The Things They Ask Her To Do
Thursday Noon wants to be wrapped in cellophane,
pink or blue, but not clear to any other color;
beats a little strange here.
She wraps him tightly before leaving the room
to watch The Bold and the Beautiful, wondering
who Brooke is married to this week.
Just Passing Through asked to live in a cage
in her basement for the three hottest weeks of summer,
but she rejected putting his life in danger.
He cried like a slave almost always does, but
this time she hadn't even done anything to him.
Honestly Not A Lesbian likes for her to dress up
in a kitty outfit, furry ears on her head, face
invisible beneath the glued whiskers and blue paint.
Every Other Friday has a penchant for ants:
she puts something, anything sticky and sweet
between his legs and lets them crawl to his pleasure
until their hour is up.
She rings her bell like she imagines a pyschiatrist might;
Dr. Austin, she'd call him, just like that failing city
that she couldn't help but miss. Is she the opposite
of a psychiatrist, she wonders, as she places a heeled foot
gently on the floor between Down Low's fingers.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Junkyard Quotes 1-6, Week 11
"convent threshold" - written on the board in one of my classes
"Are Gabriel's feet on fire?" - the class discussing Dante Rosetti's Annunciation
"I don't need to close the door to say 'fuck.'" - overheard in the hallway
"Sweet-Tooth Laura" - also written on the board in class, wondered if this could be used in conjunction with a poem like the one we workshopped for Ashley on prostitutes just because that's what it instantly made me think of.
"WARNING! Female sexuality" - written on the board in Studies in Women's Lit
"For 15 years I had a house. I had the house, but really it had me." - Kathy Fagan at her reading
"Are Gabriel's feet on fire?" - the class discussing Dante Rosetti's Annunciation
"I don't need to close the door to say 'fuck.'" - overheard in the hallway
"Sweet-Tooth Laura" - also written on the board in class, wondered if this could be used in conjunction with a poem like the one we workshopped for Ashley on prostitutes just because that's what it instantly made me think of.
"WARNING! Female sexuality" - written on the board in Studies in Women's Lit
"For 15 years I had a house. I had the house, but really it had me." - Kathy Fagan at her reading
Friday, March 12, 2010
Free Entry 1, Week 10
I never mastered the art of holding an umbrella:
tilting it back, against the right shoulder
is fashionable but impractical in the case
of actual rain. Leaning it forward, brim
lower than brow, inhibits forward vision,
not to mention waxes rude to those who
I might pass, avoiding the grassy mud.
Holding it upright seems most practical,
though that offers its own difficulties
and perversions to our uniquely human hands:
to hold it on the left side, or the right?
To push it high above the scalp or pull down
in a grandmother's good-girl pat?
To lean the handle against the mple,
or push it out in any of the three dimensions
but still close enough to keep you dry.
Not bone dry because bones aren't dry,
at least not until they're bare, without
the gigantic organ holding them in
their rightful places to force us to walk
in the rain with our umbrellas.
My lover once told me that we're all just
mobile skeletons with brains, which
I told him was gross. When he had his
eye surgery, he begged to show me that
video of the laster penetrating his cornea
while he laid, unmoving, beneath the gaze
of the light shaped like an umbrella.
tilting it back, against the right shoulder
is fashionable but impractical in the case
of actual rain. Leaning it forward, brim
lower than brow, inhibits forward vision,
not to mention waxes rude to those who
I might pass, avoiding the grassy mud.
Holding it upright seems most practical,
though that offers its own difficulties
and perversions to our uniquely human hands:
to hold it on the left side, or the right?
To push it high above the scalp or pull down
in a grandmother's good-girl pat?
To lean the handle against the mple,
or push it out in any of the three dimensions
but still close enough to keep you dry.
Not bone dry because bones aren't dry,
at least not until they're bare, without
the gigantic organ holding them in
their rightful places to force us to walk
in the rain with our umbrellas.
My lover once told me that we're all just
mobile skeletons with brains, which
I told him was gross. When he had his
eye surgery, he begged to show me that
video of the laster penetrating his cornea
while he laid, unmoving, beneath the gaze
of the light shaped like an umbrella.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Improv/Imitation 2, Week 9
"The tongue of a blue whale weighs
as much as an elephant,"
but nothing weighs as much as a blue
whale that has swallowed ten ships,
including that rusted plank that became
of Odysseus's ship and men, trying like
a child rushing through hard water
to return to Ithaca.
