3 Cinquains and another Somethin'

Hrm, been having Blogger issues, but here are some recent efforts:


3 Cinquains

Bed
soft ours
holding joining forgetting
we aren't supposed to
Rewind


Icecream
sweet luxury
dip lick consume
in my forbidden pleasure
Sugar


Bike
forlorn abandoned
standing waiting forgiving
rain caresses dirty wheels
Rust

=========================
And from Sunday...


Editing
that which will not be edited
History
all that has passed
Story
what is to come
Cutting
that which is irrelevant
Pasting
together things that were
never supposed to touch
Compressing
years into minutes
Images
what never was and never will be
Yet
through the power of
Creation
Is

Eight months: the peanut gallery

How’s the morning sickness?
Is it…a good thing?

Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?
Or do you know and you’re not going to tell me?

What names do you have picked out?
Was it…planned?

You’re not going to carry that are you?
Be careful… don’t fall.

When are you due?
Don’t fall –

Oh! Can I help you with that?
Are you sure you should be…

Are you planning to breastfeed?
You are going to breastfeed, aren’t you?

Careful! (Don’t fff– )
When’s the next one coming?

* * *

Sorry for my absence over the last few days...I've been feeling VERY tired. I DO plan, however, to go back and read/re-read/memorize every poem I missed...

Three Cinquain

The inspiration was easier and harder than I thought it would be. I did two traditional and one modern. They were fun.


Yellow

A weed:
dandelion—
fear of the past rising.
Truth is fluff of our selves— lifting
each day.


Daisies

Painted ladies
trim, set, feign.
Are they happy here—
stained?



Daisies

Yellow
eyes set in white
cheeks— how sharply fate falls
gathering outcasts in grudging
bouquets.

Sidewalk Pause

Waiting for the rain that may not come
next door to the reading that starts later
some young woman singing on the speakers
adds lyrics to the rush hour rhythms.
The cost of coffee gets me a seat
and floor show, sparrows hopping
in bagel crumbs, snatching supper .
Here at the corner cluster of cafes
bookstores and over-priced antiques
I see the city trees turn leaves
light side up, plant prayers for rain,
cupping veins to catch what water falls,
but only if the clouds slow down—
running so high and fast—
past brickwork facades and overhead wires,
parking places for assorted birds
not ready to settle into their nests
just yet. They must be waiting for
the maybe rain, a quick drink
before heading home to sing
their own city sky verses.

5/8/06

telling

i know by touch
the scar that darts
across your cheek,
i've learned it with my lips,
but i can't remember
what childhood play
cracked your face

open the wine and tell me
again, i've known your stories
so long i've forgotten them

tell me how you taught yourself
to ride a bike, how you met me
and in between

skip the history that lives
with us -- your world halved
so early and the wound still ugly,
slow in healing and always asleep
somewhere in the house

i want to know you over again,
your birthmarks and first loves,
lost toys and late nights

empty the bottle into these two
slim-lipped mouths, round
with thirst, but patient

Instinct

North wind peeling whitecaps, late afternoon sun–
February makes vacationers of us
after a record slog of rain. Our dog quivers
at the ocean’s edge eying a stick bobbing just out of reach,
but it’s stay and leave it, we don’t want wet car seats
so we toss upwind, admire each speckled oval
at our feet. Each rock asks to be palmed, pocketed
while our framed prints gather dust.
No critics on the beach to say what is and isn’t
art, save ourselves. Driftwood figures
emerge from knotholes, a southwestern
cattle skull, a seal’s head, each shape
mouthed by canine jaws seconds
after we lay it down.
Hair in our eyes, sand-hijacked cuffs
we huck a few choice heavyweights into the salt,
whoop and holler at the splash like six year olds,
at the backlash of tide, thinking for a second
we caused it. Cry out when too late–
our dog goes barreling into the surf.

weeding

I exercise my dominant mammal rights
on this small piece of land between the house
and the sidewalk. The plants here
are mine, to do with as I will. Trowel in hand,
I commit genocide on yarrow, povertyweed,
the never-defeated armies of dandelions.
I dig deep, going for the roots, I understand,
as conquerers must, that the most important defeat
must happen underground, that the smallest defiant shred
can raise an army again, that a nation
of nodding peonies cannot live in the shadow
of purple loosestrife.

The Iris Liberation Front

We marched with our horticultural artillery,
spades at the ready, clever hand tools
made for lifting things to freedom—
unidentified rhizomes barely visible
beneath a crust of dappled dirt.

We stab and dig and lift
beneath the sword-shaped leaves
cut down by the developer’s
hired mowers, oblivious
to Ruby’s years of care.

We imagine the missing blooms
the spring palette of colors
unfolding in old fashioned
unnamed strains, mingled over time
and waiting for their rescue.

We parade the stolen flowers back
in my rusty red wagon, destined
to carry moss rose one more summer,
this mission the most it’s ever traveled,
carrying the iris to new soil.

a sunday buncha stuff

back online! finally up and running after an internet downage since friday. i am pleased to report that despite that primo excuse to slack -- and on a gorgeous weekend, too! -- i diligently produced a poem a day. once again, these feel a little slim to me. i'm not sure if that's just what comes with not living for something very long, but i'm resolving to come back to these and give them more attention. maybe in june.

(may 5th)

estranged

you come home boiled clean,
reduced to nerves and words,
twisting in your skin to find
a fit that isn't there

you set your suitcase in the hall
and it sits zipped for days,
your watch a memento
of another timezone

your mind drifts behind, too,
a helium balloon on a string
caught too easily on everything
you've read, everyone you've met

you have a job you can't
remember, a phone number,
a grocery list and garden

you shake hands with your lover

you know it won't keep -- this state
too delicate, too impractical,
but you stay awake until you can't
knowing you'll grow back with sleep


(may 6th)

early may

tulips begin their stoop,
red heads suddenly loaded
with thoughts of summer, unbearable
for slim green spines, they slacken
with the daffodils, laughing
or sighing into the dirt

we've only just lost the snow
and already this spring is old,
grass past our ankles, weeds
dug in for the season

it's early may, our first, and
so well used we can't even find
the robin song in the evening anymore


(may 7th)

heat

you slide sideways between trees,
arms raised as if you're lifting
drinks through the crowd, green fingers
under your shirt leaving cedar
scent that will live on your skin all day
then stain the bed sheets

the sun begs you to take off
your clothes, ferns unroll
their tongues, moss softens

flies lick at your ears,
rev against lips

you aren't used to this attention,
too practical for romance and shy
as the loons watching
from the far side of the lake

but the wind wears you down, hot
and exhausted you lie on the lichen,
ants circling your thighs, and
let the sky at you

Flower power?

Aging Relics


The hollyhock is fashionable
in leftover attitude, her style

worn more than once and simply
widespread. These days she’s domestic

a diva keeping her dated flair tupper-
wared and available.

Multi-coloured and petalled,
she looks groovy

wallpapered against aluminium.
Thin is still in. Never hippie

she’s theatrical in belated O’Leary—
a turning on of weeds, a tuning in

to any conversation. Openly bi-annual
she’s a long-lasting hustler,

the straight-haired sixties stem,
perpetually pawned in the wind.

