March Manifesto

Picks one of these three images and write a poem. That is it.

The Kiss Buy From Art.com

La Seductrice Buy From Art.com

Classic Interlude Buy From Art.com

Still Life: Doe's Pelvis

Still Life: Doe’s Pelvis

I’m the girl who failed
to land the triple axel.
I’m the girl with the silver
medal around her neck.

I’m the girl who painted
the office walls the softest
shade of pink. I’m the girl
who never bought a crib.

I’m the girl who found
the bone in the field.
I’m the girl who displayed
the pelvis as if it were a piece
of art instead of a body part.

I’m the girl who whispered
I love you to a comatose
man. I’m the girl who held
that cold hand. I’m the girl

that could’ve, the girl that should’ve,
but didn’t. I’m the girl who wouldn’t.

I’m the girl who slips.
I’m the girl who keeps falling
on her ass. I’m the girl who wouldn’t

say it out loud. I’m the girl
who didn’t put the bone back.

Overdelivers for the Price

mist skin
evaporates into
smoke and
camera effects
cropped just so
far enough down
not too far
tease cropping cleavage
head tilt look
to side or
diagonally up
or smolder in
direct gaze
it's all about lighting
and typing
lots of xs and
ooooooos

* * *

opaque gray
glass wrapped
in label
allure of warm
graphic design
brown|red|brown
striped horizontally
down granite stone
centered
two overlapping
amorphous shapes
off to side
it's a young wine
with a name
from another land
first word foreign
next word
real
?

really it's the review
and price
$8.69

plus I like to say
Garnacha

I need your nominations......

miPOradio: The Weekend Show

Reading this weekend:
Gabriel Gudding, Aaron Belz, Claudia Grinnell, AnnMarie Eldon and John Korn
http://www.miporadio.com/02252006.html
Featuring an intro to The Bedside Guide To NoTell Motel
Music by David Conley

Here is our page on iTunes:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=74194035

Thank you.
Didi Menendez and Birdie Jaworski
www.miporadio.com

My Life with Faye Dunaway

I'll freeze in the cinema. Everywhere I point
there's a waterfall, a kiss which has just been
consummated, an electric organ which makes me
feel certain to splash. But I am going to freeze in
my seat. I will not reach for the oversized, open
mouth, the language, the open mouth, reach in and
grab the eyes, hold them until they turn funny.
How do they get everything to stick in such
excruciating detail and color, such that I don't
have in my room? Not even in my pyjamas. Not
even in my red rocker that I pat fondly when I
dream. My fresh marigold stenciled onto my back,
my straw seat. Can it even shimmer, when time
folds like a wax cup left out in the rain? It's
raining now. I told you in my language before, if
you want to know your will, your location, or
exactly what you are feeling, the on-screen actress
will know. Ask her. Do it now.
          Hello, there are holes in my ceiling.
          I think I am going to fall.

World War I

Walked through the Dada exhibit
and strangled
myself
in the bathroom,
poked my eye
with a
pen
and bled on one of the paintings.

A man playing trumpet
outside flipped me off,
so I gave him a buck.

Earlier, I drank a beer,
smashed it on my head
and asked why.


Kerry James Evans

Snapshot 22 February 02006

I am preoccupied with faith,
  its dangers and its solace,
as this snow falls, a drift
  of fist-sized flakes that sift
from a dim sky, then change
  to sleetish rain. An hour,
I'm told, for the average flake
  to fall. This stone is filled
with galaxies; this child is held
  with love. This earth is
baptized, not by god, but by
  neutrinos. In dreams I am
stalked by elephants and dragons.
  I put my hand to the wild
boar's neck. I feel its pulse, its
  coarse fur. Its eye on me.

***********************

Indented lines appear to be impossible on Blogger? How frustrating!

EDITED: I'll tell how in the comments.

