It's Poetry Time!

Moved

2011-04-18T19:59:00.001-07:00

Obviously this space is dead. I've since moved to http://sedimentary.tumblr.com. See you there!

"I Just Want to Know"

2009-11-16T16:48:00.001-08:00

At last, I've completed my black poetry journal, the one that says, "grammar is for squares" in the front. Next I need to fill up the Kraft journal I got bored of drawing in.

The last poem:

I Just Want to Know
These unchiming bells
are the great unknown.
I think I see them everywhere,
hovering over mantles
and tumbling through bedding.
All of their eyes are bells.
I feel the shape with parting lips,
membrane over metal.
I think I know, and then
the cool curves disappear
and I am mouthing the air,
a fish, waiting.

A Chortle or Two

2009-11-09T20:19:00.000-08:00

First off, I would like to thank whoever got to my blog by searching for "hot pants poem." I had to giggle a little bit when checking Google Analytics today.

Secondly, I'm designing a journal (think a quarterly magazine) for a class, and my journal is sustainability-focused, with this particular "issue" being about water. We have to include a poem, so I wrote one of my own. It needs a bit of critique, I believe:

[still untitled]
Every Monday through Friday
a lawn sprinkler shudders on.
A fury, it beats the grass
with a hydrogen-oxygen compound,
relentlessly, repeatedly,
and the whole yard swims and drowns,
a million tiny green heads
that couldn't fight the surface.
The whole place is a sickly swamp,
mud clumped dark and thick and useless.
Every day at six a.m.,
a lawn sprinkler shudders on in unison
with a million clicking brothers,
all raging and drowning and wasting
under a sun growing hotter and higher.

generation (another word for self)

2009-10-25T18:02:00.000-07:00

I feel like "I" is a word
too much in my vocabulary;
I can't stop saying it
or thinking it
I am I think I know I want.
Look at how I can't stop saying it.
Okay,
"there is a certain person"
who thinks too much of herself;
her id is so large it blocks out the sun
and all the tiny people depending on it.

2009-08-14T09:00:00.001-07:00

I love the imperfect shape of your nose.

Family

2009-08-12T22:08:00.000-07:00

the perfumed floor cleaner
in the maternity ward smelled like
one million crapping petunias.
and that's how we named you.

Commitment Issues

2009-08-11T12:36:00.000-07:00

The first ten minutes of a movie
are always my favorite part.
I sign petitions and call Senators
but I will not drive an hour and a half
to show up at the rally.
I bookmark interesting websites
"to look at later," but I never do.
My student account at the university
says that I am one thing,
but in my spare time
I seem to be that thing never.
I am the half-filled glass.
I am the failed quotient.
All my failures stick on me
and my victories are too afraid
to come close.

Coulda

2009-08-02T13:23:00.000-07:00

I feel like I was a writer
in the alternate life I left
behind in a Philly suburb.
I was in an MFA program
and drank black coffee.

As it is,
I have taken one writing class
and my TA tells me
writing all in lowercase
makes me look like an ass.

Seating Arrangements

2009-08-02T13:22:00.001-07:00

I am half-assing
a million tiny things.
I want to whole-ass something,
really commit,
because there are no chairs
made for people like me,
and I'd really like to sit down.

Word Choice

2009-08-02T13:17:00.000-07:00

"Hyperbaric chambers."
I don't know what the hell that means,
but it sounds impressive.

Sidewalks in the Proverbial Dark

2009-08-02T13:16:00.001-07:00

There is too much fear in you;
why are you a thing made of fear?
Is your hair too flaxen?

Everyone Else is a David

2009-08-02T13:13:00.000-07:00

All I am holding
is a pen or a paintbrush,
but I feel like I'm supposed to
re-create the Great Wall of China,
only bigger and better and with,
ya know, more pizazz?
I feel like Saul, I came in chosen
and somewhere along the line
my faith was shaken
and I built an altar
the size of a computer screen
and I sat, reflecting myself away
from my worries and potentials
until the whole world,
whose first name is Samuel,
told me I'd missed my chance.

The Secret Constant

2009-07-06T22:32:00.001-07:00

The sky looks the same,
a constant of clouds and frame,
just more or less light.

Not To Feel Everything For Just One Day

2009-07-06T22:27:00.001-07:00

I am the only one who can feel
all the molecules in the air,
I am the only one with eyes open
watching the molecules realigning,
twisting into bands, flexing and tightening
around every inch of flesh.
Barometric pressure.
I can't believe anyone calls me crazy.