Nineteen

I remember how it was
to be stupid-young, so pretty and so
new to it, drunk on power like
a thirteen year old on strawberry wine,
my breasts my hair my navel
tarted out in ten-dollar tanktops
and thirty-dollar shoes. I threw myself at
the world, expecting it to catch me,
a million hands opening to receive
my bounty.

The closest practice I had for it was
when I was ten and had just learned
about mosquitoes - the way they follow
carbon dioxide back to the source, the way
that they can track you from miles away. I went
into my bedroom, knelt at the screen and
breathed out gently, watching with avid
glee the frantic swarming that
followed.

Productivity

(a found poem with commentary)

Coughing
[which I am
doing much of
these days]
is your body's way
[my body's special way]
of removing foreign
substances
[where did they come from?]
and mucus
[where will I put it?]
from your lungs
and upper airway
passages.
[but who protects
the lower
passages?]

Productive coughs
are often useful
[but sometimes not?]
and you should not try
[but not trying means
giving up and I
never give up]
to eliminate them.
[eliminate sounds
so harsh -
I mean only to
send them
elsewhere]

Dry, hacking coughs
respond to honey
[you catch more flies
and more coughs
with honey...]
in hot water
[we're in hot water now]

Elevate your head
[always]
with extra pillows
at night .

Quit smoking.
[caught out...]

Avoid exposure
to inhaled irritants,
[cocaine?]
such as smoke,
dust,
or other pollutants,
[invest in a bubble]
or wear a face mask
that is appropriate
for the exposure.
[seek appropriate
face mask]

Many kinds of face
masks are available.
[wear a new one
for every occasion]

Check with your health
professional
to determine
which type
of face mask
will provide you
with the most benefit.

Backache

Backache

The full bulk
of the dead maple
has finally weighed in
on your body
and cut you down,
if only for a few days.
Your trunk recalls
the outstretching of your own limbs

overhead
barely quivering

wrestling the unwieldy chainsaw
through dry wood,
already seasoned
for turning or burning,

cracking away
under it’s own weight

crashing just where you planned
with your precise angled cuts,
geometric falling success
jumping away just in time.

Only a failed cluster of
shriveled spring leaves
at the top of the thinning crown
denied the tree’s last hurrah.
Your whole body
a clenched fist
when you felled the tree
you could not save

hating the loss
as much as the heights
you had to climb,

fear present as anger
wound every muscle
into a solid coil of grim
demolition.

The columned trunk watches,
the still-standing stump
tall as a man
gnarled with burls
waiting these last days
for the final weighty
whine of the saw,

when your body fist unclenches
and lets you drop the last
remains of a departed friend.

Eight months: the square dance

This square may be all circle but I am getting sick of the dance
as I am do-si-do-ed from legs shoulder width apart
legs bent to take the bounce the strain of whatever may come

to tipping back and forth on the cradle of my hips
regulating your metronome spill your astronaut float
through my centre of gravity

to learning the best way to get up
when my legs have been kicked out from under me
my knuckles split not on an enemy’s glass jaw

or uncut teeth but on the kinks of mattress coils
couch cushions carpet piles as though they were soil
and you a seed to be carefully buried till spring

but what I know now restless before the big event
walking off your sucker punches your pile drives
is that even long green promises split the soil

The Morning After Mayday Effects

we drink two oceans
commemorating the office of collegial graduations
& hidden associations
but we watch match point
set across the pond
labelled with the cape of good hope
round the horn of passage

how luck will have it
(& for accessorizing success --
a ring & a miss)
how will this go over
mmmmmmthe top
playing without a net
in darkest woody
africa gone south

tennis, any
mmdonjuan?
frankly, scarlett.

business base as usual
in that family way

(my mother leaves a message.
call about wedding.)
talk about your scattergun approaches!

in vino veritas.
spin the baby.
fortune favours the brave? the bold? the daring? the audacious

we got away with getting our parts
in each others' auditions
survived universal deceit

we've shaken the past &
what we've bagged has seasoned us.

carpe meum.
happy 5th, J.

Glaze drips like fired wine
dancing down the wet goblets.
Dishwater slips away
the whisper of friends’ lips,
washing away evidence
the simple lunch –

brown eggs cracked,
peeled away like hunger,
releasing wet whites,
tuna salad made by six hands
arranged just so on
red-tinged ruffled leaves,
just what we had on hand,
adorned with dark olives
no bread to break, so
crisp tortilla rounds
sat sunny on the mounds—

rinsing lunch from the kitchen air
with shining soap bubbles.
Plates catch reflections of
overhead track lighting
tracing smile shadows
caught in the departed meal
still attached to the vessels.

cat poem

Bajeebers, two poems behind already. *puts nose to grindstone*

Hang, we call it, her little
carry-on of fur and flab
pendulously swinging beneath
her belly. She's become too fat
or middle aged to be efficient - when
she jumps it's not athletic,
she doesn't make it look easy, you
can tell she's working hard, breaking
a sweat getting up to that chairseat.

Still, she's ageing gracefully, getting
greyer around the edges, making
no bones about her love of drowsing
in the sun. She's more likely to muscle
onto your lap than attack your feet.
When you pet her, she falls down,
turns over with a grunt, exposes the long
chubby line of belly. The move
is still endearing, the way she looks
at us, willing us to hold up
our end of the bargain.

Cats are not gods, Egyptian or
other, they aren't wise, they don't
know secrets we don't know, except
ones about the death of small squeakers.
This cat is foolish and silly, she is a terrible
shedder, she has kitty dandruff. Her tail
is too short. She is terrified of other cats,
even ones half her size. Every day
she teaches me
things I already know. Trust
is beautiful, love needs
no reason, and
surrendering dignity
is optional.

Odd as in Ode

I will be away the rest of the weekend and unable to read/respond to any poems (unless I find a computer with internet access). Enjoy the weekend. I'm really enjoying all of the poems so far--you people kick poetry butt.


Bearded Bouquets—another od(e)ditty


Hops are a coarse bunch—
too smart for beer-bellies

they hang about in toughened packs,
all hairy armed, petiole,

and cordate, clutch dirt-
stiffened rhizomes and grin.

Leathered, they are wild ones
biting birds with bines looped on fences,

make grainy eyes at squirrels
and sharply comb serrated leaves

with palmated lobes. Hops form pacts,
bond together, train their own

green shoots each spring to preserve
their formations, create gang-

branched networks, herbaceous
ideas of their Brandoesque selves.

depictim

lost poets

(a little bit of fluff for day 4.)

lost poets

let's round up all the lost poets
who shuffle their pyrrhic feet
through this neighbourhood
while we work or sleep,
who hunker under foreign porches
in the rain and pull up flowers
they haven't planted but deem
sublime and worthy
of only their own unique attention

they roam with open notebooks,
trailing feral rhyme and unbroken lines

no one has posted their photos
on streetlamps, no handbills list
their publishing histories or nervous tics --
there's no reward

but we'll recognize them by the jackets
of out-of-print books and lure them
to the back door with talk
of free verse or wine

we'll line them up, flush left,
and sharpen their pencils

Fade To Blank

Fade To Blank

They have your teacher locked
away with copies of his work
displayed in a glass cabinet
outside his door,
so he can recognize the room
assigned as home.

They say he can cuss a streak.
He hates noise,
wants quiet,
but loves Frank Sinatra.
If he’s awake he’s
looking for someone to kick—

Don’t get too close—

All the workers know to be
careful ‘cause he is one
strong kicker.

