Robert Burns

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
and days of auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll take a cup o' kindness yet
For auld lang syne.

We twa hae run aboot the braes
And pou'd the gowans fine;
we've wander'd mony a weary foot
Sin' auld lang syne

We two hae paidled i' the burn,
Frae mornin' sun till dine.
But seas between us braid hae roar'd
Sin' auld lang syne.

And here's a hand, my trusty friend,
And gie's a hand o' thine;
We’ll tak a right gude-willy waught
For auld lang syne.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
and days of auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne.
We'll take a cup o' kindness yet
For auld lang syne.

shh.

I should have something to say, I imagine, on this final night of the hardest ten years of my life. But I hardly want to disturb the perfect quiet with the tapping of the keyboard or a groping for words, summation, sense. I hear waves breaking off the Atlantic. I hear snow, unmoving, on the arms of the evergreens. My old dog's sighs. A motorcycle in the distance. Somewhere my grandfather shuffling cards, my father striking a match. Somewhere the words we said and our laughter echoing out into vaster space.

A day just of nothing but (a cold and) wishes for friends, near, far, found, recovered, lost. Forgiveness is thorough. Peace is palpable and life, for as long as it is, is a blessing I can only hope to be worthy of.

Blue Moon, bring peace. Set me to good and true work.
Love to All.
Goodnight, Moon.
Goodnight you miserable bastard of a decade.

christmas eve

christmas birds

mystical moose

i tried for four months to find a regular moose. how much harder to find an albino moose in the snow..?

ashes. lemons. rain.

his weight in our hands. no rush for words.
so heavy. such a surprise. feeling what is there, what is not there.
brushing her hair. the easy sweetness of it.
reminiscence. forgiveness.

finally the exact right goodbye.

To know you rest, in some part, at my home - is a gift -
as if it came in a box, as if it fell like a gentle comforting snow -
of peace. As real, as true, as you.

Being and Time. Ashes. Lemons. Rain.
Moe me ka maluhia lani. Sleep in heavenly peace Richard Jackson Smith 1944-2003.


Midnight has come. I hear music. And I keep on singing.

i miss trains.

Writing Challenge - Last DAy

For today's prompt, I want you to write a poem about something that will stick with you (or someone/something else). The poem could be about an event, a moment, a song, words said, words unsaid, etc. It should be something memorable.


The Beach at Indian Wells

We climbed up the life guard stand
She, ahead of me, fast and barefoot.
Me, looking down, judging the distance of the fall
as ever

The wood was cold and slick
the night - just night, moonless
nothing to it
nothing to remember really
We giggled (at what, always,
what?) and stretched to reach the
wet, scaffolded possible footholds.

We did seem high up, now
on the lifeguard's bench
settling in next to eachother,
facing the ink black Atlantic.

Cars that came down to the beach parking lot behind us
illuminated the waves for a second in their climb
then lights out
ocean out - black
crash and crash extending down the long,
long vanishing beach

We told eachother
as we had for decades, decades
because we couldn't not say it
again and again
couldn't not notice and be grateful still
as if it could change
how it was always easy to talk
no matter what or what about
what a miracle to just be understood
in everything what luck
to be sisters

Tell me again the story of the star-thrower.
I have forgotten.

sometimes a shy hand-holding

always she reaching out for me
when she was ready
and letting go
when that was done.

We did not look down
but out to the dark black sea
as if either of us was ready
at any moment
to dive into blackness
or to jump straight down
to save a life
-to save a life, or die trying.

2009 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 28
Posted by Robert

For today's prompt, I want you to take the phrase "Through this (blank)," replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Examples could be: "Through this door," "Through this spider," "Through this rope wrapped around this person trying to get free before the bomb stops ticking," "Through this garden," etc.


Through this prism
I look at you
and your face
breaks into its simplest planes

Your nose could be from an african mask
Your body the body of a woman
I can see you looking at me
and turning away from me in the same moment

I can see that your skin is green
You are unwell
You are breaking up

Parts of you are completely invisible now
I am left with the memory of a voice
An accent without sound

A blur of brilliant color

third late one. all caught up now.

For today's prompt, I want you to write a poem involving a shape (or multiple shapes). You can make the shape the title of your poem, or you can work the shapes into the actual poem in some way. There are two dimensional shapes, of course, like squares and circles, but don't forget some of the other shapes available out there: horseshoes, coffee cups, houses, etc. After all, some objects become so iconic that they actually are considered shapes unto themselves.


Shape

I talk about shape
the rectilinear, the curvilinear,
the iconic, the abstract and organic.
Lord knows, I think about shape.
In the end shape is simply shorthand
- the boundary of the purposeful agency
of the drifting, wide, intermittent
possible meanings of the thing.

The heart, for example, heart shape,
iconic, (red pen) can be scribbled on a card
and set the world in motion again

My body, for example,
is everything anyone could identify as me
but it's just a shape (oh that maddening shape)
I climb back into
in the morning
so you can see me
and I can say hello

though mostly i hover nearby to my body
quite near (just outside of its shape so I can return quickly
and be defined by its edges if there is a knock at the door)
I stay close to my shape, except when i leave it,
lying there, in the glow of the digital clock,
vulnerable, I leave it without a thought,
as if I'm not married to it

while I flow like water over canyons and wander into heated palaces
and make love to whomever i choose
as if I don't have to come back before morning
and look at the shape of my face in the mirror
shape that appears to be me
and try to find someplace to put the wide, dusty street
i took, alone, for my return.
My loyal shape takes me back
but is worn
just a bit
and quiet.

Every shape has a shape for meaning
because meaning itself, poor homeless and misunderstood,
has no shape.

If I gave you a heart
you might understand.

second late one - for Gary

2009 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 26
Posted by Robert

Well, now that the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade is over, I guess it's time to move on to other pressing matters, such as getting to today's prompt and poem. But first, let me thank every single person who participates in these challenges and reads the blog throughout the year. I am so thankful for you, especially those of you who go through the frustration of adding a comment 50 billion times before it takes. Today's prompt may come as no surprise, because...

For today's prompt, I want you to write a thankful poem.

Enjoying the Harvest and Tucking the Garden In

This, after
Wide, Deep Raised Beds
and From Seed to Harvest,
and A Self-Sufficient Garden
This before, of course,
Rot and Recycle

Enjoying the Harvest and Tucking the Garden In

I turn the pages because he no longer can
This book will tell me everything I need to know
How to start from seedlings even late in the year
how to nourish from the root
how to dig deeper, deeper than you'd think
was necessary.
He was going to loan the guide to me
but when he says he is giving it to me
well, yes.

His head hands from a weak neck like a huge Italian sunflower.
Musclerot. Infestation. Mulch.

What can I grow from your life?
Teach me to tend it properly,
to bring your stunning black humor
to pink and fluttering flower.

This is all we can do for each other.
Nourish the root, year round, with gratitude
with respect for inevitable transition
for all these bountiful gifts
and those things we can pull from the dirt to eat

Enjoy this with wine and laughter at least once more
before we turn the giving garden
and tuck it, properly, in.

first late one.

re we really only five days away from December? Is Thanksgiving really tomorrow morning? This week, my house has been filled with boys and noise and a lot of joy. I hope everyone's been enjoying this November PAD Chapbook Challenge. I'll post more details about what to do next on December 1. Until then, keep poeming and being thankful for the muse.

