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.

Day 29: I've been watching movies.

Damnit if I didn't just watch Away From Her. Damnit if I don't keep hearing about this whole "love" thing and wondering where mine is exactly already. Damnit if I don't write a love poem nine out of every ten.

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You will say it first, accidentally,
instantly apologetic, and then we will
become awkward, sitting in silences
perched like parenthesis around the words
I will not acknowledge, for the remainder
of the evening. No, I won't say it first,
and probably not even second or third:

You'll have to repeat it a few times,
make it start to stick like a sacred mantra,
before I really believe you. Poets have
this predisposition, you see: poets put
more value on words than we do
on water, on oxygen, on gold, which are
good words to use in this metaphor anyway

I will not say I Love You until I am sure
I can commit myself wholly, blissfully,
unwaveringly to its meaning. I will not tell you
I love you until I have already imagined
each and every way you could hurt me
and reconciled myself somehow with surviving
all five thousand and three of them, in detail.

Day 28: The girl who looked like me

A girl went out wearing my skin today I know it was mine because the cheeks were still wet. She was too thin for it; it didn't fit quite right on her bones but she wore it like she intended to mean it. She had gone out for breakfast: two eggs over medium, floppy bacon, biscuits instead of toast and a small side of gravy. She smiled once or twice, the girl who was not my self, laughed with people she could not call her friends but felt comfortable eating with. They laughed with her, too.

She ate slowly, this girl who used a voice like mine, sipped her coffee with just enough sugar and just enough cream and didn't worry about a single thing. As she talked and listened and listened, her face dried and the smile began to stick, first in the corners of her mouth, then more and more around the temples. Her conversation became animated and I watched her speak with her hands using gestures that made ballerinas look like newborns.

The girl with my hair on her head stood to leave, and one more person in her young life with advice for her decided to approach her and give it. The reasoning was invalid, but it was heartfelt, and finished off with "You'd be happier if you did."

"I don't know," I heard her say. "I'm a pretty happy person."

She said it like she intended to mean it, and I suspect she did.

Day 27: Why the Queen of Sheba uses disposable dishes.

This is in the right format to become a sonnet... but I wonder if instead it will become a... sestina? vilanelle? slam piece? Anyway, the idea has started like this.

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Makeda spat in the dishwater; swore never again.
It was the water, you see, that started it all:
When she woke in the night with a desert-sized thirst
and reached for the pitcher there beside her bed.

And then, there he stood to make good on his threats.
Said if she'd broken her vow not to steal from his house
then he could break his not to take her by force.
Jerusalem hadn't enough water to wash off his crime.

Makeda took to bathing with oil.
She would not swim or tavel by boat and when
the yearly rains came, she stayed inside until
Ethiopia's golden sun dried it all up.

Her solace was knowing her son would be king,
did not know Solomon's son would be called a god.

Poetry Month - Yesterday's Poem

Didn't get home until nearly two last night, and I was a little marinated. Sorry. Here's the poem. Oops, I mean draft. Have I said draft ten thousand times this month yet?





Final victory: Ninth victory:
I thought the time might be right.
I laid down on the ground, on his level,
to make of myself less a threat,
and sure enough, gods be praised,
he began to climb his awkward mangy body
all over my face, giving kisses out wildly;
it was then I was allowed to pet him.

Eighth victory:
As I was walking away, him chasing behind,
tail wagging, he jumped up and placed
both paws on my leg and pushed.
He initiated contact, you see.

Seventh victory:
While he was eating out of my hand,
I allowed my thumb to carefully, slowly
graze the side of his puppy face and he
pretended not to notice.

Sixth victory:
One afternoon after the meal and I
was walking back to my door,
he actually followed me, chased
me even, tail wagging.

Fifth victory:
The day I tried holding food in my hand
and he cautiously ate out of it before
running back into the alley.

Fourth victory:
When my car pulled up, his tiny matted tail,
previously perma-tucked, popped up and
even wagged.