Call for entries!

2009-06-26T18:12:00.001-07:00

I am collecting art and writing from all over the internet for inclusion in a new PDF magazine called Offshoot. The purpose of the magazine is simply to showcase art for art's sake, made for joy or personal expression. Offshoot seeks to recognize that art is an extension of life, and vice versa.

Here's what I'm looking for:
Theme: pretty much themeless. Send me stuff that best represents you or your creative work. I just want to see what you do as a creative person, whether that's poems or comics or doodles or photos.
-images (preferably 300dpi, 72dpi is okay) of photographs, drawings, design, paintings, etc. The bigger the image, the better.
-non-fiction or short stories, up to 2000 words; opinion pieces must still be timely a month or two from now.
-poetry, up to 10 poems per entrant
-Your submission e-mailed to offshootmag@gmail.com, along with your Name, State/Country, URL, and a sentence about yourself.

deadline: July 31, 2009

Updates on Iran

2009-06-21T16:25:00.001-07:00

May God bless your country with peace, safety, justice, and the right to self-governance.

For real-time updates, view updates from the grassroots on Twitter.

BBC's latest coverage of the rallies.

Iran's Guardian Council admits # of votes exceeded # of voters.

If you have not heard about it yet, there has been plenty of controversy in Iran about their recent presidential election, in which the incumbent candidate Ahmadinejad was re-elected with a 63% vote (many of which were logged in the last 3 hours of the election in areas that were not majorly sympathetic with President Ahmadinejad). Mr Mousavi--who won 34% of the vote and had seemed to remain the victor for much of the duration of the polls--along with Mehdi Karroubi and Mohsen Rezai, filed complaints and cited election fraud. His supporters took to the streets in protest, and for the past week, Tehran has been stricken with violence at the hands of the Basij (the voluntary police force), who have been breaking into homes and beating protesters. Multiple deaths have been reported. It seems that the protesters have struck the Basiji HQ in retaliation, but Mousavi has urged for peaceful protest, which many of his followers have complied to. The struggle over the election has also proved a struggle over information, in which the Iranian government expelled and arrested foreign media, closed down TV stations, and blocked internet and cellphone service to its citizens. However, rebellious citizens have been setting up proxies and using Twitter to communicate with supporters across the globe. Basically, Tehran is a mess, and we intend to let the world know what is happening in Iran.

Meh

2009-06-17T20:55:00.001-07:00

Adulthood is like an impotent unicorn,
standing on a hill, knowing everything,
on account of the sudden acquisition of binoculars.
I have the silvery-white mane,
and yet I cannot prance.
This unicorn is a being which worries
about avian flu and swine flu,
the direction of the wind and whether
it will bear mosquitos or meteorites.
This is a mythical being that fights its brothers,
that leaves a hoof print on a chest
for the sake of that canal or this one,
the control of a bright green pasture.
The acid rain from the burning of coal
streaks its hair in the dirtyness of knowing,
and the throat closes slowly and silently,
like the collar of a kimono drawing tighter.
Is there any way close the eyes and not
see the suffering, to not know greed,
to not count how big one's drinking pond is,
is there a way to frolic back to
orchards of citrus, planes of light,
sparkling things where existence
meets no political or geographical boundaries?
There is an impotent unicorn, standing on a hill,
closing its eyes and concentrating hard
on the smell of oranges, the feel of wind.

THE ITCH OF A STIFF SWEATER

2009-06-17T20:54:00.002-07:00

Freckled toast is all we eat here.
The alarm clock contributes it rude opinion
at some awful hour, good for the body's rhythm,
and we eat the same whole-wheat toast.
We take the same horse-pill vitamins.
No one has to find the keys
because they're always on the same hook.
Today is Tuesday, the ninth day of this week.
You go off to your job as usual,
and my intended path is the same,
but the monotony of living is beginning to fray
my every nerve--a tick in every blink--
so I duck into a matinee,
a sick love story about things that never happen,
and it drives this wedge into me,
pries open this little cavern in my brain
where I hate the vitamins and wheat toast
and I want to hide all your keys and plant sunflowers
but I don't have any seeds so I drove home
and unlock the door and mess the house up,
I throw the CDs around and overturn a plant
and rip the bed sheets off and jump on the mattress
and dump the parsley down the drain
and I go to the store and I buy cheese doodles
and cans of soda and greasy things
and I eat them until you come home from work,
you're upset and I see you start to cry
and I start to feel bad for the mess I've made
but you take me in your arms and say,
"thank you, I forgot how to breathe."