For today's prompt, I want you to write a temperature poem. Remember: Temperature can mean the heat outside, the heat of something (or someone), or even the temperament of someone.


Hot. Warm. Cold.

At this point it's all about temperature
The cold sheets that turn to smolder some time
in the middle of the night
so I peel one layer than the other then the other
and the sleeping cap must come off
(sweetest gift I ever got that makes me cry and keeps me warm)

The outside, where the leaves fall, warmer than the inside
by far. Perfect day.
The inside - I can see my breath.

In each assessment of warmth, some question of
"am I loved?"

When its warm:
I think so, sure, yes
Lucky, lucky life

Too warm:
I think I can't breathe
I think I must leave
find a new house, new country, new everything
furniture, boots, name, past.
I must go. Soon

Too cold:
I don't know if I can do this
all by myself
get warmer
here, inside,
all by myself.

Here's the last "Two for Tuesday" prompt in November:

Prompt #1: Take the phrase "Everybody says (blank)," replace the blank with a word or phrase, make that the title of the poem, and write the poem.

Prompt #2: Take the phrase "Nobody says (blank)," replace the blank with a word or phrase, make that the title of the poem, and write the poem.

..
Everybody says, "We should get together."

Well. Yes. We should get together.
A little miracle it is that each moon
passes over your head passes over my head
(not so far apart - your self, my self)
but still we say, we should get together
each pushing the leaves off our path
and shoveling into the snow of the neighbor next door
not making a path quite long enough,
not on purpose stepping up to the door and knocking
"Hello!" - we say so rarely, but still we are surprised to see,
when we finally meet somewhere by accident,
that the other is aged, just a bit.
Time has passed. When did that happen?
That shouldn't happen. We should catch that
before it happens.
We should get together.
Soon.

But because we don't. We get old.
Without each others' laughter in our ears.

So we don't, don't get old.
We should get together.


•••••• 

Nobody says, "How was it? Take your time. Tell me how it was."

No. Compress your life into little anecdotes, please.
That don't take too long.
That soon will bore me.
How safe you are in the telling.
Nothing ever has happened to you and it shows.
Oh this, this is funny, kinda.
Oh this, yeah.
Heard it.
How safe you are in the telling.
Nobody says, "Tell me everything, every possible detail you can remember.
Grade school. Walking home. To what? What kind of day? Tell me how you felt, that day, what day and when, knowing (how?) you had to leave your childhood behind, if not then, soon. Where is that person now?"

For today's prompt, I want you to write a poem filled with noise. Or, at least, it should involve noise. There's all manner of noise you could write about: traffic, celebration, panic, nature, etc. You could even write about the space between noises.



In the steam room when the steam stops
its histrionic exhaling
there is no sound
the door has vanished
peace
hot
a water drop
my inbreath
no sound
sweet minutes of nothing
as no one
nowhere.

the door sucks open
someone enters
not even a shape
just a vague darkness
that can't see me

it is polite to make a small noise
when you too are not even a shape
but a vague lightness
breathing up there in the corner
without making a sound

breathe out your drama.
make it heard.
aaaaaaaaaah.
shapeless
present.
peace.

2009 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 22
Posted by Robert

For today's prompt, write an emergency poem. Everyone has their own idea of what constitutes an emergency, so these poems could be about anything from zombie attacks to running out of ketchup.

Here's my attempt for the day:

I will die today.
That's an emergency, surely.
But what can I do?
My heart leaps in my chest.
No one knows how happy I am.

2009 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 21
Posted by Robert

We're now 3 weeks into November. Only 1 week and a couple days left. Wow!

For today's prompt, I want you to write an invention poem. The poem can actually be about an invention or an inventor, or you can make the invention the title of your poem and go from there. Every poem is an invention of its own, and I can't wait to see what everyone invents today.

The Invention of the Eye


I.

It was dark for so long
one year in the sea that was everything, everywhere
that maybe was like the sky
(no - there was not yet a sky) or like the space outside
of whatever was outside if there was an outside

a year in the sea
times a million, times a million, times and times

It wasn't even dark
There was no darkness to see
no sea to see though we were there
Blind, soft-bodied
dividing to reproduce
the blind, soft-bodied
not even invisible
nor visible
as there was no such thing as either

and it happened
it had never been before
an eye grew
it opened
and an eye - the first - saw
first to blink
first to see the sea
first to make the world visible

one supposes color,
water, the dumb, blind soft-bodied
creatures swallowed and swallowed
and so we died over and over
becoming part of a creature
a creature with an eye

or
we learned to hide
to look like exactly sand or look exactly like rock
now that sand and rock looked like they did
we learned to agress
see me, see this
i see you too
i am electric
i am blue, now that there is blue
and the tips of my undulating sides are brilliant orange
and spike with poisonous yellow
now that there is orange
now that there is brilliance
and yellow
there must be poison
and seduction
both

i move through the water with filagreed parts
with whirring motors
translucent spines and dicing scales
shells hardening

i will breathe
I will go to the edge and find at the edge
another space to move through - differently
new world
i will move two eyes across its form
find form, find more

i will change before your very eyes.
i'll grow fingers and, someday, touch your face
that i see
and see is so beautiful


II.

and now then what if insight
gains sight
the blind, soft-bodied fears
the gentle, self-dividing loves
the strange formless ways of intuition

we might grow a sense to sense it
the medium we have always been swimming in.
you know what i mean.
we just passed each other in our minds, in it.
Soon we will know where we have been
all this time
all this long, long time of trying.

For today's prompt, I want you to take the phrase "And then (blank)," replace the blank with a word or phrase, make that the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Some example titles could be: "And then Godzilla attacked Tokyo," "And then McDonald's opened a store on the moon," "And then nothing," "And then everything," "And then you probably have an even better idea for a poem title," etc.


And then they moved

It was a book I wasn't meant to look into
Not personal, exactly, but not for me.
He had shipped it from overseas and prepared it carefully
to help his client envision the pieces in her house.
Her needs were all so considered.
Even pictures of the house were there - the white walls, with artwork
carefully superimposed and a large model boat in front, illuminated,
white as a dove.

On top of each page, balancing on the thin edge
was something to describe that model below:
a chocolate above the cocoa-colored row boat,
a feather above the fast-tilted, trimmed skiff,
a shell (crushed in the shipping)
its many pieces caught for a moment in my hand as I turned the page
above the bright-white, round-keeled sailboat I was drawn to.

The craftsmanship was fantasic - in book and boat.
And then
As I looked at this one from left
it turned vaguely right and the light
reflected from somewhere streaked fast
around the wooden running boards.
As I looked at it from the right it came around
and caught a velocity of wind I didn't know could be on a page
and the port side turned peach - pearlescent,
a light, gentle, I've sailed through in the Bay.

I leaned my body at a pitch
and the page fluttered and the model boat
sailed fast off the picture plane
and I brought it back with a strong lean right
and it sailed through its image

parting the ordinary world
and passing comfortably through the living room
over the stuffed leather couch disappearing
behind the high black polished bookcase
in which another smaller boat sat docked, motionless
illuminated,
like a dove,
bright-white.

