POETRY, DUH

Journal The End

2010-04-21T01:33:00.004-05:00

Surprise! This experiment is over. I have found I can write a poem every day, but some days, they suck. That wasn't the point when I started this. The point was to get me writing consistently. I have achieved that. Now, I feel I can put that discipline to use. Plus, out of sixty-five hastily written poems, there are ten I actually want to work on for the future. That's better than I thought I'd get, really.

This isn't goodbye. It's hardly hello, but as a concept, this is proving utterly unsustainable. I keep putting more and more time into this every day and honestly, it's too much. Maybe a journal poem every week? Every month? Every year or two? Look for me in the future as some graduate school asshole polishing a thesis manuscript of poetry. Maybe you'll see the grown-up versions of something I started here. But then again, maybe not.

Journal Sixty-Five Planks I've Walked

2010-04-20T21:13:00.006-05:00

I read a lot today. I embroidered a little. I plan to embroider more. Something about the night always makes me want to embroider then. Maybe I need a gaslight. A gaslight and a rocking chair and a trusty hound. Bah, I don't want any of those things, not really.

I had a dream last night about two snakes. One was good and the other was bad, but in the end, they both ran away. The journal poem today is based on a mysterious dumpster full of wood I saw outside my house today. It was there while I ate lunch and then it was gone. I never saw anyone take it, it just wasn't there anymore.

Misplacement

Someone left a dumpster
outside his sinking duplex.

He doesn't know
how to tell if wood is rotted,
but the wood in this dumpster
is rotted.

Or maybe it's burned;
it's black and flaking,
but it's probably soft too.
He likens it to a mattress,
a sinking mattress.

If the wood is burned,
maybe his neighbor's house
burned in the night
without him noticing.

How did he not notice?
There is food in his beard.
He does not notice.

He checks out the side window.
The neighbor's house is there,
but the dumpster of wood
has been taken like an egg.

He thinks maybe a ship
wrecked on his street,
all hands down, loot sliding
through the postal slot drain.

There's a mast in his yard.
How did he not notice?
It looks a lot like a tree.
In the crow's nest, there are crows.

Something winks on the sidewalk.
He thinks he better get it
before the crows come down
and pick at it like it owes money.
Maybe it's a doubloon.

When he goes out
to pick up the wink,
he's careful on the porch
because it bows like sheet forts
strung over chairs.
One sure step and it would all
come tumbling down,
come tumbling down.

There are clouds over the block,
shade from rootless trees on wings.

He has never read cloud shapes,
though once, on the Fourth of July,
a cloud of firework smoke
was shaped exactly like him.

He thinks the clouds
must be heavy. If they fell,
they would leave a crater
big enough to fill
with years of dishwater.

The wink is a doubloon
from the sinking of a ship,
but the doubloon is shaped
exactly like an American penny.

He picks it up and eyes the crows
looking down from their crow's nest,
it too sinking in the middle
from the weight of so many wings.

One of them ka-caws a threat
and he realizes he owes them money.
He tosses the doubloon up
and the ka-cawer comes down
to grab it from the air.

He thinks there should be flags
or at least a flag, but they probably
left on the wind, or else they too
were snatched from the air by crows.

The dumpster is back again,
but this time it's not full of wood.
It's full of something else.
He struggles to find a word for it,
but there are no words
for what he peers in to see.

Journal Sixty-Four Bits of Colored Pencils

2010-04-19T22:23:00.004-05:00

I dream a lot. This is not a dream I had. This is a dream I would have had but would have forgotten. I like porches. I like birds. I like snakes. I like one thing for another for another, like Koschei's soul in a needle, in an egg, in a duck, in a hare, in an iron chest, buried under a green oak tree on the island Buyan (Slavic mythology). Most of all, I like things as things they are not. Pretending, you know. Sigh. I also like my birthday this week. Where should I eat on that day?

Phoenix Dream

I'm on the porch
and a bird lands
on my naked knee
and he coughs out
a little curl of fire
and a perfect rise of smoke
to make me sneeze.

He hops, he chirps,
he burps more fire,
he flies an X from
one corner
to diagonal other
to diagonal other
to diagonal other
and all the boards
from the porch above
turn into snakes
lashed together roughly
like by Boy Scouts
learning knots
for the very first time.

A hand pops out,
and then another
and they part the snakes
like beaded curtains,
like a novelty of plastic.

The bird is flapping,
is circling, is diving
at the new body
from no body before.

A head lowers
from the treehouse
of lashed snakes
and it is my head,
but it is older,
maybe five years,
ten if I'm honest.

Older me says,
"Why, what
have we here?
What young thing
in recreational repose
on his rented
front porch?"

I tell him
he isn't fooling me,
I know who he is,
he's me from the future.

"Of course I am," he says,
"how wouldn't I be?
Ask me a question
before all the blood
pools in my head."

I ask him
what choices I will make,
what things I will change
and will I, can I,
ever find my way.

He's grunting and red
like a blood-filled balloon.
"You become
a wrangler of snakes;
that's all
I can really say
without giving
the rest away."

He yells, "A-one
and a-two!" and
he's gone and the boards
to the porch above
are boards again
and I'm bored again
and the bird
hasn't stopped circling
the space where my head
just was,
though now he's a bee
and now he's a seed
and now he's just an idea
I once had
while I smoked
in a dream.

Journal Sixty-Two Is Only a Number

2010-04-17T22:47:00.006-05:00

Now that Josh is back, we're eating and walking and watching movies and talking about our deepest desires for the future. It's like this every Saturday. It's like this and this usually tastes like curry.

I'll be twenty-five soon, less than a week. I'm going to tell you a secret; I've been pretending I've already turned twenty-five since at least February, maybe even earlier. It seems like a good number. It seems like a serious number. At twenty-five, I feel like I can allow myself nostalgia for things that happened during college without feeling lame or guilty about it. I miss going to QT in the middle of the night to buy fruity alcohol. I miss hiding other people's expensive things. I miss pacing the senior attic and freaking out about what comes next. I miss wondering, "What comes next?" It's like I already know now. There are no more surprises. But sometimes, there are maggots from I don't know where.

Like Birds

I keep a pack of cigarettes
in a cupboard
and I take them out
and smell them like markers,
to get a rise, psychosomatic,
of course, before I do anything
summery. I go outside,
after, and I see some birds
pecking the road.
This is where, if I smoked,
I would draw a deep drag,
ash in the grass,
(all cool and confident,
all relaxed inquisition)
and then check on the birds.

What are they pecking?
Are they eating
the filthy road, little bits
of loose asphalt like seeds?

I shadow over them,
but they don't go anywhere,
it's too good, too fruitful,
to ever leave this patch of street.
They are picking at tiny white things,
snips of yarn, I think, but no,
it turns out
the yarn is maggots.

Again, if I smoked, I would
light another cigarette,
the one sitting behind my ear
this whole time, the one threatening
to fall into pecking range
of hungry starlings,
yellow beaks like feeding tongs,
dotted coats like astronaut pajamas.

But I just run my hands
all through my hair instead,
worry that the sky is raining maggots.
And it is, if only for these birds
and if only in this swath of squirmy hell
in the shadow of a man
sniffing cigarettes like a fetish.

Here are worms
for the purpose
of being worms.
Here are starlings
for the sake of starlings.

Journal Sixty-One Gun Salute to Uninteresting Names

2010-04-16T23:26:00.004-05:00

Went out for shakes with Melissa and heard a conversation about names. It was kind of weird. People have such awful taste. I mean to say, people prize names they've only heard in a porno or seen on the side of organic cereal boxes in the testimonials ("This cereal has such crunch!" - Colleena Bendoverforya).

Anyway, that's kind of what this poem is about, but not really. It's more about how I sometimes feel like either nothing is unique or everything is unique, which really means unique doesn't exist as a thing anymore. Blargh. I need to drink a beer and sit on a porch swing. It's that time of year.

Undoing What's Been Done

"People have told me so many things,"
she says to the man in the booth,
"about the meaning of my name."
The man says it must be Hawaiian,
something tropical and sweet and carefree.

"Colleena," he says, "CAW-LEAN-UH.
You sound like a pineapple, a delicious
pineapple." He smiles the smile
of someone asking for another slice of pie.
He asks, "Can I get another slice of pie?"

She winks at him and touches her nose,
bops off to the counter like this
is the most important thing, to get
this man more cheddar-apple pie.
When she gets back, she asks for his name,
"If you don't mind, what's your name?"

He fishes the air with his fork, says,
"Harry, HAIR-EE," punctuating each syllable
with a poke at nothing. He smiles more,
but she's frowning confusion, a unique thing
that's come across a common thing, a deer
sniffing at a McDonald's bag before leaping
over a stream and into darkening trees
colored like jewels, the shape of growing things,
things unmade when they're reproduced
and given such common names.

Trees. Harry. Two stamped patties
of amiability. He keeps smiling
as she frowns, as she backs away
like maybe he won't notice
that suddenly she's gone,
like maybe he'll forget
a girl named Colleena
could ever have been so close,
could ever have served him such a thing
as cheddar-apple pie on a dish so clean,
on a dish so perfect
it could have had its own name,
the name of a genius,
the name of something
you see once
and never again.

Journal Fifty-Nine Flowers Arranged Strategically on the Hood of Your Car

2010-04-14T01:20:00.004-05:00

The only human interaction I had today took place in text messages. Oh, and the pizza place down the street. I have this not-really-a crush on the skinny guy that works there. I think I'm probably not attracted to him, but maybe I am, I don't really know. It's not like other crushes. Probably because he's selling me pizza. I used to think he was flirting with us, or at least with Josh, but now I understand that's something called "customer service." Anyway, I can't help it. Today was spent very much in my head and in my hands.

One Slice

As soon as I step in,
he asks what I've been up to,
like we're familiar enough
for him to understand
how I sat and embroidered
for hours; for him to get
that I'm only here because cooking
seemed like the final, inoperable chore;
for him to even fathom
the struggle I had just walking here
without feeling totally defeated.

But here he is, smiling and winking
like maybe he would get it,
like maybe the tips aren't everything
and to be liked and wanted
is only the concern of narcissists;
what would he know of desire--
a pizza boy in a corner spot
drawing steam lines on the dry-erase board
over a slice of pizza
that looks more like
a piece of melting apple pie--
what would he know of anything like that?

He tries to meet my eye
as I leave a tip, but I won't have it,
I won't give that away. A dollar,
fine, but not my eyes;

never look a man in the eyes
after he asks you
how you spend your time
when he isn't around.

Journal Fifty-Eight Calls Transferred to Other Lines

2010-04-13T00:09:00.005-05:00

I talked to Audra on the phone today. It's been rough for people lately. I blame the stars. It's easier than blaming other people all the time and it's much easier than blaming myself.

It's technically a new day, so I'm going to post this poem now. Still, I may post another later, we'll just see.

Forget It

Life is cruel, sudden
and inept as people.

She says she's so tired
she wouldn't know her name
if she was asked it.
I ask, "Audra, what's your name?"
She is silent for a bit.
Thinking I've lost connection,
I ask, "Audra, you there? Audra?"
No sound and then,

"Who is this? Wait, who am I
talking to? What's in my hand?"

And we both laugh
though I'm not convinced
it was a joke to begin with.

I tell her to get some sleep,
it's been a rough week,
get some real, honest sleep.
She says, "You know me,
real and honest, so real,
so goddamned honest
I can only tell a righteous lie."

She uses this word, righteous,
like other people use water.
It's a cleanser, an agent
to justify her work, her excess
of worry for worriless people.
"I don't think they'll ever know,"
she says, "how much work it is
to look after their drunk asses."

And I say, "Hm, yeah,"
like I always do, the non-answer
to a bunch of unasked questions,
chief among them, "Am I talking
way too much? I feel like I am.
Am I?" I know it's this way
when she starts to ask about me
and I have nothing new to say.

But she has more to say,
even if I have nothing.
She tells me about the times
she's thrown people out
of very crowded places
where the only noise
she's heard for hours
is the ordering of drinks
and the calling, over and over,
of her own forgotten name.

Journal Fifty-Seven New Jobs I've Never Worked

2010-04-12T17:55:00.004-05:00

When I'm cleaning, I pretend I'm other people. That's where my poem today comes from, cleaning and pretending. It's tough, this job, but someone has got to do it. Someone has got to not make sense of this world.

The Mantle

I'm sweeping floors
in all my dreams
and then I wake up,
shower, eat, talk,
and sweep the floors
for real this time,
this waking time.

It's dust and it's hair
and I've opened up
all the windows
and all the mail.
Here is a note
to say my identity
has been stolen;
every number of me
is now a number of them.

It reads like a triumph,
so I write my own note
on dusty bookshelves,
say, "Take it, it's yours,
you've won it, finally,
fair and square.
Best of luck to the new you
and the old, stolen me."

Then I gather it all
in the dust pan
and I pick out the change,
count out a dollar,
throw the rest away,
think how to reinvent myself
now this chore is complete,
now I've got time on my hands
and a dollar in my pocket.

So, I build a new story;
I don't take it
from any other poor soul.
I am careful
to include ins and outs
and skill sets
that will look good on a resume.

I have climbed
so many mountains alone
and I have dived
to secret places with names
like The Trench,
The Pit, The Farthest Reaches.

I speak all languages
but the one I teach,
Spanish, and I've never been
to Spain, I've only flown over,
I've only looked down
from above and even then
there was a wind in my hair
and a fire on my tongue
and all the things
I've had my students say,
briefly took meaning,

for a moment
they had an identity
all their very own.

And knock, knock,
here is the new me
at the front door
and the longer I wait,
the more he paces
up and down the porch,
peeling the paint
with his shoes,
shoes that have seen
the four corners
of a round world.

I open the door
and we stand like mirrors
facing each other,
nothing in us
but ourselves,
no reflection
but reflection,
light going on and on
and back and forth
at invariable speed,
the speed of a dollar
in the rattling of change.

Here is myself;
here is the only one
I see.

Journal Fifty-Six Aged Tomes with Paper Brittle as an Old Man's Bones

2010-04-11T23:08:00.007-05:00

Most of my day was spend preparing to cook. There's always all these dishes to do, lots and lots of dishes. I feel like I work in a restaurant. Where are the tips, I ask, where are the tips?!

Anyway, as I cooked, the sexy man on the corner puttered around his yard shirtlessly for a couple of hours, so I wrote my poem about that. It's kind of steamy. Be sure to fan yourself with your hand in Southern exaggeration, "Lawsy me, but I do got the vapors!"

Lawn Care

He is mowing shirtless,
so I watch from the kitchen
as I cut potatoes and huff curses
to clean, ordinary men,

"You make too much of shaving,
you damn smooth men;
leave your gorgeous hair
the hell alone!"

But the windows are up,
so my curse rises and circles
in the dust-powder ceiling fan,
catching a rhythm in the blades
like hard shell bugs
(the junebug and other beetles)
that sheen like parking lot oil
as they hit out a summer tune,
whompa, whompa, whomp,
whompa, whompa, whomp.

