Wallenberg (archive)

Wallenberg

They made a stamp for him that matched his years
with first-class cents, but now he's been replaced.
No one can mail a letter with his face.
Five decades lost: some claim he still appears

in Russian prisons; he must be alive!
But they say he died quickly, that a fool
who whispers his survival is too cruel.
His overburdened heart, at thirty-five,

gave out--no Russian blade to parse his lungs,
nor Stalin bullets needed to make peace.
And no call need be made for the release
of men dead half a century. The young

find him outdated, worthless as his stamps,
and call the suburbs concentration camps.

Letting poetry breathe

In my recent visits to Eratosphere, I am reminded of why I stopped participating there much. There are some great people there (and a few churls), but they aren't my audience. I don't want to write clever-clever metrical poems that have all the stresses in exactly the right places but never say anything important.

Different workshops end up with different feels. Erato's in one of pedantic nitpickery and celebration of the most antiseptic impulses in poetry. But it's inevitable. When you talk about sonnets too much, you end up hatcheting them just to have something to say. Non-metrical workshops tend to ooh and aah over metrical work, far beyond the poem's merits.

I've never found a middle ground.

I don't write in rhyme and meter as an end. They are tools, not the point of the exercise. Stating up front that I want a poem to be read as a "metrical" poem is so so where I want to be.

Yet I submitted a sonnet to the sonnet challenge. So I'm obviously a hypocrite, and a bad dresser to boot.

Deerfly (archive)

Deerfly

Deer flourish in this wildwood. I have stared
while dozens dapple through the Escher trees
in quick battalions. Yesterday, a pair
stood knee high in the grasses of the lea
between the wood and road. Winter's dull teeth
had gnawed their hides, and scraped fat from their bones--
but not to death. Their dying, when it comes,
will be halogen, green-eyed on the hook
of headlights. Perhaps mine. I threw a stone
and shouted, but they didn't even look.

What's the relationship between...

... the poems you think are your best and the poems other people think are your best?

... the poems you like the most and the poems you think are your best?

I find these two questions pretty interesting, mainly because for me, there doesn't seem to be a relationship. The poems I've written that I like aren't generally the ones I think are pretty good. And if I post a poem here that I think is one of my best, chances are I won't get a comment on it at all.

Of course, since I'm always right, it just means you all are cretins! Hurumphf.

I don't know what it all means. Perhaps simply that I have no taste and no sense of quality. I'd prefer to think it's more like an inability to hear your own voice. (Well, I'd really really prefer to think I'm the Wile E Coyote of the poetry world, but I have my doubts. I do have business cards, though.)

Cat napping

The cats are draped pathetically all over the house. They are trying to convince me that they are hot. I don't need convincing, really. Irving just set the linoleum on fire with her toes.

MaPo Day 30 Part II

Typical

That would be like the rain, to bend the world
so softly sparrows can't see where it's curled.

MaPo Day 30

That Is the Ache of Wings

I wonder if the rain has etched a spotted
bull's-eye on the window. Something lures
the bullet birds to smash and scrabble, knotted
toeholds in the screen. The blind obscures

their glitter eyes, their beaks like shining corn,
but not the skullthunk knocking on the glass,
the frantic clack of wings, their feathers, shorn
and flung like eggshells, strawing piebald grass.

Initial caps

The anonysonnet discussions on Erato continue, this time with fur-flying about initial capitals in a sonnet.

I am an enjambing fool, so I tend away from initial caps. When I read poetry aloud, I read to the sense of the sentence rather than the line, which is a defensible but controversial position. In other words, it is evidence of poet cooties!

In any case, I generally notice initial caps. In the case of this sonnet by Steve Schroeder, I didn't notice them. I was trying to read the sonnet as a finalized work rather than a workshoppy piece, which means taking it as is instead of suggesting change. This is one of the problems I have with workshops in general, that they are more like fault-finding missions than general appraisals, but I digress.

Initial caps: Love 'em? Hate 'em? Love to berate 'em?

NaPo MoJo!

We did NaPo. We did MaPo. And now we're sliding into June with a JuPo.

10 poems. 30 days. Mine will be sonnets, dizains, or at least 20 lines. In theory.

Equally crazy denizens of PFFA will be joining Howard and me. How about you?

My name isn't Tippi, you damned birds!

When birds attack!

A bird just tried to get in my window. I mean a sustained attempt, with cheeping, scrabbling, and the knock-knock-knocking of what should be fragile wings but sounded more like brass knuckles on a bruiser named, well, Bruiser.

Dare I try to go to my car? What horrors await?

You're not leaving, are you?

Steve got up from computer fiddling to go get himself a drink and I said, "You're not leaving, are you?" And then I was sobbing.

I had just read this poem, which is part of it. I'm hot. I'm tired. I'm a little bit hungry.

But it's simpler than that. I'm just scared. I hate hearts. I hate that they love and break and I hate more that they stop. They can just stop.

Some days, it's just too much. Today, it's too much. Damn.

Yoinks, it's hot

I just went upstairs and nearly scorched my eyebrows off. The weather is mocking me, going from cold to hot too quickly for me to adjust to.

It doesn't help that we are without central air and have to rely on window units. Which aren't in place. Which Steve can't put in because of his heart and his wrist and which I can't put in because I managed to do something dreadful to my elbow Saturday.

I'll just sit here and melt. No, the computer is too warm. I'll sit over there and melt.

The real question is...

... will my doppelganger Hedgie get the same results? Inquiring minds.

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I might have to learn to type with my nose

Yesterday morning's vigorous yardwork has left me with two aching hands, a swollen pointy finger, and a left elbow that refuses either to bend or straighten.

While this gets me out of more yardwork today, it leaves a veritable conflagration of weeds growing through the patio. I shall pray for frogs and Round-Up to fall from the sky.

MaPo Day 28

Will You Bury Me?

Or ash me out? You make
such pretty promises,
undertake such feats.

Taking a break from rational thought

I'm watching the stupidest TV movie in history.

The Curse of King Tut's Tomb.

My IQ is slipping as I type this.

Liberty's in...

Solon, Maple Heights, Independence, Parma Heights, Vermillion, aaaooooom.