I knew I should not sign for the book even
but leave it as I found it. Deeper sunset colors took
the pages and the light clanging tap of jib lines
against the masts (a favorite sound) escaped
just as I closed the book and slipped it back in its
original wrapping: a distressed wooden box,
simple, tied with a rope, softened by time

Beautiful thing, in part and whole

I kept my head tilted for the rest of the day
believing in magic, not doubting it now,
thankful for the blessing of the talent of others.

For today's prompt, I want you to write an attachment poem. There are all kinds of
attachments you could write about: physical, emotional, digital, etc. You could even
write about your fear of attachment OR fear of no attachments OR fear of
seeming to be afraid of attachment when really you're afraid of not being
attached but you don't want other people to know that you know that...where was I?...oh
yeah, write an attachment poem. Write it now.


Attachment, yes
like a mollusk to a rock

(i was happy)

however it is we separate
we seem to

for months it is like being
without a context
without a pool filled with life
in which to simply be

For today's prompt, I want you to write a slow poem. (If you want you can re-read that sentence in your best "slow motion" voice.) I'll let you decide what a slow poem should be.


Slow poem


I went to my mother’s to take out her trash
feed walk the dog fix the computer nine o’clock and I’d been working since seven and the dog peed in eight different places running from one spot to the next
Hurry geez and orange
Not an orange but
Orange caught my eye
Muted oh perfect
Perfect single fall-like thing
Of course on time

Persimmon
Persimmon -with something, I don’t know what,
-in common with the moon

And another
High and up
More more
The tree twice the height of the house
In a rising field of muted
Night-dipped matt leaves:
Orange, orange like a path leading
Up into night and higher
A path of notes
melody

When did all this happen
This beauty?

Slowly, of course
When we weren’t looking

Some of the persimmons
We can’t even see

we interupt this writing challenge for some real cleverness

http://niemann.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/bio-diversity/?hp

day 17

As mentioned above, today is Tuesday, which means we've got a "Two for Tuesday" offering. Remember: With "Two for Tuesday" prompts, you can write to either one or both (or none, if that's how you roll). Here are the two prompts:

1. Write an explosion poem.

2. Write an implosion poem.


Implosion

You need one of two things
1) something to knock the legs out
so gravity takes its toll
or 2) pressure outside so great
the walls of the structure
collapse
inward

A.
1.) love
2.) time


Explosion

1) just the way he came in the door was enough
2) my head was gone, my body, for a moment, sense of structure - shot out a mile wide, out, hold, sweet, space filling a void, the self, in particles, settling. a rain of self, settling. Him -holding me in the shape I was to become, again.

A.
1.) pressure
2.) explosion

day 16

For today's prompt, I want you to take the phrase "Clouds (blank)," replace the blank with a word or phrase, make that the title of your poem, and write the poem. Some examples: "Clouds float," "Clouds rain," "Clouds don't exist," "Clouds block my sunshine," "Clouds are cool," etc.

Clouds gather

somewhere else
and turn black
and broil above the prarie
and bang shutters till the pins knock out
and rain so loud no one could hear any
pair of soaked and sudden lovers
cry out
the horses rearing
the tin buckets banging
and someone pulling safely into the drive
at just the right time

and here
it is almost always perfect
perfect blue
every day
perfect trees still
driveways dry and clean
no need to meet the neighbors
they're fine
their cat is fine
their car is clean
perfect life
still life
life without clouds

2009 November PAD Chapbook Challenge: Day 15

For today's prompt, I want you to write a hanging poem. There are a lot of things that can hang (some a bit more gruesome than others). You can hang clothes, pots and pans, pictures, and other inanimate objects; there's, of course, the kind of hangings that end lives; or you can even leave someone hanging (as Tammy pointed out to me). So, I'm not going to leave anyone hanging anymore today.


Rope

Because I imagine your heart
swings one way to another
(comraderie of the slackened ropes)
and your words are kinder
lighter and weightier to another
(you wouldn't hear of it)
(in each cellar a rope)
(in these, ropes that snapped taut)
(the completions - witnessed)
(you wouldn't hear of it - the taking down)
(words penned to keep -that rope-,
now slack, there, coiled)
(to keep the field birds' song - consoling)
(around the turning world)
(you don't understand)
(would not ask)(or listen)

Because you loved me
(I did) and you hurt me
(I did)
I'll hang you now
from a rope of silence

I am holding on with both hands
though others -mine- dangle there too
and my bitterness must double
to hold you all.

I am strong.
I have grown strong from all this silent weight.
Decades of it.
Don't imagine, I will ever let go.

For today's prompt, I want you to write a poem involving lines. There are several possible lines you could write about: shopping lines, pick-up lines, lines from movies or songs, lines drawn in the sand, lines that should not be crossed (physically or emotionally), and so on. If all else fails, remember: All poems consist of lines.

I tell my beginning drawing students there is no such thing as line.
(though i love line and the week before told them to draw
every kind of line they could possibly make).
This week, there is no line
A line is just a concept.
There is no such thing as a physical line
just value next to value.

the birds i love again are back
aligning on the straight length of wire that is not a line,
as it was not last year,
the starlings, their wire, their pause and direction, just deeper blues
in a field of blues
in a field, deep field, of black, expanding

This is how painters see things.
the space between the nucleus and the path (not a line) of the electron
probably a color of some kind
probably very hard to get right

the direction of gaze
not a line with beginning or end
but a field in which one can suddenly lift in a startled
movement of living.

For today's prompt, I want you to write a renewable poem. I suppose you could write about renewable energy or renewable books (from the library). But there are other ways to come at this, too. Vows are renewable, as are promises and oaths. In fact, if you think about it long enough, it's hard to think of things that aren't renewable. Now, get writing.


my hands grab fast under the wee canopy of dead mums
and i snap their heads off and fling them into the soil
that I blow clean of parched leaves
that shed from the tree
that lets go complex, built pods (of a thousand seeds)
that won't fall apart until the late, later rains,
about when the camelias .shh. unfurl
that will later fall and rest like little pools of pink or white till they brown
and disappear, brown into brown, into the path where I walk in circles
forgetting and finding love with each season,
and the clouds pull back into the sky that grows pink, then blue like
a bruise, then darker again so i climb into bed, like before and before,
and close my eyes and see worlds that should have no light
but do
and in the morning i awaken
renewed
startled to see
a cyclamen
volunteer
established and blossomed
in the driest corner of my garden.

Digital Cloud

For today's prompt, I want you to take the phrase "If only (blank)," replace the blank with a word or phrase, make that the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Example titles might be "If only we remembered our umbrellas," "If only the train came on time," or "If only, if only." The possibilities are endless.


If only we could be represented by data
("otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth").

In the news today - the digital cloud being built above London:
- on it to be projected ever-updating data and stirring images,
showing in real-time, as if we live in something else,
inquiries about the Olympics, to gauge and prove our spirit,
the ascension of the cumulative, digital being

no need for a tower of Babel
just the clouds that surround
the hub-bub that, lifted and captured,
evidenced in evidence,
will rain down as some kind of perfect truth
on the athlete below who, at his most arrived result of practice,
at the perfect peak of his gathered strengths,
focusing on the execution of one
exceptional movement of muscle and mind
still can only throw the javelin
some dumb distance
into the earth.

We will know right away how we feel about him.

