Tag Archives: amwriting

Isn’t All Poetry Confessional?

30 Wednesday Oct 2019

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They had to call it something.  Everything has a label, has to have a label otherwise it cannot be understood?
Things cannot be as they are, they must be classified and microfisched for further review by busybodies who write the law.

I wanted an MFA tag, but that’s fruit from the Tree of Knowledge (of)  
I refused to pay the price.
‘stead I carry pomegranates in my apron
I never share them because that would be truth-telling, that would be
the real deal.
Who wants to hear more sylvia plath confessionals
yet another unhappy woeman
writing names in the sand
counting down?

I would rather have been Mary Oliver in the end
some kind of smooth stone you keep in a mason jar
or a sassy fawn named for a childhood friend
the one who still carries the North star

or better,
a body carved with hieroglyphs of the sea
wrapped in a Robert E. Howard shroud, epically 

or simply

e e cummings
      free

(in Just-) e e cummings

21 Thursday Mar 2019

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in Just- 
spring          when the world is mud- 
luscious the little 
lame balloonman 

whistles          far          and wee 

and eddieandbill come 
running from marbles and 
piracies and it’s 
spring 

when the world is puddle-wonderful 

the queer 
old balloonman whistles 
far          and             wee 
and bettyandisbel come dancing 

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and 

it’s 
spring 
and 

         the 

                  goat-footed 

balloonMan          whistles 
far 
and 
wee

Backspace Delete

22 Thursday Nov 2018

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After much thought and personal debate because it’s been a long year of night I have decided to give thanks.  Everyone is giving thanks for something right around this day, right up until they pass the gravy. How could I resist thought, debate, and gravy? 

The “winner” of my thanks is three-fold:  The backspace bar, ctrl+backspace bar, and the delete button.  (Note the Oxford comma there?) 

This year (and I am not kidding) I am grateful for the ability to backspace or delete.  I would rather remain on a blank page with a blinking cursor tempting me to “go on… go on… you know you want to say it!” than saying it, the satanic cursor that wants me to puke out every last thing I think or feel and make it public with the push of a button! “Go on… do it… it’ll feel so good, it’ll be okay….”  So I took up the keyboard and wrote terrible things, damning things on long pages of Word documents or little tweets or other social media platforms that zoom past where we are always in danger of being pushed off into an oncoming train. I wrote missives and critiques and opinions no one asked for while dabbing lukewarm coffee I spilled on the tablecloth or sucking Chinese food sauce from my fingers and (allegedly) from the keyboard from which I write this thing, the letters “j” and “g” are sticking…. 

I am grateful to be able to scream to the holy high heavens that everything sucks and I hate everything, that I am a miserable piece of shit and nothing matters, but the backspace button gives me space to take it all back before you see it. It allows me to wail and whine and cuss and be so damnably politically incorrect. I get to be petulant, pedantic, sexist, racist, ageist, uniformed, uneducated, illiterate and worse–boring! 

You don’t get to see that I still hit the @ key when I meant !  and that’s because the blessed backspace button exists. You don’t get to see my exposed private parts that disclose rage and horror in favor of vanilla and pablum.  (Somebody who reads this might know where that came from.)  

So, thank you, backspace and delete for allowing me to tailor my thoughts and words to be delicate, kind, favorable always.  I guess it’s what I believe everyone needs.  Thank you for giving me space to scream and throw things and give you a piece of my mind and then deleting it all because the world doesn’t need another angry woman. How could that be helpful in any way? Thank you for helping me sort out tornado thoughts from surgical words and maybe that’s not the right thing after all, but today is a day for grateful, for sharing, for embracing those we love who we haven’t seen in a long time where we keep our real words in purses on the floor in the bedroom and we don’t open them until we get home and we weep.  

Thank you, backspace delete for helping me figure out why.  

Upon Finding The Dragon’s Egg

24 Thursday May 2018

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I awoke abruptly, squintingly, because the sun peered in my bedroom window, an alarm my body cannot refuse. Strange sun, Jim Morrison said in his notebook poem, and I opened my door after I put clothes on (but not shoes because no one needs shoes to walk from the balcony to the cool beach sand that was not far away.)  Strange sun well-riz on my right also known as East, the train of cool blue dawn retreated into the distance, laughing gulls squeaked overhead and moved on instead of making their usual mocking laughter from the breakwater that sounds like children a mile away calling out for help because they are drowning.

I walk barefoot on a beach where I found seashells in all stages of their lives tossed on the shingle by an uncaring sea, but all those shells and emerald mermaid’s hair wafting in the tidal pools are gone.  The Army Corps of Engineers came and did one heck of a job building up this little spit of land that had been slowly reclaimed by the ocean one winter storm, one summer hurricane at a time and now my feet trod sand the size of peppercorns instead of soft, creamy quartsy silt I fell in love with, all those tidal pools gone.  I am grateful yet disoriented. Strange.

