New Book of Poetry in the Family

My brother-in-law, Marcos Soriano, has a new  book of poetry out for the Kindle. Suck Nectar Vomit Honey stands out for its direct writing, haunting imagery and gritty realism that never strays into self-pity or emotional manipulation. Although the topics are often bleak (cancer and its accompanying horrors; birth defects; disasters both natural and man-made), the message isn't one of despair. Instead each poem reads as a letter from a place anyone of us has been before, or may be headed next, a kind of Lonely Planet guide to life's darker days, or a field guide to nature's less glamorous creations. Who has not felt:

Black-dog days
and starless nights.
The body turned toward sorrow
like a dial tone drones in A.

These are skillfully crafted poems whose language illuminates rather than obscures, and are at times achingly lovely, perhaps all the more due to their sober content.

Here's a poem I love for obvious personal reasons, as well as on its own merits. Enjoy, and then head over to Amazon to get your own copy:

My Brother, Sleeping

The eyes twitching back and forth
under the lids, the pupil like a fist
moving beneath a sheet. The breath
puffing out through the mouth
with a different rhythm, a different pace
than it does when he's awake.
As if his sleeping self
is not the same
as his self awake.

Asleep on the living room floor,
his hands folded over his congested heart.
One son throwing blocks;
and the other, just born,
breathing his own tiny breaths
with his sparrow lungs-
so tiny, those breaths,
they move less air
than prayers do. 

From Suck Nectar Vomit Honey by Marcos Soriano, 2012

Letter from February

Oliver's development has always been a full-tilt run into the future, barely captured by the click of a camera shutter. Watching Finn master new skills is more like time-lapse photography of a flower opening. Each petal unfurls at its own pace, at exactly the right moment, one by one, until the wondrous whole emerges.

At 15 months, Finn stands poised on the threshold between baby and toddler. He is right on the brink of so many things: he crawls as often as not, and when he does walk still toddles from one safe harbor to the next with hands held high for balance. Language, too, runs just below the surface, the occasional crystal clear word, "hi" or "duck" bubbling to to the surface then subsiding in favor of the gestures and babbles that convey his intentions so well.

He is enthusiastic about food, but relies on nursing as the mainstay of his diet, telling me it's time by laying his round cheek against my shoulder. When I ask "Do you want to nurse?" his whole body nods and he makes sure there is no confusion by adding " yeah! yeah!", then plucks my glasses off my face to make sure I can't go anywhere without him and pulls off his own shoes and socks so he can be perfectly comfortable.

Coming home tonight after a late-afternoon meeting, I stepped into the kitchen to a flurry of welcome. Oliver greeted me in mid-sentence, so excited to tell me a story that the words fought to come out of his mouth in a jumbled stream. Finn heard my voice from the living room and screeched toward me, towing Alonso for balance and maximum speed. While Oliver filled me in on all the happenings, Finn gazed into my eyes, snuggled under my chin, wrapped his fingers in my hair and held on tight.

Life is so good and so very, very busy right now. We are in the midst of investigating kindergartens for Oliver. Work hums along with a steady stream of meetings and projects, and the dry and mild winter allows for plenty of garden projects. Two full beds are planted with peas and Oliver enthusiastically started 1/2 an ounce of lettuce seed in 6-packs--the seed sowed so thickly, the sprouts are lifting the entire surface of the soil as they grow. There are permanent piles of jackets, library books, garden gloves and lunch boxes on every surface, their height limited only by their structural soundness. I lost my car keys for three days recently. And it's almost spring.