OctPoWriMo Day 3. When Fear Gets On Your Hands

OctPoWriMo Day 3. Scares Can Get Sticky

Think of all the different textures around you. How many different textures are you touching right now? How do these textures affect your mood, your physical well-being, your thoughts? Did you choose these textures yourself?

What textures do you avoid? What textures scare you? What makes them frightening?

Example Poem: “Web” by Mary Oliver from American Primitive(Aal)

Web

So this is fear.
The dark spider scuttles away
over the underboards.
I watch the blood bead on my skin
and think rapidly:
the last dollar,
the last piece of bread,
lightning sizzling under the door.
Whether it hurts or not
I imagine it does.
I remember a bat caught years ago
in the attic, how he tired
among the swung brooms,
not knowing we would let him go.
I get up to walk, to see if I can.
So this is fear.
The trapdoor
unnails itself; in the dusk
the curtains move
as though the wind had bones.

~Mary Oliver

How does this poem bring textures to mind?

Prompt: What textures frighten you? Choose one or more that brings a clear memory to mind. What rapid thoughts rush in while you’re exploring this tactile memory? Include the textures, rapid thoughts, physical sensations, and the memory in your poem.

[Image taken from Experience Writing blog]

Possible form: A Calligram – The calligram is a form of concrete poetry published by Guillaume Apollinaire in 1918. The calligram creates shapes with words. The shapes are as important to the poem as the words. Unlike typed concrete poetry, the calligram uses changes in size and shape of the lettering, and leaves white space in the image.

~ 

A texture wordbank I made before I started writing the following poem, I did not use all of them, though: ooze, clag, tack, grit, burr, rasp, welt, prickle, thrum, sear, rime, slick, clot, pulp, fleece, chafe, scald, bristle, pucker, drag, smear, crust.

~

                When Fear Gets On Your Hands

                   Glue sheen on the jar rim,

               a sugar tack that won't let go.

                My thumb strings web to lid, 

                       strand, strand

            and the counter keeps a fingerprint of shine.

            Under it, the wood has a grain that runs the wrong way,

          lifting splinters like small, sharp questions.

             Kettle hisses; steam salts the air;

           it kisses; then stings the knuckles; so I flinch late,

        somewhere the fridge coughs and swallows it back.

                  Skin answers first:

             prickle along the forearms,

         sweat beading into beads into a slide,

                   a salt rime at the lip,

              salt tracks I didn’t vote for.

    Brain files a memo marked ORDINARY:

        breakfast, weekday, sunlight behaving itself.

    Body returns it unread, stamps URGENT in red,

          sticks the paper to my wrist,

     and I still think: this is home, surely this.

                  Every texture gangs up,

               grit in the tea tin hinge,

            a hinge-rasp that files the air,

          denim rasp at the crook of the knee,

      the elastic’s bite mapping a border I didn’t draw.

           Bus-days return: strap-tack stamped in my palm,

             denim rasping the knee, AC breathing cold.

                Body says go; brain says: it’s only four stops.

           I steady the jar, twist past the sugar seam.

                Threads snap. The lid burps loose.

                A sugar smear rings the mouth.

             For one soft second, nothing clings to me,

          then breath catches on a burr of air,

   paint blisters at the jamb; a splinter scouts my thumb; my palm slicks,

             and I remember the door that didn’t open,

               the paint that blistered like a warning,

            the way a lock can learn to think about other things,

                 a knob that only seems to move,

         and still, I say it out loud, to set the skin at ease:

                        I’m here. Not safe, maybe—

                                   just here.

                        The hand unsticks. The day goes on.

                                   ~ Oizys.