So this morning I woke and walked and found the dragon’s egg. Should come as no surprise to anyone because the system that came from the west moved in and brought us a week of rain and a night of high wind, fearsome wind too early for hurricane but made us reach for our batteries and bottled water anyway.  I plucked the egg from the sand poor thing blown from her nest, abandoned, knowing that’s the worst thing I could possibly do but when did I ever abide by the rules, and I held it in my hand wondering what could I possibly do?  And then the shell broke, the creamy satin shell broke open and spilled out venom all over my hand and it hurt like the sting of a bee that begins slowly and takes over your interstitial fluids and spreads out and swells because it really, really, does not want you to be offending it yet you have by simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time and you are paying for your transgression. I held the dragon’s egg, seeping fluids hurting so much, but my pride kept me from screaming so I ran down and into the cold, cold water and submerged me and the egg hoping the pain would ebb.  The silken shell stuck to my hand. The venom came forth like a ginger lady’s tresses, Rapunzel-like, then dissipated in the brine. The shell dissolved and my pain dissolved too as I panted hopping foot to foot hoping not to step on a skate just going about his business.

Work Zone Awareness Week

12 Thursday Apr 2018

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It’s mostly starlings zooming by my work zone
blackflash streaks past the sill where I keep heart-shaped rocks
rusticles, and a plastic shell that some anonymous person placed
one day when I wasn’t looking
(I don’t have the heart to throw it away)

I am waiting for the dragonflies to drive by
misguided missiles on a southern trajectory,
herded mistakenly between these yellow canyon walls
forgotten which way is west!
Where are they?
(Soon
they’ll be here soon
don’t force larval days to arrive)

It’ll be election day tomorrow,
my work zone will become a dehydrated mess that I will abandon
in favor of watching warships cruise by
contemplating the nature of the clammy quartz I sit upon
fondly remembering Glen and Mike and Fitz and Steve and Lucy.

Sunrise kindles my work zone
predictably pedestrian in its charm
Fingers and face stiff in April’s chill
Slurping java waiting
for the skimmers to skim by
while I watch the paint dry,
rerouting all forward momentum
towards the laundry room.

Ah look, a white butterfly!

Morning Things That Make Me (happy)

07 Saturday Apr 2018

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Remembering the moon in my window last night
My bedroom air is Goldilocks perfect
My plants are not dead
No blood on my sheets
A mourning dove or two sits on the shed
Rising to the sound of rain, but no–
it is wind, gustyalive
Water murky jade, large water churning
white caps advancing
A silent house
A perfect cup
A pen that does not write nonsense
(purple nonsense? illogic, pity, painful dysharmony,
prayers beside a sputtering black candle in a half-dark room
beloved specters berthed, tucked away safe and I am well)
A pen that did not stop
feet flat on the floor, knees bent with no desire to wander
from this slightly too narrow page — a morning miracle
The phone has not yet rung, there is still time
The gift of choosing which book to read today–
and which one to write

Another tally mark (gratitude) 

A Storm Day

12 Monday Feb 2018

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The morning is so dark as I write, but I look forward to the promise of rain. I finished the last page of a journal, one that took too many years to write and the wind and rain have come. A battleship passes. Foghorns are lowing. The winds are gusting at 30 driving rain from the North, Northeast. It is a writing day, a living day.  In the early morning hours gray but still the finches (sparrows?) were active, flitting, calling in words I cannot mimic. They were rejoicing in the rain, here are the worms and the grubs and they can feel the spring coming, I haven’t heard their ruckus in so long, how I missed them, missed windows open, hearing wind in the pines.   And now they are silent in the darkness of 11:41AM, wind gusting, a candle burning for someone who doesn’t know her way in the dark yet.

Empty beach chairs sit on the balcony holding court
Arms touching discreetly
Waiting for rain.
*******

My Pilot pen, made in Japan (Samurai?)
A full container of ice cream placed carefully in the garbage
Because I couldn’t unstick the lid (all the tricks were tried)
And my old-lady hands and fingers hurt all night and day from the trial
Well, at least I can still hold the pen.

The light is brighter now, I feel I need to get moving. Henry’s birthday is tomorrow. Light is calling. I know the temperatures will fluctuate and I will still need piles of blankets and layers of clothes before my skin can be exposed, no matter how glorious the air from the south feels. My little toes know frostbite, and seagulls have an agenda.

The Day Begins

15 Monday Jan 2018

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20180115_105535

When one is well-slept, watered, and fed with good food one can get organized. The home falls into place, the body falls into place, then the laundry calls and the writing gets moved to the side again. There have been more “again” days than productive writing days, and I suppose that’s how it was meant to be. Things are as they are at the moment, not forever. I made two substantial lists, neither one has a due date. They’re written in pretty green ink, the most pressing tasks of household and writing are highlighted in pink or blue. No exclamation points, no post-its, no self-defeating deadlines. Just lists of things that need attention, and the slow simmering surety that they will be attended, and attended well.

