tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50375486389261569662024-02-06T22:32:37.014-05:00Adjurned to a Frozen RiverERhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02806842344098194417noreply@blogger.comBlogger96125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5037548638926156966.post-15195428815356513472011-04-03T20:56:00.007-04:002011-04-03T22:20:38.431-04:00Before You Come HomeI will look for any reason not to write.<br />I need to buy belts and shoes online.<br />There are dishes in the sink.<br />Television episodes and taxes make<br />me feel accomplished. I murder <br />hours at a time trying to avoid poetry. <br />(Someone already wrote that, that bit <br />about killing time.)<br />I use these objects, new jackets and hot<br />chocolate, to hide behind (someone<br />already wrote that, too). I'm using enjambment <br />(everyone does that). It is dark in Chicago<br />(I'm changing the subject, we do that <br />when the end is coming) and I've barely begun my life.<br />(And I'm thinking of a title now, before I<br />even know where this is going.) (Maybe "Spolier.") <br />The trains and the waves mimic each other.<br />(This is about, apparently, the parallel nature <br />of life, the universe, everything is echoed <br />and re-coded, nothing is new; <br />somebody already wrote that.)<br />When I write "life" what do I mean?<br />The trains and the waves crash together.<br />The trains and the waves carry us.<br />The trains and the waves don't distinguish themselves from me.<br />The trains and the waves lose devices everyday.<br />A thousand kisses for you.<br />We repeat ourselves to death.<br />I am so thankful for this.<br /><br />ERERhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02806842344098194417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5037548638926156966.post-49704461800536545762010-03-24T22:15:00.002-04:002010-03-24T22:17:21.197-04:00SilhouettesAlone in your room I touch<br />panties drying on the heater,<br />think about your hands on my<br />hands on your hips. I open your<br />medicine cabinet, count bottles<br />of fingernail polish, look at<br />rings nestled in the corner<br />quiet like pebbles. The pictures<br />of your friends in the kitchen,<br />all in soft clothes, they smile easy.<br />Their hair tussled. Many people<br />love you. This makes me happy.<br />I want to love all the people<br />who love you. I want to give them<br />sweaters. I want to make you<br />laugh gently in front of them.<br />I want them to see you look<br />at me. I want to listen closely.<br />In your closet is a meteor<br />of clothes. I lie in your bed<br />and bite my nails. You'll never<br />find them. Your clothes meteor<br />is sexy. It makes your closet<br />feminine. Turns me on.<br />I don't like the taste<br />of your toothpaste. I will<br />still use it. I drink unfiltered<br />water from your tap. Lukewarm<br />tap water reminds me of you,<br />your apartment, morning sun<br />on your kitchen table, the<br />desperate space that enormous<br />table creates between us, ripening<br />fruit, an origami fortune<br />teller, a sculpture of a single wing, the setting<br />for the first time<br />I said I love you, to you.<br />The refrigerator motor kicks<br />on and the overhead light<br />flickers. I imagine your parted<br />lips under my thumb. I remember<br />sitting at that unforgivable<br />table, heartbroken, I couldn't reach<br />you, lips sealed, suffocating under<br />the burden of your insufferable charm.<br />Out the windows are hungry squirrels<br />and honking cars, empty<br />beer bottles, the cuffs to my<br />jeans wet and matted.<br />A siren is moving away<br />from us. A charm on your<br />necklace. An easel in an<br />art store, a running faucet,<br />a saucer of blueberries, slivered<br />light under a closed door,<br />the sound of handwriting, the allowance<br />of outside objects and inside<br />objects. a voice. This corner holds<br />me. This corner is infinite.<br /><br />ERERhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02806842344098194417noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5037548638926156966.post-18940758118791068962010-03-08T17:14:00.005-05:002010-03-09T19:41:45.467-05:00This Way Out:Catastrophe happens to you everyday.<br />12 dyed eggs roll out of the carton.<br />Whales can't hear your thoughts.<br />The rope that tethers you is made out of smoke.<br />Cleaning is impossible.<br />Riding a bus is the real blessing.<br />Evaporation is inevitable.<br />A ring is a straight line <br />that won't let go.<br />Another something disappears<br />but you don't know what.<br />You are the conductor of immediate space.<br />You raise your arm and acknowledge the shadows<br />but can't face the flame that casts you.<br /><br />ERERhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02806842344098194417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5037548638926156966.post-18312736063449319592010-02-18T19:59:00.003-05:002010-02-18T20:14:24.886-05:00Stretch15 brown Victorian vases<br />lined up one afternoon<br />years before we met.