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Saturday, August 28, 2004

{I'm a student of life, man}

Years ago I bought the two-volume anthology set "Poems for the Millenium: The University of California Book of Modern & Postmodern Poetry," thinking it'd make great reference material. In looking over the books I own that I haven't read earlier this week, I realized that these tomes only serve as reference if you actually READ THEM at least once. I've skimmed, flipped through, made annoyed noises at the concrete poems, and pretty much left it at that.

But I'm a changed woman. I am going to study this. The books are actually fantastic because they have commentary after each poet, briefly discussing her/his significance to whatever movement was afoot at the time -- so instead of just reading poem after poem, you get a decent sense of why certain poets/poems were included.

The problem is that each volume weighs about a metric ton. For real, the thought of carrying this to California with me next week is madness. Not to mention that it's necessary to carry a dictionary along with the book because my vocabulary is vastly inadequate to this task.

demotic: of or pertaining to an area, country, geographic region
palimpsest: a parchment written on two or three times, with each preceding writing erased partially or completely to make room for the next

and the first poem in the book, by William Blake, is cuttingly appropo as we head into protesting the RNC -- here's a snippet from Milton: Book the Second.

Who creeps into State Government like a catterpiller to destroy
To cast off the idiot Questioner who is always questioning,
But never capable of answering; who sits with a sly grin
Silent plotting when to question, like a thief in a cave;
Who publishes doubt & calls it knowledge; whose Science is Despair,
Whose pretense to knowledge is Envy, whose whole Science is
To destroy the wisdom of ages to gratify ravenous Envy;
That rages around him like a Wolf day & night without rest
He smiles with condescension; he talks of Benevolence & Virtue
And those who act with Benevolence & Virtue, they murder time on time

***

Who publishes doubt & calls it knowledge; whose Science is Despair

he talks of Benevolence & Virtue
And those who act with Benevolence & Virtue, they murder time on time


sigh. I know Blake's a visionary, but when so little's changed from 1800 to now, what hope do we have toward some utopia in our time?




Thursday, August 19, 2004

{new poem & hair}

appetite, one more time

the dead are hungry again. one wants to stop
at Cracker Barrel, one can’t eat seafood, one
just wants a margarita no salt at any
roadside strip joint / they interrupt the radio

with their breathing, Patsy Cline drops to static.
it’s not fair, I tell them. the smell of strawberries
is so distracting. stop stepping
on the map.

stars like toothpicks on fire.
headlights like ants in miner helmets,
going home. speed limit sign
a long tooth, mile marker
another. traffic cones a pack
of candy corns tossed (hands,
ten and two) guardrails like metal lips puckering

the dead have been hanging around
since noon. coupons
on the floor, one shoe
on the highway / it’s sad, really. their mouths
a string of Os in the backseat, the occasional flicker
as one remembers a cigarette, one
the orgasmic sting of wax on a back

I have places to be, I explain. so do we
they insist, let’s go. there’s no arguing
with the dead, they’ll wait forever against a no
or not now like dogs with no sense of time, sure
you’ve been gone for days every time the door opens

they play with the locks, roll childproof windows
down (glance briefly over your left shoulder,
to make sure no vehicle is passing) we’re not so different,
the dead and I -- (never rely on your mirrors alone)
who’s not on the run from something? (Even properly
adjusted mirrors will leave "blind spots" behind you
on both sides)

Traffic conditions change constantly. You cannot afford
to let your attention wander from what is going on around you.

the dead want a travel game, and snacks. want to know
where we’re going, when next
we’ll stop for gas / the dead will not shut up.

Always scan the road ahead. Do not use the road
or even the vehicle directly ahead as your only focal point.

lane lines squirming, a bunch of of albino caterpillars
engine smoke like steam from a lost father’s coffee
bridge like the back of an alligator stretching
tail lights a spilled barrel
of glowing tomatoes, rotten

You should be aware that the ability to see well at night
generally declines with age

asphalt puckering and unfurling, exit ramp a bullet the tires
swallow whole

the dead go quiet, crawl the front seat, start chewing
these sleeves, string after string down to this skin
and then sweet marrow yes, curled finally, reluctantly, full.

***

* some lines borrowed from the New York State Drivers License Manual (2004)

***

I'm not at all sure about the title. I think it's a placeholder. thoughts on that and the rest welcome, as always...

oh, and I got a free haircut today at a fancy salon. of course, nothing's really free: without asking, the woman cut bangs into my hair. bangs! after agreeing that she'd just "clean up" the cut I had. it's fine, but only after she was really mean to me and the salon owner came over and fixed it. I mean, I still have bangs. but at least it doesn't look so stupid.

