Saturday, April 29, 2006

But Silence Also

But Silence Also

The wind remembers what you forget:
A song is composed of notes and words

and music, yes, but silence also.
When a bird sings, does its song echo

in its hollowed bones? Why is it
that no matter how lost you got or get,

home is always right where you wake,
where you woke? A robin is making a nest

from strands loosed from your head,
and lint and thread from your clothes.

You’ll call those eggs your own. If they hatch,
you’ll try to feed those mouths. You’ll morn

when the unfledged chicks fall to the ground.
You flinch, mistake the flap of a flag

for the wings of a crow. Go on, sing
your song. Open your mouth.

No sound comes out. Your silence says:
Death lives in these bones. I know, I know.

Friday, April 28, 2006

weight of the running white

1
breasts full of milk children grown and almost gone somewhere no doubt horses with their rumps to horse-doors which they don't know there's a word for bolted as if something from the blue

2
although breast milk is whiter than white like Cézanne's scratches in the too bright light not the filmy white or pearly white nothing mixy about breast milk as if it's on the boil always and bursting to come up in the pan whiter than white until it foams and escapes the huge pressure of the nipples

3
nerves too as if sucking is something horrendously universal as
if all the world depended on its pressure this pain and still the
horses stand with their rumps to doors all the wrong language as
if also can be replicated over and over and over as if as if not a dream as if

4
not in a dream state but a good honest misplacement of choice
why horse? why plural? as if one were not enough as a picture as
if other pictures could fill in the blanks all the times waiting all the times alone all the empty arms and why many many arms as
if two were not empty enough? and why rhetorical

5
when the answer is at hand arms hands a word at the fingertips all body parts co-joined by the limb the generic limb arm as
if reaching and swimming and holding and dying were all the
same yet arms don't rush legs do

6
and legs legs are pearly legs may be painted in shades of white a translucent or a zinc and never white but peach and grey and bruise and green and purple and the entire palette because legs ah legs

7
legs like Michelangelo's Adam skewed at a terrible angle simply to
show off the torso a male torso twisted as if to give birth and pregnant with muscle and here the one horse turns too and
shows a side rump which in horse terms has a word has has

8
the artist as moment-manager never late always on time painting emptiness the moment the entire empties not just the two arms waiting for fill and now two artists and more than one horse and too much filler and yet not enough

9
and it is possible to ejaculate and not orgasm you say and the world spins on a cue you early but not knowing of it and a gap opens and there time slips its hand into the event of your coming

10
and slows enough so that the horses lay down and graze in sudden
fields mountain singular God winks as well as points and
there's an ache less dull in the breasts than it was
perhaps enough for the starving to creep into or seep, seep

broadcast

I'm sure this is really cool - broadcast your poems with video
youtube.com

Thursday, April 27, 2006

Illuminations

Gray crystals fill the sky
on this overcast afternoon
of thick liquid air and thunder
and I am on my knees again
thinking God dreamed you
only once, and I many more.

And in the absolute sincerity
of this perfect moment
I find inspiration
in the smoldering ember inside me,
in the quivering arrow I proudly wear,
in the unspeakable torture
of never kissing your iceberg lips,
in never knowing where your thighs may lead,
in guessing at the known unknown,
and hoping God has not yet finished
dreaming the future.

In the absolute sincerity
of this perfect moment
I kiss the dashed outline
of your hand and realize,
I have dreamed the future more.

DQ 4/27/06

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

with out you / /


be cause of you
i come home
cold / i don't think
i'll ever get warm
again / / /




ah / giant aspirin of angst
you are / another lesson
in cold hands / numb fingers
& a tired heart / /

& every good plan / certain lee
goes a stray / & every good plan
& every good plan















twill twill i say / angst shall be upon me
on cold blue days / when spring final lee arrives




you see / we sit down town /
call me stalk er
ah / easy talk er / / easy to find /
sitting in front of the book store
the sun is warm / here / there /


it's the petty things that count / the put downs
the / your not doing it / fast enough / soon enough
good enough / no / no / it's never enough

& i wish / / to run run run / a way
i thot it was with you / but some days are tell ing
oh i tell you / some days / there are so many things
to talk about / so many things to bring bring a person
down / /


i've decided / to run / a lone








/

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

V4

verbatim
verboten
verbena
verbine

Saturday, April 22, 2006

Info

Just a few notes tonight --- I hope all of you have listened to the latest The Goodnight Show. There is a poetry challenge up there for you to participate in. Also if you have an ODEO page, please let me know so I can add you to the blogroll for The Goodnight Show. Having your own ODEO page will help us since we will not have to ask you to record poem because DUH, you already did. Yay.