<br />You asked for a motive <br />and I said,<br />causality is irrelevant <br />in poetry, I make <br />nations out of <br /><span style="font-style:italic;">hopeful green stuff</span> <br />tire irons wait <br />their turn a catastrophe<br />E.D.'s <span style="font-style:italic;">quick calamity</span><br />a photograph of the aftermath<br />teaches me one way off the wall<br />you look at the same picture<br />and see my breath in roses<br />a wound watch a word<br />written is not the same word spoken<br />there are mines everywhere<br />we have to be careful but we aren't<br />sure why.<br /><br />This isn't over.ERhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02806842344098194417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5037548638926156966.post-27624545043938609232010-02-17T19:49:00.006-05:002010-02-17T20:43:16.428-05:00After Bobby--Poets<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">for Robert Dana</span><br /><br />A bombed oration tickled me.<br />Clinked flutes doled out <br />pointed flirtations.<br />A contour of life, poetry,<br />something to shade a body in, <br />or certainly to illuminate <br />an otherwise dusty path.<br />We yowl into it, wait for our own voice.<br />We chisel ourselves <br />to death.<br />We write our way into a shaky grace.<br />We watch, we listen, we wait in <br />the corner of a gorgeous room.<br /><br />ERERhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02806842344098194417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5037548638926156966.post-49025486463976012412010-02-16T08:44:00.003-05:002010-02-17T20:47:57.978-05:003.<br /><br />I answered the phone<br />experienced deja vu<br />watched a squirrel chew<br />felt embarrassed<br />investigated you<br />listened to my name being spoken<br />held my breath<br />read a paragraph about forgivness<br />counted church bells<br />thought about strangers <br />rested my arm on a comforter<br />looked out a window<br />wanted you<br />saw the air's infinite allowances<br />asked for tea<br />braced my body<br />against no small impulses.ERhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02806842344098194417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5037548638926156966.post-1639320142360293722010-02-11T19:51:00.003-05:002010-02-11T20:09:20.987-05:00For You:Hinge<br /><br />Love is nothing on this earth<br />but a way to translate<br />my raised fists, drawn arrows<br />fitful tears, taut trigger<br />weak stomach, puffed pride<br />gaunt patience into the hushed<br />mouth that waits for you.<br /><br />ERERhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02806842344098194417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5037548638926156966.post-28763086193730899422010-02-03T17:09:00.000-05:002010-02-03T17:10:02.682-05:00My Latest Effort:Age<br /><br />Our coarse intentionality<br />weakened when the fireworks<br />reflect on the resting home<br />windows, my green explosion<br />reflects our best efforts<br />at youth--bent over a plastic<br />cafeteria tray, eating cold<br />peas, wheeled out of their<br />rooms to reflect on your red<br />explosion. Every time I look up<br />the gunpowder gets in my eyes.<br /><br />ERERhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02806842344098194417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5037548638926156966.post-41241666578886842142010-01-28T20:09:00.001-05:002010-01-28T20:13:06.193-05:00Take your pick:<a href="http://www.driveinmovie.com/MT.htm">Now Showing...</a>ERhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02806842344098194417noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5037548638926156966.post-26178585767152468142010-01-27T16:51:00.006-05:002010-01-27T17:00:22.544-05:00David Bates' "Anhinga"<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/online/kscope/bated09s.gif"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 130px; height: 160px;" src="http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/online/kscope/bated09s.gif" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /><br />It's small, but I love it, and it's the only image of it I could find online. Try to enjoy what you can make of it.<br /><br /><br />ERERhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02806842344098194417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5037548638926156966.post-90329563470585312012010-01-27T16:34:00.001-05:002010-01-27T16:39:34.716-05:00Photograph, December:The shade of the pill-<br />Ow changes over months.<br />It begins relaxed, <br />Blue-grey, a cool hint<br />At blooming.<br /><br />Her hands shake at the possibility<br />Of my body. She holds her apron<br />Like a shield but when I reach<br />Out I find a rope. I pull her <br />In and we are bound.<br /><br />The first time we kiss she<br />Is a ghost and I am a gambler.<br />We dream about vacations.<br />I speak when there’s nothing <br />To be said.<br /><br />Pillows inflame, puff out<br />A little and the sun sets<br />Her bed ablaze. I watch<br />But can’t speak. I grit <br />Down hard on this desire<br /><br />But I don’t know how <br />To stifle it. To be in love and<br />Miserable is the same as<br />Being in love and joyous.