Sweet Baby Jesus, It's The Sort Of Annual Charity Poetry Contest Again

My mom sent me a check for the holidays, so I'm doing the charity poetry contest again. Here's how it works: You put a poem in the comments section. For every poem, I put $5 in the hat. When it's Dec. 25 or I run out of money, whichever comes first, the contest is over. I decide the best poem. The winning poet gets to decide what charity the money goes to.

Here's mine, and it just might win. So there.

Tantrum
Why didn't I get the shining snake?
Why didn't I get the sweet call, what's wrong?
I got the pencil stub, the vending machine crackers
Settling in my root chakra. My stomp
Sounds like why. Why. I didn't work
Enough, I didn't stand up, turn my back,
Raise my hand, just stop working.
Dance. The gun's always aimed at the dirt
At my feet, not at my feet, you know it,
I know it, why fight it, why ask?
I didn't spend enough time with cold hands
In cold spidery rooms, I spent too much time scratching,
I spent too much. I didn't buy the right presents.
I was breathing way, way, way wrong, you know,
Yes, no, I don't know where I went
Wrong. Nodding. It was that night
I drove home and in that overturned bowl of stars
The road dipped under, my hands reached up
And knocked at the sky, smacked, banged
At the sky, shouting, let me in, me, me, let me in!

Photo: Still from an animated student film from Newcastle University of The Little Match Girl, by Lulu Su and Yajing Cai. Isn't it like the most horrifying story? Especially when she just says fuck it and burns them all.

I Immediately Fell For The Wicked Queen

Watched "Snow White and the Huntsman" with DD the other night. Charlize Theron is great and Ian McShane is a dwarf! I got to wondering about the backstory on the mirror.

The Magic Mirror

The true treasure of our kingdom, they all called it,
My flawless honesty, and didn't they realize
I'd know their admiration was a lie? It was a birth gift
Doled out by a bitch of a godmother, double-edged--
It was the closest thing those women could do to fighting,
Of course, throw a curse in the guise of a blessing:
She will be untouchably beautiful, she will be above
All others all her life, he will understand the true meaning of riches,
That sort of thing. He will be ever-honest, that was mine.
Drove a few tutors mad and two wives away. Then the new queen
Came along, and clapped my spirit under glass. Gave me
The one gift I'd never had: He shall reflect on things
Before speaking. Her little joke. She spends most evenings
In her chambers, with me; I remember what it was like
Not to get invited out much. She'll never abandon me.
People pity me my enchantment, but I pity them
Their enslavement: I am the only one permitted
To tell her that she is not fair.

Uncertainty...

Overfull

This is not the time
For what we had once.
The vessel would crack
If we tried to fill it now,
Even with smoke.

They tell me I must let go
To let another in,
I must give something away
To receive, but you know how
Exclusion breaks my heart, no,
It's a heel trying to claim
The space that muscle of blood
Occupies, all winter long,
So stalwart, no matter the weather.

Here's a particle of hope: spin
Against the clock, and two
Can live as deeply as one. Prove that.
My thoughts attempt to coil
Around these principles,
But none my mind can master.
But no one's arms encircle me now,
At the crossroads; what I observe gives the lie
To all this. Yes, there are two
In the same space, in the same time.
But when I turn my back
They go in the same direction.
But I can't live like that.

Split

People keep comparing what's up now to the Civil War. I've been writing some stuff about the Civil War for a while now.

A Photograph of the Company

Quite altered--yes, yes, I see
You find me so, I know,
The needle and thread that draws the clothing in,
That pinches the skin. And hidden
In the folds, this image, imprinted--

The line of those once loved. Their hands raised,
As if to fling at me a sentence of exile,
Shock after shock, how many a body can bear,
I believe I know, but cannot tell – that last betrayal,
The gesture like a wind waved away my breath
And now I cannot gather myself. I am lost again.

Arms brown and pale, thick and kindling-thin,
Split rails propped and woven for a fence
That keeps them free of me. All kin,
Yes, they are kin, arms raised to keep me
From getting in. Brothers and sisters in arms.
Sky icehouse-gray, dawn or dusk,
Which is which. The treeline on the ridge.

