LIBRARY Michigan State University This is to certify that the thesis entitled Inside and Out presented by Laura Therese Stemle has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for L. degree in M1111. /‘ Date 0-7639 MS U i: an Afiirmau've Action/Equal Opportunity Institution MSU LIBRARIES .—3—. RETURNING MATERIALS: Place in book drop to remove this checkout from your record. FINES will be charged if book is returned after the date stamped below. INSIDE AND OUT BY Laura Therese Stemle A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS Department of English 1987 ABSTRACT INSIDE AND OUT BY Laura Therese Stemle Inside and Out is a collection of poetry written over the course of my graduate study at Michigan State University. Like many writers, my work comes from ex- perience. Writing makes this experience understandable to me and to others. It is why I write and why I share my writing. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thanks to Professor Douglas Lawder for his quick re- sponse to my request for help in the completion of this the- sis project. It is not easy working under deadline pres- sures, and I appreciate his support and cooperation. Thanks to the Skaldic Society. Their every other Wed- nesday input was invaluable. And thanks to the one who made it all right to write again. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS SWEET DREAMS ARE MADE OF STEEL ...... ... .............. ..... ROUGH DRAFT ...................... ..... .......... EAVES DROPPING ......... ...... ..... .......... .... BLACK AND WHITE AND RED ............................. ENTROPY .0.............OOOOOO......OOOOOOOOOOOOOO BARNEY CLARK AND HIS "MAGICAL HEART" ............ READ ALL ABOUT IT ......................................... TAKING THE FLOOR ................. ..... .......... THE FLU .... ...... ......OOOOOOOOOOOO ....... ...... JOINT ACCOUNT .. .......................................... A.K.A. NITROUS OXIDE ............................ INANIMATE OBJECTIONS ............................ DAM ......OOOOOOOOOOO......OOOOOO......OOOOOOOOOO GIVE AND TAKE ..... . ........................... . .......... LAST CHAIR ...................................... ECON......OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO 00000000000000 000...... IN PROCESS ........... .................................. .. EVIDENCE OF ERROR ........................................ THERUB .........OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO......OOOOOOOO BARRIER FREE CONSTRUCTION ....................... SUBSTITUTE .......... ..... ....................... iii 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 C.O.D. ................................................... 23 LEAVING IT ALONE ................... . ........... . ......... 24 APPLY WITHIN ............................................. 26 PASSING THE TIME ......................................... 27 SPRING ................................................... 28 TURNING IT OVER .......................................... 29 HOOKED . .................................................. 3O CONSOLATION . ...... .... ............ .... ........ ........... 31 COLD FRONT . .............................................. 32 CURB SERVICE ............................................. 33 BURNED ................................................... 34 GROUNDED ................................................. 35 POLE TO POLE ....................................... . ..... 36 TO THE LETTER .......... ....... ........... ..... ........... 37 HE NEVER TOUCHED ME MUCH ................................. 38 FAMILY TREE ............................................. . 39 FAMILY TIE ............................................... 40 ERIE ........ ................................. . ........ ... 41 STONE’S THROW ............................................ 42 AT LAKE MICHIGAN ............................ ...... . ..... . 43 EVEN IN THE SHADE ............................... ......... 44 iv WISH YOU WERE HERE ...... . ........ ........................ 45 FREE READING ............................................. 46 SPARKS . ....... ... .............. ............. ....... . ..... 47 SUN SIGN ................................................. 48 BY-PRODUCTS ........ ........................ ....... ....... 49 INTERIOR DECORATING ...................................... 50 BECAUSE WE MOVED ........ ................................. 51 GOING, BUT NOT GONE .......... ........... ..... ............ 52 EQUILIBRIUM .............................................. 53 SCENIC TURNOUT .. ...... . ............. . ..... . ..... .... ..... 54 OVERHEAD .. ..... ....... .......... ......................... 55 IN THE AIR ............................................... 