What if no one was waiting when he got
back to that island of which he was once
king, no one in all of the palace or town
below it to greet him with a hero's
welcome, especially not the son he
abandoned, whose own sailings took
him to the city of Sparta, where the 300--
or was it 30,000--tried yet again to defeat
their common enemy. No enemy is common.
They all take what is not theirs and streak
the sky with wedded bands of smoke and fire
that pound onto the ground with the force
of the elephants that Hannibal rode into
his greatest battles, winning with their
might. But he may not have won if the
enemy, the uncommon enemy, had ridden
on blue whales, whose tongues weigh
as much as an elephant.
as much as an elephant,"
but nothing weighs as much as a blue
whale that has swallowed ten ships,
including that rusted plank that became
of Odysseus's ship and men, trying like
a child rushing through hard water
to return to Ithaca.
What if no one was waiting when he got
back to that island of which he was once
king, no one in all of the palace or town
below it to greet him with a hero's
welcome, especially not the son he
abandoned, whose own sailings took
him to the city of Sparta, where the 300--
or was it 30,000--tried yet again to defeat
their common enemy. No enemy is common.
They all take what is not theirs and streak
the sky with wedded bands of smoke and fire
that pound onto the ground with the force
of the elephants that Hannibal rode into
his greatest battles, winning with their
might. But he may not have won if the
enemy, the uncommon enemy, had ridden
on blue whales, whose tongues weigh
as much as an elephant.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Improv/Imitation 1, Week 9
"It is late on the evening of September 25, 2006,"
and tambourines beat less loudly against my skull then,
making real music to dance to rather than pounding like
my mother's heavy footsteps above my basement room.
Can you hear me now, or was that Are You There, God;
It's me, Margaret, a novel I once taught to our
Christian Fellowship Club when it was my turn to preach,
a feat not unlike a woman wearing pants or unfastening
her hair to dare speak all the details of rebellion
that Margaret Atwood taught us in our formative years:
those of early college, when, as child-adults, we hung
against the dripping words of writers like our own
Bible, one without scripture but shouting sarcasm in
the fisted hands of Margaret Atwood herself.
Is Margaret Atwood the same who wrote to God all those
years ago, those years before impressionism overtook my
mind and turned me against men like Offred's mother,
when my eyes so easily turned to the Man for his answer
to every question that anyone could have asked aloud?
Imagine how different such a book would read now:
Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret Atwood
and tambourines beat less loudly against my skull then,
making real music to dance to rather than pounding like
my mother's heavy footsteps above my basement room.
Can you hear me now, or was that Are You There, God;
It's me, Margaret, a novel I once taught to our
Christian Fellowship Club when it was my turn to preach,
a feat not unlike a woman wearing pants or unfastening
her hair to dare speak all the details of rebellion
that Margaret Atwood taught us in our formative years:
those of early college, when, as child-adults, we hung
against the dripping words of writers like our own
Bible, one without scripture but shouting sarcasm in
the fisted hands of Margaret Atwood herself.
Is Margaret Atwood the same who wrote to God all those
years ago, those years before impressionism overtook my
mind and turned me against men like Offred's mother,
when my eyes so easily turned to the Man for his answer
to every question that anyone could have asked aloud?
Imagine how different such a book would read now:
Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret Atwood
Free Entry 2, Week 9
This is an exercise in found poetry, which I always enjoy. These are status updates from Facebook that I thought I might be able to tie together someday!
It's easy when you listen to the g'd up sound,
and I'm marinating in the sweet, sweet southern moon:
Mexico for the week.
Your face smells pretty good this morning; I have
eighth notes in me. Unfortunately, all of my keys
now rest at the bottom of Lake Harding.
No espresso today--dreamt the cops were after us
for a pool violation. Tomorrow comes today, so
join the war!
We managed to get kicked off of the college campus
twice and even receive a permanent ban, but don't
hit the slammer too hard!
Am I flaky, honestly? "She's the lady in red when
everybody else is wearing tan" is catchy.
You continue to wow me with your lack of ego
and excess of talent; I got what I wanted
and now I go to bed, contemplating the mysteries
of the universe and the dynamics of grilled cheese.
I can't wait to go scavenging through antiques.
