This will be my last "poem a day" entry for April. It's sort of bittersweet. On the one hand, I'll be happy to leave this self-imposed challenge aside for a while. On the other hand, writing a poem a day does pique my creativity and my zest for spring. In other words, this "chore" brings on a personal rebirth of sorts. Not sure if I should let that settle down again.
My prompt for the day will be: http://poetryprompts.tumblr.com/post/142634525032/national-poetry-month-prompt (Write a love poem to your hometown.)
*
Love Poem for Pittsburgh
Dear steel city, Burgh of black soot
and rotten air, milltown of ethnic neighborhoods,
Appalachian twang, and borderline Midwest
politesse, thank you for taking me in
when I was three, for introducing me
to Elmer Street and ginkgo trees and
Mr. Rogers (my television friend),
for Liberty Elementary and Falk School,
for EJ across the street with his Big Wheel
(first fiancee) and for The Catman
with his marmalade beast
on a long stalking leash.
Thank you for cracked sidewalks, for
potholes and Negley Hill, for sledding in
Mellon Park on snow days, and for the slush
that froze our jeans as we schlepped home
in a bunch, all the neighborhood kids,
dragging the toboggan. Thank you for
Carnegie Mellon, where I learned
to be a writer and started my journey,
for Shadyside and Squirrel Hill and Oakland,
for Dave and Andy's ice cream, for your
global smorgasbord and greasy spoons,
for three green rivers and fireworks
on the Point, for art festivals
and brick houses and Mom's apartment
on Wightman -- her sanctuary.
I didn't love you in middle school
(in fact I probably hated you). It seemed
you were callous, that you wanted us
to break our adolescent hearts against
each other, and I was happy to leave you
for Mexico, but distance must make
the heart grow fonder, and so I returned
and learned to love you again
as helped me come of age.
Dear Pittsburgh, I wish you all
the best, though we'll never be together
again. Keep Mom safe. Hold my memories
in place. I'll lie, then, and call you
"home," and say I loved you best.
Saturday, April 30, 2016
Friday, April 29, 2016
29 is fine
I almost clicked "Publish" before actually writing this blog.
Ugh.
I'm going to do this one today: http://writeaboutcomma.tumblr.com/post/143496644130/write-about-what-youve-outgrown-what-you-can
Gonna make it a list poem.
*
What I've Outgrown
My pants.
Winter.
Board games (though to be honest I never liked them).
Lollipops -- these days, I prefer suckers.
Petty jealousies about so-called "talent" and other peoples' accomplishments. I have my own.
Romance novels.
Pushing the limits by talking about sex and sexuality openly.
Freud (see above).
Lacan (sticks tongue out at Lacan and makes gagging gesture
[not yet outgrown, apparently] re:
Lacanian analysis of literature.
Fear of driving.
Parties, dancing, dance parties, flirting, clubs,
dressing up for dance parties and flirting,
dressing up in general, and, yes,
too-high heels.
Nylons. Definitely nylons.
God, they're nasty little vag traps.
Gunne Sax dresses and little girly girl fashion for grown ass women. Kinder-whore apparel.
The Junior section of any store.
Ballet flats.
Stories about Dad and his boring problems which create my boring problems.
My boring problems.
Whining? Not sure about this one.
"Desire."
Daquiris.
Strawberry ice cream.
Diet Coke?
Backpacks as book bags.
Mini-skirts and plunging necklines.
Attempting to get a suntan. (I've given up impossibility.)
Culottes. Stirrup pants. Shoulder pads. Big hair. (If the 80s come back, I'm already
over them. Don't take a message.)
Maybe Halloween.
Gum drops, cotton candy, bubblegum, taffy, Now & Laters.
Swimming pools.
Bikinis, most certainly.
Girl mags like Glamour and Vogue.
Giving a shit about celebrities. In fact, I've outgrown TV.
Mistaking anxiety for infatuation; misreading loneliness for love; confusing gratitude with attraction.
The "seven year itch."
Perfection.
Random corners in my memory.
Did I mention my pants?
Ugh.
I'm going to do this one today: http://writeaboutcomma.tumblr.com/post/143496644130/write-about-what-youve-outgrown-what-you-can
Gonna make it a list poem.
*
What I've Outgrown
My pants.
Winter.
Board games (though to be honest I never liked them).
Lollipops -- these days, I prefer suckers.
Petty jealousies about so-called "talent" and other peoples' accomplishments. I have my own.
Romance novels.
Pushing the limits by talking about sex and sexuality openly.
Freud (see above).
Lacan (sticks tongue out at Lacan and makes gagging gesture
[not yet outgrown, apparently] re:
Lacanian analysis of literature.
Fear of driving.
Parties, dancing, dance parties, flirting, clubs,
dressing up for dance parties and flirting,
dressing up in general, and, yes,
too-high heels.
Nylons. Definitely nylons.
God, they're nasty little vag traps.
Gunne Sax dresses and little girly girl fashion for grown ass women. Kinder-whore apparel.
The Junior section of any store.
Ballet flats.
Stories about Dad and his boring problems which create my boring problems.
My boring problems.
Whining? Not sure about this one.
"Desire."
Daquiris.
Strawberry ice cream.
Diet Coke?
Backpacks as book bags.
Mini-skirts and plunging necklines.
Attempting to get a suntan. (I've given up impossibility.)
Culottes. Stirrup pants. Shoulder pads. Big hair. (If the 80s come back, I'm already
over them. Don't take a message.)
Maybe Halloween.
Gum drops, cotton candy, bubblegum, taffy, Now & Laters.
Swimming pools.
Bikinis, most certainly.
Girl mags like Glamour and Vogue.
Giving a shit about celebrities. In fact, I've outgrown TV.
Mistaking anxiety for infatuation; misreading loneliness for love; confusing gratitude with attraction.
The "seven year itch."
Perfection.
Random corners in my memory.
Did I mention my pants?
Thursday, April 28, 2016
28 -- Literary Awards tonight! :@
Dearest St Norbert writers and friends -- hope I get to see you come out of your various caves for tonight's celebration of our campus writers. It's always an exciting time for all. And there will be cookies. I can't emphasize enough the cookies.
Bring your friends and family. Hell, bring your enemies and expose them to a little culture.
Today's poem will be short because I'm giving myself a 15 minute time limit.
*
15 Minute Poem
Like toast, it pops out of my mind
lightly brown on top
and perhaps a bit raw
on the bottom,
and I slather butter on it
(maybe a bit of cream cheese),
chew it while sipping
lukewarm coffee
and dinking on my device.
Like my device, it's smeared
with butter fingerprints
and greasy cheek kisses.
A few crumbs cling to its case.
It's seen hard use --
fingered and flung and dumped
in purses and bags.
And it's constantly on vibrate,
which means I never hear it
on the rare occasions
when it happens to ring.
The 15 minute poem rings
when I'm in the shower
or trying to fall asleep
or dreaming about tidal waves
and zombies
or driving madly to work,
switching lanes without the blinkers,
listening to an accidental romance
(fuck these romances! give me murder!)
on the battered device.
The 15 minute poem doesn't answer
when I finally manage
to pick up --
it butt-dialed me
while it was in a museum meeting --
and I get into a major panic
when I call it back
and don't get an answer
or even the voicemail I was expecting,
thinking perhaps the poem's lying hurt
even dead
on the floor of its kitchen,
cat licking
its dull eyes,
so I call my sister and brother,
alert them,
and the fear spreads
dial after dial
until the poem blows up
with missed calls and text messages
and it runs out into the marble hall
in a panic of its own
thinking we might be lying hurt
even dead
Oh, sorry, we tell it.
We didn't mean to go supernova.
It's just that we got worried
we'd have to live without you,
we got a taste
of that terrible truth,
and we remembered
we hadn't checked in with you
for a while,
so we felt guilty and
disconnected
like the children we used to be
and we just wanted
another chance to tell you
how much we love you.
Bring your friends and family. Hell, bring your enemies and expose them to a little culture.
Today's poem will be short because I'm giving myself a 15 minute time limit.
*
15 Minute Poem
Like toast, it pops out of my mind
lightly brown on top
and perhaps a bit raw
on the bottom,
and I slather butter on it
(maybe a bit of cream cheese),
chew it while sipping
lukewarm coffee
and dinking on my device.
Like my device, it's smeared
with butter fingerprints
and greasy cheek kisses.
A few crumbs cling to its case.
It's seen hard use --
fingered and flung and dumped
in purses and bags.
And it's constantly on vibrate,
which means I never hear it
on the rare occasions
when it happens to ring.
The 15 minute poem rings
when I'm in the shower
or trying to fall asleep
or dreaming about tidal waves
and zombies
or driving madly to work,
switching lanes without the blinkers,
listening to an accidental romance
(fuck these romances! give me murder!)
on the battered device.
The 15 minute poem doesn't answer
when I finally manage
to pick up --
it butt-dialed me
while it was in a museum meeting --
and I get into a major panic
when I call it back
and don't get an answer
or even the voicemail I was expecting,
thinking perhaps the poem's lying hurt
even dead
on the floor of its kitchen,
cat licking
its dull eyes,
so I call my sister and brother,
alert them,
and the fear spreads
dial after dial
until the poem blows up
with missed calls and text messages
and it runs out into the marble hall
in a panic of its own
thinking we might be lying hurt
even dead
Oh, sorry, we tell it.
We didn't mean to go supernova.
It's just that we got worried
we'd have to live without you,
we got a taste
of that terrible truth,
and we remembered
we hadn't checked in with you
for a while,
so we felt guilty and
disconnected
like the children we used to be
and we just wanted
another chance to tell you
how much we love you.
Wednesday, April 27, 2016
27
It's sunny today! I should be outside frolicking in the sunshine, but instead I'm in my office with the lights on, ugh florescence, tapping this out.
Thankfully, I've eaten most of the dark chocolate in my desk, so it's not tempting me. (My pants are too tight.)
Today's poetry prompt: http://poetryprompts.tumblr.com/post/143381248700/you-are-not-exactly
*
You are not wise: a poem to myself
You are not wise, exactly,
but you have a somewhat pleasing way
of stating the obvious.
People come to you for advice
which you are happy to give.
After collecting advice for years,
it's a relief to give it away.
You like to imagine that you're a
good listener
but admit that it's hard
to keep still
long enough to hear
the actual words.
Lately, you've decided that you
have gained a certain perspective
that allows you to stop
giving a shit
and so think of yourself
as immune
to the tides
of anger and insult
that sweep your colleagues
into tirades
with every shift of the moon.
My friend, you are not wise.
You confuse distraction
with maturity,
age with experience.
Inside you,
even at this minute,
the old tides rise
and the black winds
begin to howl.
Thankfully, I've eaten most of the dark chocolate in my desk, so it's not tempting me. (My pants are too tight.)
Today's poetry prompt: http://poetryprompts.tumblr.com/post/143381248700/you-are-not-exactly
*
You are not wise: a poem to myself
You are not wise, exactly,
but you have a somewhat pleasing way
of stating the obvious.
People come to you for advice
which you are happy to give.
After collecting advice for years,
it's a relief to give it away.
You like to imagine that you're a
good listener
but admit that it's hard
to keep still
long enough to hear
the actual words.
Lately, you've decided that you
have gained a certain perspective
that allows you to stop
giving a shit
and so think of yourself
as immune
to the tides
of anger and insult
that sweep your colleagues
into tirades
with every shift of the moon.
My friend, you are not wise.
You confuse distraction
with maturity,
age with experience.
Inside you,
even at this minute,
the old tides rise
and the black winds
begin to howl.
Tuesday, April 26, 2016
26 is four days away from the finish line -- woot!
Another gray day. At least the trees have buds and the flowering trees (which I love as much as I love tulips for the same reasons) are popping.
Signs point to summer.
Today's prompt:
About Deadlines
On the way in
to the office today
under fragile buds
and wet skies
I talked to a philosopher
and said
we never know --
any one of us could just
drop dead
boom
then laughed
and said
wow
that's a nice way
for me to start
the day
(with truth:
we don't know
how and when
we'll go --
could be today or
tomorrow
could be
thirty years from now
a summer afternoon
at the lake
our children safe
on the other side
of some state divide
after all
life in context
is a shallow
breath
surrounded by dirt
we creep
toward singular
deadlines
every second
no matter how many
lives or stories or religions
we instigate)
Signs point to summer.
