Closing Shop

Hello friends and readers!

I'm closing my blog until April. I'm submitting a portfolio of work to a contest that requires all poems be "previously unpublished." I won't be able to post any of my final drafts until after the contest winners are announced.

January will be a month of classes, writing, revising, editing, revising again, etc.

The poem below felt like an appropriate farewell. Thank you to everyone who has clicked on a link to this blog through Twitter, rbannal's blog, or by searching what to do in the event that they're forgotten their blog's url (I'm guessing that's at least 2% of my hits). Happy 2012!

The Last Thing You Taste

Soak and sink your teeth in gin,

in August memories, in sweat

and cravings, hot thighs,

and strawberry jam. Run your

tongue along each tooth,

every crescent of gum.

Learn sweet and salty flavor

because the last thing you taste

will be the bite of turpentine

and ghost peppers.

Haiku for 3rd/4th Graders

I'm teaching a three day lesson on haikus this week. This is GREAT (I can't wait to workshop with my 3rd and 4th grade students!), except that I'm not exactly a haiku master myself, and I'm expected to model the form for my students. Their poems will have to answer the questions of where, what and when, so I did my best to follow the student format, without making it seem too restrictive. I obviously modeled a loose interpretation of "where" (in the rain), for instance.

The falling raindrops
reflect the approaching ground,
before they shatter.

It's hard to stay caught up

With the MTTC exams and finals I've had a tough time keeping this blog up to date. Now with my main rig hanging out at the Apple store waiting for a new optical drive, I'm stuck without digital copies of the piece I wanted to revise and submit for this week (and, ahem, the week I missed).

So there you go.

My excuses.

Happy belated Thanksgiving everyone. I'll be back soon.

In the meantime, here's Langston Hughes to put my work to shame:

Dare

let darkness

gather up its roses

cupping softness

in the hand--

till the hard fist

of sunshine

dares the dark

to stand.

Frost Wall

My apologies for the missing week. I spent last weekend studying... and this Saturday filling out tiny scantron bubbles with my trusty #2. At least I have blogging to fall back on if I didn't pass the exams...

At any rate, here's one that seems (almost) seasonally relevant. I wrote this a couple winters ago. I look forward to the winter departure of my syntax this January. New work soon, ideas are churning, but so is my ever hectic schedule.

Frost Wall

bite hard and grind

teeth to taste to touch

to see fall

tipsy toddler

find feet (align with ankles)

over black ice nursery rhyme

catch snow smoke stink

and steam

hand follows wrist

numb

under sleeve

tug down

curl fingers and find

tight 'round cigarette

burned too close

tongue like paste

pressing luck time and into

roof of mouth

eyes dried wide

in white-out fury.

The (second to) last piece

Collaboration with rbannal at permanentstrangerladyhand:

part 1: "Love Song for the End of Summer"(rbannal)

part 2: "Morning in Late September"(fragondruit)

part 3: "A New Sunset" (rbannal)

part 4: "Crash on M-131" (fragondruit)

part 5: "on being a raindrop" (rbannal)

And here's part 6.

And We All Fall Down

Every raindrop that falls

reflects the ground as it approaches,

copies the umbrellas that scuttle

like beetles across hot sand.

As they plummet, slippery images

mirror reflections of umbrellas

and falling raindrops,

no longer remembering being falling raindrops,

reflections of reflections of

others like them, until

at the end of their journey,

they shatter to the ground,

draining into a pool, lake, stream, gutter.

Acceptance in the community basin.

Others are blessed with the embrace

of an outstretched tongue.

Ode to His Bastards: The Accomplice Falls in Love

Part 2 of "Bastards: The Terror Science Creates" (click here to view part 1, "What Worlds We Create").

But first, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (to set the mood):

"For this I had deprived myself of rest and health. i had desired it with an ardour that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart."

Ode to His Bastards

I wait for you to hatch

to crawl out from ground,

sprouting, unfurling,

a city populated by umbrellas.

I wait for you and pray:

grow, darlings

you are mother father

brother sister

both one and many,

divide and multiply.