Breaking The Fast Early

Poppy seed baked goods lend themselves to the whole contrast, spiral yin/yang thing, don't they?

Broadcast
When my finger rips the paper packet
Seeds burst out all over my hands, no matter,
You always say it's better
Scattershot. These hands, oh how I wish
These were not my hands, crabbed
And cracked, their grace a ghost.

All so tiny, so tiny, I wouldn't know where
They fall even if my eyes could make out
Where they fall. What kind of seed
Would demand a fall planting?
I'll buy the lie of freshening air,
Pretend this is a place fit to begin.

There, there, find a niche, little spill,
Frost, earth heave and crack--
They say you want to be broken like that.
It's hard to believe. In summer,
Skin-thin wrinkled petals, a fat
Sac of sap. If this works, next fall,
Your pain will be nothing and your vision
Brilliant and it will feel like it will never end.

Star Spanked Banana

I've been celebrating the anniversary of the War of 1812. When was it again?

The Foe's Haughty Host In Dread Silence Reposes

It's not that having illustrious ancestors
Turns you into a drunk. It just gives you that push.
Illustrious drunken ancestors, now that,
That'll do it. Lost, genius, dead young.

Our anthem is a song beloved of none
But delusional divas, clutching
Their way up the staff to touch free.
The tune, a gentlemen's club drinking song.
In its slumping waltz you can see
The robust arm of a tavern slut
Slinging a mug, swabbing a counter,
Milking somebody's trousers.
The words, a back-of-the-envelope scribble,
A bit and a piece from here and before,
The fruits of your inspiration
A painfully drawn out interrogation:
Can you see? Can you see?

Of course you'd never call it poetry,
But it made you feel like somebody,
Thinking that's where you came from.
A name like that, to you it's worth
Any number of beautiful, beautiful shirts.

Photo: Still from the version of Gatsby coming out this year.

Without Further Adieu

And another thing...

I was so pissed about health insurance that I had to come back and start this shit all over again.

Here's a poem about peas.

The Devil's Truck Garden
I pretend I'm idle to allow my hands
To play among the vines. By the time
You're off to the desert in August,
I'll be putting in the cold-weather
Greens. With the seasons askew,
Every damn plant is bolting and bitter
Too soon for my taste. I seem to be the only one
Who eats the peas. I'll pull them up.
Three people and a hill of beans:
An unbalanced equation. Two plane
Routes wrap the map without enough play
To meet neatly on the other side.
I'll plant seeds in the damp soil;
You, fire on the dusty rock.
You pretend I'm in Antarctica;
I'll pretend I'm not in hell.

Photo: Bogart rides his bike to work. Man up.

Dark

I'm too dumb to know how to do it, and I'm grateful to the smart people who make it so easy for any fool to publish, and no one is reading anyhow, but consider this dark.

The Beam And The Mote

This is not the way the card is meant to be interpreted. It is actually a very happy card. I am constantly accused of "seeing things the wrong way."

Four of Wands

Fukushima

It's so hard to catch my breath,
Coming over the ridge. Panting.
They say that's normal. The atmosphere.
My skin the soft, deceptive blush
Of the newly burned. Thirst eclipses all.
None of these sensations is unfamiliar.
Insert joke about finally using what
You've been trained for here.
That's what used to pass for dark humor.

Then on the bluff, towers, a colony.
The fires and floods must be behind them.
"Not waving but drowning"--?
Beckoning. From here, they look whole.
Approach the gates and you see
Robes, rags; hair, strings; eyes, blood-rimmed:
But smiles, welcoming.
They have been hungry for so long.

Down For The Count

When I lost my phone recently, it had a lot of my personal info in it, so I've been advised to abandon a lot of my online presences and emails. Hope to see you in a couple months in a safer place. Thanks for understanding!
MP

Tear The Roof Off The Sucker

I bet you never thought you'd see Spraycrete in a poem. Mwah-ha-ha.