My friend calls
from the still darkness
when the patients sleep,
staying up all night tired
after cleaning houses, in need
of conversation with someone
who remembers who they are.
Remember him? You told me his name.

Your teacher’s halo hair and beard
were still as wild as I recall
in a café where poets drank
and smoked and roared –
so says my friend in her latest
report, grabbing a smoke
outside the view of the cameras
outside the oven warm building.

Your teacher has no memory
of being
anyone we would recognize.
We would be strangers to him
even after many introductions.

But the staff reminds him
he is a poet, a man of words,
a teacher.
My friend told them
this is important.

He hears the truth like news,
sometimes pretending
he believes, because
my friend wakes him
most mornings,

And her brown face smiling
is more familiar than
lost realities.

No expense is spared
to tend the man,
the father, the teacher—
yet time blinks in his eyes—
Expired.

The rhythms of forgotten verse
play angry in his vacant head.

No wonder
he kicks the others
in the shins,
strangers
trying to intrude
into his private stanza.

Refusing Heaven

This poem takes the title of Jack Gilbert's latest book, Refusing Heaven, as a starting point and jumps off from there. It was a great exercise, but his title poem kicks ass, so please check it out when you get a chance.



Refusing Heaven
after Jack Gilbert


The man at the turnstile is taking tickets.
I search my pockets and find none–
I’m wearing a hospital gown.

He shakes his head with the practiced
half-smile of a bureaucrat, as if to say
what did you expect?

Even God has to make a living.
Over twenty years of working the gates
and still no raise. So much for the union.

His former life forgotten: taxi driver
steering white collar drunks home on Friday nights,
women with plastic hips to the airport.

The seated weight of his daughter
on his shoulders, heels knocking his chest,
gone the way of twelve-hour shifts.

It’s not our time I say, wishing I had remembered
to scoop the kitty litter before I left.
Poor cat. We do the best we can.

Someone else will have to wash the sheets
in our absence. Let’s go for a drink I say.
Put up a sign that says back in thirty minutes.

But he doesn’t move, just squints at the stadium lights.
By now he realizes it’s all fiber optics, special effects,
but just once, he’d like to be invited backstage.

Auditions

Auditions will be held
for the next 50 years.

Here is the role
I'd like you to play.

Here are your lines.

Please learn to say them
properly.

If I don't like
your delivery,
I will correct you
until you get it right.

The script will change
over time.
Please be on the look-out
for your new lines.

Please note:
if you gain
too much weight
or too many grey hairs
I will have to put out
a new casting call.

And if you cannot fill
the role I've created for you
I will just have to find
a better actor.

ok, i'd like to -- and will, someday -- spend a lot more time with this one.


sleeping with leonard cohen

i'm sleeping with leonard cohen again,
like all those old nights i curled
around his words, furtive with my own

i keep him in our sheets, tucked into my side
of the bed -- he's a small man and bent
now under the weight of his mind

he is courtly, polite, except for his hands
which are everywhere, busy with touching
or poems that last all night

i try to cover his mumble with my pillowcase,
but i can't muffle this old man in our bed, this relapse
and you lie, these nights, looking at the wall, listening

Cloudburst

Sadie came back from the rez,
riding in front of the thunderstorm
moments before the sky broke loose,
banged on my door
and hollered my name —

never mind the two years
gone without even a parting
cup of black coffee

just grinned and said,
“I knew you’d be here.”

And she was right
as Red Lake when she laughed
and said, “We musta missed
each other down at the pow wow
last week.”

Didn’t I see her
in the bleachers or hear her
cussing the poor excuse
for fry bread they were

trying to pass off?
Her cousin will show ‘em
how to make it if they
can’t do no better than that.

Storms fly in on
the Doppler, green
blobs heading this way,
but no cable station

can tell when Sadie will
blow through and remind
me of the way rain tastes
when it’s laughing.

spread e-go'ld: a tale of two stephens -- even?

it's all about the eagle
whether the stephen is roasting the george à la colbert
or the harpooner is skewering kyoto
thousands of hits daily says something
about either nesting or nested values.
follow the blood to the head.
bald faced lies
when is the brain not a muscle
wait i know this one
but i'm a bundle of nerves
when it loves being hustled

when i opened the robot's rebellion
a brain at war with itself was the first thing
that leapt out
as chapters go
capitals & accipiters
the brain is a bloody thing
but by george that rugous gorge
can be healed with holy spackle

this has been a synapshot

now that i know the scope
i just need to work towards the automatic
rifling through my responses
is not option

let your hip do the talkin'
you can raise your sights later

a little truth
can push the necessary lies
a long, long way
down their gullets

the future is a hybrid of the purists

Seven months: the ultrasound

I am the fork-scarred sink the utility the water table
you are the warming goldfish
he is the big eye anxious on your domestic bulge
the wet magnification of dorsal flicker ventral thrum

They all should have known better –
you might circle my drain
showing fin and bony ripple on each grainy pass
but I’m the only one likely to go belly up

Cunning Conversations


Clematis understands the organ of speech
could befall her name, learns sprawl—

the need of the body to fold
itself in to boundaries placed beside

and beyond, fenced lines she straddles
legs she roots, her progress a pioneering

of paths not settled by anyone.
Clematis stretches her arms to hold

more than herself, an offering—
sky’s taut body unused above,

his clouded washboard abdomen
horizon of leanness, a word smoothing

her cheek, one significant sigh
released in a long-winded draught,

the slip of a hybrid tongue shirring
pink-furrowed petals.

Crush

Crush


At best a circus tent on stilts:
lopsided peaks boast illegible banners

over signature stripes. Maybe it reads asshole,
maybe future wife, who knows at the outset.

A rope ladder descends, the sturdiness of popsicle sticks.
Inside those darkened flaps, what waits?

An acrobatic marvel or the same contortionist
from the last top. We are ever hopeful, so we enter,

strong men into the freak show. Past lion tamers
and their dented hoops, to sit on a padded bench, watch

clowns play up their tricks like the one or two
stories we know will get us laid.

It’s all monkeys on bicycles. A cheap slide
from intermission to the end,

but we’ve paid good money, we’re tired of being alone, so
we clap till our hands smart, try hard to be amazed.


----
Note: I'm trying to get away from the three stanza wonder
(one of my default settings). I'm curious how the couplet form
is working here? Thoughts?

Lost

This is actually yesterday's poem - too tired to input it last night.

==========================
Lost

Somewhere on my trip I lost
track of what month it is.

Then I misplaced the loonie I'd set aside
for the laundry machine's
precise monetary demands.

Luckily I found another
but in that load two socks
- one black, one white -
ran off together.
Never would've noticed
if they'd stuck to their own kind.

My uncle died a year ago
but I haven't changed
the entry in my Palm
or deleted him
from my recipient list -
I think he still likes
receiving updates.

The Yanks dropped another
last night to the Sox -
their 11th L this season.
I saw losses five and six live
in Minneapolis
only weeks ago
with the man who
only months ago
was my lifemate
and now is on hold,
status indefinite.

I could stand to lose
a few pounds -
I decided that a while ago.
And the stress and guilt
and a bit of cockiness
I'm sure.
And I sure as hell would
like to ditch this cough.

