Volume 4

I'll be putting together a new collection of words this summer. If you've got any poems you liked and would enjoy seeing in the book, speak up now. Even if you can't remember the title or date or whatever, "The poem that's about this or that and has the one line that sounds like such and such..." Now's the time if you want to have input.

NaPoWriMo 30/30 Challenge

I'm DONE suckas!

Hopefully I'll take some time off and then work on revisions and then maybe soon will be out with Volume 4 fo yo bookshelves...

The other day I ran into God at the grocery.
"Listen, God," I said, "I've got a question.
You remember that dream I had
when I was like twelve and I flew up to heaven
and you were there with
all sorts of animals and I asked you
that question and you gave me that answer?"
and God nodded and said "mm hm" she likes
to come across as obtuse sometimes,
you know, just to keep you guessing.
"Well God," I said, "I just wonder what all
of that meant," and she stood there
for fifteen whole seconds just saying
"hmmmm" and then she asked "But I thought
at the time it all made so much sense"
(you know God likes to answer with questions
sometimes she's tricky like that)
and I said "Yeah, God, but that was then
and this, as it happens, is now." and she
laughed and laughed and laughed and then
asked me "Well how did you lose all that
wild understanding? When did you last use it?
Try and retrace your steps.
Can you remember the place you were when you last
held it, warm and buzzing in your palms?"

29/30 lord just get me through this

You turned off the alarm and slept as late as you pleased.
When you woke up you didn't shower and had cake for breakfast.
Backed the car out of the driveway and into an oncoming vehicle;
the crash sounded like a symphony. You drove away. Arrived
at the construction site and hammered everything wrong;
picked up the circular saw, ran it along the board and across
all four of your fingers. You never wanted them anyway.
The day you finally did everything you thought about doing,
the day you entertained all of those impulses
you'd been suppressing, you came home and called her,
told her you loved her and then went outside to the rose bush
that had been exploding with three new buds a day, looked
at the way it was bowed over, heavy with blossoms, lifted
your work boots and crushed each one purposefully under your feet.

4-28, "I should be studying, I should be studying."

So you file her away, wrap her up and tuck her
in your sock drawer, back in the corner, bury her
underneath the pair with holes in the heels
you can't bring yourself to throw out.

You try not to think about her. She's too pretty,
too popular, too smart, too young, too blond.
She's not your type. She's much too good.
But there comes that time every humid evening

when you lie down, turn on the good music and
take some time for yourself. It's your right
as a single person. You try to think about
that one hot musician. It works for a while,

just long enough to get things going
before you lose the vision. You bring up
the face of that professor, try to imagine
his or her body and it gets you nowhere.

Your hand starts to get tired, you can feel
your wrist getting sore. Picture the comedian,
the actress, the friend of a friend, the one you met
in this bar at that show. You don't want her,

you tell yourself, as you hear a rustling
from the drawer next to the bed. Not a bit,
you whisper, as she climbs out, lands on the floor
and heads your direction. Not me, you yell

as she claws her way up the side of the bed.
You scream, Nooo, a loud wicked howl
as she leans in over your face and you come
and you come and you come and you come.

4/27: who wants to buy momma a new laptop?

I was doing just fine until you second-guessed me.

This afternoon I came home
and I was still fired up.
Looked around for one thing I could control
and settled upon the lawn, the length of the grass.
I dropped off my bag in the house,
unlocked the shed
and brought out the mower.
Filled it up with gas until it overflowed onto the carport
and breathed in deep the smell of it.
I let the dog into the house so he'd stay out of the way,
but only closed the screen door,
so he could watch it all go down. I primed the engine
with three pumps and pulled the throttle. It took two starts
before it would stay on. I mowed down grass
and weeds and wild strawberries
and pretty flowers as tall as my hip. At one point
I looked down at the grass I'd mowed over and saw
some grass still tall, just bent over and right in the middle
a tiny moth, fluttering, hoping. A decision:
save the moth or cut the grass?
But there was no decision to be made. I thought briefly
of your words and pulled the mower back over the grass,
the moth, the sound of your words, the outline of your face.
I mowed on until I finished the lawn but couldn't forget
that fluttering moth, couldn't get
the petroleum taste of your name out of my mouth.

I would have posted but...

