One Stop Poetry Spotlight: Signed...bkm (bkmackenzie)

Welcome to Dustus Friday on One Stop Poetry!

Considering her excellent blog, Signed...bkm, poet bkmackenzie continues to impress me with her skillful posts. In addition to earning a runner-up honor in our tightly contested "Autumn" poetry competition with her entry When I Dream in Autumn, ...bkm's offerings for One Shot Wednesday display both creativity and detailed attention to craft. Reading her work, I always get the sense that she maintains a scholarly respect and dedication for poetry itself.

About ...bkm:
Originally from the Midwest, Bkmackenzie now resides in Northern California with her husband.  She fell in love with the concept of writing and handwriting at the age of five—after the first day of entering parochial school.  There on her desk was a blank notebook and a stack of pencils neat and clean. From that point forward, she became addicted to both of them, as well as fountain pens.

Having been introduced to poetry at an early age, one gets the sense that bkm developed into a talented writer who maintains great respect for learning about the poets who came before us:

"As with most it was nursery rhymes and limericks that served as my introduction to poetry, which I could not get enough of.  Later I fell in love with the poetry of Robert Frost, Poe, and the sonnets of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. I started writing when I was about twelve and have written off and on during different times in my life keeping all the pieces and scraps together throughout the years.  And though I have never pursued the field professionally, I always in the back of my mind knew writing was my first love—words and what they represented. Words to me are symbols no different than the jewelry or color we uniquely choose to wear; the writer wears their words, they become a part of their identity in the same way a work of art becomes the symbolic image of that artist." —bkmackenzie

Here are some selected poems written by bkm...

In Writing

in writing I cast my heart
very much alone
       in a void
       in a crevasse
in a labyrinth with a quill

castles all around me,
      left naked,
without the two buck toll
to pay the greedy gatekeeper
at the entrance to my soul

up going Jacobs ladder
     to scale the Kingdom’s wall
     I read a message in the mortar
of a prior writers fall -

taking focus on the moment
I glanced from where I came
      I saw Jesus in the junk-yard
      Buddha without shame –
corruption in the structure
only magnified the pain – what gain?

ascending upward
to the underground – what left unfound?
     but a virgin in a breadbox
     recording a world
     with no sound –

she motioned – enter
the apparition fell away
leaving a mirror and a mantra
only without prayer

and a writer rapt in parchment
         ink just laughing everywhere...

****************

Long Sought

 
do not love me like another or one with feathered hat you bought
love me like the lover your heart has for so long sought

take me to the morning, the one the dawn has yet to kiss,
take me there, there where long since lovers in forever reminisce
held between the moon and midnight, between the stars and eternity
holding my name as your next breathe - is held in sweetest ecstasy...

do not love me like another or one with feathered hat you bought
love me like the lover your heart has for so long sought

give me but the moments that write volumes without end
suspend the ever after knowing full well it shall not come again
let me read within your eyes the words your silent lips dare not address
and press them to the pages that my life will inscribe as - its happiness

no, do not love me like another or one with feathered hat you bought
love me like the lover your heart has for so long now - sought....

****************

"It has not been until about the last ten years that I have spent the time to work at and develop a style that I find speaks true to now I see the world.  I have realized that my poetry more often than not is of a romantic or surreal nature, though I work at diversifying the form which is rarely structured.  Also, I tend to avoid dark or depressive poetry and find it difficult to celebrate writers who solely write in this form.  I can appreciate their writing but not the living and or dying in a self- destructive way.  I wrote a poem recently titled I Will not Celebrate You in Death right after reading a bio on Sylvia Plath and a subsequent discussion of suicide and depression among young people; the poem speaks for itself on the subject. " —...bkm

****************
I Will not Celebrate You in Death

I will not celebrate you in death
so - should you go there you are on your own
I came to like you here after
your birth - not scorning the soul you came with, equipped to fight
fires much greater than the spark I could
provide you -

I loved you as a human - half god, half
demon that crawled my leg and bit my
heart - I love you still as a friend, a fellow
worshiper of medieval wisdom - and as I

nursed you towards the climbing tree
(that now lays on its side), I celebrate you
watching the fallen - still with leaf
and life - clinging to beauty and breathing
in its own sorrow - no self- pity or denial

my hands fractured in service to
aid you any further - and loving you yet is easy,
never painful, even as I watch your own - I celebrate
the breath you embrace --but I will not celebrate
you in death ---

No, I do not believe in it....

 ****************

“ I believe that writers do not actually write for the reader, but to fulfill the self.  It being an agreement made between writer and muse. If the writer is fortunate and the piece comes quickly and without pain than they are almost certain that the self will be fulfilled and usually the reader quickly justifies that initial feeling.  I know for myself that if the write is long and labored then I am never really pleased with the piece or find it worthy of revisiting. Personally I feel that my most fulfilling and best writing is when the words come even before the images,  that is when I know it is truly my muse at work. She knows exactly what she wants to say and needs little help from my imagination.  When she is so kind to show up in this way I find I end the piece by saying thank you, yes.. Thank You for never failing to surprise me with words. ” —bkmackenzie

Check out more of ...bkm's poetry @ http://signedbkm.blogspot.com/
Comments & feedback are always appreciated!

Cheers,
Adam