56 SWEET DREAMS ARE MADE OF STEEL In the dark She listens At the end of the street The train Fits dent of wheels to curve of rails With a whistle It blasts by the platform Moving Fas-ster fa-ster faster faster fasterfasterfasterfaster Stroking Leaving Sound wake In the dark She remembers And repeats 'I think I can I think I can IthinkIcan IthinkIcan IthinkIcanIthinkIcan' ROUGH DRAFT Along my back my mother runs Her hands Open palms, flat, firm Taking the rough away Like water rushing over The stones of my spine Along the beach he walks Collecting stones Holding them in the well of His palm Turning them over Checking for imperfection Following fault lines Completing them with the Ends of his fingers Placing them deep in his pockets Protection until it’s time to Return Along my mother’s back I run My hands Open palms, flat, firm Taking the rough away Like water rushing over The stones of her spine Along the beach he walks Replacing stones To be struck by the sun And turned into stars EAVES DROPPING The driveway words Of neighbors to parting guests Winded Climb Piton bud To Piton bud Of the forsythia beneath an open Window And reach summit ears I would like to close the window 80 their words would Hit and bounce Hit and bounce Rappeling To The sill To The siding To The soil But it is the first day of spring And they are the first to bloom BLACK AND WHITE AND RED I unwrap apples winterized in newsprint They appear rested and well-red I take one and Settle down in a soft-covered chair To read the late winter news U1 ENTROPY The cover of my dictionary has come off 170,000 words (it's the abridged edition) Lie naked in my hands On leaves They drop Front and back Forty together The litter of language A to abacus Zulu to 222 8-17 to baby Ypsilanti to yurt Covers Dab to dog each to earl Write to wyvern My floor Gab to gadwall Tyre to tzar syrupy to syzygy My feet Jab to jack-o'-lantern Kaaba to Quiver to quotient And I am left holding Liquefaction to lists vulcanize to vying haberdasher to hack pyrocatechol to pyxis cab to cable x-ray to xyster fabaceous to face-saving uvea to Uzbek Iambic to Icarian Rx to ryot macabre to Macedonian oxytocic to ozonosphere kaleidoscope BARNEY CLARK AND HIS "MAGICAL HEART" They played Salt Lake City a hundred days straight Wired for sound, that heart beat with the best It was plastic and perfect and never did rest With Barney in bed, they did two shows a day At six and eleven they went on display In minute detail, networks gave their reviews And showed all the highlights on each evenings's news But the body grew tired of this daily grind And wanted to stop, if they didn't mind The organs all failed in domino style They just couldn’t go on, after a while Barney grew still, conceding defeat But his heart went right on, not skipping a beat 80 they pulled out the plug one early spring night And broke up the act and turned out the light They played Salt Lake City a hundred days straight READ ALL ABOUT IT I read the morning paper Ink slides from its pages to My finger pads I rub hard with clean thumbs But cannot rid the oily black I rub harder with a linen napkin To no effect I stare at ten black points And worry the ink is seeping to My system where it will Set in my organs And give me a deadline I hurry to the kitchen sink And soap my hands with Slick white liquid I rub in and out of water And dry on cloth towel I stare at the faint grey tips On my fresh pink fingers I sigh and smile Knowing I will not make Tomorrow morning’s headlines TAKING THE FLOOR My feet Bare on the fallow floor Fill the grooves between the planks With the balance of ball and heel And Replace their memory Of ripened green carpet With That of The blank planes and furrows Of earth-stained hardwood THE FLU I have been captured They bring me to a room I wait discovery They ask no questions With rubber hoses they beat my legs, back, arms My muscles throb to the rhythm They want no answers With steel-toed shoes they kick my stomach I draw in my limbs I tighten my body into a fist I labor to form each word to ask, "What do you want?" They take no questions With microwaves they bombard me My molecules shake and go red in the face I bake from the inside out I am done before the bell rings They give no answers They bring me to a cell I wait recovery They turn, walk away, and find who’s next 10 JOINT ACCOUNT I wait in the office hours for the doctor The clock is stuck at XI to XII Post-sixties patients are winding down and out The nurse emerges and points to the room I sit and stare at the color photograph of California Ruddy trunks of sequoia stand by Mastadon grey rocks and Tusks of ivory waterfall The doctor emerges and points to the table I lie and stare at the stippled ceiling He lifts my aching left limb and Twist and turns and pushes and punches I hobble to X-ray I sit and wait and change The technician emerges and points to the machine I lie On the table On my back On my side The rays shoot through me to the plate We are exposed We have been in the dark We see the light at five o'clock It is bursitis I am only twenty-six 11 A.K.A. NITROUS OXIDE A mask of amber cups my face The line is open Like a Breatharian, I consume Gas enters to numb It sits in my