You are no flower patch

no garden herb, but still

so tender, so easily bruised.

I worry about you

your soft purple blood

what may happen in the moments

you must spend alone.

Your Doctor,

so mad for pleasure,

will sow and sell your parts

pluck

clean and dry

body to cap.

You will be eaten

and shake the trees,

put breath into walls.

You will be eaten

and like a tapeworm

grow fast and greedy.

It is only after being consumed

that you bare your teeth.

The next installment!

I'm posting my Sunday poem a little early this week. It's the next part of a sequence I'm working on with rbannal at permanentstrangerladyhand.

Just in case you missed something...

part 1: "Love Song for the End of Summer" (rbannal)

part 2: "Morning in Late September" (fragondruit)

part 3: "A New Sunset" (rbannal)

This week I was to "steal" two of his lines from part 3 and use them in order, but with the freedom to play with the line breaks. As always, I italicized rbannal's lines. Watch his poetry blog for part 5-- he'll have to siphon two lines from my poem and weave it into his own response.

Here's part 4:

Crash on M-131

The engine hisses as rain hits the hot steel.

I walk along the side of the road until my limbs go numb;

until the trees and farmhouses on the horizon blur and

the moon fades to gray. Until once-closed eyes again

acknowledge the perfection of the spiraling colors.

I keep walking because it is too late to go back.

I leave my vocal chords along the

side of the road. I am naked.

The wind must have ripped the clothes

from my body. How is it, I wonder, that

I did not notice when this happened?

I must be breathing.

I pass a hulk of charred metal and plastic.

With each step the circle tightens.

I’ve been here before.

A familiar smell mingles with that of

smoldering leather and upholstery.

Smoke doesn’t just rise, it spreads.

For a moment, I can almost

hear myself whisper, but it’s too quiet.

Why do I know that awful smell?

Then I remember.

The engine hisses as rain hits the hot steel.

BASTARDS

I'm finally going to take the plunge and attempt to revise the massive sequence of poems titled "Bastards: The Terror Science Creates." It is my attempt at bringing science fiction into my poetry.

What Worlds We Create

I. THE ACCOMPLICE

I was his friend,

assistant,

confidante,

but most of all,

his accomplice.

I saw his Bastards for the

monsters they were,

the Doctor

for the monster

he had become.

There were no parlor tricks,

no circus mirrors--

only the twisted faces

born from the desires

of a madman

with time on his hands.

(There is nothing more dangerous

than a madman with time on his hands.)

And yet,

I too am mad, as mad as he.

I watched, I watched

and did nothing.

II. THE BASTARDS

Call us Bastards,

the dark corners of the mind

kept tucked away, quiet

materialized in fangs and glory.

We nibbling away at our creator’s

fingertips, toenails and sanity

squealing naked through nightmares

and spitting into the ears of young

make starving and sleepless

sift time through smell

and eclipse the night.

Some will pray for death.

Others know it has already come.

III. THE DOCTOR

Create and godless be.

Clarification

The post from 9/18/11 was NOT meant to be dirty. I gave it a nice, literal title to tie up the metaphor in a neat little bow and to put those filthy minds to rest (though I admit, I should have known better when I titled the poem, "I can almost taste it.").

Anyway, it's now "freedom rings," check it out and see if it strikes you in a different way.

I guess it would have been bolder to roll with the evocative message, but I'm not feeling too brash this evening.

An Experiment in Collaboration

First of all, I missed a week. Shame on me. So this is either last Sunday's post six days late, or this Sunday's post one day early. We'll see how tomorrow plays out.

This post is the initial step towards a collaborative poem between Rbannal and myself. It's an exercise in cops and robbers. Mostly robbers. I've stolen a line Rbannal's "love song for the end of summer" and inserted it into my own poem. Presumably, he will then follow this by stealing (a different) line from my poem. I'll then snag a couplet from that poem, and so on and so forth until the poems progressively more intertwined. The end result should be an nifty sequence, beginning with "love song for the end of summer" and ending god knows where.

Find poem #1 in the sequence at: permanentstrangerladyhand.blogspot.com.

