Poet This!

I've Always Been Crazy

2011-07-26T07:26:00.000-07:00

Muse's Journey

2011-05-17T10:50:00.003-07:00

A melancholy thing,
this distance between poets--

one sculpted from fire and raven's caw,
one a scarecrow collage
of twisted string, stones, and straw--

there they stand,
a million miles, a million lives
between them,

like a chessboard's opposing kings
waiting for another great last battle.

Old Man

2011-03-24T10:41:00.001-07:00

The Show Must Go On

2011-03-15T14:42:00.001-07:00

Crone (a birthday poem)

2011-02-24T07:34:00.001-07:00

She wakes to creaking
consonants, old and old,
but unwritten like the Tao.
Clustered clouds,
their clingling vowels
undropped, hang
like nooses over her head,
loyal to the end. The day
begins in meditation:
cream swirling into coffee--
short the clank clank clank,
spoon against the cup.
Curious orange tabby cats
conspire between her feet.
She knows a little,
remembers less, ignores
what doesn't matter
like crumbs of toast.

...to see

2011-02-16T12:05:00.003-07:00

her broken majesty...

Those days we made suffering
from frosted flakes of corn, mercy
from milk, and cracked our tongues
on long goodbyes.
You can't spell revolution.
The first lie is public service--
body, mind, and spirit isn't enough.
Coffee and cupcake warriors
still wrap dead fish in stars
and stripes. Do you remember
the warmth of rhyme? Hymns lost
in the garden? Drop your mothers
into the earth. Blood on bare wood.
Roots like worms.
It seems like
such a long
way down.
But why
do they
hate
us?
It's their world now, not ours.
There's no reason to panic.

Appropriation

2011-02-10T08:55:00.001-07:00

Prior prior poetics:
half devils,
a thousand swoons,
morning mushroom
concentration camp
conversations,
web plunder for lunch.
Oh, how we explore,
murder their fiction
and romantic notions!
I is my life. It's not abstract
where no one ever talks
ownership. But where is it?
Funny happens quickly.
This is what I'm doing.
Grab the need to be,
the center mindset,
the first place.
Be a point
for everyone to ignore.
The state of the world
is a schoolmarm emotion.
Refocus.

There is a World

2011-01-28T12:06:00.001-07:00

Contentious
and untamed,
this is my world
above the surface.

Sometimes at night
I blink and glimpse
the possibility
of nothing below.

Interconnected
and unpredictable,
fantasy and truth
collide in blankness.

I can't dwell there.

Motivated by self interest
and the law of emotion,
I bounce back and become
a million hands.

You can only lose
your innocence once.

Ready?

2011-01-13T10:56:00.003-07:00

It looks like there's another crazy year ahead.

Hide it! Hide it! Hide it!

2010-11-10T16:10:00.002-07:00

I'm Making Some Time

2010-08-04T12:20:00.003-07:00

(a found poem)

I'm making some time
from chalk dust
thick with late.
Is that a problem?
Familiar and unrestrained,
sometimes wilder, sometimes swelling twisted
from what I find fascinating, I'm cherry-picking you some style--
old-fashioned self-consciously asymmetrical distain--
distracting God, to put it mildly feminine.
Art, the war-like male,
treacherous and subject to error, is still with us,
ambiguous, loud, nagging a straight line, eating
the fruit invented between signs. Feasts please
me.
But the sentimental wastes time, little and large with vowel.
Warning: Folly uses vocabulary no less loaded, its truth free,
harder and saner than loud complaint. Go now humble,
ungoverned, indifferent,
swirling around the final movement
between tragedies spectacular, self-absorbed, and the problem
we no longer think of repeating.

Goodbye, Paul

2010-07-31T09:58:00.007-07:00

I'm not sure what to say,
nor whom to say it to.
It would be better if such news
were the work of a cruel prankster.
I'd rather be angry than mourn.

Yesterday, I was stunned and saddened by the news of the death of Paul Squires of Gingatao. He will be missed by many around the blogsphere, and I will miss finding his comments here.

Paul Squires was a light. The world is darker without him.

In the Middle of the Bible Belt

2010-07-03T15:40:00.001-07:00

The clocks were set below the surface.
There is no faith. There is no trust.
Believe nothing, child of God.
Give them stillness.

I find myself listening
when no one is watching,
and I hear the world
praise the devil.
Grave as bourbon clouds,
the ghost of neglect
swirls around us,
desolate as straw.

These crazy drunk days,
our brains explode.
Dangerous stars gaze up,
blinking assassins unmasked.

No Other Truth. No Other Love.

