14/30: copout

Exhausted today, underslept, but desperate not to fall behind this year, please forgive my self indulgence:


Without supporters,
kind friends with kind words this might
be impossible.

The 9/4 makeup project: day2pome2, from a prompt in Mindy Nettifee's "Glitter in the Blood"

I had never heard the word before.

And there he was, biggest person in the whole house,
a red thunderstorm, blustering from room to room,
the broom beneath his nose bristling back
and forth, calling out, "Where are my
CUFFLINKS?"

cu-ka-cuff-uff-ufful-flink-links-ks what a beautiful
complex treat for my young mouth, cufflinks, I wanted
to say it over and over, this thing I'd never heard of,
and Peter Pan was always my favorite story and
Mr. Darling, the broom-sporting thunderstorm, was also
Captain Hook, you know, my fascination
with this magic started early, started young,

I would stay up staring out my bedroom window nights
thinking if I only believed hard enough, he'd be there,
Pan, floating outside my second story, tickling
the sycamore, reaching out his hand to take me to
this magical world of cufflinks and acorns and

thimbles, which were or were not kisses, and
the year I met the young man who wore cufflinks,
I accidentally fell in love, I couldn't tell you how
now, any more than Pan could tell the Darlings
how he flew, without thinking, maybe the young man
tricked me with pixie dust and when I finally couldn't
fly for him anymore, months later I found

in my panty drawer, tarnished now, the silver Italian pair
I'd found in the antique store where I'd repaired
chandeliers one summer and I thought about how
even magic can get tarnished over time.

((I also wrote a haiku at work today.  I asked the bartender to make me a lemon twist for an espresso order by saying, "May I request a lemon zest?" and she said, "Only if you make the next poem about it a haiku" so I came back after having written down for her:
espresso is nice,
but sometimes folks want a lem-
on zest.  so gimme. ))

listen i may be a little drunk (20&21)

because i went to a super awesome groovy slam with a super awesome groovy after party and anyway i still managed to write two poems at the slam beforehand the first of which i used in the first round and totally managed to advance all the way to a win only using stuff from april which was extra super awesome groovy because it was the last one of this scene's slam until theydono when because they're gonna try to rework the running of it and they're gonna see how it turns out anyway the first one was this one:

statement of purpose:
the fact of the matter is simply this:
i have got to stop fighting my destiny.
i've been groomed for service since birth
my hostess mother continuously creating events
     dinners, parties, dinner parties,
     this serving dish with that utensil,
     the theme, the wine, the gifts
through to volunteering - the animal shelter,
     the pet therapy with people in rehab,
     the teaching Spanish to homeless kids,
     the activism the feminism the antiracism
     the working in a job whose title is literally
          SERVER
it's ridiculous it took me this long to commit
so okay sign me up, here i am, committing
     supplicating - accept me to your program
     this service is my purpose
     i'm proposing we partner - take me, teach me, mold me to the cause
but first you're demanding i state mu purpose.
so here it is:
     i am here to be a queer woman who through those lenses
          sees farther, sees more, sees
          my whiteness, my able body, my cis gender
          and privilege is a fucking real thing, y'all.
     i am here to intersect, i am here to connect,
     i am here to learn and listen and respect
     i am here to change, create, within and without
     i am doing this because the more i hear about the military's response to sexual assault
          the more i need to Go Fix That
     i am here to doubt the status quo, to dream about where we can go together, i am here to be
          together
my purpose is service my purpose
     is to do what my father taught me when young
          to return things better than they were lent to me
     and this world is not mine
          and someday, sooner than i'd like
          i'ma have to return it

the other one was a haiku and i am not ashamed of that now i am caught up until today when i need to scribble out another at some point also i am very impressed with all the typos i've managed to correct thus far i am a little sauced:

you have to choose your battles, she said
okay, said i
i choose them all.

day 19 last minute haiku

Forgive me, I just finished watching Silver Linings Playbook.

So, yeah, I'm crazy.
Diagnosed SMI. What?
I still deserve love.

18/30: The day I tried four poems and didn't really love any.

Haiku:
the clap can be cured
even a cold goes away
but depresson?  oohf.


This prompt, which gave me a ghost line from Tara Hardy.
She wants to hear the bees in your chest
which is why she buys flowers
every day, new ones all the time.
She's trying to entice them with
fresh flavors, call it a buffet
of bribery, she keeps the sheets
sticky with honey sketching out
sacred circles, drawing honeycomb maps,
why she wears netting to bed,
to be ready, just in case, blows
smoke in your ears, why you wake
to find her, the side of her face
pressed to your heart, whispering,
"come on, you beauties, i know
you have secrets to tell."


