ALL RESPONSES |
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We both know what you want.
Slavery. Your own,
to be completely subjugated
by the woman you worship,
enough that you would die for her.
If it is her pleasure to torture you,
this is your pleasure,
this is your release.
There is no equality.
One must be master,
the other, slave.
One must grovel before the other,
who will deny you,
threaten to leave you,
kill you,
make love to another
while you stand there,
naked, bleeding and helpless.
You may come with me.
I will dress you in tight jeans,
torn t-shirt and boots.
I will ride behind you,
gripping your strong shoulders
with my long, thick nails,
and you will love every moment
they dig into your skin, and
I will love every tear
that falls from your eyes. |
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The summer before my father died
he sat at the kitchen table, the windows open,
the night air thick with tar and cricket song,
writing the cheerless history of the Cubs
in a yellow legal pad. His block printing
sharp and angular pressed through
to the sheet below.
The words were all that mattered.
He earned them the same way I earned
my name, the one he called me late at night,
when the lamps had halos, when the trees
were lost in shadows.
The slant and sway of his lines, I loved
their three-four time, the way they took
the rug out and shook it, danced
barefoot on the wooden floor,
and the dimple in his cheek, there for me
as I entered the room. The overhead light
made his hands glow, made each bead of sweat
a jewel on the amber-glass bottle of beer.
If we had known then that winter
would find him buried in the ground--
would we have sat in the garden
wished otherwise on every star?
Would we have packed the tent and
cooler, records and tackle and dog,
not given the cancer a chance?
Would I have asked the questions
I am left with now?
He knew
what it meant to be fatherless & how many
pounds of newspapers it took to make
a buck. Knew the smell of shoe polish,
how to make things shine. And to marvel
over the the slim lead of his mechanical
pencil, its soft pink eraser cradled
in a crown.
And he left for me
space
between every line.
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I picture you at the end of the bar,
your head thrown back in laughter
that rings loudly enough to reach me
sulky in a dark corner, single candle.
You forgot you left me here.
It is easy to observe you without the
confusion of your kisses, the love
shining out that you deny over
and over every time you take
another to your bed, knees bent
receptive, impatient, making sure
the last face you see before the
closed door is mine, curled in
sleep, tears tucked away.
Your hand is on his shoulder, the
invitation is clear, he doesn’t wonder
why you chose him, he is young and
you are beautiful and outrageous and
you have both drunk too much to
be safe. If he knew I was watching
would it make you more hot,
more desirable? He doesn’t know
I am the one you come home to,
he doesn’t know we vowed
til death do us part.
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Our first date
After dancing several
numbers at the Ave on a Friday night,
excused myself to hit the head
bladder screaming loudly with the thump of bass
Came back and found three guys totally surrounding you
Macking madly to the petite blonde
your figure screaming at their libidos
Not that you encouraged the attention
but you sure didn’t discourage them
Knowing you
Sensing defenses
men you knew before
clumsy oafs, talentless predators
I just
Knew
what to do
with you
Waited for you to dare me
Howling she wolf surprise
broadcast discovery
Melting sunsets
Screaming trees
Exploding moons
My first serious gig after we were a couple
You left early
I came home to find
you in my bed crying
Groupie chicks and bathroom talk
a new thing to a suburban enchantress
...Things they say about you…
You sobbed, but I did notice
your alluring limited attire
anything but a sign of woundedness
Eager to prove you had no match
Money and security
All that mattered
Growing up poor and fatherless
Seven siblings grasping at dollars
Marriage ultimatum inevitable
...I won’t be young forever...
Hearing that I knew
Fear of abandonment was your lover
Not a crazy guitar mangling scientist
Four years of lust
And you never found my core
My being eluded your grasp
Carnal cliffs to jump from
only to land upon my feet
in graceful poise
Hips forward
fighting stance
Ready to face the world
And welcome truth
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arriving on the hardwood floor this morning,
my cold feet sigh “home” and there
is where i put them.
they couldn’t have picked
a better guy to move today.
however slowly. you see, nothing stays
in one spot for long, not
even one’s faith, which is forever
being rewritten with age. |
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Sugar was a maple
thrusting out of the eastern crest of our bumpy north-facing lawn
Illuminated from above at night by the neighborhood streetlamp
She gazed in mocking humor upon the golf-course lawn across the street
So flat and perfect
...At least with all my team I'm not lonely like those Blue Spruce...
she seemed to say
when during lawn-mowing I gazed in envy
at the Rothman's
three wide spaced
perfectly symmetrically placed
perfectly coned statues
Bordering their lawn
How easy they were to navigate around with a riding mower
Mr. Rothman would always have a gleam of glee
as he tended his green sprawl pride with His Simplicity 10 Horse
While my sweaty young frame pushed
our 3 Horse cheapo around and around
and around all the difficult curves and hills
We had so many trees to mow between
Dad knew better
than to waste money on an expensive mower
he had a son to take care of the lawn
It was my duty, but he did teach me well
…She's a young one, only a few years older than you
Can't tell which one is growing faster...