ears, humming The dentist enters, mumbling His words exit m&ms "Mmopen, please." My mind has long since disengaged The message is delivered as fast as an unzipped letter He starts the standard conversation I bear out of the corner of my ear "Mmhow mmold mmare mmyou mmnow?" The gas starts playing a kazoo Words drop out of sentences like marathon runners hitting "the wall" "Mmdo mmgo mmschool?" He is a Reader’s Digest interrogator "Mmjob?" Finally, his words become a mantra "Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?" I reply, "Zzzzzzzzzzzzz 12 INANIMATE OBJECTIONS On the second floor Of the local museum At the top of thirty-six stone steps Are The bones of a bull elephant Strung by guy wires They hang Head and shoulders above The floor They hang Twenty years from the Kenyan kill and A thousand pounds form cranium to coccyx They hang Not impossibly white like Those of a sun-cleaned veldtian graveyard But Dully greyed and stained at the joints like Bursas leaked 10-W-40 lubricant They hang Poised for inaction They are decidedly dead But What if A bit of tissue Remained moist in that massive skull And Some cells Residing in the marrow still With the key to copying Mass produce They’d fill cavities to capacity and Send red running its course And The bull would rise from The dread and shake and snap its tethers and Head for the plains 13 DAM The beavers are on display Behind planes of plexiglass They Break aqua surface tension Make the approach with javelin limbs Toss each in turn on the pile And begin again Life in a tableau 14 GIVE AND TAKE CAT -- When I lie in your favorite place By the rye brown arm of the couch Under the 100 watt warmth of the lamp You come with pressured paws to Knead and settle on my stomach Until one of us rises 15 LAST CHAIR Winded air let into a clarinet Filling and unfilling holes Wanting upscale aerie ranges Only to play deep-burrow notes With my tin fingers 16 ECON In code The professor writes: The Fed .00017 1982 bx-abx-bbx On the blackboard And We do not wonder why The economy and half the class Are failing 17 IN PROCESS Chalk in hand, The scientist taps out the mechanics of His theory on a wall-length piece of slate He goes about filling blank to blank space To get from upper-left-hand question To lower-right-hand answer And when done, sits and stares and rocks Back and forth Back and forth Catching the rhythm of A temporary truth 18 EVI DENCE OF ERROR Hands touch to type, but fingers stutter A correction tab slips between sheet and key One step back and one step forward Type lifts off to join a knot of letters To unmade words 19 THE RUB Grade One fat blue pencil A one-speed bicycle, its Balloon tires track the page No eraser to correct ERROR ERROR ERROR Dead wood on wood Wet "Pink Pearl" finger pad Rub The mistake Radiates from the center Turns dark and Becomes a black hole Answers fall in Perfection is not a given at seven 20 BARRIER FREE CONSTRUCTION Nouns verbs and complements Jumble twist and spill In my mind Momentarily caught they Escape Before they can be Gathered like Ripe fall apples And placed in A safe tan basket They fly Free Until slowly they tire I catch my breath And scurry about With nimble fingers To capture them Now they sit In Descending Order To be picked Off One BY One And put into The Blanks Of The First Hour Verb Test 21 SUBSTITUTE I set key to lock and twist Turn cool knob And slip into the opened Classroom I finger The lines of grain in her desk and chair The letters of her lesson plan The seating chart that boxes and labels Her class I untangle cotton cord Tug to turn panels parallel And sunlight shoots through the opened Window blind Rays finger The lines of wooden desks and chairs The cut-out letters of projects The map of South America that nearly touches the floor with Tierra del Fuego Partners in the coup At 8:30 We take over the 6th grade 22 CONDUCT We sit in backseat dark Heat lightning flashes on the horizon We place Wintergreen Lifesavers on bottom teeth And strike with top We spit sparks, laugh, and repeat the performance To the end of the roll We stand in bedrooms dark Light flicks on then off We slip between cloud sheets Static lightning skitters, crackles, and Stops We close our eyes And sleep To electric dreams 23 With my mail order The UPS man comes In a truck the color of pumpernickel He pulls curb-side But blocks the street He exits in matching uniform The shade of toasted whole wheat He bears a box Bun brown To my door Without incident Once his truck was taken, though By hotdog sisters wearing Only yellow mustard Gaudy Domestic Yellow He glances from me to his truck to me A little worried I let him in I have to sign his sheet, you know Besides, It's lunch time "Would you like a sandwich?" "Ham on rye?" "Dijon?" 