A Poem About The Doctor Who Gives Me Meds:
walk in to the circus.
greet the other freaks.
step up to the counter for my ticket.
get called back for my 2:00 with the man
     i was told was a lion tamer.
as it happens, he is not a man
     at all, but a pony
and now i am the tamer.
here, pony, step up, step pretty, show
     me your one and only trick.
open that horse's mouth, say:
     "well let's try increasing
       the dosage and you can come back
       in two months."
bow for the applause.
here's your treat.
the crowd is leaving.
get back in your cage.


Somewhere I Found A Prompt That Said To Start With A Quote Of Advice And Then Work Backward Through Lines That Sounded Similar Until You Had A 14 Line Poem But Now I Can't Find The Prompt To Link To It Anywhere:
All towns are full of the same things.
Brown liquids cool beneath steam.
Frown at the fool while he swings.
Down in the pool he's swimming.
Now will you please kiss me?
How damn full these mixed things.
The cow and bull are fixing
calibre and marine
calipers on machines
Call the person with wings.
Wall off the parson 'til he sings
all of the parts in tall rings.
Swallow the start; it still stings.
Follow your heart in all things.

day 23 bonus haiku and cinquain

the month is april.
the temperature is ninety.
must be arkansas.

------------------

this flip-
flop is rubbing
right on that tick bite and
i wish i had something to rub
you out.

Day 30: LISTEN. STOP.

when your ears are full
already of your own words
you will never hear.

what i mean to say
is that i am growing sick
of train-like speakers.

i'd rather you talk to yourself against a wall
in the mirror, into your phone, open but not on.

if all you want to do is talk, allow half a response,
then interrupt it to talk more, go flap your gums
all by yourself. i'm absolutely sick to my stomach

to my lungs to my heart i have become
sick to my ears of the sound of your voice and

i've always warned people who should know
that when i am at my most quiet i am also at
my most dangerous, most angry. i will float

in my silence allowing you to verbally masturbate,
lost in my own fantasies in which i reach out

and grab your jaw and tear it off of your face,
declaring you unworthy of your words, walking
out the door with it held high over my head like a
trophy, baptizing me with every step. i will
take it home and string every one of your teeth

onto a necklace, bleach the jaw and attach rubies
and diamonds and make of it my crown which
i will wear when i intend to do nothing at all except
listen.

NaPoWriMo day 15: meh.

I couldn't get happy with what I was writing so instead I'm posting some haiku/senryu/short poems about childhood. I'm not proud. But honestly, I'm still fucked up over the fact that someone out there found my drafts. I'm okay with sharing to people I've approved to be on my friends list, but these were on paper, these were real and printed and had edits scribbled. What's more, I also lost my class schedule for fall and I'm supposed to register tomorrow morning... Looks like I'm getting up early to make calls...

Forgive me today, poets, I've no idea what to do:

brave heroes leaping
from couch to coffee table:
the floor is lava!

kick those little legs
until you swing so high that you
feel like you might fly

sidewalks become moats
bicycles are great white steeds
nothing is not real.

three children laughing.
underneath hypocrite fists,
one child is crying.

what joy can be found
in huge piles of fallen leaves
and their destruction.

4/10 - a ku and a blog

the tire swing swings
out and across the lake, slow.
my ten toes, skating.




In 2006 I needed to write at the end of March. So I got thirty pieces of colored paper and put dates on them all for April and taped them up all over the apartment. I went around writing a poem on one every day, and it went so well I carried on through May with different colored papers and found my house a joy to inhabit. Then this year came around with spring making me feel all tickley inside again, and come to find out that April is actually national poetry month and sometimes people take a challenge to write every day. When I did it the last time, I was very forgiving. Two days I just posted quotes. One day I wrote an essay about my job's microcasm of the nationwide macrocasm of the migrant worker issue. One day I translated Neruda's Poema XV, which good god damn is a tasty piece. I'm definitely intending to write something every day this time, but maybe once or twice it will just be a haiku/senryu/short-observational-poem. Just so you know.

Love you guys. Holla back, I'm seeing tons of views and I have no idea who.

love 'ku for day 9

if you don't use it,
you lose it, they say. oh shit:
where'd my damned heart go?



goal for tomorrow: don't write about love, asshole.

turnover 'ku

listen: there's the lock.
someone new is turning now
that old key, once yours.