Brunelleschi drop'd at 3rd

language
(move they
that) move they
that

edges that
thoughts "think you
what,
is why" (dis)

end
hand region polar
flash
grasping red

mumble it in
play
that (6)
pianos burping

jargon secular (s)
"importing"
as (tie-down)
bending strap leather

delivers
fall linear
arm building that
sing

it around
involves home while
usual
(un) perspective
that windows reverse

Kundiman: Kundiman Asian American Poetry Retreat

Kundiman Asian American Poetry Retreat: "In order to help mentor the next generation of Asian-American poets, Kundiman is sponsoring an annual Poetry Retreat at The University of Virginia."

Interview with Sawako Nakayasu

Please check out miporadio.com for my interview with Sawako Nakayasu. Thank You!

Last call for audio for this weekend show

If you have posted a poem this week on the blog and would like to have it appear on miPOradio's weekend show, send it no later than Thursday to chinavieja at aol dot com.

Thank you,
Didi

In the Gentle Zone

In the gentle zone of the unspoken
he intones the praises of sweet skin of hers
he will not touch but he will dream her
fondly fully and in perpetuity
and as a gentleman he will endorse
the sparse showing of her heartplace
just as close as the inherent full affection
of a close proximity fated not to fuse
her freshness with his love of her.

His love of her is never strained
she emanates from his feelings
still a formal shelter with capacity
to be replayed as though a broad-leaved summer
would caress the atmosphere above the places
they would breathe the center of his feeling.

The center of his feeling equals
the upbringing that maintains his posture
as the perfectly intended presence
caring from afar that she might be escorted
to the lacy places he would take her
and be proud and riddled with caresses
sensed rather than rendered upon
her quiet thinness before which
he would brush away soft earth
that she might walk there.

Navigation of Splinters

Oh how we preen ourselves
in our profundity. Such
pompous little gits we are.

In a balsa-framed coracle,
scudding across the bay,
sits an imp wearing autumn leaf colours,
holding the sail-line pouched with wind.

The dip and pull of liquid balanced
against the stretched jest of canvas,
his mouth cracks with such delight
in the dexterous fingers that tense
and flex at each elemental nuance.

Amongst the interplay
of brain, bone and brawn,
he imagines himself to hold
the harness of Poseidon's flagship,
or some other godlike powers.

To the ladies watching from shore
he and his craft appear
as a pinpoint splinter
in the silky slide of tides.

miPOradio: The Weekend Show

The weekend show is now available. We introduce Grace Cavalieri's new audio column Innuendoes along with poems by Robert Creeley, Sharon Brogan, Ron Androla, Luc Simonic. Music by Donovan.

Listen and subscribe here:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/Miporadio

For more, stop by miPoradio.com
www.miporadio.com

Thank you,
Didi Menendez

Blogisimo is back in business

Tuesday

the driveway was blocked

by the most uncomfortable van


the sandwiches have the slather

to contend with and huddle close


to their matters like something weird

is giving in to liking them


something distracted by the music

of the sluggish shade from the van


I will be around later to assess the true

mania that it took to mention this device

In Passing

Her conversation cools the wall. We're listening to the small future approach, when moments subtract themselves. We learn forgetting disappearance of the bridge moments compose. Her eyes wear long fatigue. Her breathing shifts. Brown ring around the mountain that she used to climb. Tonight three roses in a bowl reveal pastel shades muted behind glass. She tells about her son, now strong enough to lift the dream. Can words convey his height, his strength, his muscles flexible in power? Maternity is only readiness. A child not previously carried can be taught the purity of infancy. That age possessing peaceful sleep before awareness starts to hurt.

Semantics, edges to be smoothed, a blend, and leaves down from trees

Grieving On The Back Of A Shadow

she was grieving in the sun
holding a mirror twice
slapping the sun for not being round anymore

its magic
spilled on the clear floor
an old god jumped in and out

of oppression
menacing the frozen justice and metal rods
of her beautiful thighs.

the darker blue of thirst
ran in alarm
against the best place it could find

flakes falling and returning
nothing outside of what is finished
of your vacation in a grate

no detail like yesterday
engulfs the looks
that keep coming from the bell.

let’s insert your grieving here instead
ribs working
eyes a large circle that won’t stop.

uncharted lands ...