If you're not from around Cleveland, you won't know what the hell I'm talking about, but Liberty Ford has the weirdest jingle in the history of commercials.

And, god help me, I sing along. Every. Time.

Steve may stop watching baseball with me.

Aaaooom.

If I disappear

It will be because I forgot to get cat food and the little fuzzballs staged a revolt.

Dickens is already staring at me as if I were a pot roast.

MaPo Day 27

Fibonacci's Fallowing

Too
tall
grasses
stay upright
even when I slash
their green ribbed feet with dulling shears
and leave them there to crisp the lawn with dead tawny spikes.

I have a pint of ice cream

... and I'm not afraid to use it.

Breyer's Sara Lee Strawberry Cheesecake ice cream, to be exact.

It's all because of a dearth of Diet Coke and a whole lotta whining. Oh and being attacked by a rose bush that was trying to eat my face.

Life is hard. That's why we have dessert.

Terza rima!

I'm terza rima, and I talk and smile. Where others lock their rhymes and thoughts away I let mine out, and chatter all the while. I'm rarely on my own - a wasted day Is any day that's spent without a friend, With nothing much to do or hear or say. I like to be with people, and depend On company for being entertained; Which seems a good solution, in the end. What Poetry Form Are You?

Google search funnies

I like to check on occasion what searches people are following to get here. Some are odd like the one person searching on "bigfoot golf" or the "girlfriend zombie mask." How they ended up here is a mystery since I cannot duplicate their results.

Some are just a bit perplexing, like the number of hits I get from people looking for "DeQuervain's release"--the type of surgery Steve had on his wrist. Apparently, my blog is a little more fun to read than medical sites.

But my two recent favorites:

steve carter furry

and

Someone landed on my blog after doing a search for RollerCoaster Tycoon. The person? Steve. You would think if he wanted my opinion he could have shouted across the room, the way I did when steve carter furry showed up!

Do you connect the number 88 with anything?

Just a poll. If you see a username, say carter88, do you think anything of it?

Bay Area poets alert!

Diane K Martin of Of Looking At a Blackbird is offering a poetry course. There are still spaces open, so hurry, hurry, hurry.

What do you hear?

I guess my hearing is going down down downhill. Because when I listen to this file, I can't hear what's supposed to be the annoying part that keeps teenagers away. What do you hear?

I cannot tell a lie...

... this blog had me giggling like a fool.

And I got to it from someone else's blog, but now I don't know whose. So if it was yours, thanks for the link!

Sweet Home Alabama--what an interesting choice

So the National Review decided to pick 50 great conservative rock songs, a goal that briefly sent me screaming with laughter into the vestibule. But after I poured some cold water on my neck, the hyperventilation stopped and I could read it.

Anyway, their number 4 song is "Sweet Home Alabama" by Lynyrd Skynyrd. But! References in the song, they say, are not racist. No. It's just about southern pride!

But you know, if LS was being sincere about Wallace, then they are being racist. And if they weren't being sincere, then they aren't squashed full of southern pride. I believe the latter is true, that they meant the song ironically, bitterly even. Neil Young, whom they mention in the lyrics, seems to have no problem with singing with the band or even singing the song.

So, you've got two options. Either one makes this song a completely bizarre choice by conservatives, who run screaming into the night when their apparent racism is pointed out to them. I would have suggested a Caesar's wife tack for them, though I would also have suggested that their idea of a top 50 conservative rock songs is the stupidest thing I have ever heard that wasn't from behind a podium, but they didn't ask me.

On the lighter side

Rejected Marketing Slogans for National Poetry Month by Emily Lloyd (found via Jilly Dybka's Poetry Hut Blog).

Never attribute to malice what can be explained with ignorance

Scoplaw is disappointed by the lack of poetry blogging about Stanley Kunitz's death.

What's a little funny is that Stanley Kunitz was a name I had heard but who had flown completely under my radar until he died (then he popped up lots of places Scoplaw must not have seen). Poetry is enormous. Every day I realize there's more and more that I don't know, poet after poet. Someone was looking for people influenced by Marilyn Hacker, and all I could think was, "Know the name vaguely." The assumption that person had was that everyone would know Hacker and her work. I don't mock that assumption, certainly; I just marvel that people can be so incredibly well-known only to still be out of my ken.

A lot of this has to do with the way I've gone about poetry. If it was written before 1900, decent chance I've read it. Not because I think that's a purer form of poetry, or that I'm doing any sort of wistful chest-thumping about Romanticism. It just happens to have been where my schooling took me. I know more Pope than Cope, more Homer than Heaney. And I have a gawdawful memory for authors. I can't keep straight the Pinskys and the Brodskys, the Tims and the Tims and the Tims, and the people who go by initials--WS, WG, RS, AE? Aiiee!

So, I saw the notes about Kunitz. I saw the notes about Hacker. Next week, I hope I'll remember that I saw those notes, but I'm not guaranteeing anything other than that if it can be explained through ignorance, it probably should.

A spot of PoThur

Raining Cats and Dogs

Thunder purrs its way across the state
and I lie low and wonder if the gable
will hold fast to its nails. The cats berate
me from the dusty cellar. But on cable
storms sweep in red. Too soon the water table
will swamp the basement. We'll all bob along,
unhappy apples listening to the song
of cyclone sirens hurling warnings down,
then choose the elements where we belong:
they die within the wind; I, winded, drown.

I hate scammers

If you read the various agents' blogs out there (like the stupendous Miss Snark), you've already heard of Barbara Bauer. But in case you haven't, she's a so-called literary agent who doesn't actually, you know, sell anything. But by threatening lawsuits, she is trying to keep people from talking about her or other scam agents.

Which just makes people want to talk about her more. So I will post a couple of links and say that anyone who is interested in finding an agent has to do a ton of research to make sure they don't end up with a Barbara Bauer.

Making Light: Dumbest of the 20 Worst

And in case that one goes down, a barebones list at Science Fiction Writers of America.

An interesting fact about Popsicles

If you have a migraine-type headache and counteract it with an ice cream-type headache, they stage a death match and the ice cream headache wins.