For today's prompt, I want you to write a construction poem. When you think of construction, you may think of cranes and bulldozers and safety goggles, but there are many other forms of construction--both big and small (and not all are by humans).



My Home

I will be living in an abandoned, unfinished construction -
building it out, started as his
(he, who has always been the nicest)

There are no walls - just a floor
and that needs to be pulled up
or at least sanded for days but the wood planks
are thick - though warped to follow the curve of the hill
the house seems to be almost
slipping on
- is this okay?
- a curved foundation?

but the wood could be beautiful
if sanded for days
the damaged skin - exposure
and abandon - lifted as sawdust

it will be nice to be helped

palm trees have grown up through the knots in places
and play with the electrical wires overhead
a wet wind strews the platform with fronds,
soaks my skin
and slats of rain begin to make the floor shine

he will live nearby
in his own place
- also under construction -
and will check on me from time to time.

perhaps it is not too late
to build a shelter.
the foundation could be beautiful
if sanded for days
then sealed and shined and called 'a start.'

Today is Tuesday, so it's a Two for Tuesday prompt! Here are your two options:

Write a love poem.
Write an anti-love poem.


What is the difference?

Molten blade that burns at my wounds
Molten blade that shields in my wound

laughter
yours
a profile
yours
ours ours together
molten
burning one another
lancing memory thirty some years old
a door shut
shut out
the cooling weapons
cold. that fast.
friendship - dead on the floor
and love changing faces
changing faces
needing only one burning
only one
yours
ours
the same
that

oh please, again,
that burning

that one, that one,
that

yes

you
you

burn me
till i vanish




out

For today's prompt, I want you to write a slippery poem. The subject can be about something slippery (snake, soap, etc.), or the poem itself can deal with a slippery subject (I'm thinking big concepts like that have words ending in -ism might fit the definition of a slippery subject). If in doubt, just write.


I Can't Hold Onto You

I can't hold on to you: concept, lover, moment, peace, bitterness, truth, waking, sleep.

You slip through me. I can't hold onto you: punchline, storyline, travel story, money.

Whenever you are there: faces, hands, sweaters, kind eyes, you slip into street, background, bookcase, dream that slips into words dropping furnished rooms into blur all along the way.

I can't hold onto you: self, who, divinity, what.

Whenever you are there: birdsong, bridesgown, blessing, betrayal, you slip into wall, (candle out), floor, weatherfront, highway, (flat or flattening) into memory that slips, of course, better, faster, than even all the rest.

For today's prompt, I want you to take the phrase "Should (blank)," replace the blank with a word or phrase, make that the title of your poem, and write your poem. Examples could be "Should I Buy This Outfit," "Should You Leave Before I Buy This Outfit," or "Should This Outfit Be in the Title? You Don't Even Know What This Outfit Looks Like Anyway." The Clash even wrote a song to this prompt (okay, they didn't write a song to this prompt, but their song fits this prompt) called, "Should I Stay or Should I Go?"



Should You Tremble at My Door

Should you see my quiet house
and step up to my door

Should you close your vapor hand
and try to form an timid fist

Should you stand there like a child
and want to vanish further still

Do not drop your arm - transparent
but knock, as if the wind.
Or more don't knock, come in, come in.

Please don't ask permission
should you see my quiet house.

Please don't wait
to guess a judgment in my gaze
or, dear, unsure,
don't tremble at my door.

For today's prompt, I want you to pick a plant (any plant), make that the title of your poem, and write a poem. Pretty simple. (Or is it?) Most people, including myself, immediately think of plants as organic creatures, but, of course, "plants" can also be places of employment or spies or...as you can see, there's always room for breaking outside the lines.

Righteous

i will plant my feet
because you won't budge

i will not speak
because you won't speak

I will not miss you
because you won't budge
and you won't speak
and you are wrong

I will show you

I will plant myself here
I will not grow
I will not budge
I will not thrive
or bend or sing
because you

are wrong.

For today's prompt, I want you to write a poem with (or about) someone (or something) covered. A person could be covered with a blanket or blanketed with darkness. Something could be covered by water or earth or anything you can think, I guess. Or you could write a poem about how you "have it covered," I suppose.

first try: not posted: too personal. will see what happens if I just write.



Cover

little Johnny-Jump-Ups in between the grasses

tempered glass lid steamed. dropped.

bath water sea salt slipped under

book spine. its giving, forgotten.

water then skin

skin then sheet

sheet then blankets three and warming

cover me

the island where he swam to shore

Snow and Moon - the sisters

shadow on the road. fast.

water then skin

skin then sheet then blankets

dark

a brown velvet hand opens my

box of sleep or private silver sea

November Chapbook Thingy - Day 5

For today's prompt, I want you to write a growth poem. This could be psychological or emotional growth, physical growth, or however you'd like to take it. Maybe your poem is about growing hair or growing hungry or growing impatient or...


It started as a way across,
perhaps to a someone, a rich-soiled field,
an opening to sunlight or a place for the giant fire.
The intelligence to cut through. To head directly.
The weeds cleared, the way, by use, made smooth, the bigger rocks rolled away the smaller trampled flat by laden animals working widened a network spokes joining so unending a way across too fast too steep too rough too cold across to what he has and a way to take it how easily his women break and their hair their hair smells different deeper then faster faster load heave all they have how strange they are sightlines followed with wet pavement dry the lily no longer opening at the edge of view and the peaceful too all moving blur fast past the green briefer and briefer the mating sounds of smaller things unheared the rising whisper of our restlessness the music of the world and

it grows.

cement fills in between its arms and freezes into a stage for the reaching and losing of our individual desires the reaching is what matters

November Poetry Thingy - Day 4

For today's prompt, I want you to take the phrase "Maybe (blank)," replace the (blank) with a word or phrase, and write a poem using that new phrase as your title. Some example titles: "Maybe we really did need a bigger boat," "Maybe next time you'll listen to me," "Maybe never," "Maybe baby," and so on.


Maybe Him

I say, "familiar"
as he moves by in the dream
and notices me just long enough to pretend
to agree

It is a giant art walk.
It is Stephan Sagemeister.
He doesn't know I know he has 'a name'.
There is attraction but I lose him, or he me, quickly.

I break art.
I walk backwards.
Everywhere I go, I lose shoes.
One boot falls down a drain pipe
Its mate forever now without.
I go to fish it out with a high pump
that falls and one sandal after it.

All the pairs, one after another are separated.
Still, the 'familiar' man,
now a critic,
is coming towards me again.

Cinderella feigning performance art:
I climb down into the gutter
to fetch the mates.

November Chapbook Challenge - Day 3

Prompt #1: Write a positive poem. Like how great writing a poem a day through November is.
or
Prompt #2: Write a negative poem. Like how un-great technological hiccups in November are.


Appriate for my day. just can't decide how i feel.

um. okay. be positive. oh boy. easy enough in life.
harder with the pen.


The Writer

Was it Virginia Woolf? Yes, I think.
Or one of the Bronté girls, at the beginning of a movie
about one of the Bronté girls. Or "Mrs. Dalloway."
I have forgotten. The whole thing.

But the first shot stays. It was my gratitude, my privilege, my memory and luck:
the hem of a velvet dress
dragging on the ground, revealed purple by the moonlight.
The singing of crickets.
A long shot of the writer from behind staring
from the cover of night into the house, thinking .. what?,
where guests held their glasses up
illuminated from the centerpiece
from the warmed house, from the blessing
of being together.

