Helsinki
An editor said never start a poem at a window,
so instead I’m looking at the door,
which is made of glass. We are to avoid rain,
too, but it streaks the pane in such delicious
patterns that I can’t help but pretend to be someone else
in a foreign city, perhaps Helsinki, sipping black coffee
with a mysterious woman younger than my daughter
(who also does not exist), whose interests
in me are purely literary, although she straightens
my collar with lingering, scented fingers. Garden
memories and birds must never populate our lines,
but corpses are fine, as are tube tops and bananas
and any combination thereof. I finish my coffee
and wander alone through cobblestone streets,
stepping over clichés when possible, kicking them
aside when my hip joint argues, or simply accepting
their useful limitations when nothing else works.
Unknown and lacking credentials, I shrug, go on
past the closed doors behind which unseen bodies
perform the most bizarre and sensual solo dances,
or not, and shadows cook sausages over fire
and the grease spattering onto the tiled counters
issues a fragrance that awakens neighborhood dogs
and maybe a dozing stall-keeper at the market
where cloudberries are sometimes found.
I know little of Finland, and less of myself,
and then there’s poetry, which remains a blank
frame, a frosted pane I’ll never truly unlatch.
* * *
My poem “Helsinki” was first published at Panoply. It was inspired in part by a Facebook thread on which editors commented on what caused them to instantly reject poems. One said beginning a poem at a window was cause for rejection. Hence the first line.
O at the Edges 
Absolutely love this. Your voice reading exposes more than the words do
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Thanks, Barbara. I had a blast recording this one.
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Wow
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Thanks very much!
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Fantastic poem. I especially love the opening stanza.
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Thank you, Ali. I wrote this in response to a thread on FB, in which various editors offered up their “automatic rejection” triggers. One of them was against poems that started at windows. So naturally I couldn’t resist. 🙂
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What a great story. Thanks for sharing.
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I hate being told what I can’t do in poetry!
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Me too. I love your bold commitment to write what you want
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What else can we do?
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Loved the recording too with the light background environmental sounds.
I allow that editors must get tired of seeing the same things, but such “rules” seemingly reject the possibility of poems that do the same things differently so they work again.
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oh wow this is a phenomenal piece!
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Thanks very much, Charles.
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Of course, Robert!
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Love this!
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I’m so pleased it resonates for you. Thank you!
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Such a joy to read!
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Thanks, Lynne. This was fun to write!
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