Just so you know.

As you might suppose, I'm eating Popsicles right now!

More on anonymity

My one experience with being an editor was done anonymously. That is, the poets were anonymous; I wasn't. I felt good about the experience, and I know that I found myself reading in a different way than normal. I was looking for Clues.

On aapc (usenet), we used to do some anonymous challenges. It could be flattering or insulting, depending on who was guessed to have written your poem, and vice versa. It could be eye opening reading some appalling mess that just happened to rhyme and having acquaintances declare that I wrote it. Shooting me in the head would have been kinder.

But I'm rambling. The sonnet challenge on Erato introduced me to Mike Stocks and his magazine ANON, where all submissions come to him anonymously. I think if more editors would do their judging anonymously, the world of poetry would become a better place. Journals wouldn't accept the minor work of Bigwig over the stellar work of Bald. Human nature means that editors would do some guessing. Fallibility means that editors would pick flashes in the pan (though what's wrong with a little pan flashing is what I want to know. Some of us only have one good poem in us).

So, why isn't it done? Tell me the good reasons. There are undoubtedly some.

wendy v, come on doooown!

Hanging around Erato reminds me how much I adore, and I mean adore, the work of wendy v. So many "formalists" never take risks, never seem to breathe. That will never be said of Wendy, but gosh darn it! I think they've pruned and I can't find other examples. My search fu is weak.

Molt (archive)

Molt

I make too much of pigeon deaths, their wings
crushed flat on tarmac, when my neighbor's son
puts poison out. He won't say why a spring
of feathered bodies littering the lawn
and street is better than their molt, their dirt.
It's hard to shoo a corpse--they can ignore
a flapping arm, and rot. Cadavers skirt
my house, my neighbor's house, the country store
just up the street. I haven't seen them die,
no overhead attacks of poisoned grain
to seize them, make them plummet from the sky
to mud, or lawn, or concrete. But the stain
of death is on the sidewalk and the street,
and I just felt bones break beneath my feet.

Panties in the street! Buicks in the yard!

And Tootsie Rolls on the sidewalk! My god, I hope they were Tootsie Rolls.

What's happening to my little town today? It's like the idiot circus came to town and decided to drop off their employees.

Neat ekphrastic challenge

Half-Drunk Muse wants you to create poemy things inspired by the works of Don Swartzentruber.

So go! Get inspired! Write ek! Write phrastic! (I need new pom-poms.)

The perils of anonymity

On Eratosphere, they were holding a discussion about sonnets. Mike Stocks, the editor of ANON (which is a great, great idea), wanted anonymous submissions to choose from so he could start discussions about them. My submission was chosen and discussion ensued.

What's funny is that I felt very awkward for not claiming the poem, and I felt very awkward when I finally did. The former made me feel like I was sneaking around; the latter felt like being the guest of honor at a party that ended before I got there.

On the whole, a neat experience. Chris Childers can read my mind, which is a little disconcerting. Everyone was very kind.

I still feel foolish, though.

Poetry conferences

I'm not really a "get together" type person. I'm surly, is what I am.

But when I see people getting ready to go to poetry conferences, like the upcoming West Chester, I'm awfully envious.

I don't think I'd fit in well at a conference for formal poetry. I'm too ambivalent. But yeah. Envy. Green as the green, green grass.

What a title

This poem at cafe cafe has a title that I don't understand, yet love: The way you speak is like sky to me.

They limit comments to participants, so I couldn't moon about over there, so I'll just moon about over here.

Did you know I am John Ashbery?

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Even artists like me. What's not to like? I'm cuddly. Okay, I look a little psycho in the picture, but I don't pinch or anything.

Cluster? I'll give you cluster

My eye doctor suspects that I suffer from cluster headaches. It's been a while since I've felt quite this bad, but a couple of hours ago, Whammo! Nauseating headache, with sparkles.

You'd think the sparkles would make it more appealing. You'd be wrong.

Fantasy to read after I finish Bujold

My grubby paws have been laid on the last of the Bujold Chalion novels, but this will leave me without a firm idea where to go from here. There are too many fantasy series. I can't sort them out. So I'll just whine a lot. It's fun.

I spoke too soon

My WEE review hiatus lasted only a day. I think I'm hooked.

In delving into the archives--Tailgaters

Because I've been posting a lot of archived poems, I've been finding a reading some old stuff. Some of it will never see the light of day. Should I get hit by a bus, the computer will self-destruct!

But I did find some Tailgaters I'd hadn't read in years. A Tailgater is a couplet, where the first line is supplied by a famous poem, and the second by you. Most that I've ever read have been funny rather than profound, but there isn't anything that says you can't write a profound one if your sensibilities lie in that direction. Mine don't, but I'm not so much on the funny side, either.

To an Actress, Regretting That Dessert

When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
have you ever considered Jazzercise?

Write a tailgater. You know you want to. It's a great cure for the MaPo Blues.

Rollercoaster Tycoon

Steve got my Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 a couple of years back and it consistently crashed my computer. I gave up on it. But now he plays it and I waffle between wanting it back and being glad I'm not struggling with it.

It's so easy to get me hooked on something. Some of the addictions last a long, long time. (See: Poetry) I have hopes that I'll be able to obsess over my new career one of these days.

That doesn't help me now, though, gazing across the room and seeing Rollercoaster Tycoon in all its glory.

I might have to play Zuma just to cope.

Maybe we can be a contender

Nice article here about internet poetry.

The internet is the ultimate medium for poetry. I get a little giddy at times about the potential.

Visitation

Visitation

This is the grey beginning. Quarters clink
for midnight's congealed dinners from machines.
This is the way to sleep--a lidless blink,
your body balanced sweetly as your jeans

squeak on the vinyl chair. This is the tea,
grit-wallowed, creamless, these the dying flowers.
This is the cold announcement voice. Now we
are not all here. We have been assigned hours.

It's almost June and my basement is an icehouse

I can't believe how cold it is in my basement. We have a frost advisory for tonight, which allows me to feel all smug about not putting out tomatoes yet.

I say yet though I really have not much intention of putting them out at all. Steve is the miracle worker with plants. I am the moldy thumb. I dislike touching dirt. It's probably pathological.