Third victory:
When I threw the food closer and closer,
he came closer and closer to get it,
even if he snapped at my hand when it was
too near for comfort.

Second victory:
He came back
every single day
at exactly three forty
when I got home from work.

First victory:
He chose
the alley alongside
my house.

Day 25: Wailing Sin

It's been a twelve-hour shift. This is the roughest rough draft ever.

Please know my plans: I'll delete every single one of this month's posts when the month is over. That's right. They're effing rough! I'm still working on that day I still haven't posted, because I can't decide if it's a letter I'm writing to the future lovers, a letter my ex is writing to me, or a letter my ex is writing to them. I'm posting these drafts now as a... jeez I don't even know. As proof that this is actually even happening - proving it to myself as well. But then they'll get edited, rewritten, cleaned... and then will come my fourth chapbook, with each of these in order, dates at the top.

Until then, this is how it stands.

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

Bob Marley is getting tired of turning over,
can only do it so many times a day,
six feet under ground, but atrocities are
happening, man, and rolling over is all he's
got left he can do. Tuff Gong sang
to us of redemption, called upon us to be
buffalo soldiers, to get up, stand up.
I need answers, Bob, but you're not here
to give them. Music is freedom, is movement,
is revolution - or should be. Why, then
did I hear today on the sadistic speakers
at my job the elevator-jazz version of your
sacred call to action, somehow sedated,
the magic removed and it became
Sit Down, Lay Down instead of a rigteous
charge. Whose signature made this possible,
Bob? Roll over and speak me some truth.

Or rise up, and find these dollarsick bastards
whose idea it is to make this happen. Let
your ghost descend upon their households,
whispering into their children's sleeping ears
until they wake to grow their hair out
in locks, quoting scripture to their fathers,
wailing out against oppression, buildling Zion
in every backyard.

WetNWild Month of Words Day 24: My City

Ladies and Gentledudes: After this poem there are only SIX left in the month. Get your requests in now, folks.

Today's poem was about the little city I love so much: Hot Springs.

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She sits amidst mountains in this
vaporous valley, springing hot.

She shows a little leg and
coaxes the lonely stranger to stay.

She swims in drink, she sleeps
with gamblers, she runs with horses.

She tri-lake, my spa city, she
West Mountain, she Bathhouse

Row, she Higdon Ferry,
she Gallery Walk.

My city will sing to you siren hymns
so you don't never want to leave her.

My city will stand on her front porch,
saying hush, dogs, hush,

watching you leave, making bets
with herself on how long til you come back.

NaPoWriMo - has it only been 23 days?

Seems like years. Today I wanted to write a poem I would never write, a poem I wouldn't have written if it weren't for this month. Someone at a reading I went to said "I like to write with a lot of imagery." I fail to write with a lot of imagery. I decided to write a poem that is nothing but imagery, even if it is about the subject I write on most.

p.s., i'm still up for the "poem i would never write" challenge if anyone has suggestions. only seven poems left in the month.
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My heart is a dusty attic long abandoned
with one old leather chest up against a wall.
A few old photographs inside, no names
written on the backs. My heart is
a great hall with roaring fires,
long tables laden with food,
seating for everyone. My heart is a
crystal lake reflecting her beloved
sky; my heart gets tired of pushing
that old cart around the park and sits
down on a bench to rest a while
and talk to herself. My heart surfaces
to blow a giant plume out her blow-hole,
takes a huge breath and then
dives a mile deep and won't
come up again until next winter.
My heart is a young woman who lept
from the top story and found not death
but a whole new life she would have loved
except she misplaced it somewhere,
probably with her keys. My heart
goes barefoot and splashes in rain puddles,
is a lone buzzard circling, a bronze bell ringing
at a stately funeral attended only
by gravediggers and rain.

Poetry Month Day 22: Secrets I refuse to take to my grave.

