Songs of the Risen

Musings of an Indigo Warrior Poet. All original content copyright (2016). All rights reserved.

[finishinglinepress]

This Fragile Husk by Beth Grindstaff

$14.99, paper

RESERVE YOUR COPY TODAY PREORDER PURCHASE SHIPS May 20, 2016 https://finishinglinepress.com/product_info.php?products_id=2590&osCsid=c5lnubm1rrguuuvq4tvm7ivtt5

Beth Grindstaff has been writing poetry since she could hold a crayon. From a very young age, words both captivated and enthralled her, and she made it her business to harness their power to the best of her ability. She had a poem published in a local newspaper when she was 13, and went on to be a regular contributor to her high school and college literary magazines, The Warcry and Echoes and Images, respectively. She has had work published in several other anthologies, including Fresh Breath and The Golden Wings. In April 2013 she won a poetry slam hosted by ETSU and was subsequently invited to interview and read her work on Women on Air, a weekly radio show aired on WETS-FM.

Beth has experienced many losses, trials, and challenges in her lifetime, including the sudden death of her father in 2009 and a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis in 2015. She works hard to be a light in the world, to remain positive, to hold love as the highest ideal, and to thrive in spite of her difficulties. She hopes her work will offer respite and harbor to those weathering their own storms.

Beth is also an avid cyclist and animal lover and enjoys spending time with her family. She lives in Johnson City, Tennessee, with her amazing partner, a cat named Mrs. Pooh, and the apple of her eye: a rescued pit bull/boxer mix named Abby.

Here’s what some other authors had to say about This Fragile Husk:

“It is a harrowing and wondrous journey down the river of Beth Grindstaff’s poems in her book This Fragile Husk. The poet—scarred and bruised as we all are—is full of mettle despite the title of this book. No flower gardens here but plenty of grit. These are poems of the soul, but they are not sweet. They’re cutthroat poems that slice you open and remind you how much living hurts, how “once you live through a thing, it becomes you.” The living and the dead commune seamlessly here. Beth’s deft ear for rhythm and the magic of repetition, her sensibility and insight, create a memorable book of tough and remarkable poems. Her voice is clear and sure.”

Poet, professor and author, Robison has three chapbooks of poems and a textbook titled Writing and Understanding Poetry: for Teachers and Students (Rowman and Littlefield, 2015). Dr. Robison is Faculty Emerita at the College of Central Florida where she taught creative writing and advised the award winning literary magazine, Imprints.

CASSANDRA ROBISON

—

Beth Grindstaff’s short, urgent lines explore the fragmented, failing human husk at odds with the heart that refuses to forsake desire. At the center of the text stoops the heroic body, tragic in its fragility. Physical pain and impending loss invert Grindstaff’s verse from the typical princess tale, but if the poet dispenses with Happily Ever After, she never forsakes magic wrought from the hands of helpers. Still, Grindstaff’s collection insists that it’s alone we must forge forward. The speaker-voice illustrates the soul’s journey, solitary, grand in its inevitable bodilessness, confronting its mortal breakability “with steel and hope and ardor.”

LISA HOFFMAN-REYES, Ph.D

Lisa Hoffman-Reyes, Ph.D. is a professor of English Literature at Pierce College in Lakewood, WA.

—

“The husk may, indeed, be fragile, but the spirit beats on with remarkable resilience in Beth Grindstaff’s remarkable first collection of poems, “This Fragile Husk.” Ultimately, this deeply personal look into the abyss is about the spirit’s ability to survive even if its only voice is incantation in words so finely wrought that their edges scar. Grindstaff pushes the poetic envelope with imagery and metaphor that are at time dazzling in their originality yet remain deeply primordial. This is a collection that reveals more of itself with each reading. I can think of no higher compliment.”

JUDE DIPPOLD

Jude Dippold is the author of one chapbook, “Crossings.” His poetry has been published in literary magazines at Jamestown Community College, the College of Central Florida, and most recently in Exult Press’ “The Yes Book, Writings About Yes.”

Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!]

https://finishinglinepress.com/product_info.php?products_id=2590&osCsid=c5lnubm1rrguuuvq4tvm7ivtt5 @poems-and-words @poetryfoundation @poetsorg @poetry @prettybooks @bindersfullofwomen @wompo @nprbooks @npr @tennessee

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Finishing Line Press has picked my book as Book of the Day. If you'd like to pre-order a copy, just click the link they've supplied. It's due to be released May 20th. Thanks so much to all who've supported me thus far!

