June 2017
Laurel Peterson
laurelpeterson@att.net
laurelpeterson@att.net
I’ve been writing since I was eight, despite being told that I shouldn’t. Writing revealed too much. This is why I tell my students they should never be afraid to put the truth on the page. I’m a community college English professor, who alternately loves and despairs of her students. I’ve written lots of different things—newspaper columns, academic stuff, poems (including two chapbooks and a forthcoming full-length collection) and a couple of mystery novels, one of which will be published this spring by Barking Rain Press. I have the very great pleasure of serving the town of Norwalk, Connecticut, as its poet laureate. At this very moment, my dog is sniffing through my trash for a draft of something to chew on. My website: www.laurelpeterson.com
Mantra
A clean, empty desk,
starts as a space, room
to move
to toss words around,
to push them off the edges
to lie on the floor
to be plucked up later or
vacuumed up by the Hoover.
The words fall into worksheets
newspapers
in and out of books.
They are pulled out
laid in rows
on the glass desk top, and underneath,
the toes have words on them:
little toe, 4th toe, 3rd toe, 2nd toe, hallux,
distal phalanx, proximal phalanx…
(most disconcerting)
And outside, the words lie
on signs, STOP, MEN WORKING, NO PARKING,
ripe for the plucking
floating from open red Coty mouths
drifting from cell phones
lifting off computer screens
drifting from billboards for shaving cream and Imus in the Morning,
and lifting off mugs from that last job,
and Donna Karan and Calvin Klein labels
and Cadillac and Honda hoods
and giant Sony screens over
Times Square, an unposted name
made of invisible words
what a bonanza
what a crushing weight
Writers’ block looms simply
in the endless aimless tickertape
the internal and external screens of mind
until the mind is so overloaded it
starts repeating advertising jingles
in the shower simply to get
rid of some words, language, images,
or it routes itself endlessly
through one meaningless phrase:
“ooooh, baby, baby”
“bought another Boutros for Boutros Boutros Ghali”
“we love to see you smile”
that take on new meaning from their endless
repetitions, becoming a mantra,
a place to escape the endless
repetitions
to escape
the endless repetitions
to escape the
endless repetitions
until language is simply an empty
meditation
until the return
to a clean empty desk,
a clear space, where
there is room to move
and toss words around.
A clean, empty desk,
starts as a space, room
to move
to toss words around,
to push them off the edges
to lie on the floor
to be plucked up later or
vacuumed up by the Hoover.
The words fall into worksheets
newspapers
in and out of books.
They are pulled out
laid in rows
on the glass desk top, and underneath,
the toes have words on them:
little toe, 4th toe, 3rd toe, 2nd toe, hallux,
distal phalanx, proximal phalanx…
(most disconcerting)
And outside, the words lie
on signs, STOP, MEN WORKING, NO PARKING,
ripe for the plucking
floating from open red Coty mouths
drifting from cell phones
lifting off computer screens
drifting from billboards for shaving cream and Imus in the Morning,
and lifting off mugs from that last job,
and Donna Karan and Calvin Klein labels
and Cadillac and Honda hoods
and giant Sony screens over
Times Square, an unposted name
made of invisible words
what a bonanza
what a crushing weight
Writers’ block looms simply
in the endless aimless tickertape
the internal and external screens of mind
until the mind is so overloaded it
starts repeating advertising jingles
in the shower simply to get
rid of some words, language, images,
or it routes itself endlessly
through one meaningless phrase:
“ooooh, baby, baby”
“bought another Boutros for Boutros Boutros Ghali”
“we love to see you smile”
that take on new meaning from their endless
repetitions, becoming a mantra,
a place to escape the endless
repetitions
to escape
the endless repetitions
to escape the
endless repetitions
until language is simply an empty
meditation
until the return
to a clean empty desk,
a clear space, where
there is room to move
and toss words around.
"Mantra" was originally published in The Rio Grande Review (2003).
© 2017 Laurel Peterson
© 2017 Laurel Peterson
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