his signature deep German accent
transformed into a higher mirthful lilting tone
Anne says I sound like that now when I am happy
I was seven,
old enough to run the loud stinky machine
How I loved the smell of the gasoline
he showed the proper way to fill the tank
…Now take care with the blade when you cut near the base—
her skin isn't that tough yet…
He showed how to avoid scraping the roots
that each year shot out a little farther
from the crest point of the lawn corner
Those roots taught me
breadth of anchor is as important as depth
Dad never liked the propellor seeds
Young kids were fond of grabbing handfuls
throwing them in the air to watch
the delightful spiral of their descent to earth
But those seeds did not respond well to a rake
As I grew, Sugar matched my progress
Until when I was about nine or ten
a lower horizontal branch
dramatically reached across the lawn
increased her size in one year
Big growth spurt
Next spring, that branch was strong enough for me to reach on tiptoes
I was always the tallest in my class...
Grab and pull
My feet walking her spine
'til I could swing myself upright
perch on the shoulder
I could hear her happy sigh as I settled into that nook
Rusty was an oak, standing sentry
several yards in front or our front steps
Shielding the entry from the streetview
Much older, her tough bark constantly prickled
by the racing of squirrels that thrived on her many old branches
Our Siamese, Toby, loved to pursue them
their staccato chatter
mocking the futility of the treeclimbing feline's pursuit
Toby never tired of the chase
His daily doorstep presentations of headless mice
seemed an apology
for fruitless endeavors against the squirrels
Toby had learned to jump from Rusty's limbs
onto the landing above the front door
Purring meows
often prompted me to open my bedroom window overlooking
He’d pounce up on the casement threshold
I would open the latches
take off the screen
He'd leap onto my bed, stretch out
and tell me of his adventures with his rodent friends
When I reached eleven, Rusty had taken note
Of my fondness for Sugar's High Perch Nook
She grew a back-curving branch
close enough to the landing outside my bedroom
For me to reach up and swing out onto
The view was no good
but I could shimmy down to a lower branch, dangle
Drop to the lawn on my feet
The perfect escape route
On the other side of the house from my sleeping parents' room.
I would sneak out for innocent forays
quiet
Suburban Bliss
filled with poorly hidden secrets
You could walk down the dim streets and listen unnoticed
No need to hide
shadows from the trees gave cover to a preteen observer of life...
There was Mr. Jones
furtively skipping from the back porch of the Andersens'
Just as Mr. Andersen arrived
home from Happy Hour after his second shift
Pre-midnite date drop-offs
squeaking Camaro leafsprings
…Pretty quick on the trigger tonite, eh Tiger?...
the eldest Maroni daughter giggled onetime
thru a half-cracked window as I turned a nearby corner
Keep it down, yer Mom's prolly lissnen her driver had responded...
Aww--she'd just be jealous was the response
Devon's older brother cranking Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
his Quadrophonic Open Reel
four Klipschorn speakers in the basement room's corners
Bought With Blood Money he had sullenly declared
when I once expressed admiration for the equipment
as Ozzy spun around the room from speaker to speaker...
He’d done little since he got back from Vietnam
but crank the tunes
and exhale the remains of blue bong smoke
through the window in the corner sill
the fog drifting thru the air into Mrs. Smith's kitchen window
Mostly, I just loved to sit on the shoulder of Sugar
look at the view of the stars and moon on clear nights
Listening:
the endless battle between field crows and the Jeske's barn owls
throbbing hum of crickets and frogs
Redwing Blackbirds, Grackles
the ugly bleat of bullying bluejays
who tried to control the lair of Rusty's towering spread
Best of all was setting my alarm for 4 AM
witnessing crack of dawn on Saturday Mornings
Spilling out over the hills to the east
Down across the marshy valley
Just north of Rothman's old truck depot
rays glinting off the post-WWII gas pumps in the dusty lot
Specular reflection dancing
up on the still dark hillside below our street
I was sure the Sun had arranged it just for my own eyes
Sugar and Rusty are still there
Thirty some years older and stronger
I moved on
roots never move
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Take away the church bells,
their constant clanging
Let the air seize silence,
bear only the scent of fallen snow.
Let a handful of sparrows twitter
in the bush, a crow fill the sky
with his wings and his cry.
Given the choice between you
and your conditional love,
I prefer emptiness.
Hate how the hum
of my own heart colors
everything blood.
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The door closed shut,
leaving me in a dark world
of red vinyl, brown bottles
and human forms, swimming
beneath the surface.
At first, it scared me.
I did not belong there.
I liked it, though. It was like
a cave with buried treasure.
I knew I would return later,
but first, I had a job to do.