Here's my "reply," or poem #2 in the sequence. Rbannal's line is italicized.

Morning in Late September

Driving East on Huron,

I catch the end of the sunrise

orange, gold rays linger

just minutes as the sun drifts

deep into the overcast sky.

It won’t be long now

before I’ll only see

the tender halo of light

creeping along the horizon,

breaking the dawn.

Gray hours claim more

of each successive morning

as the Earth shifts.

The city shrugs uncomfortably

close to winter.

In a month, the morning commute

will be in total darkness.

A chill will sink into my chest

and stay there, not breaking free

until next spring.

Frost will line the inside

of my bedroom window.

It will be next to impossible

to ignore my toes. Even so,

summer’s death is a welcome one.

For a moment, the trees

blush yellows, reds, purples

until, realizing themselves,

the color drains from their branches,

the leaves fall

brown, crumble,

decay

feed the soil

and nourish the roots

from which they rose.

Morning dew shimmers

at the brink of frost,

caught between water

and ice.

The air clears,

no longer burdened with

heavy swarms of mosquitoes,

flies, gnats, and the sticky

sweat of humidity.

Gusts of wind move freely

dancing along each nerve

on my face and fingertips,

sharing a hushed warning—

soon.

freedom rings

freedom rings

the word

will never be

big enough.

the mouth

will never remain

full, no

everything must

go down,

down,

down.

a stomach gurgles,

teeth gnash.

The Day the Sky Fell

The Day the Sky Fell

It sounded like rain. That's what woke me:

the patter of bees, mosquitos

flies and gnats crackling against the sidewalk,

exoskeletons like pop rocks.

I rushed to bring the dog inside.

Dead insects smattered across my cheeks.

The clouds sinking.

A bird broke its neck on the grill.

A white haze surrounded us.

Water beaded up on my arms and forehead.

As I struggled to drag the dog inside,

a power line fell and everything went electric.

The cicadas have gone

The cicadas have gone

The air stops buzzing with

the first cool whisper of fall.

The wall of voices is silenced,

leaving only the faint scuttle

of leaves swept across the

concrete by my boots.

Gone is the throttle of wings

constant as the sound of my pulse:

usually imperceptible, but

impossible to ignore once noticed.

The silence won’t last.

The song of a thousand

drunken violins

does not simply die

with the coming of fall.

In 17 years the offspring of

this summer’s cicadas will emerge

from the dirt. They will pick up the

song where their parents left off.

Carbon Dioxide (revision)

Busy studying the science curriculum for my future students, so just a revision for today. I think it may be time to pitch this darling, but that's another story.

Fresh work next week, I promise...

Carbon Dioxide

just after its fire

has been snuffed

a small twist of smoke

winds upward from

the head of a match.

oxygen becomes CO2.

exhale.

600 muscles

rack the body.

sink toes, heels into earth.

600 will bever be enough.

exhale.

no one dies

with air in their chest,

not even bad air.

Smoke Flees the Flames of Its Birth

My first prompt driven poem in at least 2 years. The prompt was, "Someone's house is burning." I'm still sorting through the line breaks, they seem awkward long, and perhaps even more awkward as they are now, in short snippets.

Smoke Flees the Flames of Its Birth

From up here I can see

the entire west side of the city,

a great cross hatched web

of black asphalt, interrupted

with rows of green trees

and dark rooftops.

In the distance,

deep inside the grid,

a house burns.

Even nine stories up,

I can hear the sirens.

Can almost smell the

plastic melting,

paint bubbling,

the carpets that hiss

as they burn like

ribbons of tissue paper.

Smoke rises in the distance,

curls between the trees

like a hand that reaches up

to touch the sky.

On the sidewalk below,

a man with a single crutch

pushes a shopping cart

full of bottles and cans.

Wheels rattle over cracks

in the concrete. Plastic

and aluminum rubble as

they bounce. Everything

is the same, in tact.

Junk Bound Riders (revised)

Junk Bound Riders

A man with wild hair and a red beard

stares through thick glasses, looks unsure.