2010-06-29T08:56:00.000-07:00

Springing from niches,
the dead pile up
in the neighborhood
like mountains of old tomes--
brutal philosophies,
unpermitted poetry,
odd memoirs.
They guard the horizon.

There is a price to pay
for our faith and our doubt.

I hear them singing. Pulses
of light reveal a corpse in the mud--
a migrating bird--for a moment,
its every move a possibility of escape.
We live on the same earth.
White passages closing the circle,
sections burn themselves
into a steady, winking beat.

It is not too soon
for the melancholy season.

Pleasure powerful, twelve lean dead
towards a beautiful decay
and pity those who can't be miserable.
Saltwater experiments, deep all over,
buy golden anchors and uncommon calm.
Frayed ropes lead from effect
back to cause--better the suffering,
holy upon holy, mind upon mind.

The Great Not

2010-06-14T09:42:00.002-07:00

He's the great not.
His parents more than any
failed to notice who came out.
It was too new.

I am before I, he says,
writing the to be true.
It is quite today.
A very everything, he adds,
and frankly sentimental with deep.
He laughs, failing to convince them.

No, it isn't what it isn't.
I wouldn't be the judge.
New, he is today.
I'm a mysteriously immune connection.
What should I do but your desire?

Another clueless American boycotts Arizona

2010-05-05T10:13:00.004-07:00

The novelist Tayari Jones has posted a copy of her letter to organizers of a writers conference in Pima announcing her intent to boyott Arizona because of SB 1070. She writes:

That people should be legally required to show proof of citizenship is similar to the antebellum mandate that black people produce "free papers" proving themselves not to be slaves. It recalls the pass system under South Africa's Apartheid. Sadly, visiting Arizona for a conference or a vacation without fear has become an ostentatious display of privilege.

Perhaps she doesn't know that federal immigration law requires non-citizen permanent residents to carry documentation at all times. SB 1070 mirrors federal law. I can't wait to read Tayari's letter to President Obama announcing her intent to boycott DC.

Welcome to the United States.

Not quite almost not maybe yes

2010-04-25T07:53:00.008-07:00

That's the story of my life. As a stick woman.

Fractally, my dear

2010-02-28T14:29:00.002-07:00

Bucking

2010-01-15T14:29:00.001-07:00

that same power,
I like it.
Dangerous--
stealing words on every side,
shaping phrases.
No one can teach you
to move deeply,
to suffer
spontaneous and joyful,
locked away with only
your enthusiasm
and time.

Virtues

2010-01-09T13:33:00.001-07:00

Forgetting and losing
until it shows--
flock folk don't deserve
this bleak pleasure.
Tired. It's near enough
flat-out-unbearable,
mistakes you've had
around for ages.
Difficult, but dear. Dear
and intimate as you allow.

Shut the Door

2009-12-30T22:29:00.002-07:00

It's better now, our misfortune,
far better than a politics against
freedom and the poet under siege.
It's better now, our resistance
and dialectics of falling syntax,
better than the human agenda-driven
voices. Better now can we sense how
the heart is losing as if it isn't.

The lord of the clouds built
on a world of stray dogs
a mad, haunted life.
But children don't fear his art--
its magic and nameless intensity.
A child rotates sad tales,
and adults rotate old traps.
There's a keyhole they've forgotten,

and there's my story--
a mile down the wrong side
of half a memory stuck in the future.
I don't want to sing that song.
I want to dance, to drift
in brooding rectangles
where no one is waiting to be found.

Harsh Babies

2009-12-28T11:16:00.003-07:00

It surprised no one--
the hang of feeling,
the medium of passion.

In the cold, those
harsh babies--bloated,
gaudy--claimed commitment.

With the bottle, the smell
of private love, lean,
drooping too large--
chemistry liberated.

After the war,
he did not speak. Life,

its routine tidiness,
stifled the peace.
His first love, old,
bought secondhand silver.

With some guilt,
no outward hostility,
he accepted affairs.

Exhausted, his forgiveness
lay propped up. He squeezed it.
There was nothing.

Makes me smile

2009-12-25T11:47:00.003-07:00

Mary, did you know?

2009-12-24T13:34:00.002-07:00

You Fall Here

2009-12-13T12:05:00.001-07:00

You fall here soon enough.
In the middle of the night,
into the beat you labor--
draw rhythms and waves.
There's always space
for what you don't understand
to find an opening. Alone,
simple and sad, you can't go
backwards flaming bombs.

I tried

Folly

2009-12-09T13:45:00.001-07:00

Quickly
the mind cuts
passages,
framing lines
with gaps.