Bodies were at the bar, laughing,
arms expressing punch lines,
one of them my target.
I found him, boisterous,
the center of his universe,
having fun in the dark.
I approached slow and low,
under the radar.
He noticed me
from the corner of his eye,
caught by surprise, and,
with scotched composure,
greeted me: “There's my boy!”
“Daddy?”
The blond with pasty makeup
looked at me with spider-leg eyelashes,
her scarlet nails curled around a glass
filled with ice and yellow.
My father bought me a coke.
This could be fun, but
“Daddy, Momma is waiting outside.”
The silence of an avalanche
left no choice but to depart
into blinding sunlight
and subtropical humidity.
Too bad. There was AC in there,
and coke with ice. |
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Now we're talking. What a joy to view Alex's creative process...a joy, and a boost for my own. This is what we all do, and sometimes it ain't pretty, with all the scratching out and inserting and pencil chewing and ruminating. Not pretty, but productive, hopefully. Alex's #2 typewritten version is tight and telling. May I suggest, perhaps too tight? Good to leave out 'church bells' and both being 'left with our own story to tell to anyone who will listen", but why x out 'pop of my lighter' and 'two smokes away from falling out of love, three exits from innocence'? They are good, strong, thought-provoking detail. Thanks for your poem, Alex...
Here, revised again, is Betty's 'These Will Do', based on Krissy Fromm's
maple-leaves-on-sidewalk photo. I emailed back and forth about it with a friend who has cancer, and she set me on a search for expanded metaphor. Said search led me to add the last six lines.
These will do
He never got too far away
from a bar—
Hammie’s in West Mankato
or Lillie’s, uptown.
(Go there, tell dad supper’s ready.)
Or the back room at Lynard’s Grocery
where he could drink near beer
and buy pop and peanuts for his kids
trailing along.
Bars fill silences,
drain emptiness—
beer, tin music, a deck of cards,
strangers with stubble and gray faces—
These will do
for awhile
Till he walks home up the hill
in the rain,
looks down at fall leaves plastering
color on the wet sidewalk.
I want to say to him
these will do, dad,
these will do.
Time’s terrazo may brown and blow
but bank on it’s
being
back next fall,
a durable feast
in a marble hall.
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First, a beauty you think
you've never seen before
and will never find again.
Undoubtedly both are true--
until tomorrow morning,
when the smoke clears.
Second, desire for the lay.
The one that keeps you
young forever. Nature
pricks you, drains you
leaves you with an empty pack.
Nature doesn't care for pens,
or paper, all your scratchings-out.
Waste that body, send it up
in smoke. Nature wants
your first born. |
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West of America you, your
leggy cigarette shorn beside the lovely,
your angry innocence a highway two exits from ending. How,
love, to move without mimicing the gasoline? How to
sin with the bar beside us. I regret, I regret, no,
I don't regret. Forget. The
bar. Your watch, tied on
too tightly.
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He woke me round midnight, told me to pull on jeans, a sweatshirt.
It was summer but the night had turned cool. I sat in mom’s seat as he drove, window rolled down, elbow on the ledge, Johnny Cash on the radio singing I walk the line. This was when cars smelled of dust and oil, radios buzzed, voices drifted in from far-off places.
We drove until there were no more streetlights, til the roads marked the miles with letters of the alphabet. A turn onto a dirt road led us to the edge of a shallow wood. I know the farmer, Dad told me. He let’s me hunt for pheasant here. I held the flashlight as he mixed a bottle of beer and a long slow pour of Karo syrup in an ice cream bucket. He tucked two paint brushes in his coat pocket and we set out.
We painted the south sides of the trees, three or four stokes each. I was ten and never imagined what happened at night, in the woods just a few miles from my house. In the shadow of trees each sound grew large, the snap of a twig because a falling branch, the hoot of an owl, the call of the dead. My father and I, painters of an invisible world.
When we ran out of beer and syrup we hiked back to the car. From the trunk my father fished a beer case full of empty jars. I had watched him cut our cat’s flea collar into little squares, dropping one in each, same color as the rising moon. Bullfrogs lined the gully, called out for company. Night has a loneliness all its own.
Somewhere near the middle of the woods, my father led me to a tree, said look, this is one you don’t see. Hanging on the tree’s trunk, the size of his fist, pale green with eyes on its wings, was a shimmering moon.
Luna, he said, is her name. She’s got one week to live and all she’s gonna do is mate. We won’t take her. We’ll let her drink for free.
Deeper into the woods we went, my legs now trunks, my eyes, shuttered. I knew how the moths felt, barely able to move, drifting on night air, willing to sleep anywhere, soldiering on. The syrup brought them in, Dad said, the beer slowed them down. We stopped at a tree, then another, found moths the size of postages stamps, circling slowly. Into jars they went, wings spread. They died happy, my dad said. They died dancing.