He is stretching a suggestion
in the mango, five o'clock sun,
bending over and panning
like a security camera
from side to sexy side.

I bite my lip then whisper,
"Come on over here, then,"
but he's already in his garage
heaving down the door,
one last, huffing pull
of unexpected, neighborhood muscle.

Journal Fifty-Five Raindrops on Roses

2010-04-10T21:18:00.005-05:00

Abbi's cat, Albus, has passed. I had a pretty melancholy day about it and then I watched Rachel Getting Married. Oh. My. God. I thought I had nothing to say about Albus dying, and really, I guess I don't have too much to say, but I still wrote a poem about it. I apologize for treading on your grief, Abbi.

Also, I want a milkshake and a place to drink it.

Albus

I hear sirens,
but first I think they are music.
As they get closer,
I know they are sirens,
but I still think they are music,
the music of emergencies,
the best we've done
to cause worry
through light
and wretched sound.

They pass,
of course--
I only live a block
from the hospital.
Abbi has just called
and she is telling me
about the death of her cat.
The whole thing,
the whole event,
is silent and solemn.

There is no siren
for the death of an animal,
only the whir
of whatever machine,
only the gasps
of people holding out.

She says a few things
about not being able
to say a few things.
"Because," she says,
"there is nothing to say."
I say it's so true,
what she just said.

We sound like
we're talking about a burglary
or a stolen child,
and maybe we are.
"Even if there are no words,"
I say, "for what this is,
maybe we're heard anyway."

After I say it,
I want to take it back
and just say nothing instead,
commiserate without language.
I don't say anything for a while
and neither does she.
The only sounds
are the alien clicks
of a static connection,
a mess of simple calls
trying, all at once,
to be heard.

Journal Fifty-Four Scales Tipping in Unison

2010-04-10T00:05:00.004-05:00

The first full day alone and I'm bored out of my mind. It's not that I don't have things to do. I do, and I'm doing them, it's just nice to have someone there, another presence. Not a disembodied presence, mind, but a wonderful boyfriend presence who sometimes surprises you with ginger ale. Alas, it's just me and Kalliope for a while and Kalliope is definitely not a person (she's a snake). She is growing fast though. In fact, today she moved up a size on the mice. She's now on to fuzzies, so I'm pretty proud. Anyway, today felt long and empty, like a hallway during classes. I'm preparing for this night to feel the same. Here's hoping I have dreams of Egypt.

A Box of Mice

I get out of my car
and a guy in the street
asks if he can buy
a cigarette from me.

I say no, explain
the box in my hand
is full of frozen mice,
food for my snake.

It sounds like a come on
I didn't intend,
so I add, "You know,
the kind with scales."

We both laugh nervously,
like we half-expect guns,
like "cigarette"
is code for something else,
like this is normal,

the man in flannel
in his driveway
with the box of mice,

some Surrealist game of Clue.

But we both know it's nothing
and it's already over,
so we edge on in silence,
occupy the other parts
of our very different lives.

Journal Fifty-Three Bags to Pack

2010-04-08T21:58:00.007-05:00

Josh and Evie left for New York this evening on their comication (combo convention and vacation), so now I can finally stretch out and cook meals for one. This past week has been a lot of driving back and forth to office stores and office buildings. Anyway, I think the comic looks great, due in no small part, I am sure, to last minute pressure and long, sleepless nights.

That said, I didn't get to cook much last week. It was busy for all of us, so I didn't do the dishes a lot (meaning not once). I did them all today though, every last one. This is what I found:

Kitchen Alchemy

I pull down the dishwasher door
and I'm amazed
by the way I've loaded all these dishes.
It looks like a yard sale.
I pick up a bubbled, amber glass
and think with a raised eyebrow,
"I drink from this?"

The silverware basket alternates
up, down, up, up, down
with forks and spoons, a video game code
in the very wording of its arrangement.
"I went to art school,"
I whisper into a Garfield mug,
"and this is the composition I come up?"
I should probably return
my BFA to KCAI ASAP.

It's becoming a joke I make
whenever I do something wrong,
whenever I forget to do something right.
Like having learned how to weave
should help me remember the dry cleaning,
or at the very least,
keep me from locking myself
out of my duplex in the middle of the night.

I decide to put the dishes away later,
after I've had time
to settle from the shock of my belongings:
all the rainbowed plastic, the bent forks,
and the crunchy lids to containers
I've been using to catch drips
under the sink.

I open that door, discover a potions lab
of old solvents and cleaners.
I take out a bottle of something green,
hold it to the light, try to recall
what it does, exactly.
Failing that, I spray a bit on the counter
and it bubbles for a solid minute
like cartoon acid
eating anything in its frothy path.

I wipe it away
and here in all the mess
is one patch
with which to see my reflection
completely.

Journal Fifty-Two Serious Looks on Cloudy Days

2010-04-07T23:39:00.004-05:00

Even more knitting today. More knitting and more driving and tomorrow will be more of the same. There was a storm tonight and that was nice. I do enjoy a storm. But I'm tired, so no bullshit cutesy intro tonight. Just posting.

Slow Dancer

In the parking lot
of an office supply store
it's getting dark early,
the crawl of cloud
over sunlight,
another spring storm
coming over slow
like people ambling
from the grave toward town,
toward lights, toward other,
non-zombied people.

There's rain, so I roll
up the window,
quit pretending
I've got a cigarette,
quit pretending
I have nothing better to do
than sit here in my car
and wait out the shuffling darkness,
the creepy upward pull
of a blanket over the head
of a corpse. This one's gone cold.

It's cold now too,
which is spring for you,
the halfway point to swelter.
I touch the window glass
and it's like the barefoot floor
of a winter morning,
an advertisement for carpeting
your whole damn house.

A cop car passes
and its siren mixes with lightning
so the air is colored
like a disco, but one with menace,
one where every dancer
is shaking thunder
and colliding airs
of different degrees.

Journal Fifty-One Useless Issues to Sort and Clean

2010-04-06T23:43:00.007-05:00

More knitting today. More, more knitting. Most knitting. I knit all day on a sign for Josh and Evie's table for their New York convention and damn it, it turned out too long. Of course, I had tried a technique I rarely use and I forgot it kind of elongates the stitches. It looked nice, it was just. . . long. So, I knit another sign, but this time, I did it the old, trusty way. The lesson this week is to never try anything new, ever.

In non-knitting news (oh wait, it's all knitting news), I may have some more work lined up. Yay! More on that later if it pans out.

My journal poem documents one of the few human encounters I had all day. Machines take up much of my time lately. I may be going crazy, but I think I can hear the hooks on my knitting machine sing. Yes, so much yarn, so much metal, so many rows and rows and rows.

Customer Zero

The doorbell rings
and I have to dress quickly
so I can answer it.
I always have the feeling
that it's important,
whoever's at the door,
but it never is,
never once has the ringer
had anything worth saying.

Today is the same,
but this time
it isn't religious nuts
or petitioners or lost dogs,
it's a young man
selling magazines for
"his class,"
whatever that means.
He makes a pot joke
about Amsterdam.
"You know what happens
in Amsterdam, right?"

I nod, say, "Yeah,
lots of things happen
in Amsterdam.
The same things
that happen here."
He says he's not talking
closed door shit;
Amsterdam is out in the open.
Tokin' in public.
Payin' honeys for good times.
Red lights, baby,
red lights.

I wish him luck,
but I'm not interested.
I never can keep up
any of my subscriptions,
not even on YouTube.
He eyes me,
and for a second,
I think he might
make me buy something.
You know, with his fists.
He just smirks, though, says,
"Hey, if you didn't wanna help,
you coulda said in the first place,"

but his heart isn't in it
and he's already down the stairs,
and off my porch,
wondering who in the hell
buys magazines anymore
before I can say I'm sorry,
I really am
so very, very sorry.

Journal Fifty Is the New Twenty-Five

2010-04-06T00:38:00.003-05:00

Wow. Today was full of things falling apart or coming together; I can't decide which. Maybe it was a mix of the two, I don't know. Making "art" is always like that. I don't know if I've made something or torn it to pieces. Ugh, I hate myself for just saying that. I'm supposed to say that one day when I really mean it, not on a day when my knitting machine disobeys me and definitely not on a day when I'm told about an engagement. I think this is good, the engagement. I won't go further than that. I don't know much more than that anyway. I'll say I'm not surprised, but really, when does anything surprise anyone anymore?

So, this is a true journal poem, which I think is fitting for my FIFTIETH (!) entry. It's meandering and that's good. That's what I want. Also, I want to go to bed.

Idling Hourglass

I've spent a lot of time lately
in the Office Depot parking lot
hanging out in my car.
Josh keeps going in for copies,
but I never have anything
I want copied. Everything I own
is unique, is original.
That's what I keep telling myself,
but really, I don't believe it.
Anyway, do I really need custom-printed
kitchen labels, one for each spice?

Someone passes my car window,
says, "Yes," but they're talking towels,
not copies. "Yes, sweetheart,
towels are bigger than washcloths."
I roll up the window, but it gets too hot,
so I roll it down again. I imagine
I could spit into the air and it would evaporate
before it ever hits the ground.
I know it won't, so I don't do it,
but what if it did? What if any
of the stupid things I imagine
ever one day came true?

A car pulls up next to mine,
but no one gets out.
They just unroll the windows
and start shooting the breeze
with each other and then with me.
"Hey, brother! What it is?
What it is?" I say it is busy
and I pretend to talk on my phone,
but nothing I say sounds real,
so I give it up and they scream,
"He a player, that! He a player!"

They leave after a while
and I decide to call Josh,
see what's taking so damn long.
He's making a book,
so the copies need precision
and the copy boy
is being a complete dick.
We both hang up
without saying goodbye.
It's the psychic connection
of lovers, no need to say anything
that goes without saying.

I get out of the car
and I lean against it,
wonder how I look,
wonder how come the van
next to me isn't covered
in mirrors. How retro,
how funhouse, how TJ Maxx
it would be! I imagine
that I must look
like a reverse hourglass,
pinched at the top and bottom,
but bulging at the waist
from poor winter choices.
"Here is where I hide things,"
I whisper to the van. "Here
is where things go, never to return."

Journal Forty-Nine Rows Left to Row

2010-04-05T00:20:00.006-05:00

Knit, knit, knit. Knit, knit. Knit, knit. Knit. Knit, knit. I've been knitting all day and I've a bit left to do in the morning. These knitted signs are really something and that's all I care to say about them.

Other than knitting, I ran Evie and Josh on errands. It's part of the job description these days. I think it's also something cosmic. Kyle's car always seems to break down at the busiest, most inopportune of times. I'd say it's a sign, but I don't know how I'd read that sign if it were indeed a sign. Maybe I'm being punished? Maybe the collective group of us is being punished? Too much talent? Too much sex appeal? I don't know. I probably don't want to know either. Ugh, I'm sick of writing this intro.

ANYWAY, I've been writing for the past couple of hours. I was working on a piece of fiction and then I realized it sucked and that there is a reason I write poetry. Also, fiction does not make for a very good everyday format. Poetry is much better. Poetry, poetry, poetry. Mmm, poetry. So here's this thing I just wrote.

Night Sounds

He's clicking,
adjusting little bits
of black and white
on his computer screen.
I lie back, pretend to smoke,
pretend to be finished
with every little thing
I've still left to do.

I weave my fingers
and push out my hands.
Each crack makes him shudder,
each grunt of relief
makes him hiss.
I try to say,
"It's just fluid between joints,"
but all I can muster
is a bored yawn.

He's breathing
in so deep, out so complete,
I think he's got something
caught in his throat.
He says it's concentration,
focus, the body
achieving a level of peace
as his fingers move
into several places
all at once.

I watch them go
as they blur on the keys,
but everything is a blur
so late at night,
and every sound
we both make
is deliberate and mean.

Journal Forty-Eight Reincarnations All Have Different Tastes

2010-04-03T23:53:00.007-05:00

I tell you I don't write fan-fiction and then I post a piece of complete fan-fiction. This will be the case again tonight.

I didn't do much more than eat and run errands all day, but what I did get to do in that little remaining, unoccupied time was watch the Series 5 premiere of Doctor Who. Now I know it's not "available" in the US yet; it hasn't even aired here. But I still found it. OK, Abbi found it. If you're looking to arrest someone, better her than me (just kidding). Anyway, we watched it together over the phone. Very grade school, very girl talky and very, very fun. The episode was great and I really feel like I'm bonding with my first Doctor. Every British person has their first Doctor, the one they grew up with. I thought mine would be Christopher Eccleston or David Tennant, but I watched all those episodes on DVD well after they aired. But Matt Smith's Doctor I'm experiencing in real time, which is way more exciting, personally.

So, Doctor Who has been the most compelling part of my day. I mean, how can it not be? I might regret this later, because really, I'm on a nerd high right now, but I'm going to post it anyway. It's a little bit of TARDIS fluff, because hey, not everything I write is about dying or kissing or demonic possession. Give a guy a break. Also, check out my Twitter poem (http://twitter.com/poetryduh). I took a break from it for a while, but I'm back again and honestly/immodestly, I think it's still pretty good.

The Doctor

There's a wincing noise,
like the grinding of metal
or maybe something old
turned by a crank, an alarm
gone faulty, one rung
too many times.
It's the kind of noise
you mistake for a musical instrument,
but then it gets closer and closer
and you want to run from it.
But no, you're drawn to it instead.
You're drawn to the blinking light on top,
the little beacon rotating like a siren
or a lighthouse lense, which is apt,
because chances are, the man inside
is here to save your life.

Journal Forty-Seven Stitches In Forty-Seven Snitches

2010-04-03T01:17:00.002-05:00

Today sucked. This whole week sucked. This weekend looks to suck too. I should be fair, next week will probably suck just as hard. That said, I'm actually in a good mood. Optimism!

I started to write this thing as a poem. Now I'm working on it as a prose poem (I guess). Or maybe I'm done working on it, I don't know. It's inspired by something I wrote back in college. It's also inspired by the desire to always be somewhere else. I'm very good friends with this desire. We go way back. Like "cookies and milk" way back.

Unsurprisingly, it's something completely and totally not based on anything that happened to me today. Hey my life, get interesting so I can write about you again! Anyway, here's the prose poem (prosetry). It's a little sexual and a lot homosexual. Also, a little bit country.

Hollow Body

My car is dead on US 60, minutes outside of town, which negates, I think, my swift exit from the town, from the family, from the two friends on either end of the friend spectrum-- one end come, the other go.

Go said to make it quick and I guess I did. I didn't pack anything. It's a new me, after all. But now it's a new, dead, empty me, such a hollow body out here. And yeah, the car too. I lean against the heat of its hood, but not the hood itself (I was told to never touch a carcass). Summer rises off its smoking, metal breast in squiggles. This is how mirages are made, I think, all these waves like water, all these simple illusions, all the wiles of nature.