I've been reading this weekly blog at postsecret.com for some time now, watching the list of cities where the owner will be speaking and showing his collection, and saw where he'd be speaking an hour and a half from me recently. I had to go. I got a speeding ticket on the way there, got into the speech a half hour late, but it was worth it. It's an amazing project. People there got up to share their secrets as well, and I know I'm not the only sap who ended up crying. The idea that people will take certain things to their grave is tragic. Today's poem will be secrets I refuse to take to my grave. Please forgive me.

Me and Frank:


Secrets I will not take to my grave:

My first kiss was my little sister. My cousin
made me believe I'd been raped as a child.
I still can't forgive my uncle for the way he treated my teddy bear
when I believed it was alive. I still wish my teddy bear was alive.
I don't know if I prefer to date men or women, but
refuse to call myself bisexual. I knew before I married him
that someday I'd ask him to leave me.

If I know in advance that I'm just the other woman,
we'll be okay, but God help you if you hide it. I don't know
if I believe in God, but I do believe in magic. I feel I'm superior
to other people just because I'm intelligent, billingual,
and well-traveled. I think voting makes me hotter. But at twenty-five,
I still don't know how to take a compliment, and if you tell me you think
I'm beautiful, I'll wonder what you really want from me.

I thought I was afraid of abandonment, but as it happens
I'm really just afraid of allowing myself to become vulnerable.
I may be thin, but I still eat my pain. I use my dog to make me
feel better. I use alcohol to make myself feel better. I use sex
to feel better. I believe in ghosts because I believe I've seen five.
My left breast is bigger than my right one and

I have dimples on my butt. I judge people with poor grammar;
I judge people with poor teeth. Sometimes when I'm tired of
eating my pain, I spend it instead. I like to go to movies by myself
for two reasons: One, I like movies, and Two, I want people to
see me and feel like they could go to movies by themselves. I'm glad

crack kills. I can hold a grudge like a sponge can hold water:
it's the one thing I learned from my mother after what type of woman
not to become. I wish my mom had died when I was a child,
so instead of knowing she's alive but doesn't care I could imagine
she was loving me from heaven. I like to climb on top
of abandoned buildings to think because the air is more clear
that close to God, whether or not she exists, and some of the
happiest moments of my life happened on those rooftops.

Poetry Month Day 21: Arkansas Scenic Byway

You didn't miss yesterday's poem, folks, I've got it right here, I just don't know about posting it yet. It's supposed to be a letter of introduction, a letter of warning, a letter of heads-up to future lovers... it's still a little sticky. Rest assured that when it comes time to share it, I'll justify pre-dating it to yesterday ;)

Here's what happened on my paper today:

i drove down highway seven tonight
for the first time in too many years.
you remember: it used to be Our Highway.
with every white dash it all came speeding back:
the one time i tried to follow you, your
daredevil-red tail lights always just
out of reach as i cursed both you and the
insane math you used to justify the speeds:
a sign will bear a sketch of the curve to come
and a suggested speed which, when multiplied
by one point five, equaled the minimum you'd
be going when you negotiated its curves.
the patches of fog that would drift in and out,
the mountains rising and falling around the car
like so many green waves, rabbit and doe
aknowledging the car and turning nobly away.
the times i let you drive my car knowing
the golden egg my father would lay if he knew
while clucking "uninsured driver" over and over
but you could always drive it better than i,
the oldsmobile eighty eight with the bench seats,
your arm around me and your hand inside
my panties, our lungs so full of high school we were
blissed out invincibles, and the roadside park
where you pulled her over so we could make it
on the picnic table: i thought my ass would freeze
to it. and the one night you took the gravel-
road detour, just because you could, and
the herd of doe appeared out of nowhere, all
around us, and the way you spun the wheel back
and forth a thousand times in those ten seconds,
dancing through them as they passed in front,
behind, and over us, and you didn't graze a one.