Narrow Droplets
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About this ebook
Narrow Dropletsis a riveting collection of 240 poems on four themes: mind, body, heart, soul. Edgy and sophisticated, works from this Detroit-based poet make you re?ect, react, and respond. From conveying the heartache of betrayal to questioning the role of a higher power,Narrow Dropletstransports the reader to recalling the personal, often-tumultuous experiences of our teenage years, twenties, and thirties. Written over a twenty-two year period, the poetry ofNarrow Dropletsshares the journey from love to loss, commitment to in?delity, indecision to education, and pleasure to pain. The reader is confronted with challenging subjects on modern-American societys obsession with physical beauty, the mentality of excess, and the throwaway culture of the 21st Century. Direct, poignant, and witty,Narrow Dropletswill be memorable to poetry-lovers from all backgrounds. Calling upon a variety of forms and styles, this collection is valuable to both students of the genre and general readers with an appreciation of language and literary passion.
Poetry is only meaningful when it is close to nature and approaches the truth of feeling. The poetry of Cassandra Swiderski has truly done this while maintaining the ?exibility, openness, and constant readiness to listen. She raises the readers curiosity, engages him in the event and then surprises him with an unexpected catastrophe. The true purpose of any poet is to give the world a new shape and stop it from going to sleep, and I think Narrow Droplets is the apt re?ection of that.
Usman Khan, author
The Narrow Dropletsof Cassandra Swiderskis poems stream together to form a hauntingly beautiful and poignantly honest river of voices in this intensely personal yet universal collection of verse.
Steven Gulvezan, author ofThe Dogs of Paris
Cassandra Swiderski
Cassandra Swiderski is currently employed as a full-time college faculty member in suburban Detroit. She holds Master’s and Doctorate degrees in academic library science and systematic theology, respectively, and has been the recipient of several scholarly and private writing awards for journalism, songwriting, playwriting, and poetry. Her historical ?ction novel, Passengers, was published in 2011. Narrow Droplets is her ?rst collection of published poetry.
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Narrow Droplets - Cassandra Swiderski
Contents
Collection 1
Mind
Narrow Droplets
Autobiography
A Man Knows
Out of Order
Then Again
Think
Primary
Game of Thrones
It’s His Mind
Viewer Ignorance Advised
Worthless Weasels
Egyptian Art
Daguerrotypes
My Father’s Profession
Body
Epithalamium Not
Machete
Exclusivity Found
Appetite
Detested Serafina
Chosen
Lakers, 1991
Epitaph for the Poor
Body Lost
I Belong to Me
Left Behind
Taste Test Tricks
Drugs on the Train
What You Wear Wears You
Face Paint
Heart
Phoenix
Static
Ring Back
Love’s Palindrome
Ashtray
Terza Rima for Let’s-Call-Him MM
Smash
Well-Being
Hope for Sale
At Our Old Diner
Shut Me Up
Fairytold
Love’s Assembly Line
How Can You Say Nothing
Worth
Soul
The Broken Rope
Burlesque Death
How to Use a Woman
Ill-Natured
Switched
The Eve of Christmas Eve’s Eve
Slowly Subtracted
An Answer
Hell Bent
Teacher
Wednesdays at Starbucks
Rebecca’s Wake
Emotional Vanishing
An Abuser’s Mantra
Three Steps Below Acromegaly Man
Collection 2
Mind
Detroit March
I’m Thirty-Five Now
Jerri’s House
The Artistry of Duchamp
Marysville, Kansas
Cinquains
The Culture of Excess
Oh, America
Well-Behaved
Paula
Arrogant, Ignorant
Words of a Mother
Tanka Dig
The Almighty Dollar
I
Body
Blindside
Swan
Against Me
Can’t Quit
Becoming
Girl Talk
Madness
The Cost of a Good Catch
Tanka Temple
New Orleans Disgrace
One Part Body
Mute
One of Five
Burgerization
Heart
Didactic, How to Stay in Love
Boyfriends
I Judge
My Two Heroic Men
Denver
It’s Better to Have Never Loved
Neglect
The Last Day
Eroded
Spill It
Matter Most
Pass By
Adventures on Strawberry Lane
Tanka JJ
Female Fluff
Soul
Widow
The Kid in Upper 4
Tanka Simply
So Sweet Sixteen
Senryu of My Soul
Seconds to Spare
Which
Cakewalkers
Let It All Go
An Idyll of My Lord
Diamante, Obedience
Adopting Damaged
Whatever
Damage Accumulated
Hold on to the Memories
Collection 3
Mind
That Building is a Farm Now
Reversed Etheree
Better
Je Pense, Je Demande
Confucian Wisdom
The Words of a Wolfe
Boundless Glory
Educator-Speak
Not Friends with Women
Failed Experiment
Short-Sighted
Another
Clean and Simple
After This
Lingual Romance
Body
Body Cover
Absolutely Everything
Acrostic, Kenosis
Untitled
Chasing After You
Tatiana
God Is
Acrostic, Propitiation
Pleasure
You Think
9:07
Satisfied
Mother Knows Best
Honest
Beautiful Shadows
Heart
Friday the 13th
April in Wahby Park
Everything
All Along
Last Wish
Erase
Conditional Love
Distance
Such Short Time
The One
Twenty Years of Learning to Let Go
Same, Different Day
Reflection
I Wrote Nothing
Please Remember
Soul
Blindside, Part II
Nowhere to Run
Now I Feel Free
All of Me to All of You
They’re Coming
Paul
800
We Have Not Long to Live
You Would Know
Everyday
Imprisoned
Nervous
Cassandra
Praise
Royal Mail Ship
Collection 4
Mind
Sold
I’ve Been
Doesn’t Match
Can’t Stop
Please Don’t Ask Me to Love You
Italian in Detroit
High School Anthem
Carrie
In Defense
Is There Anybody Out There?