Today's prompt:
Use all of the following words in a poem: deadline, boom, children, shallow, dirt, creep, instigate. (http://www.writingforward.com/category/writing-prompts/poetry-prompts)*
About Deadlines
On the way in
to the office today
under fragile buds
and wet skies
I talked to a philosopher
and said
we never know --
any one of us could just
drop dead
boom
then laughed
and said
wow
that's a nice way
for me to start
the day
(with truth:
we don't know
how and when
we'll go --
could be today or
tomorrow
could be
thirty years from now
a summer afternoon
at the lake
our children safe
on the other side
of some state divide
after all
life in context
is a shallow
breath
surrounded by dirt
we creep
toward singular
deadlines
every second
no matter how many
lives or stories or religions
we instigate)
Monday, April 25, 2016
25 ... and I'm still alive.
It's another Monday at the Academic Ranch, where we wrangle ideas and dogies. I will not comment on the weather (because who cares?) except to note that the tulips are up and still tightly budded. I can't tell you how happy I'll be when they pop, but will confess that the joy is nearly sexual.
Today's poem prompt:
*
before practice
5:20 am
we come alone
with rolled mats
tangled thoughts
bed heads
Monday fears
light blue light
rises slowly
behind
half wrecked buildings
light poles
screaming gulls
and lie quiet
warped wood under us
warmed by
decades of feet
steam breathes on us
from black vents
soaking hot music
into our skins
our legs and arms
stretched loose
in corpse pose
palms up
and ready
to receive
chests rising
and falling in
a regular tide
soon we'll be called
to move
bend and stretch
then stand tall
raise our arms overhead
press them
to heart center
dive down
to forward fold
halfway lift
flat back
fold down again
step out to plank
press the mat away
light and strong
lower down halfway
press our chests
to the mirrors
(upward dog)
then bend back
rolling over our feet
to a deep inverted vee
(down dog)
hearts drumming
(sun salutation 1)
then again
and again
but now
it's enough
to lie still
let our souls
simmer up
mingle
like flames
in the dim room
energy leaping
and flickering
between us
to wake up
air and breath
to fill us
with each other
completely
Today's poem prompt:
For today’s prompt, write an exercise poem. The poem could be about a specific exercise, or it could just incorporate exercising into the poem. Or it could be dedicated to a piece of exercise equipment–so an ode to an elliptical machine or those hand grippers or something. Of course, not every exercise is physical; there are military exercises, mental exercises, and so on. (http://www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/2016-april-pad-challenge-day-25)Good. I want to write about yoga. Shout out to Jaci Stempski, my favorite yogi, and her most wonderful studio, Grace Yoga, on Broadway in downtown Green Bay. If it weren't for Grace Yoga, I'd be a crazy unbearable fret ball that no one (least of all myself) would be able to stand for more than five minutes.
*
before practice
5:20 am
we come alone
with rolled mats
tangled thoughts
bed heads
Monday fears
light blue light
rises slowly
behind
half wrecked buildings
light poles
screaming gulls
and lie quiet
warped wood under us
warmed by
decades of feet
steam breathes on us
from black vents
soaking hot music
into our skins
our legs and arms
stretched loose
in corpse pose
palms up
and ready
to receive
chests rising
and falling in
a regular tide
soon we'll be called
to move
bend and stretch
then stand tall
raise our arms overhead
press them
to heart center
dive down
to forward fold
halfway lift
flat back
fold down again
step out to plank
press the mat away
light and strong
lower down halfway
press our chests
to the mirrors
(upward dog)
then bend back
rolling over our feet
to a deep inverted vee
(down dog)
hearts drumming
(sun salutation 1)
then again
and again
but now
it's enough
to lie still
let our souls
simmer up
mingle
like flames
in the dim room
energy leaping
and flickering
between us
to wake up
air and breath
to fill us
with each other
completely
Sunday, April 24, 2016
24 seems mature but it's really the same old silliness
Today's weather is making me want to hunker down on the couch with a blanket and a good book, maybe curl up with the dog for a snooze.
Yesterday had me out on the bike, riding until my back/butt seized up. And then we had a little party full of friends to celebrate an impending birth (very exciting), which involved eating a lot of snacks and drinking a bit too much wine.
I began the day with yoga, which was nice, even though it was hard to get my seized muscles going and to break through the sugar haze I've created for myself. Then I treated myself to a big breakfast, a soaking bath, and now I'm clean as a whistle and listening to Prince while I tap this out. Am I recording a bunch of mundane details? You bet.
Today's prompt: http://poetryprompts.tumblr.com/ -- Write a poem without using the letter E.
Hm. This challenge seems pretty hard, seeing as this sentence alone uses a buttload of Es. This will be a short poem.
*
Zen Moment
Sitting with dog,
writing and
avoiding rain,
fists of tulips
plumping up
from dirt and sod,
husband shaking popcorn
two rooms away --
sifting thick hot oil
into gold air
to lift my gray
lamp gloom.
How can I contain
this calm, this still wait
in words?
How can I grasp
contrary thoughts --
flight and rich ground,
spring infusing
brain and body.
Unfurling,
uncurling,
world out and
out
and also
just this couch,
this warm animal,
our lungs cycling
in and out,
making us
now air,
now nothing.
Yesterday had me out on the bike, riding until my back/butt seized up. And then we had a little party full of friends to celebrate an impending birth (very exciting), which involved eating a lot of snacks and drinking a bit too much wine.
I began the day with yoga, which was nice, even though it was hard to get my seized muscles going and to break through the sugar haze I've created for myself. Then I treated myself to a big breakfast, a soaking bath, and now I'm clean as a whistle and listening to Prince while I tap this out. Am I recording a bunch of mundane details? You bet.
Today's prompt: http://poetryprompts.tumblr.com/ -- Write a poem without using the letter E.
Hm. This challenge seems pretty hard, seeing as this sentence alone uses a buttload of Es. This will be a short poem.
*
Zen Moment
Sitting with dog,
writing and
avoiding rain,
fists of tulips
plumping up
from dirt and sod,
husband shaking popcorn
two rooms away --
sifting thick hot oil
into gold air
to lift my gray
lamp gloom.
How can I contain
this calm, this still wait
in words?
How can I grasp
contrary thoughts --
flight and rich ground,
spring infusing
brain and body.
Unfurling,
uncurling,
world out and
out
and also
just this couch,
this warm animal,
our lungs cycling
in and out,
making us
now air,
now nothing.
Saturday, April 23, 2016
23: Whee!
I'm sitting in my kitchen looking out of the window. Very nice sunshine's hitting the budding maple tree and the trashy cedar, the grass is green, birds have again colonized the house Dave and Lizzie built for them years ago (they've even remodeled the opening -- making it wider), squirrels chase each other in circles, and I can hear robins commenting on the beauty of spring. Despite the presence of the ash bin for the BBQ, the back yard appears as a metaphor for renewal.
Can I confess just how much I love the spring? Spring and summer are my favorite seasons, for sure. There's something pleasingly depressing about the fall, of course, but winter is just shit. Sorry, winter lovers, but cold and I don't like each other and never will. The older I get, the more my body rejects cold.
If we chart the progress of the poem a day exercise, we're now on the downhill slide, the denouement, heading toward "resolution." Ha. I began this cycle reluctantly, begrudgingly, and am now quite glad that I gave myself over to it. Yes, my creativity (for lack of a better word) has increased. My well is filling. Though I haven't created a wealth of poems that make my chest crack with pride, I am feeling the possibility that regular writing brings. I remind myself that I need to practice what I preach -- write daily, if only to remind myself that I'm alive. And thinking.
Today's poetry prompt: Write about a poem about a superhero coming to your house and confronting you about something. Somewhere in the poem, you have to state what your superpower is. (Taken from http://www.agodon.com/uploads/2/9/4/3/2943768/writing_prompts_by_kelli_russell_agodon.pdf)
*
Who Feels the Power
Wonder Woman rings my bell
and even though I've just come out of the shower
and am wrapped in a stained and fraying towel,
hair dripping on the carpet,
hairy legs dappled with drops
that fling themselves against the petulant and circling cats,
I know, somehow,
that I've got to be present.
I unlock the door to her tall Amazonian magnificence
glowing through the storm door,
her golden belt cinched around her 16 inch waist,
her wide commanding hips in their spangled panties,
her torpedo breasts jutting out
like massive golden bullets
aimed at my heart,
and her long wild hair
snaking into the spring air
in exclamation points.
Laurie, she says,
what the hell is your problem,
arms akimbo, blocking the quantum air simmer
of her invisible jet
parked sideways across my pathetic lawn.
When you were a child, she says,
reaching forward to open my door,
stepping through and pushing me back,
into the untidy living room,
tripping me backwards over
my expensive clogs,
until I topple onto the sofa,
towel springing loose
and revealing to Wonder and the Saturday morning street
my breasts and pouchy stomach
and public nest,
when you were a child, she says,
you loved the notion of flight,
of freedom and invisibility,
you loved magic bracelets that stopped
bullets and criminals,
you loved independence,
costumes, and long nylon legs,
massive hair and boots,
the way I appeared in the nick of time
to save the day.
Now look at you.
What do you want to save?
Yourself?
Your paltry soul or its
middle class routine?
What happened to your sense
of importance,
of magic, of adventure?
What happened to your
wonder, woman?
I stand,
naked and nearly dry,
and pull the towel around my waist,
letting my breasts hang free.
The heat of her anger blends
with my shame,
with the heat of exposure,
and the twinge of muscles
pulled and stretched,
with my flat feet sticking to the floor,
and my fifty one years
and my weight on the world,
with my short gray hair
plugged into my scalp
with tentative tenacity.
Her x-ray eyes
burn my warty skin,
her righteous stance
mocks my weak knees,
her hourglass impossibility
dizzies me.
But then something cracks inside,
something opens wide inside my chest,
and I want to shout,
I want to push Wonder Woman out
to her stupid gelatin plane,
and that crack fills me with a cleansing fire
that rises up my throat and out my mouth
as words that snap and crackle
like a halo.
Listen, I say,
my importance, my flight, is invisible.
It lives in sound,
in letters, in song,
in memory and image and conversation.
It lives in my daughter,
who is magnificent.
It lives in each of her breaths.
It lives and loves in her
and in the lives of students
who touch me with their stories,
with their words.
It lives in the mingling of our breath
in a series of rooms,
in lives on paper and now
in the cloud.
It lives here -- and I tap my bare breast --
where my middle class soul
thrills to the sound of those words
and to the evocation of images
and to the rippling tide of lives
that cross and intersect with it
every day,
in poetry and story and song.
Listen, I say,
you are powerful, like Athena,
and you are certainly fierce.
I admire your passion, your sudden
intervention into suffering lives.
But you are also sad,
because solitary,
and you have no children,
real or imagined.
And then she vanishes,
invisible as her plane,
into the open door
and the waiting world.
Naked, I stand
in front of that world,
fierce and on fire,
one hundred percent aware of who I am
and fully present:
a mother,
a wife,
a writer,
a teacher,
an aging woman
who feels the wonder
that holds her here --
alive and powerful.
Can I confess just how much I love the spring? Spring and summer are my favorite seasons, for sure. There's something pleasingly depressing about the fall, of course, but winter is just shit. Sorry, winter lovers, but cold and I don't like each other and never will. The older I get, the more my body rejects cold.
If we chart the progress of the poem a day exercise, we're now on the downhill slide, the denouement, heading toward "resolution." Ha. I began this cycle reluctantly, begrudgingly, and am now quite glad that I gave myself over to it. Yes, my creativity (for lack of a better word) has increased. My well is filling. Though I haven't created a wealth of poems that make my chest crack with pride, I am feeling the possibility that regular writing brings. I remind myself that I need to practice what I preach -- write daily, if only to remind myself that I'm alive. And thinking.