The glass doors slide open. Bus 12A.

Cool air floats across the sidewalk.

An oasis in the summer heat. In time,

the man heaves his bag over his shoulder

and joins the others, their tissue paper skin

smudged like the stamps of cigarette butts

on the concrete.

My neighbor has arms like black licorice.

Her soft jaw chews words without teeth.

Consonants rounded like vowels

smack between her lips like taffy.

She rides often, but tends to go nowhere.

Mouth mashing, she flutters though

conversation after conversation.

No one is alone here. In the aisle,

a thin man clamps teeth to toothpick.

He is left-handed. I know this.

Marks to the right, write with the left.

He carries a lamp in one hand,

a camouflage backpack in the other.

D.C. Comics baseball cap perched

on his head: S is for Superman.

This Bar is Now Non-Smoking (revision)

This Bar is Now Non-Smoking

It’s not quite my hundredth day and

I still miss the companionship:

friends huddle in doorways until

glowing embers dance

near lips. Fingers stained

burnt umber smash

cigarette butts into a brick wall.

Conversations of importance

never happen inside bars, but

here at the fringe you can still

feel the heat from inside;

hear the bouncers laugh

and sometimes the

hard crack of a pool cue as

it strikes. Here stand

the philosophers.

The nihilists.

No denying nothing.

This Place Will Never Be the Same Twice

This Place Will Never Be the Same Twice

This vast, white space is not frozen.

The tumbling sands swell across the land

further than my eyes can grasp.

The dunes wait, patiently

for visitors, for wind and time.

Momentum fuels

their constant state of travel.

A small part of the dunes resides

in the fibers of my living room carpet,

but a few grains, the crest of a wave

of particles, crushed rock and stone,

shifting slightly with every step.

They often travel as stowaways.

Cling to clothes and sweaty skin,

stick to shoelaces and water bottles.

Sometimes they travel by foot,

slipping into socks to settle

and crunch between toes.

A flurry of blisters is created.

Travel by mouth is less common,

but they sometimes find a puff of air,

fly by exhalation;

or wedge themselves between teeth,

or under tongue for long distance transit.

Many of these gritty travelers are discarded.

Stuck to a shirt or a damp bathing suit,

tossed in with the rest of the wash.

The granules are swept down the drain,

settling in the bend of a pipe.

The journey, it seems

ends here.

The Junk Bound Riders

The poem needs another stanza. Two parts don't seem to suit the topic, so expect to see hearty revision of this in the future. I'll have to schedule in another bus trip for research.

The Junk Bound Riders

A man with wild hair and a red beard

stares through thick glasses, looks unsure.

The glass doors stay open.

Cool air floods the sidewalk.

In time, he heaves his bag over his shoulder,

joins the other junk bound riders

whose tissue paper skin is smudged

blue and purple like the stamps

of cigarette butts on the concrete.

No one is alone here. In the aisle,

a thin man clamps down on a toothpick.

He is left-handed. I know this.

Marks to the right, write with the left.

He carries a lamp in one hand,

a camouflage backpack in the other.

A D.C. Comics baseball cap perched

on his head: the S is for Superman.

Revision of Notes from Arena Sports Bar and Grill

Notes from Arena Sports Bar and Grill

The corner of Fourth

and Washington;

salt lick for the wicked,

for neighbors, workers

fathers, mothers,

one and all wrong

and wronged. Loners

and runners all

nightly migrate and post.

These sad faces do little

to hide loss and nerves

and misfortune.

These people with

withered lips

suck hard on death sticks,

pretend it’s candy.

It’s warm now,

no more hands stuffed in pockets,

cigarette clasped in teeth.

These sad souls,

these snapping turtles

smoke outside with

greater vibrance than in

the gray months passed,

smelling like whisky

and wheat beer,

smoke and oak.

Now pink cheeks lift

through the haze.

A happy buzz of

voices big and small,

washed over with sweet

citrus and coriander.

They’re all here now.

Everyone has a place.

This is theirs.

They drink, smoke,

hide and forget,

yet stay together.