The sea stretches and undulates her currents
like a giant serpent. Over darkened water
the tang and scent of apricots, exhaled
from beneath a woman’s veil, paints her echo
against the lap of wind among tides.

News of her death was sudden.
Her children had scant time to mourn
before rattling the cold dusty pebbles
of her bones down a funnel
into the earth.

How the land paces the shore now,
bereft of footfall, sand marked
only by the braided trail of a turtle
who, having spewed her pearl eggs,
waddles back to glide through starlit weed,

her children left to birth themselves
and brave gulls unprotected as they erupt
from their living grave and scramble seaward.

All mothers must leave -
choose their time to leave.

chaperone

compromise taints
even informal leafiness
with shadow in the voice

consider bounty's
indivisible induction
to a free-form daylight

quantum joy sans
smoke and coffee
to admit the yellow crayon
melted on the car's back ledge

non-memorable confrontation
recurs as if
to nurture penmanship
holds the present
in safe keeping

chords on a piano
once a tintype
rendering foreground
less precisely than
surrounding atmosphere

~carnal knowledge~

~Carnal knowledge~

So now I have relaxed some.
The bottle of rum is gone.
My friends have all gone home.
All that's left are particles in air.

Oh, and my wife. She's here too.
And all my pets and whatever
Is left in the fridge. And the TV.
The TV is on mute. The stereo pushes

abandoned words like falling leaves
Like specs of dust, longing for
Carpet, tile, wood, wine cellars,
like they offer some true reprieve.

So now I lay sturdily lodged in
spaces between my fridge and my TV.
Behind my couch, under my couch, between
the cracks in the cushions of my couch
like a treasure for some fair fortuned
navajo dog to never find. just dust
cemented in kitchen corners or laying
lightly upon The best bottle of wine
that was ever forgotten through
generations. Unknown to mankind, like the

orbit of earth.

a slight breeze.

(c)lucsimonic2006

Midnight

Face returns its shadow via simulated moonlight of the screen.
Effort rumored to be perfectly derivative
reflects a mother's vintage kindness.
One gentles forward, breath against the page,
as if thought remained as vivid as insistent pulse.
Mind's fever for survival trespasses on the urge to reproduce.
Otherwise the need to lift the child from threat.
Cherishing only when deemed safe to breathe.
The trees show time by branches dancing.
Each limb turns with wind.
Life to be watching.

You Don’t Want To Be Freud’s Valentine

When you turn your face
inside out
you see who you really are

your smile looks
so very ugly
from the inside

your twinkling happy eyes
are a terror
from back here

that wondrous pensive look
hides in a nook
and cowers

your cute little dimples
are forbidding mountains
no one climbs

your lips are dark caves
not even bats
call home.

International Day Against Racism and World Poetry Day

The above link (in the post header) goes to a page in the blog of the Irish Writers' Centre.

Found this through a link in Dumbfoundry.

Hola Poets! I Just Wanted to Say . . .

. . . What fine and interesting poems have been posted here in the past couple of months -- too many to keep up with in the comments, although some, I just can't help myself. I find it all very inspiring. Thank you, Didi, for making this happen, and for inviting me over to play. The challenges are always, well, challenging, and, for some, I just think: NO WAY! And y'all always come up with something good and interesting -- *INTERESTING* being the least we poets can do. Que no? Gracias a todos.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now, still confounded by gettin' a poem between Reb and Mae West. I confess, I want to end it on the cheesy steal:

Is that a poem
in your pocket
or do you just
want to read me?

~ 1/28

Poetry ON,

Lorna Dee

the three poems going to the IBPC for February

Ode Challenge: Ode to a Tearful Dishwasher

From the Backs of Birds (Variation of Dialogue Challenge)

we are the hollow men - Lyle Daggett

Well we certainly have not placed in recent months/year with the IBPC but gee we really have fun trying.

Okay I will be sending these three poems at the end of the month. For the rest of this month just write until my muse brings me another challenge.

