{that's me on the corner looking confused}

I get lost a lot. I also have trouble remembering what trains go where, and how to get to them from places I don't travel daily. It's not my fault; none of the women in my family have any sense of direction. My youngest sister used to keep written directions to all of her friends' houses in the glove compartment of her car; and not just their address, but how to get there from various places around the city. The city of Des Plaines, mind you, population typical suburb, where we'd lived her entire life.

so anyway, bless Oscar Bermeo for introducing me to this thing called HopStop. You can text it from your phone and it'll give you train directions or tell you the nearest train. Madness. I'm waiting to find out it's owned by Rush Limbaugh or the ghost of Hitler. But until then, I'm there. I just had to share.

{yesterday was a good day. today, not so much.}

lies about gratitude

when the day starts with death
-- a mouse corpse stuck
to the bathroom floor -- where
do you put breakfast, the proposal
on deadline, the calculator, his not
having called

the hand you slammed in the limousine door
at your sister’s wedding has all but healed

you are lucky to have a left foot
to be stepped on by a man
in the 4 train herd, exiting, lucky
to have a leather bag to drop
in the puddle outside your office,
lucky to have an office, a bathroom floor

the mouse envies you. pries its dry face up
to wink its only goddamn lidless eye.

***

So I was researching the Christian Science Monitor today because they had an article on afterschool education. The also print poems, apparently. And basically ask for upbeat verse that serves as a respite from the heaviness of the news. I think I should send them this one. yesirree I'm gonna be famous.

it's my party, I'll laugh if I want to...

{god is in the comma}

I suppose I'd be more productive if I didn't obsess over each little poem so much. but then who would I be.

lies about absence

my gods, I love a lost cause.
light from downed wires, kisses
between the elderly. tissue
on a hemorrhage, flagging a cab
at dawn on a wet Thursday

bring it on. mouth full of dead moths,
watch me grin. a cheshire on nitrous.
the lover looks like a brother
or courier, really
it’s neither here nor there

the jukebox song’s enough
to drive you off the edge
of the bar, piano, pianissimo,
a minor key but the band’s tuning
ruins the mood so suicide
is out of the question

again. your glass all but empty
the percussionist looks bored
or merely in love. hard to tell
with bluegrass, if that’s what this is.
don’t call. fruit flies orbit in for a sip.

{apparently even most of my moons are in Cancer}

Monday's my birthday. And that means that not only am I in NYC for my birthday for the first time ever, but I'll spend it at Bar 13. And more than that, I'll be previewing the three-woman show (working title: DAMAGE) I've been working on steadily forever with Lynne Procope and Rachel McKibbens. New poems, some multi-voice, good times!

Come by if you can! Here's all the info:

MONDAY June 27: A quadruple-header of poetic goodness is in store for you at Bar 13! Witness the very first preview of DAMAGE, featuring new poetry by LYNNE PROCOPE, RACHEL MCKIBBENS, and MARTY MCCONNELL. A work in progress, Damage voices the overlapping and undulating experience of female selves in fragment, healing, explosion, and growth. And as if that weren’t enough, experience transplanted New Yorker and spinner of the glorious metaphor CORIEL GAFFNEY! And next up in the summer of theme slam love: THE FORM SLAM! (insert spooky music here.) First round: sestina! Second round: sonnet! Third round: death match haiku! And of course, NYC’s happeningest open mic.

13 Bar/Lounge / 35 E. 13th St., Union Square NYC / 7 p.m. sign-up / $5($4 with student ID) / always 2-for-1 drinks all night long

{revision, for those playing along at home}

lies about absence

my gods, I love a lost cause. light
from downed wires, kisses
between the elderly. tissue
on a hemorrhage, flagging a cab
at dawn on a wet Thursday

bring it on. a mouthful of dead moths,
watch me grin. a cheshire on nitrous.
the lover looks like a brother
or courier, it’s really
neither here nor there

the jukebox song’s enough
to drive you off the edge
of the bar, heavy handed piano
a minor key but the band’s tuning
ruins the mood so suicide
is out of the question

again. your glass is nearly empty
and the percussionist looks bored
or merely in love. hard to tell
with bluegrass, if that’s what this is.
don’t call. fruit flies orbit in for a sip.

disconcerting to realize that what you want may be crucially interfering with what you need.

lies about nothing

my gods, I love a lost cause. hair
around hot metal, kisses
between the elderly. seven blocks
in spike heels, flagging a cab
at 3 a.m. on a rainy Saturday

bring it on. a mouthful of dead moths,
watch me grin. a cheshire on nitrous.
the lover looks like a brother.
or vice versa, it's really
neither here nor there

the string instruments plink
and the jukebox song's
enough to drive you off the edge
of the bar, heavy handed piano
a minor key but the band's tuning
ruins the mood so suicide
is out of the question

again. your glass is nearly empty
and the percussionist looks bored
or merely in love. hard to tell
with bluegrass, if that's what this is.
fruit flies orbit. give mama a kiss.

First installation (maybe last) of photos from New Orleans.



check this out... "to date"

though Roger thought it was cheesy. 

we couldn't resist. 

well, not so much with the athletics.  

{yay news}

Roger and I will both be appearing in HBO's Def Poetry Jam #32, airing Friday July 1. How great is that? We didn't even tape the same night. First a real vacation together and then this... what's next, matching shirts that say "I'm with stupid?" -- nah, only if it comes in plaid or pleather.

I think we're going to get HBO for a few days just to see it. I suppose you must be able to record through a DVD player, right? of course ours is broken anyway. hm.

back to yr regularly scheduled madness.

lies about god

visited again by the black fly, just as you think
translucence, its wings smashed apostrophes
veined with self-reference or possession, the god
body almost furred, dying every day, praying, barbed
paws in the position of supplicant, where to now, boss

so enormous you can see its nearly-feet, the pads
sticky with would-be grief / but that’s you, yes?
not the gnat, not the horsefly, not the bullet-bodied
housefly diving toward your cheap chardonnay
like shit or a flower, whatever

and all the reverence and all the revulsion, this
thing of marvel to scientists and seven-year-old boys
its small hum making you itch and turn
like a bad spy or dropped angel, the dead
without wings, all the wolf in you that keens

holy is a word for whatever we don’t want
to be. the ash-throated gnateater recognizes
uselessness in the bent cigarette butt in its beak
and flies off empty-mouthed. yours is a small
conundrum: the god in you, the fly,
how to remove the skin and walk away.