Four Seasons Storms

We were warned to expect extreme conditions;
We decided to ignore that, and create our own.
Nature's forces executed a home invasion
In every space we tried to occupy.
One a sauna crackling with static--
It killed all connections, took out the tech.
We were racing to get to the plane to the desert
When the hurricane winds tore the roof off
Another haven, and the rains sluiced in,
For steamy weeks. Now there are mushrooms
Growing through the floor. We boarded
The life raft as the humidity rose and the chill
Spraycrete ceiling dripped stalactites. I know
It's your sweat or your spit only by its warmth.
I could stand back and admire for a while
The Pollock palimpsest the weather has made
Of the walls, or we could run for the open
Field, when the lightning strikes--Here.
They say to lie flat. I'll cover you.

Situational Awareness

The Recurring Nightmare

The forest is burning,
The street is heaving,
The plane is crashing,
The tide is rising,
Again. Very bad-cat-at-the-door,
The way it comes around, right?
Home to hack up a bit of
Undigested bone, from some poor
Creature he shouldn't have eaten.
Some petting and pills, and the house
Is quiet again. Oh, our dear fond
Fears, our familiar terrors, the threats
Any reasonable person would run from,
The typical villains on the lists,
The shades and shapes and eyes
We've been taught to watch out for--
Oh, we're ready for that.
We've been practicing our whole lives.
We put our faith in preparation.

And then, one night, on the horizon line
Snakes the long black neck and ragged
Feather form, black against the sky
That never really gets dark anymore.

Solace With Saturn

The Singing Acupuncturist keeps quoting a Browning poem to me about "love me for love's sake," part of the ongoing campaign to get me to think of myself as a spirit rather than as an object that needs to lose ten pounds and get a pedicure. Of course I'm still dwelling in the sense that it's all too late for that, that I've run out of time or spent too much time Doing It Wrong, and a salon blowout might be a better investment than any amount of cultivating inner beauty. Time, as always, will tell.

The Store of Breath

Can those who never knew love as children
Ever truly love others? They tell us no.
But they've always told us no. We've never listened.
I remember times strangers set to care for me
Would try to tempt me with food, and I'd refuse,
Thinking it a trick. I am ashamed now of my rudeness,
As I was then of my need. Could this have been
A pleasure for them, I wonder, like the cat that pushes
His head into your hand, yes, he is wild but soft,
And he believes he's the one who has surrendered,
But it is your hand that delights, you hold the secret
Of that moment of trust, it is a triumph and testament
To your patience, your even breathing, your ability
To keep a soft, appealing tone. You have gone back to dreaming;
It is where you do your work, and you growl
At creatures you chase there. I slow my breath;
And smoothing my skipping pulse, soothe yours.
No one has truly loved us but each other,
But within us we hold centuries of lives, the source.


Here's the Browning (Elizabeth):

If thou must love me, let it be for naught
Except for love's sake only. Do not say,
'I love her for her smile—her look—her way
Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day'—
For these things in themselves, Belovèd, may
Be changed, or change for thee—and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry:
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity.

And the Browning I like best, Robert:

All, that I know
Of a certain star
Is, it can throw
(Like the angled spar)
Now a dart of red,
Now a dart of blue;
Till my friends have said
They would fain see, too,
My star that dartles the red and the blue!
Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled:
They must solace themselves with the Saturn above it.
What matter to me if their star is a world?
Mine has opened its soul to me; therefore I love it.

Photo: NASA

Rememory

As always, My Special Camping Trip provides much inspiration. Hope some happy ones will follow--it was a good time, tho you'd never know it from these lugubrious lines.

Four Desires and Forgetting

That burning cross becomes a decoration to dance beside--
Dancing, my hair whips, free, a transgression,
Our naked feet on the grass, another kind of transgression,
WIth every step another rule is broken; every breath, stolen.
My desire is to dance. Not to know.

It's a hard job to find a mirror in this place,
One that isn't dark, clouded, or even flecked with piss.
My desire is to be in the place past caring.
Because it will always be denied me, it has become
My greatest desire. How by some physic, slant or blessed,
Has the sharpness of the word and symbol been blunted?
A toy weapon, then a pencil sketch of the weapon,
Then a crumple of paper to ignite a bit of tinder.

On the second day I tell you I will do anything you desire.
Forgetting your own desire to follow another's feels like freedom.
This finds me on the most holy day a little drunk
And following orders from a German. I am myself a German.
The third desire, I grasp at every day:
I want to have no part in them. I want to call another
The other, to draw a hard line in the sand.
We all know what happens to sand.