It's easy when you listen to the g'd up sound,
and I'm marinating in the sweet, sweet southern moon:
Mexico for the week.
Your face smells pretty good this morning; I have
eighth notes in me. Unfortunately, all of my keys
now rest at the bottom of Lake Harding.
No espresso today--dreamt the cops were after us
for a pool violation. Tomorrow comes today, so
join the war!
We managed to get kicked off of the college campus
twice and even receive a permanent ban, but don't
hit the slammer too hard!
Am I flaky, honestly? "She's the lady in red when
everybody else is wearing tan" is catchy.
You continue to wow me with your lack of ego
and excess of talent; I got what I wanted
and now I go to bed, contemplating the mysteries
of the universe and the dynamics of grilled cheese.
I can't wait to go scavenging through antiques.
Free Entry 1, Week 9
He sang Ohhhhh-ohhhh, De-e-eath while she
went down in the river to pray, without an inclination
as to whom the crown might belong once they reached
the end of that long, winded highway that neither really
cared to travel: one a treasure trove of marketable madness
sent to his speaker like a hawk to a flame with banjos bopping
in the background to his once playful now solemn tune,
the other a baby dressed in white but sullen beneath
with browns and reds of demons that danced around her,
all the while she singing how she'll fly away, oh glory.
Shouldn't it be the other way around? Shouldn't the sinner
praise God while he lives in glory down here on earth?
and what makes the righteous so assured of their righteousness
other than a spinning spine beneath the skin that whistles
"You're right, you're right"? All others are gone
in the cotton and the corn, as they say.
went down in the river to pray, without an inclination
as to whom the crown might belong once they reached
the end of that long, winded highway that neither really
cared to travel: one a treasure trove of marketable madness
sent to his speaker like a hawk to a flame with banjos bopping
in the background to his once playful now solemn tune,
the other a baby dressed in white but sullen beneath
with browns and reds of demons that danced around her,
all the while she singing how she'll fly away, oh glory.
Shouldn't it be the other way around? Shouldn't the sinner
praise God while he lives in glory down here on earth?
and what makes the righteous so assured of their righteousness
other than a spinning spine beneath the skin that whistles
"You're right, you're right"? All others are gone
in the cotton and the corn, as they say.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Junkyard Quote 5, Week 9
"Kurt is falling apart from the inside out." - said last night when Mike noticed how tattered my purse of Kurt Cobain is getting. If I use this, I would like to use it perhaps not with him (because that would be some serious baggage to pack into a poem) but maybe with a made-up character and use it literally rather than figuratively.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Junkyard Quotes 1-4, Week 9
"Talking pigs at the slaughterhouse." - Dr. Hipchen in reference to the fast-talking debaters.
"ketchuping eggs" - said last night in class, and I think I have to use it somewhere because it grossed me out so much.
"It is what it is because it is what it is." - Sandra Bullock in 28 Days explaining what a tautology is.
"We're going to remember this night." - Dr. Davidson last night, though I want to use it in reference to the marching sorority girls in the hallway, not necessarily just by itself.
"ketchuping eggs" - said last night in class, and I think I have to use it somewhere because it grossed me out so much.
"It is what it is because it is what it is." - Sandra Bullock in 28 Days explaining what a tautology is.
"We're going to remember this night." - Dr. Davidson last night, though I want to use it in reference to the marching sorority girls in the hallway, not necessarily just by itself.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Strategy Response, Week 8
In Natasha Trethewey's poem "Miscegenation," she not only reflects the mixing of races that is prominent in her book Native Guard but also mixes several different subjects into one poem, exemplifying the title itself and very skillfully tying several seemingly unrelated subjects together. Throughout the short fourteen-line poem, Trethewey mentions race relations, state laws, several states and countries, religion, language, and holidays. This poem is a perfect example of Hugo's concept of getting off subject, as it has a feel that seems almost like stream-of-consciousness in that she relates all of these subjects to one another by simply writing and letting the words take her where they will, and they eventually take her through all of those subjects and back to where she began. It is interesting that she makes it look effortless to write such an easy stream-of-consciousness that flows from one seemingly-unrelated idea to the next and is a technique that I know that I and many of my classmates strive for.