Today's poetry prompt: Write about a poem about a superhero coming to your house and confronting you about something. Somewhere in the poem, you have to state what your superpower is. (Taken from http://www.agodon.com/uploads/2/9/4/3/2943768/writing_prompts_by_kelli_russell_agodon.pdf)
*
Who Feels the Power
Wonder Woman rings my bell
and even though I've just come out of the shower
and am wrapped in a stained and fraying towel,
hair dripping on the carpet,
hairy legs dappled with drops
that fling themselves against the petulant and circling cats,
I know, somehow,
that I've got to be present.
I unlock the door to her tall Amazonian magnificence
glowing through the storm door,
her golden belt cinched around her 16 inch waist,
her wide commanding hips in their spangled panties,
her torpedo breasts jutting out
like massive golden bullets
aimed at my heart,
and her long wild hair
snaking into the spring air
in exclamation points.
Laurie, she says,
what the hell is your problem,
arms akimbo, blocking the quantum air simmer
of her invisible jet
parked sideways across my pathetic lawn.
When you were a child, she says,
reaching forward to open my door,
stepping through and pushing me back,
into the untidy living room,
tripping me backwards over
my expensive clogs,
until I topple onto the sofa,
towel springing loose
and revealing to Wonder and the Saturday morning street
my breasts and pouchy stomach
and public nest,
when you were a child, she says,
you loved the notion of flight,
of freedom and invisibility,
you loved magic bracelets that stopped
bullets and criminals,
you loved independence,
costumes, and long nylon legs,
massive hair and boots,
the way I appeared in the nick of time
to save the day.
Now look at you.
What do you want to save?
Yourself?
Your paltry soul or its
middle class routine?
What happened to your sense
of importance,
of magic, of adventure?
What happened to your
wonder, woman?
I stand,
naked and nearly dry,
and pull the towel around my waist,
letting my breasts hang free.
The heat of her anger blends
with my shame,
with the heat of exposure,
and the twinge of muscles
pulled and stretched,
with my flat feet sticking to the floor,
and my fifty one years
and my weight on the world,
with my short gray hair
plugged into my scalp
with tentative tenacity.
Her x-ray eyes
burn my warty skin,
her righteous stance
mocks my weak knees,
her hourglass impossibility
dizzies me.
But then something cracks inside,
something opens wide inside my chest,
and I want to shout,
I want to push Wonder Woman out
to her stupid gelatin plane,
and that crack fills me with a cleansing fire
that rises up my throat and out my mouth
as words that snap and crackle
like a halo.
Listen, I say,
my importance, my flight, is invisible.
It lives in sound,
in letters, in song,
in memory and image and conversation.
It lives in my daughter,
who is magnificent.
It lives in each of her breaths.
It lives and loves in her
and in the lives of students
who touch me with their stories,
with their words.
It lives in the mingling of our breath
in a series of rooms,
in lives on paper and now
in the cloud.
It lives here -- and I tap my bare breast --
where my middle class soul
thrills to the sound of those words
and to the evocation of images
and to the rippling tide of lives
that cross and intersect with it
every day,
in poetry and story and song.
Listen, I say,
you are powerful, like Athena,
and you are certainly fierce.
I admire your passion, your sudden
intervention into suffering lives.
But you are also sad,
because solitary,
and you have no children,
real or imagined.
And then she vanishes,
invisible as her plane,
into the open door
and the waiting world.
Naked, I stand
in front of that world,
fierce and on fire,
one hundred percent aware of who I am
and fully present:
a mother,
a wife,
a writer,
a teacher,
an aging woman
who feels the wonder
that holds her here --
alive and powerful.
Friday, April 22, 2016
22 and mourning Prince (and David Bowie)
This is a bad year for losing significant musical influences and comforts. I loved Prince from the moment I saw him strutting around a stage in a little cave man costume singing "I Wanna Be Your Lover" and David Bowie was always inspirational. Both of these musicians were instrumental (see what I did there?) to me in college, when I really "came into my own" (what the hell does that really mean), found myself, started writing the real writing, etcetera. When I ended up teaching aerobics (yes, that really happened), I used Prince's DMSR as my anthem. I can remember coming home and putting that album on my stereo, turning it up, and jumping up and down in my bedroom. It was a way to purge myself of some of the anxiety that seemed to teem in my blood.
So today I'm going to again assign myself a poem prompt: write something about the musicians who saved me from myself.
*
Soundtrack
Those were tumultuous times.
In every college classroom, I wondered
who I would become
on the other side,
what might happen in 1987, when I'd be
set loose upon the world and expected
to survive.
How would I support myself? How would I
be able to stand it,
alone with myself in a world that seemed indifferent
to my inchoate desires, to my
small voice and smaller
furies and frustrations, joys and sorrows.
And who would love me
if I couldn't even
love myself?
Thank god, then, for David Bowie and Prince,
for The Clash and Elvis Costello,
Tom Petty, Neal Young, Randy Newman,
Lou Reed and the Talking Heads.
Praise Jesus for Janis Ian, Crosby, Stills and Nash,
Van Morrison, Steve Winwood and Madonna,
for Paul Simon, Chopin, Haydn, and the Violent Femmes,
for Steely Dan and Jonathan Edwards.
They told me to put on my red shoes and dance the blues,
offered to be my lover (the only one to make me come --
running) and told me my aim was true when I
burned down the houses that raised me.
They told me to teach the children I thought
I'd never have with the sound of silence,
even though I was helpless,
and reminded me that rednecks didn't know their ass
from a hole in the ground.
They stoned me to my soul, touched me
like a virgin, said I didn't have to live like a refugee,
(though I still felt like one),
told the sunshine to go away, thrilled me
with liquid, golden sadness, melancholy blood
that shot through my veins, that
lifted and soothed me, held me fast
in a dark ocean of sound and sense,
or pumped me from place to place,
or settled me into dreams at last then
helped me to claw my way back up
again.
Their voices, eternal, echo now,
decades later,
as the soundtrack to my beginning,
the start of my journey,
evoking the moments (vivid because of them)
that formed me into poetry and story,
into love and teaching and talking and writing,
and that always brought me back
into this flawed and beautiful body
aware of the pulsing breathing world all around it,
as it pressed like light and air against its
wonderful skin.
So today I'm going to again assign myself a poem prompt: write something about the musicians who saved me from myself.
*
Soundtrack
Those were tumultuous times.
In every college classroom, I wondered
who I would become
on the other side,
what might happen in 1987, when I'd be
set loose upon the world and expected
to survive.
How would I support myself? How would I
be able to stand it,
alone with myself in a world that seemed indifferent
to my inchoate desires, to my
small voice and smaller
furies and frustrations, joys and sorrows.
And who would love me
if I couldn't even
love myself?
Thank god, then, for David Bowie and Prince,
for The Clash and Elvis Costello,
Tom Petty, Neal Young, Randy Newman,
Lou Reed and the Talking Heads.
Praise Jesus for Janis Ian, Crosby, Stills and Nash,
Van Morrison, Steve Winwood and Madonna,
for Paul Simon, Chopin, Haydn, and the Violent Femmes,
for Steely Dan and Jonathan Edwards.
They told me to put on my red shoes and dance the blues,
offered to be my lover (the only one to make me come --
running) and told me my aim was true when I
burned down the houses that raised me.
They told me to teach the children I thought
I'd never have with the sound of silence,
even though I was helpless,
and reminded me that rednecks didn't know their ass
from a hole in the ground.
They stoned me to my soul, touched me
like a virgin, said I didn't have to live like a refugee,
(though I still felt like one),
told the sunshine to go away, thrilled me
with liquid, golden sadness, melancholy blood
that shot through my veins, that
lifted and soothed me, held me fast
in a dark ocean of sound and sense,
or pumped me from place to place,
or settled me into dreams at last then
helped me to claw my way back up
again.
Their voices, eternal, echo now,
decades later,
as the soundtrack to my beginning,
the start of my journey,
evoking the moments (vivid because of them)
that formed me into poetry and story,
into love and teaching and talking and writing,
and that always brought me back
into this flawed and beautiful body
aware of the pulsing breathing world all around it,
as it pressed like light and air against its
wonderful skin.
Thursday, April 21, 2016
21 and completely legal
It's getting harder to remember this poem date every day, and yet it's getting easier to write the poems once I light here.
What's up with that?
It's gray outside but the temperature is fine. Why do we always ask about the weather? When Dad was alive, on the infrequent times we'd speak over the phone, he'd always tell me what the Pittsburgh weather was like and then ask me about Wisconsin's. And weather segues to health. It all goes downhill from there.
Today's prompt I'm making up. Use these words in a poem: quilt, whine, bell.
*
Quilting
Grandma Schorr made quilts from old fabric that smelled
of mothballs, and stuffed each square with dry-cleaning plastic,
sewing the pieces together by hand, until she'd made a thick
heavy cover like a massive God hand to lie over you
in your hot Louisiana bed. It was a rented bed, the top bunk,
in a rented room in a rented house, filled with other peoples'
furniture. One night you woke to the white light of lightening
rocking the rented dresser pulls into stinging vibration and
you thought perhaps you might die. Your mother told you
not to whine but you couldn't help it -- you were nine,
and the girls at your public school giggled and whispered
behind their hands at the fact that you were wearing pants,
weird Yankee, and you were failing math, and your language arts
teacher despised your "written expression," probably
because your handwriting was ugly and your spelling creative,
and your penchant for fantastic imagery and magic came across
as uppity. Or maybe it was the cross-eyed Jesus you drew
for one of your stories. That was a lonely year. When the doorbell
rang, you knew it wasn't for you. And down the street behind
a thick wall, the splash and scream of the country club kids
rose up like the faint song of an invisible tribe.
What's up with that?
It's gray outside but the temperature is fine. Why do we always ask about the weather? When Dad was alive, on the infrequent times we'd speak over the phone, he'd always tell me what the Pittsburgh weather was like and then ask me about Wisconsin's. And weather segues to health. It all goes downhill from there.
Today's prompt I'm making up. Use these words in a poem: quilt, whine, bell.
*
Quilting
Grandma Schorr made quilts from old fabric that smelled
of mothballs, and stuffed each square with dry-cleaning plastic,
sewing the pieces together by hand, until she'd made a thick
heavy cover like a massive God hand to lie over you
in your hot Louisiana bed. It was a rented bed, the top bunk,
in a rented room in a rented house, filled with other peoples'
furniture. One night you woke to the white light of lightening
rocking the rented dresser pulls into stinging vibration and
you thought perhaps you might die. Your mother told you
not to whine but you couldn't help it -- you were nine,
and the girls at your public school giggled and whispered
behind their hands at the fact that you were wearing pants,
weird Yankee, and you were failing math, and your language arts
teacher despised your "written expression," probably
because your handwriting was ugly and your spelling creative,
and your penchant for fantastic imagery and magic came across
as uppity. Or maybe it was the cross-eyed Jesus you drew
for one of your stories. That was a lonely year. When the doorbell
rang, you knew it wasn't for you. And down the street behind
a thick wall, the splash and scream of the country club kids
rose up like the faint song of an invisible tribe.
Wednesday, April 20, 2016
Twenty and I be tired
It's been a long day.
I'm back now, at home, uploading this thing that I wrote on my phone.
I did revise the poem a little, but not a lot.
bell hooks is an experience (see below) that I have yet to fully process. She raises in me a swirling series of conflicting emotions and reactions (I write this in a spirit of radical openness) -- some of those feelings are positive and some are negative. I'm left thinking that I need to further understand what she means when she says the word "love."
Parker Palmer was sweet and loving and just the kind of dad I wish I had.
Anyway, here it is:
I'm back now, at home, uploading this thing that I wrote on my phone.
I did revise the poem a little, but not a lot.
bell hooks is an experience (see below) that I have yet to fully process. She raises in me a swirling series of conflicting emotions and reactions (I write this in a spirit of radical openness) -- some of those feelings are positive and some are negative. I'm left thinking that I need to further understand what she means when she says the word "love."
Parker Palmer was sweet and loving and just the kind of dad I wish I had.
Anyway, here it is:
So I'm in the Walter Theater on campus, it's about 6:30 pm, and the energy in here is already rising in anticipation of the upcoming conversation between bell hooks and Parker Palmer--
I'm tapping this out on my phone. Apparently we can't blog on our phones yet. Google: get on that.