They're solid in their way, the waves, so I forget I'm not really propped up, just floating. Something about the warm and the land and the heavy, melting sky sets me to sleep even though I'm still standing up, arms crossed, legs locked. I get to the half-sleep place and I slink over, but in the half-dream that follows, I've been tossed down a staircase by rough, hairy hands. There's deep, guttural laughter. It's all man, all masculine, all grabbing, grunting, groping.

I wake up and I have an erection and I'm down flat on the side of the road. Gravel is stuck to my forehead and something is bleeding, but I don't know what. Oh! It's my nose, yes bleeding, lots of blood. It's so much, it can't be real. It's darker than my image of blood too, like velvet or melted lipstick, not like Christmas, not like cartoon apples, not like the blood made from ketchup.

Hahahahahaha! Again laughter, more laughter, most laughter, laughter connected to a man full of beard, full of denim, full of body. He shadows over me. I'm scared, but I'm still aroused, I haven't lost the erection. He's been there the whole time, probably, a strong mass of a man, the likely embodiment of everything I'm trying to leave behind.

He reaches down and he lifts me and he brushes me off, but he kisses me too, so it seems like I'm still dreaming, but I'm not, he's really doing this, even with all the blood. It's no obstacle. Blood never seems to be the obstacle people make of it.

I think of how forward some of these country people are and then I think I'm a country person too, even if I run. I kiss him back, the stranger, I kiss him back and still I run away.

Journal Forty-Six Men Vying

2010-04-01T00:28:00.004-05:00

It's a new day! A new month! But I haven't gone to bed yet. I wrote most of tonight and I wanted to share what I wrote. This is mostly directed at Abbi (again), but this time it doesn't take place in her creepy house. We talked about Libertalia and Madagascar today (whoops, yesterday), so I felt it warranted another Emmi and Webster entry. It's like a nice little cosmic reward for the writing weirdness I felt the other day (like I could do nothing right). Anyway, here.

Southeasterly Kismet

We've come to find utopia in some ruins
in a fire pit
long since smoldering on the beach at Libertalia.
Here were pirates
living out our dream, hundreds of years ago,
before it was our dream.
If we could dig deep enough, we'd find their store
and we'd use it
to prop up our feet as we trade stories around the fire.
We've gathered
wood and oil and we've relit the old flame under the moon.
In the trees,
deeper and deeper than I've yet been, there are eyes
floating disembodied.
I say, "St. Elmo's fire, you reckon?" and you don't
say anything
because I think you've already been in those trees
and you've found
no will-o'-the-wisp, only monsters and nightmares
and lightning birds
molting the feathers of a midnight thunderstorm.
I wake up tomorrow
and you're already gone with the weapons
and the book
and the map we drew so long ago when Libertalia
was just a dream.
There's a poem tied to a stick in the sand, all the world
for a verse
to lead me safely to you, to the center of some mystery
with cyclone wings.

Journal Forty-Five Angels Dancing Your Damnation

2010-03-31T17:43:00.003-05:00

Here's the result of yesterday's rambling efforts. I actually like this, which probably means it's horrible. In any case, this is all a good example of what can happen when I decide to create wildly. It takes more time and effort than I want to put into a blog. This type of work can take years to get right. With this blog, I just want to take something that happened to me during the day and poeticize it as best I can. This past couple of days, I haven't been doing that.

Anyway, here's what I wrote. I like it so much, I'll probably continue to work on it, just not in the context of this blog. Blog, blog, blog. Blog, blog. Blog. What a dumb word.

Unceremony

She is possessed of a demon
because she left the circle
the witches made for her.
They'd cracked their knuckles over it,
the salt of their old joints,
their flaking skins, the magic
of haggard centurion age.
They command their own legions,
their own demons. Good demons,
they've said, household helpers.

The demon to possess her
isn't diabolique, just curious,
so whenever she blacks out,
it comes forward and slices open
every fruit in the kitchen
just to count the seeds,
though she's starting to wonder
if it'll advance, if it'll take to slicing
bigger and bigger things.

This morning, it's a grapefruit,
one little pamplemousse
she'd planned on juicing,
but he got to it first.
There is pulp on the walls
and even up on the ceiling,
so as she takes her tea,
it drips down and makes a mess
of the local newspaper.
The whole place ends up
smelling sour and acidic.

He's also drawn a bath
to the point of overflowing.
It's cold to the touch,
so he must have done it
while she was sleeping,
while she dreamt about not
being possessed of a monster.
She finds the coven's number
taped to her vanity,
so she decides it's time
to put away pride and draw out
the demon, set it free
to clean up the messes it's made.

The witches want to know
what she's done wrong,
so she tells them she left
the circle early, the phone rang
and she couldn't miss the call;
it could've been Roger, after all,
calling to apologize for the things
he said to her. But it wasn't him,
she tells them, it was a misdial.

They each blind an eye
and gather close, a three-eyed,
three-sistered entity examining
her sorrow, failure, and temerity
up close, much closer than she likes.

If she'd stayed put, the demon
would have come out on its own,
crawled out somehow or maybe
leaked from her pores. It's different
for different people, they say,
but it's always inspirational.
You become the gateway
for an easier life. But she closed
the gateway early and so now
it will be harder, for a time.

She doesn't like this either,
harder, like it's a condition
she'll have to live with longer
than she already has. Patience,
they tell her, patience is the key.
So she waits and she cleans
and one day she can't even tell
where it ends and where she begins.

She slices an apple
to see the protective star
made from the seeds inside
and she counts, compulsively,
their number, so that now
it's this game she's forced to play
every time she eats fruit.

For a while, she'll avoid fruit altogether,
choosing vegetables, choosing roots,
choosing leaves, but here too
she must count the veins,
the shoots and ridges, the crusts
of dirt left hanging where the vegetable
was torn from one dirty place
and taken, unceremoniously, to another.

Journal Forty-Four Infernal Devils Singing Your Praises

2010-03-30T23:26:00.004-05:00

My sleep schedule is all off, so I'm a little weirdsies today. I don't really mean epilepsy, seizure weird, but it's always a frightful possibility. It's mostly that I started to write today and I just kept going and going and there's really been no end in sight. Nothing significant happened for journal poeming, so I just started with Abbi's farmhouse (again) and went from there. Maybe it's that I'm too tired to cut this one up or maybe it's just something longer, much longer than anything else I've written lately. I don't know. I don't really care. Today just seemed a little off. I blame it on my lack of sleep, truly.

I do like what I've got started, mostly. I'm really anxious to write/read a story that treats something so horrifying as something so common. Demonic possession as the common cold. We'll see where this goes, if it goes anywhere else at all.

Supernatural Common Sense

She'd locked the door,
but she went to check it
after hearing the noise of feet,
and it was unlocked, so she
crossed herself and scattered salt
in a circle on the floor
and she sat in the middle
and twirled her hair, waiting.

There was more noise,
but in the kitchen now,
the noise of cooking
and squeaky old radio,
but here she was in the foyer,
craning her neck to see
the curtains suck in and out
of the open kitchen window,
to hear the cattle moo in the yard,

and to wonder how fast spirits can go,
and why they need an open window
when they seem to have a house key.
But maybe it wasn't a ghost or maybe,
if it was a ghost, it was sort of solid,
a demon maybe, or only just a man
doing all the wrong things
in all the right ways, the ways
to scare the shit right out of her.

Her family arrives en masse
and her brother teases her;
what's she doing in a circle of salt?
Her father says it'll draw ants,
doing a silly thing like that
and she says, "No, that's sugar,
sugar is a drawing agent."
Her mother asks if that's like chalk
or a colored pencil and they laugh
because they haven't seen a ghost,
all they've seen is minutiae,
the pieces of a puzzle they can't work.

She wonders if she can leave,
if it's safe to break the circle,
make it an open space again.
She thinks again how fast they must be
and she remembers being fast too,
so long ago, field day champion,
but she knows it's a different fast.

She pushes some salt out of the way
with her thumbnail. The wind
is knocked right out of her.
It comes back, though,
but it feels green, grassy and earthen
like a field caught in her throat.

Her eyes look like grapes
in the front window, soulless
and seeded with evil. She wonders
if this possession comes standard
with superpowers, but all she can do
is lock and unlock the door by thinking it.
All the better, she thinks, to let the cats
in and out without having to lift a finger,
but these eyes, these damned eyes,
so wet she could eat them,
so juicy she wants to.

Journal Forty-Three Crones Casting Spurred Bones

2010-03-29T23:43:00.003-05:00

Went for shakes today with the wondrous artist-friend, KATIE WATSON, and then read her cards and they all fell into line like they should. I mean, it is KATIE WATSON, after all. She touched my snake and said it was very soft. I mean that in the most literal, non-Freudian way possible. My pet snake, not any euphemistic "other" snake you might be thinking. OK, not my penis. Blargh, fine.

Also, talked to Abbi. Her cat is sick and he is a lovely wizard of a cat, sleek and grey and wise. His name is Albus. He has numerous problems, but being completely awesome isn't one of them. I wrote this about him and about Abbi because I really like the both of them. I also really like the actor, Matt Smith and the chef, Jamie Oliver. To appropriate Abbi appropriating me appropriating my pregnant friend Mandy, they are total dreamboats! And Jamie Oliver can cook for me any time. I mean that in the most euphemistic way possible. Words like "sizzle" and "beef" are probably appropriate here. And by appropriate, I mean wildly inappropriate, though cattle do feature in this poem.

Never Justice

Your cat sits a step above his gate,
the one to keep him from the other cats,
so he doesn't get them sick, though he wouldn't,
he wouldn't bite a soul. It's more for the others.
They'd get at him. "They're not so nice," you say,
explaining to me the vampirism of felines,
that infected blood is infected blood
no matter how it's drawn. And your cat
is mewing for food because he knows you'll trundle up,
sooner or later, with a plate of meat
that makes it worth climbing all those stairs
in his grey condition. It's the twilight
of his years, you think, but you don't know,
not yet. And your mother is rattling a pan,
"Shoo! Out of here, now!" The other cats
scream a line to the living room
and they give her a look that bares fangs.
She gets back to cooking and you get back
to looking out the window. All those cows out there
and not a one of them terminally ill. They're gross,
you think, and they should die first, but they won't,
though when they do and when you get to eat one,
you'll feel some satisfaction. It won't be enough, though,
to assuage your grief, because nothing,
it turns out, is ever enough for all that.

Journal Forty-Two Is the Answer to Everything

2010-03-28T23:56:00.002-05:00

Went to St. Joseph again! This time it was for Josh's nephew's second birthday. Oh no! The terrible twos is upon us. Well, there's not much to say. Family fun was had, my car lives to drive another day and my famous artist friend, KATIE WATSON, is in Kansas City for a couple of days. Also, I seem to have a problem saying anything right on Facebook tonight. All my usual jokes have turned sour in the face of feline AIDS/other real life situations I probably trivialized by joking about them. Yikes! This defense mechanism is faulty! Anyway, poem.

Planes on Trains

On the way to St. Joseph, we drive past
a train with Boeing fuselages and what I think
are probably wings in boxes, the full aircraft deal
covered in green plastic on cars as long as,
well, as long as airplanes. Planes on trains
in the great! Great Plains. Josh says
it's kind of freaky to see them so apart,
like they're just bare pieces, Lego bricks
that will one day fly us all over the place.
I tell him not to think about it, but when I do that
he can do nothing but think about it, think about
how every single thing isn't just a single thing,
it's a part of another thing on down and down
till you get to atomic nesting dolls, it just goes on
and on and on. It's like the train, it's like our car,
it's like the trips back and forth, up and down, to see
one more family member grow up and figure out
what it means for them to be one in a line of so, so many.

Journal Forty-One Party Invitations to Strange Houses

2010-03-28T01:10:00.004-05:00

I went to the KC Food Circle Expo today with Evie and Josh. It was nice. There were some cute, earthy guys with dirt under their fingernails and scruffy faces and (grrr) crunchy girlfriends. They were adorable except for their total straightness. Also, honey! Barbecue sauce! Some nettle cheese Josh loves! Sadly, all the grassy honey buns were GONE. Evie was devastated and I was a little disappointed. I mean, really, these things are sooo good. Oh well, tomatoes! And more tomatoes! Most tomatoes! It was hard to choose which to get for our garden and I'm going to be honest, I don't know what we ended up choosing. For the sake of this poem, we chose something completely fictional (I think). Forgive the title (or not). It sounds like the title of the concept album I'll one day make of me plucking a homemade instrument while making mooing sounds.

Color Cosmic

The tomatoes are named
like crayons or scented candles,
but I want to know how they taste,
how sweet this yellow-red striation is,
not how much it resembles a jawbreaker
or the rising sun, setting sun, sun over purpled water.

I pick up this tumorous orange one
and it bulbs out around the top like the gather
of a drawstring bag. The lady selling them
asks what it is we're looking for, wants to know
what we like in a tomato, in a big, juicy tomato.

We say we like them big, we like them juicy,
we like them tomatoey or the closest to tomatoey
we can possibly get. Evie tells her the yellow ones
have a tough skin sometimes, chewy or something.

She isn't explaining it right, I know what she means,
but I don't think I can tell this lady what it's really like.
It's like forgetting to take the paper off your chewing gum
or washing everything in the shower but your hair;
you run your hands through all day after
and it just doesn't feel right, doesn't feel finished.

Evie nudges me, asks how I'd describe it
and I shrug and say, "I don't think there's a difference,
not really so you'd notice anyway."
They both pause, these tomato-tasting masters,
then they look back at the list of names.

The saleslady squints, traces her finger across
the laminated page and stops it,
"This," she says, "this is what you want:
Red Sun Rainbowsteak. Practically explodes
in your mouth with flavor. You like flavor, right?
Everyone likes a tomato with flavor."

It's red like no sun I've ever seen,
but maybe a sun in a different galaxy,
in a different solar system
or maybe just in ours at a different time,
at the end of our time
when the sun is fire extinguisher red,
a glossy, lipstick metal rising in the early morning
and a sad, rusty balloon deflating into the purple night,
a night with so much flavor it explodes,
devours us whole, treats us to a name.

Journal Forty Ringlets of Ginger Fire

2010-03-26T23:16:00.006-05:00

Abbi's birthday is now(ish). It's after midnight in Kentucky, but it isn't here, but that doesn't really matter because Abbi's in Kentucky. I'm not, but she is. Anyway, if you've been paying attention, we have a back and forth writing thing with these two analogs Abbi created this winter. It's always fun to get her latest scene featuring Emmi and Webster and I'd like to think the poems I write about their adventures/funerals are not too shabby either. We usually just write them, minimal editing, minimal rethinking. It's more like a dream that way and since these two characters meet in dreams, well, it makes sense. Also, the whole point of this blog is to capture that sort of raw spontaneity. Showcase good ideas and bad ideas. What works, what doesn't. Here's a birthday gift for Abbi Raney, my best friend and one of several of my platonic soul mates.