Loss is an effort
I could resist,
but don't.

Along the tone
I write--
strong, cold,
skeptical
come to mind.

Amazing mystery,
the naked I.
What folly the critique.

Yeha Noha

2009-11-27T16:03:00.003-07:00

a place for rubbernecked giraffes

2009-11-24T12:28:00.002-07:00

Madness is a work of art

2009-11-19T13:28:00.001-07:00

Madness is a work of art.
Fear and failure. Irritation.
Nothing becomes a voice--
a shout, a whisper, a scream.
It's a necessary waste of time.
These spaces must be filled.
I will call it music.

I'm happy. How 'bout you?

2009-11-18T14:44:00.004-07:00

My Life I Sing

2009-11-16T14:50:00.002-07:00

And more, I'm growing old.
Through it all, the odd
beauty in refusal remains.
Conviction's an awkward feast.
I haven't changed the world.
Risk sometimes is poetry.

Consolation

2009-11-10T07:12:00.002-07:00

I suspect it's only
failure you expect.
The tree line takes me
through gentle country.

I lose you in the flow.
I have nothing. No song.
The silence uneasy--
it started like that.

Negative numbers
bother me.
I used to have hands
outstretched.

Those days are gone.
Stronger this time,
identity brings back
what connects.

Fast, oh, yeah

2009-10-04T17:05:00.001-07:00

Dwight Yoakam

More CMT Music

More CMT Music Videos

Spit ghazal

2009-10-01T10:25:00.002-07:00

Look there, on your car's hood: Spit!
So? Any dumb bug could spit.

His mouth's full of cherry pits.
He wonders if he should spit.

With Mountain Dew and Cheetos,
you can create some good spit.

Do you suppose anyone
who achieved sainthood spit?

Rabbit, beef, chicken or fish--
Don't forget: Soak a wood spit.

Organized religion sucks.
They say Jesus withstood spit.

If I just knew how to hawk,
I might fly, or I would spit.

Agnes, whatever you say,
you never understood spit.

That's a voice

2009-09-27T13:45:00.001-07:00

What Happens Remains

2009-09-15T11:09:00.002-07:00

Expect a flood
of lukewarm curiosity.
Between the blurs,
in the middle of the road,
people struggle with certainty.

I caught myself
becoming
conscious,
slowly slowly.

Listen to the dead babies
sing naked annihilation.
It's your thing--horror.
Get out your metaphors.
It's time to change the world.
Curse this postmodern life--
Obama, flarf, transmigration.
You should be laughing.

Whose business is it
a few souls hustle,
juggle, straddle
blah, blah, blah,
regurgitations.
Bullshit
stretches
epiphany.

The whistle's blowing
morning
light across our legs.
Time.

Why should we care?
No other has the power.

Pinned by an absent god,
I can have it both ways.
Hot and cold exist
because I don't belong here.

Summer Storm

2009-09-07T07:22:00.001-07:00

Giddy, the wind chugs,
clatters the shutters,
then wolf-whistles wild
through the tiny crack

in the blackened pane.
Like a tornado,
white lace curtains wheel,
climb my naked flesh

to purr in my ear,
bringing strange comfort
from thick, August heat
and angry gods too.

Slow Burn

2009-08-19T13:54:00.002-07:00

Big ol' Birdy, sturdy
as an iron skillet,
wakes before the kinfolk
stir, picks through the kindling
box, and stokes the wood stove.

Aluminum bucket
and half-bushel basket
in hand, she greets the sun
and the striped snake wriggling
in the dew by the spout.

Clucking, she sprinkles corn
and plows through milling hens
to raid the coop. Sixteen
big brown eggs this morning
means custard pie tonight.

Dang Me

2009-08-10T22:40:00.005-07:00

This song has been stuck in my head for about a month now. Thought I'd share. I'm generous like that.

Well, isn't that special?

2009-08-01T18:54:00.002-07:00

Ire Lake

2009-07-31T23:41:00.001-07:00

Kindness dams
Angry
Red waters raging
Inside. Ire Lake:
Landlocked,
Escape eliminated,
Entrance denied.

In a Rut

2009-07-29T22:31:00.002-07:00

"Alfred?"

"Yes, dear?"

"If you eat that, you will get heartburn."

"Yes, dear."

"Alfred?"

"My dear?"

"Alfred?"

"Sometimes a man needs a little fire."

SIM-ply cool

2009-07-27T19:46:00.002-07:00

Haven

2009-07-24T10:30:00.004-07:00

I knew from the beginning,
fantasy and friction,
inconsistency and distortion,
horror,
and the power of fragments.