PEOPLE THAT SHOULD GET WHAT'S COMING TO 'EM

2009-06-17T20:54:00.001-07:00

She was a werewolf in panties,
a person for whom the world opened
its great gaping mouth, rimmed in teeth
that she tiptoed over, that she slunk between.
Her spell was as silent and as fierce
as the thoughts between raindrops;
there was an intent and a target to their fall,
the way in which her every finger
caressed an arm or pushed a lock of hair.
She was the most dangerous thing
to ever walk in lavender, smelling of honey
and inspiring the words "sex" and "kitten"
used in startling proximity.
There was an hypothesis running
that inside she was broken, powerless,
a refugee of abuse from a secret face,
and to this idea she laughed.
It shook her little twig body as she stomped
on another man, another city, another theory
struggling for air under a pointed stiletto.
Three seconds of sexy stare were all she needed,
shaded by a white umbrella, but flashing
the scarlet red of a devilish garter.
I know she laughed through life, all to death;
I know that no one, nothing stopped her.

Yahweh

2009-06-11T21:29:00.000-07:00

Yah Yah Yah
I am shaking with joy
there is no reason
only sunlight

Priorities

2009-06-11T21:27:00.000-07:00

I have been hanging around
with too many mud puddles.
We smoke cigarettes behind
the five and dime,
the down and out.
Funny how the down and out
still have money to buy cigs.

In And Out

2009-06-03T17:59:00.001-07:00

There looms a giant to-do list
with hundreds of items ready to scratch
and tasks that must be completed,
but I don't have the time,
or I do have the time because
I find myself often, doing nothing,
which means then I don't want
to do the things on this list,
but that's not true either;
I look at this list and say,
"these are things I want."
Everything is constantly being inverted.
The polarities reverse, in and out.

I Want to Feel Like An Illustrated Children's Book

2009-06-01T11:46:00.000-07:00

I have dragged skinny knuckles
with the sallow-hearted
for far too long.
It is time now for joyousness
and dancing in the giving rain

Faint of Heart

2009-06-01T11:45:00.001-07:00

The dishwasher is loud
so someone turns up the volume
on the big-screen TV.
I feel more solid than usual.
I can feel the fat grow in rings
around my rippling middle,
and I think of all the money
draining from my bank account
and all the flights I'll never catch
and all the faces I'll never meet
and I get up off the couch
and stare out the sliding-glass door,
wringing my hands.

Maybe I should wear more hot pants.

2009-05-25T07:57:00.000-07:00

I should give up on my most basic dream
the one I've had since I was six
the dream of becoming a writer
because I have nothing of worth to say,
I have not slept in a cardboard box
or slept with an entire Turkish harem.
I do not have a beard I can stroke
and say wise things that shake the soul.
I refuse to cut off my ear or tattoo my arms
or run screaming through the village
with a Burger King crown on my head,
flailing my arms and screaming, "I'm the king!"
before plotting my own curdled demise.
No one gives a shit about my writing
because I'm not weird, I'm not worldly,
my persona is nowhere to be seen.
I'm just a boring, ordinary person
scribbling to record a boring life,
the one that so many people live and therefore
do not need to read about.

Phroneo Christou

2009-05-23T22:43:00.000-07:00

All there is to do in this life is to live joyfully and honestly, showing love and mercy. This is the highest goal I can attain.

Letter Forwarded from Save Darfur

2009-05-21T07:06:00.001-07:00

"A big lie." That's what Sudan's ambassador to the United Nations called a U.N. report that "over 1 million people are at life-threatening risk" due to the government of Sudan's decision to expel 13 aid groups.

But we know the truth: there is a dire crisis in Darfur. We can't wait another day for bold, agenda-setting leadership. That's why I just added my voice to a letter from the Darfur activist community calling on President Obama to take bold action for the people of Darfur, and I hope you will too.

http://action.savedarfur.org/campaign/jointletter

If we can get 50,000 signatures on the open letter by midnight tonight, the Save Darfur Coalition will bring copies to the White House during the March for Darfur on Friday. So don't delay—this could have a big impact!

Make sure President Obama hears from you!

