Untitled
I have been walking around with arms enflamed
My buzzing harks back to days past
Leave everything ragged
No one questions the start
Archive for the ‘poems’ Category
National Poetry Month: Poem 5
Posted in national poetry month, poems on April 6, 2016| Leave a Comment »
The Stone of a Moment is a Foot Beneath
Posted in poems, tagged love on July 18, 2014| Leave a Comment »
I will be wide-flung in the next
uncollared
lingering.
there will be no need for signing in
I just want to grace it. I want to swing heads blind. I want to de-clutter the expectation. I want to objectify the past. I want to cast the plunge. I want to sun the hours. I want to courage the empty and then, scat away.
Love slips
This would cause an end, or broaden waters, but the moment passes.
I am not seen in what turns.
I am one of yours
and yours
and yours.
We can share the filth.
I’ll lift
You’ll lift,
till, we lift off.
The stone of a moment is a foot beneath
© Umansky 2014
My Way
Posted in mad men series, poems, tagged don draper, friendship, love, mad men, manhattan, memory, music, new york, peggy, sinatra on July 12, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Don has the authority and Peggy has the emotion, but that’s in the past. She wears the pants and Don is crying alone in his apartment. Peggy lives in the not-knowing, each breath a gasp. Don lives “in the now” and “the know.”
His failures are a ladder, and she climbs it wrung by wrung. Her hands reach up but her feet hesitate to follow.
They are two parts of a stumbling whole. Their pasts, a splintered truth.
One small tear at an ankle, could bring them to their knees.
When Peggy needs Don, he is glad to be needed, but it is the needing that desires, not the work. The needing is a haunt
Peggy asks, “what do I know about motherhood” and Don takes a moment. He simmers in their intellects. He lets her stew.
She looks at him: “you love this,” and he does, but not in that way.
He loves what she is capable of. She is Manhattan. She is growing and growing. Her arms are pulsing with the blood of the next century.
When they dance to Sinatra, it is like every childhood memory they wish they had, except she is not a child and Don is not her father.
There is a tenderness there, in their package of equals.
Their sale is not dependent on their cleverness.
Their sale is not dependent on their skill.
Their sale is dependent on their love.
And when Peggy puts her head on Don’s shoulder, and the moon outside is wide-brimmed, their love is pinned in the stars of the city. Their love is based on their independence. They both only know one way, my way.
© Umansky 2014
Follow @lady_bronteCheck out two of my poems in this month’s MAGGY. (the second is a ‘Game of Thrones’ poem and is a spoiler)
Posted in game of thrones, photos, poems, publications, tagged game of thrones, jon snow, maggy poetry magazine, poetry, team stark on February 17, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Finally, it feels real.
Posted in game of thrones, poems, publications, tagged GoT, photo, poetry, poetry magazine on January 7, 2014| 5 Comments »
My copy of the January issue of Poetry Magazine came featuring three of my #GoT poems.
My poem is in this month’s The Brooklyn Rail. (2 more on their website)
Posted in appropriated, photos, poems, tagged poetry, publication, the Brooklyn Rail on September 27, 2013| 1 Comment »
This Could Be Nostalgia
Posted in poems, tagged nytimes; pop-culture; found poem on April 5, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Let us count that you regard
and I regard
the changing of the tides
the sea of the last
We are tenaciously taking the tides
in favored abandons.
We are contempting the contemporary
or co-tempting the contemporary
into a kind of sin.
We are doing more than channeling
When we laugh
When we strategize
In-my-day, I was a believer
In-my-day in my day
In-my-day in my day
The dial-up had a certain purr
That ruffled my roost.
That’s lost, now.
*
Now, you, you, let alone with the golden.
Let the golden wilt and wild.
We can construct the past
Potshot the pristine
Here, coordinate my sprawlings
Together, this could be nostalgia
© Umansky 2013
It All Translates to Prowl
Posted in poems, tagged AWP, vida on March 30, 2013| Leave a Comment »
[1]
There will be fat years and lean years,
but either way it’s going to rain.
[2]
There are men’s voices in our heads,
but every so often a woman goes to the top
every so often a woman takes two
stairs at a time two
Here’s an imperative: a reason to be.
This isn’t a slumber party.
I am not others.
I resend. I rescind. I recall. I remind
[what? I don’t
…. recall]
[3]
Rounded. I am well-rounded.
Will I wear this box?
Will you?
Will you, with me?
Wear it with me.
© Umansky 2013
Simple Enough For a Woman
Posted in mad men series, poems, tagged sylvia plath; madmen; advertising; 21stcentury on February 11, 2013| Leave a Comment »
“Love is just an advertisement that men made to sell advertising”
I want this. I must do thus to obtain this. I will hence do this. Ergo, I shall get what I want. Stupid girl. You will never win anyone through pity. You must create the right kind of dream, the sober, adult kind of magic: Illusion born from disillusion.
–The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
It’s a madmadmadmad world.
Everything can be manufactured, sold and bought, but love, love is the mold.
You sure could have a lot of fun with this.
In the material world, objects are marked up from face value.
The confusion of client services is merely based on articles, like he and she.
You can find anything on the internet: even beauty.
Advertising is based on happiness. Be happy.
© Umansky 2013
It’s the Selling
Posted in mad men series, poems, tagged madmen;gender;advertising; new; selling on December 9, 2012| Leave a Comment »
The most important word is N-E-W !! And, in the face of optimism
It’s all about getting things done. You need to feel something –
That’s what sells. That’s what steals over you, across your face,
Down the back of your neck; into the flush. It’s the selling.
Some part wanders off and actually likes the remembering.
The remembering of being told what you like and what you don’t.
It is almost-precious the way the back of the head is both cushion and
Target [and I’m aiming]. You can feel after it, but the reality of the sale
Is there: you want to be told. Your personal territory is harvested
[Some would argue deforested] but remember the feeling
Right before you put your finger on it; right before you knew
What it meant to want. It was delicious. It was savory. It was:
Pure. Now. Quickly now. Go brush away those crumbs –
That remembering. [or are you saving those for later?]
© Umansky 2012
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