There's a scream
very like an owl,
a light behind my eyelids.

I miss my ghosts.

In this strange haven,
lonesome hysteria
makes me wonder,
and I wrestle with doubt.
I could step off--

a leaf falling unnoticed.

There Is No Voice To Find

2009-07-22T09:13:00.003-07:00

There is no voice to find.
Poets flit between long-past
and will-continue poetry.
Some poets can do "believe"
because they have a rule book:
Language Plays,
or something like that.
Surrounded by mirrors, I hear
Past and Future copulate.
Why must you work so fast?
Knowing that something
will aways be missing,
I love that folks trouble
with thinking all the time.
Desparate for wholeness, let's be
content with this moment of unity.

Come as you are!

2009-07-20T12:50:00.004-07:00

Toby Keith

More CMT Music

More CMT Music Videos

Little Sparrows

2009-07-18T14:53:00.008-07:00

"Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall
to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very
hairs of your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows." (Matthew 10:29-31)

They belong. Yes, never doubt that.
But they fear people. They crack.
I've heard it before. Art happens
without the space it takes up.
It must be better and worst--
designed
to appeal
to anyone.
Say whatever you want.
They're all out there--lost
children. It's a free culture.
The world resists resolution.
It doesn't always make sense.

Gone to Mexico

2009-07-17T16:12:00.003-07:00

Tomboy

2009-07-16T14:22:00.002-07:00

Katie's Saturday shadow
capers over the cattle-razed meadow.
With every leap and wiggle,
her yellow jumper pockets rattle
pine cones, a tiny mole's skull,
twigs, stones, and shards of blue eggshell.
At long last, she settles to rest
in a nest of black-eyed Susans by the culvert.
Grubby fingers rub grass-stained knees,
as she ponders new Nikes caked with dung
then turns to watch a solitary Jersey,
its jaw working round and round--
chew, chew, chewing its cud.
"Moo to you, Mama Cow."
Then, with sudden, wide-eyed-rabbit grace,
she scrambles to her feet, jumps the ditch,
maneuvers the barbed wire fence,
and bolts up the gravel road.

Tiny Elephants

2009-07-15T12:32:00.003-07:00

Awkward Bystander

2009-07-14T10:05:00.002-07:00

She separates herself
from a thousand rules
and waits in the margin,
unstable turf
where religion ends
and politics begins.

He's thinking of his life,
his anger, his sorrow--
the colors of annihilation,
black and white and red
smeared on canvas--
art, a product of the lost.

What's real: blood
and birth and memory
endlessly repeats itself,
rising and falling;
looping binds the edges.

She kneels before him.
It seems wrong.
She's from another world.
He doesn't believe in her gods.
Maybe I misunderstand.

What are you looking for?

2009-07-12T14:14:00.004-07:00

Nostalgia's Valley

2009-07-10T19:21:00.002-07:00

There are no lilacs--
purple-sweet after the rain,
no fields of fireflies,
no grand oaks that bend
to drink from giddy creeks.
No big old barns, painted-red,
brighten the horizon.
But, there are cats--
foul screams in the dark,
scat under the bougainvillea,
and terra cotta-tiled roofs that swarm
to devour cactus and creosote bush.
Shrouded, the distant mountains
choke on the sweat of the oasis.
There is no going back and no escape.

Silence Wails

2009-07-09T12:55:00.002-07:00

Ten minutes rest
(perchance to sleep)
is all I ask.
Mewling kitten,
tiny fists raised,
protests silence.

Calm pink, the walls
watch trembling hands
a pillow grasp
to hide red-blotched
despair. Patient
now, they steady.

Stillness. Cries cease,
but silence wails
and echoes. White,
my hands reach down
and lift you near
my aching breast.

What the hell is up with google/blogger?

2009-07-08T12:18:00.008-07:00

I pop in today. Everything looks normal. I leave, wander around the net, and when I come back my "Bright and Shiny Poets" links are missing. Damn. So I go inside settings and check, and the links are still there. Hmmm. I come back to this page and the links are up again. But NOW when I click on any of my bright and shiny poets links I find a big ugly yellow feeds box slapped on the top of their blogs. Who the hell thought that one up? Idiots. Off with their heads! I hope I'm dreaming...

::two minutes later:: It's back to normal.

Since you're here anyway, might as well have some FUN.