We have forgotten more atrocities than it is possible
For us to mourn. We could look at the grass beneath
Our bare feet and see symbols of each one, and
Numbers, too, see them, there in the crushed blades?

On the first day I was on my knees on the splintered
Rough wood floor of the uppermost room in the hidden temple.
In transgression I fulfill the fourth desire: To increase the store of bliss
Until it is numbered in the stars.

Who Am I?

Another drive-by record review from the Half-deaf Music Critic, on the road with her family during a trip out to see friends in the far suburbs.

DH (turning off car CD and plugging in phone): I want to listen to this new J Mascis.
DD: Will you play Who Am I?
DH: Yeah, OK. Are you a person, an animal, or a thing?
DD: Person.
Me: Which one was he, anyway? I get all those quirky facial hair guys mixed up.
DH: Who? Are you Michael Jackson?
Me: J Mascis.
DD: Not Michael Jackson.
DH: Dinosaur Jr. Major guitar guy. Hey, he just did a free show at the Kennedy Center. Why are you asking about him?
Me: You said this was his record.
DH: Are you a president?
DD: Yes.
Me: (grabbing DH's leg) Ha! Michael Jackson! Michael Jackson?
DH: This is Stephen Malkmus. And the Jicks.
Me: Ohhh. I thought you said J Mascis. That's the Pavement guy. He's still really cute. I like that button-down shirt thing.
DH: Are you an inventor? See, I'm not just asking are you this person, are you that one. I'm asking real questions.
DD: Yes. I am an inventor.
DH: He said as soon as you're past the lake, you have to make a sharp left. As soon as you see the lake, put your turn signal on. It's on the left. He said put your turn signal on as soon as you FEEL the lake.
Me: I can't hear anything anymore. I can't see. Screw it, I'm old. I'm putting on my turn signal RIGHT NOW. I'm gonna leave it on the whole way. You know, I haven't heard anything that's impressed me much. This sounds like one of Beck's acoustic albums. Remember that show we saw in Miami? That was really good, but it was mostly because of the element of surprise. And all those kids in the audience who wanted to sing along with cheeze whiz. Thwarted! This just sounds like old quirky hipster stuff. Beck's Modern Guilt sounds newer and more interesting than this. And that one was from, what, 2008? I still put that on lots of mixes. It was haunting.
DH: This isn't a Beck record. He just produced it. Are you Benjamin Franklin?
DD: Benjamin Franklin isn't a president! Just because you have your face on a twenty-dollar bill doesn't mean you're a president!
Me: Jesus, there was so much hype about this record. I'm reading about it everywhere. This one has at least got something interesting happening rhythmically to it. Maybe it's just too subtle for me. Hey, that trail looks good.
DH: That's a really good trail. You know what you need to do, you need to go over to Ben's place and get your rollerblades, then practice up in the parking lot for a while, and then you and DD can come out here and do this trail. She can ride her bike. She could get rollerblades.
DD: I want rollerblades too. Can I get rollerblades?
DH: You need to give mommy a little time on them first, then we'll see.
DD: Mommy needs more help than I do.
Me: I have to give it up to Pavement for saving my life in Miami though. Underused. You can say that again. Not feeling like that anymore. Except at work. Wait a minute, is Thom Yorke on this record too?
DH: That's the CD that was in there before. I just unplugged the phone.
Me: Oh.
DD: I feel the lake! I feel the lake!

On the return trip:
DH: Do you want to hear the new Neil Diamond?
Me: Ummm...OK. He just got a Kennedy Center Honor award.
DH: Dave Alvin?
Me: Neil Diamond.
DH: What?
Me: I thought you said Neil Diamond.

The new Dave Alvin is very swamp-stompy and has a great song on it about Johnny Ace. He's a poet. He doesn't really stretch out his voice much. Also, the new John Hiatt is a knockout. Overlooked songwriting from both--when someone picks up a song from either, they can really run with it. I would love to hear two woman musicians I know cover almost anything from either of them.

I Mean It!

