old and new

This is something I had written a number of years ago (ten!), followed by the poem that I wrote as a way of closing the chapter on that part of my life. In putting this collection together, I've gone back and forth about how to group poems--chronologically, topically, etc. Right now I have over 90 pages of work that are not formatted, i.e. one poem just follows another, as opposed to the usually poetry format of a poem per page. So basically, over the last ten years I've produced a LOT. One of the questions I'm forced to ask myself is what to include--what's worth putting out there as an example of "early work?" What stands up on its own, years after the fact, and what's just part of some nascent stage that's best left unpublished? A friend told me that the first poem in this series is obviously the work of a younger poet (which stung a little bit), and on its own just a cute young love poem (which stung a lot), but together with the poem that follows, tells a better story (which took away some of the sting). In any event, that's an argument for a non chronological grouping, at least in this particular instance. What do you think?

untitled (after olympia, by manet)
January 2000

she is beside me,
supine under the sheets of the bunk above us,
a worn blue comforter
barely covering her breasts
against the cold,
blue room.

i look at the scar running down her chest;
so close to her heart,
and i think it is mine.

her profile framed neatly by my pillows,
i think of olympia.

in a moment, i’ll climb out of bed,
daring to photograph her quiet body,
make her giggle as she hugs my pillow,
staring coyly at the camera lens.

in a moment.
for now, i let my fingers circle gently,
over the scar i’ve made my own.

try to forget,
this too must end.

after olympia 2010

her last picture abandoned
in pieces outside the apartment
on Coney Island Avenue,
torn and scattered,
for fear of discovery by a jealous lover.

when she wrote again, vague intentions,
those pieces came to life--
eyes closed, i'd hugged her with my lens.
frayed memories of dying leaves,
that fall day, the pictures taken,
passing remembrance.

the poems,
wondering at the betrayal,
the ghost she was,
the woman she became.

those days,
faded and torn,
the always question
of what might have been,
answered--finally
in the tender moments of a lover's kiss,
answered:

her forever touch belongs to then.

Charles Imbelli
2010