Didi

Silk Is a Weed

Conforming loam draws perspiration to the flower.

Raised leaves reflect few noticeable blooms.

A diary remains in place as an inflected presence.

One leans into forethought, already embracing disappearance.

At what point will being solidify into past tense?

The versions offer mistranslation to engender a supposed utility,

Just as sleep is right for summer rain.
The City Damned

With Ann naked in bed
Robinson stared out the window
at the barricaded city,

smoke rising from the burning buildings,
the Algonquin’s ashes
up Dorothy Parker’s derrière.

Just then the phone rang
like a ghost of sound
and Robinson pulled the cord from the wall.

On the rooftops he could see
how easy it would be
to fly too close to the sun

but Robinson thought better of it
and sat down on the bed
as Ann breathed air from who knows where.

Friday, April 21, 2006

The Goodnight Show: These Boots

Good Evening:

The Goodnight Show THESE BOOTS is now available for your listening pleasure.

Stop by here to listen:
http://www.miporadio.net/MICHELLE_BUCHANAN/

Stop by here to check out the poems featured:
http://didimenendez.blogspot.com/2006/04/these-boots.html

Get Embeddable Player Here:
http://odeo.com/audio/1061485/view

(this means you can copy and paste the code for the player on your own blog or web site)

Send Us An ODEO message and you too may be on the next show.

Don't forget to subscribe to miPOradio. It is FREE.




See you online.
Didi and Michelle
The Goodnight Show
www.miporadio.net

Ode to Who Ever

She moved with the drama of
baroque expressions
and flavored the sweat
on her skin
with suggestions of spice.

A drop of the Mediterranean salt,
and dash of mint
if I had to guess.

There was no room for me
on any of her fingers
but I managed to find
a space between her thighs
to wrap around instead.

The people next door banged
on the wall.
Her sofa was made of blue denim.
The clock on her nightstand
ran slow.
I drank too much that night.
I can’t remember her name
nor the color of her eyes.

DQ 4/19/06

04 20 06

on the rez




04-20-06

for jack kerouac



(ONE)



  you remind me of america,
  america mixed with comic books,
 
  but poetry? no. 
  you do not remind me
  of poetry.



  you should scrap your poetry,
  you can't move you are
like
  ravaged tee pee after cavalry
     has prepared you for
  the reservation
  the bad land
  of metaphors
     mostly tumble weeds
     or their timber twines
     finally
           splinters of
     hundred year homes
     by thousand year floods



     billions of tons of ash & mud
     down mountainsides & through
     expansive valleys
like
     you ask
  why
     do folks talk in terms of
     ridiculous numbers?



  then,
     you reiterate
     to make the deft or daft
     the mind for poetry?,
  as if poetry
     were only to
     bridge gaps



  where's the bridge gap jack?
  oops some one blew it up...



  you then
     quickly turn to talk of
     scouring the pig's belly with
     surgically sharpened similes
     like manson sized ice-cream
     scalpel scoops
like
    x
       xx 
  or        xxx
                   waffle cones



(TWO)



  you are waffle cones, dipped in caramel,
  with nuts mixed with nuts who promise to
  launch them off
like
  little tasty treats
  over the river or ocean toward enemies
  giggling under their breath
like
  ... one of poetry's true amazements
  ... one of poetry's destroyers.



  the high schoolers ask the teacher
  if they have to read the whole thing .
  the cliff notes may be overkill even.



  jack, you should have just wrote poems. 
like
  the best minds, but even then, the
  best minds, retarded, like special bits
  of poop & pee & sprinkling bity pleas,
  because, nowadays
  you are as boring to them as noriega
  or how the french ended up in canada.



  they like their own waffle cones, lots of talk
  & giggling under breathe or over
  harry potter, especially the harry
  potter movies, & internet porn.