Rhapsody

2009-07-07T14:39:00.003-07:00

Rhapsody in shards of glass--
(Hail Mary, full of grace)
Rainbow razors
sing and sting,
spray the lady,
spay the lady
on her knees
in disgrace.
Unholy rhapsody--
flecks of foam flashdance,
scold and scream
of disaster in her craft,
of deceit in washboard dreams.
Rhapsody scrubs mud,
scrapes wads of gum from pews
where lies breed like flies.
Above the fishwife floats,
wrapped in sweet blue rhapsody,
(Hail Mary, full of grace).
She holds the holes,
owns the whole,
molds the air--
almost.
Distant rhapsody
shapes the affairs of men
(the Lord is with thee)
and the lady
afraid to remain alone.

Hurt

2009-07-05T10:58:00.003-07:00

Johnny Cash

More CMT Music

More CMT Music Videos

I don't have to have a story.

2009-07-01T12:35:00.002-07:00

It's difficult to mind the path.
Divide a monk by ten laymen
to find your ten percent.
We are the same five elements.
We are forty sleepless nights.
Feeble. Ferocious.
Brilliant. Boisterous.
Puffed up. Pious.
Ignorant. Vexatious.
Arrogant. Useless.
Liars and loons, lapdogs,
landlubbers and luminaries,
right and wrong,
we are the same.
A dozen orange lilies, eight
pearls and a chunk of coal--
we are the same, clinging;
we are the same, letting go.
Devoted to distraction,
thinking
thinking
thinking,
driven and drowning,
gasping and grasping at air, still
suffering, still minding the words:
love your enemies like yourself,
I don't have to have a story.
We are the same.

Fire and Rain

2009-06-29T15:34:00.004-07:00

Listen. James is singing
Fire and Rain. Jesus' friend
stands behind my shoulder,
utters syllables and sounds,
reflections of the unfolding.
Of course, you are welcome.
It’s not like I have a plan.

Nothin' better to do

2009-06-28T10:57:00.006-07:00

Looks just like me, doesn't he?

2009-06-27T14:55:00.004-07:00

Your result for The Which Famous Poet Are You Test...

Philip Larkin!

You scored 50 Demeanour, 59 Debauchery, 63 Traditionalism, and 55 Expression!

Cheer up, asshole. Everyone loves you, and still you treat them like shit. And still they love you! They love you all the more for it! Why is that, do you suppose? Because you're a freakin genius, that's why! You make an insult sound like love song! You spew your venom at the world and the world laps it up! From your dark, ugly little heart gushes forth a veritable geyser of gorgeous ideas and melodious language. I hate you. Let's hang out sometime. Your masterpiece is "The Less Deceived".

Take The Which Famous Poet Are You Test at HelloQuizzy

Some folks are just made for struttin'

2009-06-26T16:34:00.004-07:00

They're Coming Home

2009-06-24T12:42:00.003-07:00

Twilight silence exits.
The golden ones,
captives of the night--
they're coming home.
Once upon a time,
morning scents adorned us.
We did not fear baring all.
Now, spying from a distance,
our visions blur.
We watch mothers
share a moment of laughter
before they burn the books.
Joy of Sex. Kama Sutra.
In the midday sun,
we peer from under straw hats
to watch the neighbors
poke about their gardens.
Dancing with sunflower women,
they ignore the shadows in our eyes.
Fortune loves circles.
What bondage?
Embrace the clipped wings.
Accept the rings,
the baubles, the decorations.
Their chill shields us from the prophesy:
Like father, like son.
We give teachers our treasure and forget.
Something wicked? Delusions!
A moment of frustration? The moon!
Voices of fury intrigue us.
For peace, we give our strength to monsters.
Pour the wine. Drown the roots of persuasion.
Murder? No, only arms.
The mirror is cracked.
There are fireworks in heaven.
Congratulations. Here's your star.

Two for Tuesday

2009-06-23T10:19:00.006-07:00

Rhyme Me To Hell

2009-06-22T22:49:00.002-07:00

Adam handed back the apple,
minus three big bites.
It's got to have an edge, he said,
or it isn't post-avant.
He said it takes imagination.
The surprise comes after the turn.
There's no affect without manipulation.
He had eaten around the worm.

Is there a doctor in the house?

2009-06-22T12:44:00.003-07:00

Let me think about it

2009-06-21T12:04:00.003-07:00

I Wanna Feel Something Video

Creepin' closer to the edge

2009-06-19T15:52:00.003-07:00

Today at Stoning the Devil, Adam is talkin' creepy. Creepy/macabre is edgy. Edgy is Post-Avant. He posts as an example The Preserve by Aaron Belz. In the comments, someone questions the idea that the poem is post-avant, and Adam asks the questioner what poem he thinks has edge. Immediately I thought of Rauan Klassnik dreaming Ron Silliman. It's been a while since I read these, so I revisited. I was only slightly surprised by the elephants and birds. Heh. Okay, that's a lie. I was totally distracted. They're out to get me, I tell ya.