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| The first paragraph of American History Part 1 is full of sound, action and intensity. Love the church bells in the background as up close is the pop of the lighter...the rumble of the tires below and 52 pickup. |
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pen. pad of paper and
flush all of my thoughts and
understandings--
clearly
some are hanging on
to the edges of consciousness--
fern fiddle-heads forming
even as I listen--seeming
ice crystals,
so fragile;
if I could trace
all the slow movements of
your chest as it rises and falls,
in the morning,
in organic ecstasy, maybe, if
I had a chance to erase any
of the scratches on this
paper existence--so I would, so--
without edging out the teeth
tenderly closing down, holding;
sugar words melting, and swallow
carefully
loosing, a fragrance,
hoping
that understanding opens like
a window, a bird's wings
escaping, understanding
flying out into the spring air--
remember me when I am gone. |
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(in response to Alex's first draft)
(for some reason the whole poem didn't copy last time.
Pan dulce is a not-very-sweet sweetbread, very cheap, that Mexican often dip into their coffee for breakfast)
Church bells were ringing
and I wanted pan dulce.
I wanted the pink stiletto heels
I saw on the girl. I wanted my
thighs to be smoothed by yoga, I wanted to
swim fearlessly like you did, broad strokes
until you vanished from my horizon, I wanted
the money to last forever and to never
have another hang-over. I wanted my son
to be alive and my belief in God
to come back. I wanted you to love me.
I wanted all that was impossible.
I wanted prayers answered.
Church bells were ringing and I wanted
pan dulce y café con leche.
I wanted to be on your arm
sweet and sure, I wanted to walk to
to the beach and watch their heads
turn, I wanted to cradle you
the way I did once, I wanted to
be as gorgeous as the girls in their
bikinis, I wanted memories to fade.
I wanted pan dulce. “Papaya?” you asked me,
“Huevos rancheros?” I wanted the stars
to sweep me into dawn, I wanted
church bells to be ringing, I wanted
to be smoothed out by yoga, I wanted
broad strokes to the horizon.
I wanted to love you, the way
I cradled you and the money lasted
forever and we chewed pan dulce
until the tears went away.
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Before the winter storm one of the last gaggle of geese flew
overhead it was dark the geese were up there it was raining
i imagined the drops rolling off their backs like pearls, feathers
ruffled for protection pearls being swept into clouds, nature’s
cloud seeding planted in clouds. i finally stopped the rain did not
There’s hardly a soul out tonight there must be greener places
to go i am by the river near my house i walk looking for a soul
and wonder does the river have mine? A jewel of time by the river,
alone, rain acting like another outside skin, wet, it will be easily
dried off unlike my thoughts of you when you smiled earlier
and promised me another day of loving me tomorrow
As i walk and the rain everywhere and the geese overhead and
the river at my feet in two worlds one with you it’s warm my soul
like a candle your breath like a falling star we each get a wish
and mine is to know yours the other to be alone wishing i was not
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I knew what was in it for me,
the pain I'd known before,
yet, I couldn't say no.
Many moons later
I wished for your breath
to return and heat my skin,
leave its trace on me
as when you came back, made love
and then once more you left.
I knew the ending you had said that,
yet, why not living it once more?
This illusion of love we lived
was deemed to fail
tainted as it was by reality.
I knew it would poison the us we were,
and in the end it did.
Yet, I can't say I wouldn't do it all again.
We both lived in the memento,
a love behind closed curtains,
the illusion that an hour would match eternity,
a night that never belonged to us,
yet, between white sheets we owned.
I wish I could ask you
to take back your hands, your mouth,
leave me virgin of you to wonder,
how your scent would melt into mine,
because today, that memory still feeds me
even though I know, it would never be the same.
Yet, if I could, I'd steal again.
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responses to Britt and Alex's Venus poems
…………skies, and slipped. The flutter of
a silk dress on the line, the last
drops pooling on the tile for a second
before disappearing in the heat.
You may wonder how it can be this hot
this early, the washing hung before the sun
can scorch it. Later, you will watch the girls
on the beach saunter by in their tiny swatches
(That’s a bikini? you think, trying
not be envious of their smooth
curved shapes, the strut, the tan
that you (sigh) once upon a time
never needed. You were blond, unplucked
like a ripening strawberry hidden among the
green, like the opening rose on the stem.
The bold canter of your heart, wild dances in
moonlight.) Today in silence, hands raw from
wringing, you follow the flight of the heron
sailing up the river in sunrise. You still
wear pink, but silk and with a slip. Venus,
is she the one, the beauty queen who won the
contest, the hearts of the world? Or is that
another story, one you do not even dare to
breathe aloud?
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In Response to Alex Stolis' "History of the American West" (part 1 & 2) and "Revolver"
i.
You wanted to run crazy hot through the streets,
crash head-on into that whooped-out time:
fast cars drag racing, neon lights, crossroad beer joints,
sticky flesh, loud music and all the lies of summer.
ii.