Happy Birthday

I'm sitting on a dome of earth,
a perfect hemisphere of grass
save for the stony door cutting a hole
in the side, three rough-hewn slabs of rock,
Stonehenge in miniature. I don't know
what's inside yet, haven't been in, but I heard
it's supposed to be a tomb. I'm waiting for Emmi,
but she's late, she hasn't found her way.
Maybe she's somewhere else or maybe
she's still awake. She does stay up these days.

I pick at the grass, braid a few strands
together, wave their sweetness in the air,
blue air like jazz, blue air like a comic book panel.
It's the sweet smell of rot, so I wonder
if I've done something wrong, if I should
have left the grass well enough alone.
The dome sinks a little and then it pops back out.
I get that scared feeling, like I'm in bed
and I've just heard a noise I don't expect,
so I freeze. What else can I do? We meet
in such places in our dreams. We always pick
such terrifying, wonderful places.

The earth breathes in again and I slide
down the dome the best I can, it isn't easy.
I get to the bottom, to the stony door,
check my ass for grass stains and sure enough,
there's green streaks down the back of my legs.
Then I remember it's a dream. I don't have
to have grass stains. I don't have to have
this wheat beer belly. I pop my neck,
decide it's more authentic to just keep it all,
the green, the paunch, the bad vision.

It's sunny, of course, it's always sunny
unless it's not. Unless it's a rainy dream.
But it's sunny tonight, everywhere but the door.
The air in the doorway is cold and black and so solid
I knock on it and my knuckles hit something,
then nothing, then everything.

I'm welcomed in and pulled in and pulled
apart all at once and I wonder if I've made that final mistake.
Maybe this is the dream I die in. Emmi and I know
that's how we go. We live in dreams and we die in dreams.
Still, we can't stop ourselves. Emmi always says,
"We're the only friends we have, we can't just die
any old normal way, because really, what's that about?"

And she's laughing, she's here, in the middle
of this dark, earthy room and her hair is a curly red torch.
She's pulling on some roots, roots growing down
from the ceiling of the dome, and as she pulls,
the dome sinks in, lets go, pops out. And she's still laughing.
"I got you, I so got you. I bet you thought this hill
was alive. No, I KNOW you thought this hill was alive."

I cross my arms, ask her how she KNOWS.
She snaps her fingers and the dome is now the sky
and the very middle of the dome is a view
of the dome itself, is a view of me
sitting on the dome, is a view of me
freezing in fright, eyes owl-wide, hands
clutching the grass, expecting the worst,
getting the best, getting the joke, being the joke.

We both laugh until the fire of her hair starts to flicker.
I say we better get a move on. She says there's a tunnel that way,
into more earthy darkness. I tell her to get back to it,
light the way, lead the way, let me follow, let me be the eyes
in the back of this monster's head. We laugh again,
but just a little this time and then we link arms, back to back,
and we do a silly walk to wherever this dream goes.

Journal Thirty-Nine Spells I've Cast on Dark Nights

2010-03-25T20:53:00.004-05:00

I cooked most of the day. I'm thinking about doing some occulty thing tonight, but I don't know what. I'll probably just end up reading the cards or something. Maybe I'll make a powder of some sort, I don't know. It's been a while since I've done any physical stuff like this. Most of it just goes on in my head. I know, crazy. That's all I'll say about that. I usually hate it when people talk about religion. And this is kind of my religion, so. . .

This little poem is based on some true stuff and some false stuff. Omitted is the part where Melissa plays with the candles and ends up catching something on fire which we then have to douse with Holy Water to extinguish.

You Are Entity

She asked me to banish
this entity from her apartment,
an entity we had called
in the first place, just called
and it came and it made trouble.
Lights flickered, there were noises
deep in the night, deep in her sleep.
And flies came, lots of flies,
but they died soon after, nothing to eat,
it wasn't that kind of a thing.
I told her they were attracted
to the entity we called, her apartment
was clean otherwise. She told me
she didn't want it anymore,
any of this, anymore ever.

We lit thirteen candles
and we laid out the spirit board,
the little toy gateway to the abyss.
We held wands and said words I'd written,
a banishing back to the darkness
for this elemental thing, this hungry force.
There were clicks around us
and every dog on the block
barked at once, echoing in and out
of the spirit board, a back and forth howl
from here to Hell or wherever
it all comes from: nightmares,
dreams, inspiration, the voices you hear
as you drift to sleep, the ones calling
you by name. When you reach for them
they scatter like flies because they are flies,

big, black flies
attracted to the entity of you.

Journal Thirty-Eight Legs in Unison

2010-03-24T21:56:00.004-05:00

I just got back from a baby shower. I smell like cigarettes, beer and popped balloons. There were a lot of balloons. We popped them and in the process scared an unborn child. Also, there was a uterus pinata, pin-the-umbilical-cord-on-the-fetus and gifts (my gift was the best, trust me, it's always the best). I don't know, I don't really have a lot to say about it. It was fun. I met some new people. There were some cute(ish) guys.

This poem isn't about the baby shower. It probably should be, but it's not. Nothing really happened that I feel like writing about. That's nothing against the baby shower. It really was the best baby shower I've ever been to, don't get me wrong. It's just that I wrote this little thing a few months ago when Mandy told me she was pregnant. On the surface, she doesn't believe in anything supernatural, but she did acknowledge this tarot reading I gave her as being prescient of her pregnancy. Anyway, it's deeper than just that, but I don't really want to explain it.

Like I said, wrote this months ago, edited it slightly today.

Leona Mae

You called to say you were pregnant
and even though you pretended not to believe me,
I was right

when I pulled The Empress
and told you true love
was a figurative pomegranate away

and all you had to do
was wait for something to happen,

like puzzle pieces arranging themselves
or a mess of yarn
spelling out your little girl's name.

The things you never believed,
they still have ways
of coming true.

Journal Thirty-Seven Hairs on the Back of My Hand Stand Straight Up

2010-03-23T11:49:00.006-05:00

Soon after posting last night, I went to bed. Right before I got to sleep, I figured out the wedding poem. It came to me pretty much immediately and completely, so I lugged out my computer, typed the thing, then went to sleep pretty satisfied. This morning, I read what I wrote and hey! it isn't too bad. So, I'm going to post it now. I know, I know, so early in the day for that, but I just signed for my intarsia carriage! Now I need to learn how to use it. Commissions await, y'all (As you can see, I have recently found the exclamation point very desirable to indicate a jokiness in my written voice [haha])!

Also, this poem probably isn't finished either, but that's the bad part of writing a poem every day with minimal editing. Enjoy the rawness! Revel in the incomplete!

Lilapsophobia

Local weatherman Mike Bracciano
is here, at Erin's wedding, though none of us
can figure out why. Granny Moot
thinks maybe it's to keep us from noticing
that two people just vowed to stay together forever,
to only part in death, to look at each other every morning
and still twinge romantic even when they haven't
brushed their goddamn teeth yet.

I think it's something else, some story
Erin told me once about being in the fourth grade
when Mike came to teach her class about severe storms.
Since then, she's been afraid of them to the verge
of panicking on overcast days.

She was in Kansas City once, visiting us
when the storm sirens went off and the sky
turned a sick chartreuse, signs to her phobia
that it was time to rear, time to kick open
the nearest door and curl in a corner,
consume her completely while the rain grew steady.

The door she'd kicked in was to an art museum;
its roof made of wavy metal, so when the hail came,
it came in bullets. Erin thought we were being attacked.
I stood at the glass doors trying to get a better view
of the trees modern dancing, leaves ripping like bodices,
branches cracking two by two, rain flooding drains and streets,
ushering cars down the aisle of Warwick Boulevard.

In the middle of the great room, in the doughnut hole
of the information desk, Erin was a pale ball.
The museum attendant gave us information from the internet.
The storm would soon pass, but the thunder continued
and in the glass door, lightning forked and shifted
on its impatient waspy waist, taunting blue and white.

Erin whimpered and I checked the time on my phone.
Soon is relative, as far as time goes. Soon could be
forever and a day. Soon could be until death do us part.
Or after the storm, until death do us party, party, PARTY!

Journal Thirty-Six Pies on a Table Made for Thirty-Five Pies

2010-03-22T22:22:00.010-05:00

I couldn't post this weekend since I was in St. Joseph, Missouri, busy with Erin's wedding. It was lots of work, lots of food, lots of stressed people turning into full people turning into happy people turning into deep, deep sleeping people. There was also a really cute cellist.

I kept my notebook handy so I could write things down, and I did, but I don't have anything really good written yet. I tried most of today to write something about the wedding, but it just felt like anecdotal summary, nothing important or touching or too funny. And it wouldn't end, it just kept going and nothing seemed resolute. I couldn't chop it anywhere and say, "Hey, this works." So I cut out a weird little tangent and developed it into this itty-bitty piece. It doesn't seem to have an ending either, but I don't care too much. Also, this cat has never actually been in my house, but if it ever is, it will do this. Probably.

I'll try to write the wedding thing tomorrow. I just need to get back into practice. Three(ish) days without significant writing time has brought that rhythm I was in to a halt.

Crybaby

After Josh cries the whole way through a sad series finale,
I catch the neighbor's cat licking our couch cushions,
just licking them, the saltiness of so many tears wept,
so many storylines unresolved, at least one character dead,
two more married for reasons other than love (money, money).

I ask the cat what the hell he thinks he's doing
and he tries to mew and lick his lips at the same time.
It looks/sounds lascivious. I leave the room to do something
without any hint of eroticism. I look at my student loan balance,
think maybe I should get married too. Spread the debt,
spread the love.

Journal Thirty-Five and Still Not Married/Pregnant!

2010-03-19T02:14:00.004-05:00

So, today has been busy. I cleaned out a closet, caught and released what I think was a young brown recluse (should have checked for the characteristic three eyes as the "fiddle" shape wasn't very clear), went shopping for things for this weekend (Erin's wedding), fed the snake, made two vegan Key Lime pies (with Josh's expert assistance, of course), crocheted two roses and then wrote this little thing based on something that happened yesterday. This weekend is going to be long. I don't doubt that I'll have tons to write about, I just doubt I'll be able to post every day. We'll see. I'd hate to disappoint my loyal readers (Abbi).

From One Man to Another

I'm waiting in the car
while Josh runs in the library--
well not runs, sashays, I guess,
a little side-to-side shake of the hips
right past the Sam Elliott look-alike security guard
on his cell phone, tapping on the empty bike stand
and twirling his mustache into handlebars.

Josh disappears inside and Sam Elliott
starts talking real loud to a party unknown,
though my guess is it's another cop
in the heart of St. Patrick's Day action.
Sam Elliott says, "What'd he steal? I mean,
what'd he steal this time?"
I can't write it down fast enough,
the one side of this uniformed conversation.

Then he says he's dizzy, only had
a frozen Snickers to eat all day.
"And how, exactly, does one eat a frozen Snickers?"
asks the party unknown, or so I think he asks
because Sam Elliott begins to tell us
how you put a Snickers in the freezer for a few hours
and then you set it on the counter to thaw a little.

"It's so as not to bust your teeth out
when you take that first bite
after the only thing you've eaten all day
is the words of drunk green people,
those damn fool Midtown leprechauns
and not a one of 'em even Irish at all,
not a damn one. Irish don't wear sparkle hats.
You ever seen an Irish wear a sparkle hat?
Or a t-shirt on top a long-sleeve shirt?
'Cause I never, I really never."

Journal Thirty-Four News Clippings on the Wall and a Web of String

2010-03-17T20:40:00.010-05:00

I take it back. The tarot readings I give are only confidential if you want them to be. There were too many good things to take away from the reading I gave last night. Most of the poem inspired by that reading is completely fictional, but some of it is not. Sorry, lady!

It's apparently St. Patrick's Day and I didn't wear green, nor have I had anything to drink. I'm saving my random culture holiday cheer for Cinco de Mayo, because hey, Mexican food and tequila definitely beats cabbage and green beer.

Sorry the title to this poem is so generic. I may or may not get around to fixing that. I'm going to be honest and say probably not.

Tarot Reading

I shuffle the cards while she's small talking.
She's got a lot of work left to do
and it's only halfway through the semester--
some weavings to weave, some romantic schemes
to scheme, scheme, scheme. Plans. Fruition.
Those things you do in grad school
when you aren't doing grad school.

She says the campus is primarily female
and I picture flowers and birds
and dormitories with castle turrets,
but that's not it, that's not right. "The men,"
she says, "are like parking spaces--
most of them are taken and the ones left
are all handicapped or totally gay."

I ask her how a parking space
can be totally gay, but she ignores me,
tutting a little before she moves on,
like if I don't understand the joke now
I never will. There's a GM cutie
she wants to sleep with, but she's too afraid
of rejection, I guess, the cards don't say.

They do say she tends to overthink things
and this is one of those things
she is seriously overthinking. I tell her that
and she says it's true, she worries the joy
right out of casual flirtation, wringing solitude
for all its melancholy worth, her forehead
to a frosty window, her thumb scrolling

the list of numbers in her phone, the ones
she doesn't know by heart. "Each name is strange,"
she says, "like unfamiliar strange. Days
gone by or something, you know?" I tell her
I do know, it's why I don't read the cards for myself.
I don't want to realize how completely strange
and alone I am. She asks about her future

and I tell her things are looking up,
that sex is just around the corner,
that being alone has made her stronger,
that she's waking up to the sound
of a very loud trumpet played by
a very large angel, the very metaphorical alarm
for her very asleep soul. It goes off every spring

after a long winter of wrapping your arms
around your legs and pulling your knees
to your chin, a quiet place to support your head,
to let your eyes go out of focus. It's like
holding some warm man's body
when there's not a warm man for miles and miles
for months and months.

Journal Thirty-Three Frozen Pizzas Like Frisbees for Big-Handed People

2010-03-17T01:51:00.006-05:00

So, I said I'd write another poem today, but today became tomorrow. Anyway, it's barely tomorrow today, so I'm still going to count this as being my second poem for yesterday (wowza). I talked to some people on the phone and I had so many notes for things to write about (not from my tarot client though because I think maybe the tarot readings I give are off-limits). There was an earthquake in LA and it woke Chelsea up, so I got her to tell me about that and she had some really good stuff to say.

My snake has taken to perching on the upper-lip of her tank. I think maybe she needs some fake vines or something to climb on. Corn snakes are not arboreal by nature, but she seems to enjoy climbing, so I will encourage her exploration by buying her a brand new cage (maybe/maybe not)! Enough about my snake.

Evie gave us this really good soda that is Thai Basil flavored. I want more, more, MORE.

Finally, I didn't intend this poem to be about sex and losing one's virginity, but it totally is. Also, earthquakes and deep sleepers.

Giving It Up

She asked all her coworkers
if they'd been awake for the earthquake,
but none of them had, she was the only one.
It was her first, after all, so it was kind of fitting
that she'd notice the world cracking up.