The devil, you say

2009-06-17T14:49:00.003-07:00

Is there an intellectual in the house? I'm not sure, but I think I may have been called a snide smart ass.

Oh, woe.

Maybe I should have lied and told Adam I loved that poem. That it's the edgiest poem I've ever read. Swear to God and hope to spit. I want to go read it fifty more times, maybe even memorize it. Or perhaps I'll just chop off my head instead. Less painful.

Silent, the Drum

2009-06-15T16:06:00.002-07:00

The drummer straddles her
belly-down across the bed.
Double-fisted fury
pounds its rhythm on her head.

Glassy-eyed, enraptured
by the song of primal beast,
he's deaf to the cacophony--
children's screams cannot compete.

Then finally, the drum,
wet and red, dares to respond.
"You're scaring the children."
With four words, this concert's done.

Poets Be

2009-06-10T08:20:00.003-07:00

"Poets, be receptive. Poets, be inventive." ~Nada Gordon

Poets be yammering at each other.
Standing tall, stretching their necks,
poets be primping in my bathroom mirror,
caressing themselves and casting
long shadows on the wall behind me.
Poets be picking breakfast out of their teeth
with paperclips and folded sticky notes.
Watching, waiting for a clue, poets be
wondering what you mean, and why,
and if you know your code is showing.
Poets be brooding, standing on the line,
ready to trade their pretty words for grit
and gristle and piles of mismatched socks.
Poets be polishing the salt lick with raw tongues,
collecting wet bits of grated flesh
in teacups, Mason jars, and empty soda cans.
Poets be ready. Company's coming.

If you're wondering...

2009-06-10T07:57:00.005-07:00

why I have this dumb look on my face, it's because Tiel Aisha Ansari is talkin' about meter over at Knocking From Inside. I have a mental block. You know it must be pretty bad when even Dr. Seuss can't fix it. Woe.

Hey! I was just thinking about that.

2009-06-04T11:09:00.005-07:00

Okay, guys. This synchronicity thing is startin' to weird me out. A while back, it was birds. Everywhere I looked, birds. (Actually, they're still there, but I've grown used to them. They don't surprise me much anymore.) Now it's the elephant. Life is but a circus. Hurry. Somebody send in the clowns! What's really funny is that the poets' site I created a few weeks back (but have yet to open) is called Poetic Jesters. It has kind of a carnival theme. Isn't that funny? Well, isn't it? Hmmm. Maybe it's just me...

By the way, has anyone really figured out what Silliman is talkin' about yet? I keep fallin' asleep.

Clowns and Poets

2009-06-03T16:14:00.006-07:00

Long-faced poets in blue
ruffs and baggy sleeves
dance the zombie shuffle
around the white elephant
lying dead in center ring.

In the rafters, bored monkeys
chatter, spit, and throw pop-
corn and jellybeans in the air.
Now and then one stops
to scratch and sniff itself.

The fat ringmaster, wearing
scarlet topcoat and tails,
straightens his greasy top hat.
His eyes a bloody whip, he
sneers then shouts: Submit!

At the theater down the road,
the magician doesn't flaunt
his pain. He keeps it hidden
behind his albino rabbit
and the curtains' dancing fringe.

Landscapes

2009-06-02T15:07:00.004-07:00

Some poems are meadows,
sweeps of sweet grassland;
contented, we graze
in frames of barbed wire.
Others are jungles,
teeming with danger;
passionate tangles
amaze and beguile.

Some poems are mountains,
heaps of grand magic;
stunning, their power
forbids us the peaks.
Others are brooklets,
void of intention;
trickles of giggles
meander, unchecked.

Some poems are oceans,
vast and uncharted;
reason eludes us
in mystery's depths.
Others are deserts,
lifeless and dismal;
parched in the wasteland,
we pray for relief.

In various shapes,
poems are created;
we gain perspective
through another's eye.
Still, I've never seen
the world in one poem
nor met a poet
who's mastered that form.

Dream Lover

2009-05-30T11:31:00.003-07:00

Last night I dreamed: an old lover
spent his passion in my mouth,
laughing as I choked on the bitter torrent.

I woke, open-mouthed and gasping,
and stumbled through the darkness
to rinse the acrid dryness from my tongue.

Then, slipping back between the sheets,
I wrapped myself around your sleeping form
and brushed my lips against your shoulder--
grateful for the cool sweetness of your skin.

