See this cat?

He just tried to kill me.

I stepped on him as I was coming down the stairs with armsful of laundry. As I started to tumble down the stairs, all I could think of was that Steve was going to come home on Sunday and find me dead with my head in the bookcase at the foot of the stairs.

Pardon my while I bleed all over my blog. I'm turning purple.

Writing Blind's poetry reviews

Check out Rebecca of Writing Blind who reviews Sandra Cisneros's Loose Woman.

I have sent Steve on an expedition

To Kentucky.

So I will have a whole weekend to fiddle around and get nothing accomplished. Oh, I'll claim that I'll be busy, but I cannot tell a lie. When Steve leaves, I get all discombobulated.

I have too much to do and no desire to do it.

I am supposed to be starting the next phase of my course, but I really just feel like puttering. Putter. Putter.

Steve wants to go away for the weekend. I'm exhausted just thinking about it. Putter.

pseudophakia available through Lulu

Well, I predicted that I'd be able to make pseudophakia available before Independence Day, and here it is.



I would encourage anyone who has considered publishing through Lulu to do it! It's remarkably simple, and I got a copy this morning and was really impressed with the quality. It looks like I knew what I was doing. I didn't.

My heartfelt thanks to Gabriel, Wendy, and Howard for their help.

Anyone listen to the show?

If I sound like a complete doofus, I'd like to know sooner rather than later!

Why am I watching British soap operas?

I don't watch the American style, but I suppose my snobbery thinks that if it's on BBC America it isn't quite as trashy. That snobbery would be wrong.

Random notes to the authors...

Ah, the things dedicated people will put up with for their passions. POD-dy Mouth has some advice for would-be authors here. Trust me, it's worth the read.

Check out the new Goodnight Show

Be prepared to snap your fingers and tap your toes as Dean Martin provides today's soundtrack.

The Goodnight Show

No rotten fruit, please!

Today I sent in my list of recordings for The Goodnight Show, and Didi invited me to make any comments I wanted. Really, all I wanted to say was "Please don't hate me if I mangled your poem!" So I just said thank you and will keep my fingers crossed.

Julie Carter, making enemies through poetry, one reading at a time!

Some poems really are much harder to read aloud than others, and it isn't necessarily because the sounds are particularly dense or tricky. Some poets put a "that" or an "as" where I wouldn't, or leave them out where I would put them in, and I find myself stumbling. One poem had a mini tongue twister that I never would have noticed without trying to record it. And I'm sure my rather plain Jane interpretations aren't what the poets were always hoping for. Still, this is a fun venture and I'm glad to be a part of it. I'll link to the show when it airs.

Read this poem, too

Please. Go here. Scroll down to the bottom if you must, but starting at the top is even better.

But read "A Prayer for Birds Dying in Darkness and in Light."

With my enormous thanks to someone Anonymous who gave me the link on WEE.

I just.

Wow.

I.

Wow.

Read it.

Is your blog X or Y?

Microsoft thinks they can predict who will come to your site.

This blog is close to an even split between men and women. WEE, on the other hand, is apparently a girly blog!

More sound files

I'm getting fairly efficient at the whole recording thing, and I wanted to see if it would improve an unpolished JuPo poem. I did a recording of "Calling shotgun" just below. As always, click on the arrow (if you have javascript enabled).

The recordings for "The Goodnight Show" have been a lot of fun to do. I hope they are as entertaining to hear.

His plastic will be surgically altered!

The plastic surgeon looked normal but sounded ridiculously young. I was studiously not watching the goings-on that involved debridement, which is French for "this is gonna hurt," and kept thinking I was trapped in an episode of "Head of the Class." Yes, that young.

In any case, plastic surgery! We didn't ask if they'd do a 2-for-1 and laser Steve's eyebrows off or something. Then he could be like a girl I used to know who tweezed her eyebrows and eyelashes and then painted them back on.

An early day tomorrow

Steve has the first appointment of the day at a plastic surgeon. If Steve has been known to be annoyingly dumb on occasion, can we call any plastic surgery a boob job? Inquiring minds.

Anyone hear Dueling Banjos?

FedEx and UPS both got here about the same time. Both trucks are currently idling outside my window, nose-to-nose. Something's gotta give.