But the things we want
get lost sometimes
while a few things we don't
stick around.

making a garden


we speak now
in this sweet green time,
before the roots are deep,
of the space
waking around us,
the possibilities
of lupin or liatris,
dianthus or delphinium

you plant meadow rue
and sweet woodruff
in my ears, along
the furrow of my spine

i show you
with my hands
the best spot
for columbine and thrift

your fingers white roots
unravelling in the night

Early Harvest

A nice delivery came today:
a friend, a gift, a treat to share.
It is so lovely when
so early in season
products of gardens

even ones so carefully
attended, indoors,
through the frozen months
the long dark months so pressed
for green so wanting in it’s absence.
Damp quilt chill in the recent air
the thawing’s only just begun

a whisper of green beginning.
But a smile and a small bag
walked past my own seedlings,
through my lavender door,

entered the rooms
that make a house
the size of a pocketbook

with barely room to lose a pair
of glasses, magnifying details

vital detecting realities
variant pungent delicious.

Taste buds wash hands,
and take their seats
anticipating the feast.

Lighthouse Park

Lighthouse Park


Children clamber over rocks slick
with algae, look no hands, talking
non-stop to parents, egging them to cross
the moss-licked log when–
scrape-palmed and sounding
like a ship’s horn, they’re surprised
the world can hurt them. Knees throb
as they crab-scuttle back
on all fours to solid ground, where
two minutes later, after a kiss to make it better,
they’ve forgotten.

But the body deals in compounds interest;
by the time they’re forty, it’ll be hours
before they can relax, unclench, believe
in ankles and elbows to hold them.
That sharp-scented relief after illness. At seventy,
they know a fall can break them.
But for now they turn back, run along on the outcrop,
while their parents watch, flinching,
fingers crossed.

body

At last at age 29 I am
in love with myself again.
When I was five I knew this
feeling, this absolute love of body
and mind, this endless fascination
of skin and fingers and flex
and flex.

In bed I love my body with his,
arch and arch, the feeling that we
are driving forward into nothing,
making the universe as we go, and it is
his body and mine, my body arching
over the final crest of creation, oh,
I am me, right down to my toes.

Naked for the shower I stop
to watch myself in the mirror. Pose
and turn, hunch, straighten, glance
over the shoulder, Vrksasana,
Garudasana, all my bones straight
and strong.

The melodic drip of a small fountain
so near at hand –

half full and amplified—

calls for replenishing
it’s copper pipes.
Raindrops from a felt gray sky
are all so dripping moist
on my sad ear.

The crying falls
universal on the very day
the season struggles
announcing
its wet self
to a swelling surge of soil
bound up in
all the growing, trembling
as the poppy pods burst
their green boundaries
and orange comes
falling out and out
crinkly as wet skin
all crepe and thin
in it’s newness
fragile as last moment’s
wet breath
sipping the damp sounds
fertility rejoicing makes.
Each damp petal
explodes
from its containment.

Seven months: the ba da bump

In the shower my hair goes molten
liquid against my neck and shoulders
liquid against loamy curves of battered clay
with its igneous flaws and bulges
but my belly is still a radial tire
whose valve sucks and puckers
pulling the entire chassis to one side at speed
going warm and soft
when still

In the shower my back is a blown vase
spine fluting under the spray glowing red
each vertebrae an ember glowing red
but my belly is still a milk-fed melon on the vine
smelling of sugar and soil and green green rot
even half a summer away
from being man-handled home

* * *

As you can see from my first May Day poem, I'm giving myself a lot of leeway these days...which in purely logistical terms means that I've set myself the rather breezy schedule of posting here three days a week during the month of May.

I'm aiming for Mondays / Wednesdays / Fridays at this point.

Of late, I've been working on poems about my neighbourhood, about trains and storms and early morning demolitions. I've also been working on a series about being knocked up, mostly because it seems like a more legitimate form of complaining than, well, complaining.

Other than that, you should know that I'm from Winnipeg and that this is my third on-line poetry project.

I really did write this on Monday

Hey everyone. Happy May! Nice to be here and meet you all through your poems.

I admit to being a bit daunted by the poem-a-day concept, but I've been making a real effort lately to do more things that scare me. So, I'm going to give it a shot... and not beat myself up too much if I can't pull it off. I'm happy to receive any feedback you want to send my way.

Here goes...


sunday-sad


it isn't raining
but it has
rained and will
rain, you read it
in the grey lines
between whites
of the blind --
the same story
every time
you open your eyes

you feel rain turning
the hike to mud,
drowning hotdog buns

you hear rain
in your own voice
go back to sleep,
taste it in the laundry,
groceries, a day
of closed windows
swallowed before you
have even left the bed

but a chin scuffs
your shoulder, a palm
softens your nipples
and your neck
is wetted with
the words next weekend

you let go of the day
you'd wanted

so it begins again for the first time

so it works mmmmmmmmm like gravity

got my invitation didn't know how to respond this commitment

thing is it commutative? if so, i'd better look

that word up again i'm better at commutilating.

maybe you've seen my work with headstones

isn't that what it's all about?mmmmmrhetorical
questions are not

my favourite colour but all the other parachutes* sold out mmmmm the ground is it a good question mark will it interrogate me with impact by crater

targets make for run-ons.
my fletcher recycles commasmmmmmmi bought my object a stanza of adamant re-affection

& it became the subject of how to break up a greens tick sentence

this is just a suggestion to fill the void left by social convention mmm *i demanded the sale have no strings attached

the airplane is my afterthought balloon

Luminare

"Will you call out Open Window, Sir?"
she shouts out to the bus driver
"Just in Case I miss it."
The driver and I stare at her, no
clue what she could be talking about.

"It's a Senior Centre" she explains.
"Don't know it." he says.
"I'll watch out for it then," she says.
"Just before Super Valu
or Valu Village
I'll watch out for it."

But she spends the trip looking around
at any number of things
the boy with a mohawk,
the old man's slow journey down the aisle,
the contents of her purse.

And I'm the one left looking,
the responsible one, always.
Worried we'll all get distracted
worried we'll all miss out
on our chance to jump off
at the Open Window.

It begins

Hello fellow poets and (hopefully) readers. I just came off NaPoWriMo, an event of similar concept but held in April. So I'm already firing on all cylinders. At least, that's what I'm telling myself. My goal is 31 poems by the end of the month. This may translate to none on some days and lots on others, or it might mean one poem a day, like creative clockwork. I suppose we shall see.

I welcome critique should the impulse seize you, but with the understanding that these are first drafts, and any of them that I decide to keep will already be undergoing my brutal editing and rewriting processes.

My first poem for May Day is an odd one for me - I don't usually use the prose poem form, partially because I tend to be a very careful and hesitant poet and prose poems always have a very flow-of-consciousness feel for me. At the moment, however, I'm working on a suite of poems about my relationship with my sister, and it's proving very difficult to write. So I'm trying out a bunch of new forms and techniques in the hope that I'll find the key.

you left me

I was, perhaps, five. We were climbing among the bales, great round prickly things like golden cinnamon rolls laid on their sides. The world smelled like dust and hay and our girlish sweat. We were pretending something, we were princesses or elves or maybe Robin Hood. I fell between two bales, my small body slithering downward, my shirt filling with straw. Thump to the ground, a space not quite big enough to turn around in, no leverage to climb out. The hay slipped and slid beneath my sandals. My knees were red. Help I said, trying not to cry. Your face, like God, blotted out the sky above me. You can get out, you said, and you left. I screamed and wept - it was an eternity of minutes before our father came, reached down and drew me out, small wretched peg from a fusty hole. I don't remember much else other than the sinking despair of you leaving me, you leaving me.