I've been proselytized!

You'd think, living in the wilds of backwoods Ohio as I do, that I would have encountered more people trying to convert me to their brand of Christianity. But it's been rare.

Tonight, though, we went to Kroger and at the checkout I was lured into conversation by the clerk. He saw my t-shirt, which has a glow in the dark saber-toothed cat skull on it. Wee! And it has the name of the Cincinnati museum where I got it, which led the guy to start talking about the creation museum (surely an oxymoron) down in Florence, Kentucky and how in 2007 I needed to go. I neeeeeded to go. There was additional jabber about Universal Studios and some special effects dude and the Real! Historical! Genesis!

I wanted to say, "Dude, I am such an atheist you wouldn't believe" but I didn't say anything. I just stood there and I'm sure my expression was blank and glazy like a doughnut playing for Pittsburgh (I swear they said "doughnut").

And then I left. And then I thought of all the witty things I could have said which might have led to fisticuffs and spilled Diet Coke. It wouldn't have been worth it, but I should at least have made sure that my cat skull t-shirt wasn't some secret creationist code like a Jesus fish on a minivan. But I didn't. And now I'll never know.

Loomer!

Loomer, aka Lou Merloni, got this year's first start for the Indians tonight. I'm always pleased when I can holler "Loomer!" at the TV.

I must be hungry, because I swear Pittsburgh has a player named "Doughnut."

Elsewhere in MLB, I'd probably punch AJ Pierzynski too, if I had the opportunity. Oh and no cameras pointed at me.

WEE reviews may have to go on hiatus

It's a bad sign when you hate all the poems two days running, so I might have to take a break and see if I can recharge. Guest reviewers would of course be welcome, but I haven't managed to sucker anyone in yet. Considering the fame and fortune in it, I'm terribly surprised!

Message in a Bottle (archive)

Message in a Bottle

Ohio folds itself like a green pleat
beneath my stride. The air is webbed with blue
and bluebottles that sail in birring fleets
from dead to atrophying dead. Tattoos
of chlorophyll and dirt disguise my shoes
in glyphs intended for another eye.
Three bobwhites spring out chuckling toward the sky
carrying the message from the mud.
I stop within the cycloning of flies
to see if they will codify in blood.

Fuzzy tongue, fuzzy thinking

Lordy, I hope this is just an allergy. I feel like this

has been stuffed it my head.

And she doesn't quite fit.

Have you ever kissed a llama on the llama?

We drive past a llama farm nearly every day. And nearly every time we drive past, there are llamas outside in the llama field standing on crates so they can peer through the barn windows into the barn. And it isn't always the same llama, mind you. It's a variety of llamas. Peeping.

(And of course we are required by law to sing the llama song when we pass.)

I'm starting to obsess a llittle about this. No. I'm starting to obsess a llot. What is in the barn? WHAT WHAT WHAT?

The urge for change

I've spent the last couple of hours pondering over a new template for my various blogs. If I just wait, the urge to change will pass, which is probably good. I like the green. But I just feel like mucking around.

MaPo Day 19

Marine

Fish, do your scales tingle
with the cool current? Even air
weighs too much, scrapes
too much skin. Water feels,
leaves itself so far behind.

In-laws and out-laws

It's such a cliche to dislike your in-laws, but I do. The nice thing is that Steve likes my mother more than he likes his. Another nice thing is we live in Ohio and his mom lives in Kentucky. Hurrah for the Bluegrass State, er, Commonwealth.

The endless day of suck

It's my punishment for being happy yesterday. If things could go wrong today, they have. Julie + burrow = Friday night.

Baby, if you've ever wondered

Talk on a message board drifted to "WKRP in Cincinnati," one of my favorite sitcoms, which made me want to see it, which is, apparently, not going to happen on DVD because of the music that they used in the show.

It's all so sad. No Les saying "Chi Chi Rodriguez." No "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly."

I'm being oppressed by The Man.

All god's chillen write hedgehog poems!

Because poems about hedgehogs are wonderful things.

My new blog has nothing...

... but a test post.

I was considering making it solely dedicated to posted poems. And then I realized how boring that would be.

And I know from boring. I have actually watched paint dry. It's not bad, really. Pick a nice latex, not an oil, or you'll be all day.

Judging a book by its cover

I saw this book yesterday and immediately wanted to read it. Why? That cover art. I can't explain what I find so appealing about it, but something is. The title, too, The Tale of Despereaux : Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread.

I am that shallow certainly, to judge a book by its cover. And I enjoy reading kid books which I think often show more cleverness and humanity than grown-up books.

I didn't buy it though. I was feeling broke and didn't have much time. But oh, did I ever want it.

MaPo meanderings

After a month and a half (I skipped a couple of days at the beginning of May), this poem-a-day thing has become easy. Almost second nature. I wouldn't claim I'm writing brilliant stuff, but I'm writing, and that pleases me. I'm also touching up some older work that just needed some polishing.

So, this is a public thank you to Hedgie for continuing into May, and a generalized "Woo, this works!" directed at any passersby.

Poetry! Thursday! PoTh! (from the archives)

Batlet

I bore a palm of bones, a dusty skull
and tiny broken paws that cupped around
the scooped-in sockets, as if every dull
grey basement light were bright enough to wound.

This is my favorite poem from last year's NaPoWriMo. Both years, my favorite has been a short animal poem. What can I say? I like short animal poems.

Someone smother me

I need to sleep. I am beyond exhaustion, but my brain is spinning in those really tight, pointless circles that resemble nothing so much as the confused computer Kirk tricks into blowing itself up on Star Trek.

Steep (archive)

Steep

The hillside shrugs its death beneath my heel
and crumbles, loam and root, cascading down
like bitter water. Maple saplings wheel
just out of reach. Within the tumbling brown
we strike the creekbed, splash into the cold
and lie there buried by each fallen thing
that chased us down--the trees, the littered mold
of leaf decay, a pair of leather wings
that used to flank a bat. We are alone,
I with the corpses of old memories,
and you, now corpseless, ashed right out of bone
and bound so meager, packaged like a tea
in tin. This is the water boiled to steam.
I brew you in the darkness of the stream.

