Series: Watch a Poem Grow: Make a Noise

UPDATED: APRIL 30, 2017

A family of trees fall. Slugs
We leave. Snails, we keep. Watch
How shells repel the black stream.
See how feelers smell and retract,
Snap and grow. Regrow. Snap.

The PROCESS:

This poem was based on lyrics from MGMT's Kids. [See: Who is MGMT -- Watch Video ]

For days, the lyric segment, "take only what you need" kept haunting me. Seriously, it would repeat for hours, finally be sent packing by a major distraction, and return during any boring/routine activity. I did not like the message, therefore, Kill the messenger.

At a previously-scheduled retreat, during the inevitable collage-making activity, I cut thru a Forbes magazine & tried to pin down lyrical meaning.

When I returned, my son told me what he remembered of lyrics's chorus: Enjoy yourself// Take only what you need from him// A family of trees fallin// To be haunted.

OK, well that changes things. To be one of the title's "kids" is to enjoy yourself, and take only what you need might apply to a journey, as in when packing take only what you need -- a liberating message, no?

But... the mood of video -- where rotting monsters follow a crying toddler who walks away from an inattentive mother & heads to the forest -- that didn't connect.

So, I printed out true lyrics. It's really. CONTROL YOURSELF // Take only what you need from IT. // A family of trees wantin' // To be haunted.

Yeah. It was Poetry Time.

I did word analysis, breaking down lyrics (both real and misheard) into word groups: verbs, pronouns, nouns. Separately, I matched/generated sound alike words & pulled together full rhymes and slant rhymes, which are internal rhymes, which I use extensively.

Then, time to write. I started a haiku, which is three lines: 5, then 7, then 5 words each. This helped me simmer poem down to core. Haiku has two ideas or images; includes seasonal reference; and uses the "knife" -- a word that slices parts of poem into two images or ideas, with the "knife" word as bridge uniting the two components.

I like to brainstorm a Haiku, because, ha ha, it cuts poem to its core. Forces a setting or mood because of the need for seasonal reference. Forces turning points. Encourages concrete word usage and economic use of symbols.

From my haiku skeleton, I played around with words & symbols & double entendre, added what felt left out and voila, my draft of Make a noise.

So, I'll put it away for a months or so, and then start the long, long editing process.

Inquisition Records: Thick with Family

"If the surname of your family is listed here, I can provide data as to what happened to them: Burned alive, garroted and burned, enslaved, life imprisonment, torture. Many members of the same family suffered this fate." **

[Illustration, wikicommons: Francisco de Goya, Inquisition Tribunal]

CLICK TO SEE: LIST OF NAMES -- PORTUGUESE INQUISITION RECORDS

From: LES NOMS DE FAMILLE DES ARCHIVES DE RECHERCHE DU PORTUGAL « TORRE FONT TOMBE Du livre édité par Flavio Mendes Carvalho ***

Family Surnames that I discovered:

ALMEIDA: Surname for my uncle (husband of my father's sister) and my godfather, Joaquim, who named me "Aldina," a Sephardic/Turkish name. The Almeidas held land in Pedreiras, my paternal parish. Their property was adjacent to or near one of Vazao and/or Sousa land holdings. Likely, the Almeidas are distant blood relatives of mine.

BTW, Almeida is also the name of a town in North-West Portugal -- important militarily because the once-fortified town was near a road connecting Portugal and Spain. Theoretically, if you were trying to escape from the Spanish Inquisition, Almeida might be a good place to cross into Portugal.

BISPO: Great-great grandmother's surname. The women on my mothers' side are referred to as "Bispas." Original Matriarch had 11 surviving children and ran regional trading business; the eldest daughter was my great-grandmother Maria, who had only one surviving child, my grandmother, Maria do Rosario CARVALHO.

***CARVALHO: Common name in native region of my maternal family. Oak forests predominated at time of town's founding; Carvalho is oak in Portuguese. Carvalho is surname of my maternal grandmother. The name Carvalho passed to my mother's two sisters but not to my mother.

According to my mother, her father Francisco didn't like the name Carvalho because just about everybody in the parish was named Carvalho. So when he registered my mother with the town clerk, Francisco dropped the name Carvalho and replaced it with "do Rosario," i.e., of the Rosary, which was my maternal grandmother's middle name. Subsequently, the authorities became more rigid about names, and Francisco had to register his two younger daughters under their mother's surname, Carvalho.

HENRIGUES: Henriques, surname of Maternal relatives; my mom & her cousin share same great-grandparents.

MATTOS: variation of surname of maternal cousin who emigrated to Brazil, and then to NY. Matos means woods. Mata connotes thicket, wild forest, jungle. And, mata is the imperative of "to kill" -- mata-os means Kill Them.

PINTO: Paternal Grandfather. He kept the Pinto name, and was known about town as "Francisco Pinto." Nonetheless, he tried to "upgrade" our identity by taking advantage of bureaucratic chaos and registering as Morgado, which was the surname of the region's original gentry. "Morgado" passed to my mother, but local authorities prevented my grandfather from "upgrading" names of his younger daughters. While Pinto is on the Inquisition rolls, Morgado is not. The Pinto name did not pass to me, but Morgado did.

SIMAO: variation of surname of maternal relatives, and of my mother's godmother & mentor, and of my sister's godfather.

SOUZA: Spanish version of Portuguese SOUSA. Surname of my paternal grandmother, and one of my father's surnames.

VAZ: variation, perhaps original version, of my surname Vazao. Vazao could mean "The Big Vaz." There is an area in Portugal called "Vale de Vazao."

XAVIER: Surname of mother's second cousin

** Translation of French original: "Si votre nom de famille est énuméré ici je peux fournir des données quant a ce qui leur est arrive. Ils furent : Brûlés vifs, garrotés et brulés, esclavage d'office, emprisonnement perpétuel, tortures."

PHOTO courtesy of Clara Castelar, saudades.org

Interplanet Hope

What if God were a planet—
In a white-hot, violet galaxy?
Perhaps if God were a planet
We'd relocate. We'd get new homes,

New pets, and shiny new clothes.
What if galaxies were God—
All of them? Might we evaporate
Into Divinity when we die?

Our ashy bodies compost, we know.
Even if, somewhere, we keep copies.
We'll leave molecules in tomatoes,
Wells, wool, sweat, and waffle cones.

On Earth, finally, we'd be everything.
Though what is the what, we won't know.
Somewhere, we do penance. Spit? Smoke?
Cast away? Lost in the belly of the Globe?

Demons who once breathed—
Who sold certificates for Heaven—
Who drank from jeweled grails—
Move to the Inner Circle.

[first draft of part 1]