27 November 2006

"Mid-day Lunch"

She inhaled and exhaled two, long, luxurious breaths in between bites of grilled cheese and bologna on pumperknickel. Out of the corner of her left eye she caught her boyfriend watching her. "What?"
"Nothing" he faked. She raised her eyebrows. "It's just that I was wondering why you're breathing so hard."
"I had a cough earlier," she started, "and when I breathe deep my ribs and lungs hurt a little, like maybe I'm getting sick or something." He smiled inconsolingly. "I DID cough a bunch today and even now just saying the word 'cough' makes me need to." She turned her head a bit away from him and let out a tiny "khuh khuh." She looked back and his grin broadened. "What! I really do have to cough but I wanted to suppress it so you wouldn't see so much of my neuroses." She giggled, but not with embarrassment. She knew he would play the game.
He did. He laughed. "Oh honey, I know all about your neuroses and I still love you." His eyes sparkled, marvelously flirtatious and true. She put her leg up on his lap and inched her foot up his chest. He pushed up her thin, cotton, lavender pants and began to stroke her hairy calves with both hands. Their eyes locked.
Plates with crusts and corn chip remnants sat on the table in front of them, but thier bodies were now turned toward each other. It was such a rare, quiet, mid-day lunch together, both on break from work at the same time.
"So..." she cooed as his hands rubbed and her toes wandered down, deep into his hardened loins. "You got time for a nooner?"

16 September 2006

Sleep in my eyes and on my breath
I tell him
You can put your penis in my vagina if you want.
He holds me close, spooning, cuddling
in our warm bed
then jumps out.
I hear clothes being torn off and tossed on the floor
he jumps back into bed, one fell swoop
a hawk on his prey
and strokes my hip, my round ass
too soft to be talons on my skin
he pushes into me, I'm already wet
A miracle, he tells me.
I smile and half-heartedly push back
into him.

23 August 2006

I don't have a job yet, but the exciting news is that I started attending a free creative writing class, so I am writing again, I mean really writing, and feeling alive again, I mean really alive. I want to share a piece I wrote in a free-write exercise tonight. The prompts were "I believe," and "I didn't expect that to happen." I sort of did a stream-of-consciousness thing, and I like it. Here it is:

Here I sit, facing a green wall in the basement of the library. What color green I cannot even name. Maybe it's somewhere between a lime and a sea green? Or spring green on a cloudy day. Yeah, that's it. Spring green on a cloudy day. I did sort of expect something different than another prompt exercise, something more off-color, as is this green wall. But here I sit, facing the same wall for an hour and fifteen minutes. If Stella and Katie and Percy all stood against the wall, they'd each be half camouflaged according to the greens of their clothes: one top and two bottoms.
I bite hard into a pretzel, the crunch reverberates in my head, in the quietness of scribbling pens on paper. Pens on paper, that's what I like to hear. It's why I suck on my pretzel rather than chew.
Why is this so hard to write what I believe? I believe in this: writing. Writing and nothing else. No, that's not true. I believe in love, in magic, and, quite naively, in the goodness of people. I believe in Mother Earth, in music, in poetry. I believe in life, most days. I am here today, and I believe, no, I know it is because of writing.
I write to process; I write to know; I write to show; I write to tell. I write because I can, because I have a voice, and because I believe in that voice, my voice, and in the right to express it, shout it if I want to, or, more politely, write it in my journal.
How many lives now have been lost so I can have my polite and civil freedom to write my voice? How many young voices squandered, parched and lost in the desert? Dried up tongues in sand so the rest of the free world can thirst and thrive on oil. Oh, Christ! I don't want this, I don't want to go there now. I still want to believe the world is good. I want to believe in fairies and angels and peace. In the power of my son's laughter and in the protection of my love. But Cindy Sheehan knows, love is not enough. Love is not enough unless it has a voice. And voice is not enough unless you use it. And you can only use it if silent people fight terrorists and spy on our library cards, all to insure our freedoms and civil liberties. You know, the ones that make this country so great. The country that gives us each a voice in our votes (granted it took women and minorities almost two hundred years to have voices and votes, but you know, uh, what would our President say?). But we do have a voice, one voice, one vote, right? We do have a right, a vote, a voice. Right? Write?