She told me it was the bed shaking
and then no, it was the whole damn earth shaking.
So, she'd expected, three stories up,
to have something glass fall off a shelf
and break into vacuumable pieces,

or to maybe have her roommate yell,
"Everything OK in there? All in one piece?"
But none of that happened, none of those things
California people do in earthquake movies.
She didn't even rush to straddle a door frame,

the safest place to be, don't you know,
when the things in your room weeble and wobble
but don't fall down. Over the phone, she wonders
if she'll sleep through the next one and I tell her
she better not, because in my experience,

nothing beats your first time like the second.

Journal Thirty-Two Pounds of Smoked Meat

2010-03-16T15:15:00.003-05:00

Went to lunch today with Josh, Logan, Erin and Evie. I feel like I'm lunching a lot lately. We talked about wedding stuff since Erin's getting married this weekend. Josh kept dipping into Erin's curry (no, not tobacco dipping) and we kept making fun of him.

On the way home, I called Abbi and we talked about the blog and how I added a counter to see how many people are reading it, but then I started to wonder who is reading it. I have this curiosity about my readership. I mean, I know a few people are reading this, but who are you? You never say anything, which is fine, I don't comment on blogs either. Just curious. Feel free to reveal your identities or if you need to continue your secretive lurking ("Lurk much?"), feel free to do that too.

To warn you, I really felt like writing, so I wrote this little poem about my lunch experience (think of it as a midday snack), but something else will probably happen tonight that I'll want to write about. What I'm trying to say is there will be two poems by the end of the day. I hope you're OK with that.

Ladies and Gentlemen

We all laugh when Josh insinuates
that Ashley would choose a discounted dress
for her theoretical wedding to Logan.

To draw attention to something else,
Josh dips a bit of his crab rangoon
into Erin's curry and we debate
what's considered traditional and non-traditional
(groom pays for this and bride pays for that).

Our server circles the table
to refill every glass but mine.
I put the back of my hand to my forehead
and I sigh, "Always the bridesmaid,
never the bride." But he comes back

and he fills my glass without a word,
though he gives me this look that says,
"Drama, drama, drama. Queen, queen, queen."

Journal Thirty-One Days of Exercising My Libido

2010-03-15T23:35:00.006-05:00

So I finished the first knit sign of this latest round of knit signs only to find that the company hasn't even mailed the check yet. BLARGH. Nevertheless, I finished and my hands and my brain and my boyfriend are all relieved and now I have time to cook and to clean and to be the housewife I never imagined I would be.

The poem I wrote for today is so bare, but it isn't bad, honest, it's just where my mind is right now. Totally stripped to the the basics. Focused. Narrow. Bored. Exhausted. Dreaming.

More people walk by my house than I'd ever considered and some of them are really attractive. Also, can you believe I've actually kept this thing up? I can't. But I will keep doing it, like the time I became a vegetarian to see how long I could do it. Have I made that comparison yet?

And now for something just a little (and I do mean just a little) less ranty and scrambled.

Blurred Vision

I sit on the couch to embroider for a while.
Some movie or other
is on for the noise
more than anything else,
and from the corner of my eye I see shapes moving
through the blinds
up and down the street,
dark blobs pacing
in the concentrated type of gait you see in Bigfoot films:
arms to the side,
hands curled like scoops,
shoulders shrugged,
"How did I get here and where are all the trees, huh?"

I get up to part the blinds. The blobs come into focus
and they are people
wearing brightly colored clothes
and they are carrying things.
They have hands full of groceries (baguettes wrapped in paper)
and leashes
and little phones
they dial without looking.
A cute man waves at me from the corner because I'm not invisible
standing at the window,
embroidery breath
fogging the panes.
I'm an artist so I draw a heart on the glass, then I rub it out with a fist
and I close the blinds,
sit back on the couch
to embroider for a while.
I imagine the doorbell ringing and the cute man is there with flowers
in one hand,
and in the other,
so much money.

Journal Thirty McNuggets, Only One Thing of Sauce

2010-03-15T01:26:00.003-05:00

I'm doing these knitted signs for a fashion company in Los Angeles (ooh la la). The good thing is their logo doesn't suck, the bad thing is they take forever to make because I have to duplicate stitch multiple colors on top of the base knitting I can do on my knitting machine. It's kind of like a textile coloring book except it takes days of hand-cramping work to complete. Not that I would totally mind, but they keep ordering more signs, so it's more of the same thing over and over again for weeks. But hey, I just ordered an intarsia carriage for my machine, so my work should go exponentially faster and my mood should be exponentially less pissy. Hurrah! I'll be happy, Josh will be happy, my clients will be happy, my pet snake could probably still care less. Also, I'm realizing I pretty much just prefaced my journal poem with the content of that poem. Doesn't mean you shouldn't read it, just means, well I don't know. I guess it means I like to repeat myself?

Repeat

The duplicate stitch embroidery is so boring
Josh and I have taken to fighting
just to have something else to do that isn't stringy
with seven colors of yarn
and the occasional triumphant scissor snip,
another section complete.

He asks me if I want to watch something
and I snap at him,
"Why can't you ever just entertain yourself?"
So he goes to the bedroom
only to come out an hour later to ask me again,
this time wondering
if maybe a comedy would soothe my sour mood.
I say no, again,
but I've calmed down, so I smile as I say it,
"No, sweetie, not now."

We think of dinner at the same hungry time,
so when I joke,
"Let's get McDonald's," he agrees and we go,
but we fight first
because he wants me to ask for this sweet chili sauce
I'm sure they've gotten rid of.

He keeps saying,
"I didn't think it would be such a big deal,"
and I keep rolling my eyes,
but he can't see it in the dark, the frustration of embroidering
for a week straight
only to not have the goddamn thing finished yet,

the sign I knit for somebody else's business,
the sign I knit
for nobody else's business but ours.

Journal Twenty-Nine Miles till Death Do Us Part

2010-03-13T15:02:00.004-06:00

We ate lunch today with Josh's brother, Logan, and we got to hear some things about nursing school and how hard it is working to keep people alive and well. Today's journal poem pretty much says all I wanted to say about it, so here it is. Back to knitting for MONEY, MONEY, MONEY.

Assisted Living

Logan tells us he's helped a few people
only to have them die a week later--
some things you can't help, no matter
how hard you work to keep it together.

He says all this in the way of lost games,
because what else can you make it but a score.
The alternative is to let every bit of the job
gnaw the too-chewed meat of your emotions,

to break you down into enzymes, so loose
you can't help anybody with anything,
much less everybody with everything.
He eats his sandwich in the same way,

any piece that falls out, he puts back in
quickly, the parts to the whole, the blood
to the rest of the body. We ask about Ashley,
and he goes on about school, work and more of the same

even into the planned future--people
helping other people to keep on helping other
other people. A table over, a young man
orders a gyro, but pronounces it JIGH-ROW.

I want to help him, but he seems so happy,
so Logan and I just laugh and Josh looks between us
wondering what's so funny. I whisper in his ear,
"Don't worry, it can't be helped," so he squints

even as he signs our check
with the serious flourish of a wealthy man
signing his last will and testament.
He leaves a generous tip and a folksy note,

"Thanks so much, darlin', lunch was fabulous
and really, truly, so were you."

Journal Twenty-Eight Going on Two Hundred Pounds

2010-03-12T16:24:00.004-06:00

This one is mostly about nothing, but it's the thing that sticks out about my day so far. I seem to attract Rubenesque women like pie attracts, uh, more Rubenesque women. Anyway, my college fiction teacher told us never to make fun of people in writing because of their weight and I mostly agree with her (I will continue to make fun of my own weight all I please). This is some of that, I guess. I'm feeling very wishy-washy today, like I'm underwater or something. Probably all this rain. According to Stevie Nicks, thunder only happens when it's raining, so I want to know, where's the damn thunder?

Rubenesque

We were marveling at the prospect
of a Cajun chili with andouille sausage
when this woman in a purple muumuu
gave me a lusty once over and licked her lips.
Melissa laughed with brassy staccato
and I looked down at the shiny marble floor
to discover the hint of my very own double chin
just hiding under a scraggle of patchy beard,
proving you can only hide something for so long
before people start to notice and respond.

Journal Twenty-Seven Hail Mary Passes

2010-03-12T01:01:00.002-06:00

Tonight, we went to see Conor and Grant. They were born three months early, but they are doing well and are just starting their second month of life. I don't have much to say that isn't either needlessly depressing or maudlin, so I'll just post the poem I wrote about their father, Brian. If you are friends with me in any capacity, you will probably be pushed into a poem at some point, whether you like it or not. Consider this your warning.

Brian

While they cry like little falcons,
dad soft-punches his palm over and over.
He says it's hard to imagine what it's like
to feed and breathe through tubes;
it's those basics we take for granted,
the things these twins were born into.
I want to hug him and say it's getting better,
and no matter what's happening now,
they're both growing out of it just fine,
but I don't. I listen to the quaver in his voice
and I nod my head, silent agreement
that you can't always be strong
when their bodies are still so fragile
and when the nurse changing their stickies
doesn't even wince when they start to cry.

Journal Twenty-Six Dollars? For a Pizza?!

2010-03-11T00:14:00.001-06:00

I'm getting super knitty busy again, which is good and just and all those things. See, a bird just landed on my finger and a squirrel has decided to help with the dusting.

In other news, I'm going to apply for a reference job at the library. I probably won't get it, but if I do, I'll get paid to learn (sort of).

I had Vietnamese food today and my business cards are on their way! Totally unrelated, but it's past midnight, so I think like a drunk person.

Consensus

He kept asking different servers
if they could turn on the game,
but they conveniently lost their English
so they could keep watching Wheel of Fortune.

The man turned to me, a booth away
and a level up, and he gave me this look
like, "Can you believe it," so I glanced down
and forked at my curry, my face concentrated.

It was the only thing I could think to do
without having to say what we were all thinking,
but then Josh yelled at the screen, "It's COCONUT
MILK MAID!" and the place lit up

so that even game man cracked a smile
and said to his girl, "Man, those BEFORE
AND AFTER ones, those are the best."

Journal Twenty-Five and I Can Rent a Car

2010-03-09T20:11:00.002-06:00

When I'm stuck for a thing to say, I always imagine my front porch and then I have a place to start. It's my favorite image aside from diners and beaches.

There wasn't a tornado today, but it did rain and the clouds gathered and parted and gathered and parted; that kind of peep show you always get with the sun in the spring. I made lunch and looked out the window and prepared myself to start knitting a logo sign, but I wrote this instead:

A Fine Collection

Here's a tornado and I'm standing
on the front porch,
don't you know it,
where I'm always standing
when something like this happens.

You've heard the sirens by now,
but I ignore them
to stand on the railing
and spread my arms like a Christ
taking it all in, no matter.

Everything is headlight-in-fog green,
and there isn't sound
for a solid minute
before the noise of a train
(you'll know it if you ever imagined

taking your leave by hopping one).
It's not just the racket,
but the rumbling on tracks
before it derails from the clouds
onto my lawn, a newsprint whirlwind

the middle of which I can't see.
So I jump into it
and I'm up and up,
all alone, before coming down
onto the street along with everything else.

Journal Twenty-Four Hours Till the Final Showdown in the Very Next Town

2010-03-08T22:48:00.002-06:00

I really like British television. In fact, I wonder that I like it more than I like the American counterpart solely because of the accents. Though there's also a certain sensibility I like, especially in their science fiction; it's a combination of silly, impossible humor and deep, heart-wrenching poignancy (thanks, Abbi, for that one).

I don't write fan-fiction, but I did write this poem and I guess it's about Captain Jack Harkness of Torchwood and what would happen if we met for the very first time under some distressing circumstance or other. I just finished the Children of Earth mini-season and I wonder that all other science fiction has been ruined for me. Anyway.

This journal poem is like those dreams where I fall in love with someone my subconscious has likely conjured with all the hallmarks of things I find attractive in men. But instead, Russell T Davies found those things for me and made a fantastic television show about it. If I ever meet the man, I probably won't be able to thank him enough.

Immortal

I ask why he won't share his knowledge
and he says, "I'd offend you with the things I know."

I scratch my head with the single-fingered scratch
of the cartoon confused and he laughs a single, pleased laugh,
but it is rote too, like I'm not the first to know his secret.

I scratch more and then I whisper, "I'm not the first."
He replies, "Well, duh," before walking on, a sway of the hips
to tell me I'm also far from being the last. I cross my heart
and I wonder how someone this old can be so damn young.

Journal Twenty-Three Free Frisbees

2010-03-07T21:38:00.003-06:00

I didn't get to watch the Academy Awards tonight, which is fine because I didn't see any of the movies this year, not even Up or Inglorious Basterds (I know!). I spent most of the day doing weekend things with Josh and avoiding the KC Reptile Show because having a snake is apparently like having a bag of potato chips, you can't stop at one. The thing is, I should stop at one. At least one at a time. If I take care of this snake, that next snake I own may well be in twenty years time. What any of this has to do with the poem I wrote for today is nothing. I had this daydream before lunch:

Grant Me

I was waiting for a table,
so I had this daydream
where I could do magic things
when I said the right words
and bent my hands in sign language shapes.
I could talk to the universe
and the universe
was a good listener.

I'd just put up a shield
to protect us from a demon,
when this woman in the group
started to deny the magic
in front of her, saying,
"God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change."

I turned to her,
my fingers curled around reality
like reality was a paintbrush
and I said, "Honey, I'm a magician;
I change the things I cannot accept."

And then a hand touched my shoulder
like a butterfly landing
and a voice whispered in my ear,
"We have your table, sir,"
but I didn't turn around.

I said, "Keep your table,"
and I went into the street
to follow the yellow smell of sulfur
down a dark alley.

I prepared myself to say
the words to make things happen,
but when I got to the end
there was a dumpster against a wall
and it was tall with fire
bluer than drowned skin.

Inside it was a voice
telling me darkness has a name
and wouldn't I like to know it
for a very small price?

Journal Twenty-Two Golden Tickets in Wrappers in Stores Around the Metro

2010-03-06T18:44:00.002-06:00

I'm going out tonight to eat more food than I should, but Josh's sister is getting married soon and we're going to celebrate that in the most expensive way we can. There's this place that's like Chuck E. Cheese for adults, which I'm bound to disagree with. However, if someone places beer in a pitcher right in front me, I'm going to ask for a straw and I'm going to drink the whole thing just so I don't have to remember what it's like to talk to people wearing Ed Hardy clothes.

Spring Man

The clerk said something, I don't remember,
but it was like, "You enjoy this day, sir,"
and I was floored because he looked so good
being so kind; it was out of the winter norm.
And when I stepped outside, the weather was warm
and people were walking around like they'd just woken up.
Some crazy motherfucker rolled down the windows of his beater
and he screamed, "It's spring, man, here again!
Hear them birds; hear them little fuckers sing."
He took in a deep draw off some kind of joint
and he flattened his hand and rode the warm air
up and down like a wave, like he couldn't be touched
because everything was looking up and he was so damn high.
He kept shaking his head because today was a miracle
he couldn't bring himself to believe and tomorrow
couldn't possibly be any better than this.