I remembered out in the hallway that I had yet to write a poem for today. That's because I've been tied up all day at Lawrence University with a management training seminar (taking it, folks, even though I only manage one eminently manageable person who actually manages me). It's good to be a student again because I suffer all the interest, boredom and resentment of any student in a general education course she's not sure is entirely relevant to her.
Instead of writing to a prompt today, I'm going to write a poem for/about bell hooks.
*
being bell hooks
to be sharp
to be chiseled down to what's essential
to wake with the Buddha and Parker
to say I don't care what they think of me
and mean it
to be sassy and talk about sex
on stage when I'm over sixty
to inhabit my body and skin unapologetically
to flirt with whoever I want
and call it flirting
to say no
unapologetically
and mean it
to travel with ideas and words
to point out injustice
to say white patriarchal capitalist misogynist machine
and mean some of the sea of faces
facing me
to speak of love
with some impatience and frustration
rubbing it into my knees
to call my father a patriarchal terrorist
to tell my stories
of a terrifying childhood
without saying sorry
to live alone and like it
to teach with love and fire
and a stern goddess stare
out over a sea of young hungry faces
who sometimes need a short answer
to be the woman
who gives it
Tuesday, April 19, 2016
19 and no pithy rejoinder to it
So many of us are unfurling into this new warmer weather. True, today's taken a step backward. It's rainy and gray, and colder. The day has an edge that pulls us back, like a tide, toward winter.
But the trees are budding, and the flowering trees are unfolding their blossoms. Can I tell you just how tulip trees make me catch my breath? I almost want to clap my hands together when I see them, and squeal up on my toes, like a little girl again.
Sometimes I see people in tall rubber boots wandering campus through the puddles and I want a pair of my own, and I want to go puddle stomping and mud rumping (for lack of a real verb I have just made one up). I want my boots to be red or green and have little pigs or whales on them. Does this mean that I'm immature? (But I AM immature. That's a given.)
I've been trying to walk around the building more to keep my blood flowing. All this sitting is making me tight and grumpy. My back's always just a twinge away from a real spasm. So I've been getting up and wandering through the 4th and 3rd floors. Next I'll head outside and down to the Campus Center and the river. I hope the campus dog, Abbey, is out and about when I do that. I love to see her black lab energy as she bounds after her balls, ignoring us.
Yes, spring has surely sprung, despite this regression today. I know it's here because it's getting harder and harder to get you young writers to turn your shit in. I'm going to have to show you that spring is a grand motivator, rather than a colossal procrastinator.
(I just heard Abbey barking!)
Today's poetry prompt I'm taking from Robert Wallace and Michelle Bouisseau, Writing Poems 5th edition, at random:
*
Purple Passion
It's not that I need the nail polish.
Truth be told, I haven't any nails left.
I bite them, nibble them down
to the bloody quick.
In fact, I should really slip this
expensive lotion into my bag,
while the makeup register bitch
with the chapped lips
looks down at her accounting slips.
Purple passion --
that's the ticket.
A deft flick of the off-wrist
and the smooth jar's
in my palm like a cool
promise, like a secret
tucked behind my smiling lips.
Makeup bitch looks up
as I pat the passion
into my purse pocket.
She probably knows my game
but they don't pay her enough
to give a shit.
Is that it? She slides
the expensive lotion
across the electric eye.
Have a nice day, I say,
taking my change and
swinging the plastic bag
against my hip.
I'll walk to the apartment
in the humid rush hour
along busy streets
of single-minded cars,
and kids on bikes,
and dogs dragging their leashes,
and a few tired mothers
pushing dusty strollers
with fussing babies,
all the time purple passion
hidden inside its pleather pocket,
waiting to paint me wild.
But the trees are budding, and the flowering trees are unfolding their blossoms. Can I tell you just how tulip trees make me catch my breath? I almost want to clap my hands together when I see them, and squeal up on my toes, like a little girl again.
Sometimes I see people in tall rubber boots wandering campus through the puddles and I want a pair of my own, and I want to go puddle stomping and mud rumping (for lack of a real verb I have just made one up). I want my boots to be red or green and have little pigs or whales on them. Does this mean that I'm immature? (But I AM immature. That's a given.)
I've been trying to walk around the building more to keep my blood flowing. All this sitting is making me tight and grumpy. My back's always just a twinge away from a real spasm. So I've been getting up and wandering through the 4th and 3rd floors. Next I'll head outside and down to the Campus Center and the river. I hope the campus dog, Abbey, is out and about when I do that. I love to see her black lab energy as she bounds after her balls, ignoring us.
Yes, spring has surely sprung, despite this regression today. I know it's here because it's getting harder and harder to get you young writers to turn your shit in. I'm going to have to show you that spring is a grand motivator, rather than a colossal procrastinator.
(I just heard Abbey barking!)
Today's poetry prompt I'm taking from Robert Wallace and Michelle Bouisseau, Writing Poems 5th edition, at random:
(p. 184) 1. Try writing a poem using one of the following as a speaker: a turtle turned on its back by kids; a major league outfielder who fears he'll be traded; a surgical nurse on the late shift; Marie Antoinette's wig maker; one of your ancestors; a dandelion; a shoplifter. What might you need to know or find out, or invent, in order to make the poem convincing and interesting? Or imagine another speaker who in some way will help you explore some part of yourself.If I knew I'd have to explore some part of myself I wouldn't have opened this document. :P
*
Purple Passion
It's not that I need the nail polish.
Truth be told, I haven't any nails left.
I bite them, nibble them down
to the bloody quick.
In fact, I should really slip this
expensive lotion into my bag,
while the makeup register bitch
with the chapped lips
looks down at her accounting slips.
Purple passion --
that's the ticket.
A deft flick of the off-wrist
and the smooth jar's
in my palm like a cool
promise, like a secret
tucked behind my smiling lips.
Makeup bitch looks up
as I pat the passion
into my purse pocket.
She probably knows my game
but they don't pay her enough
to give a shit.
Is that it? She slides
the expensive lotion
across the electric eye.
Have a nice day, I say,
taking my change and
swinging the plastic bag
against my hip.
I'll walk to the apartment
in the humid rush hour
along busy streets
of single-minded cars,
and kids on bikes,
and dogs dragging their leashes,
and a few tired mothers
pushing dusty strollers
with fussing babies,
all the time purple passion
hidden inside its pleather pocket,
waiting to paint me wild.
Monday, April 18, 2016
Eighteen is when I left home
Today is sunny and fine, with a promise from the weather powers that be that it will get to 78 degrees. Wow. I might spontaneously combust.
I'm using this prompt today:
As I kid I loved fairy tales. We had a series of excerpted children's (classical?) literature at home, which included snippets of the off-brand Wizard of Oz and fairy tales from Anderson and Grimm. We spent a semester in California with my grandparents when I was 10, and they also had some volumes of Grimm's and Anderson's work. That's where I discovered the true bloody nature of fairy tales and my liking for them, if anything, increased. Perhaps they spoke to that rebellious, angry part of me that didn't have a good way to express itself. Perhaps I liked the way that girls in the stories who were "mistreated" by life and parents through no fault of their own somehow came into the happy discovery of their worth and power.
But now I'm way past that part of my life. I have a voice. I have only one parent left, and she's amazing. In fact, I'm able to see how important my mother has been to me -- she's always been an allay, a listening ear, a caring guide, willing to share her successes and failures with me, a constant source of love and acceptance. As an angry little girl, I couldn't focus on her positive presence. I couldn't put my father's anger and disappointment and insecurity into perspective -- now I can.
So instead of writing from the perspective of Gretel or Cinderella, as I would have 30 years ago, I'm going to write from the point of view of the stepmother.
*
Mirror Mirror on the Wall
Who's the fairest of them all? Ah, that's the eternal question.
You show me my smooth skin sagging a bit below my chin,
like crepe filled with the breath of years, and I know that soon
the King's eyes will wander, and gather light as they find
his fresh daughter wearing his dead wife's face (And where
did that beautiful woman go? Why has no one but I
asked that important question? Did the King's attentions begin,
with each compelling spring, to wander with his feet?
And did he, as I do, try to keep his power as he began to lose
his youth? Did he, as I will soon, make bloody commands?)
I know my face is my fortune, I know my body is my prize. I know
my beauty keeps me (now, just now) safe. And Snow White's innocence,
her sweet smiles and fond attentions, her singing in the yard,
her love for animals and housemaids and cooks and father,
are all nails in my eventual coffin. I who replaced the dead Queen
will be replaced. My face, though beautiful, will never equal
that fresh, unthinking face. Her fairness, her grace, is my fall.
Say what you will, mirror, I know the answer you hide
in enchanted silver. I know the colds winds that are coming.
Late at night I lie in my empty bed and hear your voice
beating in my body: alas, alas, alas. And though I know I cannot
kill the time or avoid the black day when I am laid (like the Queen)
in my grave, I will (if I can) murder the memory of that destiny and
consume (as you do) its very heart.
I'm using this prompt today:
9) Write a poem from the perspective of a character in a fairy tale.I got it from this site: http://www.creative-writing-now.com/creative-writing-prompts.html and I apologize in advance if you visit the site on your own because evil pop up ads appear on it.
As I kid I loved fairy tales. We had a series of excerpted children's (classical?) literature at home, which included snippets of the off-brand Wizard of Oz and fairy tales from Anderson and Grimm. We spent a semester in California with my grandparents when I was 10, and they also had some volumes of Grimm's and Anderson's work. That's where I discovered the true bloody nature of fairy tales and my liking for them, if anything, increased. Perhaps they spoke to that rebellious, angry part of me that didn't have a good way to express itself. Perhaps I liked the way that girls in the stories who were "mistreated" by life and parents through no fault of their own somehow came into the happy discovery of their worth and power.
But now I'm way past that part of my life. I have a voice. I have only one parent left, and she's amazing. In fact, I'm able to see how important my mother has been to me -- she's always been an allay, a listening ear, a caring guide, willing to share her successes and failures with me, a constant source of love and acceptance. As an angry little girl, I couldn't focus on her positive presence. I couldn't put my father's anger and disappointment and insecurity into perspective -- now I can.
So instead of writing from the perspective of Gretel or Cinderella, as I would have 30 years ago, I'm going to write from the point of view of the stepmother.
*
Mirror Mirror on the Wall
Who's the fairest of them all? Ah, that's the eternal question.
You show me my smooth skin sagging a bit below my chin,
like crepe filled with the breath of years, and I know that soon
the King's eyes will wander, and gather light as they find
his fresh daughter wearing his dead wife's face (And where
did that beautiful woman go? Why has no one but I
asked that important question? Did the King's attentions begin,
with each compelling spring, to wander with his feet?
And did he, as I do, try to keep his power as he began to lose
his youth? Did he, as I will soon, make bloody commands?)
I know my face is my fortune, I know my body is my prize. I know
my beauty keeps me (now, just now) safe. And Snow White's innocence,
her sweet smiles and fond attentions, her singing in the yard,
her love for animals and housemaids and cooks and father,
are all nails in my eventual coffin. I who replaced the dead Queen
will be replaced. My face, though beautiful, will never equal
that fresh, unthinking face. Her fairness, her grace, is my fall.
Say what you will, mirror, I know the answer you hide
in enchanted silver. I know the colds winds that are coming.
Late at night I lie in my empty bed and hear your voice
beating in my body: alas, alas, alas. And though I know I cannot
kill the time or avoid the black day when I am laid (like the Queen)
in my grave, I will (if I can) murder the memory of that destiny and
consume (as you do) its very heart.
Sunday, April 17, 2016
Seventeen was a banner year
The juice wasn't flowing well in the house when I first started this. I mean, I could see the wireless icon seemingly at full strength but nothing was happening when I tried to load things up. I got that color wheel of death, endlessly, and a "still working" message from Google. So I went down into the basement and turned everything off and on again.
While I was down there, I discovered a bunch of laundry that needed to be loaded into the machine, a set of stinky litter boxes (they're clean but smelly...), and the general disarray that happens when you actually live in a place. That disarray can get me down (clutter = mental distress) and it can also, if I think about it in the right way (think about it in the right way, Laurie!) kind of lift me up. I'm part of something that has lots of moveable parts, and that wraps me up in a good kind of chaos -- a thing that includes a husband, three animals, a grown up kid who's far away at the moment but still fully present as a force here, myself, piles of clothing and possessions and dust and tracked in dirt and now, thank the lord, warm skies and open windows.
