Dear Russia and Germany:

When I look at the statistics of my blog, I see that many of my readers live in Russia and Germany.  Can I ask how you found this blog and why you read it?  I'm super interested in how I got readers outside of the U.S., let alone countries that don't primarily speak English.

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.

17/30: In which the wolf is not so big nor bad

In the video, I am almost in
my mother's lap, but not quite.
She is holding a book with one arm
around me; I am not yet four.  I struggle
to read the words, letters leading into
syllables climbing into words, I sound
it all out awkwardly, aware that there is
a camera and pretending I am not.
My mother laughs with love when I get
a whole sentence out.  She is proud
as a whole mountain, and in this moment
I can believe that there was once a time,
however brief, that she loved me.

I see you two.

Somewhere out there I have two very dedicated readers.

I have been eyeballing my blog stats.  They're interesting.  For example, I'm huge in Russia.  Who knew?  They're reading me in Germany and Latvia and South Africa.  How does this even happen?  By accident, I'm sure, but apparently I was featured on some Russian site once because I get a lot of redirects from there.

Yes, the stats also show me where the people click over to my blog from, which is mostly facebook, and I assume that's from me posting individual entries over there from time to time.  I can also see which posts were read in the past day or week, and it's interesting to see what I imagine is people coming to read one post and then poking about and finding interesting titles and going back to read about my time in Taiwan or Mexico or some political ramblings.

But one thing I noticed is that whether or not I promote an individual entry, within a matter of hours of posting, I've always got two views.  Even on the ones I think no one will see.  Who are you kind, magical people who are willing to listen when I feel I have something to share?  You make me feel valued and worthy.  You make me feel like I'm enough.

Thank you.

16/30: Questions I want to ask my grandmothers

Tell me your favorite shade of lipstick.
What was the weather on the day my parent was born?
What did you dream of becoming when you were young?
How close did you get?
Where were you when they told you they were going to have me?
What were you wearing when they told you they had me?
How many countries did you manage to see?
How many lovers did you take?
How old were you the first time you made love?  To whom?
Did you lose your virginity or did you gain experience?
When did you first vote?
How many regrets do you have?  Where do you store them?
What one thing could you never do without?
What would you change?  How would you change
yourself?  Do you forgive me for being queer?
Do you forgive me for being feminist?  Do you forgive me
for cursing, for fucking, for marching in the streets,
for holding signs, for supporting immigrants
and all sorts of things you never heard of, never
thought about?  Do you forgive
that I will never be a grandmother nor even
a mother for that matter?  Did you create
any art?  Where did you leave it?  How can I find it?
Why did you leave me so soon?  When
are you coming back?

15/30: social media and friendships

Verily I say unto you:
We live in some technological times.
Social media - a phrase
nobody had even heard a few years ago -
is now this Thing, this whole business -
the internet is fucking weird, y'all.
Point to the internet on the map.
Tell me what color it is, what shape,
how much does it weigh, how does it feel
to the touch?  It isn't even real, it's
ones and zeros and electricity and wires
and what would we do, at this point,
all of us, if they took it away?

And now, because of it, friendships
don't have to fade.  We cling to them
like the wisps of so many dreams upon waking,
trying to keep hold even as they slip
through our fingers.
My friends have children
that I've never met, and yet
I saw their first steps, haircuts, saw them fresh
from the oven without ever going near
a hospital.  Jeff and his family, who gave me
sunshine in the tundra, and I've seen their engagements,
weddings, children, but haven't been to visit
in years.  This friend with whom I wrote songs
is still playing with his brother and father,
their perfect patchwork family making music
together for us all.  Linda who lives
on a mountain and before her mother died
had four generations of women up there.
Linda who grows her own vegetables, takes walks
in the sunshine in the woods with her dogs, Linda
who, with her daughter and granddaughter, hold
a piece of my heart on a shelf, will I ever
scale that summit again?  And Melissa, sweet
Melissa, who saved me in Mexico, kept
my dry heart beating, shared food, shared dances
shared stories of lovers, shared drink and smoke,
my sister, my love, and I think of her and there's a wisp
of a memory I'm grasping tight, refusing to let go,
the day we went to the grocery and bought
bocadillos, tomatoes, meat and cheese and they forgot
to charge us for the carafe of wine cheap to some
but a splurge for us and we made sandwiches
in her sunshine apartment and snuck it all in
to the discount student theater and watched
a French movie with Spanish subtitles and we ate
and we drank and in that sacred moment
our friendship was forever.

