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"