Improv/Imitation 2, Week 8
"Before the war, they were happy," he said while looking
up the word for happy in the dictionary that he always kept
on the bedside table. "The jazz war, that is." Clarification
was necessary, so that we as the munchkins of his Oz wouldn't
confuse the fake war with the real one. That war we saw on TV,
he would tell us, wasn't real, just a big play being put on
by the government who would try to keep us down. No, the real
war was fought on the streets of New Orleans when he was a boy,
just older than we were as he told us this story.
Trumpets and drums would litter the streets like the fliers
that shouted COME TO JAZZ-FEST 1924! SIDNEY BECHET ONE NIGHT ONLY!
But men in their long white coats, carrying their Bibles called
it music meant to summon Satan from Hell to take the city down
for his demons to play with, and so the war began.
"Wasn't no blood," he reminded us. "Just ink, and lotsa' it,
thrown on sheet music by the master hisself against the faces
a' the unforgiving church."
We sat on our knees and listened, holding our hands up to our ears
in an attempt to imitate his hearing device, and because I so closely
watched his lips as they made the motions for playing a saxophone,
I never did find out how that war ended.
up the word for happy in the dictionary that he always kept
on the bedside table. "The jazz war, that is." Clarification
was necessary, so that we as the munchkins of his Oz wouldn't
confuse the fake war with the real one. That war we saw on TV,
he would tell us, wasn't real, just a big play being put on
by the government who would try to keep us down. No, the real
war was fought on the streets of New Orleans when he was a boy,
just older than we were as he told us this story.
Trumpets and drums would litter the streets like the fliers
that shouted COME TO JAZZ-FEST 1924! SIDNEY BECHET ONE NIGHT ONLY!
But men in their long white coats, carrying their Bibles called
it music meant to summon Satan from Hell to take the city down
for his demons to play with, and so the war began.
"Wasn't no blood," he reminded us. "Just ink, and lotsa' it,
thrown on sheet music by the master hisself against the faces
a' the unforgiving church."
We sat on our knees and listened, holding our hands up to our ears
in an attempt to imitate his hearing device, and because I so closely
watched his lips as they made the motions for playing a saxophone,
I never did find out how that war ended.
Improv/Imitation 1, Week 8
"I was asleep while you were dying"
and dreamed that we took a vacation to Hawaii,
lying supine on the grainy beach while eternally-
tanned surfers glided in to greet us with leis
and "He Mele No Haole," even though we looked
much darker than they did.
I wasn't sitting on ice in the fridge anymore,
holding the compress against your side while
the inconstant heat sputtered and coughed
as though dying right along with you.
When I heard the siren, I imagined it was a chief
or priestess calling us to the festival with a shell
in hand and children just like the ones we always
meant to have, but never really did.
While you died, I slept, and picked us up to place
us in the place we should have been all along.
and dreamed that we took a vacation to Hawaii,
lying supine on the grainy beach while eternally-
tanned surfers glided in to greet us with leis
and "He Mele No Haole," even though we looked
much darker than they did.
I wasn't sitting on ice in the fridge anymore,
holding the compress against your side while
the inconstant heat sputtered and coughed
as though dying right along with you.
When I heard the siren, I imagined it was a chief
or priestess calling us to the festival with a shell
in hand and children just like the ones we always
meant to have, but never really did.
While you died, I slept, and picked us up to place
us in the place we should have been all along.
Free Entry 2, Week 8
I know that Psych comes on at 10:00
and that Caprica premiered on a Wednesday,
but mark their words, they'll never show
another CSI again. We'll believe that
when we see it.
Belk's had a 2-day sale just after Christmas,
but Toys-R-Us's "Big Blowout Sale" lasted all
week; children need more time to shop than
adults, or so the constant commericals
tell us.
Some new video game hit the shelves just in time
for the New Year, but Best Buy could not live up
to their advertisements for the best buys for your
significant other: they didn't have Harry Potter
and the Half-Blood Prince before Christmas.
We're supposed to watch the shows and mark their
DLSV, guarding the public against what they should
never have to know or see. But all we remember
from our hours of watching sitcoms and dramas
is who had a sale and what time it came on.
and that Caprica premiered on a Wednesday,
but mark their words, they'll never show
another CSI again. We'll believe that
when we see it.
Belk's had a 2-day sale just after Christmas,
but Toys-R-Us's "Big Blowout Sale" lasted all
week; children need more time to shop than
adults, or so the constant commericals
tell us.
