So, you'd think I'd be hard at it... NOT. I am distracted anyway.

I should be working on The Boyfriend Project. I am THINKING about it. How many poems do I need? What is the end part of when these "boys" cease to be beloved and start being annoying or dangerous? So, here's my thought on the actual construction: boyfriend project poems and love poems in the same collection, but as a flip book. Read through all the boyfriend poems, reach the middle of the book, flip and there is a new cover and more poems heading back toward the middle. Tentatively two separate covers, two different titles. The flip side would be "The Heart as Phoenix" or something indicating a resurrection of sorts where the boyfriends are left behind and more mature themes of love, rejection, dangerous love come into play. And do the married years enter in at all as distinct from the rest, or not at all, or embedded in the love section? A few of the married poems are not so loving or tender....

I have so many poems that would fit the love part... I kinda like the notion of two books in one. But is it too childish a construct that might detract? I can simply end one part, have a second section for the others. What thinkest thou dear blog followers? This is an important decision for me as the book itself is important to me.

Here are sample poems from each "side" of things:

From The Boyfriend Project side:

3:30 a.m.

for FB

Awake since the news

of the crash, you

in the hospital, pasted together —

your parents in chairs by your bed.

No matter that you ditched me

just yesterday, another girl

wearing the ring you made in shop,

the one I hid from my father.

No sleep for me tonight, love not

a switch to flip because some girl

with a laissez-faire father

lets you get to second base.

Tomorrow, at your bedside,

your new girl on a date

with your best friend, I promise

to find you again when we’re 50.

5:30 a.m.

for BB

Daddy says I have to get up,

go to church,

do my best not to look

like I’ve been out all night.

He suggests confession.

Make it right he says.

I say no.

You’ve disrespected your mother.

I say she wasn’t there and wouldn’t know

love if it walked up and introduced itself.

It’s not rouge I wear to Mass on my left cheek.

From The Heart as Phoenix side:

There Was the Year

of learning to kiss,

positioning noses and closing

eyes. I admit to sneaking

a look to see if his eyes

were properly shut. Brown

eyes laughing, soft lips breaking

into laughter at my dare.

There was the year

of foreign boys, well a summer

that wanted to be a year.

Dark-eyed boy from Columbia,

a prince from Persia,

and a boy who spoke German

or was it Russian?

Years gone by lurk

like ghosts on the beach

and in the town. Movies

in my head, like Exodus.

The theater burned, we got fire

checks for when it was safe

to kiss in the balcony another night.

There hasn’t been a year

when I was not in love, not close

to losing myself or finding myself

because of love. Boys

became men and I loved them for it.

My eyes stayed open during kisses,

my lips a map of kissing.

But I wanted to ask,

if you don’t mind, where did that year go

when I learned to love you?

The Year I Loved You

I loved you a year

when I thought love a lie,

thought love a star

embroidered on black,

unreal as marriage vows.

I didn’t love you before

and then I did, and then not

in person, but like a star

zooming to its death

vowing to return.

I loved you with magic

and you pulled rabbits

out of hats made of stars,

cutting me in half

finally, as I knew lovers do.

I didn’t love you again

until a bus station opened

to you in the doorway, a star.

Then I loved you for three days

as if I were going to die.

I loved you like a stone

wrapped in my own skin

tossed into a pool of stars

sinking, spinning rings

of vows we never made.

I didn’t love you well

enough to make you stay.

So, you tell me: flip book format or meet in the middle with a divider format?