The Writer Preceding All Writers
W.D.E.
Mid-Junior Year
Associated with Youth
For Me to Find Out and For You to Do
Body
One Day
Silence
Alexandrine for Alexander
Round Two
Pushes to Make Me Fall
Nobody
Milk
Red Lace One
Boston
Mr. Knight
Come with Me
About Last Night
Whispers Away My Dreams
Off-Off-Broadway
It’s Just Body Age
Heart
Famous Moon King
I’ll Live Until We Say Goodbye
Internal Marks
He Said
Grow
63099
Definition ‘94
David
Hold On, It’s Almost Over
Purr, Love
Not What You Wanted to Hear, I Know
In the Meantime
Recipe of Forgiveness
The Genesis of Us
Guesses
Soul
Emotional Dumpster Diving
Downtown Detroit Days
I Need You to Let Go
Give Me All of Your Heart
Ballade
Are You Ready
Fear of the Unknown
Remembering a Friend
Believe
I’m Not Asking for a Reason
So Close
The Deep Hidden Pain
Writing is My Soul
We Lost Ourselves
Conclusion
Collection 1
Collection 1
Mind
Narrow Droplets
These writings
Are only slivers of who I
am.
That’s what narrow droplets
means.
Don’t get the bright idea
That you know me now.
Autobiography
I am not from around here,
I am not all there either.
I am a manufactured intellectual,
I am stupidly optimistic.
I am overtly immoral,
I was once the Sunday-school Christian.
I am not a shallow critic,
I am brutally blunt.
I am like a bloody-toothed shark,
I am a misunderstood beast.
I am not a nurturer to children,
I am not my father’s daughter.
I am brave enough to remain on a sinking ship,
I was once a timid schoolgirl.
I am as helpless as an ant on the sidewalk.
I am stronger than my family’s weakest link.
Overall,
I am a powerless woman, though
I was once a prophetic princess.
And this is my
Pitiful autobiography.
Gain
Rest on
Your success
Feast upon
Dumb regrets.
Easy to
Fake comfort
Self-pacify
Speak, redundant.
Lying to
Thyself, no pain.
Never to
Profit gain.
01.jpgA Man Knows
A man
knows so little
of how
To please a woman.
Yet,
a woman
knows so little
Of how to please herself.
Out of Order
Facial
Recognizing
Software.
Angel
Agonizing
Somewhere.
Bright
Beckoning
Candle flame.
Fright
Reckoning
End-game.
Force
Harboring
Possession.
Source
Honoring
Aggression.
Crack
Lathering
Escort.
Smack
Blathering
Retort.
First
Fastening
Latter.
Burst
Scattering
Shatter.
Doubt
Scoffering
Border.
Out
Offering
Order.
Then Again
Regality,
Rivality.
Sexuality,
Rascality.
Illegality,
Informality.
Abnormality,
Bestiality.
Then again…
Indisposition,
Perquisition,
Presupposition.
Composition,
Contradiction.
Rhetorician,
Juxtaposition.
Then again…
Suffocative,
Speculative.
Meditative,
Ministrative.
Deliberative,
Eradicative.
Commiserative,
Recriminative.
And then,
Again.
02.jpgThink
I think like the water
Directionless, faltering across the sea.
I believe like the wind
Swinging, fluctuating, vacant or vigorous.
A ship dispatched across the desert
Going nowhere, seeking nothing.
Something like the snake, coiled and semi-buried
Ready to emerge but no prey in sight.
I might feel like the mournful
Draped across the grave, from
Crucifix to casket. The basket of
Lilies, the bells of the cathedral,
A wedding for the anticipative
Bride as she cold-shoulders the passing corpse.
From death to life, I think it’s the same thing.