I'm going to Poetry Prompts again because I can and because once everything booted up again it was already open. Here's the assignment:
Back in a minute.
Okay, I listened to the first video/clip to come up, "When I was a Kid," and it was pretty inspirational. Here's a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOIGFMbgDUw. Now, I don't have a back up band, and I'm not very good at innate rhythm or rhyming off the cuff, so I'm not sure how this is going to work. What follows will be my lame attempt with very little revision (I want to go out and ride my bike).
*
Bike Ride
"I want to ride my bicycle/ I want to ride my bike/ I want to ride my bicycle/ I want to ride it where I like" -- Queen
Do you remember your first bike? I do --
banana seat in shiny white vinyl with rose pattern
and Y shaped handlebars with streamers, and the hours
after hours in the drive learning to ride, up and down,
up and down, falling to the ground, scraping my knees,
but still free and determined, then up and down the block,
the air in my hair, that feeling of flying, getting further and further
from the house where chores wait and little sisters and baby brothers
and dinner tables with stern frowning fathers home from unimaginable
offices stacked up and up into a sooty cathedral of learning
where other frowning fathers shuffle papers and clear their throats
and think of ways to make you clean your room between
beers and martinis and late night cocktail parties full of
shrieking women and fuck yelling men. I remember that bike
and also how it was stolen from the garage where I put it
parked against the left wall where it was supposed to go,
spirited out at lunch time while I suffered over math problems
and handwriting and the boring stories of Dick and Jane and
Spot, trapped in short sentences with three letter verbs: Run
Dick Run, so I ran home with a friend, the bike waiting for me
in my mind like the wind I could create as I flew on it
around the block, and there it wasn't, the blank spot in the garage
like a punch to the stomach, and Mom, Mom, where is it,
and she thought I'd left it out in the drive or in the back yard
but of course it was no where, it was in some thief's back yard,
chopped into parts, and I never got it back, though the cops said
my name on the handle grips, scripted in fat ugly ball point pen
helped them catch the criminals but by then my bike was all
over town, reassembled, and it wasn't until Mike, another father
but not as frowning because still a student put a blue bike
together from a pile of scraps, a blue bike with a fat seat
and fat pipes and dull fat tires but oh so fast and smooth
the way it tore down Elmer Street and then right onto Maryland Ave,
right again on Holden, up the pitted potholes and round the odd rocks
to the smooth repaved slide of College where the buses chugged
past and the wind tickled the sweat on my scalp and I lifted
my hands off the handlebars and held them out to the sides
perfectly balanced and flying, free from the house where naps
clogged the atmosphere with frustrated dreams and fish tanks
waited for the frowning father to arrive again and snap open
his wordy magazines in the forbidden living room, and the old
blank spot of the lost bike faded into garage dust while the blue
bike no one would want to steal hid its dependable speed and
fluid love under its clodhopper skin the same way my doughy
little girl body and knock knees and squinty eyes and nerd
apologies hid the flame of my eventual rebellions and the smoke
of my naughty girl thoughts from the prying eyes of the dirty old
men on the corner and the trapped wives and the mean boys
with rubber bands and paper clips and the frowning fathers
preparing a lifetime of disaster and shame in the papers they
shuffled and corrected and filed and never wrote, having forgotten
how good it feels to get on a bike and fly.
While I was down there, I discovered a bunch of laundry that needed to be loaded into the machine, a set of stinky litter boxes (they're clean but smelly...), and the general disarray that happens when you actually live in a place. That disarray can get me down (clutter = mental distress) and it can also, if I think about it in the right way (think about it in the right way, Laurie!) kind of lift me up. I'm part of something that has lots of moveable parts, and that wraps me up in a good kind of chaos -- a thing that includes a husband, three animals, a grown up kid who's far away at the moment but still fully present as a force here, myself, piles of clothing and possessions and dust and tracked in dirt and now, thank the lord, warm skies and open windows.
I'm going to Poetry Prompts again because I can and because once everything booted up again it was already open. Here's the assignment:
Write a Slam poem. It can be about anything. If you need inspiration, check out Shane Koyczan and Button Poetry on Youtube.
or
Use the words; Infrequent, Undulate, Overbearing, Out-matchedHm. I'm not sure what a slam poem should really do (I like Taylor Mali's work) so I'll first have to take this advice and check out Shame Koyczan and Button Poetry.
Back in a minute.
Okay, I listened to the first video/clip to come up, "When I was a Kid," and it was pretty inspirational. Here's a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOIGFMbgDUw. Now, I don't have a back up band, and I'm not very good at innate rhythm or rhyming off the cuff, so I'm not sure how this is going to work. What follows will be my lame attempt with very little revision (I want to go out and ride my bike).
*
Bike Ride
"I want to ride my bicycle/ I want to ride my bike/ I want to ride my bicycle/ I want to ride it where I like" -- Queen
Do you remember your first bike? I do --
banana seat in shiny white vinyl with rose pattern
and Y shaped handlebars with streamers, and the hours
after hours in the drive learning to ride, up and down,
up and down, falling to the ground, scraping my knees,
but still free and determined, then up and down the block,
the air in my hair, that feeling of flying, getting further and further
from the house where chores wait and little sisters and baby brothers
and dinner tables with stern frowning fathers home from unimaginable
offices stacked up and up into a sooty cathedral of learning
where other frowning fathers shuffle papers and clear their throats
and think of ways to make you clean your room between
beers and martinis and late night cocktail parties full of
shrieking women and fuck yelling men. I remember that bike
and also how it was stolen from the garage where I put it
parked against the left wall where it was supposed to go,
spirited out at lunch time while I suffered over math problems
and handwriting and the boring stories of Dick and Jane and
Spot, trapped in short sentences with three letter verbs: Run
Dick Run, so I ran home with a friend, the bike waiting for me
in my mind like the wind I could create as I flew on it
around the block, and there it wasn't, the blank spot in the garage
like a punch to the stomach, and Mom, Mom, where is it,
and she thought I'd left it out in the drive or in the back yard
but of course it was no where, it was in some thief's back yard,
chopped into parts, and I never got it back, though the cops said
my name on the handle grips, scripted in fat ugly ball point pen
helped them catch the criminals but by then my bike was all
over town, reassembled, and it wasn't until Mike, another father
but not as frowning because still a student put a blue bike
together from a pile of scraps, a blue bike with a fat seat
and fat pipes and dull fat tires but oh so fast and smooth
the way it tore down Elmer Street and then right onto Maryland Ave,
right again on Holden, up the pitted potholes and round the odd rocks
to the smooth repaved slide of College where the buses chugged
past and the wind tickled the sweat on my scalp and I lifted
my hands off the handlebars and held them out to the sides
perfectly balanced and flying, free from the house where naps
clogged the atmosphere with frustrated dreams and fish tanks
waited for the frowning father to arrive again and snap open
his wordy magazines in the forbidden living room, and the old
blank spot of the lost bike faded into garage dust while the blue
bike no one would want to steal hid its dependable speed and
fluid love under its clodhopper skin the same way my doughy
little girl body and knock knees and squinty eyes and nerd
apologies hid the flame of my eventual rebellions and the smoke
of my naughty girl thoughts from the prying eyes of the dirty old
men on the corner and the trapped wives and the mean boys
with rubber bands and paper clips and the frowning fathers
preparing a lifetime of disaster and shame in the papers they
shuffled and corrected and filed and never wrote, having forgotten
how good it feels to get on a bike and fly.
Saturday, April 16, 2016
Sweet Sixteen
The sun and warmth outside are glorious. I've opened all the windows in the dining and living rooms and fresh(ish) air is coming in. As is the smell of re-energized dog dung, the sound of roofers nailing shingles to houses, birds tweeting and twittering, and the distant rush of traffic on Shawano Ave. Willow's lying next to me and her dog smell is getting up my nose. I don't think she cares about that. She's a little miffed that I'm not letting her bark her asinine head off out the front window. Apparently, I need to be guarded against Spring.
Husband Dave is out on his girlfriend, the Harley (I should know right away what kind it is but for some reason that space in my memory is always blank when I visit it). She's blue, in any case, and feels good between the legs. I know this from riding on her back. Oh, snap -- she's a Sportster. That just fell into place.
Memory is getting tricky. I'll want to access the most banal of information (like someone's name) and the space will show blank. The harder I try to fill that space, the more elusive the memory becomes. Reminds me of when I was a little girl and we'd be on some horrifying long car trip. I'd have to pee for mile after mile, and when Dad would finally agree that we could stop to unload, I'd have "shy bladder" and not be able to let the stream go. Maddening and painful. Mom would have to turn on the water in a sink to try to prime the pump.
Today's poem prompt comes from http://poetryprompts.tumblr.com/ -- Write a poem about your favorite Greek god.
Hm. Who is my favorite? I don't know if I have one. But the first who comes to mind is Athena, so I'll write about her.
*
Fan Letter to Athena
Dear Athena:
I am writing to express my deep appreciation
for your mad battle skills. You're a rocking role model
for any serious professional: clever, strategic,
excellent at disguise, no nonsense (you'd never be caught
gossiping at the urinals, or internet shopping for shoes
in your cube), no toady to power but with a healthy respect
for it and the ability, when pressed, to offer it the truth,
a daddy's girl who doesn't flaunt her influence,
a woman who admires brains over braun but who
recognizes the need, at times, for both. I understand
why you love Odysseus -- he's witty and cute,
his arrogance can be a problem but he's brave enough
to admit when he's made a mistake, he's loyal in mind
but not body, a homeboy at heart, somewhat of a bro
but not, thank god, a douche or a dick. I think I've met
some of his ancestors and I'll always prefer them,
as you do, to cranky status-obsessed assholes like
Poseidon or Achilles, who even though they may be right
have no sense of scale when it comes to themselves.
I'll admit, though, that I'm not happy about your motherless status,
that whole "sprang straight from her father's head" thing,
immaculate conception in reverse. What? Are you the original
sperm child? Woman as Penis? And there's something
never-sexy about you, some virginal reserve that suggests
the rest of us are simply damaged goods, walking uterii,
doomed to melt into mother fat even if we never serve
as wives or mothers or even lovers. But that sort of grudge
doesn't belong in this homage to your legends, so forget
I ever mentioned it. And carry on, dear warrior,
now appearing as Mentor, then again as a cocky young shepherd,
gender bending, whispering, insinuating yourself into
the tentative consciousness, urging action, adventure,
travel, the discovery of destiny, making us go out into the world
in order to find our way home.
Husband Dave is out on his girlfriend, the Harley (I should know right away what kind it is but for some reason that space in my memory is always blank when I visit it). She's blue, in any case, and feels good between the legs. I know this from riding on her back. Oh, snap -- she's a Sportster. That just fell into place.
Memory is getting tricky. I'll want to access the most banal of information (like someone's name) and the space will show blank. The harder I try to fill that space, the more elusive the memory becomes. Reminds me of when I was a little girl and we'd be on some horrifying long car trip. I'd have to pee for mile after mile, and when Dad would finally agree that we could stop to unload, I'd have "shy bladder" and not be able to let the stream go. Maddening and painful. Mom would have to turn on the water in a sink to try to prime the pump.
Today's poem prompt comes from http://poetryprompts.tumblr.com/ -- Write a poem about your favorite Greek god.
Hm. Who is my favorite? I don't know if I have one. But the first who comes to mind is Athena, so I'll write about her.
*
Fan Letter to Athena
Dear Athena:
I am writing to express my deep appreciation
for your mad battle skills. You're a rocking role model
for any serious professional: clever, strategic,
excellent at disguise, no nonsense (you'd never be caught
gossiping at the urinals, or internet shopping for shoes
in your cube), no toady to power but with a healthy respect
for it and the ability, when pressed, to offer it the truth,
a daddy's girl who doesn't flaunt her influence,
a woman who admires brains over braun but who
recognizes the need, at times, for both. I understand
why you love Odysseus -- he's witty and cute,
his arrogance can be a problem but he's brave enough
to admit when he's made a mistake, he's loyal in mind
but not body, a homeboy at heart, somewhat of a bro
but not, thank god, a douche or a dick. I think I've met
some of his ancestors and I'll always prefer them,
as you do, to cranky status-obsessed assholes like
Poseidon or Achilles, who even though they may be right
have no sense of scale when it comes to themselves.