...my computer is broke like Michael Jackson, busted like Rihanna's face on Grammy night, crashed like the test dummies.

4/25
----
When I'm dead, don't let them tell you I was kind
without also telling how many people hated me,
how many called me a bitch every day. Don't listen
when they say I was giving and generous and caring
unless they also tell you I refused to marry or
have children because I liked it better when all
of my money, decisions, and time were my own. They might
try to say I was a good writer but for every poem
that might be called decent there are fifty or more
at best suited to be toilet paper. They may talk about
how hard I worked to create social change but there are
so many letters I could have written but did not, so many
calls I only thought about making. When I'm dead,
I hope my eulogy's ugly; if they paint me pretty, they lied.
----
You kissed me
and I fell so damn hard
that I honestly expected to
find myself, sitting bolt upright in a cold sweat
in my bed.
-----
First, he lost his job.
He persevered, decided to rise above,
committed to the idea so strongly that
when he got evicted it didn't even
phase him. His girlfriend left him; no
big deal. It wasn't until he couldn't get
the stove to light that his best friend found him,
curled up in the kitchen floor, marinating
in a puddle of his own tears.


4/26
------
"You're clearly not dedicated enough"
Bitch, please.
The only thing
that you have done longer
than I have written poetry
is suck.
------
But what if he was right?
What if I am not dedicated?
What if everything I ever wrote
sounds the same? What if I never said
anything with meaning, anything worthy
of being heard? What if the only thing
I ever loved for any length of time
didn't love me back? What if I never
should have picked up my pen?
-----
I follow my folly minute to minute.
I'll call you, coyly, invite you to visit
when we both know I mean to make out,
because that's what I'm wanting and
I'm honest to a fault. But if you come over
and are awkward, annoying, or otherwise
off-putting, I will turn just like that
from hostess to bouncer. Some semblance
of the kind girl who invited you in
will remain, but only as a formality.
Leave quickly. You won't want to see
what I change into next.

24/30, last minute draft

Here's the thing of it. I don't know how to write a poem about you
without saying Every time I tell you that I love you it's a lie.
Man nor god never invented any word to tell you what I feel and love
feels so cheap it's a curse word in four letters. I want to say:
I remember every day the time we turned that corner and saw
four women praying to end abortion and I said Girl just look down
and we turned in to the lot and walked inside, hand in hand. That's
closer to the kind of love I want to convey I want to say Sister,
remember that time we got in the car and we drove all day to Kentucky
and whether we went so you could see that boy or so I could forget one
doesn't matter anymore all that matters is stopping in Loretta Lynn's
Country Kitchen on the way back for photos. But I'm getting colder.
I try: I'm glad your brilliant academic career fell flat on its face
so I can still see you even if it's only once a month and we can sit
in the sunshine and talk about our lives like that's actually
what we're talking about instead of why on earth they say the Greek
had four words for love and the Eskimos have twenty or so
and I don't have one that can tell you what I mean. Getting warmer.
If I say the word Friend it's a sorry excuse. If I say soulmate it's
trite, overused and Best Friend fits better on a keychain anyway
I'd tattoo you on my heart but no one would be able to see it it's
important to me that everyone see it so I say: No one has ever
made me feel so completely KNOWN I say: Comrades, Cohorts, Compadres,
say: the best day of my life was that day when I called you,
crying on campus because I was afraid you were dead already and you
answered and you cried right back and you'll always be the strongest
woman I've ever known. Say: I want to be you when I grow up, say:
I know you knew all of this before I even wrote it, didn't you?
Say I love you isn't strong enough but I love you anyway.

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.

23/30 - one week left :(

The next time that I see you I will make certain
you're asleep. Until then, there are some things
I must learn. The silence of the deepening dusk,
for one, and the stealth a creeping kitten thinks
she has, but does not. Anatomy, amateur surgery,
lightning speed. I want to learn precision
from those men who paint the names on the grains
of rice at the county fair before placing it
in the tiny jar so that when I come to you
I will know exactly how to sneak up without
you waking, how to delicately carve open
the left side of your chest, and mine, how
to swap our hearts and before I close the cavity
I will paint our names on the heart in your chest,
paint "I love you," paint "I miss you," paint
"Where have you been all my life, sister dear?"