3 doctors, 8 hours, 1 stressed out pseudopoet

The first appointment was at 9. The second doctor visit was to urgent care. The 3rd appointment was at 4. Then dinner with my mommy.

On the plus side, dinner was good, the silver is working, and one doctor's office worker got a smackdown.

On the down side, I got no sleep, my book was boring, and I ate part of Steve's dessert. Bad Julie. Baaaaad.

Two Doors Down from the Funeral Home (archive)

Two Doors Down from the Funeral Home

They have a generator up the street
because the power flickers at a cloud.
The surging rumble proves an indiscreet
reminder of their cellar, and the crowd
of cold cadavers, propped up under loud
flourescents buzzing like a waxing hive
for Tussaud masks. When thunder comes, I dive
into a book, turn TVs up, retreat
inside my head, afraid I'll hear the drive
start up, or never start. Flicker. Repeat.

I hate obstetrics!

Going right along with my dislike of pregnancy poems, I really hate the obstetrics section of my course. Nothing like a nice discussion of episiotomies to warm your cockles.

Aside (archive)

Aside

New sidewalk work forced me to detour past,
through unknown gates, now rusted open. Slim
walkways paved with bulging bricks. The last
blind corner twisted me into a dim
dovecote, squatty trees whose every limb
bore pigeons, rainbowed slate with eyes of brass.

Can it be? Can it beeeee?

Rumor has it that "Veronica Mars" has been renewed for season 3. Yip.

And the people all say goddamn!

How I spent my day:

Me: No, that does not work that way. I have tried. This is how you do it.
Them: It didn't work!
Me: Did you do it the way I said?
Them: No. I did it this way.
Me: The way I said didn't work?
Them: Yes.
Me: I'm going to rip off your heads and feed them to cicadas.

Okay, so the last line was muttered under my breath so that only the Bionic Woman would have heard. Still. If I had a batch of cicadas handy, don't think I wouldn't do it.

Writely?

Any users? Anyone willing to drop me an invite?

Well, that was fast!

Anyone who wants an invite, let me know.

I created...

... another blog today. I'm not sure why. I named it after the name I hope to use for a book I'm planning, eventually, to give to my mother. Does that mean I intend to put poetry on it? Er, I'm not sure. I'm as baffled as you are. No. I'm more baffled than you are. I have to live in this brain, people!

William (archive)

William
for Gary

I played hide and seek
in the dip of his grave, the shade
of his marker; and shoved aside hollyhocks
to splay, hot and still,
with my face in the grass shroud
of William.

He died on my birthday
and was buried by May,
beneath the chill thistles
where I lay with green fingertips
dug in, knees drawn up,
ready to quail-burst from cover
if my brother should find me.

Still William's grave sank with no furor
into a subtler foxhole,
hiding my green t-shirt
and too-bony ribcage
from the stutter stop, laughter,
my brother's breaths gasping

but the flies only found me,
crept sideways on Bill's angels,
to hide in the crevices
or tickle the curve of my back
where my shirt rode up, showing
a freckle like a thumbtack
in my spine.

Writing for someone

Mike Snider talks about writing a poem for his mother, and whether such "private" poems should remain private or be shared and/or published.

Which discussion reminds me that I don't write poems for people. I wish I had people to write poems for, at times. I have a handful that are dedicated to this person or that, but even those aren't private poems. They aren't special.

Steve dislikes my writing, which used to break my heart and now just leaves me depressed. I rarely talk about writing to people in person. The majority of my acquaintance doesn't know I write. I don't keep it from them, but I don't talk about it, either.

On the other hand, I bet some of them don't know I obsess about baseball and can put my foot behind my head either. So maybe I'm not as secretive as I sound.

My god, I'm the most easily amused person on the planet

We just got a phone call reminding us of an appointment with Dr. Norris. There's only one problem. We don't know a Dr. Norris.

It amuses me to think his first name is Chuck, and he's a doctor of PAIN! *kick*

Okay, so that was funnier in my head.

Gosh, poets are self-important

Just bopping around the net, various forums and journals, I come to the unmistakable conclusion that poets take themselves really seriously.

Lens (archive)

Lens

The branches spread like Rio Jesus, gold
with carotene and sunburn, at the curve
of highway twenty-two. My husband folds
the map in threes and mutters at my nerve
in spying miracles in autumn trees
or Virgin Mary rutabagas. He
is for agnostic things, at best, so please
keep silent on whimsical piety
and drive. The windshield seems to magnify
the sun to burn our corneas away
like sidewalk ants. A driver passes by;
perhaps he wonders why the trees today
are so disguised and strange. The sun can pass
no secrets through shatter-resistant glass.

MaPo Day 14

Claw

That's when you know the carnivore
that twists inside your tendons,
when your nails rip at the flesh, at skin
that clings too hard to meat.

I stopped at gnawing at the scales, stopped
at eating it all raw. But barely.

That was good except...

... now my hands smell of fish.

The water is so foreign to me. I'm such a landlubber, such a child of farm and woods and hills. Not lakes. Not oceans. Working with fish makes me feel panicky, not like chicken. Chicken is familiar. Beef even moreso.

If there are space aliens, I bet they smell like seafood.

You're all going to miss out

Yesterday was pseudohealthy food. Today? To hell with it. Fried walleye and onion rings and if you can get here by 6 you're invited.

The Parting-Month of Spring (archive)

The Parting-Month of Spring

I am too deep in June. I feel the death
of spring in every nighttime twitch, in skin
that naps when pressed by crumpled sheets, in breaths
too slow to fill my lungs. I'm trapped within
a disappearing tadpole tail, or buds
unfurled to rotten lace. I suffocate
in puddles burnt to oxygenless mud
or buzzed with mayflies. Summer desecrates
the green with brazen gaud and cocksure joys
too hot for memories. As harvest reigns,
the way young corn turned hills to corduroy
is hidden by a profligacy of grain.
And sleek July's utility decoys
us from its deadly manners once again.