Hair to die for

This is exactly what the mop looked like this morning. Like Moe and Alfalfa had something torrid going on.

And you can't tell from this picture, but if you saw the whole sequence you would know that I'm wearing the purple pants that will live in infamy.

Where has all my JuPo gone, long time passing?

I'm stuck. I'm behind in my JuPo'ing, but my brain is like... well, if I could come up with a simile I wouldn't be stuck, now would I?

I spent the day beating at things in the yard. That's satisfying in a way, but now my hands feel like sausages. Ooh, there's one.

Blood sugar blues

Every so often, I become completely convinced that I probably have diabetes. It's from living with Steve and his constant test test testing. And then there's the new findings that 1/3 of Americans have diabetes.

So, I need to test.

But damn, sticking myself with the finger poker thing is hard.

I'm pathetic.

I also don't have diabetes. Random level of 87.

Test your blood sugar! Do it!

And now I'll stop nagging.

I guess that answers that

What trouble can I get into? I volunteered to do reading for miPOradio's The Goodnight Show podcasts.

It'll be good fun. I apologize in advance if I sound dorky reading your poem. I also sound dorky when not reading your poem, so you shouldn't be surprised!

What trouble can I get into

I'm bored. It's a bad thing when I'm at loose ends because trouble soon follows. I start doing weird and stupid things, like dyeing my hair orange or joining a convent. At the same time!

I guess I could go mop the kitchen. It needs it. Yeah, I'm still here. No, I didn't just hop up and industriously go mop. Ha. You funny.

It shouldn't take two days to reach a doctor's office

But that's what it took. Two days, just to call in a prescription. Their system doesn't allow you to leave a message. You either talk to someone or it says "Call back" and hangs up. GAH!

I know you think they're endlessly interesting

But, dearest coworker, I don't want to hear your goddamn selection of ringtones.

The drivecicle

It appears freezing the hard drive could work, but it was a laptop hard drive and I don't have any way to read it. Bother.

So, you've all been saved the pain of me posting excerpts. This is your only lucky break for the week. Enjoy.

I should be writing

But I feel so lazy. I finished noodling around with Lulu, have no course work to do, and I don't feel like doing laundry. I guess I could go vacuum something with the working-for-the-moment vacuum. Blah.

Maybe I'll hold my breath until someone volunteers to entertain me.

Lulu isn't so scary

A few weeks back when I started talking about Lulu, I thought the prospect looked daunting as hell. It sounded like gibberish.

But now, it's looking pretty easy. I have my first mock-up nearly done.

I had originally had a goal of Christmas. Er, it's looking more like Independence Day.

Down to 78 poems

My collection is at 78 poems and holding steady.

I've decided on the title "pseudophakia," though I was tempted to call it something like "A short history of stupidity" or "This didn't really happen like this, Mom."

Pseudophakia is harder to spell, but shorter to type, so that's my choice.

It's so crazy, it just might work!

As some of you know, I wrote a novel a few years back and the hard drive in my computer crashed, irrevocably. To top it off, the floppies I had backed up to? Also destroyed. It was a Message.

I haven't really thought about it in a couple of years, until I saw this post on pffa. A hard drivecicle. Getcher chocolate covered frozen hard drives right cheer!

Anyway, I'm going to try it. It's probably better I don't since I'm sure the novel is irredeemable. But if it's on there you can read it and laugh. Or weep. Whatever floats yon boat.

Would any of these people care?

Ah, life as a packrat. I was digging through some old papers and found a rather large stack of short stories from a class I took in 1993. Everyone had to hand around copies of their work so we could read and critique them. The class didn't help me. I'm not much of a fan of short stories and, if I recall correctly, mine sucked. I have to try to recall instead of reading them because I have copies of everyone else's work--not mine.

What are the chances any of these people would like their stories back?

Well, if you were at Notre Dame in the summer of '93 and took a short fiction class taught by William O'Rourke, let me know!

Why am I not surprised?

So Howard has managed to attract a revenge critter on Gazebo. The revenge critter's username? Ilovegbush.

Yeah, that probably speaks for itself, doesn't it?

What a friend you have in eeeeeeeeemail

The poem may not be missing after all!