14/30 My favorite shades of blue

My Favorite Shades of Blue:

·         aero

·         air force

·         anguish

·         aquamarine

·         arsenic

·         azure

·         baby

·         beau

·         bleakness

·         blue bell

·         catalina

·         Catawba

·         celestial

·         cerulean

·         cornflower

·         cyan

·         dark

·         dejected

·         denim

·         depression

·         despondent

·         dismal

·         doledrums

·         down

·         electric

·         forlorn

·         fresh air

·         gloomy

·         glum

·         got the blues

·         grief

·         heartache

·         heartbreak

·         Honolulu

·         iceberg

·         independence

·         lapis lazuli

·         light

·         medium

·         melancholy

·         midnight

·         miserable

·         misery

·         moonstone

·         mopey

·         morose

·         mournful

·         navy

·         periwinkle

·         powder

·         robin’s egg

·         royal

·         sadness

·         sapphire

·         sea

·         sky

·         slate

·         somber

·         sorrow

·         steel

·         the dumps

·         tiffany

·         true

·         turquoise

·         ultramarine

·         vivid sky

·         wild blue yonder

·         wistful

·         woe

·         zaffre

13/30: The Pill Bottle Tells the Truth

The Pill Bottle Tells The Truth:
I am not making her better.

I am making her less worse.

Call them diamonds, call them footballs,

call them stuck in the dry throat after too many

gulps of water, call them lies;

my contents carry promises that one day

she will feel the sun full on her face again;

call them lies.  

12/30: a day late, a poem for yesterday

A poet uses metaphors when she’s afraid

of direct honesty.  A poet never fears honesty,

do not misunderstand me, it’s just sometimes

she’s been forced into such small spaces

while the rest of the world sprawls out around her

that she’d rather tiptoe in curves than stride

straightforward to the truth.  She calls you a tattoo,

something exciting when fresh and new but also

something that fades, something that needs

touching up.  She calls you a puppy, adorable

and great for cuddles when young, but something

that grows into a sleepy old dog, carefully avoiding

any metaphors about training.  She talks about

daybreaks and opening chords to songs, about unwrapping

gifts on birthdays, talks about birth, then moves

into death, into disappointment, fade outs and sunsets

and even now I am using the third person to talk

about myself because I cannot say directly

without first writing a whole poem in metaphor

how terrified I am not only that this love could die

but that perhaps its song has already reached

the final bars, and I’m still standing here singing

but the crowd has all gone home.

A Portrait of the Artist's Abuser as a House

“I know that his punishment is that he has to be himself forever.”

                                                          – John Paul Davis

These bricks, these strong, difficult bricks,

are the sort you cannot look at without remembering

the rusty clay they came from.  Walk up,

through the trees, low hanging, shadows their only fruits,

and stand on the low front stoop, covered

in Astroturf, faded and balding.  Knock

on the wooden door, painted moss, and it will open

unto you.  When it closes behind, you will not notice.

The house will always be just

out of focus, in the way of the memory of a house is,

the house of your friend from fourth grade, you remember,

almost.  Try to focus – you never will, something in the periphery

always grabbing for your attention, keeping you from remembering

why you want to leave.  When the walls start to sing

it will seem so natural, singing that you’re pretty, please stay,

have some food, take a nap, you deserve this, you can never leave,

you must never want to.

                                                   Beige walls, tan carpeting, no music, just

singing that you’re ugly, you have to stay, if you leave no other house

will have you, sparse furniture but a kitchen full of food, and outside

a storm has started, warm wind blustering, knocking trash down the road,

occasional thunder but never rain, only the threat, only

cloud-to-cloud lightning, never touching down, the fear

of the storm is worse than the storm itself, you know,

and you realize the house

                                                    has done all this, grown the trees,

started the storm, turned in on itself, begun wilting like a plant

removed from its soil, like a fish taken from its sea, like a brick

stolen from its clay because it wants only you, forever,

and no one else must see you at all.  This is why there are trees,

a storm, a song, nothing else can live here, no friends,

no visitors, no roommates, no pets, just you, the song,

and a kitchen full of food.

From this prompt.