I began the morning caring for my plants, then caring for myself with a cuppa joe. The pink clock ticks loudly, sometimes too quickly, and I notice myself running to keep up with her, an act of self-defeat. Slow down, fool, that clock is 10 minutes ahead and you already know you’re working in good time.

Breathe. It all comes back now, everything that’s been out of sight, out of mind, that deserve better than being kept in cobwebs. Time to bring things back into the light, back into the sky where the cold air breathes. I will hold you, one by one, attend you, one by one, memories, writings, and you.

Writing through seasonal change

15 Friday Dec 2017

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If I were in New York on my drive in to work and on my way home I’d see lots of cars with christmas trees tied to the roof, headed for a warm house soon to be seated in a bowl of cool water the cat will surely drink from.  Folks will add evergreen nutrients and water their needley tree so its boughs will stay risen and green as they add tinsel, orbs of glass, or baby’s first ornament from sixteen years ago.

I haven’t seen many cars go by with trees on their roofs here in Virginia. Maybe that’s because they’re all on the interstate while my business usually keeps me on the “back roads,” or maybe it’s because folks lean towards artificial trees, who knows. Either way, there will be evening road trips where we pile into cars and head for neighborhoods where streetlights still look like gaslights decked in climbing pine needles, festive ribbons, homes adorned with candles and others filled with inflatable icons, christmas music blaring, preparations begun in September.

All I know is that I watched him take the fairy lights down. The backyard is his purview and he’s in charge or almost in charge of everything in it. There will be no christmas tree in his house this year because they are leaving, headed for the lands of three-foot-snow. The fairy lights will be gone. His yard will be empty. His puppy will dig holes far away and learn the joys of snowplowing headfirst at five in the morning.  All life is tucked into boxes marked this room and that room and his kayak will be stuffed last into the moving truck.  A new neighbor will come, and I doubt they will finish the mural his wife began on the property wall.  I will miss the tiny blue fairy lights that lined his fence, that gave me comfort all those nights I paced and watched the trees sway or thrash depending on the mood of the wind.

I think about the saying “still waters run deep” as I spritz my windows in preparation of sticking holiday clings to them.  That will be the extent of my decorating. No lights, no noise. Just a quiet acknowledgement that I still believe in peace and joy and love. Every card I sign carries hope and goodwill, and I wish it all for my neighbor as he moves into his winter wonderland.

Pacifice et nimis incommode morior

05 Tuesday Dec 2017

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Another day of life, another day I get to choose. Hold on, let me light some sage and pace the floor and forsake the waiting page because I’m not ready yet. Willing, able, but not ready to commit words to page, creating something from nothing.

Another day of life, another day I get to choose not to hate, to clench my jaw, to think and feel and say terrible things though you surely earned it.

Another day I get to give up. To throw in the towel. To say fuck it, nothing matters. (Insert leaping rainbow dolphin meme here.)  Another day to despair and ask, “Why do I give a shit? What’s the point? I’m wasting my time and energy. A woman’s voice does not matter and will never be heard.” Another day to wallow, to feel helpless, to watch things not go my way, to watch sufferings and wrongs that cannot be curtailed by the wave of my wand that means well, but has the exact power of a mythical unicorn. Another day to spend in tears because the child hurts, the women hurt, the world hurts, and can I point to anything at all I have done or have yet to do that will make real, lasting change?

Another day to to choose hedonism in favor of being in this world because wouldn’t I rather just live on Vanuatu and never give another flying fuck about this world ever again? My tick tock clock is countdown calling, and wouldn’t it just be better to surrender to the good life, a life of living moment to moment without sadness for the past or fear of the future, just hand to mouth and embrace that dirt nap when it comes in volcanic soil, without caring that I never had a soul to begin with? It’s just easier believing we are a parasite on a rock, hakuna matata, the end.

Another day to acknowledge the pain in my bones and my skin when I hear that no one believes the women, another day to acknowledge the betrayal of all I hold sacred if I turn my back on us. Another day of life to not give up on doing what’s right. To choose action, to speak out, to make a stand, to do what’s right, parasite or no.

Men and women are different. The guys have the upper body strength, but women have the gift of stamina. We keep going. You and I wouldn’t be here if we didn’t keep up with you all those colicky nights. No matter the shit or the threats, the bruises or the cum on our dresses, our fear to speak honestly because “No,” or “I will have,” “I deserve,” “I need” equals “No one will believe you,” women find ways to keep going.  And if I curl up and say fuck it and stay in my bed and wallow and wait for the soil then how could I ever deserve to requiescat in pace? I know that right now the few are running the world for the rest of us. Lying down and letting them steamroll us hurts our daughters and sons in ways that’s hard to see when we don’t know where dinner is coming from, but we must never give up. It’s hard to see a better future when we’re unbelieved today, but we just  have to keep going.

Another day of life to choose to keep going.