Poetry in Motion

A selection of poetry and prose I have written. All works presented here are copyrighted by Katharine Engdahl. Reproductions are permitted (and appreciated!) with proper credit.

[pedanticprose]

patriarchy, in six parts

I.

pretty girl,  how many times have you been silenced syllables ripped from your mouth before they pass your teeth how many sunflowers were tied to your tongue         before you saw their petals as weapons how many times have your words been stolen by men whose hands held you but never felt you how many male fists have you felt but not returned because you hit like a girl        & girls don't hit how many of your own fists have you eaten, transmuted them to the blade of a phrase how many emotional scars have you birthed that would have been better suited as bruises how many nos have you held so deep you bled them how many times have you been shown 

women don't get a word for no. 

II.

brave boy, how many times have you looked for words where there were none found feelings only found femininity floundering for your voice then filled the silence with fists so that no one could say you were a little bitch of a boy how many nights did you stay awake, studying stone until you mistook it for strong how long until you hardened in the garden of masculinity how many sunflowers did you see before you learned 

stone cannot grow.

III.

where do you bury the parts of yourself you killed to survive as she. as he. how went the eulogy. did you weep.                scream. did you write an epitaph. how do you carry the weight of their absence. do you feel your phantom limbs tingling in your finger tips & ribs do you hear them calling out to come home the cries of a kid who's been lost for too long. 

IV. 

breathe. 

V.

find the pieces of (self) forgiveness you buried with your better half soften the scars open your heart & clench your palm welcome yourself home. 

VI.

(i too have poured bleach in my veins, dying to be pink and when i still bled red i beat my breasts blue. 

just know you can the fist or the flower. or you can be the flower & the fist. & neither cunt nor cock can tell you which.) 

 - k.e.

[pedanticprose]

the secrets i’d send you if i thought it mattered

1. i always knew this was coming.

2. i saw from the start the signs you left for me to find were scuffed from the girls who followed you before me.

3. i still have the obituary i wrote you.

4. i am impressed by the mess you left me in.

5. i am still not sure i ever knew a real thing about you. the only thing i ever trusted from you was the pain.

6. i loved you the way a secret stays hidden in cheeks and beneath teeth. tried to bite the truth from your lips.

7. i always knew this was coming.

8. knowledge of the storm never stops the rain.

[2014]

[pedanticprose]

F(r)iends

We were bodies who occupied each other. War games of flesh, we captured each other as prisoners of desire, and let our words serve as letters to lovers we thought we’d never see.

We were explorers of another’s soil, selfishly stealing fruit from other’s toil my hunger fed your fervor and your song left me yearning for our symphony of silent want and  weighted glances.

We were ships passing in the night set to crash in starless sky— we ignored our common markers, prayed to false and feeble gods for safe passage through uncharted waters.

We were idolaters of sin, creating altars of runes and moans. Your symbols in my skin convinced closer conquerors of a bond that existed beyond lust, but

We were everything but friends.

We opened no dreams. Shared no shelter. Lived as islands only and built no bridge beyond our bodies.

It was as we agreed. We existed only in the shimmering hours of the afterwards and lived our exits as the dawns arrived.

You were an Eden with his trees  And me, your snake in the reeds. I feared the faith of the fallen and laid praise to the garden But even by my worst intentions nothing from you ever tasted true.

So when our stars, too salty from the sea, finally left their stinging sky and gave us no guide

I sang no siren song to bring you home or burn you down.

[pedanticprose]

In Love, As In All Things/Art -- DRAFT

I want to learn Braille to write you love poems

So you can do more than read my words More than hear them

I want you to feel my words as much as I do.

And I know that you don’t

(not yet)

But if you asked me how I loved you, how I felt the dots & groves grow on my tingling bones,

I would have pointed to the tip of my toe, etched below with

“Easily.”

But that was many memories ago. If you looked at these bones now I could show you only

The patches worn practically smooth And the scratches over the traces of you Where The Eraser slipped and missed a word a letter the s excised from ‘sought’ on my left femur the lonely island of ‘i’ in the middle of my metacarpal

So that when you asked me how you lost me, How absence can abrade more than objects ever could I can point only to your sandpaper silence & say:

“It was, as with all things”

Little by little.

And then, all at once.