  so, they'll read your excerpts & then
  they'll report to their teachers;
  i am here, that guy is there,
  let's not wave, there is no bridge,
like you are the tribes & infantry of
  solitary forlorn mystics begging
  the authors of poems to operate as
  if required to belch forth alluvial
  fragments of articles of things similar to
     your cut dress
     or my inverted spine
  as if they'll all line up
                        eventually
  in palaces, in lands with gold, &
  honey up to your gulp gulp gulp?...



       ney.
         
          they see through the
             smoke screen



  it's
  merely a fort
  buttressed by big guns
  & armoured by pipe bombs & billiard
  ball grenades, arrows & scalps.



  you are the calvary the infantry
  you are the red man



  both on the barren reservation range
  ravaging the memories of the love
  of your life, raping her viciously
  & murdering her again & again



(THREE)



  your costumes are forgotten
  in dust



in the dryest of new mexico
in the dryest of south dakota



  or you go on the road,
  selling slot machines
  of circumstance, or genocide,
  genocide on the cheap, for pennies
  from your colorado cubbyhole your
  14th street fort



like



  the same few mystics & poets
  who followed you there all yelling,
  the banal ginsbergian yawl,
  in cultish unison
like;
    come here you!;...
    peer into my garden level window.  please...!,...



    wait,  hmmm,   ...
    nevermind,



    we're on the fourth floor,
    with jack,
       so,
           fuck
       you,

    rat-a-tat-tat











~luc u! 6

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Playing Doctors and Firses

A female surgeon performs the following op: she gently attempts to prise away from her patient’s teary eyes some glassy film of grief
with her agéd stethoscope. Listens carefully. Then she tries to hook his comfort from its predestined plate fork throat heart arc with her surgical grade fish hook. Oh what a gag. What a gape. There is nil escape by mouth.

She practises resuscitation by drama, yells for trolleys, masks, oxygen, any damn thing that breathes relief into an old story. But to be rescued to be sure is not what he wants to be. And no administrative fool she. Finally she proffers anaesthetic slowly, in hope of it being a pain free future. Which of course she should have done first had she not been so tentatively prescient.

Her patient, however contrary to his popularity, is awake with great longevity and stubbornly refuses to be party to such undercover operations as female surgeons are prone to resort to and female surgeons get a little too implement happy when they’re taken to task, unmasked, disrobed, (you wish!). So she turns herself into a fish.

This female sturgeon wriggles and swims delightfully stream aligned;
disguises each movement in conspiratorial sarcasm of The Wham Bam Thank You Ma’am! kind. Slithers against the enticing scales of this male, finning for slime, displaying for time. Which is harder to do than you might think even for a matter of fact world-womanly fish such as she. He being such a slippery character and all that.

So she resorts to bottom-lining, to down-stream mind-game laying.
Plays as many fishy capers as she can dream up. Dreams being subject to all manner of undercurrents of course. But the male, (oxygenated and fully alert) nevertheless continues to lie languidly along side the langoustines and other assorted fine specimens of hicks, Micks, spicks, clever dicks and various pricks.

In any case not the right sort of company at all for such a fine fish as she. So she turns herself into a tree.

Sustained Drought

Sustained Drought

Some nights, the moon’s a knife
and stars bloom like chrysanthemums;
other night’s the moon’s a winter apple,
a hard-boiled egg, or an onion,
and the constellations are buried
bulbs. Some nights, her loneliness
sharpens and the blade carves
out the shape of a human

heart. Some nights, her hips flow
like mother’s milk; other nights, her pelvis
is wrought from stone. Some nights,
her need is as cold and hard and naked
as the moonlit hardwood floors.
Some nights, her hands are wounded;
other nights, her hands wound. Some nights,
hard-pressed, she can’t tell the difference

between light and shadow, lust
and love. Some nights are starving;
others flock like crows. Most nights,
precipitation is unpredictable; it rains or hails
or snows. Almost always, something falls.
Most nights, there is flowering, or absence.
All nights, though, ache like a five-gallon
bucket that she empties, then fills.

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

et en Shampoo
Moi et Mipo linked à Books, Inq.
mantrical

he said I want the gist of you in my head
.............she said Derrida did not write
.............what about the gracedless
.............opportunities?
.............or clave to me
.............but This is why I loses itself
.............here
he said I want the gist of you
.............she said also Or in any event exposes
.............itself in the operation
.............of mastery
he said I want the gist of you
.............in me
.............she said that's termed
.............endosomaphilia
and licked
herself
off

Monday, April 17, 2006

Attempt to Mark the Death of a Child

one cell,
this soft cell,
colonizes my arms.