MaPo Day 13

Counter

The miles spool out in heartbeat lines of tar,
in whispered cinders shushing on the glass,
in diesel's grey, in lightning bugs who scar
the windshield when they chance the overpass.

Beer can chicken

I have a deep love of rotisserie chicken, so deep that it's hard to get me out of a supermarket that offers them without me deciding to pick one up for dinner. So when I heard of beer can chicken which was supposed to give a similar effect, I was eager to give it a try.

Verrry nice. Well, the chicken ended up a wee bit greasy, but with good taste. And easy! I like easy.

We didn't use beer, though. Neither of us are big on beer, so we just used water with a bit of italian dressing in it, plus a rub on the skin and an onion in the cavity. The only thing better than the taste was the smell. People should roast a chicken like this when trying to sell a house. Better than baking cookies.

There's not enough caffeine in the world

I have the attention span of a... wait... what was I talking about?

Anyone read Bookmark?

I had never heard of Bookmark Magazine until this morning, and I just visited their website and found it interesting. Anyone familiar?

Veronica onica onica

So "Veronica Mars" is over for the season. Maybe over forever, since it hasn't been renewed yet.

If you haven't seen this show, please trust me. Get the first season's dvds on Netflix and just watch them. Please. You won't be sorry. I'll give you a nickel.

Hi ho, Silver!

We got to unwrap the wrist and gaze upon the effects of the silver dressing. Dayum. That stuff is groovy. I mean, the wrist is the most disgusting thing ever, with the tendon completely white and exposed, like a row of teeth in an alien mouth. But there isn't any gunk, just a white tendon, all gleaming.

Six months ago, I would have told you that you were insane if you suggested I could look upon such a thing and say, "Hey! That looks good!" I am battle-hardened!

Ear worm!

Dammit. Someone mentioned the song "Georgie Girl." Do they not know that "GG" is the earwormiest song ever to get stuck in someone head? Have they no shame?

Poetry review attrition

Cearian has disappeared. That disappoints me. I was enjoying the reviews. I think I'd enjoy any review I didn't write, but these were better than mine by a long shot. Damn.

Thursday! Again! (archive)

Struck

He used to stroke my hair. How can a word
that feels so gentle starve my father's brain?
And what new pill can make him whole again,
will peel paralysis from fists, or slurred
invectives from his clumsy lips? He strikes
a match, still. Holds a pipe to suck. And when
his mouth can't clamp itself around the stem
he clucks and dribbles smoke, a leaking dike
with only palsied thumbs for help, and dutch courage.

Publishing for posterity

The conversation at Erato about publishing went on, and one participant thought that publication was, in a sense, a poet's duty.

I've heard this suggested before and I've gotta say, I think that's bizarre.

Posterity doesn't give a rat's ass if I publish. Posterity has more sense.

Proof that I'm a ridiculously irrational idiot

So a couple, friends of mine, are getting a divorce. I have mixed feelings about it, really. Sucky marriages are worse than divorce.

In any case, divorce sucks. Then I found out that the Christmas gift I had given the female half of the couple was taken by the male half of the couple, before the female half of the couple had ever opened it. He gave it to his girlfriend.

Yes, they're getting a divorce, he's having an affair, and I'm devastated because he stole a Christmas gift. There's something so cold, so calculating, so unkind about it. Fucker.

Steve's been silver plated!

Well, silver stuffed I guess is more like it.

OSU's Comprehensive Wound Center is pretty interesting. They take pictures of all the wounds. I commented that they won the prize for the photo album I'd least like to thumb through. And, bless their hearts, they laughed.

Considering they must've heard that one about 1.4 million times, they are kind people.

So Steve has some sort of silver-coated fiber thingie on his wrist. I commented (because when I'm nervous I comment a lot) that he might be worth more on Ebay. They laughed at that, too, which makes them my favorite people *EVAR*.

Moratory (archive)

Moratory

She made bread with her hands, and pasta bowed
like Christmas ribbons in dull greens and gold
from chair to highback chair. The house smelled old,
of cinnamon and rotten wood and road
detritus sifting past the unglazed panes
to crocodile the baseboards' thick shellacs
into a skin of armor grey. Three tracks
of sepia betrayed water's campaigns
to slip inside, to etch the plaster skim
with feathered mottling. She made the bread--
spine twisting like a kolach, knuckles red
as beets--and waited for her seraphim.

All hail Hedgie

Hedgie is a harsh taskmaster. He posted today's MaPo early this morning, which is completely unfair and shows a marked disregard for a person's delicate feelings. Please go ogle him and give him offerings of fruit bats and breakfast cereals.

Is there such a thing...

... as a comfortable set of headphones? My god. My ears just met in the middle.

If anyone ever complains about today's TV...

... just send them to this link.

I mean yeah, the Mamas and the Papas are grooving and then, suddenly, frenetic dancers start popping out of the bath fixtures and gogo-ing arrythmically. Sure Mom. The 60s made sense.

Pall Mall (archive)

Pall Mall

There was a trick to getting them to stay, a twist
to the ends like the barreled monkey arms, linking
one cleaner to another. The feet were something else,
useless, dependent on furniture--the sofa-box
of kitchen matches she had tucked down between
the mattress and the footboard.

The power liked to fail if a cloud shade
glanced off a line just right, and the house ducked
into gloom, a cedar cask bunged up tight. She never learned
the way to flick a paper match quick quick along
the scratchpaper without risk to a fingernail the way
her father struck, never learned the way her brother dabbed
two fingers on his tongue and hissed out a flame.

The lamp pied the table with shadows, its chimney
soot-jacketed and hot. Fallen dark, she never thought
to sponge the glass first. It didn't matter. Without the flame
the sink was just a rumor, hiding in the deep black,
invisible. Pipe-cleaner people waltzed in the oil's flicker,
drunkenly on stubfeet, a shocking uncle at a wedding.

White for boys and sickly yellow girls, they bent
to revelry or rode salt shaker ponies. Still
she always could unravel, straighten to the task
of slipping brushy into an old pipe. Her father begged
only that she not snip the wires, not cut them short.

Hi ho, hi ho, to OSU we go

Steve's surgeon has punted us over to the Ohio State Comprehensive Wound Center.