[2013]

[pedanticprose]

String Theory for the Unrequited

In this world I take the turn too fast, & in another I am reduced to dust. A different life where I am wet hair running late to work, not fried nerves running from it.

In this world I take the turn too fast,         & in two others I am reduced to dust. In one life, I am a mother, twin pigtails wrapped in ribbon, caked in mud. In the other, I am a builder; a man with hands made for holding hips and high rises,                                                                  scraping sky one fist full at a time.

In this world I take the turn too fast,          & in three others I am reduced to dust In the first of those lives, I am a brunette, bashful and brittle instead of blonde and bombastic. In the second, I paint skin instead of pages. And in the third, I am yours.

In this life I take the turn too fast, and there are others yet where I have not been and may never be, & then there are

some still where I have 3 arms,  2 heads, and no heart for my two heads to fight with       no you for my three arms to long for.

But in .00015% of the worlds where we exist, we are meeting right now… …or now…

and we can feel our fates churning and urging us in all of the directions we could be.

2000 mes and yous dancing around the yous and mes this world would never let us be. Wondering in which iteration I am happy. In three of them, I never met your gaze from across the garden. In thirty, our hands brushed only briefly before the forces of fate pulled them apart like our opposing poles. And in three hundred of our lives, I never loved you,

but in three thousand, I am writing you this poem.

In this life I took your hand too fast,                        & in two million others I am reduced to dust. Twenty where I never tried to fill your absence with my thoughts of string theory Two where you never left amidst a smoke bomb of anger and self-defeat & One where we are sharing our soft stories over strong whiskey.

I have seen all of our worlds, & in at least half of them,  we are beautiful.

In this life I take the turn too fast, and in all others you reduce me                                                                                        to ash.

[2012]

[pedanticprose]

My Body: After the Break Up

Everyone says that a heart is what hurts after it's over It breaks and separates in two But my body is what ails and aches what calls and cries in ways my heart has never heard nor known. My eyes wish to see flesh bare, trace curves to where legs meet, wide and sweet and true My hair wants fingers running through it lingering and lasting strokes, soothing and softening me my nose misses the smell of sweat the scent of sensuous sex on a  warm and waning afternoon my ears long for languid syllables of which to sip, to sup, to dream. and my lips they hurt worst of all torn in two to teach me breaths, they ache for cool caresses, calm kisses interspersed with passionate pecks and tangling tongues and wish only to be made whole by connection with anothers  wet wanting lips. So, if I kiss you, it is not my fault only that the hurt was too much and that my lips sensed this same sadness in the full and quiet folds of yours.

[2010]

[pedanticprose]

Slip, Slide

Look, I get it You like me because I'm on the sidelines, pose no threat Balanced precariously on pointed toes between your perfect prose you see me living through the highs of your life Slipping, sliding, trying not to fall into the cracks your insecurities leave between  your autobiography and your fantasy. You like me because, when you slip there, slide into the mess of mistakes and memories Broken and shaking under the weight of your torrential tears With conversation and cuddling, star gazing and dancing crazy I blaze a trail through your thicket of hard times and harrowed sighs To pull you back to the higher ground where you can watch the bad days come and go as they please and know the good days as on their way. You like me because I like you lend you my eyes let you see you as beautiful and bold strong and sexy, and sensitive and sweet. And baby, I slip too Sliding into that space between those lips, those arms, these sheets And then I need your eyes, your  words to work me through these mistakes I've made. But sometimes,  I need to fall wanting to explore all of these curves and calms of this life I'm living playing instead of seeking solace from the side your side Sometimes I want to look back and smile at the silly, some days somber former me who loved you as much as anyone ever could losing and finding myself in this maze, these drops and soars you helped me create.

(2010)

[pedanticprose]

Nous, les nôtres

Je t'aime             comme les rues aiment le silence                                                              aiment la nuit Je t'aime             comme les nuages aiment pleurer                                                                aiment bouger Je t'aime            comme les oiseaux aiment chanter                                                               aiment l'amour Je t'aime          comme les feuilles aiment être dans le vent                                                                            et danser avec le soleil                                                                                                       et toutes ces choses sont pour                                                                                   nous.                                                 Et nous sommes                                                 Et nous sommes                                              

                                                      Les nôtres                                                     

Translation: I love you             as roads love silence                                       love night I love you             as clouds love to cry                                         love to move I love you             as birds love to sing                                        love love I love you            as leaves love to be in the wind                                         and dance with the sun                                                                        and all of these things are for                                                             us                                        And we are                                        And we are                                            each other's.