14 August 2006

11 August 2006
Well it’s finally time for me to grow up and stop this fantasizing about being a writer, a poet, a professor of such…I am getting a real job. That’s it, I am. And I am going to like it. I am. I will write in my spare time while bringing in money to the family income, saving for a house, planning a new baby, saving for Emmett’s education…you know, the responsible, adult things to do. And it’s about time, I mean I am turning thirty this year. Hmm. Time for that necessary loss of lost dreams, lost visions, lost self, of youth and spontaneity, and all that stuff that comes with not having any grey hair. Yes, I have grey hairs. Yes, I am reading Harry Potter books. And yes, I steer clear of mosh pits at concerts, even wincing when I see youths stage dive, watching them disappear into the crowd thinking, gosh, I hope they don’t get hurt. What a mother I am! I mean, I’m not their mother, why do I act like I am mother of the world? Am I just joined in that universal mother role where all we do is worry about the life on this planet? How is it that women, mothers, are more concerned with saving and preserving life than the men who are in power around the globe right now? It really does take a mother, a human who has been through the depths of pain and labor it takes to birth a child, a woman who has given small pieces of herself to nurse and raise the child in health and sickness and sadness and learning and teaching and loving and cuddling, and no, we will not let other people destroy this life we put so much of ourselves into. I know how Cindy Sheehan feels. When you destroy a child, a part of the mother dies, too. How many children and mothers must suffer before we realize we’re killing our own mothers. When we destroy ourselves we destroy our creator, Gaia, Earth, the one mother everywhere. I can’t stand it anymore. I became a mother to join the life-giving force, to share my love with a new little person of pure love, and here I am, I have to sit here and watch the death toll of sons and daughters rise. I guess if I had a full-time job I wouldn’t have time to think about things like this anymore.

11 August 2006

So the poetry slam was fun but I didn't get the reaction I thought I would from the audience. I read the Sestina, the one on this blog about the guy from the Lovebomb who was the most "unromantic lover...his dick went off too soon," and I figured everyone would laugh, but it was like crickets out there. What the hay?

01 August 2006

Hey poets, slammers, crazy folks, whatever, I just wanted to tell you all about the upcoming Poetry Slam hosted by Geof Hewitt at the Northeast Kingdom Music Festival this weekend in East Albany, VT. It was great fun last year, and Slam Greatness himself was there, I am talking about Saul Williams! If you have never heard or seen him perform, please go to your local library or video store right now and look for Slam Nation, a documentary about the National Poetry Slam, in which local Calais man Geof Hewitt has performed in! So anyway, come to the festival: camping, music, theater, and on Saturday at 1:15 there will be a fine poetry slam for anyone to join or watch. I will be there and maybe I'll actually win this time. Though that's not really what it's all about.
Middle of January (We've all been there)

I am black ink
dark goddess cloak
with six little seeds
bittersweet
icy heart.

I am unforgiving
of the force that pulls me down
and at the same time
in love.

If only I could turn everything as black
as my kitten's round eyes
with her two black lines
that run down from the corners
as if she's been crying inky tears.

Sylvia--or as we call her at home
baby kitty Sylvia--dark namesake
mother of starkness
darkness in her ink
she grabbed at it and came up
with a chokekold of blue-flamed gas.

It's this heat we crave
in the middle of January.

17 July 2006

Jewel Tones

For twenty-five dollars
my mother can dress your feet.
You send her a check,
and she'll send you jewel tones.

My mother can dress your feet,
she does it by hand, with fingers curled as a reflex.
She'll send you jewel tones.
Around needles, without thought

she does it by hand, with fingers curled as a reflex.
Intricate toes and heels form tubular
around needles, without thought
my mother knits.

Intricate toes and heels form tubular.
One hand over the other,
my mother knits;
she doesn't need to think anymore.

One hand over the other,
knit one, purl two,
she doesn't need to think anymore,
lost in knitter's repetition.

Knit one, purl two,
while the television blares she
is lost in knitter's repetition,
her private concerto.

While the television blares she
works in jewel tones,
her private concerto,
with lips moving in the counting.

She works in jewel tones
and large glasses sliding down her nose
with lips moving in the counting
as a sign of her concentration.

Large glasses sliding down her nose,
inaudibly whispering to herself
is a sign of her concentration.
But she holds back her world.

Inaudibly whispering to herself
for if she let her excitement out
-she holds back her world-
she might disturb our TV show.