I remember the cloud-dappled moons,
the song of road noise, the dark rising,
the wind stealing hair from my ponytail,
and the car-nival blasting hot on spinning
tilt-a-wheels-—the sound of a heart dying.
iii.
What does it matter if you loved me?
Even now, as if you don’t know I see,
you like to stand on the sidewalk
outside my bedroom window
and watch me in the dark.
Leaning on the lamp post, you blow
your chain of ghosts,
a fireball dangling from your lower lip
as moths sizzle onto burning porch lights
eyes of the dead, stuck with dusky love
and charred rice paper wings.
Strange birds fly overhead,
observing from a distance.
Sweat, a necklace across your brow
that you wipe off on your shirt.
A passing car spotlights your eyes.
You pretend to look away.
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Church bells are ringing
and I want pan dulce.
I want the pink stiletto heels
I saw on the girl. I want my
thighs to be smoothed by yoga, I want to
swim fearlessly like you do, broad strokes
until you vanish from my horizon, I want
the money to last forever and to never
have another hang-over. I want my son
to be alive and my belief in God
to come back. I want you to love me.
I want all that is impossible.
I want prayers answered.
Church bells are ringing and I want
pan dulce y café con leche.
I want to be on your arm
sweet and sure, I want to walk to
to the beach and watch their heads
turn, I want to cradle you
the way I did once, I want to
be as gorgeous as the girls in their
bikinis, I want memories to fade.
I want pan dulce. “Papaya?” you ask me,
“Huevos rancheros?” I want the stars
to sweep me into dawn, I want
church bells to keep ringing, I want
to be smoothed out by yoga, I want
broad strokes to the horizon.
I want to love you, the way
I cradle you and the money lasts
forever and we chew pan dulce
until the tears go away.
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I remember well the smell of gasoline.
The one at the gas station when,
with your convertible,
we stopped to fill up tank
during one of our outings together.
That night, we drove toward the river,
hair and worries unleashed into the wind,
past the warning exit,
but a few exits away from guilt.
A dinner, a small restaurant was waiting,
away from eyes we did not want to meet.
I remember well the feeling of sitting on leather seat,
soft against my thighs, warm in the summer night.
We held hands at candle light, we whispered, and laughed
and acted as thieves would.
We used all the minutes from the hours we had
wishing for more, the more we shared later
when we kissed each other raw.
In my memories, in my past with you,
there are more regrets than second chances.
I've drank to sin plenty
with you and even more alone,
when in the dark of my room
I stared into this memory
that had wished, in my naiveté,
to have started for us, a revolution.
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DEMONS & REDEMPTION
Why should I tell you of which color my ghosts are?
Who are you to ask?
The holiness or the wretchedness of my sins
belongs to me alone,
while you ignore to rip the bounty
your words had sewn.
Me, taking from you?
Letters, words to be rewritten?
What, are you feeling guilty?
I laugh!
Your hands, your lips, your soothing word,
a seal of burning wax, a mark on my soul,
a stamp for hell, the one you sent me to
and from which I can’t get out...
With you tonight I wish to steal no more.
No more crimes for us,
no more pulsing veins,
I am tired of late night stories,
the chill, the many lies
left under my bed.
I was innocent until I met your eyes
then got lost and for me there is no redemption
because what has been done has been sealed,
and no demons, yours or mine,
can resurrect the dead.
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The first shows everything
the day has to offer--false starts,
false steps, misleading words.
The pen strays upon a useless word,
gets mired in its path until
a second draft comes to the rescue.
Terrible margins flank the page,
spaces studded with traps,
crises of all sizes; the writer
walks blindly into them, arm
scribbling out whatever she
doesn’t want others to come across,
making furious, squiggly bridges
over unnamed emptynesses.
The pen, as eyewitness,
rushes in frantically to give
respiration to the unfulfilled:
Come out! Deliver your message.
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The day you left for China I drove to work in a snowstorm,
my shoulders hunched, my hands ached from gripping the steering wheel,
cold and unresponsive. You were somewhere above it all,
weightless and surrounded by blue.
Your second letter came before your first, told me to call
gave me an hour slot in which you could talk to me, then you wrote,
They read your letters. I invited my students over, for drinks
and when I came backing to the room with a tray of glasses
I found them riffling through my things. Three, heads bent, tried to
pronounce your words: Pregnant. Abortion. Positive.
The buzz and delay of a phone line, when every word
comes too late, turns the echo of my own voice
into a mockingbird, breaks yours into jagged orders, then cuts it
completely. I am swallowed by the silence of my apartment
hear only the sound of dripping icicles on the sill outside.
Standing there, my cheek pressed against the glass, I wait
for the first one to fall. |
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Poets are ghosts. Sometimes we visit the world with our words.
Usually, though, you'll find us buried in cubicles, swimming
in coffee pots, or wandering back alleys in search of you.