Journal Twenty-One and Finally Legal

2010-03-05T23:21:00.003-06:00

We ate a lot of food tonight. It was too much, but then we ordered dessert and made it more. On the way home, our car scraped the ground and sparks flew out from the sides. I will never eat food again unless it is fed to me through a tube and even then, only enough to leave me satisfied.

Burden

We ordered so much food
that our table sagged in the middle
and we had to hold it up with our knees.

You went to the restroom,
so I had double duty,
but it still wasn't enough
and the whole array cracked
like lightning in a tree.

It was a clean split in half
and the cartoon in my brain
told me to pick up the halves
and eat them like a sandwich.

But I threw it all instead,
piece by piece over my shoulder
till the mess was all behind me
and the emergency exit
was less than a dash away.

Journal Twenty Roses in a Vase, Half Are Blushing, Half Are Not

2010-03-04T16:24:00.005-06:00

I didn't do much or see much today, so I searched my back catalog for awesome things my friends have said over the years and I remembered a gem from a good ginger friend of mine. In fact, I think she's the only person reading this blog aside from Josh and apparently some person in Spain who follows this blog but has never commented on it.

I'm also reading Lorrie Moore again and I think that's coming out in these latest journal poems. Those of you who know her work know this is a very good thing. Anyway, this poem is inspired by something my good ginger friend once said about her own, quite literal (but at the same time, not physical), sexual awakening. This might embarrass her, but she should take comfort in knowing the readership is low and I do have at least a few ginger friends.

Allotment

She'd come to the realization
that somewhere in the world,
at that exact moment,
there were people having sex
and she was not one of them.

She'd never say how this changed her life,
though after the epiphany
she couldn't look a person in the eye
without wondering how much they'd seen
of another person's naked body.

She'd also never again question
the selfish motivations
of desperately horny people,
except for the one spring
I had taken two lovers

and she'd asked me how necessary
I thought it was
to take more than my share
when some people she knew
were always going without.

Journal Nineteen Bottles of Bourbon on the Wall, Go to Town and Knock One Down

2010-03-03T22:59:00.005-06:00

So I'm worried about one of my friends, which is nothing new, but it is unfortunate because I don't think that anyone else really worries about her and I don't know that she'd take me seriously if I told her I was worried. Anyway, her house was recently vandalized and here's the poem about that and other things. I don't think she reads this blog.

Missed Call

She left word that her house
had fallen into ruin,
so I called her back,
but what she really meant
was that her door had been kicked in
and her window bricked out
by parties unknown.

Though she didn't admit it,
there were suspects
and this much I gathered:
it could have been anybody or nobody
in as much as the man passing the house
with a brick in his hand
is nobody till he tosses that brick
right through the front window.

The thing that sticks with her
isn't the glass or even the brick
that missed her head by inches,
it's the figure of this man in shadow,
backlit by the other houses
with porch lights still on.

When she stopped screaming,
which she'd been doing all along,
he was so gone
she began to wonder if the door and window
had blown themselves in
the way curtains bow when you open doors
that have been closed for a very long time,
a house breathing, the in and out of which
goes unnoticed as you try to find excuses.

There are things she won't fess up to
and most of them come in bottles easily broken.
She confessed this was a call
she could either answer or ignore
and she still wasn't sure
which way she'd go,
and didn't I have any advice for her?

I didn't, so all I said was,
"There's some lucky stars you should be thanking."
But even after I said it,
I knew I should have said
I was afraid for her life
for reasons that don't fly through windows;

though in the end,
ruin is ruin is ruin
and for a woman so small,
she can hold her bourbon
even when there's no one there
to prove a goddamn thing to.

Journal Eighteen Going on Nothing

2010-03-02T22:11:00.003-06:00

The coming days are about to get pregnant with knitting and I mean late term here, full-bellied, swollen-ankled, ready to burst pregnant. Which is fine and part of what I want with my future, so yay, but also I'll be knitting all day every day for a couple weeks, so the next dozen or so journal poems will probably reflect that. This one doesn't. This one is about the opossum I saw last night. Why do these creatures terrify me so? I mean, I own a snake and I'd like to one day own a spider, so what gives? Oh, I know, they have tails like large carrots and teeth like the edge of a steak knife. Plus, they are bigger than most cats I know. Did I mention they hiss? And pretend to be dead when they aren't?

Senescence

I hear something on the porch,
so I run to the window, hope to catch
whatever entity has been leaving
pieces of bread on the knee-high railing,
but all I find is an opossum
twisting its way down the stairs,
its midnight errand complete.
It waddles under a car and I wonder
if that car will ever start again,
so I cross my heart like Catholics do.
Josh laughs from the couch,
tells me how silly I am before hopping up
to close the blinds and shut out the night.
"Here be monsters," I whisper.
Josh laughs again, "Whatever you say, boss,
whatever you say."

Journal Seventeen Books to Neverwhere

2010-03-01T23:26:00.003-06:00

I was at a loss for what to write today. I mean, I'm still upset about the passing of Carol, but I also have to keep writing.

Abbi sent me another wonderful scene between two characters she created that are analogs for the two of us. They meet in dreams and fields and English manors and they can use books to get just about anywhere they can imagine. The scene she wrote for me helped assuage my grief. Even in the darkness, little albino snakes will sometimes show you the way out. This is probably most meaningful for Abbi and myself, but I don't think I'd have it any other way. I'm just letting the rest of you look on with jealousy. And if you're not jealous of albino snakes and spring rains, well, there's just no helping you.

Brilliant Green

You ask me what I think this rain tastes like,
but I could never answer that question
in a way that isn't absurd, so I say, "It tastes
like rain always tastes on the astral plane,
like a little bit of everything." You let me take
the easy way out this time and you say, "Yes,
that's exactly what this rain tastes like."

Journal Sixteen Candles, Every Wish the Same

2010-02-28T20:54:00.005-06:00

I was told today that my cousin Carol died, which is not something I expected, to the extent that you can expect the deaths of even sick people. She had stomach cancer and surgeries and an infection that ultimately couldn't be dealt with, so she passed in a drug-induced coma, no brain activity detected. I could get all philosophical about what any of this means, but I'll just say it means a person who lived and was kind and loved her family is now dead. This is one of those human things, mourning, and I know it's supposed to make everything else seem better, but sometimes life just seems more cruel than it needs to be. Anyway, I wrote a poem about Carol. I remember a few specific things from seeing her every summer at the family reunion at Lake Gaston. This is one of those things:

Cousin Carol

Two summers back it was
when we drove into town from the Lake
just to get cell reception, just to make
those little calls to say how much the algae
had grown along the bottom or how wobbly
some of the elders looked as they waved
to boats from the dock. You'd asked me
the racial makeup of my hometown
and I'd wondered what importance
that could have in the scheme of things,
so I rolled down the window
and I stuck out my hand, said Winchester
was very Southern, a town split in half.
You nodded your head, said, "That's life,
isn't it? The same everywhere you go."

Journal Fifteen Balloon Animals and Not One of Them a Starling

2010-02-28T01:14:00.005-06:00

What happens when you watch 30 Rock all day with your boyfriend while eating potato chips, chocolate bars (with embedded crystallized ginger), and Fizzy Cola gummies, is this: you neglect to write a journal poem. However, I have been writing down phrases and ideas and images and dreams and outright lies in this little notebook for the past week. It's like a sketchbook, but for writers. So, uh, I guess I can post something from there. I would apologize for this, but if I'd actually written a poem for the day, it would've gone something like this:

Today

This chocolate bar has ginger,
which makes it kind of spicy.
When I went outside this morning
the stairs were kind of icy.

Instead, I'll post this little bit for a scene I plan to use in a novel/novella/short story/minute fiction/poem/Facebook status update:

Romancing a Robot or All's Well in Roswell

She presses his fingernail. It clicks like a button. He isn't real, after all.

(You can send my Nebula Award to the secret PO Box where I retrieve my orders from Torchwood)

Journal Fourteen Days Later, His Letter Arrived, Return to Sender

2010-02-27T01:05:00.002-06:00

Tonight, I had fun with people who have more social cache than I do. I was called a genius by a wiry gay man in a bellhop's uniform after he'd seen a picture of my smoking octopus sculpture on my cell phone. I covered one eye during a play that was heavy on the strobe lights so as not to have a seizure in front of complete strangers. I drank from a copper cup. I caught a man in big glasses looking at me (or through me, I'll never know which). I had a good time with my upstairs neighbors. I took comfort in my (relative) youth. I had some really excellent food. I made a few jokes that missed the mark completely. I came home, drunkish (not really), and I wrote this in a minute (even when I've been drinking, I will not fail you):

Moscow Mule

My hands are sticky
with the juice of a lime,
the one halfway in my drink
because I forgot to spritz it
over the liquid, then drop it in,
a convenient place to put things
that have lost their initial charm.

Journal Thirteen is the Luckiest Number

2010-02-25T22:09:00.003-06:00

I had time to work on both fiction and poetry today. Congratulations me. I also crocheted a realistic octopus and forgot to return a phone call from my father. My favorite thing today was a Vietnamese dinner of yellow curry and some weird gluten that tasted vaguely like turkey as served on a space station where every meal is made from the recycled waste of its passengers. But seriously, it was good and I'll probably want it again, and soon. Shit, why didn't I write my journal poem about that curry?

Real Estate

Our duplex is for sale,
so today a woman in faux fur
(cross our hearts and hope it was)
took a pamphlet from the box out front,
licked her forefinger like to test the wind,
and caught the first of three pages
on her salivaed pointer,
pulled it back to read a price
that dropped her chin to her neck
in a display of shock you wouldn't believe.

Journal Twelve Days of XXXMAS.

2010-02-25T00:24:00.002-06:00

This is a little bit of the story I'm writing. I didn't have time to work on a poem today, but I will say I babysat a bird for a few hours and it wouldn't quit doing back flips. This excerpt might read like erotica out of context, but I don't really have a problem with that.

Excerpt

"What's this about anyway? This time?" Trench Coat Man fiddles with a creamer, flipping it over and over in his fingers. School Teacher grabs his hand, stops the fumbling.

"Ever the fiddler," she says, "Always moving, always doing. . .something." She turns her head so Trench Coat Man can see it in profile. "What if you stopped moving, what if you just quit?" Her head ticks on her neck just a little, a shock running through, someone somewhere pressing a button.

Journal Eleven, Heaven, Leaven, Seven Times Seven Times Seven

2010-02-23T23:13:00.003-06:00

This one is short because I worked on fiction today, FICTION! I know, I know. What the fuck am I thinking? If it helps, this FICTION reads like a screenplay, not at all like poetry. Not saying they're mutually exclusive. I would never say that. Ever. But I would say this, because when Abbi's not haunting my dreams, she's haunting my written endeavors in the way only best friends can:

Establish

She had the idea to test our psychic connection,
because animals, we know, have that link in abundance.

You have seen birds take off in the same direction,
not a thing said before, not a nudge or a glance, just knowing.

Journal Ten Little Indian Buffets in the Past Ten Days

2010-02-23T00:46:00.002-06:00

Surrealism

The harpy in the tree out front
is weighing down its perch
so that some leaves are tickling the grass.
There is a response of delight
in the shiver of a breeze,
in the wave of each blade.

I take out my phone, press the side
and now it's a poor camera,
a recorder of fuzzy suggestions.
The best I can do is the worst,
so the harpy comes out like a joke,
a fat sparrow licking its lips.

You wouldn't know it to look,
but if you heard its song
of crewmen dashed upon rocks,
you'd believe all terror has wings
and sagging breasts like melting clocks.

Ticking talons on dry branches
keep the time before you have to look away,
before the thing reminds you of the night
you folded good food into a paper napkin
and threw it away uneaten.

Journal Nine, Wine, Tap the Spine

2010-02-21T23:18:00.003-06:00

Excess

More snow today,
the roads just icy enough
to make nothing worth the risk,
but the sidewalks are melting glaciers;
if I stand in one place too long
a puddle forms and I imagine I stand
at the center of a very small lake.

I am the sun's smirk and its yellow rays
striding shores, arcing over the few boats
to collide each year because there is too much light to see
the wakes they now cross, rolling over
each triangulation like hands on naked backs
before the swift sensation of no return and sudden darkness.

Journal Eight Square Meals a Day and Lots of Running Between Each

2010-02-21T02:24:00.003-06:00

Anomaly

There's one clap of thunder in this shitstorm of snow.
It's so out of place, I must have heard wrong.
Maybe a door just slammed or the cat upstairs
came down from the table, landing on front feet
then back with force enough to jar a wandering mind.
A car slides the course of this block and on past the stop sign,
bumping some other car's trunk and popping it open.
Papers fly out and a woman in sweats comes running,
one hand to her forehead, the other to the whirlwind.

Journal Seven Doors and Seven Windows and Seven Dwarves and Seven Stone Plinths

2010-02-19T23:47:00.002-06:00

Instinct

I fed my baby snake today;
jaws pulled wide like door hinges
and all parts flattened like hands
leaving prints, but hands with little teeth,
pricky pins to kill the mouse that's already dead,
to make it even deader than it is.

I looked deep in the snake's red eyes
and I saw either sleep or blood,
but also that time at the museum
I dozed off and hit a wall of expensive art.
In the crash waking, a pattern of red paisley in the air
and I gasped in awe before I realized
it was the blood in my eyes, the scratchy vessels
full from taking it all in without a break for days.

Journal Six Fingers: One Too Many or Four Too Few

2010-02-18T16:58:00.000-06:00

Respite

Again on the front porch to inspect this piece of bread
left by a squirrel or a vagrant, but I'll never know which
because to my thinking they may be the same animal
just different faces at different times.

The coat is the same, the coat of cold weather, but the inside
is still alive and just ticking like a thrift store find, some life left.
It's just there, crawling in the circuitous lining, poking here

and there, but never finding the way out. Still, it takes the time
to eat a sandwich on a stranger's porch in the dead of night
with only the moon to have a say so. This stolen moment

is hidden by winter clouds, full of snow like an armful of cans,
ready to drop and litter the ground at any moment, not with a clang,
but a hush to leave frozen bones shaking.

The bells you heard once to mark time in the city,
are here just the silent shaking of snowy sky. The only passing,
the passing of seasons. The only gift, a secret you share with the moon.
The only reason, no reason at all; just a chance
to take a breather.

Journal Fiver, Fiver, Over, Do You Copy?

2010-02-17T23:47:00.002-06:00

Heard This

Samosas like origami,
the crease of rolled dough
a thing of concentration.
My tongue sticks out;
a kid making something
only he knows.

I dip a finger into water
and seal each edge, fold
a fluted cone like a lemon ice
from your grocer's freezer,
but full with vegetables.