<br />She teaches me the truth<br />By saying nothing.<br /><br /><br />ERERhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02806842344098194417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5037548638926156966.post-63285947883225437242010-01-24T13:25:00.004-05:002010-01-24T13:31:53.132-05:00A "Birthday" Present:I wish you satisfaction, but cannot<br />find a box big enough so it lays<br />all over my floor and sighs.<br />I wish you joy and<br />that's what this flapping<br />noise is about. Hundreds of<br />wings stir the air and will not<br />be gift-wrapped. I got you<br />poetry so sloppy and wet<br />so nubile it needs a nursemaid<br />and shackles. <br />I wish you wishes of all sizes--<br />pick them up while they are hot<br />and you are young <br />enough to waste them.<br />I wish you peace but don't know<br />how to leave you alone, tell me<br />how does a sailor leave the sea?<br />She doesn't: the depths so-far un-<br />touched but loved, its swells the biography <br />of her life, its whimseys keeps her afloat.<br /><br />ERERhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02806842344098194417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5037548638926156966.post-55721801696713399282010-01-23T08:07:00.005-05:002010-01-23T08:14:05.939-05:002.<br /><br />Our skin pressed <br />together makes raw<br />material for words.<br />You find graphite <br />between the sheets.<br />I examine it--<br />you do the accepting.ERhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02806842344098194417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5037548638926156966.post-10666590238665503312010-01-22T20:36:00.011-05:002010-01-22T20:58:26.287-05:001.<br /><br />I watch the light <br />travel down you <br />as though it asked <br />permission, and you <br />gracious, benevolent, <br />gave it, now a fugue <br />of slivers in your eyes.ERhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02806842344098194417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5037548638926156966.post-39560498618682391512010-01-22T08:11:00.002-05:002010-01-22T08:14:48.872-05:00Before I run off to work:<span style="font-style:italic;">Blueberry</span><br />It's our password.<br />No logo in the sky.<br />We are going to spill.<br /><br /><br />ERERhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02806842344098194417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5037548638926156966.post-85488237857403418912010-01-20T16:55:00.007-05:002010-01-20T17:14:34.152-05:00Do go on:"There was one book I read not only at the right age, but on the right afternoon, in the right place, at the right angle. I read The Waves on an island, on a plotless day, when I was twenty-two years old, sitting on a terrace from which I could see in the distance the ocean, and the horizon where it met the sky and the changing light that played there as the sun climbed to its zenith and descended again while I thumbed the pages and my blood pressure washed up and down with the words. The Waves is not one of my favorite books. But my memory of reading it is. I was very silly when I was young. I have that to be thankful for."<br /><br />-Mary Ruefle, from "Someone Reading a Book Is a Sign of Order in the World"<br /><br />Yes, this is an interesting idea for me: having a favorite memory of reading a book, that might not necessarily be one of our favorite books. So often the experience of reading is tangled inextricably with the content of the text. So, I was trying to think of an experience of a book, which I loved, but the content of said book left something to be desired: Jack Kerouac's Satori in Paris.<br /><br />Kerouac for me, like many young, red-blooded, hot-headed Americans, had seminal influence over me in my early twenties. On the Road, yes, I will get in this line, changed my life. It is my go-to read when my life is falling apart. It put me together, put me in a context, that of Ginsberg's "Angelheaded hipster searching for the starry dynamo," at exactly the right time, when I could appreciate being there. I love On the Road, and Kerouac, but did not love Satori in Paris, it was a sketch of a novel, one thin and lack-luster: after OTR and Dharma Bums, it falls frail. But the experience reading it was phenomenal because I took it with me to Paris.<br /><br />I was 22 and "in love with my life" and I will hopefully always remember lying in bed, patio door ajar, sunny afternoon, sweet, unseasonably warm breeze toying with my feet, children running around in the playground below my window, hollering in French, did the air really smell like baguettes, or did I impose that? And I laid there for hours, read the whole book in (almost) one sitting. The book wasn't great, but that afternoon I felt alive in that great electric way we all feel from time to time, when we are in our early 20s or in another country or in love or writing a lot, or well, or well enough.