They can do hyperbaric things. I guess that's good, if you're hypobaric. Or just baric, and you want to be hyper.

Too... much... curry... chicken...

I hadn't had Chinese food in months. So I ate some. And ate some. And ate. And my god. I think I need to lie down.

A mixed message on plagiarism

I've encountered a few poetry plagiarists over the years. Poetry. That art form where there's no money involved (Richard Wilbur notwithstanding), and no real fame either.

A couple of the plagiarists were shunned. One, though, was defended. He admitted to the theft, mind you. No one could deny that he stole at least one poem and posted it as his own. But it just wasn't a big deal for some other poets to overlook.

Perhaps that's what makes me look at the case of Kaavya Viswanathan with a little cynicism. Sure, I've seen lots of poetry bloggers call her names. And those who did might have done the same in his case had they heard of it.

When I compare the two cases, I see one very young person with a lot of money at stake and I see one middle aged person with nothing but jollies to gain. I don't excuse either, but the former? I can understand it. She was a damned fool, but I can understand it.

His defenders, though, see it the other way around. He didn't "hurt" anyone, you see. He didn't "gain" anything. Somehow, finding that someone betrayed my trust for no reason whatsoever isn't a happier thought.

In the wider world, we see this morality play again and again. The guy on the news has no excuse! He's rotten to the core and should be shot! My brother/uncle/mother/neighbor/boss on the other hand didn't mean any harm. It's just a mistake. Just an honest mistake.

I'm slacking

The WEE is foundering on the shoals of my laziness. I need a ghost reviewer.

Release the hounds!

A thread on Eratosphere reminded me of a decision I made last week. I meant to ramble on about it here, but forgot.

I was reminded when Susan Vaughan said:

Why do I really want my poetry to be published?

My answer:

I think I wanted readers. And now I think I've finally realized that I get hundreds of people coming to my blog and if I want readers, there they are. I can post the work that I love and get readers. I can post as much or as little as I want. I can trust my vicious troll of an internal editor not to embarrass me too much.

I did my first ever submissions earlier this year, two places. One accepted some and one rejected it all. And I felt the same about both, just sort of a weird detachment, though the rejection also came with a sense of fatigue, a sense that I didn't know if I was supposed to pick something else out to send them or move on. Did they not like these poems, or did they not like my poetry? Who knows?

If I post poems to my blog, some places don't want them any longer. So I can stop posting them on my blog in the hopes that I'll find a magazine that wants them. That seems so bizarre, so counterproductive, to me. I don't want to create a false scarcity, I want readers! I want a dialogue. I want to give something to poetry, not withhold it.

This has been a really long time coming for me. I never submitted because I was lazy and arrogant and I'm no fan of rejection. But now I've gotten my acceptance, I've gotten my rejection, and I'm still left with a bagful of virgin poems.

I'm putting them on my blog. I might collect them for people who are interested. If someone wanted one for some reason, they can have it. And a big weight is suddenly lifted from my heart.

So, if you notice a huge influx of poetry here, it's because the floodgates are open. I've got no reason not to post, and lots of reasons to post them here. I hope some of you like some of them.

Super creepy cymbal monkey!

Those who watch the new Dr. Who (thanks for the heads up, Hedgie!) will know what I mean.

Mummy! Are you my mummy?

Eeek!

To Livy? (archive)

To Livy

Time spoons our cells away. We are dessert
for appetites that whet themselves on stone.
Both bones and mountains sliver into dirt
long after histories become unknown.
But some stories still matter. Sacrifice:
a heifer for the favor of the gods;
or truth's not an unreasonable price
for happiness--an arduous facade
when death creeps in and we've already claimed
our lives are perfect. Contradictions must
be hidden, burnt, ignored, or just renamed
exotically--some foreign pile of dust
ground exceeding fine. The wind defeats it.
So ignorance meets bliss, and smiles, and eats it.

Workshops, assumptions, and a crushing fatigue

Today, I spelunked around on a few poetry workshop sites I used to frequent as a moderator and poster. I was pretty religious about it. I'd hate to see an accounting of all the poems I've commented on in some half-formed state.

But for a couple of years now, I haven't been able to contribute much. I attributed it to a general poetry burnout. I spread myself too thin back then and am still reaping that particular whirlwind.

The truth is, I needed to learn to treat a poem presented to me as a complete work. It was a hard lesson, but I needed to learn it. I needed to say, "This poem is complete. I can react to it, but I cannot change it." Because I found myself mentally editing everything, trimming, mucking about, destroying every poem in my head. I treated other people's poems as opportunities to discover my own fixes. And that is simply unacceptable to me.

But participating in a workshop when you feel chary about mucking about is pretty damned worthless. It is my place to react to a poem, not to revise it.

30-year-old Julie wouldn't have known what I was talking about. I'm not entirely sure 35-year-old Julie isn't just making excuses for continued lethargy.

For now, I'll stick with WEE and try to read the poems as they are written rather than revising them into my own work. We'll see.

Free Gift vs. Michael Bolton

I have a Borders Rewards card that is partially registered. To complete the registration I need to call them. Upon completing it, I'll receive a free gift! Woo!

But upon calling I found myself on hold, listening to Michael Bolton.

Free gift? Michael Bolton? Free gift? Michael Bolton? I could only hold out for about 20 seconds before the power of the free gift waned and I could hang up.

It's probably just a bookmark anyway.

Can I resist a challenge?

Hedgie went ahead with his MaPo. Can I be far behind, howling that he needs to wait for meeeee?

All we like sheep. Baa.

Lois McMaster Bujold...

... is awfully damned good, isn't she?

I just finished The Curse of Chalion, which is the first fantasy novel I've managed to read since I fell ill in December while reading Gene Wolfe. I'm prone to associating barfing with whatever I'm reading. Sorry Gene.

In any case, Bujold is a very good writer. It makes me wish I didn't hate skiffy or I'd read her other books.

No more Foreigner

The need to sing cheesy rock bands has passed. We're home.

Steve has a complication from his long-term antibiotic use, so now he's on a different antibiotic which will make his mouth taste funny. This is how the nurse described it.