Laughter escapes through the side door.

Perfection.
The company of air, the vision of company,
the presence of looking,
the water in the inner ear
trembled to the cricket song
- come to me -
and words in the mind forming, aiming at the hardest task:

what do you see?
what blessings are you over
and over again
given?

Don't take your eyes off your fortune.
Don't stir in the wet grass.
Rub the edge of your words together
until they sing out
and fall in time with all the rest.

Prompt - Day 2

For today’s prompt, I want you to write a poem in which you look at something from a different angle. For instance, a chef could go out to eat at a restaurant where he’s not the chef, or a short person can look at the world from the vantage point of a tall person (maybe with the help of stilts or a stool or something). The predator could become the prey. The photographer could become the photographed. And so on and so forth.



Long Island Thrift

i am inside the drawer
the left one at the top of the dresser
the wooden dresser where the girls kept their scissors and loose tiddly winks and crayons
all the games done being played
dried playdo face and messy mixing cup
and so here a spare church key, a spare car key
- essential tools for getting out
flutter-covered in construction paper with a pumpkin shape cut out
through which i see the living room ceiling
no one peeking in

i am crumpled near the back of the drawer
with back of the drawer fallen out
or taken out and it is like an elevator shaft from here down and down behind drawer and drawer
behind addresses, stamps, and addresses changed, invitations, checkers
stuck together and capless pens
behind place settings and plastic fruit,
behind writing, serious and clear
down in blackness
to the bottom where the tucked bottles rattle again
as the dresser is finally disturbed from its place
(a necklace sparkles there underneath - oh there!)
the dresser lifted (by who?) and emptied (where am I now?) and driven
somewhere else
to contain and organize
a brand new story.

cleaned.
scent of old wood.
antique.

November Poetry Writing Challenge - Day One

aargh. the site was down all day (and I was out of town all day - but still it's THEIR fault). don't know if I can do this. KB, you must CHALLENGE me to accept the challenge.

I now have ten TEN minutes.

For today’s prompt, I want you to write a poem in which you (or something) enters something new. Sound abstract? Some examples: Write a poem in which you travel somewhere new. Or try some new exercise. Or diet. Or hair stylist. Or, well, I’m think you get the idea. And remember: It doesn’t have to be about you. You could, I suppose, write a poem about an insect entering a new phase of development. Or a plant being introduced to a new environment. And so on.


At first it is like gauze over my eyes
then a sheet, something, over my face
growing thicker, stickier

Heavy, heavy the white light comes through
more and more yellow
shapes rounded, made indistinct.

wrapped close my ears now
wrapped and my name
if that is what was said
comes to me muffled
impossible to respond to
surely

i cannot push forward.
i'm enveloped, bound close.
did i make this thing?

my patience twitches
and now, worse,
with me here
pressing against me like love
with an urgency flickering like
love i have these small
and bent-back
velvet-edged
wings.

so proud!!

my darling littlest niece, Juliet... President of her class!

note to self

just a note to self. really. don't read this.
just heard an interesting tidbit on the radio: a very well-spoken toxicologist at the mic with some book i'd like to read but i failed to catch her name or the name of her book.

minor bit anyway about how stimulants make your pupils dilate and opiates make them shrink and that if a junky is telling you they are jonesing from withdrawl but their eyes are not dilated, they are lying...
the pupils don't lie. hmm.
still.
seems like it would be the precise opposite effect: that speed would shrink the amount of light you'd want to take in and opiates would welcome all the light they could get.

also. tidbit 2 - bolting naked is a 98% indicator of PCP

and the other 2%??
extreme stress at work??

what to do with notes to self?
no idea.

NOT research!

with no introduction

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMtDsRWImQc

am just touched and moved by the fortitude, sweetness, humour, courage and perseverance i've seen from some who have enormously tough challenges. ah, when human nature reveals its nobler side. impressive.

fabrication

For today's prompt, I want you to take the phrase "I think (blank)" and fill in the blank with a word or phrase. Make this the title of your poem for today. Then, write the poem


I think...metal.
When you ask me what I think. I think: metal
and I see it
first pouring, silver, molten
but i don't see into what

then i see it cold
a nail
long, thick, a flat, round head.

and I have it: all anyone wants from me:
something specific, cold, precise, useful,
with step by step directions for everything
everything you should expect and do and achieve. next.

here.
have a nail.
there's no mystery to it.
no shroud of uncertainty.
nothing beautiful if you do not
which you do not
see the blue light climb around to the top of the curve
as it turns in your fleshy fingers
which you pretend to understand.

here. build something. or stab something.
i won't tell you what to do
i won't tell you what to do if you cannot see
that if there is space
(or if there is not) there is
likely there
a wall.

why should I tell you what this nail can do
if you cannot imagine
how much a wall might mean
all the more if it is invisible
and the nails cast - poured into the mold
of the heart of the original, forgotten child.

not this big. thank goodness.

For today's prompt, I want you to write a poem about finding something that doesn't belong where it is.


When the doctor put up the xray and the clinical
light box illuminated the plastic image
I understood why I had been feeling so peculiar.

We both, doctor and I, drew closer
but that wasn't necessary because the fish
that was caught just under its head
between the bones of my rib cage was not at all
small.

Now, knowing where to feel for it,
I could feel it
press into the soft cavity below my ribs and touch, vaguely
the tail, the points and bones of the tail,
feel it jerking now and again with a frantic force.

I had sensed it before.
The head for my heart. A need. A fitful, muted pull.
I couldn't name it.
Or I did name it.
But incorectly.

The doctor said there wasn't much he could do.
That it would die soon.
That time heals all wounds.
That less and less these days, in fact,
do these beauties actually make it home.
With dams and blocks. Well, it's harder than before.
He tells me I must carry this thing for awhile more.
That it is a good idea not to give it a name
or talk to it, even a little.

The doctor's office is near the river
so I go to the river.
Sit on the river rocks.
I feel the points and the bones of the tail
above my gut and to the right poking just slightly out.
A deep twitch. A weary tug backwards in my chest.

I lie down and take the rain on my face.
Make myself, as best as I can, like a still
familiar from long ago pool
- far from the teaming sea.
a place to rest
a place to lose one's color
to let go, in time,
one's gift for miraculous leaping.

painting: needs a name, please

heehee

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osoVBtxXyfc&feature=player_embedded#

Something I Eight..

prompt: "end every line in a number: 0 - 10".
a ghastly result. but here it is anyway.

I will write this before the clock says six
tap out a phrase or two
listen to sounds: three
the plane, the air, my one
beating heart, one

It was about have past five
when he became zero
air, sound, heartbeats, two
now. space of four
hours. eight years silence or nine
or more. I will finish this long before six

quickly fading poem. not worth seven
minutes, i guess, let alone ten.

thought for the day...

"All cruel people describe themselves as paragons of frankness."
Tennessee Williams

nine minutes to write: black and gold

was in my brother's backyard with him and it was very dark. very dark. i was telling him where to look, what to look at. he said it was helpful and asked if he should look in the front part of the back garden (by the grapes and the redwoods) or the back. I said the front for as your eyes adjust to the pitch darkness you will barely see the difference between the tall redwoods and the black sky. He said he appreciated the direction and went there but said - wait! there are people there by the fence. I couldn't see them. My brother ran toward the house but i couldn't move. I was paralyzed in fear and heard them, but didn't see them, coming towards me.