A ring, a box. A marriage-bed, a tomb. We are all
Doomed to the same fate nevertheless.
From the sun’s rays across your groom’s face
To the place where the widow grieves.
I think like the water, scattered and aimless,
No better than the patient snake in the desert,
We’ve all been starved, deceived.
Primary
Elevate
Ignorance
By declaring opinion fact.
Excuse
Viciousness
By confusing bluntness and tact.
Profess
Progress
By bending rules to great lengths.
Applaud
Bystanders
By considering blinders a strength.
Betray
Civility
By assuming the obvious solution.
Encourage
Government
By voting the individual over the Union.
Game of Thrones
Game of thrones
King of kings
Manipulative professors
Greedy veeps and deans.
Wall street bankers
Of county dollars
Education’s the game
Of wealthy scholars.
Screw the citizens
Makes perfect sense
Ivy-Leaguers
Buy top defense.
Pay us with
The peasants’ stash
Millage vows multiply
The uneducated’s cash.
It’s His Mind
You refuse to trust
That I don’t want him.
‘You’re enticed by him,
You find him attractive,’
You question me repeatedly.
‘No…I don’t
It’s his mind that I want.’
He’s wealthy, respected
By peers, superiors,
The most common of men.
‘You want his money,
You like him because everyone else does.’
Eye-rolling, I record and repeat,
‘No, it’s his mind
That I want.’
You like him yourself,
That’s the funny irony. So
How can you pretend like
My point is unfathomable?
‘Of course,’ you sarcastically mumble, discovering
He can also act, host,
Humor an audience of millions.
You ‘revere him too,’ then tell me
‘You can’t be so naïve, Cassandra,
Falling for this aww-shucks shit.’
But, that’s it, you don’t get it.
I couldn’t care less about his athleticism, fame
Money, prestige, admiration, hall
Of fame destiny, stage presence
Boyish demeanor.
His work ethic does something
For me, no question.
But it’s his mind
That I lust after, venerate, want.
Countless hours of preparation
Sleepless days in a row, considering every angle
Of opponents, contracts, play options.
Two seconds on the clock
He spots a weakness, adjusts the offensive, changes the call
Such a mind is more tempting
Than sex appeal, popularity, fortune
And fame.
Viewer Ignorance Advised
This 16-and-pregnant, teen mom
Obsessed culture. Knocking up a child
Is televised in our society that abhors books.
Learning is for snobs or nerds apparently
Children’s time should be spent exploring
Each other’s bodies, they’re surely able
To care for a newborn or, at minimum
Popping it out and passing it to grandmom
She can raise two generations between two jobs, why not?
Pregnant after a month of quickies
That scholarship, burn it up. Girls
Don’t need education, when there’s leg-spreading, attention-getting
From a music channel and executives aiming to
Educate by glorifying sixty seconds of faked intimacy
Between a teen Nebraskan and her two-timing, skateboarder
‘Boyfriend.’
Worthless Weasels
Listen lazy
Worthless weasels
Contributors of nothing
Vapid deadbeats
Has-been flunkies
Paycheck thieves
Off by three
Personal errands
Chatting with parents
Daughters, friends
Today’s meeting
To tell me
Do less, we look
Worthless in comparison
‘But you are,’
I remind
So go find an identity,
Worthless weasel,
Instead of despising me.
Egyptian Art
Sun god in circle of eternity,
Tentperet disk of floral rays.
Another at the tomb of Amarna.
It’s the old man, with the ram’s head.
Sun rising above the flat mountain,
Abydos fetish on curved base.
Scene at the tomb of Menna.
It’s the hieroglyph divided into twin peaks.
Sun enters daily the pylons of temples,
Niuserre sanctuary, gated with the jubilee court.
Underworld sarcophagus of Seti I of Thebes.
It’s the guardians of the illicit twelve-hours.
Sun barque on epitaphic papyrus,
Mandjet and Mesektet, dawn and evening ports.
Depictions of the celestial sea and sky goddess.
It’s the deity with the head of a scarab beetle.
Daguerrotypes
Photographic process
Direct positive
Silvered copper
Sheffield plate
‘Magic mirror’
Angled necessary
Fragile surface
Slow Chevaliers
Petzval improved
Iodine sensitized
Unyielding poses
New medium
Contempo collectible
Daguerre-Niépce
Camera obscura
Lingering exposure
Lavender lamination
Alloy manifestation
Sharp facsimile.
My Father’s Profession
My father’s profession
Was what he did to earn money.
Not what he did for ‘a living,’
Because he lived either way, broke or wealthy.
His profession was not him sharing, unveiling, the bitter truth.
The ‘acknowledge, confess your sins, my child’ glory statements.
How he earned money, now that’s a profession.
The gambler.
Not in some cool silver-haired, pre-surgery Kenny Rogers