Some new video game hit the shelves just in time
for the New Year, but Best Buy could not live up
to their advertisements for the best buys for your
significant other: they didn't have Harry Potter
and the Half-Blood Prince before Christmas.
We're supposed to watch the shows and mark their
DLSV, guarding the public against what they should
never have to know or see. But all we remember
from our hours of watching sitcoms and dramas
is who had a sale and what time it came on.
Free Entry 1, Week 8
A knife punched the side of his stomach where normally
only pushpins do their work against the softer lining
of a used-to-be-strong digestive system. Nothing too unusual,
not exceptionally out of the ordinary for a man on disability
with only a wife at home to press her cold hands against
the quiet, softening pain: like tenderizing meat, his stomach.
The sun went down to white covering everything outside his
window, frosted like his favorite cereal, which in this case
was not so "Grrrrrreat." No food or shelter in such cold;
perhaps his own case would turn cold like his favorite TV show
and his name would appear among the cast, their hands on
their hearts as they salute the man he used to be, but can't
be anymore, due only in part to that knife that won't leave.
My husband is dying! he hears her shout to no one; the line
of the phone was cut centuries ago, just like the broken heat.
Baby, she whispers, hoping he'll open his eyes. The amb-a-lance
is outside, but we gotta walk to it. You gotta get up now.
He shakes his head, swatting the vultures already flying above him
and praying that they'll wait to start feasting on
his already twisted, knotted flesh that lays against bone.
He watched light turn ribbons over the snow, like he saw his daughter
do that one time when she was five, dancing in the front yard with her
purple ribbon-dance-kit, smiling as she flipped it into shapes
that she thought would catch the eye of a potential suitor, a mating
dance. He blew the ribbon southward and leaned his head back, gripping
the knife still sitting in his side and tearing it from its perch.
They killed my husband, was the last thing he heard.
only pushpins do their work against the softer lining
of a used-to-be-strong digestive system. Nothing too unusual,
not exceptionally out of the ordinary for a man on disability
with only a wife at home to press her cold hands against
the quiet, softening pain: like tenderizing meat, his stomach.
The sun went down to white covering everything outside his
window, frosted like his favorite cereal, which in this case
was not so "Grrrrrreat." No food or shelter in such cold;
perhaps his own case would turn cold like his favorite TV show
and his name would appear among the cast, their hands on
their hearts as they salute the man he used to be, but can't
be anymore, due only in part to that knife that won't leave.
My husband is dying! he hears her shout to no one; the line
of the phone was cut centuries ago, just like the broken heat.
Baby, she whispers, hoping he'll open his eyes. The amb-a-lance
is outside, but we gotta walk to it. You gotta get up now.
He shakes his head, swatting the vultures already flying above him
and praying that they'll wait to start feasting on
his already twisted, knotted flesh that lays against bone.
He watched light turn ribbons over the snow, like he saw his daughter
do that one time when she was five, dancing in the front yard with her
purple ribbon-dance-kit, smiling as she flipped it into shapes
that she thought would catch the eye of a potential suitor, a mating
dance. He blew the ribbon southward and leaned his head back, gripping
the knife still sitting in his side and tearing it from its perch.
They killed my husband, was the last thing he heard.
Junkyard Quotes 1-5, Week 8
"The thought of drinking anything white disgusts me." - Mike when asked why he doesn't like milk.
"Walking into the debate tournament is like walking into Dante's inferno." - Dr. Hipchen before the Write-A-Thon last weekend.
"I know that Psych comes on at 10:00, and that Caprica premiered on a Wednesday." - Susan, another intern in my department, talking about what she remembers from commericals that she screens.
"I can't be associated with anything that could potentially be a disaster." - guest speaker at intern seminar.
"1-Minute Weight Loss Tricks!" - the title of a Yahoo!News article that I saw on their front page. (A little too difficult to believe)
"Walking into the debate tournament is like walking into Dante's inferno." - Dr. Hipchen before the Write-A-Thon last weekend.
"I know that Psych comes on at 10:00, and that Caprica premiered on a Wednesday." - Susan, another intern in my department, talking about what she remembers from commericals that she screens.
"I can't be associated with anything that could potentially be a disaster." - guest speaker at intern seminar.
"1-Minute Weight Loss Tricks!" - the title of a Yahoo!News article that I saw on their front page. (A little too difficult to believe)
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