The rainy season in Darfur is coming soon, and it will only make matters worse for those at risk without the aid groups. We must help the groups get access to Darfur again.

http://action.savedarfur.org/campaign/jointletter

Flippin' the Bird to the Fat White Chickens

2009-05-19T08:52:00.001-07:00

Perhaps it was foolish
that I glorified the worker
lauded American history's common man.
Maybe it was naive
to hope for the factory laborer
or to believe the union
gathered innocently, peacefully.
But who is to judge me,
but a more educated fool,
an elder, more important clown
whose throne will tip over
when the common man rises up
in his haunting numbers?
I laugh at he who thinks himself
more than just a man.
It is he who proves mortality.

the noble & unclogged

2009-05-19T08:49:00.000-07:00

I admire anyone who can sit simply,
staring off into space, just thinking,
maybe sipping a cup of coffee,
but still quiet, free
of magazines and laptops and people.
I see these strange beasts
in the cafe of my home town
and they are like an unnamed species
moving slightly
at tables other than mine.

[Untitled]

2009-05-18T20:46:00.001-07:00

Normally
I would get rid of it,
the porcelain angel
gazing from my shelf--
no use for gold-leaf wings
or white, pudgy cheeks.
But it was a gift from a little girl
who knew much more than me,
more about life and dreaming,
a woman in flowered, flared jeans,
dragging a baby sister along.
I stare at the little angel now
and remember how much I have to learn
about the smallest things in this world.

I should stop being critical of other people

2009-05-18T16:35:00.001-07:00

All the kids from my high school
have become empty to me,
vapors of what "people" are and do.
There are a few still solid,
living, breathing, filled
because I filled them with my love,
with my regard, my memories.
I think, as I hold these solid ones,
this must mean no one is empty,
that all the people are whole
at the hands and hearts
of the anonymous "loved ones."

Landmark

2009-05-13T18:06:00.000-07:00

I know I'm going the right way
when I see the serpentarium,
the giant sculpted cobra
sinking venomous teeth into skyline.
I wonder at the snake's coils,
considering how definitely they comfort,
and how indefinite this world is,
and how hollow the words
"good" and "bad" and "objective."

Interview

2009-05-13T09:30:00.000-07:00

Ryan Manning did an "interview" of sorts with me at his blog, "Thunk: Where Interviews Go to Die." Check it out!

The Middle Class, Out to Eat

2009-05-13T07:54:00.000-07:00

I've been having a really hard time lately trying to write poetry. Life has been pretty calm so nothing has caught my attention enough to write about yet. So here is an old poem while I ponder some new stuff.

The Middle Class, Out to Eat
Your face is the saddest face I've seen.
I didn't think I would know it when I saw it,
but there you were, a booth away,
sipping your third margarita or something,
and my mind's eye said in its outdoor voice:
THAT IS THE SADDEST PERSON IN THE WORLD.
You haven't left to go to the bathroom
the whole two hours, so I can't smile
or open the bathroom door for you,
so I am sending you ESP beams from my table,
"be happy, be happy, please be happy."
Maybe your kids should smile at you.
Maybe your husband should
put his arm around you, pulling you closer.
For all I know you're fine, it's just that
your face looks that way because
you're looking at me, your face as a mirror,
thinking, "that is the saddest person in the world."

hate to tell you, friend.

2009-05-12T11:47:00.000-07:00

I like you, it's just that
I hate all your paper-doll chains.
I don't know why you cut so many,
over and over, the same lifeless limbs,
triangle skirts repeated in infamy.
I am ashamed to admit I'm a little sick
of all the bits of paper sticking to floors
and clinging to counter tops.
Everyone else likes them,
they eat food off of tiny plates
and stare at the chains encircling the room:
"those are some cute paper dolls,
may I have some? are you selling them?"
All I see is a copy of a copy of a copy.

The Future of Poetry

2009-05-11T19:01:00.000-07:00

A friend of an acquaintance
is a poet laureate of a zoo.
I can only imagine the keeper of monkeys,
the Grand Pumbah of Turtles
receiving a letter,
"hi, can your iguanas
be represented by my verse?"
Could I be a poet laureate of
a high-rise office building,
would a paper company write about me
in their annual report:
look, we support the arts!
The world is weird
poetry is easier
when zoos have poet laureates
and blogs are free
and anyone can print a book.
poetry is harder,
something I realized in the book store
where every poet in the shelves
was already dead
and I was thinking,
"if I'm going to pay fifteen dollars,
I want it to go to someone alive."
I asked the sales clerk and
she typed up the names in her computer;
no, they're not coming in or
wait til this september,
his new book is coming in.
Okay, where are his old books?
"Poor bastard" was my diagnosis
but then I remembered, the point
was not to sell books, to make money,
to leech the life out of art
in order to support a life,
the point was to say, be heard,
and that was free for the taking
somewhere in cyberspace.