24 LEAVING IT ALONE A leaf has followed me since September It has hovered Whisked by the wind of my opening front door To lift and land at my feet I paid it no mind There are several leaves in a cluster by the sidewalk Brown and faded, they cling to a corner Once they were soft and pliable Red and bending with waxy protection They stained the porch with their "wet paint" look But I did not clear them away or Get a rag and turpentine to clean up after them I left them to their own devices When they turned to the sun and lost The remainder of their sugared juices, They took to the corner and kept to themselves I did not touch them with the tips of my broom head For they would break and crumble and tangle in the straws And I would have two things to clean I let them be Now it is April And they are still there They track into_my place on the bottoms of my rubber-soled shoes Often they make it up the seventeen steps of the narrow flight To land in my living room 25 There I pick them off the carpet and Deposit them in a basket filled with Left-over writing -- papers torn and wrinkled by hands And imperfect words The other day, I picked a leaf from the pile and carried it home I set it on my table and Let it be Today I take it up and write: The leaf is like land With contours, it has the inlets and bays of coastal Michigan Here is Traverse, there is Saginaw It is a basin that holds the dark marks of age and cities That mass along the rivers Rivers that lead radially to surrounding lakes The leaf is like an aging map Ready for protection It needs hiding from the yellowing light I put it between sheets of clear vinyl And touch it only through the barrier I let it be 26 APPLY WITHIN A young woman sits On a curb In front of a sign That says "Waitperson Needed" Practicing 27 PASSING THE TIME On this quiet Saturday Floodplain trees stand on thin thoroughbred legs While two men like scarlet leaves run The bank Of a slow moving river 28 SPRING The child Rests in The open Elbow of The tree Her empty Basket is Light on The limb Her hollow Flute is Light on The wind The river Below Rolls like A printing Press to Carry the News Downstream 29 TURNING IT OVER A leaf in a tree Green now, due to spring Growing from the end of a Thin new limb, Stem attached, Firmly and smoothly, with Barely a hint of the Separation to come Flutters in the breeze And points in Every direction to balance itself And watches over the river That moves faster and faster Below 30 HOOKED The leaves are fish on stringer limbs Wind exposes their silver underside They thrash about sucking dry air That cannot sustain them 31 CONSOLATION The skylight Opens to The night Space is Filled with Constant Motion Companions Travel in Turn They circle Each other Like Binary stars They look But Cannot touch 32 COLD FRONT The City snowplow Makes a Midnight run With concave steel It Scrapes and scoops To kick Snow in The face Of the curb It Moves on Leaving tracks Of Mastadon Molars For morning Sun to Preserve in A glaze Of ice 33 CURB SERVICE The black and white note Lies waiting In the gutter Covered with Old leaves and fresh water It reads SMILE PLEASE 34 BURNED In blue afternoon Sitting in sun Waiting for Olympic torchbearer Fifteen minutes Then Thirty minutes Then Forty-five minutes Then Lights lights lights Red blue red blue Circles rotating Black and white police car Red fire chief car Then Sixty minutes Then The boy So young 80 small With red-faced effort Carrying gold-trimmed torch with faint yellow flame Then Cars trucks Official official official Then At home in blue evening Sitting in white light Feel red of cheeks spread Touched by the fire 35 GROUNDED The course I chart leaves me On a spit of sand I rock port to starboard to slip off center And set sail to catch portable breeze To no effect I must wait for high tide to take me where my calculations won’t 36 POLE TO POLE Streetlights rise over the Hill like the forelegs of A connect-the-dots Spider Its eyes open And close with a Succession of passing Cars With mandibles of Night it sucks a meal Of buzzing electrons Until there is light 37 TO THE LETTER Birds neSt in B and D of Sears ROEBUCK AND CO. They put brown shocks on bent tube stalks And wait for the chlorophyll light To green evening 38 HE NEVER TOUCHED ME MUCH I must have been five or six Exactly On my winter birthday We ate breakfast out Soft boiled eggs went yellow all over my plate He would Tousle my towhead hair At Montgomery Ward’s I chose the sled Tan slats with red runners I would Climb the north face of his chair To reach summit lap At North Hawkins Park I sat on my sled Vertical back and horizontal legs A capital L At the edge He joined me Double letters Repeated down the clean white page of the hill Ninety words a minute Faster than I ever went alone All that white Rushing To my feet To my eyes Able to speak but one word at the end: "Again." 