Playback by Lauren Camp

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend October 2, 2014   Playback   Lauren Camp

Let there be footfall and car door. Let me be finished with fire. Let the man get on a plane for his morning departure, erasing each reverie. Soon there will be only daylight, maybe a blue envelope, torn. Maybe bracelets of color from the petunias. I will need to know how to recover the familiar, how to open the door in the evening. How to again lock it. Almost everything about me goes unspoken, but commas and colons. I live with this heart rate, multiple times, its direction, its tempo: my 4/4 with acceleration, sometimes tuned to an alternate signature. Think of Brubeck’s “Take Five.” Those blocky chords were the result of an accident—dead on arrival, they said, after he smashed to the surf. Think how he switched it around, made his hands do what he wanted to hear, and forgive me for the analogy. May I never rush a surge for a better experience. Every Sunday all over the country, apologies gather. When I’m not in this small cottage, unreacting, I cascade sound and a few sentences from a cramped room to whoever will listen. I know some people think it is sinful to love such temptations, but I stay with my face soft against microphone, announcing my moral directions. Sometimes, I’m convinced my blood needs all those crossings. I’m not after absolution. The man I love taught me to want without lyrics. Remember I haven’t gone anywhere. I’m in a thirsty way sort of possessive. I shouldn’t show you this side of myself. Try to remember I’m also praised for my kindness. We each need to learn to turn off some dreams so we can play hours without creases.            Copyright © 2014 by Lauren Camp. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “Sometimes my poems are clearly focused on a single topic, but more and more they seem to need to be about many things because that’s how I experience the world. So much going on all the time. Given the chance, I’ll always try to make connections—in this case between jazz, love, humanity and potential error.” —Lauren Camp   Lauren Camp is the author of The Dailiness (Edwin E. Smith Publishing, 2013). She hosts Audio Saucepan, a global music and poetry program on Santa Fe Public Radio, and lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Most Recent Book by Camp   The Dailiness (Edwin E. Smith Publishing, 2013) "Red Bank" by Lesle Lewis "Mirrors" by Tada Chimako "maggie and milly and molly and may" by E. E. Cummings Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038