It's time for scary, obsessive Julie!

Someone on a message board asked about the singer of a piece of music. I saw the post at 1:17 this afternoon. Right after getting home from town, I started trying to figure it out, and I was just successful a few minutes ago.

Six hours, thereabouts.

This really isn't a good character trait. Just imagine what happens when it's something important.

But the music sure was purty.

Oh, and it was Elzbieta Towarnicka singing the 3rd track from the Avalon Original Soundtrack. In Polish!

I feel rejected just reading this!

A whole website of rejection letters. I need a Kleenex.

But some of these letters are quite nice. I like the people at Tikkun. Too bad I don't have any material to submit to see if I could get a letter that nice.

Pamela Dean

Novelist Pamela Dean delights and baffles me. All at the same time.

Read Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary. Enjoy and admire it. Then explain it to me.

His heart skips a beat

Normally, if someone said their heart skipped a beat when they saw you, you'd be flattered.

If Steve says it, you're just depressed.

Cardiologist here we come.

MIA

I was reading a suggestion for Poetry Thursday for writing a poem using beloved or hated words.

One of my favorite words is palimpsest. And that word popped into my head when I saw the PT suggestion. What also popped into my head was the realization that I wrote a poem a couple of years ago called "Palimpsest." The problem? I don't have a copy. At all. Nothing. Not a scrap. It had something to do with deer in the bed of a pickup. No, it might have had a title that dealt with a market. Damn. I don't know.

Spring has sprung

The spring off my weedwhacker, that is. It is somewhere in the yard.

Anyone have a metal detector?

I was going to write something...

... something big. Something filled with light, absolutely overfilled with abundance, and it was going to be about my father.

Instead, I wrote about a cat.

I'll see the cat in a minute. She's upstairs. The father, no. Never again. Damn him. Two and a half years and I'm still not at peace. Damn him.

It's the eternal cry of the controlling child: I should have done something. I should have made him.

Another way to waste time

Like that's all you need. Still, go play with Erasures.

Here's mine.

With thanks to Jilly Dybka for the linkie.

Well, that's one answer

Okay, so the vacuum imbroglio is my fault. I took it apart and you could knit yourself a kitten with the cat hair inside the motor.

For some reason, the vacuum doesn't like that.

Poets against plagiarism

I have zero patience for a plagiarist, so I'm happy to link to the Poets Against Plagiarism blog and to put a banner on the sidebar. Read the blog. Follow the links. Use the banner. Shun plagiarists. Google yourself. Fight back.

I haven't drawn in years, but...

... Dick Jones linked to crackskullbob who is hosting a self-portrait marathon challenge and wow. I'm tempted to do it.

I don't even know where there's any paper. That's pathetic.

Burying the hatchet

I'm attempting to make peace with my vacuum cleaner, but it's having none of it. It attacks me. Well, it static shocks me, any rate. And it likes to stop running at random intervals. I assume it's overheating, but since it doesn't have any sort of gauge on it, I'm just guessing. Right now, it's sulking in the dining room and Albert is draped in its general direction.

Read this poem

Please.

After Viewing Twelve Versions of Madonna and Child by Steve Kronen. It's the fourth one down the page, but just start at the top and quit when you reach the bottom. You won't be sorry.

A realization

So I gathered up a number of poems and in the reading discovered that I write about grim, horrible things. I've spent the last few days mulling that over, wondering if I can, should, change directions. Wondering what it is that seems to push me toward the gruesome.

And I don't have a complete answer, but I've got two answers that I think explain much of it to myself, and maybe others will find it interesting.

1. My bleak, grim side comes out much more in formal verse than free. I shy away from dealing directly with the Big Topics in free verse because without the constraints of form I can go to pieces. Having to manipulate the words into a form forces me to manipulate the thoughts behind them, too. I build a story by building the poem, fictionalizing, bending, distorting, distancing, creating a buffer between me and what I'm writing. It's like having a Rubik's Cube at a funeral.