39 FAMILY TREE Long thin Pods of Catalpa Ripen In Southern Air Free of Smooth Wood box They are Seasoned Cigars They fall Smokeless In the Indiana Sunlight 40 FAMILY TIE We are two and three of a filial four My brother walks ahead I am three years behind He is Eric, Racker, Goober, or Six I am the sister that follows his apostrophe 5 Eric is a magnet Waiting for metal I am a bur Waiting for fabric Eric’s electric mind makes mathematical connections My neurons hold a cease-fire Eric charts a course and runs with size 135 To finish first I go my own way, but he draws me back All my paths circle back to his I follow his cold tracks Our ends meet and he is off again So am I 41 ERIE We walk the shore In clean white sweatshirts Fish breathe in waste water and Expire On the beach They are left to dry Wind carries the scent of the dead Off the lake Off the land We stop And dig in the sand ’till we hit oil It soils our sweatshirts--front and sleeves We walk the shore And leave the dead unburied 42 STONE ’S THROW Land is paved with cobblestone leaves Wet by sheets of mica rain River grouting connects Slick tile banks I see through prescription glass And skip a rock Going, going, gone 43 AT LAKE MICHIGAN On shore Gary raises factory plants In air tinted grey like sun-sensing lenses In waves A boy chooses rocks with tweezer fingers He drops seeds to pull-top can Stone and steel to grow again 44 EVEN IN THE SHADE Their wool tight next to their skin, Curls cut, but uncontrolled, The sheep breathe heavily in the barn Though there is shade and breeze, They sigh as if giving in to the old saying, "It's not the heat, its the humidity." Outside, a man wearing white on white Shirt and pants, hoses down the barn With a steady blast of high-pressured white water Preparing for summer painting, To reflect rays back to the sun, He washes the narrow eaves and panels And I sit catching a western breeze, And the prevailing mist 45 WISH YOU WERE HERE On the way to Long Island Saw cemetery So many tombstones So close together People buried standing up Dead on their feet 46 FREE READING Asterisk stars footnote night text And set in the underworld to make the notation 47 SPARKS Orange wedge coals spit seeds To Root in evening sky And Grow to ripened stars 48 SUN SIGN The sun passes through the twelve Each in turn takes possession The orb of power nests in cupped hand A month of reign begins Edicts spring forth They are carried by light messengers Scribes print daily The cryptic words Of dead and dying stars 49 BY-PRODUCTS Leaves Rendered red by Falling sun And Tallow smooth by Falling rain Light On wicks of grass Bent by both 50 INTERIOR DECORATING In my room Mother Painted moon, stars, and planets In black ceiling sky and Papered with road maps to point out the way Dendrite roads branch thin red and link Altair to Akron and Salem to Saturn In my bed I Survey by night light's glow and Follow a route with unaided eyes To orbit in darkness and Fly to the sun 51 BECAUSE WE MOVED Billy Sock Wears hand-me-down socks on too small feet And Sits with crossed legs across a circle from me Susan Roach Walks with me to her house for lunch Matching in our navy school uniforms And We Walk back to school for a Halloween party A plump bumble bee and a whisker-thin cat Michael Laden Wears Freckles, glasses, and green on St. Patrick’s Day And Stands atop a bank of the frozen moat of the ice rink And speaks a bridge of words for me to skate under Forever They are six And If they remember So am I 52 GOING, BUT NOT GONE Waves of light and sound Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding The music plays 'till he enters the Treasure House and Puts his keys on the hook Captain Kangaroo wears a navy uniform with Roomy pocket pouches Waves of light and sound travel Then he changed He came in to a snappy sweet song Captain Kangaroo wears a crimson jacket Like your grandfather on Sunday And children no longer know How he got his name Waves of light and sound travel from earth Now he is off the air Replaced by a morning anchorman In a down-to-business suit Waves of light and sound travel from earth to space And there The music plays ’Till the keys are on the hook 53 EQUILIBRIUM Hunter has a lot of foot The farrier says Grasping the horse’s hind leg He lifts and cocks it to a bony wing Guiding the shank Taut between His two-by-four arms He flexes to expose rotting meat Packed in shell hollow Gently he prys and picks it Clean like a dentist To reach the white tongue of frog Quick against the hoof He takes a file to the wall And rasp rasp rasps To bring it back to the rest 54 SCENIC TURNOUT Elephants half-moon The water hole Black mud splatters Their grey canvas Like a two-tone Pollock painting Their ears are great Maps of India And their feet Steel-belted radials Flat against the earth Together they rest and Move along unpaved Highways 55 OVERHEAD The Line of grey Sky moves Like an Aerial Ticker tape Paper flakes Are released They drOp Like 1929 Businessmen To honor The end Of the Fall 56 IN THE AIR Papers in the fireplace burn to black Cinders edged with spots of orange ember Flutter like monarch butterflies Migrating up the flue, they travel Out and over monotone snowfields And seek a north wind to take them To light on the branches of South-bound trees