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Fire (upon viewing a fist-shaped cloud from a loved one’s hospital room window)

They said it was the hand of God but it looked more like a fist to me. They said things become twisted this way.  All lit up on pedestals we make out of what’s left after the storm.   I believe them.   Because when she breathes, she does it through impossible lungs, crowded by cancer.   She does it with her teeth.   Her tongue.   Her whole heart. What’s left of her body, pressed hard into the bed by the weight of all she is leaving behind her. This gravity means to press us into the earth. We fall beneath its weight. Are crushed by it. Are haunted by it at the call of every hour.   Meanwhile, there is rain. Melting snow.  Sunrise.  Sunset. Night and day. Wind and water.   Fire and ash.   And it is fire she has become. Fire in her eyes, fire in her heaving breast. And she is red blood in her fire. Fire in her urgency. Fire in the way she clings to her son. Fire in the way she hopes. Fire in the way she reaches, trembling, for a cure that never comes. 

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For Debbie

Trees who buried their roots in our hearts. Trees we turned our backs on. Walked away from a long time ago. Till they grew through the walls of your lungs. Roots of tumors. O2 sats in the 80s and falling. The tubes hanging from your arms.  The port in your chest. The gown open at your back. The oncologists at the foot of your bed. Stage IV. Three liters of oxygen. The coughing. The coughing. The crying. The fear. And the hope. The awful hope. But God has a plan. First I thought I was to be His miracle. But now. Stage IV and double pneumonia. Your voice surfaces from the moat of your tears, levels me. There is so much to be said, so much to be done. I wasn’t ready. I’m not ready. I’m not ready. 

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December 28th

I want to tell you to look at the sky how it looks ill fated how it looks to belong to horses with black hooves that came only this far and then stopped unless they didn’t unless they’re wild here behind the dark woods of my eyes their stables are burning but the sky never asks questions that’s why I tell you to look and not speak and wait and listen I know you’re tired of hearing what the doctors have to say what the illness wants to take I only care what you say no one else a whole planet of nobodies and here we are slivers of us caught up in the windswept sky look up where the bare branches stretch like a bird’s neck before the slaughter the light spilling through as if holy the closest thing to holy we’ll ever know even up this high because all the things that are wrong are wrong even with the blessing of your hands your beautiful hands my darling I couldn’t lie there in pain any longer and of all the bones we’ve mended this one is my favorite

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Long overdue

Hello, my fellow poets, writers, and artists!  This post is long overdue.  As many of you have likely noticed, I have been on a long sabbatical from nearly all forms of social media.  I apologize for not reading your work or sharing my own during the interim, but I think you’ll understand my need to disconnect.

As some of you already know, I was definitively diagnosed with multiple sclerosis early this year, after six months of intensive medical testing.  For those who don’t know, MS is an incurable, degenerative, progressive neurological disease in which the body’s own immune system attacks the brain and spinal cord.  This results in a myriad of difficulties that range from mild nuisance to life threatening.  I’ve been lucky thus far and only experienced mild to moderate difficulties.  The treatment has its own caveats, with many of the approved medicines carrying the potential for severe, even fatal, side effects.  

This has been a life-altering diagnosis for me, as it would be for anyone.  I’ve had to take some time away to let the dust settle and to learn how to live with this illness.  It affects every aspect of my life, and some days are worse than others.  But those of you who know me know that I’m a fighter.  And so, I’m fighting every way I know how.  I’m still working, still healthy, still riding my bike as much as time and energy permit.  I’ve lost a friend or two because of this, but I’ve also been incredibly blessed with love, support, and encouragement.  

Much of this struggle has been recorded in poetic form, and some of that is the basis for my first collection of poetry, This Fragile Husk, which will be released via Finishing Line Press next year.  I’ll be posting updates about the book, and links where you can check it out if you’d be interested.  I have to pre-sell 55 copies in order for it to go to press, so anyone who wants a copy would seriously help the cause.  

Through this period of inactivity, I’ve kept the vast majority of my followers.  I am so grateful for your readership and support.  You have no idea how much it humbles me to know you’re out there.  I apologize for not supporting you in the same regard, but I’ll do my best to be a bit more present here as time, energy, and physical health permit.  