Here is the bulge of a single pea,
a lump in relief, the flour skin
stretched over, but I can't
hide everything, so I hope taste
will suffice as I adjust them
on a cookie sheet, these shells.

When placed to the ear,
wheat in the wind and the swing
of many scythes in unison;
a cut of scissors on craft paper
then the rattle they make
as they wobble on the table.

Journal Four-Score and Seven Years Ago

2010-02-17T00:30:00.002-06:00

Stops Here

I held a baby snake in one hand today.
It gripped fast, through some natural force,
like a well-tied knot, the more I resisted,
the tighter it squeezed, until I thought it had gone far enough
and it loosened, altering course over my tattoos,
but they elicited no response, nor, though squares,
did they manage to box the reptile in.
So I looked him in his little red eyes
and I mouthed, "End of the line,"
but he kept on slithering up my forearm,
finally coming to rest in the crook of my elbow.

Journal Three Squares Tattooed on My Forearm

2010-02-15T22:29:00.003-06:00

Transient

I'm convinced my front porch
has become a late night stop for wayfarers
because there is one of those glass ashtrays
just scattered with cigarettes,
some with lipstick marks,
some with only the tip ever lit
before the wind changed directions.

These people sometimes leave
a part-eaten sandwich,
but I do not know if it's offering
or offal, so I always knock it into the snow
and I think real hard, knitting brows,
about what it means to be a respite
on the journey to better or worse places.

Journal Two and How Are You? Just Fine. Just Fine, Thanks.

2010-02-14T21:37:00.006-06:00

Pile

I drove in such a snow today
of bleached sheets on sagging lines,
whipping from visibility
to blindness and back,
the corners of weather lifting
to reveal red eyes ahead
and what were they
but the taillights of a dozen compact cars
stopping to take it all in,
to wait for the falling fog to lift
just so they could see
a goddamn thing.

Poetry As Journal As Practice As Nowhere Near Perfect

2010-02-13T21:37:00.003-06:00

I've been thinking about how to maintain this blog. I'm always so hesitant about posting anything I work hard on because I may want to TRY to get it published. This causes very long gaps in posting, which hey, I don't have much of an audience anyway, but it would be nice to keep putting things here and not just because I think they're unpublishable for whatever reason. Sooo, I've decided to write a poem each day-ish of the week about something that happened that day. This way I can practice writing just to write without it having to mean too much of anything. Also, I won't have to worry about editing it past that day I write it, so you'll get raw, stupid ideas and I won't have the pressure to perfect each thing on a poem that ultimately was about something like, oh I don't know, eating a sandwich or cleaning out the snake's cage. I had this idea last week and I'll start with that poem, just because.

Exploded Things

I cooked dinner last night,
but this morning I couldn't do the dishes
because the water heater exploded--
water, water everywhere,
but not a drop in the kitchen sink.

This is what you deal with
as an adult, year to solemn year:
the wearing out of things,
the explosion of worn out things,
the very real introduction
of things that will one day explode.

And now I have to delay my shower
even though there is so much water
just standing in the basement--
the erupted substance of too much pressure,
the pressure to always perform.

A Little Something

2010-01-20T12:34:00.006-06:00

Just a little poem I probably won't try to get published anywhere. I saw this rocking chair on the interstate while I was driving home from Kentucky, thinking it must have fallen out of someone's truck. But what if it didn't?

Improbable Daydream

I pass an upturned rocking chair on I-64,
like an old man had just been sitting there
before making the decision to jump
into the back of a moving truck.

The third jump saw success, but his head
hit a cement block in the truck's bed
and at that level of enthusiasm, at that speed,
things came apart and things went flying.

A tooth dinged a passing car's windshield
and the passenger cried, "It's the end, aint it!?"
But she couldn't help to ask herself
if it was really possible for a man his age

to get up and fly.
--------------------------------------------------------------

Also, I've edited the orgy poem and I guess I'll post it here for now. I'm busy with some knitted sign commissions for a couple more weeks, so I probably won't do much poetry work in that time. ANYWAY, I should give thanks to Matt Groner and Jamie Hibdon for the many helpful comments on what was working and what wasn't working in the original edit.

Smoking on the porch outside the secret orgy,

we keep looking at each other, hoping one of us will say
what comes next, or that it's time to go inside and take off all our clothes,
if not our armor. And then a deer moves down the street,
tapping hooves on the asphalt so quietly, like fingernails on Formica.

We both wonder aloud, "Is it time yet?"
Then we giggle, a little, before it turns into a raucous laughter
they can't hear from inside because the music and the moaning
is just too loud.

But our roaring startles the deer and it runs,
yet somehow it isn't touching the ground and when it hits the intersection
it hits a car too, full of orgygoers just back from a beer run,
some of them already naked because they can't wait to taste a stranger,

but the only thing they taste now is blood and glass and the shame
that comes from being naked during a travesty.
Still, the sounds of fucking and sucking from inside
cover the sounds of breaking and twitching outside;

the deer is dying so it keeps on kicking someone in the face
through the window and we keep on smoking.
I pull out my phone slowly, like maybe someone else will make the call first,
but I realize, between puffs,

there's no one else around
that isn't slowly dying.

Watchers, or THE ORGY POEM

2009-11-18T12:27:00.003-06:00

I'm going to be honest. I generally just post things on this blog that I don't think are publishable elsewhere. I'm sitting on some good poetry right now and if none of them get accepted for publication, I'll put them here. That's not to say what I post here is awful, it's just not the best. Either that or it's personal stuff. Or neurotic shit. Oh, what the hell, here's a recent one I like. If it gets accepted anywhere I'll just have to delete it.

Watchers

Smoking on the porch outside the secret orgy,
we're aware of our loser status, so we revel in it,
puffing on Bronsons because what else is there to do
when back inside a world of awkward touching awaits us.

We keep looking at each other, hoping one of us
will say what comes next, or that it's time to go inside
and take off all our clothes, if not our armor. And then a deer
walks down the street, tapping hooves on the asphalt so

quietly, like impatient nails against a table. "Is it time yet,"
we both wonder aloud and we giggle, a little, before it turns
into a raucous laughter they can't hear from inside
because the music and the moaning is just too loud.

But our roaring startles the deer and it runs, yet somehow
it isn't touching the ground and when it hits the intersection
it hits a car too, full of orgygoers just back from
a beer run and some of them are already naked because

they can't wait to taste a stranger, but the only thing
they taste now is blood and glass and the shame that
comes from being naked during a travesty. Still,
the sounds of fucking and sucking from inside

cover the noise of breaking bodies and twitching muscles;
the deer is dying but it keeps on kicking someone in the face
through the window and we keep on smoking. I pull out my
phone slowly, like maybe someone else will make the call first,

but I realize, between puffs, we're losers for a reason
and there's no one else around that isn't slowly dying.

Explanation

2009-09-29T12:23:00.002-05:00

My absence here is due to the writing of a book and the crocheting of a new show, TBA. However, I thought I'd post this poem I wrote about the time French-Canadian werewolves knocked on the door of my dreaming. I think it's funny.

Perspective

I answer my door
to find
a crew of European werewolves,
loup-garou,
lounging on my porch,
confused by a crescent moon
and
reciting some French poetry
to varying degrees
of accuracy.

In the yard,
their transport,
a massive canoe,
is moored to a tree like
maybe it would float away
if not tied down
with the expert knot knowledge
of Old World sailors
in lupine skins.

The lead wolf,
tall enough
to threaten even a bear,
asks me if they've arrived
in the great Land of Canada
and I,
used to myth and magic,
reply unwavering that no,
the great Land of Canada
is many miles north.

As much as a wolf
can look let down,
this wolf looks let down.
He asks where they are then,
if they are not
where they thought
they'd be.

This last bit
is asked through
gritted teeth and a
sideways scowl
at the navigator,

a wolf fumbling with a
compass hung around his
neck, trying to balance,
in his hairy lap, a sextant
and a yellowed map.

I tell them they are in
Kansas City
and the lead wolf
expresses damnation,
cursing, "Ah me,
the Land of Kansas."

And I say, "Ah no,
the Land of Missouri."

One of the wolves howls,
an angry gesture,
still confused by a moon
half-full and another wolf
tells him it's all a matter
of philosophical perspective,
optimism versus pessimism.

The Joke's on You

2009-08-19T20:10:00.002-05:00

I wrote this because I'm pretty sure the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is just pyrite and the grass is always greener until it's in your contract to mow it.

Fool's Gold

Thinking I am lucky
always makes it so, like
all the luck in the world
is mine for today. At the
very least, the wheel only
lands on fortune and the
sweet realization of all my
secret dreams. These I
keep under my pillow and

in the journal I'd write
if I could keep it up,
but I don't because that's
evidence for them to find
when the coins vanish in
my slick palms like a
magic trick gone horribly
wrong at the end of the
casino parking lot rainbow.

Thunderbolt of Lightning, Very, Very Frightening

2009-08-19T17:50:00.003-05:00

I'm going to self-publish all these fantasy type poems at some point, I guess. Um, so here's another one in that vein.

Osteomancy

It's like this,
Rob is on the shore
skipping whale bones
on a calm sea, waves
barely cresting enough
to still be waves
and the end result
just ripples at Rob's
ankles, washing back
the lighter bones
so he can toss them
again, when he decides,
"Hey, let's divine the
future with this shit,
these bones. I mean,
why not, huh?"

And that's how
it starts, a new
age of magic
on the northwest
coast of America.
Osteomancy in the
hands of a surfing
stoner, reading meaning
into each position;
an oracle of Oregon
picking at the
inner-wreckage of
a majestic beast to
find lotto numbers
and pick-up lines
with roots in ancient
mythology.

Rob comes to you
as a swan, with bedroom
eyes and the graceful
curves of aerodynamic
intelligence masking
human ignorance.

"My place or yours?
Mount Olympus
or Mother Earth?"

Belief

2009-08-13T15:32:00.005-05:00

So I was thinking about belief and how, if I make myself believe in something hard enough, I can change my own reality, duh. That's what magic and religion are pretty much all about, with about a million little modifiers to make it not seem selfish. But if you see the collective and the self as one and the same, those modifiers are unnecessary. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Or something like that. I think I could say something about Prometheus and fire from the heavens, but I'd sound pretty crazy and it might be a bit of a stretch. ANYWAY. I wrote this little list poem in about, uh two minutes, so don't expect poetry gold, just a brief look into my thought process, beliefs and disbeliefs, and opinion on the teen vampires of Twilight.

Uh, I guess I should thank NPR for the "This I Believe" thing. Thanks NPR. Maybe one day I'll write a real one. By real, I mean one they'd play on the radio.

Also, I think maybe only Abbi will find this amusing.

Belief

These
I believe.

That on more
than one occasion
I have slipped into
a world unseen by
even the most devout.

That religion is
the illegitimate offspring
of magic and that
belief in one negates
practice of the other.

That ghosts are
the remains
of the remembered.
Someone, somewhere,
is making ears burn.

That witches have
more fingers than
most people, but
only when seen
through black glass.

That blood is
the most important
thing in the universe
and our bodies exist
to contain it.

That this too
shall pass
and not
a moment
too soon.

That vampires
would never,
ever,
sparkle
in direct sunlight.

And that
nothing should
be taken
too seriously,
even poetry.

More Urban Legend Poetry

2009-08-12T16:42:00.004-05:00

I like the tale of the vanishing hitchhiker, but I fear that as hitchhiking is less acceptable these days the tale itself will vanish. Eh, I don't know why I'm worried, people still go looking for Nessie after all.

Also, I've been playing around with line breaks, obviously. I think it's funny that it forces you to read it in a William Shatner voice, but I mean, isn't that kind of annoying too? I'll figure it out sooner or later.

Phantom Hitchhiker

Often the
drive home
leaves me
wanting
for company

and you
shouldn't
want for
anything
after

you're
so far
gone
as to
pick up

a lonely man,
thumb out-
stretched
and clothes
old enough

to be in
fashion
once again.
But that's
where

I am
tonight,
driving
so far out
it seems

like I'm
in another
world with
this man
who

claims
to be
deader
than disco,
but still

around
because he
is
remembered
by his

lover,
still alive
in the
Keys with
someone

that doesn't
fade
at the
county
line

and would
I "just
please
go
make him

forget."

Urban Legends and Line Breaks

2009-08-11T14:59:00.003-05:00

I'm reading a book about magicians. Not illusionists, like Houdini, but people that claim to use magic in the paranormal way to change reality through force of will. It got me to wondering whether urban legends exist, not necessarily in a physical way, but on a more viral, symbolic level; American monsters created by the magic of storytelling, no less real than vampires or Baba Yaga. Of particular interest, the Rat King, partly because clever taxidermists have made it a post-mortem reality, but also due to its intrinsically frustrated nature. What if, in a city so large and so packed, the frustrations of her people were made manifest in a creature like the Rat King?

City Magic

Two people
are on the verge
of going
opposite directions
because one used
Mapquest

and the other,
his heart.

It's melodramatic
that way
because we'd both
seen it in movies
and decided
it was art

imitating lives
real people lived,

especially, if not exclusively,
in New York City,
Land of the Rat King,
he of the writhing,
emotional knot
in giant rodent form,

splashing through
the sewers, existing

as a piece
of unbroken,
break-up magic
some forlorn
magician
cast under

the light
of a neon moon

and under
the weight
of leaden tears
the volume of
contaminated
wading pools.

Too much pressure
for so short a depth,

but my feet crack
anyway despite
reason and science,
all the bones
ground to powder
and all the skin

in sheets
clean enough

to write

your
very own

defixio.

When
in Rome.

The End

2009-08-06T14:19:00.003-05:00

Wanted to write a poem about something pleasant, but this came out instead. Oh well. To be fair, as far as apocalypses go, Ragnarok is pretty.

The End

What they don't say,
when they find you
alone in the woods,
is that you have a choice,

right in that moment
you have the choice to run
or to let them take you in,
make you a willing part
of a broken machine.

But they don't say this,
they make it seem
urgent, like you have
this great power,
the power to end everything

if you just dream the wrong things;
you know how they phrase it,
"goats, gods, and gateways,"
like all these together,
a catastrophe make.

No, it's not that way,
not really, not in the end.
In the real end, despite your dreams,
the spells you do in your sleep,
the world doesn't go up in flames,
or smoke, or explosions.

It's the winter that ends us,
the winter and the Wolf,
you know the one, the one that
never shows in your dreams,
but by his absence,

you know he's there.
He's the dark shadow on your wall
on waking, the light at the end
of the tunnel, the bird in a storm
and the hair of the dog.

The world ends
in a snowy howl
you'll never hear
on a white-washed
plain

you'll never see.

Becky

2009-08-04T11:29:00.000-05:00

These poems are an ongoing project stemming from the family reunion notes I blogged about previously. I have a wealth of stories and anecdotes about my paternal grandmother, Becky, not to mention a lifetime of my own personal memories. What I'm saying is someday these little blurby poems will be a longer poem, a substantial expression of my experiences with her. What I'm not wanting to say is the poem will only be complete when I have no experiences left with her to look forward to, you know, it'll be retrospective, maybe a eulogy. Anyway, I want to post these little poems for her now, while I can. I guess that's a little morose, but honest and I do favor that.