2. I am in rebellion against the stale, boring, static, bland, nothing sonnets that pour out of "neo-formalism" like an iambic wave. Rhyming tripe is still tripe. Metered tripe? You can march to it, but it's otherwise worthless. If I ever read another sonnet that has nothing to say I'm going to scream. And forms simply trick the writer that they're accomplishing something even when they aren't. Rhyme, meter, they're gadgets. If the poem doesn't say anything without them, it doesn't say anything with them, either. But oh, what a tempting illusion. So I err in the opposite direction, but I can live with that rather than insipidity, or at least greater insipidity than I'm already cursed with.

I know you all want some fiberglass

But I'm telling you right now, you can't have it!

We're busy! We just had to cancel a plant shutdown and scheduled vacation because we're so busy. Take your fiberglass-wanting elsewhere!

There are days when my job is hard, then there are days when my job is hard but for entirely different reasons. Today, my job consists of telling people that we can't make fiberglass for them, instead of telling people how much they would like our material. Instead of a cajoler, I am a bringer of bad tidings. But I like it.

Just don't order anything. I might bite.

If you read the reviews at WEE...

... please follow the links to the poets' sites. Let them know you're out there, reading.

Or you can just send them money. I've never known a poet to turn down free money. Except the insane half. They might. Or they might take it an wallpaper their chinchilla's litter box, but hey, as long as they don't tell you, it's all good.

Not touching that with a 10-foot pole

How did I almost miss this poem by Carl? I would have regretted it for the rest of my life.

Where is my miiiind?

I forgot to talk about the great chapbook st*rnosedmole put together for NaPo. It's just wonderful.

I'm in great company. I feel all swoony.

With thanks to SB for the reminder and for putting up the links.

Ham a lam a ding dong

You Are Pork

You like to think you're the other white meat, but many people don't want anything to do with you. You probably smoke. And it's likely that no body part of yours is off limits.

What Kind of Meat Are You?

I am not going to think too hard about these results. I am not going to think too hard about these results. I am not going... damn. Too late.

Ro-bo-mow!

Want!

How much do I hate mowing? How much do I want a robot to do it?

Lots, baby. Lots.

Not again

I've barely recovered from the last batch of cluster headaches, and a new batch is starting. Everyone has a green outline, as if they bathed in lime Jell-O.

Someone shoot me. My god.

Just looking at that...

... made my legs fall asleep. I can be swordlike, though, when I'm prodding Steve to stop putting his elbow up my nose.

Find your own pose!

You oughta be in pictures

Now Steve's going to be a film! star!

Our recent sojourn to the Wound Center involved lights, cameras, and action. Well, light, camera, and doctors standing around mumbling.

And when it was time for his close-up, Mr. DeMille, the camera zoomed in on his wrist wound. But I tells ya, that thing has star potential written all over it. It can play comedy. It could be involved in a spectacular love story. We'll call it "Brokewrist Mountain."

I said to camera guy, "I don't ever want to come over to watch home movies." He laughed, agreed, and proceeded to tell me about footage of missing limbs. That's a guy who knows how to show a girl a good time.

But I don't even like Batman

Superhero self-loathing. News at 11!

You scored as Batman, the Dark Knight. As the Dark Knight of Gotham, Batman is a vigilante who deals out his own brand of justice to the criminals and corrupt of the city. He follows his own code and is often misunderstood. He has few friends or allies, but finds comfort in his cause. Batman, the Dark Knight 63% The Amazing Spider-Man 58% Captain Jack Sparrow 50% Lara Croft 42% Neo, the "One" 42% Maximus 38% William Wallace 25% The Terminator 25% James Bond, Agent 007 25% El Zorro 21% Indiana Jones 21% Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0 created with QuizFarm.com

Happiness is a warm poem

A collection of my poems can suck all the joy out of a room. Why don't I write about happy things? I don't think I'm that morose, that sullen.

Whittling, whittling, whittling

What was 86 poems is now 80, with more cuts to come.

What to do with the rejected ones? Revise? Discard? Oh, that is the question.

It's like a lemon bomb just exploded in the kitchen

We have a terribly old sink and it likes to eat silverware. The drain can suck a full grown redwood down to get trapped in the u-bend, so I bought a plastic sink strainer to attempt to keep arms, legs, cats, and assorted appliances from disappearing in the vortex.