[pedanticprose]

This Empty Nest

You told me once that the souls of suicides were trapped inside trees when they died, and that the birds meant to bring those souls to their home on the other side sat in them, singing for the souls they sought but could not see, sorrowing at their uselessness. These birds, yearning to carry out their job, built nests out of sticks and leaves and love in the branches of the trees whose souls they could not save and though it may not shelter the souls from snow, or stop their limbs from shaking in the cold,  it may be what keeps their core warm until they can finally make it to the home they tried too soon to reach. As we finished our walk through the park, I stood in awe of the bittersweet story you wove and I strove to understand, through the months and the years, as I whispered my questions in your ear. Do the birds meant to feather our souls to the other side follow us through life? Do they know our end before we do? And I wondered of birds charged with suicides-- would their deaths be known, too so that the birds could start their building in advance? Or are suicides just as much of a surprise to the birds as they are to us? Do they too feel weighted by the absence and question their worth                  for what good is a ferry to roots in the Earth? And is that why they build their nests, alone-- the homes that will never shelter, never warm are they just giving themselves a new purpose? And is it just as pointless?

I ask you these questions that ache on my lips and I hope that through the abyss of depression and bark you can see how I miss you as I weave my confusions and confessions into a nest of words to keep at least one of us

         warm.

[pedanticprose]

Speechless (2008)

"Speechless" I had a beautiful thought once Born from grey matter + Electro connections, it Came into this head With eloquence and grace Screaming of sunbeams and How flattering they looked playing Across your Face So beautiful, my thought was, That it began to rival Helen and her Troy Growing as I watered it with Metaphors and coherence Similes and syntax So that, with the honesty of youth, It was able to declare Clearly and concisely The beauty of your eyes The clarity of your soul And how the two seem so Intertwined Wrapped in each other as Lovers beneath the covers On a cold winter Night And once my thought had matured Once it had read Socrates and Sartre Chomsky and Lavoisier And once it had hypothesized, at great length About the importance of literature In the canon of our lives About the ultimate meaning of words As a way to connect with your mind I dressed it in its best Black fedora And pin stripped Suit And decided it was time to release it This beautiful thought To let it travel the many miles of veins from  My brain to my Fingertips, from My pen to my Paper But The thought didn’t get That Far Though brilliant, My thought had little time for Details For, though I specified, quite adamantly, To always take the red line, My thought hitched along with a blue Blood vessel And though I know nothing else As I have long since lost Any sense of control I once had I imagine my thought is now Resting in my aorta Next to the remnants of fast food past Clogging my veins with the Volumes of ideas it wishes to Share with my Heart So that, by the time my pen hit This paper I was a brimming, bursting, filled, and flowing Rush of inspiration With no words.

[pedanticprose]

Untitled

About the lips you left lightly leaning on my porch, they are a little lonely but know that lonely is not the only thing they are they are also beautiful and bright and bursting forth with a light I truly wished you knew and they are only lonely in the hopeful way a whisper weeps till it finds the ear it seeks.

[pedanticprose]

You, like cigarettes,

take a while to get used to adjust to the way you linger and leave and smolder and smoke I had to really want to love you and learn to like the feel of your heat on fingers, on face kept it casual after committing to that first pack, only taking you out in groups, using you start conversations or to end them. then came another pack and so with it                another month until it became just us,             silent inhaling you bruised with bated breaths, filtered you fickle through frozen fingers thinking I could put you down once we burned out denying my dependence on your presence resting on my lips or how your absence always got me gasping closed my eyes as I inhaled too deep clung to ash and then tried to buy another pack, but Babe, my lighter ran out and I'm bent to broke and burned too black to try and get us back.

[pedanticprose]

"Sans titre"

[Translation can be found by clicking "Read More"]

Il y a six mois que J'ai eu ta main dans ma main Ton corps dans mon corps Ton amour dans ma vie Mais, comme toujours, Mon coeur reste en tes mains Dans de petits, Petits morceaux.  (It has been six months since I had your hand in my hand Your body in my body Your love in my life But, as always, My heart rests in your hands In little, little pieces)