If she let her excitement out
in unraveling emotions in the family room
she might disturb our TV show,
or we might disturb her.

In unraveling emotions in the family room
sometimes instead of the sitcom, I watch her
but not to disturb her,
her inner world that non of us enter.

Sometimes instead of the sitcom, I watch her
knitting, her way to escape
into her inner world that none of us enter
where beautiful things are born.

Knitting, her way to escape,
making socks instead of time
where beautiful things are born
in a now empty nest.

Making socks instead of time,
the lines of worlds fade, and all that's left
in a now empty nest
are the lines of corrugated yarn in a spiral design.

The lines of worlds fade, and all that's left
is wrapped around needles, lips, and hearts.
The lines of corrugated yarn in a spiral design
coming together in knots,

wrapped around needles, lips, and hearts.
A pair of jewel-toned socks
coming together in knots.
And she'll send them to you,

a pair of jewel-toned socks.
You send her a check
and she'll send them to you
for twenty-five dollars.

10 July 2006

Someday he will be more than this
pretend lizard in the back seat
I'm gonna eat you
pretend tiger shark because he
just wants to eat people
his play voice rises higher than anywhere
I've ever flown to.

28 June 2006

What Kind of Word Pool Is This? (Rainy Day)

I am not swimming
I am drowning
in my own words
in my own world
in my head
no images today
no metaphors
or similies
nor smiles
nothing but me
and sometimes
this should be enough.
18 May 2006
Not writing anything, not doing anything, enjoying nothing, creating nada leaves me indoors on a rainy thunderstorm night all melancholy even in the arms of my honey and my baby, even writing the beginning of some short story of raunchy proportions and I have little hope. Just letting my life pour over me like this rain that pours down, just letting it all build up around me in giant piles of heaping shit. Did the dishes and now I’m listening to the Cowboy Junkies’ version of Sweet Jane over and over on repeat the drone of it so comforting so constant like the constant drone of boredom of depression of loneliness of the big gaping hole in my heart and no, Randy, my new love, even you can’t fill it within me, for me, but you can fill my time so I ignore the blackness within me. Yes, time, take away my time with your sex, your incredible body, the orgasms you give me, your smell and sweat, your embrace, your promises…take away my time with your promise of tomorrow, of forever…I’m not using my time for anything else anyway. And I guess this is my fear, using up my time on nothing much. Or not using my time on what’s important. I don’t want my time to slip away, yet I fully realize that I have so much of it, that life is just so much time…there will be more thunderstorms to appreciate from our hammock on the porch, I will write more poems, and there will always be chores around the house to do, hell there will always be the time to build a house, and a family. But things recorded evade time. My thoughts evade time, therefore I exist. Sometimes I forget. Like I forget how much calmer I feel when I have a clean kitchen! I’m working on the piles of shit. It’s not as chaotic now although I still can’t see my kitchen table. But I can see my sink and countertops. One step at a time. Humankind progresses in small, small steps in time. Infinitesimal steps across the surface of time.
24 May 2006
My four-year-old contemplates mortality as he sits on the toilet, pooping. Questions like, “How did people come alive after the dinosaurs?” and “Do I have to die in a long, long time? Do houses die?” and telling me his plan, “Me and Isabelle want to never die and if we never die we will be the only people alive, me and her, the only two people alive. We want to stay alive for the whole day. Can we stay alive for the whole day?”

05 June 2006

At Least I Make Sense! Sestina, 24 February 2006

So I want to write this fucking sestina
yeah I'm mad, it started at the Lovebomb
art show, dance, and human twister to amuse,
where I met this man who had promised me a river
but oh, the drama
talkin' to this chick in a red dress with face paint: men!

If only I could attract men
a little more predictable, as is this sestina.
1:27 in the morning can't stop thinking about the drama
I started when I dropped the first lovebomb,
a poem I wrote, flowed like a river
down to New Hampshire to amuse

this artist whom I thought was a (my) muse.
Mere mortals don't walk among such men
as they paint pictures, a canvas river.
But who am I as I write this sestina?
A Goddess scorched by my own failed lovebomb
an explosion of such drama-

tical force: my fire, his water, our drama
of the Centuar and Crab, oh they do amuse.
Oh, they fucked like a lovebomb,
I should be used to this from such men.
Alas, I am young, hence I've chosen to write a sestina
to hold my deep emotion, a river