Thank you,
Didi

If you too are an internet addict, please come out and support the rest of us.....

IBPC January winning poems

we are the hollow men - Lyle Daggett

        we are the hollow men

  deconstructions of gray. looking back
half in shadow, half in near light,
                         severe close-up.
the large round moist eyes
   weary from the chores of interrogation,
                    museum of missing suspects.

        after the fact. reminiscent
                      of a mapplethorpe photo
   of roy cohn late in life:
 face and head sharp lit
                         in dark background, nearly
                                         disembodied,
   face worn and cratered, plagued
         by the failure of years, eyes
  opened wide with shock and haunting,
                   having seen too much,
                                 learned too little.

     here the light is softer, the eyes
   softer, found in sadness, traced
                         in hesitation.
the source of light not apparent, but
a recognition perhaps, the charge
                               of a question.
  a suggestion of movement, or almost,
      or not quite yet.
 the same patchwork, the same haunting,
           the same shell. school
                               of disquiet.
    as when the day's mail arrives.
  as when an alarm sounds, and the room
      empties, and a figure remains
                   solitary, chalk-like,
                listening to the echoes.
clouded day through the large windows.
the place where in the end all words
        break down.
    a look that says
            it has happened before, nearby.

     --after a photograph of Ron Silliman

Jessica McClure - 1/29/06

So you were married, baby
scraped and dazed
after spending 58 hours in -
what was it?
Your second womb
throbbing, the chill
of steel and drill -
Midland they called it.

58 hours. 18 months. 8 inches wide.
Do the numbers add up?
You 19. Him 32.
Did you ever escape
the suffocating darkness,
the voices calling
through shafts of steel,
angels teasing for days
now marrying
in the town that trapped you,
that saved you?

Or do you still struggle
with arms compressed
by the cold dank logic
of a life ripped from the earth
to the flash and burst
of cameras going off...
Snap. Crackle. Pop.

"Hologram Roses"

Hologram Roses


~ for my mother, Rose



You were a shattered mirror,
disaster in the state
of disrepair -- the kitchen sink,
languorous with buzzings
and the swift shadows
on the plastic counters.

Heaven didn't reward you.
Fate saw it through.
Your thinking of a future
banned at the gate,
the sensuous censors
of a young girl's treason.

You loved like that, lived
a paper trail of debt & dues,
discovered a continent
of flay and flaw. And leapt.
Into your past, heart-first:
a trailing meteor, a lit ember,
a hologram rose.

"Reservoir"

Reservoir


* UPDATE: Watch this space for link to poem in upcoming issue of MI POESIAS magazine focusing on women's work. It will include a podcast of me reading the poem. (soon as my voice clears up from this lingering flu) Check out Didi's link to current issue and MI PO' Radio. THANKS, DIDI!

deserted land pantoum

Which face would I find
if I blew as God might?
Forfeit centuries of gravelkind
foramina become Semite?

If I blew as God might,
attar trust with a skirling shamal,
foramina become Semite,
all sense dunged in the Ar Ramal.

Attar: trust. With a skirling shamal
I lift skirts. Piss.
All scents dunged in the Ar Ramal,
my bloods break dermis.

I lift skirts. Piss
lofty venous fluids.
My bloods break dermis.
You crave the Id’s

lofty venous fluids.
Thus I dry you to Death.
You crave the Id’s
ossified breath.

Thus I dry you, too. Death
with your penis-head moth-mouth, screams
ossified breath.
Come, fuck trek my dreams.

With your penis-head moth-mouth, screams
shatter.
Come, fuck trek my dreams.
Wet our skeletal resolve to scatter.

Shatter
these my cheeks’ fake blushes.
Wet our skeletal resolve to scatter
the shibboleth’s ashes.

These my cheeks fake. Blushes
swell-swoon to labia.
The shibboleth’s ashes
shush, hidden within revelatory glossolalia.

Swell. Swoon too. Labia
forfeit centuries of gravelkind.
Shush! Hidden within revelatory glossolalia,
which face would I find?