I'll admit, though, that I'm not happy about your motherless status,
that whole "sprang straight from her father's head" thing,
immaculate conception in reverse. What? Are you the original
sperm child? Woman as Penis? And there's something
never-sexy about you, some virginal reserve that suggests
the rest of us are simply damaged goods, walking uterii,
doomed to melt into mother fat even if we never serve
as wives or mothers or even lovers. But that sort of grudge
doesn't belong in this homage to your legends, so forget
I ever mentioned it. And carry on, dear warrior,
now appearing as Mentor, then again as a cocky young shepherd,
gender bending, whispering, insinuating yourself into
the tentative consciousness, urging action, adventure,
travel, the discovery of destiny, making us go out into the world
in order to find our way home.
Friday, April 15, 2016
15 -- wow, again it's late in the day
I don't know how the day's gotten away from me.
I do know that I've spent a fair amount of it talking -- and not saying much.
I often look back over a stretch of time and determine that I've been flapping my lips for no apparent reason. What have I been saying? What have I accomplished, if anything?
Today instead of mining the internet for a poetry prompt, I'm going to open Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones and see what I get. Shit -- how's this for serendipity? I opened the book to p. 77, "Talk is the Exercise Ground." I mean, shit doesn't get any scarier than this. Here are a few of the assertions Natalie makes in this little chapter: "It is good to talk. Do not be ashamed of it. Talk is the exercise ground for writing." And "Talk is a way writers can help each other find new directions." Finally, "Talk is a way to warm up for the big game -- the hours you write alone with your pen and notebook. Make a list of all the stories you have told over and over. That's a lot of writing to be done."
So my poem for today is going to be a list poem -- a list of all the stories I've told over and over.
(For those of you who've known me for quite a while, this is the "recap" episode of the sit-com, the one where they splice together scenes from a bunch of the season previous because they've run out of ideas.)
*
A Few of the Stories I've Told Over and Over
How when Lizzie was born (they unzipped me and pulled her out) her first comment on the world was "eeehhhh" and then silence and her first score on the APGAR test was a four, which is kind of failing
How my dad was actually my stepfather who adopted me and was an anthropologist who put a little chalkboard in the breakfast room on Fuente de Horacio and he'd write on it to make points about culture
How Mom lost Roy when I was not even two and then she married Dad because it was too hard to try to raise me on her own and when they were pulling away from the church she said "slow down" and he slammed on the brakes and said "don't you ever EVER tell me how to drive" and she knew right away she'd made a mistake
How when we lived in Mexico one Saturday I woke up late and Dad said "Come down here I want to show you something" and I followed him out of the house and down the outside steps in my bare feet and pajamas to the maid's room and he went into the bathroom and brought out a bloody bundle of old towel and pulled it aside and there was the blue face of an infant and he said "It's Natalia's, she had it this morning in the bathroom and we never could get her to breathe" and that's how I knew it was a girl and I've never been able to get her face out of my memory or the tiny flecks of her perfect fingernails against that face
How I met Dave twice and each time claimed I didn't know him so he had to go through the introduction all over again and then at the black and white party at Lori's house he walked through the door and I thought damn he's fine and after another blur of champagne I was deeply flirting with him in the kitchen when Steph came in and said "A wants to talk to you" and then later Dave asked "Who's A?" and I said to Steph "What do you call the guy you're" and she said to Dave "A is the guy she's" (and there was a time when I had no trouble saying or writing that verb but today I am ashamed and delete it)
How when we got Willow as a puppy it was really hard, like having another baby again, only we could put her into a kennel for a while when it got too bad, and then at an end of the semester party Cassandra told me "Don't you dare get rid of that dog -- one day I came home from school and my mom told me she'd given our dog away because it was too much work" and then in June I opened my email and found out that Cassandra had been killed and I fell down on the floor crying and a big hole opened up that I wanted to fall through but Willow stretched her puppy body against me on one side and Gunther the old black lab we were sitting stretched his old man dog body against me on the other side and they pressed in against me that way so that I couldn't fall into it
How once we came inside from somewhere when Lizzie was little and Dave said "I want you to" go and take a bath or something I can't remember what and Lizzie said "No" and Dave said "Hey, who's in charge here?" and she said "Mom" without pausing a beat and he laughed and said "That's true but you can't say it out loud like that"
How before we got married and the priest took us through the pre-marriage counseling Dave said "I'll go wherever Laurie gets a job" and the priest said "Won't you go where the best job is?" and he laughed and said "I'll go wherever Laurie gets a job"
I do know that I've spent a fair amount of it talking -- and not saying much.
I often look back over a stretch of time and determine that I've been flapping my lips for no apparent reason. What have I been saying? What have I accomplished, if anything?
Today instead of mining the internet for a poetry prompt, I'm going to open Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones and see what I get. Shit -- how's this for serendipity? I opened the book to p. 77, "Talk is the Exercise Ground." I mean, shit doesn't get any scarier than this. Here are a few of the assertions Natalie makes in this little chapter: "It is good to talk. Do not be ashamed of it. Talk is the exercise ground for writing." And "Talk is a way writers can help each other find new directions." Finally, "Talk is a way to warm up for the big game -- the hours you write alone with your pen and notebook. Make a list of all the stories you have told over and over. That's a lot of writing to be done."
So my poem for today is going to be a list poem -- a list of all the stories I've told over and over.
(For those of you who've known me for quite a while, this is the "recap" episode of the sit-com, the one where they splice together scenes from a bunch of the season previous because they've run out of ideas.)
*
A Few of the Stories I've Told Over and Over
How when Lizzie was born (they unzipped me and pulled her out) her first comment on the world was "eeehhhh" and then silence and her first score on the APGAR test was a four, which is kind of failing
How my dad was actually my stepfather who adopted me and was an anthropologist who put a little chalkboard in the breakfast room on Fuente de Horacio and he'd write on it to make points about culture
How Mom lost Roy when I was not even two and then she married Dad because it was too hard to try to raise me on her own and when they were pulling away from the church she said "slow down" and he slammed on the brakes and said "don't you ever EVER tell me how to drive" and she knew right away she'd made a mistake
How when we lived in Mexico one Saturday I woke up late and Dad said "Come down here I want to show you something" and I followed him out of the house and down the outside steps in my bare feet and pajamas to the maid's room and he went into the bathroom and brought out a bloody bundle of old towel and pulled it aside and there was the blue face of an infant and he said "It's Natalia's, she had it this morning in the bathroom and we never could get her to breathe" and that's how I knew it was a girl and I've never been able to get her face out of my memory or the tiny flecks of her perfect fingernails against that face
How I met Dave twice and each time claimed I didn't know him so he had to go through the introduction all over again and then at the black and white party at Lori's house he walked through the door and I thought damn he's fine and after another blur of champagne I was deeply flirting with him in the kitchen when Steph came in and said "A wants to talk to you" and then later Dave asked "Who's A?" and I said to Steph "What do you call the guy you're" and she said to Dave "A is the guy she's" (and there was a time when I had no trouble saying or writing that verb but today I am ashamed and delete it)
How when we got Willow as a puppy it was really hard, like having another baby again, only we could put her into a kennel for a while when it got too bad, and then at an end of the semester party Cassandra told me "Don't you dare get rid of that dog -- one day I came home from school and my mom told me she'd given our dog away because it was too much work" and then in June I opened my email and found out that Cassandra had been killed and I fell down on the floor crying and a big hole opened up that I wanted to fall through but Willow stretched her puppy body against me on one side and Gunther the old black lab we were sitting stretched his old man dog body against me on the other side and they pressed in against me that way so that I couldn't fall into it
How once we came inside from somewhere when Lizzie was little and Dave said "I want you to" go and take a bath or something I can't remember what and Lizzie said "No" and Dave said "Hey, who's in charge here?" and she said "Mom" without pausing a beat and he laughed and said "That's true but you can't say it out loud like that"
How before we got married and the priest took us through the pre-marriage counseling Dave said "I'll go wherever Laurie gets a job" and the priest said "Won't you go where the best job is?" and he laughed and said "I'll go wherever Laurie gets a job"
Thursday, April 14, 2016
Fourteen is nearly one half
I almost clicked "publish" after typing the title.
What does that say?
Right now I'm being stood up by a student who was supposed to arrive for an independent study meeting at 10 AM. Did I miss a memo? If this student is reading this right now (I doubt it), he should feel the deep shame of standing up one of his most awesome professors. At the very least, his ears should begin, at this moment, to burn ... I imagine that he's sleeping in, having somehow missed his alarm or having incorporated its persistent ringing into his anxiety dream. And now that I'm typing about him, fuming in an ironically detached way in my office, his dreams are turning even more dour -- the monsters that are chasing him are bigger, or (in the off chance that his unauthorized sleeping has produced a happy dream) a dream cloud has just entered the scene, or a dream tidal wave, or a dream avalanche, and he's having to think about running for his dream life.
If you are a student and you're reading this right now, then perhaps a question you may have asked has been answered: yes, we professors do think about you when you're not in front of us. And, yes, we sometimes judge you, or take slightly personally your omissions/failures ... though, admittedly, we shouldn't. We're all independent actors. This particular absence (without excuse? word?) no doubt has nothing to do with me. But I'm human, so it becomes brain fodder, and I begin to spin fantasies around it, not all of them based in the spirit of communio.
Today's poetry prompt: You receive a divine message. It could be from a supreme being, or a deceased loved one, or anything else like having your palm read or tea leaves or flipping through a book to find a passage that speaks directly to you. What is it, and how does it change you? http://poetryprompts.tumblr.com/
*
Kukulkan Speaks
Woman: You are over
halfway through
a short life,
dying like
the grass.
I bring you this skull
as a sign
of your pathetic impermanence,
and a stern reminder
of the bones
beneath your skin.
Your brain is a gray jelly,
softening every year,
losing light
in sagging folds and
dead ends,
burying experience in
biological blankness.
You will end as silent
as myself,
but you will not share
my golden stone,
my long history,
my feathered brilliance
or my sinuous coils
scaled around the heart
of life,
the blaze
of cosmos.
You can only sit behind
a wooden desk,
spinning black marks
against the nothing,
the non-page --
hoping
against hope
for a sort of
afterlife.
What does that say?
Right now I'm being stood up by a student who was supposed to arrive for an independent study meeting at 10 AM. Did I miss a memo? If this student is reading this right now (I doubt it), he should feel the deep shame of standing up one of his most awesome professors. At the very least, his ears should begin, at this moment, to burn ... I imagine that he's sleeping in, having somehow missed his alarm or having incorporated its persistent ringing into his anxiety dream. And now that I'm typing about him, fuming in an ironically detached way in my office, his dreams are turning even more dour -- the monsters that are chasing him are bigger, or (in the off chance that his unauthorized sleeping has produced a happy dream) a dream cloud has just entered the scene, or a dream tidal wave, or a dream avalanche, and he's having to think about running for his dream life.
If you are a student and you're reading this right now, then perhaps a question you may have asked has been answered: yes, we professors do think about you when you're not in front of us. And, yes, we sometimes judge you, or take slightly personally your omissions/failures ... though, admittedly, we shouldn't. We're all independent actors. This particular absence (without excuse? word?) no doubt has nothing to do with me. But I'm human, so it becomes brain fodder, and I begin to spin fantasies around it, not all of them based in the spirit of communio.
Today's poetry prompt: You receive a divine message. It could be from a supreme being, or a deceased loved one, or anything else like having your palm read or tea leaves or flipping through a book to find a passage that speaks directly to you. What is it, and how does it change you? http://poetryprompts.tumblr.com/
*
 |
| "I bring you this skull" |
Kukulkan Speaks
Woman: You are over
halfway through
a short life,
dying like
the grass.
I bring you this skull
as a sign
of your pathetic impermanence,
and a stern reminder
of the bones
beneath your skin.
Your brain is a gray jelly,
softening every year,
losing light
in sagging folds and
dead ends,
burying experience in
biological blankness.
You will end as silent
as myself,
but you will not share
my golden stone,
my long history,
my feathered brilliance
or my sinuous coils
scaled around the heart
of life,
the blaze
of cosmos.