This one's inspired by the GOP and corporate executives and all the rest of you out there who bravely bear up even though everything and everybody is against them at every turn and persecuting them, and they're really not feeling very well, either!

Turkey Vultures

Your cry attracts more scavengers
Than rescuers. The swing shifters
Shake their heads and sigh.
If you've got enough breath to complain,
You can wait for fresh heroes
To haul you up. We're off. We're done in.
They trudge off to have a drink and forget you.
It's easy. Laughter breezes in without you,
All the ones like you, left behind again.

Maybe there's one who stays and waits with you.
A matronly type. Secretly, you're disappointed.
You think you're entitled to someone more in your league.
A handsome one like you are,
And still not yet middle aged.
You smile yet at her kind hand-holding
Out of habit. It never hurts to get your hooks in.
You might need her someday.

She leans close to talk, to help you pass the time.
She tells you: "The vultures, you know,
They're so much more sensitive than we are.
We hear a stifled cry, a brave protest against aid,
And we rush to reward you with more
Admiration and affection. The tale of your courage
Makes you twinkle like a star.

"But the birds, all they see is your weakness.
They don't know from fake. You lie there
And they see: You're weak, you're ripe,
You're going down. Careful what you wish for,"
She chuckles, tucking in the blanket.

You'd smash her teeth to shut her up
In an outraged flash; but no, that was
You years ago; today, you know better.
You put on your best wounds.
The dignity of your protests is impeccable.
You are deeply sorry that she has misunderstood you.
Perhaps it is her plainness that has made her so mean.

She tells you:
"As soon as you asked for pity,
It was a signal to the skies: You'd gladly die
To get one desiring look. Here they come gliding.
You're so sweet to them. If you stood up now,
How disappointed they would be."

The Post closes its suburban bureaus to save on leasing and equipment costs. The reporters will pick up these costs individually, and they will not have a moment they are not working. The 21st-century news business is now just like the 19th-century one. Every man for himself, and glean your own straw.

Photo: Entrance to Abita Mystery House, Louisiana.

Civil War Surgery

Sorry to be such a lameass correspondent. I was traveling -- road trip through Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Va -- and then to the beach and then camping and then the hospital. Appendix is gone and I'm happy about it, I really am, and I hope it will be happy wherever it goes and I don't bear a grudge in the least. I just want us both to be happy now. But I didn't need the pain. It was too much. Sometimes you just have to let go, even if it is a bodily organ. Just tell yourself it's vestigial, and make that clean cut.

I have a bunch of stuff I'm writing about civil war sites in Mississippi and Tennessee. Very haunted.

If you're in Annapolis, I'm giving a reading Friday at 6:30. Details here. It's an open reading afterward--why not? It's an easy crowd, believe me. They're all hopped up on those oversize chocolate chip cookies.

Cosmic Hump Day

Cleaning Out the Attic

It's the cosmic hump day, the sun's spike,
The midpoint. Quarter and cross-quarter
Days slice the sky into a pie. I can't let this
Day pass without thinking of Daisy:
Do you always watch for the longest day
Of the year, and then miss it? We almost missed
The window for spring cleaning.
But it's not too late to get a fresh start.

We keep moving our shards and scraps
From one side of the divide to the other,
Kidding ourselves that we'll sort it out
Someday, but today there's light enough--
Let's take it all out and get a good look.
Sigh. For the rest, it's all berries and gingham,
While we work, our hands accruing
Dust and spores. Fans fruitlessly
Push waves of humidity around the room.
I kneel before you in this inherited kingdom
Of mosquitoes and mold. Old letters, ragged bits
Torn from old notebooks. Water-painted photos.
Full baskets, empty suitcases.
There might be something here.
Something we can use.
Even when the room goes dark, I stab
My finger at the square of light that remains.
Love's amateur archeologists, that's us.

But in that fragment of a moment
Comes release. Let's wash our hands.
All we need to to carry us
Until the longest night is all
We see in each other's eyes.
Let's go to bed now.

We long for a holiday, a walk in the sand,
But in the peace of escape, you find still
Tugging at your ankle, a string of seaweed
Charmed with rattling coquinas.
Pull it loose and let it go.