The ribs of the cradle
breathe empty now.

Nova is a star
leant only to the morning,
to guide first sun across the horizon
and illuminate the lavender sky.

This singular colony of cells,
a living breathing form,
with all the bright promise of morning
and the final glimmer of starlight
leaves his baby glow
along the crest of each new day

to light the places we once were joined,
the spaces he once filled.


My Pet Genius Is a Fish

We listen to Scarlatti from our different spheres
Untrebled and with reason taxing all our ears
The mere hint of Parmenides unbinds our body chemistries
Until the litmus breathes open our chakras to subtract lament

Untrebled and with reason taxing all our ears
The patronym of early Irish stock-in-trade remands all leisure
Until the litmus breathes open our chakras to subtract lament
We have to purge our innocence of precognition

The patronym of early Irish stock-in-trade remands all leisure
To the fungi cluttering respective corners left open to debate
We have to purge our innocence of precognition
Only to disband the meeting our mental faculties

To the fungi cluttering respective corners left open to debate
Go our possessions, all of them, as if our wish had closed
Only to disband the meeting of our mental faculties
Replete with pompous attitudes and hats to match

Our possessions, all of them, are gone, as if our wish had closed
The only jug of cointeau anyone had known
Replete with pompous attitudes and hats to match
We hatched our sole good idea as if spawned by reflex

The only jug of cointreau anyone had known
Began to bubble up an apparition that resembled the tortilla flat
We hatched a priori as our sole idea spawned by reflex
"Let it go," returned the answer to our only prayer

That began to bubble up an apparition resembling the tortilla flat
The mere hint of Parmenides unbinds our body chemistries
"Let it go," returned the answer to our only prayer
As we listened to Scarlatti from our different spheres

Trust

He always has to know
where everyone is,

trying hard
to like the way

you agree to so much
that is outside

in the night
reminding us

of all the other unknown,
unreached places.


Perhaps
in being silent,

you put together
what is most needed,

leaving the words
to themselves,

to be
understood.


Saturday, April 15, 2006

An easy "how to" on recordings, etc.

can tell some of you are frustrated with how to easily record your submissions to MiPOesias Magazine or maybe you are not frustrated at all and are not aware that you could be recording your poetry for the world wide web and posting to your own blogs and web sites. Well I figure what goes around comes around so here I am sharing with you an easy way to record your poetry not only for me but for the rest of the world. I hope you share this link. I hope you subscribe to miPOradio: where poetry tunes in...

http://www.miporadio.net/howto.htm

Thank you,
Didi Menendez
MiPOesias Magazine
www.mipoesias.com
miPOradio
www.miporadio.com

APRIL 28, 2006

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Spring in the Upper Midwest

Along with warmth comes the shifting-off of strong blankets.
How then to cover up the grey tones of Minneapolis?

Flour-dust? A city surrounded with silos,
the hollow cylinder is our stand-in for the obelisk,

filled up with powdered bones and sepals and stamens.
I just received a message from the Kingdom of Plants.

It says spring is nothing more than a series of small exorcisms.
Any bird already knows these things.

See how the sparrows travel in bullying swarms?
The kitchen tabletop can be thought of as a stretcher

for the wounded and the dead. And was that a gust
of sulfuric pollen or is your house burning down?

You can tell how all kinds of things are happening
on the cusp of gestating ground.

The open field also holds the tragedy of mirage and
the silo's likelyhood to go up in spontanious compustion.

Jasmine-muffled, our utterances are such gnomic rigmarole.
The spell, however, is more friendly than the dream.

And down falls the dazzling rain, the color of sound waves,
something like snow but with ulterior motives.

A covering which does not divert from its contents,
the quick powers that run up the roots of plants.

newly released collaborative title: Doug Barbour/Sheila E. Murphy

http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664


Continuations
Douglas Barbour, Sheila E. Murphy

“The strength of this book is in its quick-change artistry, the sensation of flux that is continuous, and capable at any moment of erupting into epiphany or surprise.” Roo Borson Across great distances and a panorama shaped by words, poets Douglas Barbour and Sheila Murphy began writing in collaboration. Tapped to technology’s dance across paper, with thoughts like bright colours coursing across screens, Continuations emerged as the product of a new creator, a “third individual,” who writes differently from either poet. Words shapeshifted and poets transformed, Continuations is an intriguing addition to the growing field of collaborative poetry in North American literature.