<br /><br />I showed you mine, now tell me yours: tell me about a time you read a book in which the experience was exhilarating, but the text was not the reason for the excitement:ERhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02806842344098194417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5037548638926156966.post-31810203289118965942010-01-19T20:56:00.001-05:002010-01-19T20:56:44.641-05:00And so:Stranded<br /><br />Our looking-in cultivates<br />Heroic moments.<br />In this column a thorny side<br />The other columns wait.<br />Apology is not the only<br />Missing piece—our histories<br />Unsettled. There are <br />Elixirs to consider.<br />Thumbs need hitching<br />If we’re gonna get out.<br /><br />ERERhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02806842344098194417noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5037548638926156966.post-36431535676743092832010-01-17T12:27:00.003-05:002010-01-17T12:59:05.997-05:00And then there was:Stranded <br /><br />The exercise enacts bravery.<br />In this column a thorny side<br />The other columns wait.<br />Latitude is not the only<br />Missing piece—our histories<br />Unsettled. There are <br />Opposites to consider.<br />Thumbs need hitching<br />If we’re gonna get out.<br /><br />ER<br /><br />But oh, "opposites" is really only a place holder until something better comes along; aren't we all?ERhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02806842344098194417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5037548638926156966.post-91626296415112923132010-01-16T23:15:00.001-05:002010-01-16T23:17:45.014-05:00I'm still squinting at it, there will be touch-ups:Stranded<br /><br />The exercise enacts bravery.<br />In this column a thorny side<br />The other columns wait—<br />Gibbons move into place,<br />A sweet connection colors<br />The harness grazing face.<br />Latitude is not the only<br />Missing piece. There are<br />Impulses to consider.<br /><br />ERERhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02806842344098194417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5037548638926156966.post-80850626359605635782010-01-15T21:29:00.000-05:002010-01-15T21:30:03.417-05:00About Love:"But as Thomas Merton said, one day you wake up and realize religion is ridiculous and that you will stick with it anyway. What love is ever any different?"ERhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02806842344098194417noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5037548638926156966.post-61869876470288590632010-01-14T20:23:00.012-05:002010-01-15T21:20:53.747-05:00A Process:On the composition of Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale:"<br /><br />"Keats did not record these few hours in 'Ode to a Nightingale.' In the poem, the bird sings 'in some melodious plot / Of beechen green' (8-9), not in a plum-tree. The time is 'night' or 'midnight' (35, 56), not a morning after breakfast. The season is summer (10, 50), not spring. Keats' imagination transmutes what he experiences under the plum-tree. He acknowledges, for this reason, flying up to the bird 'on the viewless wings of Poesy' (33) and only returning to himself when his 'fancy' fails, its spell broken by a word, 'forlorn' (71-74).[...] Imagination ends the experience it initiated. At the word 'forlorn,' Keats comes 'back' to his 'sole self,' that is, the self left alone by its flying double. He becomes conscious of what he has experienced..." (Lancashire)<br /><br />Or, so often, the act of writing a poem interrupts the poem being written. I can write a poem only when I got to this place, oh, on the left side of my head, three inches or so behind my eye (or so it feels afterwards) where poems, or the words for poems, are made, or are waiting. If I know I'm there I'm no longer there, then I'm in the front of my head. I can feel it afterward, when I read a line back that came from there I can recognize it as having come from that place in my brain--a line that doesn't sound like a poem, but belongs in one because it doesn't sound like a line in a poem. Then I have to get back there to write the next line, sometimes I get back there right away, sometimes I sit for a long time before I let me back in. Sometimes that waiting looks like me sitting in front or a blinking cursor. Sometimes I write through it and lines that want to be in poems, that sound like lines in poems and that's why they don't belong in one, try to sneak in undetected. Most times I catch them, lately, usually I am too tired of fighting with the poem and let in an impostor. But then it usually poisons the poem and I have to start again.<br /><br />Take now for example, I wrote a "good" poem last night, and a "good" poem the night before, and right now I am letting a new "poem" settle. I wrote it, it is still hot, and has to cool for me to check it for impostors. Let's go see if it's ready...<br /><br />...<br />...<br /><br />...ok, I'm back. Verdict: an eight line poem is comprised of 5 lines of impostors and three real lines of poetry that are nearly ruined. An interesting turn of events: one of the impostors is made real by the deletion of the other 4:<br /><br />The "Poem:"<br /><br />The exercise enacts bravery.