Thank you again for all you are, all you do.  I hope to reconnect with you as the journey continues.  I’ll be posting updates here and there about the book in the coming months.  And, of course, a poem or two :)

Love, light, and good health to you all!

-Beth  

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Things I Learned From Surgery

1. You will be asked to arrive early for your procedure. This is a trick. You will be kept waiting for at least two hours, regardless.

2. You will be asked your name, date of birth, and operative site no less than 10 times.

3. Anesthesiologists are a particularly jaded and deadpan lot. You will learn to appreciate this.

4. If you are to receive IV Decadron and the nurse pushes it too quickly, you may experience what feels like a brushfire in your vagina. Do not panic. This is completely normal.

5. The snot-colored pudding is, in fact, vanilla, and really not so bad.

6. You may receive IV morphine up to, but not exceeding, once per hour.

7. “The good stuff” always means Zofran.

8. “Michael Jackson juice” always means propofol.

9. “A small incision” is a relative description.

10. You will be asked to urinate in what appears to be a white plastic cowboy hat with numbers etched in the side. So they can “measure it.”

11. Bedpans are not as efficient as you’ve been led to believe.

12. There is never enough IV tubing.

13. “This may sting a little” actually means “your sphincter may momentarily invert in an attempt to distract you from the pain.” Not to worry; it’ll pass.

14. It is, in fact, impossible to get any sleep on the PACU.

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An invocation in the face of diagnostic uncertainties

Let there be footpath and sunset. All the resiliency of the walnut stubbornly rooted beneath the kitchen window. Let there be no teeth in the saw. Let there be space to breathe behind this screen, in this bright room of rain and wind. Let the stalwart loom of winter not weave me into an unending penance. Let the creek willows stretch their long-armed shadows across the luminous green field with its scant dirt diamond. Let there be pain and joy, a desire to do good. Let the red lightning in the dark mean nothing more than healing. Let the doctors not fail me. Let this shifting body not fail me. Let the white sea give thanks for its many ghosts. Let the page of my name be torn from the book. Let there be love and love and love.

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The burning

In her cold cold hands the ailing summer frayed as failing sight what was once immaculate gone gray around the color the life the gone gone sky the dim lights shining their haloed bewilderment coming through as if this were only an innocent fog and not a wicked trick of the dying eye she pauses at the swelling in my throat the arch of my brow until the roof caves in around us and I can breathe no more and I say oh honey I know the way dark booms fit to shatter your timid hope honey I know the way moon appears a lock-jawed bony-handed witch in this low place honey I know you are so tired of fighting but remember what you are fire sister an anchored sun forever rising remember what you are sacred woman bringer of light you must learn to endure the burning

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Sing Blues

Blues because rest comes to every house but this one blues because it is heavy here beneath night's baleful thicket blues because nothing is near enough that reaching can hope to encompass it blues because we spent all hours braced hard with heads turned blues because the madness of inertia made us do it blues because it is better this way blues for us blues for the hatchet man blues for god in his shattered heaven blues for every fallen star blues for all the world blues for the things that must shift to lie better and keep still down deep in the guts where it hurts most

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Found:

Found: A pogrom. Transmutation of erasure. Protect this tiniest star buried deep beneath sudden winter. The ugliest form of thievery. Water things we used to be. Red sun breathing on our bodies before time stopped drumming. The way we remember. The way it ended softly.

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Mike (who went away himself and returned entirely different)

You. 6 foot 4. Gaunt and scabbed in the three-o'clock sun. Warning us about the number 24. The base of a pyramid upon which the lie of your life is built. You went missing for 12 days. Turned up barefoot out in Murfreesboro. And now you’re here. Only it isn’t quite you sitting on the porch chain smoking and telling us how afraid you are to drink water. And how you spent 10 days naked in the dark arranging pennies with your feet into lines on the floor. And how you haven't slept in 76 hours because the dogs chew your feet every time you close your eyes. The old women say things. The old women keep getting older. And the brown-eyed girls can't be trusted because the brown-eyed girls are yours. Valhalla!, you scream. They keep saying this isn't Valhalla! Who the fuck said it was?! Suddenly your face is an earthquake. Is a dying storm. Is a series of battles gone starkly quiet. An instant fills with a years-wide dark. A grieved silence falls heavy and hard. Narrowed eyes brim with questions. Lick split lips ask, Am I crazy? Do you hear that? Eyes dart to the empty street. I can't sleep in this county. I have to get to Christiana. The sky paints itself a sunset. The sky paints itself into a shocked and hopeless corner. Edges appear and we hold on to each other. Ask what we can do to keep you from falling. The wind blows. Your eyes close. Something hinders. Something folds. It doesn’t matter. Can’t you see? I'm the deadest man in the world.