I think that's when it happened, my decision not to need you anymore.

Yah!

I'm so pumped about this project I've written 3 poems in the past 24 hours. This is me: I'm a Regina based writer and finishing an English honours degree at the UofR (I'll be done in Dec.). I work full-time as a barber/stylist and write on anything with blank space. Thanks for letting me participate; I'm looking forward to the whole process-- from reading, to writing, to responding. I plan on writing a poem every second day, while trying to follow some of the themes laid out along the sidebar, but also, I'm trying to be thematic in my approach. I'm open to any suggestions/comments on my poetry; it's all good. Here is my 1st post/poem:



Perennial Red-lights


The pacific giant delphinium knows
roots of its existence are embedded

within loamy soil, their own growth
historical through the surface of envy

green erected as phallicies stalking
the sky, blossoming buds

raspberried repetition, rows
of organized attraction, an old trade

developed through centuries flowered
and tucked purposefully in bearded tufts.

But passionate plants are hypnotic—
hunger and patience combine

catch the attention of leaf rollers’
newborn desire, their harmful invasion

rolled firm within each leaf
constructing the present in carnage

fetalled impulses measured each day
by bites. I wonder as I cleanse

plants every spring with prescriptions
of soap and water, unfurl leaves

remove the worms, if delphiniums remember
each year’s struggle, the parallel

wasting to legless stems—
or if each alzheimered stalk remembers

nothing but perseveration
of this moment.

Okay, here's my first post! I don't know most of you, but I'm looking forward to reading your work. A bit about me: I live in Vancouver, where I just finished my first year in the MFA program at UBC. I'm the current poetry editor of PRISM international. This is the first May I've spent in town in five years, previously I worked as a Fire Lookout. I'm happy to get comments/suggestions on the poems I post. Thanks so much for letting me be a part of the May Day project. I plan on writing a poem a day, but I'll only post four times a week, Monday-Thursday. Thanks!



Winter’s end


crawls out of a tuna can, yanks the plug,
all our buried garbage resurfaces.
Like a dump truck loosing its gravel,
all the shoulds lodged in your back
go sliding into the ditch come daylight.
Gears cranky and stiff, a bicycle chain
ratcheting around the block, bell thumbed
at everyone you pass. Overnight,
daffodils have popped, tilt
their bugle horns, call to one another
across the field. The end of winter
is like a new bra; you can’t help but feel yourself up.
Like three car alarms going off at once,
a mailbox with a red flag tipped up,
the backhanded crack of a spoon
on the crème brule crust.

May pole

From today’s entry of The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor...

“Today is May Day, a celebration of the return of spring that goes back thousands of years in European traditions. Various May Day celebrations included the gathering of wildflowers and green branches, the weaving of floral garlands, and the setting up of a decorated May tree, or Maypole, around which people danced.

May Day never developed a Christian equivalent. In order to celebrate the holiday, workers had to stay home from work against their employers' wishes. It became known as a people's holiday, and in 1889, a congress of world Socialist parties held in Paris voted to choose May 1, 1890, as a day of demonstrations in favor of the eight-hour day.”

Hooray

Hooray Hooray it's the First of May!

Welcome to all participants and to those dropping in to see what we're up to!

I think it might help us feel more connected if we introduced ourselves briefly and declared our goal for the month.

I'm Polly Washburn, co-founder of this blog with Ariel. Live in Winnipeg but will be reporting from the U.S. for the final week of the project. Ariel and I were in a writing group together for 3 years, but without her bugging me biweekly to write more poems, I've been focused on film projects and haven't produced much new poetry lately. So my goal is... to write 6 poems a week.

Looking forward to everyone's work and to giving myself this space and time to produce some new Stuff.

May Day

Hey all,

We're less than two hours away from the first day of May, and, by extension, the start of the May Day Poetry Project.

That means thirty-one days of poetry, poetry that is both raw and polished, inspired and laboured, fragmentary and oddly complete.

And so, for those of you who will be participating, welcome. I'm looking forward to working among you.

For those of you who have happened by, do drop by again - I promise it'll be worth your while.

It's almost May!

Ariel and I have been talking, and we'd like to do May Day again! The basic idea is to write a poem a day for the month of May, and in my view, the point is to be more concerned with consistency of output than quality. It might help to look at last year's thoughts.

We're all busy people, so we won't be dictatorial about everyone having to submit a poem a day, though it would be great if people indicate what their goal is at the beginning of the month.

Each poet can indicate the amount of feedback they feel comfortable getting.

Please add your thoughts about this process - see you in May!

Poem accepted

OASIS Journal 2005 (IMAGO Press) in Tucson, Arizon has accepted "Half a Hundred" for publication. The journal will be out in October.

I had to scrunch some lines together to fit their one-page-per-poem requirements, but the words are the same and the changes are minor to me.

Notes for Ariel

Ariel - I’m sure I’ll see some of these again to critique in more detail, so for now I’ll just give you my fave poems, lines and details – plenty to select!

Fave poems:

The Humboldt Squid

The ninth day of May [is this about your uncle?]

The twelfth day of May - (part 1)

The Writers’ Retreat: Arnes, MB. - fantastic details

Assiniboine Forest, May 15, 2005. - whole thing great but why last 2 lines?

The eighteenth day of May - Still one of my favourites not just of MayDay but of All (Ariel) Time

The twenty-first day of May - This is powerful – don’t remember reading it in May

The twentieth day of May

Renovation poem #3: uncareful graves - Creepy domisticity!

The twenty-fifth day of May - Heh – would like to see this expanded.

The thirtieth poem


------------
Other great moments:


The first day of May

In Don's Deli the midafternoon light settles
over the stack of crockery plates with crumbs
and blots of butter platters with fork-scarred films of yolk
mugs empty grating against saucers against the gulp-swallow
of the coffeemaker in the corner the percolating of coffee
already burnt


the slow coast of a police car under the careening snowflakes


It is a day of small protests

Saturday night disappointments
as we return to breakfasts refills and the injustice of snow


--------------
The third day in May

if we represent a threat and the bunny has been bronzed
by its caution but the girls are free to recline on their marble
pedestals in their pigtails and perky tits: an old man’s fantasy
as much as the busts of men in power only their heads and shoulders
only their heads and shoulders are an old man’s fantasy
and we walkers could touch the old men the girls in ways they never
would have permitted in life


the same way we know the people in the idling van
in the parking lot pumping exhaust into the air as the trees
pump oxygen will come no further

--------------
The fourth day of May

Fishing for the tail-end of a beautiful fall afternoon
Gudmund had his trusty rod in one hand and his sweating
beer in the other was thinking butter dill the crackle of the fry pan
when he got another bite and felt the arc of protest in his rod
against the heavy thing that lurked below


Fishing for compliments for just the right line


Gudy panicked; he’d be the first to admit that she was dainty
only four-foot-four but despite her corkscrewing suckers
each with its own row of pearly teeth her three hearts of gold
and her big eyes he’d thought it through
he wasn’t ready for this kind of commitment, see?
and there’s always other fish in the sea