Again, there will be more of these, as I get around to them. And to disclaim, there are fictional bits. Afterall, those pearls probably are real and my grandmother has never, ever threatenend the lives of her grandchildren. Well, except that one time she insisted on driving us around the lake in a little boat at reckless speeds. OK, that didn't actually happen that way either, but you get the idea. I fictionalize things to make them sound, uh, more poetic. Maybe one day I'll be strong enough to not have to make things up.

Becky One

You had a dream once, about a garden
that knew no bounds. Trellises and gates,
closing off nothing, just to serve as
pauses from one stretch of green to
the other, on a terraced estate, mounds
of shrubbery formed so perfectly, like yeast
rolls, patted out by old hands. Butterflies
played fairies and the whole of your existence
beat with the breath of the sun and the sigh
of a rose bush, blooming just for your dinner
table, cut and vased in crystal, the finest thing
you inherited, aside from the pearls, which,
in the right light, look real enough to the naked eye.

Becky Two

You hide your smoking from the
younger ones, to settle their emotions,
maybe, after the heart attack which almost
took you, though, my brother, in his
infinite mystery, was there to save you
in the way he could, by driving through
the red lights, what few there were, to the
hospital, where everyone gathered and
murmured the worst they could muster,
to settle their own emotions, maybe, in case
this was the end of an era, a dark dawn
for a new day without Nanny, without
long road trips in a small brown car,
the archetypal summer of those children
who grew up with a third parent, an
omnipresent force of matriarchal will
and understated courage.

Becky Three

Even in those decades past,
when we feared you like a myth
of such power to actually squash
out our lives with the light of
a cigarette and the press of a
thumb,

you still loved us, though it
was dark and for our own
good that you scared us out
of our bratty skins and into
something just a little more
grownup.

Baseball Stuff

2009-07-27T16:43:00.002-05:00

I went to a baseball game yesterday, Kansas City Royals, my notebook in hand, with high hopes of colorful characters and 9th inning excitement. Instead, I was treated to something I hadn't quite prepared for: that mix of boredom and that moment just before you fall asleep. That incredibly lucid, calming moment of contentment that I spend hours meditating just to reach. This baseball game was that. An utterly alien experience that I neither loathed nor loved. In fact, it stands out as unique in my whole history of experiences. I think this has something to do with the general apathy of even the most ardent Royals fans. They created a place of low-expectations and obligation to the spirit of the sport, not the players or the team itself, but to keeping tradition and paying respect to the egregore of BASEBALL. On the plus side, some of the players were mildly attractive. And it inspired this little poem.

Pastime

At a baseball game, so high up
the birds seem bigger than the players,
bigger than the crowned lion mascot,
and bigger even, than my expectations,
because, you see, I didn't root, root, root,
for anyone. The Royals sucked and the
Rangers were visitors, so it was
heresy to cheer when they won, which
I think they did, though it's hard to
remember when all I see, looking back
through the heat, hazy like it is in a
too hot car, is a crowd of people all
trying not to fling themselves onto
the field, so green you could swim
in it, to cool down to the most basic
part of the experience: American History
and the obligation spun from those pages.

Family Reunion 21 and Poetry

2009-07-23T13:21:00.002-05:00

Every summer, more or less, on the Fourth of July, my extended family has a reunion at this lake house on the border of North Carolina and Virginia. It is better than any family reunion you see in movies, because it is relaxing, for the most part, and educational, if that's what you're after. Or it's just plain fun on a lake with people that rarely put the pressure of success and failure on you. If you are a poet. They don't really get it, but they don't tell you not to get it either, to your face anyway. This is key to my enjoyment.

I took notes this year for poems, little anecdotes or moments from personal histories. I'm going to compile the resulting poetry into a little book, I guess, if only because it will be fulfilling to me and maybe the few family members who ever see it. That said, I feel like posting a few of them, little vignettes of individuals, so far, here for you to read since they are what I'm writing at the moment and that's the whole point of this blog: to show you what I'm up to while unemployed. They are subject to change, yadda, yadda, you know the drill.

I should also say this, to potential family members reading their poems; these are all semi-fictional. They are more about a feeling or maybe something you don't even remember you said or did, because maybe you never actually did. I don't feel like I need to explain further, but if you do, let me know and I'll try to clarify.

Kitty

They took to the water just under a setting sun,
Kitty says, out on that bay, her first time pulling
in the gillnet, almost a mile long, or so she says,
though this may be colorful flavoring, added to
make our arms hurt, psychosomatically, under
the weight of such a mesh, full of fish and crabs
and wayward jellies, pooling on the bottom of
the skiff, flopping around her ankles in
such a pile as to make her squirm out of
her body and into the blank, euphoric
hysteria of first love.

Nicole

Having no one else to show her what
being human meant, she looked to
the cloudy eyes of Marianne and
found herself a smudged mirror,
an image in which to replicate herself,
younger, but just as clueless, in a
white dress this time, not red, a subtle
hint at her renewed morality, though
none of us took it seriously and I
cried to think just how cruel I could be
to my own flesh and blood.

Peggy

In the mountains of North Carolina, you imagine
hailing a taxi and asking, under your exhausted sigh
as you climb in, pulling a canvas tote of books
off the grassy curb, "What's it take to get a
cab around here?" Sneak a smile, a giggle,
and it builds into something uproarious,
for just a moment, then a mundane silence. Stir
your tea and contemplate the heron swooping
down the pond for bullfrogs or the coyote
thinking how much easier it is to eat backyard
pooches in Los Angeles, just off the mountain
trails. We are none of us where we belong;
we are outside of town, just peaking in at life
on the inside of something less connected.

Linda

You always cry at departure, wishing
us a safe drive home, knowing you won't
see any of us, most likely, for another year
and even then, depending, we may not be
the same people you loved, all this time,
unconditionally, with your wry smile and
your matter of fact wink, "we just got away
with murder of the linguistic kind, darling,
and they're too dumb to know it."

God

2009-06-18T13:38:00.002-05:00

"Make it so," you command, but you forget I am no genie, just the cosmic assistant to your magical genius. I am a god, yes, but so much more than that, if you really get to know me. My favorite day is Friday, favorite time, midnight. I accept all offerings, but prefer those of tobacco and sweet bread baked in the oven after a duck is roasted and served to the ghosts of your potential fathers. They eat the spirit of the bird, not the meat itself. Feed that to the neighbor dogs, the ones that seem to know your soul's number with their human-like eyes. They are my stewards in the world of man, delivering the messages you ignore on the bottom of a rotting potato or the way a snake sheds its skin. You hear it, my path for you, in the bark of a retriever, as if I alone could decide something so grand, but at least I can tell you to avoid driving to that place where death seems to follow. Stay put and gaze out the window all day, longing to make a squirrel vanish with the wave of your hand. You ask for help because I am amiable and I 'make it so' because you have respect enough to make the bread out of whole-wheat flour and the best local honey you can find.

Nostalgia

2009-06-18T13:16:00.001-05:00

There's a porch with a dozen wind chimes, all older than the car out front. Glass bobbles and bird-shaped steel, hollow aluminum tubes and fishing line, some made by a mother, others, her child, but most made in a factory, as alike as the next, but so alone thirty years down this long line, they are kitschy and unique; singular in the way humans fool themselves into being. We say we are the experiences of our pasts, and that we are special little snowflakes, one in six billion. But what we don't say is that when we're falling to our end, we all look the same to the beating hot world ready to melt us down and keep on going, undiscerning, living whether we're here or not.

I say this to you, on our own porch, no chimes, and you say, "it's an awfully grim way of looking at things." Creak back in your rocking chair and a wave of nostalgia hits me like a humid Southern vapor.

We're on the frontier, 1867, looking east. "This is not all it's cracked up to be," I say, and you tell me, "shush, we must keep our wits about us." We agree to "meet by the falls tonight," over by your claim, nearly washed up now, no gold for weeks and still we cling to the hope of fleeing to the coast. A fresh spray of sea and our bodies would sing in unison. Here we stick together in sweaty discord. Our love so strong, we peel through the heat to the dirty skin beneath only to find dreamless sleep for our weary limbs.

"Watch out for spooks," you say, but what you don't know is that they are everywhere. Every bird, every cougar, every stem on every leaf in every tree, every ripple of water is an eye they use to monitor us. Their magic is stronger than a wind chime, stronger than nostalgia. It is the power of passion and before killing us, on our love they will feed. Love of the cycle, usefulness at an end.

Creak again and I'm back on the porch. I say, "dizzy spell," but my eyes sting and there is blood from something, somewhere just beyond the veil. I tell you to look out or they will find you too. They've gotten me, those monstrous gods of Time and Space. For what makes them more angry than blissful contentment?

A Toast to All Those

2009-06-17T11:53:00.001-05:00

After the explosion of Flight 3389, who hoped
this trip would be any better? Any voyage
around the sun is rife with danger and this more
than any other since he is the pilot, the Captain
Colonel of the Everyman Space Navy, Sephalus
Johns of Sector Zero, the former Land of Florida,
now home to an island roughly the size of Mecha
Fist City on the Moon. Barely room for wandering,
but plenty for sailing, though water and space can
hardly be compared in those ways. You know the
ways they say, "all piloting is the same, despite the
medium being piloted." They are wrong. The
vacuum of space is ridiculous and even, nothing
choppy about it and no hidden reefs to combat, it's
all smooth sailing if you can avoid the solar flares.

Johns was a man of simple, but elegant tastes and
who can blame him for that? The last swordfish
ever caught by Hemingway's clone was prepared by Johns,
right on his wayfaring yacht, The Drowning Dutchman,
to the music of a Jimmy Buffet cover band. "Margaritaville,
my ass," Johns was heard to say as he pushed the
Hawaiian-shirted front man over the railing. Clones
were always his companions, whether in love or
business, he preferred them to pretenders. "The real
deal," he would say, as if cloning brings back the
spirit of the original without all the lab programming
to insure clone Hemingway prefers whiskey to cheap wine.
But like I said, Johns was simple. Simple to the fiery end,

when, in a fit of arrogance, he chose to dance with
a flare, like a lady on the southern edge islands of
Lee'zeeannuh. He took the wheel of the mighty
USS Nobody's Business and turned hard to starboard,
rocking the passengers and cutting so close that the
flare acted as a titanic solar sword, cleaving the ship
in two and seeping out all that weren't cauterized by
the Captain Colonel's daring maneuver. Communications
severed, the survivors in the few life pods were pulled into
the largest celestial body, the Sun, glowing it's ghostly
blue, like the start of an Aurora just over the tropical
zones of the Arctic. They died before they got to the
surface, if one can call that tumult of flame a surface,
and they were burned whole, like so many lives before,
when a journey to the Sun was always suicide of the
most painful and noble degree.

Before the retinas melt, the view of Earth, surrounded
by the haze of solar drunkenness is a beautiful sight.
A drink of cool, island water in the hopeless desert of blue fire
and vaporized human history. The bodies will not be found
and the stories will not be told, though speculative movies
will be made and books about fictional, doomed romances
will be written in the face of all that is true and documented.
So, raise a drink to Sephalus Johns and his daring misadventure
and remember all those that died to give you something
to think about. A fire to paint on your hut and synthetic
ashes to sift in your salty, wet hands; to feel the
death and the Hell you will soon know because the
Earth is in her final hours; the days before the Sun goes
hot and then freezes black, never to light again.

Acid Eyes

2009-06-16T13:07:00.000-05:00

When she woke,
she said something like,
"Why so dark?"
and the doctor said
something real like,
"Sweetie, listen.
You blind for life."

She screamed then,
the kind to break all glass,
but it didn't break,
it warped outward,
like wet wood;
a house bulging
under time and pressure,
set to splinter,
but it never does.

Sweetie to Blame

2009-06-16T12:31:00.000-05:00

I found a glass box on the moon.
There was nothing inside,
but the latch said to keep it shut anyway.
I flicked that latch and made to pry
the lid open, when a gang of snowy
beasts came out from every place
I'd never thought to look. They
spoke a language universal,
the sound of adults as they circle
a toddler playing with a loaded gun.

"Put it down sweetie,
just real slow-like. OK, honey-bear?"

But I didn't put it down. I opened
it before they could do that hairy,
awkward pounce they do when
the time is drawing near; when a box
is opened that contains all possible
outcomes; when everything is
turned to sentient dust. There is
no one to wander this cloud,
because every one is this cloud
and every thought is the same,

"How can we go back,
now that we've done
what we've done?"

A Glass Darkly

2009-06-16T12:19:00.000-05:00

Opening the door to a mirror universe
takes less precision than you think.
It is not the work of scientists in a cold land,
but of violent hammering on an old alarm clock,
the utter disgust with humanity and structure
that in one slam of magical intent can rip apart
what should always be sacred and whole,
separate till we end things amicably and unseen
on some other plane. In dreams, perhaps, or fits,
not flights of selfish fancy. The grass is always
greener in a world you think you only imagined.

But when you do this, when you tear apart reality
with hatred and loathing, it can't be done up right
again. You can't stitch it like a patch, with love
and affection and insincere mutterings about
how things used to not be so fragile in your day.
The world must know this isn't the only option,
that there's a choice, another side to this rotting coin,
a clean face, a green face, where people live with
nature, not on it and where give-and-take is a rule
not a threat made in the face of fear.

A spider weaves you a blanket and you tell it
a story, a dream you once had about a people
scraping the sky, trying to fight the gods they
knew deep down didn't exist. So they lived
uncomfortably amongst the stars, waiting for
this day, the day a door would open and all their
questions would be replaced with amazement
and their hatred made into a sunny lemonade
they'd never known because in this new universe
lemons are blue and the sun is green and mellow.
You never want for anything, because everything
wants for you. And time runs in a circle, so that
you can always try again what you missed the
first go-round.

But even here, in the folds of the unseen, are
mysteries that can't be divined. A thousand pages
with the same word, "destiny", written on them, and
every one sees a different end to the cosmos. Will
it end in a whimper, a bang, a raucous funeral
procession for the end of all things, only to
begin again the next day, full-on and new? The
book with a thousand pages is printed again,
for the very first time, by the man with the laser eyes
and the mind of a stormy sea. We drink our
blue lemonade, the same as you, from the top down,
take meanings from the left-over sugar at the bottom.
A swirl means hope and a smattering of grains
still clinging means the opposite of hope, fulfillment.
Joy and complete being the likes of this: an open
door to a new land with the same questions, but
different answers and a sky of fire, not trees.

Beginning

2009-06-16T11:57:00.002-05:00

I'm starting this blog because I write poetry and I'd like some place to put it. Also, so curious people can read it and be amazed or disgusted. I welcome both reactions.