<br />In this column a thorny side<br />The other columns wait<br />Or are filled up while they wait.<br />Loneliness fogs over me<br />My posture responds<br />Suspicions confirmed<br />Animals wait for the signal.<br /><br />The Impostors:<br /><br />Or are filled up while they wait.<br />Loneliness fogs over me<br />My posture responds<br />Suspicions confirmed<br />Animals wait for the signal.<br /><br />The lines of poetry:<br /><br />The exercise enacts bravery.<br />In this column a thorny side<br />The other columns wait<br /><br />The "converted" impostor:<br /><br />My posture responds<br /><br />The new part of a poem:<br /><br />The exercise enacts bravery.<br />In this column a thorny side<br />The other columns wait<br />My posture responds<br /><br />I remember "My posture responds" coming from that poetry place in my brain, but then impostors hitched their talons into the real line and muddled it. However, the word "responds" is setting off the alarms and sounding really "poemy" to me...<br /><br />I won't here go into your affect on the poem, for "[t]o recreate the nightingale's song, we must listen in the context of human suffering." Your heart of course is the last thing to shape anything I write.ERhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02806842344098194417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5037548638926156966.post-83958189749235400642010-01-13T19:53:00.001-05:002010-01-13T19:55:10.409-05:00For You:Sheltered Garden<br /><br />I have had enough.<br />I gasp for breath.<br /><br />Every way ends, every road,<br />every foot-path leads at last<br />to the hill-crest--<br />then you retrace your steps,<br />or find the same slope on the other side,<br />precipitate.<br /><br />I have had enough--<br />border-pinks, clove-pinks, wax-lilies,<br />herbs, sweet-cress.<br /><br />O for some sharp swish of a branch--<br />there is no scent of resin<br />in this place,<br />no taste of bark, of coarse weeds,<br />aromatic, astringent--<br />only border on border of scented pinks.<br /><br />Have you seen fruit under cover<br />that wanted light--<br />pears wadded in cloth,<br />protected from the frost,<br />melons, almost ripe,<br />smothered in straw?<br /><br />Why not let the pears cling<br />to the empty branch?<br />All your coaxing will only make<br />a bitter fruit--<br />let them cling, ripen of themselves,<br />test their own worth,<br />nipped, shrivelled by the frost,<br />to fall at last but fair<br />With a russet coat.<br /><br />Or the melon--<br />let it bleach yellow<br />in the winter light,<br />even tart to the taste--<br />it is better to taste of frost--<br />the exquisite frost--<br />than of wadding and of dead grass.<br /><br />For this beauty,<br />beauty without strength,<br />chokes out life.<br />I want wind to break,<br />scatter these pink-stalks,<br />snap off their spiced heads,<br />fling them about with dead leaves--<br />spread the paths with twigs,<br />limbs broken off,<br />trail great pine branches,<br />hurled from some far wood<br />right across the melon-patch,<br />break pear and quince--<br />leave half-trees, torn, twisted<br />but showing the fight was valiant.<br /><br />O to blot out this garden<br />to forget, to find a new beauty<br />in some terrible<br />wind-tortured place.<br /><br />H.D.ERhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02806842344098194417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5037548638926156966.post-43659199128435963792010-01-13T18:51:00.001-05:002010-01-13T18:55:16.898-05:00A Surprise for You:<a href="http://www.writing.upenn.edu/bernstein/experiments.html">Enjoy.</a>ERhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02806842344098194417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5037548638926156966.post-32435559137640257732010-01-13T18:22:00.001-05:002010-01-13T18:22:53.200-05:00A Great Example of Ashbery:Some Trees<br /><br />These are amazing: each<br />Joining a neighbor, as though speech<br />Were a still performance.<br />Arranging by chance<br /><br />To meet as far this morning<br />From the world as agreeing<br />With it, you and I<br />Are suddenly what the trees try<br /><br />To tell us we are:<br />That their merely being there<br />Means something; that soon<br />We may touch, love, explain.<br /><br />And glad not to have invented<br />Some comeliness, we are surrounded:<br />A silence already filled with noises,<br />A canvas on which emerges<br /><br />A chorus of smiles, a winter morning.<br />Place in a puzzling light, and moving,<br />Our days put on such reticence<br />These accents seem their own defense.ERhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02806842344098194417noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5037548638926156966.post-17853862745151888812010-01-12T21:12:00.002-05:002010-01-12T21:13:40.004-05:00Days and Nights:“You, me, the broom, my writing, my typewriter,<br />Florence, the house, Katherine, everything.”ERhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02806842344098194417noreply@blogger.com0