And maybe it was because he was better with a nailgun
than a rod better with power tools than power politics
that he got a faceful of ink enough to fill any poet's poison pen
but he didn’t need anyone to tell him that he should fling
his doomed darling to the deck open the hatch
and kick her breathless wide-eyed
into the hold


--------------
The fifth day of May

upper right central upper right lateral

upper left central upper left lateral

gold-leafing the morning

timed by the swerving cars only a few feet away
none of them none of us
ever sure where to turn

--------------
Renovation poem #1: after spring thaw

Eggshell & bricky bits
in the tarry
shingle grit,
glass,
& set
grey curls
of pigeon shit
between my house & his

--------------
Renovation poem #2: the ground floor

See how the line is overlaid
by outstretched wings hinged
to a spine laid bare follow the line
of leg up into spine the fine fletching
of wing see how the long feathers
are still intact
black
and how little that matters now

On top of the bones there are butts
smoked down so that all that is left
is tar resin and reason
and the threads of a broken jar
some domestic thing
to be opened and put away


Lie down

Feel the long muscles
in your legs relax your spine
sag as the small of your back
touches down to the ground
see how the long beamsof the building
the lines of shadow
are intact
black
and how little this matters now


--------------
The fourteenth day of May

its soupy sidewalks
cracking under the repeated
demands: freeze!
thaw!


mixed-up lilies
who should be dug up: divide!
conquer!

--------------
Assiniboine Forest, May 16, 2005.

but it seems
I must satisfy myself
with what there is

--------------
Assiniboine Park Zoo, Enclosure #41

In the dark the white-tailed deer
tuck their tails under the long lines
of haunch and hip of shadow
and roadside sound
and settle out in the open
while the American bison as boxy as bales
of straw intact bales of hay broken
sleep at the edge of the chain-link
barbed-wire enclosure


the curving line of dark

--------------
The Writers Retreat: Arnes, MB (part the second)

curves of swarming fish
and the sinuous surprise of them is wide
and delicate


as what was shadow now shows
fin ripple
and muscle
through sun-shot water
as I stand ankle-deep
twenty paces out
from the rock-pickers after the perfect
piece of clear quartz
and the purple moth that has
settled
on the cocooned balls
the larval curves
of my shed socks

--------------
Renovation poem #4: foundation

Walking home there are the teenage girls
in hajibs trying to persuade
each other
to swing
the sandbox grit
in the air their heels
grinding on the leaf-littered
ground
but each of them
thinking of being airborne
of pointing their heels
up

Notes for Paul

Two favourites:

within range, montenant

si))(((lens...


And favourite lines:

Re:Setting

i've plumbed my place with them before
as the die is cast
sixsidedly
in lines of long-
and latitude
to fall in with
risk-taking throws
at poetic justice
and global domination

-----
titular indeterminayacy

the mayans had calendars
by my-oh-my if "maya"
isn't just a foundation
for illusion to build pyramids to
(even the stars are blood-spattered)


but
back to my maya
my mayday
the beast with two backlashes:
even my maieutics
are having a midwife crisis

& menno? please!
blistered are the pleasemakers'
lips
no more pleading

wow
i said waking up with
a severe case of enlightenment.

-----
& i've only ever seen a possum once

but i'm completely inept
at giving up completely
because i LOVE
playing in traffic your eyes
deeper than halogen
and your grille
an open invitation
to attempting hot passionate
fusion with your radiator

don't get me started on your bumper
(i look too good
in chrome agony)

there i go
objectifying you again
by just lying there on the road
to keep the asphalt from telling its side

can i be your hood ornament?

-----
schade is too bad in german

my son & i
(this one, not that one)
watch his finals


the personal is political
i tell myself
& yeah
i do vote for me

how's that for happy endings
or edges,
not losing my nerve
just because my skin is raw
& the ball is up in the air

-----
seen from this side of the glass, poker tastes like gin

inverte-berating me


then again we were playing big blind little blind
which goes a long way towards
describing my ability to read people
never mind books
which i do so slowly
i read them in reverse

-----
just lying, there

life is a tupperware casket of donuts
looks like truth
tastes like chickenshit


& its brain,
only big enough to believe in
two-sided theories
massacred all the others
lest it lose its deathgrip
to something more
personal

like love,
or lovelike

-----
<{[(:+:)]}>

[Still like this title!]

Comments for Jonathan

Jonathan -

My favorites:

Wolves

The Poets

Growing Poets

My friends are beginning to die

to dance
[though don’t need last stanza maybe – perhaps combine with “A Poem for Mandy”]

Planning the Shot

film haiku

Take me to America

Apples
[like the unexpected way it unravels!]


------------
Fave lines from others:

The Toads of Hamburg

If you were to ask one of the toads
it would simply swell up, affronted by the question,
and burst. This line of inquiry
will get us nowhere.


We must trust in science.
We must trust in our leaders.
We must trust in the government.

We must trust that, one day,
things will return to normal.


Until then,
the crows feast.

------------
my bones so

but the thought of
my bones

moving under
my skin

breaking
breaks me

inside

------------
Cooley in Germany

scoffing at the wind (this is nothing
on the prairies the wind will
well the wind will blowhard
knock you over it will
the wind if the winds will it
if it’s the wind’s will)
but they just smile
not understanding
these poets—such exaggerators
they say

------------
Cold

There are words. Carved in the walls.

Listen. Lie still. Lie down.

To a colder place. I will take you. Then. If you are. Cold.

------------
Among Roses

We will bleed from you such small amounts
And so quiet, the softest of pain

----------
Tired

Take the penny.
From my mouth.

Hold me.
Close.
My eyes.

----------
Best of luck with all your Projects and going back to Skool!

Comments for Myra

Myra -

I've listed my absolute faves first. If I just have the title, that means I liked the whole thing - I've also listed some favourite lines from some that jumped out at me.

-------------
Water Falling Lavendar

Away With Leave

Good News From Duckie

So It Is [with editing, this will be even stronger]

Reading The Names


------------
Planting time

How can the spring drunk hand
not touch,
not push
the roaming root to it’s new
warm place?

Guide the root to reach
for the juice that will spread and rise
through the already up reaching
already eager signal
green text message flashing in each
flowing vein.

------------
A Little Help

The plants are in and watered,
little deposits of dirt and roots
promising to be more if tended.
It took a friend to help me step down

to the place where the bare soil waited,
fertility confused by it’s unbroken surface
when all I needed was the helping hand
of a younger body’s frame


my helper some of another harvest
did I have enough guts to venture out
into the small garden space awaiting my touch
listening for the sound of the hand hoe

hitting against the wood edge of the barrel
the root bursting herbs erupting
in my hands like rumbling
volcanoes of stems and leaves

no longer content to shelter beneath
the surface. Tomorrow will find
the living leaf rivers flowing from the beds,


---------
Half a Hundred

The party
seems to have lasted
so much longer
for us all
than the invitation
indicated.

------------
Fave lines from others:

Jumping the Gun

I feel wrapped in their
city love, the nesting pair
of love birds who call
me Mom. I am a giant
Chimichanga of love.