But it's scented. Like a lemon. Like a hundred lemons. We shall lose weight as we will be unable to spend more than 2.5 seconds in the kitchen before losing all sense of smell and turning a pleasing shade of chartreuse. Even the cats scattered.

I now have a secret weapon. Mwahaha! Well, not so secret, what with the whole blabbing about it on my blog thing. Mwaha?

Poets don't know everything, okay?

Just because Robert Frost didn't like free verse doesn't make his opinion worth more than that rock's opinion. (There really is a rock right there, and I made a rather dramatic sweeping gesture toward it, though I probably looked more like someone from The Price is Right than someone making a point.)

Pins and needles

A friend is looking over my rough manuscript and MY GOD. It's making me anxious. I'm not even sure why.

Raining? Pouring!

Work has been a mad scramble for a couple of weeks now. We're booked solid through July, but the orders keep coming in. Why couldn't we get some of these orders in February? Aiiiee!

The book is terrifying. I compiled the poems I think might make the cut and did some arranging. Since I've never really read the lot as a block, I didn't know what a depressing writer I am. It's bad. I can't give this to my mother.

Am I an ice cream genius?

Not likely. But Ben & Jerry's is running a contest where you can create and name your own flavor. Mine?

Pineapple and Cake Batter ice cream with caramel and butter rum swirls.

And I've dubbed it "Pineappling for the Fjords."

The only problem? Now I want some Pineappling for the Fjords. I really do.

It's a sin to kill a mockingbird

I've wondered before why Harper Lee didn't publish anything else, but I've also felt, deep inside, that I understood why she didn't. Better to go out on top. Better. Even if you have another book in you.

I would have met the challenge by publishing under a pseudonym. I have a dozen poems scattered anonymously in workshops across the internet--poems that I will probably never claim--because I wanted to see what would happen.

Who knows? Perhaps Lee has done the same. Perhaps she has a collection of one-off novels lining her mantle. Selfishly, I hope so.

With thanks to Frank Wilson for the link.

Spoiling the romantic mood

Steve and I just watched the recent "Pride and Prejudice," the one with Keira Knightley, and during one early scene I was struck by the resemblance Mr. Darcy has to Gomer Pyle. The hysterical laughter that followed was not conducive to a serious enjoyment of a truly romantic film. I got over it. Still, dammit, in certain lights...

The movie has made Steve agree to watch the miniseries with me at some point. He puts up with my swooning over Colin Firth. He's good to me.

Rain, rain, go away

Steve and I were supposed to take my sister out for her birthday, but we were going to go to an open-air lakefront place up the road and damn, it's cold out there. Sixty degrees just isn't warm enough for sitting by a lake and eating the best pizza int he world and listening to a live band. Brr.

A lightbulb joke I hadn't heard

How many Marxists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

The lightbulb contains within itself the seeds of its own revolution.


Ba dum bump!

Bookie bookie book

So, I am going to do a book, primarily for my mother for putting up with me for so long, but available to any sucker who wants one.

Which means I've been reading old stuff and new stuff and good stuff and bad stuff and stuff I can't tell if it's good or bad and stuff I love though it's bad and stuff I hate though it's good and I tells ya, I haven't a clue how to go about this.

Do I do it all formal? Do I add in the free verse? Do I arrange it by form? Do I try to find a theme? Do I bribe blogpassersby to read it? Do I put it to a vote? Do I pull the covers up over my head in a vain attempt to hide from all of the questions that are swirling?

Ack.

The bulk of the poems will be 41 sonnets. When did I write 41 sonnets? I don't remember most of them. I remembered even fewer of the ones I've already decided don't make the cut. I shall choose to believe I didn't really write 'em.

And who is the idiot who made no effort to keep track of where anything was? I am. I am.

It's a beer! It's an ice cream! It's two treats in one!

Ben & Jerry's has a new ice cream flavor: Black & Tan. It's "Stout ice cream swirled with chocolate ice cream."

And I almost bought some.

Though I hate beer.

I wonder sometimes if I'm safe to be on the streets.

Yow, the first bills

Getting the first bills from a medical specialist is like, well, it's like something unpleasant. $550 dollars per visit, it appears.

I think it's going to be a while before I buy anything. Like food.

The wind has gone out of...

... my blogging sails. Too many posts are in the aether. My bloggercells are broken!