ISBN: 0-88864-463-9
Price: CND$ 19.95, USD$ 19.95, £ 10.99
Discount: Trade
Subject: Literature/Poetry
Publication Date: March 2006

Chris George's "Jack--The Musical: The Ripper Pursued" to be performed in Charlotte, NC, May 13-14, 2006!

Hi all

I spent 12 hours aboard a train last Friday travelling from Baltimore to Charlotte in western North Carolina. The train journey would have been long anyway but the train was two hours late so I didn't reach the hotel in Charlotte until 11:00 pm.

I was in Charlotte about the arrangements for my show "Jack-The Musical: The Ripper Pursued" -- subtitle added by the producer to better let the public know what the musical is about!! The show is due to be performed here May 13-14 in four performances. Information below for anyone in the North Carolina area who might be interested in attending.

The train whistle in the Piedmont of North Carolina is pretty incessant since there are level crossings with red flashing lights and barriers at every road the rain line west passes over.

Travelling West by Train at Night

The train whistle blasts as we approach
another level crossing and I find I miss you,
alone as I hurtle west and the red lights flash.

I journey to my destiny, a rehearsal, a performance,
but will it be curtain up or will the room stay dark?
Why must my damn choices always be so stark?

What portents loom? Failure or success? No or yes?
As we rattle down the line, I seek a sign.

Christopher T. George






U.S.A. Premiere


Jack - The Musical


Lyrics and Book by
Christopher T. George and Erik Sitbon

Music by
Erik Sitbon
Musical Direction by Lauren Konen
Stage Direction by Elizabeth Peterson-Vita

Four Fully Staged and Costumed
Musical Performances

May 13, 2006 at 2:00 PM and 8:00 PM
May 14, 2006 at 2:00 PM and 8:00 PM

Duke Power Theatre
Spirit Square
Charlotte, NC

Jack - The Musical tells the story of one possible conclusion to the mystery of this most famous of unsolved cases. More an opera than a musical, Jack - The Musical features the haunting music of Erik Sitbon and the evocative lyrics of Christopher T. George.
This program contains adult themes.

Tickets now available through the link in the title above.

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

In keeping with the current events
Henry and Mr.Bones remind us that most
white Texans came to Texas illegally, a lot
of them were slave-rapers and a lot of
them were criminals.




Eduardo At McDowell

I thought I saw Eduardo at McDowell,
I thought I saw Allen before Howl,
I thought I saw Ted Roethke in a towel.

I thought I saw Alurista on a bicycle,
I thought I saw Tomas Rivera whimsical,
I thought I saw Carmen Tafolla reach the pinnacle.

I thought I saw Lowell lose it,
I thought I saw Bukowski bruise it,
I thought I saw Sylvia Plath abuse it.

I thought I saw a poet being tortured,
I thought I saw a poet being nurtured
and a vast variety of fruit in the orchard.

A No Brainer Approach To Recording Your Poems for MiPOesias, miPOradio or your own channels

Send Me A Message

Try it. You will like it. I will receive the audio at my end and use it for the various channels now available on miPOradio and MiPOesias Magazine. While you are at it, please subscribe to one of our channels.

Here are the channels available.

but i know / /









out side / every thing is anxious / trees
nervous with buds / the ground is quiver ing
a gain / / ah / rest less ness of spring









/

Monday, April 10, 2006

Let Alone Wash

The first morning I knew we had neighbors

they came inside, ate, used the drill to make

a ledge for items, and left. The were some celebrities

who lived down the street, those who came over

that day were not celebrities. Weeks later, I returned

their drill, gave them back the aluminum pan used

for the roast, and let them live in their house once again.