I cried out to wake myself with some wee wisdom - now less potent: That I was in the utter dark in a garden I knew completely and because of my fear (my lack of vision?) I was paralyzed, alone, unable to change or save myself.

yeah. probably.

more guilty dreams then about my choosing to not go to my editing class as I'd had the chance to spend the evening with Richard (now dead) (mother's ex-boyfriend) and Erin. much, much hullabaloo. (ohhoh 2 minutes to write!) about people talking at school and what kind of lie was i going to come up with, that should be interesting (i overheard a phone call about me). i decided to say i just 'forgot' or 'i thought it was monday' both lame. all lies - lame. the evening with richard was not extraordinary, just lolling around (he had been so incredibly great to talk with in life -- always getting quickly something what mattered, diehard (literally) philosopher that he was. seemed worth it anyway to just hang out, but i was in the soup now. much about the college. rollercoasters. will leave it.

another section of the dream: opening up the American Wing somewhere in Kabul. Me wheeling out piles of clothes in a giant grocery cart. Very helpful to have the cart. Waiting by the side of the muddy, trafficky road for my sister with all my mounds of stuff. The sky opening suddenly, and though it was cloudless, huge flinty pieces of golden hail rained down.

cut.
print.
coffee.

stone and water

a stone has no chance but to sink in the water
the water no chance to stay with the stone
but to always be something else
the same
but something else
somewhere else
here but gone
lap at the bank now
dry in the lone footsteps' form
invisibly lift

someday
when the riverbed is dry
and the stone has burned long in the sun
a cloud will come and the stone
be kissed
by but something else
somewhere else
here but gone
a drop
and the stone will have no choice
but to take it
and cool
and glisten
and shine

it is on the surface of my tongue
this waiting
in the webbing of my fingers
distraction

the skin of my shoulders
is rounded with
prediction

and behind my knees the cables
seize

do not say genetics
do not say again

it is on the surface of my tongue
this lie

i have five minutes

no time, then, to write of the airplane ride - skimming above the crowds, following, at maybe sixty feet up, the curves of the beach.

i'm more interested in when i was walking with some friendly crowd and had, for some reason, knives in my hand and i said i thought it would be fun if i could juggle and i threw three of them up and then they came down in the hundreds.

but, in coming down they were plastic.
good thing.

someone else, mocking me tossed up forks, then spoons and as they each came down, in the many hundreds now, they would occasionally take on a pattern in the flux of their falling like the starlings that compress and explode into black knots and sprays of birds.

then, i saw my mother floating in the river. i tried to get her to the bank as i know she can't swim but the tide was moving suddenly faster, like currents do, and we were headed for a place that forced the water through and all the speed and pressure was gathering and compressing. as in such a situation the only option was to not fight it and try not to go under.

i think i woke then. early early.
then back to sleep and dream of Instanbul. much much there. my brother, who looked much like Osama bin Laden and/or Bobby McFerrin was giving a cello concert on the street. He was very good and I could hear him as I sat on the cement steps high up in a building near by. I was playing with a mesh screen on a window, hearing the music far below and wondering why I was not there, visibly, to support him. There was some other extensive bit carrying someone's child (not my own - 5ish. maybe from my book). The child was heavy, ever heavier but needed me. On the other side of the building was an open-air lunch place, filled with men in turbans and wide-faced staring cats. The narrative there - lost. Later I was walking through a Turkish plaza and said stupidly outloud, "I can't believe I can just walk through here with this homemade bomb." lost bits. Later - an intercom announced "Go get your stuff out of the building. It's coming down." The building looked structurally sound as I entered. I didn't know why it had to come down or why they were sending us back into it if it was going to be demolished so soon.

many lost details but these dreams were very much made of cement and water and faces in enormous realism. (i can still feel the temperature of the boys leg under my forearm).

silence is golden

would love to write, muse, notice, rant, reflect, hell - even polemicize -as is my right - (cue: red and blue baloons) but lately i'm thinking everyone should seriously just shut up for a minute. or a month. ...please... we're all so enamoured with our utterances. anything will do, as long as our mouths are moving and making words we're used to making for all the people who agree with us.

you're an american? left or right? for government? against government? for life? for death? for real?!!? against Satan? and Hitler too? goodgood!
god, we're so stupid. i can hardly bear it.

it's hard to know what to do about any of it.
• leap into the fray with adjectives ablaze and a folio of facts to be dismissed with a slap of blind faith and allegiance to not thinking, not hearing, not remembering, not synthesizing, to measuring one's righteousness by one's level of vitriol
• point out who has us by the short hairs and pretend, in the pointing, that we know how to get away from any of it.
• blog about every little whiff of a partial impression that comes our way.
why?
any of it?

oh. sorry. am i ranting in a generic useless way??
see? shut up, lala
(but thanks for asking for a posting, L.R.)
..I really don't know, though, what the point is of making a single sound at the moment..

(this sounds grim, i realize. i'm actually having a great weekend. but only because I've been toodling around in my studio not listening today the supreme ignorance of our dangerously ugly national duhbate.

Don't follow these links....
dialogue'http://www.atlargely.com/atlargely/2009/09/the-unauthorized-912-teabagger-tour-alternetmax-blumenthal.html). Humiliating to be an american sometimes.

this could explain some of it:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/09/not-racism-projection.html#more

oh yes, ANOTHER anniversary!

will bury my anniversaries in other annivesaries. this - the 505th birthday of the unveailing of this perfect naked man. -- appropriate to me now (more appropriate than another anniversary today: the pardoning of Nixon which I remember seeing on a T.V. in a totally little american roadside diner in Wyoming and feeling something I couldn't name alter in my sense of adult responsibility - failing - one of the first destabilizing sticks removed from the giant stick house) okay, so yes. this guy, who had to be moved indoors because people couldn't resist the urge to throw rocks at him, also in political crossfire (who's the big guy now, huhhuh? ) this - because we should spend a lot more time looking at naked men for our pleasure if we're all to be commodities and because true art is the only thing that could have a(n ignored) prayer of rising above the din of contentious, self-satisfied, greedy banality for me today and because i'm feeling a little rock in my hand and the goliath - everywhere.

on yet another anniversary

I carry your heart.
I carry it in my heart.

...meet me at the big trees!
I love you forever, Little.

as it should be

I cannot think today
not of the odd, cut face in the mirror
not of the branches dragging over the roof
not of the hands pressed on the screen door or little jars of paint
dried sideways

not of deer unseen on the lawn
or the church key lost in plain sight
or the pillow how it murmured
as we woke from our naps into that part of our history

I do nothing today

I cannot think
not of waking to real voices
even then
or watching together the news
a respite, no matter, from the life we were living

i hear laughter,
the first time as his ghost's,
from earlier than that,
and the clinking of glasses
in the traditional family feast.

public art

not a complete narrative here, not because it didn't exist. just don't have the time.