A few will sit in bars, shades barely noticeable, thinking
about what it would be like to rise from the dead and walk
the streets in daylight. We take chances with good and evil,
scribbling a way to the living, eating and drinking judgement
upon ourselves. You might spot us in your headlights at night,
dressed in our mothers' blood. Otherwise, you may only glimpse
wisps of apparitions in bookstores and printed journals,
our shivering hands reaching beyond these pages to caress you. |
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From San Francisco to Utica,
evryone has his own Ars Poetica.
A kick in the pants
can start all my rants,
no dumb editor wants to publica
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My old lovers don’t exist anymore. They were lost somewhere
after 1983. They all went to an abandoned cinema to report
their affair with me was over and were re-assigned to others.
It’s amazing how in the end old lovers are always found later
cowering in some foyer, holding their shoes in chapped hands,
swearing they’re over whatever it was we had when i don’t
think of them being in my life at all. Reminds me
of an old “B” movie, and try as i might i simply do not
remember the title or the names of any of its characters.
In fact, if i remember anything, it was i hated that movie,
and I think I snuck into the theatre without paying to see it.
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Am posting this because it's a different kind of writing for me. This
is the first page of the FINAL DRAFT of the DVD script I was hired to
write (posted under "Northography - News"). Approximately 18 hours of
rough draft, rewrites, and final draft went into this.
$50,000 was raised by the Kansas benefit concert held in Kellsey's
name last summer and many good things for Austin youth have already
been accomplished. The DVD was created to spread the word for the
Foundation and help us raise additional funding.
It was an interesting process for me and I learned many things about
copyrights, etc.
I spent a week with Kellsey on a church Mission trip to St. Louis two
summers ago. She was a unique young girl.
timmy
Kellsey Jean Hogan once told her mother, Reenie Hogan that a person
can have as many best friends in the world as one needs. The world
found out on July 13, 2007, in her hometown of Austin, Minnesota, that
Kellsey Jean Hogan had thousands of friends. Some she didn’t even
know she had. But Kellsey would have welcomed them all the same. She
was that kind of kid.
A birthday celebration for Kellsey Jean Hogan was held that July day
at Riverside Arena in Austin, a city in southeastern Minnesota known
more for Spam luncheon meat than rock concerts. A couple of thousand
of Kellsey’s friends gathered that day to celebrate her life and
legacy. Her favorite rock band Kansas even consented to come and play
for Kellsey and all her friends. And Kansas did come...performing a
concert that has been described “as a setting unlike anything Kansas
had ever done before.” Kansas came to Austin to help celebrate a
young girl’s life. All of Kellsey’s friends came together and
discovered that youth is not necessarily a specific time of life, but
more a state of mind...that youth, especially Kellsey’s youth, ended
far too soon, nearly one year earlier in a tragic accident.
Kellsey was killed August 30, 2006, when the moped she was riding
collided with a passenger van. She had just left home for a
babysitting job. It was just another ordinary day. Kellsey Jean
Hogan was 15 years old.
Kellsey’s accident was the type of accident that cries out for
something else to be accomplished, to balance things a bit for the
loss of a young girl’s life. Kellsey was a young person who just
wanted to accomplish some good things in life. She liked earrings,
shoes, baking cookies, the color purple, shopping...boy, did she like
shopping...all different kinds of music, but especially Kansas music.
Kellsey also really liked people. Probably more than anything else,
Kellsey really liked helping people.
All of the people who knew Kellsey Jean Hogan discovered on July 13,
2007, that youth is a quality of one’s imagination, a vigor of
emotions...a freshness of the deep springs of life. That youth can be
used for the common good.
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SAY GOODBYE
To wish,
to wish your words true.
I am afraid to walk that path.
You are asking once again forgiveness
as if I'd never heard those words before.
But to ask to forget and forgive
is to ask to make oneself vulnerable.
I am not that strong anymore.
I wish I could believe
that light of candles, a Band-Aid,
some glue could mend my heart,
restore my faith in us, in you,
as if this had never happened,
the trials, the failing...
as if it all belonged to some obscure dream.
Look at me.
There are no flights of birds left in my eyes.
Youth was a season,
one we can't relive no matter what.
Please don't plead.
Your words, the sound of your voice
so soft and tender I wish to believe,
this time, one more time,
but don't you understand?
It was the red sparks, the ashes
of too many cigarettes, days carelessly spent,
tossed out in the wind that burned us.
We are now living a season of distance
from old days made of dreams.
Bury with me the remaining of this love,
say goodbye to it,
because there are no sunsets, no breathless runs,
and no words left able to bring it back.
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| Interesting. No two poets are the same, not even in the way they |
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UNDERGROUND
...are the lives lived through scribbled words,
thoughts accumulated
on napkins and loose leaf paper,
bent, stained little notebooks
kept in pockets describing hope, life and love
the way we see it or wish it could be.