Sunday, April 09, 2006


permanent occupation

and yet we
expected
everything radiant names
to explode carving the
shape o f

into sinister f i r e w o r k s
highways
rushing t o w a r d

as we crossed the thres h o l d
into lakes of sewage in the streets

n o p a s a r a n

enter a desolate world
of skeletal b u i l d i n g s weeping
p o w e r l i n e s

cathedrals of concrete
converge into a p l e x u s
of nerves connecting the eye to the land
name s
of cities are epithets for the things
we forgot as we crossed the

t h r e s h o l d of the cities
grew out of
primitive
accumulation


leave among r u i n s

i was inspired by dq

choke weed /& street corners


with music by Boards of Canada

Trombone Angels

The trombone angels have no teeth.
No ears.
Lips like a frozen kiss.
Their last dance was in the air,
ghost band hovering over the flames
at Auschwitz, Cambodia, Iraq.
Dressed in black raincoats,
they shuffle to fresh graveyards
and bone laden ditches,
feet cut and dirty.

What did they think
when they once flew,
ground rushing beneath them so fast?
Did they see gods reach
out to snatch soul from body
before flesh died?
Is that too much to believe?
Too much to hope for?

They blow a sweet tune
for those who no longer buy lies
from bible-rumped matrons
about lesser gods
for those not washed in Christ's blood
or chained to a catholic sainthood.
Those matrons claim we're all sinners.
They cast the first stones to prove it.

The wail of the trombones rises
as night tosses its net of stars.
A cock cries three times.
The silence from the graves is deafening.



So named for the men who once followed
the hearses through New Orleans streets


If I did this correctly, here's an audio link for the poem, with music/effects.

Saturday, April 08, 2006

Reflections on Weight and Mass

Its amazing how much
some weightless things weight
and how some heavy things float.
Take for example desire and passion.
The standard weight measure
for desire is the fuckbushel.
Passion is usually measured in fellatons,
or metric fellatons for non-Americans.
My eyelids…
each eyelash is an anvil
while reflecting sighs
of my sweet little orgy
with her exes and ohhs
her prayers to a god called Yes
her sacred words gorged
with pleasure and semen
words that transform night into insomnia
and distill daylight into daydreams
and in between the two
my eyelids finally give way
to the heaviness of hours
(measured in kilominutes)
and at this time
I become aware
That I am floating
and the mass that used to be
my body no longer has
a standard weight.

cafe' cafe' Help us with the next Goodnight Show!

Leave me or Michelle questions (funny or otherwise) so that we can answer in the next show. You can record your questions using audio blogger so it sounds like a real phone call. Here is the link to audio blogger http://www.audioblogger.com/ --

Thank you,
Didi

NarcissusWorks

NarcissusWorks

Another One About Night

How stable the night
seems to be.
All alone, no one to leave it
or do anything with.

Everyone takes it standing
like a word said
and meant.

You say you love the night,
and it keeps silent.


Mourning Morning

Mourning Morning

I don’t know why I feel so bereft
tonight. I’ve got nothing left to lose.
Oh sure, my mother, yes.
But at this point it seems that she will live
forever. If death didn’t kill her,
nothing will. Grief has become super-
fluous in my life. Like the little black
dress cut down and up to there
that I’ll never wear dangling
on a wire hanger in the closet
like a skin that’s lost its skeleton
along with the come-fuck me pumps
hiding in the box with soles
as new and unworn as newborn twins.
And you. But I’m always losing
you in the same grain by grain
erosion as the shore sliding
into the ocean. I’m used to
the sensation of sand slipping
out from under my feet.
Tonight’s no different
than any other night.
My hand is my only lover,
And this bed, my soft husband.
So why am I widowed?
Why do I watch the clock
and grieve every second ticking
off never to be ticked again?
Why do I mourn morning
certain that it will never come?

Friday, April 07, 2006

Third Degree Burns

I am sorry you were
a victim of the fire.
At least you are still alive.
You stand across from me

slightly deformed,
a bit uglier than before,
complaining about how
your mouth can’t kiss
like it once did

worried about your dick
and how it hangs
thick and stagnant
in that funk without soul

like the early morning smell
of booze and regrets
puked on the sidewalk
of streets adjoining bars.

I often wonder how you got out,
and why you survived...
but that is no excuse
for your sad little story

from that side of the mirror.
Get used to it pussy.
Sometimes love hurts a little
Sometimes this happens.