But here's a question: Can anyone learn to write a decent sonnet? What say you?

Let Blogger be floggered!

Curses. Another day, another series of error messages.

How hard can I make you work?

How much work do you feel a poet has a "right" to demand of you, the reader?

This question stems from frustrations I'm feeling about poetry workshopping and on having my poems called "dense" and "difficult." Honestly, I don't see it. I've envied the dense, difficult poets. (I have the feeling in the back of my head that if I didn't have to struggle to understand it, it isn't really poetry. The feeling is stupid, but it's there.)

But let's say that I do write difficult poems. Is that fair? No one forces you to read them, obviously, but would it be fair for a poet to feel frustration if readers don't make a significant effort?

I'm torn. I don't think poets are owed anything, and I don't think readers are owed anything. The poem, though, might be owed something.

And I do believe that critique, commentary, etc. should only be done when that effort has been made, but this question is more general than that.

Curse you, Blogger!

Of course, when I'm cranky and want to vent, Blogger decides to take the day off. BAH!

WEE review got eaten.

Stupid-funny post about cardiologists got eaten.

Dinner got eaten, but with a seasoning of angst. BAH!

There's a poem in there...

... in my noggin, but I can't seem to drag it out. I think I need a brighter flashlight.

Does Blogger hate everyone?

Or is it just me? Nine tries so far to post.

I know nothing about painting

But Rebecca Loudon (read her blog, just read it) posted a painting by Alfredo Arreguin and I am in love. I am desperately, passionately, in love.

I commented on Rebecca's blog that I immediately thought of tapestries like this gorgeous needlepoint that had me completely out of my mind with envy for weeks.



Which is probably insane, but I don't know enough about art to know if I'm insane or not. No matter. I'm in love. My eyeballs itch with the intensity of my desire just to stare at these paintings.

I have just discovered that...

... it's difficult to tell when blue cheese dressing has gone off.

Odds and ends

This blogger will advise you what poetry book to read.

*

Getting lots of hits because of the mentions on the Books, Inq. blog.

*

Microwaved my lunch even though the label said not to. I am a rebel. It was good.

*

Stress test tomorrow for Steve. Why is his stress tested and not mine? I've got high-quality stress over here. USDA prime stress.

*

The Eratosphere sonnet thingie is over and Rhina's sonnet chosen as the winner. But since there was never any doubt which the judge preferred, it's a little anticlimactic. Oh, and "Snag" kicked all of our asses, punks.

Going to the drive-in, the drive-in, the drive-in

Does anything beat a drive-in movie? I don't even know what's playing. What's playing is immaterial. All I know is that it'll be two movies and we'll get popcorn and there will be joy and happiness and long lines at the bathroom between movies. Whee!

I don't know what Steve's watching, but

The music is bizarre. Debussy's "Clair de Lune" interspersed with Linda Ronstadt's "Blue Bayou," Santana's "Oye Como Va," Toni Basil's "Hey Mickey," and just now, "Nessun Dorma."

It sounds like one of my cds!

A blogger with a mission

Book of the Day plans to read all of the great works of literature.

I have put it on Bloglines, so I plan to read all of the comments on the great works of literature, and leave the actual reading of said great works to people with more brain cells than I can muster.

My neighbors suck

While putting in a pool, they've had heavy equipment in their backyard. Apparently, this required bringing said heavy equipment through my backyard. My lilacs have vanished. My lilies are churned under. My fence is down. My yard is a mud patch.

I'm going to send Albert over there to pee on their windows! Er, Albert is a cat, not a person, which means that he might just be dumb enough to do it. Er, not that I probably couldn't find a person to do it, if I offered a gratuity of some sort.

Two dollars for pee-for-hire.

Scavella and Hedgie hit the big time!

I love when deserving poets get noticed, like here and here.

The internet, to me, is all about linking, connecting data to data, people to people, and poems to readers.

And when you all get famous, I'll sit in my rocker with my teeth out talking about how I knew you when!

Animal art

This is a picture of a black and white dog. But that's not what makes in animal art. No, this picture was painted by a gorilla.

Some people are too eager to dismiss similarities and equivalencies between humans and animals. I'm too eager to embrace them.