------------
Meeting On The Road
[Just went to Tulsa for the first time last month – was fascinated by it]

The city passes barely noticed
Like another attendee at a conference,
“My name is Tulsa,”
when only movement matters—

------------
Pondering Sorrell

Good cooks require courage.
And abundance

------------
Picnic Effervescence

their fragile wishes
out into the fully leafed treetops
delicate and sharp edged
trusting the grown-ups
to make bubbles possible
for awhile longer.

--------
What We Eat

or have we turned more meekly
into the flock of mindless sheep
I once recalled,
all lining up for the
humming of the shears?

------------
Enough For Me

Water like liquid diamonds
falls from so many taps—
gratitude and astonishment
continuing.
I know I have the only
Blessings I need.

------------
Dusk Ablaze

When day has slipped its foot
into the bath of night
and stars call down
to whatever bits of light are left
pooling at the edge,
then the ground shimmers
and yellow rises flashing

as if each
petal of the dandelions
has taken wing,
the blinking

lights rise bright
against the darkness
dancing a quest for life.
Some stay moored to the earth,
blinking back, twinkling
like tiny candles
showing the direction home.

------------
Drops of Day
[like how this one relates back to “Enough for Me” and “Dusk Ablaze”

----------
Circuit

Speaking only made my voice
carry old truths
back to the women who had
always known them
guarded them
and merely needed to be
reminded of their own gardens.

------------
Before Paper Cranes

Is this island of a body calling
back waves from that day
before my birth
broadcasted eternally
received in our bones?

Wonderful dying flash
fluttering last light
turning all to ash as
blood cloud umbrella closes
over a charred city
folding surprised citizens
into burnt creases.

===============
Hope this helps! Good luck with venturing out into publishing!

As we edge out ever farther from May...

I've got comments for Myra and Jonathan, which I will post now. And I'm working on Paul and Ariel (though I know Ariel's already culled and started editing!)

Also, I fixed the setting on comments so we know WHEN people commented!

I would welcome even just a list of a few favourites from mine, as I'm culling and editing, and am curious to know which poems people felt were most worthy of pursuing and putting more work into...

Hope all is well with everyone and you're getting out to enjoy summer!

Processing

I've copied everyone poems, including mine into a word doc, and separated them by poet. If anyone wants a copy, just leave me a note here or email me and I'll send it off to you.

Hope everyone is doing well. Just got back from a very fun 12 days with family and friends in the U.S.

I should have notes for potes in the next few days...

forget that deadline

it seems that nobody (including myself) has been able to stick to my arbitrary deadline. so let's just say that we'll all try to provide said feedback by the end of the month.

myra had wanted more info on my publishing imprint ... well, it's just a small chapbook press, newly starting up. there seems to be a fair amount of interest though. i have put out two small books and two more are in progress. a little more info at www.martianpress.blogspot.com.

the 3rd book is by calgary poet derek beaulieu and the 4th book will be by ottawa poet rob mclennan. the may day poems would in theory be the 5th book. to be published late fall/early winter. if not everybody's interested maybe we'll just do a selection of the interested poets.

jonathan

a new deadline

i am going to arbitrarily name June 10 as the day that we will post our favourite 3-5 poems from each poet, as written during this project. that's gives us time to relax and think.

also, let me know if you are still interested in putting together a chapbook from the site/project. i'm game.

The first day of June

Around 11 pm tonight, my brain started churning. The usual oh-shit-I've-got-to- post- before-midnight anxiety...but also the usual oh-shit-I've-got-to-post-before-midnight pleasure.

Apparently, after thirty-one days of this chemical slurry, this lazy adrenalin rush, my brain had geared up for another grasping-at-straws outing.

Though, sadly, I refrained from writing the poem, on this First Day of June I wanted to note that I am already missing (and mourning the end of) May Day.

I'm missing having somewhere to post my terrible first drafts, my tits and goddamns and frogsong.

I'm missing the after-midnight browse (coming down coming down) of your poems.

Anyways, thanks.

The thirtieth poem

And always that one tree
at the end of the paved path
through the forest
glows
tungsten bright
shallow-rooted dry on the median
the thin divide
between tarred roads and ditches full
drowning the thicker belts
and bottoms of boreal

And always that one deer
at the edge of the paved path
through the forest
glows
tapetum bright
thin-lipped shy at the treeline
the long stride
between dried grasses and gardens full
crowning the thicker stems
and sepals of suburbia

* * *

That's it. It's eleven-fifty-something pm and I'm still short a poem.

Can I possibly be content with only thirty poems when there are thirty one days in May?

Only time will tell.

A.

The Poem to End all Poems

Winter Cinquain

cold feet
sockless pathos
reaching sneaking seeking
yearn for a warm place of comfort
your legs

The thirty-first day of May

First signs of spring: a West Nile screed

Bare-legged women clean the muck
of still-sodden parkland
off their first-hot-day sandals
in the puddle that mirrors the tree-line
the mowed lines of the canopy
the first base line beyond
muddling the reflection
the soft light
of evening
the water sloshes
is still
by the time the women slide
into their cars
scratching at the backs of winter-white knees
the water is still
except for the twilight stipple
of mosquitoes laying
the plumb line
the vertical between the sky
and the soil
as the soft blue carcasses
of crows blue jays
magpies
ravens
fall
from the trees
right smack
into the morning paper

Standing by

Waiting waiting
waiting
put on hold
can't get what I want
when I want it
don't know what I need
until I need it

Through the empty room
a few words whistle by
the Universe is standing by -
call now!

Love Poem - to be Continued...

I woke this morning
to a curious sound
at first I could not place
then realized
he laughs in his sleep

Yet another trait
to add to the list
of what makes him
different from anyone
I've ever known

He keeps me warm
in winter
drives anger
to laughter
makes up words
to songs

He lets me be weak
so I can be strong
the rest of the time
Out There

Half a Hundred

So easily we imagined
ourselves decrepit at this age
so nearly bent
in two
with aches and lack of hope—
no drives
to push us out of bed
or into the arms of lovers
or faraway cities

No lust for the sight of another
shore or taste of a grape brought
in a bottle from a year and region
we missed
in our aging. But
we were wrong and see
the dawn as another
opening of
a day
with more light than we

Imagined with more sun
than was predicted,
full of people who know
our names and love
the sound of them being
called. It strikes us with
no surprise but sheer

Anticipation that reservations
have been made for celebrations—
innumerable days and dinners,
cake all round for everyone
and more sweet ice cream than
we thought capable of
ever making. Candy and
gifts fall
from the sky in shapes
we never imagined would

Hold value or even exist
when we were a fraction
of these present years

Thinking we were as
wise as one ever gets. And
now we know ourselves to be

The sloppy puppies
and kittens
still chasing our tails
in search of whatever is there
when we catch up with

Ourselves. The glee in the
eyes of our elders hints at
birthdays still capable of
blowing out
all the candles
we could ever think of

Lighting. The party
seems to have lasted
so much longer
for us all
than the invitation
indicated.

5-31-05

Simple Play

Two girls attempt to draw
in chalks the boxes
holding numbers
they will use to jump and
hop a game.
Their play

Is at least half
in the chalking
as much as the hopping
but some grown person
knowing better
in their set cement mind

Must take the chalk—
make the numbers darker
the lines straighter—

So the game is turned
to work and insistent perfection.
The small gleaming children

Watch in baffled amusement
as the adult tries
to wash the play
out of the game
as rain may wash
the chalk away

But wait until
the one obsessed
finally walks away
so they can resume
their simple sport—
small feet hopping

On the imperfect numbers
hidden underneath
the rigid corrections.