Dear Jesus

If I walk a shore
inadvertently step
into a stalking wave

will I
ascend as though
climbing a ladder to

Toronto in the rain
Queen Street stripped
for spring

the hooker outside Eaton Place
praying at the feet
of every dry parking garage


Each day a stone is moved
from the grave
of another coffee cup

the twisted keyhole
in another locked
and fortified door

and the body is gone
creating the void
of mystery


dear Jesus
I could climb waves all day
and still never qualify

for a gold VISA card

Indictment

Whereas,

I'm the damsel in distress and you're the knight who drinks too much, slaps our kids on the ass or kicks the dog for the least misdeed: misplacing your slippers, chewing the fabic of your Lazy Boy couch, spilling chocolate milk in a pool under the high chair or interrupting the football games that you watch.

Whereas,

The paperboy is now afraid to deliver here anymore after you opened the door last Sunday night when he came to collect, half dressed with no shirt, wearing only boxers and socks, holding tightly clenched your favorite 12 gauge Mossberg, eyes glazed and your face in a snarl because I cooked your steak just a little too far past raw.

Whereas,

You used to tickle my ears when we fucked in the afternoon, whispering how much you loved the skin that you touched, the breasts that you cupped, the smell of my hair and the hard arch my back made when I replied to each thrust that you made from behind.

Whereas,

Once upon a time I bathed in your smile, thinking to myself how innocent it seemed, how like a little boy you were, constantly seeking to please, performing little tricks of the manly trade, showing off your strength, or pulling roses from behind your back and pushing them in my face, as if love was a game and I was the prize.

Whereas,

We all make mistakes, and this one is all mine: that I never looked too close, never examined all the evidence you presented to me, because I was blind to the signs that my fairy tale dream of you had gone awry; little things like the edge in your voice, the hard grip on my arm, the vacant, jealous clamped jaw threats you made whenever another boy passed by and looked my way.

Whereas,

I'm guilty of crimes against the kids and myself, for each black eye, each dislocated small limb, each bruise and each scar on my face and on theirs, and the lies that I told to cover for you, to hide from the world my horrendous mistake: letting you take over my life in exchange for a false promise of bliss that I told myself must be true.

Whereas,

In light of the fact that I, being of sound mind and body, have freely confessed these crimes, the worst of these having made you my metaphor, I fully accept my due punishment for same, i.e., the loss of this life, which it's true, I don't mind losing, and the loss of my children, a far crueler penalty, but one I deserve for having led them into such a bad tale.

Therefore,

Drink from the cup of life, my dear, for by the time you find this we will be gone, and you will remain here on earth where you belong, for hell is not found in the afterlife, darling, it's whatever is left to you before departure is near.

Thursday, April 06, 2006

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Asian-American Poetry - hello

Hello all, I hope you're doing well. Just wanted to let you know that after a short hiatus from regular blogging, I should be blogging daily or close to daily in the foreseeable future at http://asianamericanpoetry.blogspot.com. Right now, I'm working on a long sequence, entitled "The Adventures of Kudos the Poet." Thanks!
The Move

He took off his belt so that the buckle wouldn't scratch
and removed other sharp objects from his person.

He did not find out how the furniture had been put
together. Nor did he look for any parts that could be

detached. He didn't study the route to use or locate
anything that would cause trouble. For example light fixtures jutting out the wall.

He may have lifted the furniture where it was strongest. However the glass table-
top

he moved without the route being cleared of obstructions;
he didn't wrap it in a blanket to prevent any damage.

Items needed on a daily basis were simply pushed to one side without regard to their being delicate or fragile.

He didn't help me plan exactly where he would place anything. The temperature of the new locations was much higher and a

sudden and extreme variation in humidity
threatened.

Yet nothing was moved slowly or carefully.
The armchair bumped against the doorway, the walls were marked.

He didn't hold the sofa firmly. It almost slipped from his
hands. He slid and then dragged it along the floor into

the alcove and perhaps the boards were scratched and certainly the carpet
torn.

Obviously no careful or meticulous planning so neither of us examined the sideboard for loose joinery and didn't remove its
....................................................................... shelves or drawers.

A highly polished occasional table was lifted, not by its legs, but by its top, which threatened to detach. The dining chairs were ............lifted by
.......................................................................................... their arms.

As for essential items - kettle, tea bags and coffee, cups, bathroom supplies, towels, mobile phone recharger, first-aid supplies, these

were scattered by a fierce and intrusive wind, which had no regard for emergency.
Yet everything also slow and meticulous.