In hiding, transparent, unassuming
maybe because unappreciated, timid,
teased by the macho bullies of a modern world
afraid of all that is vibrant, delicate, and real.
We breathe and talk to other souls,
whispering to one another
rhymes, strophes, the words
we write about life, sorrow and pain.
A population as pale as the ghosts we fear,
we are the world's hurt lovers
wearing a Harlequin mask made of stanzas,
to give expression to our deepest emotions.
To some, we are the underground Sewer Poetry Society,
but are we?
Are we to be defined the rats of intellectualism,
fools chasing the mental ecstasy words promise,
or are we patriotic citizen of the heart at its best?
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American West, when recounted
seems never to much amonted.
Seegareets and whiskey,
bar girls that were quite frisky,
gunfights that left horses unmounted. |
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For I have nothing to write, on this white night,
you drove me through snow, sleet and danger
we like to ignore. I looked into eyes, their color
watered down, like a neglected cup of coffee.
More and more I see you are not immortal,
the meaning we like to
place behind the word father.
The years, these days—all the possible words,
a heavy blanket of fear, its false security,
masking my mouth, my heart
facing someone who just doesn't seem to feel
For I have nothing to write, this danger I ignore.
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A large Guinness, 3:40 P.M, like an afternoon tea, or a little lunch, at a place where everyone looks like my ex-brother-in-law. Another crappy day of work escapes tired bodies, leaving numbed minds behind. The bartender's deep winter tan and heavily-tipped charm keep the male over-fifty crowd in their stools. An old man in a fur hat drinks short glasses of gold with lemon, the secret to his long life. I think he wants to talk, curious about the guy with a big black beer who writes on paper napkins. He strikes up a conversation on his right with a guy my age, bearded and growly like a TV wrestler driving over a mountain of Korean cars with a monster truck. He says the price of oil is killin' everybody, and there's oil in Texas, but they ain't pumpin' nothin'. If the wages would go up, there wouldn't be no bitchin', but they don't. So, I wonder, why is he in here drinking beer mid-afternoon? Business can't be too bad, by the looks of the designer sunglasses hanging around his neck. I have no complaints, right now. The talk switches to the rich people they know, how much they drink, and how their wives beat the living shit out of them. Crazy as hell. Yeah. Seen 'im up at the Legion havin' a good time, then later face down in the snow, so I picked him up. First thing he says is, What'd ya' push me down for, ya' son of a bitch? Big laughs.
The sunglasses guy leaves, and the old man looks at deviant scribbler sitting to his left. He wants to talk. I said hello and asked him how things were going. He said he's hangin' in there, that's about the best you can expect. I asked him how he liked this cold weather - s'pose a guy could move south for the winter. Not him. All they do down there is go to happy hour. That's what we're doin' now, I said. Yep - so why make two house payments? The bartender brought him a fresh salad with bread. He cradled it in his hands like sex. I like to eat at a table, you see. OK. And he went to his table. He came back for his brandy thing with the lemon. I joked with the bartender and the waitresses. They liked me. I was safe, and a great bar flirt. The bartender looked like a leading lady in a Schwarznegger movie. I'll bet her boyfriend owns a Harley, and they go to Sturgis every year. No tattoos to be seen, yet, but you know they're there. I wonder what they say? |
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I have nothing to write, on this white night,
we drive through snow, sleet and a danger
we choose to ignore. I look into tired eyes
and the more I see you are not immortal,
the meaning we like to place behind the word father.
The years.
These days.
All the words we don’t say.
A heavy blanket of fear, its false security
blocks my mouth, my heart from
facing someone who just doesn’t seem to feel
(should feel).
For I have nothing to write, this danger I ignore.
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We walked. I was in front by step. Can’t really say I was ahead but my body leading. Like two dancers. When there are dancers, someone must lead. We passed a row of stores, their store fronts silent…closing time long passed. She was drinking a diet soda. It was warm. Ice melted a quarter mile ago when she spilled some of the soda down the front of her white sweater. There was an ugly stain and I kept staring at it. It looked like a map of Asia.
“Cold front coming,” she said suddenly.
“What?”
“Temperature’s dropping. Don’t you feel it?”
“Yes.” I was still staring at Asia. “Isn’t it lovely?”
We kept walking in silence until finally stopping at her front door. I was chilly. She was still stained.
“Can I come up tonight?”
“Front-and-center.” She smiled. “But I will kick you out by midnight.”
And that’s what I always liked about her, even stained. She was always up-front about everything.
