That’s where they went

Five of her teeth slipped between her neighbor's breasts.

A Hope for the New Year

I want to scrape my driveway clean myself, early, before anyone's awake.

comments on "On the Edge" version 6

Hey, if you couldn’t force yourself all the way through version 5, version 6 is shorter!

I’ve noticed an odd thing. When I get, in this versioning business, to a place where the poem is working. It’s pleasing me. It becomes invisible. That was happening earlier today with this one. It was disappearing before my eyes.

Changes: fewer great words in the cliff address (great word fatigue); grammar adjustments in gull address; boy address consolidated; last line of seersucker address once again touched up; goodbye to wind address; stanza breaks added throughout.

Now that I’m rereading it: Is that ending ending it? Are those questions strong enough? Should I try a version without questions?

Do the addresses work together? Do those great words in the cliff address read like an undigested lump of research? Are those stanzas appropriate in the seersucker address?

“On the Edge” version 6

Four Addresses


To the seersucker

Bespoke, custom-cut, hand-stitched,
even so some threads bunch, it’s the weave
gives you that pucker, which feature
lets in what stirs in high heat a summer.

Blue-and-white pinstripe number,
to normal wool cool alternate,
but what to wear with you? It’s a light
buckskin lace-up with sole of red rubber,

paisley blue tie, a pink button-down,
white pocket square and hat of brave straw
that won’t overdo. Though suspenders? A no.
Where today to take you? Coast?


To the cliff

The face you offer, varying grades
of slope, the drop in places just air
all the way to black sand and graywacke,
seething white wave-shatter,
foam yellowing on softened lost telephone poles -

when Pacific gales wash it and the softer
sands and gravels fade to stubble
of orange peridotite and the shale sheared
with serpentine, crystals of grass green
omphacite pyroxene amid a pox of garnets,
flaky muscovite silver, blueschist
with its amphibole slickenside grooved –

what’s the look of it? steady even then?
indifferent? a compassion for all things jetsam?
before the reaches of ocean, the daily drop of sun into it,
is that passivity? a grand passivity?
preoccupation with the self?


To the boy

You’re no boy. You’ve so cleanly shaved the dark
from your pink face, tamed those curls with a trim.
You’ve dressed yourself, picked from the closet
a handsome kit, fastened to your wrist a slender ticker.

Down from the road, along a narrow path
cutting through a shallow turf, you took your shoe.
Aren’t you debonair, the air rare
at the cliff’s lip, one lone gull taking a share?

Now you’ve looked up, all the sky white
as the seagull’s breast, as the dash the surf makes
against a stonestack poised in surge. Unfold your arms,
sleeves aflutter. Spread them. Spread them wide.


To the gull

The yellow bill with the red beauty spot
opens to a sharp tongue and a jeer,
not to make fun, but to have that said.

Out to the black tip of each wing with gray feathers,
the yellow green webbing between toes folding
then spreading, you hold air.

This is no demonstration, is it?
You didn’t take this position to advise:
this the way to take the air, the only way, really,
to take to it?

comments on "On the Edge" version 5

It’s long, isn’t it? You could think of it as a few short poems. I had a lot of fun working on this Wednesday. I tried to save substantively different versions. Still, I did a lot fiddling. Change a word, a line break, change something else. I decided not to reread it before posting it today. When I reread it I expect I’ll make more changes.

So now it has sections addressing the boy (the man!), the seagull, the wind, the cliff, and … I guess that’s it. You! … oh, yeah … The seersucker! How’d I forget the seersucker?

"On the Edge" version 5

To the boy

You’re no boy. You’ve so cleanly shaved the dark
from your pink face, tamed those curls with a trim.
You’ve dressed yourself, picked from the closet
a handsome kit, fastened to your wrist a slender ticker.

To the seersucker

Bespoke, custom-cut, hand-stitched,
even so some threads bunch, it’s the weave
gives you that pucker, which feature
lets in what stirs in high heat a summer.
Blue-and-white pinstripe number,
to normal wool cool alternate,
but what to wear with you? It’s a light
buckskin lace-up with sole of red rubber,
paisley blue tie, a pink button-down,
white pocket square and hat of brave straw
that won’t overdo. Though suspenders? A no.
Where to take you today? Coast?

To the boy

Down from the road, along a narrow path
cutting through a shallow turf, you took your shoe.
Aren’t you debonair, the air rare
at the cliff’s lip, one lone gull taking a share?