But dammit, that's art.

(Click on the painting for a link to other pieces and an article.)

JuPo 1

Rain Bowed

I wonder if the water etched a spotted
bull's-eye on the pane--something to lure
the bullet birds to smash where blinds obscure
the scrabble toeholds in the screen. The knotted
cord plays on my fingers. I can pull
and burst the room with light and glitter eyes,
the beaks like shining corn, the frantic cries
and clack of wings. Do feathers bloom the dull
and piebald grass? Does blood bloom on the sill?
I've envied birds, the hollow flit of bone,
but not the skullthunk knocking like a stone
tossed by a lover. I could make them still,
could snap a neck as swiftly as a bean.
Instead I wait. Clean. Unseeing. Unseen.

Where have you gone, Julie's Brain-io...

... our homework turns its lonely eyes to you. Woo woo woo.

I'm trying to accomplish things but keep getting distracted by... ooh. A moth. Did I read this book? Why is there a salt shaker on my desk? Dalek! That's a blister. The washer stopped. Did I pay the water bill last month? The trashman cometh. Ow. My fingernails need trimmed. Ex-ter-mi-nate!

I lead such an exciting life. And Cleveland sucks.

The JuPo crisis

So I'm supposed to be writing a poem. NaPo came and went. MaPo came and went. Both with a poem a day. The rules for JuPo are different. This time a poem every three days, with all that lovely lovely time to refine and develop and...

Yeah. I haven't started. Refined? Developed? HaHA!

Procrastinated and rushed is more like it.

All you Elizabeths reeeeport!

Because if the Elizabeths are Berts, this world's not big enough for the lot of us.

You Are Bert

Extremely serious and a little eccentric, people find you loveable - even if you don't love them! You are usually feeling: Logical - you rarely let your emotions rule you You are famous for: Being smart, a total neat freak, and maybe just a little evil How you life your life: With passion, even if your odd passions (like bottle caps and pigeons) are baffling to others

The Sesame Street Personality Quiz

I knew I'd be Bert. I've got the hair.

3 of 4 from the ChiSox

As a Cleveland fan, I'll take it.

I think I'm the only Indians fan who is also a Jim Thome fan. Go Jimmy! Just please not so much when you're playing Cleveland, mmmkay?

Would you just look at that

Hand painted chocolate turtles.

Even if they tasted like chalk, they'd be the neatest thing ever.

They're color coded, too. Includes two of each: Brown (almond), Red (pecan), Yellow (cashew), Blue (walnut), White (macadamia) and Green (pistachio). And Mama turtle is praline almond.

Oh my.

Everybody's talkin' 'bout Quickmuse

Quickmuse is a neat site where two poets square off to write a poem in 15 minutes dealing with a topic assigned them. I like that idea, but the bigger neato is watching as the poems are written. Seeing it in motion, so to speak.

Check it out.

The sweet sweet sound of PoThur!

Today's Pothur inspiration was to concentrate on reading poetry aloud. Since I do that already, there wasn't much I could say, but I did take the time to rerererecord this poem.

Why this one? Well, tying into this post, Sparrow is probably the one poem I've written that has never gotten a bad comment, yet I don't think it's my best work.

It also ties into this discussion about initial caps. Since I enjamb heavily and read straight through the rhymes, initial capitals for me would be a bit weird. Other people tend to savor the line more, hitting those rhymes a bit harder, and putting a slight pause behind them. That feels strange to me, though I don't mind hearing others do it.

It's fun to read aloud, though. If everything's working properly, you should be able to click on the blue arrow and it will start playing. If everything isn't working properly, er, I'll try something else.

Sparrow

A shard of splintered glass still pricks my foot
since I passed underneath the window burst
by sparrow flight, as if the building put
itself into her path and wasn't first
on this old street--predates by eighty springs
my birth, her egg. But in her jealousy
of robins' breasts, of cardinal-bright wings,
she slit her throat on kitchen glaziery
and dyed down red. The tendrils of her blood
that traced the scratches in my iron sink
remain, despite my bleach, despite the flood
of soap and scrub. I've seen a sparrow shrink
from feathered warm to nonsense lines of brown,
and feel the glass in me that brought her down.