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Old lovers send emails (a response to Timmy's Even the popcorn was stale)
Old lovers send emails, send flowers on the
wrong anniversary, send condolences when your
heart has been broken, they like to think their
words can help, they pretend they know something
Old lovers call you when they feel like
complaining, old lovers send you hugs when
you need a good stiff drink
at a bar where you recognize no one
Old lovers remember when you were young and
golden and as the impulse rises up to send
the recent photos of your wise wrinkles you have earned
since their defection from your heart, you resist:
you decide that having old lovers is a token of life
well-lived instead of a line-up of failures,
you decide if you had to do it again you would do it
harder and more honest, slower and more sweet |
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In response to Wendy's E-mail poem
i do not remember
the black gloves
the black gloves you said
you left on the glass bar
next to the juke box
the night you left me
cold in the parking lot
on New’s Year Eve
the night you said your hands
were chapped, almost numb
the night you said “i love you,
but i love Chicago more”
i remember Smokey Robinson singing
“Tears of a Clown” through the thin
walls of the tavern
smoking my last last cigaratte
like it was my last request
as you drove away
down Hastings Way, past
the cannery, the 24/7 grocery
and the closed Dairy Queen
i remember starting a new year
alone in blinkiing neon
But when you asked me later,
i said i was sorry
i do not remember
the black gloves |
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I wake up
in winter. cold
walls but
they are ours.
sunday mornings are
special--
the bells
reach out their arms
to protect me. father
wakes the pages
of a book.
leather cover.
cerulean
shadows.
morning light
stealing across
snow covered
rooftops.
prayer.
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Your voice rises to my blood-drummed ears
like a coldcocked angel, knocked dumb from
tires whining the asphalt hum, wings lazy,
spread wide as a smile, floating on the updraft
of an ag report tinning out the dashboard speaker.
A question - asked again between long pulls
of wind, soft-blown over each seed-shucked
stalk of prairie grass that ripples out
beyond the reach of the bug-shot windshield.
The road disappears, yet time seems stuck
as you whistle the one long note, first hard,
then soft, between your patient lips.
An answer - yes, it's good. You. This trip.
The sweet of gasoline still lifting from
my dusted palms - from the last filling station
in a new ghost town, long since dropped from
the horizon on a pale clipped nail of moon.
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The end of time has come.
Someone is calling me home.
Please, just a few more minutes
to finish, straighten up and
look my best in the face of judgement.
Is it too late? The smell of sin
surrounds me. Whiskey, cigarettes
and sweet perfume permeate
my clothes, my hair, my skin,
but there is nowhere to bathe,
no new shirt to change into.
This is it. The party, my friend,
is over. I prepare to meet my fate
at the end of the long road.
But first, one more round. I'm glad
they extended closing until two. |
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The light is flickering just above your bar stool
like a small revolt against all that is modern.
It steadily hums as you attempt to recall
the event that sent you out
on a snowy December evening.
Was it anger or remorse?
Salient yet darkly foolish
you continue to love for the option is death.
You hurt because feeling good is inadequate.
Instead you are a woman stranded on an island
with a shot glass
while at home, asleep in your bed,
is your latest rebellion.
Sam is a number in a book entitled “The Uprising” - no. 13,
a place where life’s disappointments are meticulously recorded
by your own hand
always in blue with letters slanting heavily to the left.
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We are two women
left with our own story
to tell never having
faced one another, not a blink hello.
I wish I could swim through the reasons,
the desire, the selfish ambitions,
see your masked fears, anything to wash
away this judgmental image.
If only you heard the sobs; sat in
silence, tasted regret like a sour
flavor on the tongue—I can’t
swallow away the thought of you
your very existence, knowing that one
moment would wound a future union,
blind to the holiness of it all.
Oh the stories we women have to tell.
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A draft of wind passes directly through the door -
it is like a ghost entering, I recall you
as I would recall the dead.
I shudder at the innocence of your scent,
it still baffles me
the deception felt on longing
how the slap of regret
nails you to a choice once made.
There are moments of clarity,
stillness and then only damage.
Trapped in a feeble thought
I put out my hand to address the cold
I am no longer afraid of being made a fool,
clearly the warmth rises so I find you on the floor
stretching out until all encompassing.
You will never be gone.
Although I remain three exits from innocence
you are an eternity away.
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Your throw-away lines are my salvation
your bells are ringing in my church and
fresh ghosts float to the tiled floor,
the lines you no longer want
tickle me to the floorboard
in our dream mobile as
we drift to the west, our tinny ears
attuned to talk show radio and we
turn off for the first exit from snow
seeking Mecca, seeking Shaingri-la
on a pilgrimage to the center
of the poem’s heart.
Your re-writes are my pleasure--
I remember the times I sweated over lines
only to silence them with crossed-out
flair, sending the remainder to be rejected
like old lovers who turned their
backs on my aching knees
begging them to stay, please
just another kiss, please keep
my black gloves for the next time
I need to slap you.
The lines you threw away
are now mine, they belong to me
and you can’t have them back unless
you take the time to enter the poem
and ingest it as softly as sweetly
as pan dulce on a Mexican beach
as a love napkin scrawled with
your lines in blue ink
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