November 3 I can shave my head again if I want to. sigh.



Tuesday, August 17, 2004

{spring cleaning in August}

we have been cleaning for two days. starting with the ceiling fans, whose blades were dirty when we moved in a year ago (almost exactly a year ago now) and haven't been touched since. gross. Roger's version of cleaning is more like straightening up than actual washing down.

replaced lightbulbs that burned out a year ago (only broke one globe in the process), bagged up eight trash bags' worth of clothes to be sold/donated, and managed to get all of the several several dozen CDs back into their rightful cases.

and we are so far from done. but it's starting to feel like my apartment again, like our apartment again, not just someplace I come back to every month or so to empty and re-pack my suitcase.

good things: my shoes lined up on one side of the room, his on the other, tops open like invitation, toes to the wall. orderly dressers, all the drawers shut, slam trophies and various pieces of silver jewelry strewn in piles. on the mantel of the non-working fireplace: two white candles. two silver chalices tarnishing. a blue ceramic teapot (a gift from my sister), an African mask, a black stone, a small length of red rope knotted, my grandmother's handkerchief. incense. the dreamcatcher he bought me on our first trip upstate to go apple-picking.

he wants to move the bed. I'm not sure. I guess this is what they call "settling down."

tomorrow: the stacks of paper peopling every corner of every room. then, the bathroom (shudder.)

exercise:

in your dreams, what color are the walls?
use the words crescendo, vacuous, secrete, band, burning, and range.



Monday, August 16, 2004

{short poem from a long van ride}

when the white dwarf star collapses, not even light escapes

we drop on each other like overripe fruit,
our mouths hot halved pomegranates, all seeds
running, humid logic of lips, whisper Narcissus
sweet, the god tongue humming, all our lost causes
(these faces) (what animal) loose
by the river, that bad mirror, excuse (shhhhh)
to tear god off in chunks, salt, soften, chew
(blaspheme) lap sins like saltwater, husk flesh back to please
god yes
, cross ourselves with apricot hands and bruise
you, all tender all red (new) but you knew that
knew bruise knew (this) fruit knew Narcissus
even Narcissus drowning for you

***

thoughts?



Thursday, August 12, 2004

{partly cloudy, 73% chance of poems}

exercise for a rainy Thursday:

a god who loved you would do what?

in eight stanzas:
1: start with a confession.
2: contradict that confession.
3: tell a lie.
4: make an outrageous statement.
5: name this god.
6: tell the truth.
7: refute the outrageous statement.
8: end with something surprising but somehow relatedto the original confession.

have fun! oh, and after you're done, go here:

www.erzsebel.com/clock/clockarchives/002601.html

and read Carl Dennis' poem, "The God Who Loves You."


Monday, August 09, 2004

{delayed post/technical mishaps snafus and such}

wrote this August 2, tried to post it to no avail: let's try again...

so I'm in Cape Cod. I left NYC at 3 a.m. this morning on an Amtraktrain, arrived in Boston around 8:30 a.m., got a ride to Cape Cod, took the shortest shower ever, and performed two shows with a nap inbetween.

During each show, the audience contained many small children. Which isOK, but not at all the point. Because 5-YEAR-OLDS CAN'T VOTE. Sigh.

During the second show, a little girl took the opportunity to dance in front of the stage. Which is all well and good until she startshowling a song. And neither parent quiets her or takes her out of theauditorium. Meanwhile, her brothers find Beau hilarious. Which he is, but not in the section of the show where we talk about heroin. These little boys have no idea what Beau's talking about, but anytime hespeaks, they crack up.

me: I don't blame the system. I blame the heroin.
Beau: if the junkies want to die, let them.
(giggling from the front row)

me: my brother was always too bright for his own skin, too smart not to be bored.
Beau: someone drooling on the floor is not a threat to society.
(uproarious laughter from the pre-schoolers)

And so on. It was special.

Tonight we are to miniature golf or bowl, it's still up in the air. It is, after all, Cape Cod. And rooms are apparently in short supply, so we're sharing them. Which cuts down on everyone's desire to simply sit in their rooms separately. I'd like to write a poem, but I'm just too tired. Several people wrote poems off my exercise on the loudpoet list, which makes me happy. I am eager to get my life back to a place of some clear significance. But bowling it is. Or maybe, miniature golf.


Monday, August 02, 2004