swelling to the overflow point, where the river
turns to waterfall in that falling drama
lost in the flow, how it just goes, like this sestina.
But I do so hope you are still amused?
How could I not be? Burned by men
I'll never take one home from the Lovebomb

again. His dick went off too soon, the love bombed
indeed, inside me, most unromantic lover, no river
flowing through me-oh yeah, most men
can't tap that orgasmic drama
of the female vagina. Am I to be so amused
by the rythmic grind, a sestina

of sex and just as short as a sestina? The ticking lovebomb
is my only muse in this cold river
of life, and my only drama: I always choose the wrong men!
More journal 4-6-06:
I'm still practicing stars, trying to find that perfect five-point form of the divine shape. Pentagram. Pentacle. It's supposed to be the golden shape: perfect. But not by mt hand. My hand creates the imperfect shape and scribbles dark secrets of my shadow. I like to push dark holes through the pages and watch ages of voices rearrange the words I speak.
Unclear, I know. This is all supposed to lead to clarity. What a parody: I only write to feel less alone. It's not a matter of discipline or career objective. It's a survival tool my psyche and my body have adapted to keep me sane, make me whole.
Why are we born into this world broken? I do so want to believe we are born whole and perfect. I really believe my son was, is. But what if he grows up and struggles as I do? What if he can't find truth and wholeness? It's a heavy burden to lay on him, I know, to claim he is perfect, he is true, he is whole. It's really what I long to say for myself, yet can't.
I keep myself down in a cave, not ready to acknowledge the light in my spirit. And also not ready to give it up in order to join the real world - Capitalism - job market. I do not belong there. I belong here, in these words, in this book, in the divin Universe of the written word and language and blankness filling up. I am this book. I am married to it. It's my soul mate. It's why I can't find a human soul mate. Who else could give me this divine space, so clear and unquestioning, so patient and understanding?

01 June 2006

Transferred from my journal 4-6-06:
This divine journal, blank pages white as pure sky and the light so light until dark ink burdens its face. Each page a face I put my hand on and caress as I would the cheek of a lover, the cheek of a child, or the cheek of God. All this searching for God is really just a pilgrimage to get home, back to the Mother, our one, true love, the beginning. Everything we search for is a search for Her. And it's as if we are all estranged from our Mothers. Why is this so? Why does She birth us and leave us to feel so helpless, so hopeless, so alone? If only we could reconnect we could be truly happy, truly pure, truly light. No more darkness. This is my form of prayer, this writing. It's my Zen, my meditation, my search for my lost Mother. It's my peace, my center, my Buddha. My God, my flow, the fiber of my being. Words. Writing. Talking to the divine, of the divine, for the divine. Or just to hear myself talk.

31 May 2006

LOVE

I could sleep with your fingers inside me
I whispered
I could kiss you 'till the end of time.

I could look at this clear blue sky
and only see your eyes and I could stare
through mountains to get a glimpse of your smile.

I'm walking in a waking dream
I see images of you in the pool
of my coffee, your name on my dashboard
your whole being in the interstice of time.
I just can't count the seconds fast enough
until I really see you, really feel you
under the sun, in my arms, your lips on mine
making solid the ghost of you
who haunts me in my days.
My Son

Birds in flight
have no creation
bigger than mine
this child
just because he has no wings
doesn't mean
he can't fly.

He is my greatest poem
yet only I can read him.
I haven't written any war poems in awhile, or, more accurately, peace poems. Is this any time for poems anyway? Who reads them, who cares, who really makes a difference, or even a living from words, short words, long words, in proper placement, or haphazardly spread around, does it really matter what words we use? We are at war. People die each day and it is our will. By our, I mean collectively as a nation, though I don't like to be connected to this nation's reality. A thunderstorm here in my neck of the woods turns me blue, I can't garden anymore, yet on the other side of our Earth people dig holes in the ground to plant their loved ones, water them with tears. A single teardrop is lost, but a nation of them creates a global storm.
Birthing the sacred woman
See how she's grown
From empty-vesselled innocent
To full-bellied, tired and spent
What fire awaits her body's glow
To push bone against bone in that slow
Transition from woman to mother
Embodiment of power no other
Will love laboriously into being
A small, sacred body fleeing
Red-wombed house of mirth
To milk, mother, Earth.