You can only sit behind
a wooden desk,
spinning black marks
against the nothing,
the non-page --
 |
| "You are old & human; a woman; insignificant." |
hoping
against hope
for a sort of
afterlife.
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
The Unlucky Number
triskaidekaphobia: Can I just say that I like the word for a fear of the number 13? What a cool word (I'll admit that I had to Google it in order to figure out just how to spell it).
April is not only the cruelest month, and now poetry month, but it's also one of the busiest months for me at SNC. That's because it's full of "occasions" -- honors dinners, undergraduate research forums, celebrating service thingees, literary awards, writing a poem a day. My calendar is a hot mess. Today, I'm slated for two on-campus meals. It's alarming.
I'm taking today's prompt from Jo Bell's document:
Valediction to My Youth
Goodbye supple back muscles and hips
rolling liquid in their sockets,
goodbye arches and straight-stacked knees.
Farewell thick hair, shining with chestnut lights,
and glowing, smooth white skin.
See you later flexible, strong fingernails
and fresh clear eyes that scry the type
with hawklike accuracy.
Adieu to dry nights under crisp sheets,
to waking in a moment and leaping out of bed
to stretch a subtle kink or two from an
innocent neck,
adieu to a capacious bladder and comfortable
out-loud sneezes,
and a burning metabolism that like an old furnace
eats the coal of a thousand chocolates
and sucks the belly flat.
Hello, morning wet spot on the pillow,
where dreams of dreams of dreams have melted
everything but doughy rolls of peri-menopausal fat.
Welcome you knots and strains that
cramp and pull at every step and turn.
Come in, you spotty skin and droopy wrinkles,
and dark drowsy terrors in the afternoon --
oh, and nap (you lovely nap), please do fall around me
every two o'clock like an old friend
dropping in for tea and biscuits
with a woolen shawl to keep the chill away
from crumbling bones.
And yes, I recognize you, deep down cold,
bony cold, wet drilling winter infecting each
bent finger -- you are not my friend,
and yet you're with me now more
than memory.
April is not only the cruelest month, and now poetry month, but it's also one of the busiest months for me at SNC. That's because it's full of "occasions" -- honors dinners, undergraduate research forums, celebrating service thingees, literary awards, writing a poem a day. My calendar is a hot mess. Today, I'm slated for two on-campus meals. It's alarming.
I'm taking today's prompt from Jo Bell's document:
A valediction is a poem of goodbye – to a lover, a deceased relative, a situation. ... now write your own.*
Valediction to My Youth
Goodbye supple back muscles and hips
rolling liquid in their sockets,
goodbye arches and straight-stacked knees.
Farewell thick hair, shining with chestnut lights,
and glowing, smooth white skin.
See you later flexible, strong fingernails
and fresh clear eyes that scry the type
with hawklike accuracy.
Adieu to dry nights under crisp sheets,
to waking in a moment and leaping out of bed
to stretch a subtle kink or two from an
innocent neck,
adieu to a capacious bladder and comfortable
out-loud sneezes,
and a burning metabolism that like an old furnace
eats the coal of a thousand chocolates
and sucks the belly flat.
Hello, morning wet spot on the pillow,
where dreams of dreams of dreams have melted
everything but doughy rolls of peri-menopausal fat.
Welcome you knots and strains that
cramp and pull at every step and turn.
Come in, you spotty skin and droopy wrinkles,
and dark drowsy terrors in the afternoon --
oh, and nap (you lovely nap), please do fall around me
every two o'clock like an old friend
dropping in for tea and biscuits
with a woolen shawl to keep the chill away
from crumbling bones.
And yes, I recognize you, deep down cold,
bony cold, wet drilling winter infecting each
bent finger -- you are not my friend,
and yet you're with me now more
than memory.
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
One Dozen
I'm eating dark chocolate peanut M&Ms and drinking a Melon Pomelo La Croix Curate and feeling kind of ... faux. As if I'm an altered human being, enhanced to a state of semi-nonbeing.
It's advising day two at SNC. That means, for those of you not in the know, that all classes are canceled for the day and we're (the professors, stunt academics) meeting with advisees to help them think about what they're going to take next semester (fall 2016). It's strange to live in the future, to plan ahead that far (over the pond of the summer, that is), and to talk about majors and minors and passions (not all of them the same, it seems). Because Lizzie's now in college herself, I feel even more tender about each of my advisees, and my students, and more connected to their journeys. It's rough work to be on your own, "adulting," as Lizzie puts it.
Perhaps that's another reason to feel altered and somewhat inauthentic. I mean, it was now a very long time ago, officially, that I was an undergraduate. And it seems that I never wavered on my path to those Professional Writing and Creative Writing degrees (the former to satisfy parental dictates and the latter a destiny). I don't remember thinking about what courses to take each semester. Did we have fewer options or choices?
So, here I am. Professional talking head.
Today's poem prompt I'm taking from the day's offering on the NaPoWriMo site:
Finally, our prompt for the day (optional, as always). Have you ever flipped to the index of a book and found it super interesting? Well, I have (yes, I live an exciting life!) For example, the other day I pulled from my shelf a copy of on old book that excerpts parts of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s journals. I took a look at the index, and found the following entry under “Man”:fails to attain perfection, 46; can take advantage of any quality within him, 46; his plot of ground, 46; his use, 52, 56; not to be trusted with too much power, 55; should not be too conscientious, 58; occult relationship between animals and, 75; God in, 79, 86; not looked upon as an animal, 80; gains courage by going much alone, 81; the finished, 89; and woman, distinctive marks of, 109; reliance in the moral constitution of, 124; the infinitude of the private, 151; and men, 217; should compare advantageously with a river, 258.That’s a poem, right there!
Today, I challenge you to write your own index poem. You could start with found language from an actual index, or you could invent an index, somewhat in the style of this poem by Thomas Brendler.Well. My first challenge is to find a fruitful index. The first book to catch my eye on the shelf behind me is Levi-Strauss's The Elementary Structures of Kinship, which reminds me of my dad (anthropologist). So I think I'll look up Father in the index and see what I get...
Curious. There's no entry for Father. Only: Father's sister, role of, 306, 309, 391, 429, 430, 431; Father's sister marriage, 124; and Father's sister's daughter, see Patrilateral cross-cousin.
Boring. Turns out that index is not fruitful after all. I'm going to use the index of first lines for William Carlos Williams's Selected Poems instead.
This is fun because it's a matter of finding the lines and deciding which ones to include.
*
Index of First Lines
-- After William Carlos Williams
A big young bareheaded woman, 98
A flight of birds, all together, 296
beauty is a shell, 249
"Come!" cried my mind and by her might, 4
Disciplined by the artist, 244
fortunate man it is not too late, 250
He's dead, 78
his coat resembles the snow, 250
I, a writer, at one time hipped on, 172
I'm persistent as the pink locust, 223
I stopped the car, 33
Let me not forget at least, 142
Let the snake wait under, 145
Miscellaneous weed, 67
munching a plum on, 97
Never, even in a dream, 8
Nude bodies like peeled logs, 255
on the hill is cool! Even the dead, 133
Outside, 273
Pink confused with white, 40
Rather notice, mon cher, 23
Satyr's dance!, 220
School is over. It is too hot, 35
Sorrow is my own yard, 34
Summer!, 243
The farmer in deep thought, 41
Their time past, pulled down, 148
The over-all picture is winter, 239
There are no perfect waves---, 82
There is no direction. Whither? I, 265
The shadow does not move. It is the water moves, 171
The universality of things, 48
This horrible but superb painting, 245
Tho' I am no Catholic, 103
To celebrate your brief life, 253
To make a start, 259
view of winter trees, 252
What common language to unravel?, 146
When the cataract dries up, my dear, 180
When the snow falls the flakes, 251
White day, black river, 140
Why do I write today?, 16
You lean the head forward, 187
Monday, April 11, 2016
Eleven and Dragons
I'm going to use a prompt from 365 Creative Writing Prompts today to spark my poem. If you haven't figured it out already, I'm working my way down the Google list of prompts, and have just breached page 2 of the many many results.
I'm going to use #11: Dragon: Envision a dragon. Do you battle him? Or is the dragon friendly? Use descriptive language.
I'm going to use #11: Dragon: Envision a dragon. Do you battle him? Or is the dragon friendly? Use descriptive language.
I'm all about descriptive language. AND, I was born in the year of the dragon according to the Chinese zodiac charts found in (particularly) cheap-ass Chinese buffets. Also, I thought The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was pretty bad ass, and would have a dragon tattooed somewhere on my body if I didn't think I'd come off like a pathetic over-50 copycat.
*
Dragon Tattoo
In dreams I bear a dragon tattoo --
purple and green and red, all shimmering scales
with wings that flex and flutter under my muscle
and a long strong tail to curl past my bicep
and underneath my white arm to touch its point
inside my elbow. The dragon is captured upright
in mid-flight, its eyes narrowed in glittering concentration,
a lick of smoke and flame caught in its wide nostrils,
a hint of brimstone flickering from its gaping, toothy mouth.
I take my dragon with me like a soul, moving
through midnight storms and nightmares with
liquid urgency, not afraid of any dream terrain.
Suspended on the canvas of my aging skin,
my dragon floats between old freckles bleeding out
into coffee clouds and incipient keratoses (scaly
skin volcanoes), a sinuous art deco S, clawed and fierce,
guardian for my imperfect body, everything hot
and secret and powerful that (at least on the surface)
I am not.
Sunday, April 10, 2016
Ten ... And late in the day
I'm coming to this task later in the day than usual, having spent the afternoon at the theater. (Please pronounce that as THEE-ah-ter, and pull out that last syllable with the breath.) I had the great fortune to go to SNC's production of Emilie: La Marquise Du Chatelet Defends Her Life Tonight, by Lauren Gunderson, and directed by Stephen Rupsch, with a spare but lush set designed by the inimitable April Beiswenger.
The play was all about science (vocation? life work) and gender (female) and love (inconstant and complicating) and there was some personal/life philosophy thrown in like curry to spice up the dish and make it even more complex. I was happy to see our own (this is a shout out to this semester's ENGL 425) Sam Kolb in the production, the ever graceful and expressive Sam Kolb, playing Emilie's stunt double in the strange realm of purgatory that was the play. I'm mot sure, finally, how I feel about metafiction and metadrama, but this play was just the perfect balance of narrative and meta-narrative, and Sam K's performance provided the force/energy behind that blend. Kudos!
As I sat waiting for the play to commence, though, I remembered that I had yet to write my poem for the day. So that thought plagued me during the intermission and then during the talkback, where I decided that I would create my own assignment for the day: I would write about the theater, somehow, and I would have to include the word "décolletage" [because April said that word so sweetly]. I got the cunning plan that I would dictate the poem to myself on the ride home using the voice to text app on my iphone. That experiment was kind of disastrous,* since the V2T software apparently can't quite understand me at times. (Well, I can't quite understand me at times, so there you have it.)
My final assignment: write a poem that deals in some way with theater, and includes the word "decolletage." Use an epigraph by someone OTHER than Shakespeare AND dedicate the poem.
*
The Poem with Theater in it
--For Stephen and April
(pronounce it: THEE ah ture)
I have been lifted to a higher level
of meaning,
I have been mentally dismantled and reconstituted
as a series of precisely scripted characters
in a bound space,
characters doubled and dancing
on painted galaxies
that only reveal themselves to me
after the lights come up,
I have been included in a generous quest
for larger meaning,
a connection of all these
meaningless dots --
our souls, perhaps,
our inexpressible essences,
our emotional décolletage,
passions mashed to our chests
like heaving breasts under breathless corsets,
or parallel lives, elaborate "what if"s,
historical scripts blending
now with then and never.
This quest for the "larger meaning"
never ends.
I mean, I have yet to reach
the destination.