The bed got dragged across the yard, as excessive lateral pressure on its legs caused them

to shear off.
And although the fridge and freezer emptied and defrosted

themselves, because the bed was out of action, there was no correlation anything to anything so we had to
fuck

on the floor. All the windows ........................................flew open.
The appliances became unplugged. The neighbours forgot which
day

it was.
Only the books
lay flat with alternate bindings preventing spinal
....................damage.

Otherwise there were bruises and blood.
Clothing had no consciousness for hangers,

bodies,
closets or drawers.
Arms and legs as one.

Temporarily all the electronics switched on.
Histrionics. Hysterics. It was not a case of separate, or bubble wrapped or inkless or safe in anyway whatsoever. Pads, bowls, hollows, suggestive materials. Screams. Scratches. Lots and lots and lots
of scratches.

Then layers. Layers and layers. Tears. Tissues. History. Small and large without regard to time
or
carcass or suitability.
God in the newsprint. Chaos down
...................................wires. .......Upright position where possible. And not possible. Until

afterwards.

Labelled: reclosable.
Smears gone and the hair in place.
Blankets on and a few scuffed smiles.

8 questions

are curtains the permissive shield
is light a quenching of reluctant morning
are these finches piercing daylight
which of the rain tones lulls a child to sleep
are feathers free form near new leaves
how are freedoms given to refraction
when does morning offer feverish repeating
are repeat signs poised to offer innovation
half disguised as fact?

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

napowrimo 3



let sleeping dogs
lie with dragons
their fires
banked like this river
snow vanishing
light fades & rain
pulls green from black ground one penny
in the jar & wishes
like white moths
eating holes in this
afghan made from leftover yarn from
sweaters of teal of raspberry of
chokecherry picking in high mountains ever alert
for bears but cougars
another matter altogether
look up!
parakeets court & mate & court & mate &
squirrels roll through the flowerbed clenched
together one animal one ecstatic mad creature
twigs & branches everywhere swelling everywhere
pushing up pushing up
wings

Monday, April 03, 2006

Womb-wattle and Daub

In order that she hold too,
he sent out posts upright
between his oughts: oak
staves.

Her fill subsoil,
straw on good days
or cow-dung and lime.
Whatever.

He'd weave withes,
willow thoughts that he'd slither
wet meandering through her tough home hessian-here
used to hold ‘til dry.

A wall on which would be nought
but tedious historicity,
perhaps a house-
front facsimile

not sturdy though like lath and plaster
but crack-faults for soft lap
laughter moon
lather.

One night some slight unplanned
imprint of dedicated buttercup fossilled star
so hollow it fleshed a beholdened path mirroring
her sighs.

Well tired, so very tired
and all along alone he faltered
but high so unstrong he'd cry, use tears' salts
to lip'a steer by.

She tipped her tongue
and rimmed corona 'round
his stockaded clearing tumbling
to trust

because weak
because ancient
because distant because half-
asleep because ......................stranded

revealed dead kings crazed tombs catacombs
where solitude had brazened them.
Trenches which bore children.
Fears rodomontaded.

Some Thing. Gold.
At which he tore.
And more.
Thrust.

She it was who riddled plains
for fools, forswore the use of knife.
It is a dermisal device. I cannot find it in any book
my love. Help


me. Who clawed his shroud
to heaven threads, spun out a sodden horizon, sinking, fell from dread to ga/ether handfuls of stippled diamond drool stinking,
bled birth emblem, emblazoning leucorrhoeal trail

led and asked why are these trees like webs
in the lamp's light dear?
and this question
he followed

back
to roots
to slatted-keep. As strangers do
who have only modern moment-moated
clues to cling to.

Sunday, April 02, 2006

tramp jumping with lesbians

tramp jumping with lesbians

(for BJD)

never have snorted uppers
except that one time in highschool
when i became more interested in jumping
on the trampoline
for five hours
with the lesbians
than
jumping on the three girls
who were very permissively
interested in me.

it was the last big hurrah.
the end of the summer after my senior year.
&
they were smokin' hot boy crazy eighteen year olds,
who never had to chase a boy further than two feet.
maybe they were on drugs
or maybe there was simply no reason left
for them to hide the fact
that they were interested in me and
unreasonably so at that.

this makes me want to go back in time and thank them.
and also send a thank you to the lesbians
for keeping me safe.
yes.
special thanks to the lesbians.


04-01-06
luc u! ~