Bubble, Bubble, Barney Rubble

I've been telling people this for years. Demographics are not dollars. If newspapers, which used to provide something of value and still do occasionally, can't find a way to "monetize," how could social media possibly do it? LinkedIn is a ghost site making a cash grab. Groupon should have sold out when it had the chance. Now there are scads of imitators, and Groupon's only strategies are to divide into areas of concentration and/or go microlocal and/or buy up the others, all of which will cost more than they have, even with a vastly overvalued ipo. Or they could hang out and wait for the competition to myspace. That's "myspace" as a verb. I would have said "betamax," but you're too young to get that, I bet.

Actually, hidden in that linked story is an excellent look at why advertising too is dying. Only a few rich people have anything left to spend, and it doesn't take too many people or much imagination to pitch to them. Most of the advertising I get paid to write is pitching the federal government, who's a rich guy no matter what he says.

Sorry, sometimes I have the illusion I'm still in business. I'm fascinated by what the world values and doesn't, and how it assigns these values. Because nearly everything I value has no value to the world. Like right now, I should be writing for pay but Ima write a poem. And speaking of young folks.

Bikram at 50
Beware, young women, beware. I dare
To place my mat square in the front of the room.
Every pop of my knees and hips reports
Like a shot in the dead of night. I am your
Gray and sweaty wake-up call, girls.
I come from an abundant, careless time,
A time before we knew that none of it was good for us.
Weak weed, full bush, lead, white bread
In the balloon-festooned plastic bag.
Bowl after bowl of eight essential vitamins.
Sucked dry by Count Chocula in the heavy metal parking lot.
And look where it got me. A pretty young thing
Orders me: "Down, dog," and I obey.
I am the memento mori among your still life
Of flowers, ripe fruit, shimmering, freshly opened
Oysters. What a spread those old masters
Used to lay out, didn't they? They knew how to live.
But there, in the middle, they'd place
The grinning skull--skulls are forever
Grinning in bad writing, aren't they?
You smile at me and tell me:
"Keep it up. You're doing great."
I grin back at you.

"This One's From The Hip"

Usually I come back from my special camping trip with short, simple, amusing poems. And lots of em. This time, I get long, drama-laden, prosy stuff. And thank the gods there are not lots of em.

The Great Celebration
I.
When the world failed to end
On the day the preacher said it would,
The day went down in the books
As "The Great Disappointment."
Here's my proof, as if more were needed,
Of how much we humans fear being alive.
Better the devil we know, we say,
Than the angel we may never meet.
Living means not knowing
The appointed hour, and so much can happen
To hurt a soul in an hour.
How often, maddened in love, have I said:
I could die now.
Beneath that pure lotus of acceptance
Spreads a swampland where an
Alligator swims. I'll name him "Wish."
Take me home now, before the party dissolves
Into cigarette butts and muddy footprints.

II.
A year and three nights
Of drums and frogs and
Our sweat fusing our skin.
It's summertime, and the living is easier
When you don't always get what you want.
You can be certain of me now:
As certain as you were that you would die young,
As certain as you were that you would always be alone,
As certain as you were that the world would end.


For Those Who Won't Take Their Medicine
What I wouldn't give
To give that man a handful
Of something--god knows what
He could use. I'd find something.
I'd take what he gives me, and then--
The direct route. A bungee jump, they tell me,
Into the abyss and out again.
A lifetime of digging done
In a puff of smoke. Take this,
And you will push through
Fifty years of pain,
Just like that.

But the man with the medicine
Won't look my way. And that's okay.
Because it's my way, the hard way.
At the end of the day, my legs trembling,
I sit at the table and struggle to scoop
A small mound of rice with my broken hands.
Damage strengthens muscles.
I train my hands so they will be strong enough
To dig myself out of my grave.

The world conspires against
My ease. I won't be allowed
Pillows and stroking and tea and friends.
These are things others are offered freely
But I can't even bargain for.
The arm, extended in welcome or comfort,
Will not find my shoulder.
If I crumble, not one of you
Will pick up a single piece.
I've always known this in my bones.
My only medicine is the breath of the trees,
Harvested by my own hours spent running, running.
Each journey I make alone.
Each day, I will have to sweat,
And plant seeds, and wait for them
To sprout. Many of them die.