Now, sing some Paul Simon to soothe us all toward the weekend.

It's urgent, emergency! Urgent, emergency!

Gosh, I hate when I start the day with a song by Foreigner in my head.

I'm waiting to take Steve in to urgent care for severe stomach pains, hopefully caused by the antibiotics he's been on for months now.

Keep those phalanges crossed. Sing Foreigner so I don't have to.

A Thursday sort of poem (archive)

Small Bones

As if you die every day, and I spend each one
with a spade-blistered map on my palms,
and a stoop on my shoulder, and a kinked hipbone
curls my foot on the blade. This new tomb's
as soft as sherbet beneath the blooms

still greying on the briar. The troweled-out lawn
must keep you from foxes or neighborhood dogs
who lollop the fields with their noses pressed down.
Dig deeper. Cold, late autumn grass still clogs
the hole, survives the frosts and fogs

of November. I'll tuck you in an arch of clay
if I can, below the soil and stones.
I drive, lopfooted, deep--a posthole grave
I won't tamp down. I will not feel the give
that could be space and air, or could be bones.

Poetry Thursday

Neat idea from a new blog. It's Poetry Thursday, so post a poem and go here to let others know about it.

If you're the person who sent the email...

... my reply bounced.

And I hope you won't mind when I mention your email's contents, because they were interesting.

I got an email asking if I would review a book of poetry on WEE. I sent back a request for more information, plus a warning that if I were to agree to do it, it might not be very much fun for the author.

It's a difficult question. I would hope I could be objective. Well, as objective as I'm capable of being. But I wonder if I really could if I had contact with the author beforehand.

Depending on the response to this post, I guess I might find out.

Wah!

More computer fu. [fly voice]Help meeeee![/fly voice]

Poetry reviews by cearian

Another blogger doing reviews.

Cearian is doing much (much much) more in-depth reviews on current poems than I could ever manage.


Also, since I'm talking poetry reviews, I should mention rhubarb is susan, a blog I've been reading through Bloglines for some time now.

Re re re

The Lead Out

He sank in blood, his ankles deep in shag
still wet, still red. His friends had made him come
to clean the room, to clean what Rick had done
with one small bullet. Everything was bagged
like sandwiches: the sneakers grey with matter;
the books that curled as if dropped in the bath.
The wall that caught the lead was peeled to lath;
the bedspread balled, though it survived the splatter.
He sank in blood, his wrists deep in the rug
that had been blue. He feared that bits of teeth
or some small piece of skull might lie beneath
the nap to bite his fingers as he tugged.
But there were no surprises, bad or good,
just rising grain as red bled into wood.

Resurrecting some poems from the deep

Amnestos

Then Edward's mother whispered through my phone
that he remembered no one else. That I
stood in that gap of memory alone
and wanted. Would I come to him and try
to see if some brain fissure would unfold
if I could smile just so? I took a fern--
a fecund, restless thing that I could hold
before me like Medusa's head. In turn
he froze, then waved me off. I'm not the one
he taught to kiss, the girl who loved him back.
She's scattered through my synapses, but none
of me is who she was. Time is a track
that leads one way. Dead cells cannot regrow
and those I've lost are who he used to know.

Some days I'm sure I talk too much about poetry. Other days I'm sure I haven't talked about poetry in too long. How about I just post a couple and shut up?

And so my slackerhood has a spotlight shone on it

See what happens when I don't have internet access at work? Things in Ohio suddenly get very very quiet.

In my next life, I'll feel guilty about that.

Part of the reason I'm doing the training I'm doing is that my current job just doesn't fit me very well. I thought I needed a challenge. Of course, once I have a challenge, I bet I'll turn into a whiner. Wait. That already happened. In 1973.

Google ogling

People keep coming to my blog looking for "easy ways to write sestinas" and "write an easy sonnet" and, my personal favorite, "surgery tips."

Yes, in between my posts where I whine about sundries, I give people the keys to sestina writing and hysterectomies. But don't confuse the two. Severe intoxication works wonders for the former, but can only lead to tears and male hysterectomies for the latter.

Whirr fade silence

There are few sounds more disconcerting than to hear your hard drive simply spool down to complete silence. Ask me how I know!

In any case, my computer at work has now been upgraded to something made in the 21st century. And no, I'm not exaggerating.

Le boom

Massive computer fu.

All is lost. All emails. All bookmarks. All cookies. All history. All programs. Pow.

Go ahead, Argentina. Cry for me!

I have blogger cooties!

On the right side of my page, there's a list that shows where the people who read this blog are coming from. Please click on some of those fine folks' blogs if you have the opportunity.

What's weird is that I go to a number of blogs with similar lists, and I don't show up. I click in vain. Do I have blogcooties? Am I shunned? It's taken three months for me to realize that I'm missing. Click. Click.

I also used to be amusing

And now I'm just whiny. Bastards!

Go here and laugh.

Ignore me. I'll be better tomorrow. Still bitter and sniveling, but now with more fiber.

I used to be amused

Now I'm just peeved.

The day started really well. There was good news on a couple of fronts. Steve's wrist is healing (finally). The sun was shining. The cat Isaac jumped off the bed before coughing up a hairball. These are glad tidings indeed.

And then kerblooie.

This is only marginally to do with the immense sucking sound radiating from Jacobs Field, though I might need earplugs to finish out this homestand.

Got my final back and have an A for the first module. Surely, in some universe, that counts for something.

Is this the post-NaPo (and birthday) blues or something bigger? Poetry seems so vain to me right now, in all the meanings of the word. So conceited, so shallow, so worthless.

And there's a boat tied to my Jeep and I don't like it.

Picking a favorite

At pffa, we're doing a commemorative thread, where everyone picks their favorite or best poem they wrote during the month.

My pick? Catkin, from Day 1. I guess I'm saying that it all went downhill from there.

A big thankee to the blogworld

Stephen Colbert might have garnered more sympathy for Bush than laughs at the event, but I think the man definitely has nerves of steel.

Lots of people are talking about it, but Scoplaw's got links.

I would never have heard of this story were it not for the wonderful world of blogs. It's good to be on the internets!