_____ (a different ____ than the last ____) has paper of various sizes laid down across the public sidewalk. on those papers are women, some dressed, some not who are creating painting marks by rolling and turning on the paper. I think, well, this has been done before, but still, I'm impressed to see so many participating. To get where I'm going - down the public sidewalk, I need to cross the paper. I get on my knees, drag my leg through a pool of ink, put my leg forward, bent, and make a bent mark with it. I sweep my hand in a circle and leave fading lines. I go forward in this way across to where I need to be, look back and think, "okay".

(much then about my house. the remodel. the sandblaster that removes grafitti and paint and all from 30 feet.)

later though _____ is giving a talk. he says 'I'd like you to look at the five brown flames. ...I always am. It's just how I am. And I'd like you to write whatever you feel like writing about them." I see what he means - there is a candle set in an area of the room. The soft umber light it creates, the ambience it evokes, brings back somehow perfectly the luxurious hours we used to know so often of long evenings, winding rich conversations, privileged peace. Everyone seems to be engaged, writing, appreciative, and I'm stunned that he can take people back so directly to that feeling I can barely recall for myself. But before long, bit by bit, the light gets more harsh, flourescent. There are distractions, people talking about other things, moving tables, acting stupid. The candles don't seem to evoke much anymore. The moment, and whatever I was going to write about it, has been lost in the unfocused, irreverent noise and glare.

forgive and forget

It begins to rain. I am in my garden, hiding from a thin, old man who is lurking out front. Though i am aware i am dreaming i want away from him and go to my brother's house that i know is also dreamt. I am impressed therefore that ____ (someone else) knows to find me there. It is exactly as it is in real life and I am busy gathering together lost items from a long time ago, so only my brother's things are there, as it should be. ____ comes in and though i've forgotten most of it, I see my sister there too, meeting him, assessing him, approving, clearly. I put on my winter boots and am pleased they still fit. She tells me, don't I see that he is coming forward, trying to make things better, that he's trying to get past whatever has happened? She kisses him, oblivious to all else, as if to show me how to forgive.

Vati

How long since I've written that name. Or spoken it.

I travel back today, my father's 80th birthday, to Mexico when, at 40, at his last decade mark, he went alone from Guanajato where we were staying for the summer, to Moreilia to load our blue VW bus with furniture - strapped leather benches for us to sit in and chairs with big, black brads in which we, still little, and for the forgotten autumn afterward, remembered back to mexico, the cathedrals and clouds, the donkeys and firework trees, the handmade boots and the hilarious bad back roads he taught us to always take. Not much to that story - I just remember him saying that on a birthday one should take a journey on one's own for one's family. And how he looked, turning at the corner and how I worried for him alone on his way. Then to me, oldish, like a father just is but now than I am older than that myself...oh, my, so young, really and with so little road left.

And today then. A little journey back through that long, long tunnel of time to your Birdsy. I think I'll go see you now.

How the world needs your eyes.
Even more than I do.

I am still half you though.
And right now, still nine, with the lights of Guanajato just beginning to sparkle in a deepening twighlight and my whole, beautiful life ahead of me.

Thank you.
Vati.
my Vati.
Happy Birthday to You.

reader survey

since I possibly have you both here.

zebub: can you do this?
goldi: I heard germans are really into this stuff? T? F?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_IS16SXM5U

I'm practicing right now.
I'm VERY goodoooooops AAAH! BIFF! OUCH! WAAH!

at the moment can only write in light...
greetings anyway, loyal reader(s).

end of summer

I say "Is that _____?" It is a filmmaker friend of mine, just returned from travels. He is sleeping in the water, his head well under the surface. He's fast asleep.

I see his inseparable friend floating nearby.
At least his pretty girlfriend has half her body, the top half, out on the beach. She, too is asleep.

I wade into the water above my waist and gently try to wake him, lifting his head up above the surface.

I hold him like a son, look down at him like Michaelangelo's Mary. He is alive, but draped that way.

I don't want to tell him so I say nothing but rotate to turn him around, still holding him sideways across my arms and he slowly wakes to see his friend: under water, not asleep or awake.

sleeping and so can't write a dream

first synthetic brain in ten years

Well, there we go again.
I think if I was in charge of this project the result would be something like Woody Allen's 'Instant Pudding' in "Sleeper" that expanded madly out of control until he had to beat it back into the kitchen with a broom.

--but maybe this because the model, no offense to me or the rest of my species, often feels as reliable (at least in terms of memory of its own experience) as a bowl of warm tapioca.

So -
seems it takes one laptop to simulate the impulses and connective activities of one neuron. Times a hundred billion neurons.

I guess we're getting used to knocking around terms in the billions lately.
I read recently that there could be one hundred billion trillion inhabitable planets. Chew on that, synthetic brain - you also-insignificant wirefest of brilliance unmanifest.

Maybe if they can actually get this done we will find an answer for why we don't quite seem to be a hundred-billion-laptops smart - (if one). Or why it's so hard to believe one hundred billion trillion is actually a number. Or why, when I lose my keys I seem to do it three times in a week. Or why we get lonesome sometimes, seemingly for no reason, and bravely make plans to improve, in the dark about everything, our selves, our cells, our souls, our place and space and time, our worth and and woe and wants.

Wait a minute.
Did someone say 'pudding'?

Butterscotch?
okaysure, why not?

start .... and FINISH!

well, while I sit here blogging, my loyal reader and thousands of others are nearing the finish line of the 2009 San Francisco Marathon -- an extraordinary tour of one of the most beautiful cities in the world, to be sure, but, my goodness, a statement- just by doing (the truest kind) of the best we can be - ALIVE, peaceful, driven and present in the extreme!!

Huge Congratulations and thanks for the inspiration for those of us who finish before we start, start but don't finish, don't start, don't finish. I'll endeavor to learn from your example. I feel incredibly proud!

praying for the strength and recovery of Oscar Trautman

no! not there!!

leaving my night class. two steps out the door, one little golden thread caught the late delta breeze and so, my eye. i traced the six foot thread left to where a large golden spider with a white underbelly was spinning. the web was already constructed in its major tethering lines and gridding spokes and the big ol spider, oblivious to the giant face of my wonder, was working around expeditiously, six lines in by now, every pass, stitched in, quickly and perfectly equidistantly. seven. the wind again and the web bent a bit diagonally but was sound and straightened, taut, golden against the warm, black night beyond it.

i asked two people to go around but couldn't stay all night sitting on the walkway: resident eccentric teacher.

perfect thing. perfect design. but in the perfectly wrong place:

outside of an art school where inside the simple concepts can be sometimes hard-conveyed: form follows function, the wedding/webbing of form and space, unity, harmony, repetition, the inevitable beauty of irreducible simplicity.

i'm sure by now someone has blundered through it and trailed web and spider for a spell on a sloppy backpack containing books containing some version of those ideas inside.

i suppose we likewise can't know if we are building our lives right across the pathway of inevitably obliterating forces.

we can always start again.
and surely again.
the beauty of our practiced efforts unwitnessed.
maybe we ourselves can't even appreciate the spectacular craft we are born to execute through our living.

in

heaven.

formation of memory

first image of long-term memories being formed..


there it is:
1) spoiled milk
2) your grandpa's enormous shoes
3) that kiss, then, in the wind
4) the waterfall from above
5) clipping your toenails a bit too close

birth of a protein - who knew?


say 'cheese'!

outta time to rhyme

the unexpected

" Sooo, for this week's prompt, I want you to write a poem about the unexpected. It could be something along the lines of the completely unexpected episode I recently experienced. Or it could be an unexpected act of kindness, an unexpected visitor, an unexpected gift, etc.