Working Backwards

2009-05-29T10:17:00.005-07:00

In today's wanderings I came across a post at Rauan Klassnik's blog where he shares from his journal the grackle's effect on him. He writes:

"I am in some of my best moments this blackbird. It sings in me ruthlessly. It rules my love. Sits on my blood. And rides it hard. Swallows the stars. And smashes the moon to bits. It rolls in churches. And governments. It doesn't want to die. But it doesn't even bother to think about it."

How excellent is that? Love it. The grackle is an interesting totem. Google it.

From Rauan's blog I wandered to Reb Livingston's new blog via her old blog and found an interesting post on dreams as poetry's origin. She writes:

"People dream differently, but the psyche is communicating to your conscious part, using symbols, signs, images, metaphors, language, triggers, cues, etc. intended for YOU to hear/see/feel and understand. Your dreams aren't failing you, you're not paying close enough attention. Pay better attention, you'll get more useful dreams. Or at least they'll seem more useful because you're paying attention."

Interesting. So then I went to smoke a cigarette, and while I was standing in the back door smoking and staring at nothing, I remembered a poem I've been twiddling with this week. Here it is:

Lost

Our story gets lost
past the wheat fields,
past the pines,
past miles and miles
of dirt roads and ditches
to a creek that winds
into a cavern to merge
with the darkness
beneath our bed.

In our dreams,
where anything
is possible,
nothing happens.

There is beauty there.

Ugly Thing,

2009-05-28T08:34:00.002-07:00

yawning amidst the snarls
and whispers in the street,
why do you still wade
through the gossips?
They will be forgotten soon,
and you will remain ugly.

Shaped as Dancing

2009-05-27T12:27:00.002-07:00

Poetry dances polonaise.
Profane joy and sacred aches,
ritual wakes in a strange place.
Candle flickers close to dying.
Nothingness encircles longing.
Yellow rose in a crystal vase,
petals soft in sweet embrace,
bows to song's amazing grace.

Obama's forked tongue

2009-05-27T09:38:00.012-07:00

Guess I'll just keep annoying myself.

"None so blind as those that will not see. They have baffled their own consciences, and so they walk on in darkness." --Matthew Henry

PC idiocy says, "You can't say that. Tell us what we want to hear!"

2009-05-26T11:14:00.011-07:00

Some people are just too stupid to breathe. I really gotta quit reading this kind o' stuff. It's too annoying.

In a 4-page article at ABC News, Sarah Netter writes about a med student who was born in Africa:

Filed Monday in U.S. District Court in New Jersey, the lawsuit traces a series of events that Serodio maintains led to his 2007 suspension, starting with a March 2006 cultural exercise in a clinical skills course taught by Dr. Kathy Ann Duncan, where each student was asked to define themselves for a discussion on culture and medicine.
After Serodio labeled himself as a white African-American, another student said she was offended by his comments and that, because of his white skin, was not an African-American.
According to the lawsuit, Serodio was summoned to Duncan's office where he was instructed "never to define himself as an African-American … because it was offensive to others and to people of color for him to do so."

People suck. I'm an ignorant white trash native bitch, so I can say that. (Do I need more commas? Hyphen? Whatever.)

On a brighter note

2009-05-24T08:35:00.006-07:00

Willie Nelson More CMT Music More CMT Music Videos

Love me some Willie, I do. I could watch him 'til my eyes fall out. There's just something about him...

Will it never end?

2009-05-23T14:31:00.004-07:00

This stuff makes me crazy. No wonder I have "authority" issues. Almost makes me wanna "accidentally" bust a head, I tell ya. Perhaps I'm human. Crap.

And liberty and justice for all.

::sigh:: Maybe I need a butt rub...

Raising the dead

2009-05-23T12:20:00.003-07:00

Speaking of pages, here's an oldie.

Bad Poetry

More painful than bad poetry
is the accusing glare
of a blank white page
and the whispered taunts,
like swift razors, gone
before realization's bleeding sting.

But, I am no martyr
to suffer these bloody tears in silence.

Sacrificing poetic art,
I hold my wounds over the empty page--
a painful splatter of bad poetry
petitions the absent muse.

Go ask Alice

2009-05-21T10:36:00.003-07:00

How to Live

2009-05-19T17:27:00.003-07:00

People always ask,
but I've learned to wait.
I've even lied.

We live in a daydream,
while life runs on without us.

Who understands
where I'm stuck?

You can't reflect
a single word,
a single color,
revelation on a cloud.

Leave the page open.

I reserve the right
as long as I live.

Must Be Ghosts

2009-05-18T18:34:00.002-07:00

She was good, wasn't she?