Final lines hint at conclusion and redemption
but taste like hopeful
confusion --
what these hours reveal
in spotlight and enunciated lines,
in blocking and weaving,
in pantomime and spiral,
in doubling and refrain,
in the luxury of direction and mis-
direction,
sweeping skirts and well-turned legs
(and loose leather shoes)
is the strange force that can't be
captured with word or gesture or paint
but that somehow exists
in the spaces between actors and acting,
between all the stories sitting in all the seats,
is the unquantifiable meaning
that falls with the dark moments
denoting the ends of scenes,
is the collective breath,
is the "deeper meaning"
and that we chase after
with scripts and costumes,
with pens and books,
with paint and wood and nails,
is the unknown poetry
that animates us
as we leave the theater
and blink in the pedestrian air
of another meaningless afternoon.
*
*Here's what I managed to "talk" into my phone, in case you're interested (but why would you be? don't you have a life?):
I am dictating this poem on the way home. I am going to use voice to text on my cell phone. I must write about theater having just seen a play. And avoid driving across these old people who are walking in the road ahead of my car I need to use these three words décolletage leg knees all see knees I SE space EN space SCE and E now I see the limitations of this dictation maybe I should become a rap star lightning my way toward home how do we remember our lying? How do we remember our parts? How do we determine the end of the sea? Will we get an intermission? How long will we have to act i'm afraid this script is useless. I'm afraid the actor who plays me in real life cannot remember my lines correctly and is always ad-libbing out the best parts. The actor has made me less than I really a.m. I want someone more gifted in I want a stunt double. I need a director to tell me how to move through space and time in order to better say what I mean to say or mean what I say I need a writer to revise my lines I need more time and space I want my own trailer with a Jacuzzi and a fully stocked wine bar and I want all my M&Ms to be green I need a director to tell me how to move you time and space. I need to direct her to figure out what it all means and then show me how to make it mean what it all means. I need to weld turned leg and impressive. I need to know how it feels to breeze in a corset and outside of the course costumes props back drop curtain lines script direction blocking him as well turned legs stockings powdered wigs stretching and airing bombast tradition just jurors a well turned phrase set directions dialogue memorization tour production lighting sonography score i'm pretty sure that poetry cannot be dictated remember when poetry was the theater maybe that made lines easier to remember this dissect reject genuflect respect well I'm almost home now is palm is going to come to the clothes whatever it is the end Bonito your people see me talking to myself in the car and think what is she doing or so many people talking to their phones now that it doesn't mean anything it's just a daily thing I wish I had a cookie that's my last thought I want to cookie
The play was all about science (vocation? life work) and gender (female) and love (inconstant and complicating) and there was some personal/life philosophy thrown in like curry to spice up the dish and make it even more complex. I was happy to see our own (this is a shout out to this semester's ENGL 425) Sam Kolb in the production, the ever graceful and expressive Sam Kolb, playing Emilie's stunt double in the strange realm of purgatory that was the play. I'm mot sure, finally, how I feel about metafiction and metadrama, but this play was just the perfect balance of narrative and meta-narrative, and Sam K's performance provided the force/energy behind that blend. Kudos!
As I sat waiting for the play to commence, though, I remembered that I had yet to write my poem for the day. So that thought plagued me during the intermission and then during the talkback, where I decided that I would create my own assignment for the day: I would write about the theater, somehow, and I would have to include the word "décolletage" [because April said that word so sweetly]. I got the cunning plan that I would dictate the poem to myself on the ride home using the voice to text app on my iphone. That experiment was kind of disastrous,* since the V2T software apparently can't quite understand me at times. (Well, I can't quite understand me at times, so there you have it.)
My final assignment: write a poem that deals in some way with theater, and includes the word "decolletage." Use an epigraph by someone OTHER than Shakespeare AND dedicate the poem.
*
The Poem with Theater in it
--For Stephen and April
“Acting requires a creative and compassionate attitude. It must aim to lift life up to a higher level of meaning and not tear it down or demean it. The actor's search is a generous quest for that larger meaning. That's why acting is never to be done passively.” ― Stella Adler, The Art of ActingAfter an afternoon at the theater
(pronounce it: THEE ah ture)
I have been lifted to a higher level
of meaning,
I have been mentally dismantled and reconstituted
as a series of precisely scripted characters
in a bound space,
characters doubled and dancing
on painted galaxies
that only reveal themselves to me
after the lights come up,
I have been included in a generous quest
for larger meaning,
a connection of all these
meaningless dots --
our souls, perhaps,
our inexpressible essences,
our emotional décolletage,
passions mashed to our chests
like heaving breasts under breathless corsets,
or parallel lives, elaborate "what if"s,
historical scripts blending
now with then and never.
This quest for the "larger meaning"
never ends.
I mean, I have yet to reach
the destination.
Final lines hint at conclusion and redemption
but taste like hopeful
confusion --
what these hours reveal
in spotlight and enunciated lines,
in blocking and weaving,
in pantomime and spiral,
in doubling and refrain,
in the luxury of direction and mis-
direction,
sweeping skirts and well-turned legs
(and loose leather shoes)
is the strange force that can't be
captured with word or gesture or paint
but that somehow exists
in the spaces between actors and acting,
between all the stories sitting in all the seats,
is the unquantifiable meaning
that falls with the dark moments
denoting the ends of scenes,
is the collective breath,
is the "deeper meaning"
and that we chase after
with scripts and costumes,
with pens and books,
with paint and wood and nails,
that animates us
as we leave the theater
and blink in the pedestrian air
of another meaningless afternoon.
*
*Here's what I managed to "talk" into my phone, in case you're interested (but why would you be? don't you have a life?):
I am dictating this poem on the way home. I am going to use voice to text on my cell phone. I must write about theater having just seen a play. And avoid driving across these old people who are walking in the road ahead of my car I need to use these three words décolletage leg knees all see knees I SE space EN space SCE and E now I see the limitations of this dictation maybe I should become a rap star lightning my way toward home how do we remember our lying? How do we remember our parts? How do we determine the end of the sea? Will we get an intermission? How long will we have to act i'm afraid this script is useless. I'm afraid the actor who plays me in real life cannot remember my lines correctly and is always ad-libbing out the best parts. The actor has made me less than I really a.m. I want someone more gifted in I want a stunt double. I need a director to tell me how to move through space and time in order to better say what I mean to say or mean what I say I need a writer to revise my lines I need more time and space I want my own trailer with a Jacuzzi and a fully stocked wine bar and I want all my M&Ms to be green I need a director to tell me how to move you time and space. I need to direct her to figure out what it all means and then show me how to make it mean what it all means. I need to weld turned leg and impressive. I need to know how it feels to breeze in a corset and outside of the course costumes props back drop curtain lines script direction blocking him as well turned legs stockings powdered wigs stretching and airing bombast tradition just jurors a well turned phrase set directions dialogue memorization tour production lighting sonography score i'm pretty sure that poetry cannot be dictated remember when poetry was the theater maybe that made lines easier to remember this dissect reject genuflect respect well I'm almost home now is palm is going to come to the clothes whatever it is the end Bonito your people see me talking to myself in the car and think what is she doing or so many people talking to their phones now that it doesn't mean anything it's just a daily thing I wish I had a cookie that's my last thought I want to cookie
Saturday, April 9, 2016
Nine times two equals eighteen degrees in April
If I look back over the April poems I've pushed out daily over the past three years, I'll see an obsession with the shit weather. More often than not, winter comes back with its dry heaves in April, squeezing us in a gastric fist until we want to vomit ourselves. There's a puke of snow still on the lawns and though the sun's shining it's frigid outside. I've had at least a cup and a half too much of coffee, and am stuck in a kind of emotional fugue state where nothing seems quite right. I want to run outside and jog around the block (and that's saying something -- I can't run; this knock-kneed body doesn't take well to it); I want to sit on the couch forever and give up exercising for the rest of all time. I'm not sure what I should be doing. I only know it's not this.
And then I remember that I'm supposed to write a poem a day. Ugh. I've already done the vagina and the cat. The two big pussy poems. What else is there?*
Here's today's prompt: Write about the first time you did something. I found it here.
Rollercoaster Ride
I'm nine and we're at Lake Ponchartrain Park. It's the year we spend
in New Orleans, or in Metairie, a "sabbatical year," something I don't
understand at nine, except that it's hot here, and chameleons infest
the backyard, and we're living in a house that belongs to another family,
sleeping in their beds, sitting on their chairs, like Goldilocks with
fire arts and Bermuda grass. I'm nine and we're standing in line for a
roller-coaster ride, and Mom will be my partner -- I barely clear the required
sign because I'm "short," and I look a few years behind, though my mind
in some ways has traveled years ahead, into a worrisome adolescence,
a strange emotional exile, as if I'm always slightly out of step. I'm nine
and now we're at the front of the line, and I feel a falling inside -- I want
to change my mind, I want to go back home -- but Mom says it'll be okay
and we buckle ourselves into the hard seat and the train lurches past its
small station, clacking up and up and up and up the hill, the falling inside
far too wide now, my head bobbing up off my neck, my brain frothing
with thoughts, and oh oh oh I want to get off as the car trembles to the top
and hangs hangs hangs then plummets down into the hell of black under
the lake, someone said we'd go under the lake, and his must be what happens
when you die, just up and up and then down into nothing, wooden track
shuddering and hacking under our seats, and I've stopped breathing only
I'm still screaming, and Mom'swarm body beside me tells me I'm still alive,
then up into the air again that's twilight with the start of another
Louisiana night, thick and throbbing with the chirr of insect life,
and again up into thin stars and the glitter of the far down lakewater
and I want off, I want to rewind the time, I want not to stand in a line
for this strange form of dying, but Mom holds my hand so I know I'm
stuck in a forward passage of time, still alive, and when at last we climb out
onto a ground that feels more asssertive and angry than before, pushing up to
smash my legs back into their chubby body, I feel familiar but changed, delivered
back whole but deeply uncertain: a little Yankee girl returned to this
steamy Southern city, nine and white and plump pigeon-toed flutter,
scared and sidelined in the screaming schoolyard, a flightless half-feathered
bird blown down from her impossible nest.
--
*Apparently, there are birds. I had no idea that the roller-coasters and memory would lead me to Pittsburgh pigeons.
And then I remember that I'm supposed to write a poem a day. Ugh. I've already done the vagina and the cat. The two big pussy poems. What else is there?*
Here's today's prompt: Write about the first time you did something. I found it here.
Rollercoaster Ride
I'm nine and we're at Lake Ponchartrain Park. It's the year we spend
in New Orleans, or in Metairie, a "sabbatical year," something I don't
understand at nine, except that it's hot here, and chameleons infest
the backyard, and we're living in a house that belongs to another family,
sleeping in their beds, sitting on their chairs, like Goldilocks with
fire arts and Bermuda grass. I'm nine and we're standing in line for a
roller-coaster ride, and Mom will be my partner -- I barely clear the required
sign because I'm "short," and I look a few years behind, though my mind
in some ways has traveled years ahead, into a worrisome adolescence,
a strange emotional exile, as if I'm always slightly out of step. I'm nine
and now we're at the front of the line, and I feel a falling inside -- I want
to change my mind, I want to go back home -- but Mom says it'll be okay
and we buckle ourselves into the hard seat and the train lurches past its
small station, clacking up and up and up and up the hill, the falling inside
far too wide now, my head bobbing up off my neck, my brain frothing
with thoughts, and oh oh oh I want to get off as the car trembles to the top
and hangs hangs hangs then plummets down into the hell of black under
the lake, someone said we'd go under the lake, and his must be what happens
when you die, just up and up and then down into nothing, wooden track
shuddering and hacking under our seats, and I've stopped breathing only
I'm still screaming, and Mom'swarm body beside me tells me I'm still alive,
then up into the air again that's twilight with the start of another
Louisiana night, thick and throbbing with the chirr of insect life,
and again up into thin stars and the glitter of the far down lakewater
and I want off, I want to rewind the time, I want not to stand in a line
for this strange form of dying, but Mom holds my hand so I know I'm
stuck in a forward passage of time, still alive, and when at last we climb out
onto a ground that feels more asssertive and angry than before, pushing up to
smash my legs back into their chubby body, I feel familiar but changed, delivered
back whole but deeply uncertain: a little Yankee girl returned to this
steamy Southern city, nine and white and plump pigeon-toed flutter,
scared and sidelined in the screaming schoolyard, a flightless half-feathered
bird blown down from her impossible nest.
--
*Apparently, there are birds. I had no idea that the roller-coasters and memory would lead me to Pittsburgh pigeons.
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