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For Cyndie

If I speak your name the way it is written on the memorial, I’ll go mad. Not because I cannot fathom your goneness or bear to look your mother in the face, but because our vowels cry out the same. Because we are branches of the same dirty river.

I survived. And you did not. Our shared blood makes us both guilty.

This night is an open hand, empty of you. All its dead planets, stark as the tracks in your arms. Its silvered needles traded for a million tiny stars no less sharp.

Outside it is wind and wind a paper forest that walls us in.

Inside the lights go out and out and out.

Cynthia Lynn Hopson Widner 07/01/1975 – 07/13/2014

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Glimpses after a storm

From the second-floor window, this place is a tragic country. A city of tepid walls, same as the whites of my eyes. --- A line of traffic appears as tribute. A funeral. Important and somber. A slow crawl past something breathless and unseen. --- The asphalt clutches its orphans. Limbs and leaves from yesterday's storm. The mulch, flung wild from its quiet post. We never lost power, even when the roof blew off the hotel down the street. We heard fire trucks screaming down Watauga and I kissed you as a reminder to be grateful that nothing is permanent. Not the roiling black sky. Not the cracks in the sidewalk. Not even my own tired body, the heaviest load I carry. ----- They're going to cut my throat in the fall, take something I need but must learn to live without. But we are all learning, waiting by windows. Pushing our boundary of loss further from its bloodless origin. ---- It is raining on the starless mountain. A deer goes over the cliff. Cruelty is met with silence. The earth does not mourn the way we do.

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Ablution

A garden of wounds, burst through its sway-fenced seams. Deep green water three days a week. Blazing dawn oranges in hand. Pale dusk and the look of faces. The danger of hunger. The riptide of circumstance. Seated work, standing work. Love and all its rapturous ache. All its backbreaking tenderness. The things I shift to carry better. The things I’ve come to know beneath such an intimate ruin. Such careful hope despite a thousand tiny deaths whispered in the heat of a day’s stretched murmur.

Stand and hold the dog by the hips, tell her you’ve got her. Tell her she’s a thousand ways better in this water, which is only green because the trees hang silent above it. Only deep because it is summer.

And everything is deep now.

So I let go. Walk into the water. Breathe deep. Swim.

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I've gotten a lot of love from you guys lately and just wanted to say thank you. I've not been on much due to my dog rupturing both ACLs. It takes a lot of time, hard work, and love to heal something like this. We're working on it. I'll leave you with a happy pic of Abby and me at the lake. Swimming is the best rehab for injured joints. Thank you so much for your ceaseless support, it means so much. Love and good vibes from Abby and me!

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Morning

Morning’s new fur, kindling for love.

Morning’s constitutional: Be brave. Be brave today.

On my cooling walls, a crow speaks. Morning’s shifting shapes. Morning’s weightless bond.

The breaking apart of night’s dark distress has everything to do with a lonely sun’s rising.

Morning waits for the sake of waiting. The holiest of beggars. A slivered mouth of sky that fits perfectly my rounded bones.

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Storm as prologue

1. It is night beneath a wrong-colored sky. Combed by treeless thunder. Raked raw and winded. 2. Funnels drop and lift at the edge of the city. Green-gray spiders with wispy bellies. We wait for the sirens but they never come. 3. Lame dog shudders, same as windows. Licks the shine of the light on the floor. Blue light, quick and threatening. The thick heat stays too long in the margins of dusk. 4. Rain soaked. Storm clawed. Suffocating darkness. We hide and forget to breathe. 5. The light is gone. Stolen and replaced with some new thing we haven't tasted. Tighter. Closer. Less than safety. More than warning. 6. A sweeping, languid wave against which we can no longer hold.