Beyond the latest crash and bang
and pink lips' muffled howl
lies a world of the dead,
of deep sand and shabby dogs
with motes of dust for eyes.
Her skeleton rests uneasy
against a wheel of sand.
In its cage of sun-bleached
ribs, there waits a crimson bird
whose smoked-glass eyes inquire.

When were you a man?

Leave

2009-05-17T00:00:00.002-07:00

the first word,
the first minstrel show,
the last two lines
of a three-word Wednesday,
25 facts about
your first and still favorite
elephant in the room.
It doesn't have to be this way.
There are poets--
rhetoric for rhetoric's sake.
There's space.

I Gave Away

2009-05-15T23:27:00.002-07:00

I gave away my unicorn,
the clouds, the stars, the moon.
I gave away my somedays.
I gave away my soon.
I gave away my roses--
red, yellow, pink, and white.
I gave away my mornings;
I gave away the night.
I gave away my rainbows
and pretty butterflies.
I gave away my angels;
I gave away my whys.
I gave away my sunsets
and misty mountains high.
I gave away my greetings;
I gave away goodbye.

Upon a Time

2009-05-14T12:27:00.004-07:00

She nails herself to a ladder
because she can't find a cross.
Bystanders fold their hands,
then they unfold their hearts.

Poetry thinks Narrative is simplistic,
they whisper, and Nonsense doesn't
exist. We admire lifeless things.

Elsewhere, the Collective sells tickets.
Everything is nonsense, it insists,
but the signs say you have to buy
a membership card to get inside.

Inside Spring Distractions

2009-05-10T09:15:00.009-07:00

It's like I've never met
songbirds or angels.
The sun, a cup,
rises half-way
between the rains,
odorless, its shame
a warm distraction.

Feminist

2009-05-08T10:44:00.003-07:00

Feminist is another word--
Existing because it can, I guess.
Maybe it doesn't know
It smells funny. Like death.
Nobody needs it to be.
It's just a new cage.
Stink of dead women isn't better
Than the stink of dead men.

Don't do anything.

2009-05-07T13:35:00.003-07:00

The sun is about to set.
Our lodge falls above the fray.
Perfection, a sacred activity,
confines the spirit of angels.
Am I not alive?
Fools filled with dead men's
bones cry out to me.
Stretch out your hand.
There is nothing lost to us.
Mark this transition.

The Line I Think

2009-05-06T15:35:00.002-07:00

Ego me, you bastard.
Show me your willy nilly,
your bumper sticker,
your pledge of allegiance.
Show me your rituals,
your entry point,
your ifs, ands, ors.
Show me your nevers.

Becoming

2009-05-04T15:55:00.002-07:00

The process of becoming
kills itself.

Flowers of a thousand
lives flow by, melt away.

Beyond the dark
is a voice:

breathless heat
that speaks and sings

“writers who are inarticulate”

2009-05-02T10:34:00.002-07:00

It is monumental.
Nothing signals willingness in a new light.
When the old sit comfortably side by side,
literally thousands focus on the fundamental.
Nothing existed the minute poets began to think.
Born of the desire to be unmarked,
I would stand up, rich with contradictions.
Refusal is power, nothing more, nothing less.
Naming it (poetics of self) is not the new
it represents. This space without a name
notes the instant they die. Only poets
writing challenges lie outside these worlds.
Rather than become a thing, one will sit in mind
destined to fall free of all that has been written.
Thank you, Ron Silliman.

Once upon a time, Chicken Little met Porky Pig, and the walls came tumbling down

2009-05-01T07:57:00.007-07:00

Stop

2009-04-30T08:17:00.002-07:00

As long as I have your anger
enjambed, its ghost grumbles
over every line; I strain to hear
the daffodils sing. Waiting
for patience is exhausting.
What did you say?
The mud dries.
The wind rises with the sun
and blows away memories.
Our verse ends.

gettin' a little fresh air

2009-04-29T09:31:00.005-07:00

I think I just saw a tweety bird. (Warning: video contains full frontal male nudity)

There you have it, folks. Naked people are a menace to society. Stubborn naked people will be pushed around, mauled, jumped on, and tased until they submit or die.

Mining Nada Gordon's Poetics

2009-04-28T17:58:00.002-07:00

I argued
that this was the official definition of poeti:
worked-out poetry that is just of you.
Word is bi-possible, expansive and casual,
and may be to me isostatements of totality.
It's true
poetics this day, a poetics of do, a poetics
of theory about poetics. We looked for what
they kind of implied--choices, distinctions,
a better how and what in the strict.
Space implies a set of general wonder,
I argued.