I held onto his long back and he lept in his length, like he might, in a perfect arc over seven stadium rows and a stunned person, or two. For that little moment, we flew.

Catharsis 101

One - Acknowlegement

The spots on my hands tell me when it is.
The books, unreturned to my shelf, tell me how I am pretending.
The numbers I don't look at, also tell a truth.
And the empty pillow. That too.

Two - Collection

I gather the little furniture.
I imbue it with meaning.
I grow smaller to fit in its world,
to rock in a chair, the size of my thumb
to shrink to the size of the story

Three - Destruction
I could freeze this codified image until it cracks.
Leave it outside until it the straight lines go soft.
Flood it down the gutter of the public street,
Break it with an ax, a hammer, a brick, but
burning is best.

Four - Composting
Around my flower, unwatered,
- water- and now ash from a tiny chair
in which I will not grow old.
The first sentence of my next story
is pushing up
green
out of the ground.
and I am listening.

Surface

For this week's prompt, I want you to write a poem that looks beneath the surface. For extra effect, you could possibly title the poem after your subject. For instance, you could title the poem "Happy Birthday" and then look at how it's not happy; or you could title the poem "Self-made Man" and describe how that might not be such a good thing.


Poetry

a whistle without wind comes down the street
a street in the past
on which we walked
best friends on the road
lit by the star-glown fields of Vermont
just walking once
laughing to trim in the edge of the woods
with our lacing

the words now a whistle without wind
down a night country road made of one letter after another
to describe a life before the turn in the road
long before and on the surface
these things
this whistle
this road
these footfalls are haunted

serious
serious
oh geez
give it a rest
as
almost always about two scuffs
of gravel (imagined)
that ache for four

what was so funny?
we laid down on the road
laughing

that the old years can whistle
without wind or whistle
down a road - now a neural pathway -
can glow
without lights, without star-glow
without opening the brain to the sun
this is good
this is happy
that the firefly
always lucky
pulses by the side of a road
tucked under a wild bluebell that does not
did never exist

every sound and non-sound.
every brush of cloth against skin
or vibration in the tiny sea of the inner ear
where we cannot stop giggling still

this, as is life,
is, in its every increment, of gratitude
and joy.
what it all has been
- from the first division of a cell
to be given a name
to be called that name by
loving
funny
others

some people miss that,
miss the whole thankful point,
looking at the surface.
worrying as they hear the words
again, crying themselves to sleep.

The Unicorn Tapestries

(just realized that the poetry asides site that i did the poetry marathon with has daily prompts. This. pick a headline and write a poem). This should be a nasty one. Here goes.




The Unicorn Tapestries: Three Youths Stamp Fawn to Death

The perspective is a bit wrong
on the fence that circles the unicorn.
The slant light from the cloisters

catches the warp and weave of the final panel
and reveals the beast contented in captivity
returned, iconic
mystical and good for us
after we'd slaughtered him
a spear through the throat
the dog licking there

preceding panels show the hunt
the men and dogs waiting as the unicorn
dips its horn
purifies the water
of poison

there

carry on

beautiful
mystical
beast

and then the dogs
the men and dogs
chase to kill
the men and dogs
chase to kill
but cannot

all arrows sharp, long,
directed, pointing at
what eludes
the kill

leap
beast
away

next
the woman,
gracious,
who - irresistible - charms
so the dog takes a bite
and the animal then kicked in the muzzle
stepped on with tunes blaring
the eyes gone wild
little sounds, little,
dampened with an untied shoe on the throat
parts going limp
soft dots of fur
naming innocence
reddening and youth
embolded snapping new bones with a two-heeled hit
their power visible from the side of the road
fuck you, mom. fuck you, teacher
and you. and you.
and whoever
and whatever
and whatever.

and the magic eyes look up to one boy
and go black.

and in this way the fawn finds himself
in a circular pen in heaven
more perfectly beautiful
this way

than that

how it would have been

his white tail
disappearing into
the broken
light of the forest.

Fog

He normally isn't one who writes, but he has written a fable. There are drawings, maps mostly, that detach from the book. An area of the map, at left, is covered over in white pencil. It is in this location, this place in the story, that the moral is revealed.

His book has been published. It is being discussed. It has changed the possibilities of story-telling. Its boldness: the fable simply repeats and repeats and repeats. That's it. The drawings, maps mostly, and the area covered in white pencil - repeat.

It goes like this from the beginning of the book to the end. The book is thick and I haven't read it. I just look at the pictures: the drawings of trees, high trees without canopies, the trunks suggested graphically just as black bars. Then the same, horizontal. A train full of white ladies and gentlemen and birds staring out the window.

The fable is about not learning, as many fables are. And taking what is not yours, as many fables are. The fable is about the world changing underfoot, about being lost, all the while having the right map in your back pocket. I don't read the fable. I don't look in my back pocket. I look at the pictures.

The pull-out map is of New England, the colonies, and on the left just green and brown, with simple images of deer and foxes and birds. I see it's a fold-out map, (I hadn't heard that) and I take it out of the book and lay it flat and large. It is an image of North America. I think this is much too complicated for a fable. A fable is simple. In case you don't get it. I heard this was simple and just repeats.

I leave the map open. I guess I will have to read the story and I open the book. It begins, "From the first minutes that you wake..." I hear something, little pops and horrible cries. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the map changing. Industrial sounds, vague and extending, escape off my table. I lean closer. The little towns on the map multiply then erase themselves with white pencil, keep their names, redraw boundaries but become the same, multiply, repeat and repeat. Animals lift off the surface of the map and are gone.

Is this where the story starts over?
With a magnifying glass I can see closer, see someone in a hotel room, staring at his shoes. Next door, one person leaves, one person stays. Both cry. And this repeats and repeats in every town I see. All at once, everywhere, the children come inside. The houses, pulse blue from the inside, repeat and repeat and repeat. Little tiny images tell them their weakness. Little tiny images repeat until they get it.

At the left, from the Pacific, white pencil draws itself over Northern California, as it has this whole time. Advancing, receding. This is where I live. Again.

I look up from the book and see it come down the street, thick and enveloping. I am covered in white. My living room is covered in white. I forget what I've learned. It is a new day. I will live it. I will live it exactly like I did yesterday. Tomorrow I will repeat.

Through the fog, I can no longer read the fable, though it is simple and repeats so I can get it.

I don't read the fable.
I just look at the pictures.

blue

per prompt

If Penguins Could Fly


If penguins flew
what would they do
above all they knew
from white to bright blue

leaving the ice
the sky might seem nice
but warmer by twice
oh, too high a price!

flying and hot
then sometimes a shot
life flying was not
worth a piss in a pot

so what there above
would our penguin dream of
- look there! a cute dove
he'd fall fast in love

but the doves are all taken
his whole future shaken
by cruel love forsaken
and now all but bakin'!

if penguins flew by
you might start to cry
cuz: no love, no lie
the penguins might die

yes, you would know better
you there in your sweater
he south would have met her
if he would have let her
live grounded and stable and colder and wetter