5-30-05

Honey Flight

It seems the bees flee
their comb-filled hive
in route to a place
known only to them
in their flurry

humming all the way
to a dark hollow tree
or gray timbered
shaky leaning
abandoned place

where there is
room to build
a sweet life again
no more aware of the drive
that lifts

the honey center of their lives

that relocates the chambers
they will as one mind build
in symmetrical designs
all linked by wax walls
unable to withstand

the unsheltered
heat of a bright day,
how do they settle
in to calm at the noise
of their own homecoming

that sound the black and gold
swarm makes striping
the morning air
when greeting itself
after the panic of leaving.

5-29-05

Th-th-th-that's all folks!

Well, I just put up my last poem. I've enjoyed this a lot. It is interesting to see what you come up with when you are forced to create a new work every day. I will have to take a few days off before I can come back and pick out poems by other people that I liked best but rest assured I will do so once things settle down a little, maybe early next week or this weekend.

A Poem for Mandy

the light
in the morning

from the window

from you

Final Day!

It's been awesome!

A few thoughts:
For today's poem(s), we can go back and find our favorite theme and re-use it!

As previously posted, once we've all posted our final contributions, it would be terrific if we could each go through and select 3-5 poems from each poet and let them know these are our favorites, and maybe add why or other comments if you have time. I find it tough to go back and find comments on older posts, so I suggest we post those comments here in the present.

I've got a few more poems to post today.

Congratulations all on taking on this challenge! I'll be interested to hear people's thoughts on the process.

Half - Ballade

Wrote May 21 for a friend's wedding - complete ballade still under construction:

---
On your wedding day
Our aim is to please
with words we say
some praise, some tease
some bring you to your knees
But one truth I bring in song
on this special day in May
to fill your married life with ease

D & B on this sacred day
In sum I offer these
6 words to keep a marriage strong:
"You were right and I was wrong"

May Day: the forest for the trees

Hey all, this is a visual representation of May Day, courtesy of texone.org.



According to the website: texone.org is "a fun Processing applet that takes a URL and converts the site, including links and content, into a tree, with external links creating other trees."

I just wanted to say, a day early and three poems owing, how much I've enjoyed working in this particular thicket.

And, lest I be accused of not seeing the forest for the trees, I'd like to thank Polly, Jonathan, Paul and Myra for everygoddamn thing.

Thanks too to everyone that commented, lurked, or backchanneled.

(...do I really have to post three more poems by end of day tomorrow? crap...)

A.

The thirtieth day of May

Bugs beat against the tall pillars
of puffed out dandelions
clock the yellow sawteeth
as they go to seed
then follow
suspicious
to the soft pointillism
the breezy fluorescence
of summer screens
of open air
evenings

And the lightbulb inside the bulge
of light is the most swollen
moon they’ve ever seen
the hazy head of the dandelion
its delicate
globe
is nothing to this hot
hot heat
and once in
bugs buzz bright spirals figure
eights ovals
crawl the walls
swarm
and
burn

In the morning
bugs will drown in bedside glasses of water
down the sides of cooling cups of tea
wings flattened floating
others will beat at the screen
wanting out
while the dandelion
with its deep
tap root
its thousand thousand fruit
is content to flower and float
and flower

* * *

This is, I guess, a response to Polly's dandelion poem of a few days ago (though I only just realized it to be so as I wrote the last stanza).

It also harkens back to the Writers Retreat in Arnes last summer, when the (screened) windows let in so many swarms I had to block the space under my bedroom door with a towel - as though there was a fire in the next room, as though the bugs were a kind of smoke, could choke me.

Political Poem - As If

As if
it matters
anymore
what gets done
what doesn't

peak oil
is coming
or it isn't

the sky is falling
or just falling apart
the hole is getting wider
the whole is shrinking

I don't care
not one whit
do I?

the animals are disappearing
or maybe just hiding
i don't blame them one bit
do you?

war is over
if you want it
Lennon had it right
but we don't want it
do we?

Ode to Z

You're writing me a note
sitting in the train station
in my new city

You're inviting me to come visit
your new school
on spring break
We're going for blizzards at Dairy Queen
turning them upside down

You're driving with me
in my yet-to-be country
we're reading aloud
from C.S. Lewis
with my supposedly
a-literate boyfriend

You're competing
in my temporary city
We're playing boggle
to calm you down
It's not working but
you're winning anyway
thanks to your amazingness
and the extra-special
good luck monster woman
I loaned you just for the occasion

You're assuring me
that you will remind me
not to get married

You're showing up
at my wedding
to play anyway

You're practising
the same three bars
over and over
while I drift to sleep
in the city I'm arriving in
and you're departing from

You're playing beautiful notes
in a long flowing dress
that shows off your arm muscles
and your passion for musical flow

You're showing me your city
across the ocean
your girlfriend with a motorbike

You're feeding me waffles
showing me how to eat M&Ms
with chopsticks

You're taking me on a bus trip
while I've got the worst case
of jetlag ever

You're walking me to the shore
giving me a little push
out toward the waves
recording the moment
for posterity

Returned

I am back with my poems for today and during filming. I decided I would actually DO the exercises this time. One poem/day left!! This has been a great experience.

Tired (May 30)

The days are long.
They make me.
Tired.

The sun is.
Too bright.
Welcome me.

Into your bed.
Take the penny.
From my mouth.

Hold me.
Close.
My eyes.

Ode to Film (May 29 – Ode)

Jacob wrestles with the Angel.
We film it at 6 frames per second.

Black & white. The light
screams. It moves with intention.

With fury.

Into Fire (May 28 – Political Poem)

Give me your tired,

your poor,
your huddled masses

yearning

to breathe free,
the wretched

refuse
of your teeming

shore. Send these,
the homeless,
tempest-tossed

to me.

I like the way they taste.

Apples (May 27 – Food Poem)

There are apples
on the floor.

They are bruised. There is
a woman lying near them.

The table is broken.

The light comes
through the shades.

Everything
is red.

Rain (May 26 – City Poem)

The rain comes

when it wants, not
when you want it to.

The sky does not care.

Neither does this city. You should
pull up your hood. It is coming

down upon you.

The twenty-ninth day of May

The snail's slide stride
makes the sidewalk mica strike
moonlight makes each shell
a stone a bead
a breast with its turned nipple
each snail a tongue curled
around it
feelers out feelers out
while worms rubber band rappel
from one edge to another
glisten
as they thin out thicken
listen: a passing car toots
its horn but doesn't slow
down
heads turned to see
if we startled waved our tails
and rocking horsed
into the woods

The Gift

She opens the box
lifts up the tissue
she thought he'd forgotten
until now it had been
just an ordinary day
and though she's enjoyed it
she's been growing a tiny
cloud of disappointment

Until now
white box red bow
saving grace

She holds up the dress
one thing remembered
another forgotten
he's bought her
the wrong size
again

she chooses to laugh
lets the small storm
blow over

she knows too well
how easy it is
to walk away
from contentment

as if something better
existed a short ways
down the road


---
From today's Utne contest. The words were:
bought size laugh ordinary walk contentment easy
enjoyed over exist

I've got to write a few more poems today and tomorrow to make the 31 mark!