To the cliff

The face you offer, varying grades
of slope, the drop in places just air
all the way to black sand and graywacke,
seething white wave-shatter,
foam yellowing on softened lost
telephone poles, the odd striped polystyrene chunk --
when Pacific gales wash it and the softer
sands and gravels fade to stubble
of orange peridotite and the shale sheared
with serpentine, crystals of grass green
omphacite pyroxene amid a pox of garnets,
flaky muscovite silver, blueschist
with its amphibole, glaucophane, lawsonite,
slickenside grooved, nappes of chert
pressured red – what’s the look of it,
even then steady? indifferent? compassion
for all things jetsam? before the reaches of ocean,
the daily drop of the sun into it, is that passivity?
a grand passivity? preoccupation with the self?

To the boy

Now you’ve looked up, all the sky white
as the seagull’s breast, as the dash the surf makes
against a stonestack poised in surge. Unfold your arms,
sleeves aflutter. Let them spread out wide.

To the gull

Of no great size you hover, the wind good
for holding you up, brown-eyes.
Your black-ringed yellow bill with the red beauty spot
opens to a sharp tongue and a jeer,
not to make fun, but to have that said.
Out to the black tip of each wing gray feathers
adjusting to the air rushing them, the green yellow
webbing between your toes spreading then folding.
This is no suggestion, is it? Not advice?
You’re not demonstrating the perfect example,
the only way to take the air, to take to it?

To the wind

You could carry him. You’d have to do the work.
But you have the power. You can sweep the kid off his feet.
Lift him up. Fill him with the distance you’ve traveled,
wave by wave across the wide ocean, empty into him
what you’ve picked up getting here, show him how you’ve come.

Sutra

photo by klm

comments on “On the Edge” version 4

Versions 2 & 3 addressed a seersucker suit. Version 4 addresses the cliff. As with version 3 I built the poem from a hunk of research. Most of it is from Terry Wright’s geologic tour of Shell Beach, a beach on the Sonoma Coast. I grew up in Sonoma County. Shell Beach was not one where I’d spent much time – mostly we drove out to Salmon Creek Beach which has a lot of soft sand. When I took a geology class at junior college our instructor told us Shell Beach is world famous for its melange, a mix of rocks transformed by the pressure of subduction, the Pacific plate grinding under the Continental Plate in a series of fault zones. The metamorphized rocks pop up at Shell Beach. It was fun stirring in words like chert, eclogite, radiolarian, and slickenside. I’m still hoping to find room for nappe and amphibolite.

I’ve long wanted to incorporate research into a poem and internet research is proving remarkably congenial to the effort. It’s sure nice being able to highlight and copy to a file all the interesting bits; once grabbed they are easy to manipulate. I suppose one ought to be cautious about plagiarism here, the accidental (?) reuse of the original’s phrasing. I want to retain some of the flavor of the original as that material is a good deal different from what I do and holding onto some of that difference seems like a good thing.

"On the Edge" version 4

Crags of rock tear holes in the blanket of turf
which tucks over your melange – shiny serpentine
sheared with shale, borne up from old sandbars
pressed to terraces, a flight of stairs,
each year gaining a millimeter on the sea.

Pacific gales shave your face of coarse
sands and gravels, and a stubble
of conglomerates emerges – cherts
from radiolarian blooms reddened by pressure,
veins of white quartz, grass green crystals
of omphacite pyroxene pocked by garnets
and flaky muscovite silver, eclogite and
bluescist with its amphibole, glaucophane,
lawsonite, squeezed into flow, slickenside
grooves from what drove them down.

The drop you offer, the one the youth has walked
a mile along, a black beach below seething with white wave-shatter,
a hardy yellowed foam drying on softened
lost telephone poles and the occasional
dingy polystyrene chunk, how sheer is it,
what speed does a rock knocked loose
get to get to in full tumble? There are places
you offer slope of various grades;
there are places you offer air
all the way down.

A Pleistocene sea stack washed by the waters
of what gives you heft hulks skinnily in
the churning. The wind yanks his tie
from its clip, and it swings out from his neck,
a tail feather lonesome for tail and sky.
You give him ground, here at ocean edge,
all he needs to stand and feel, his clothes
aflutter on him.

bespoke

I got rejected. That hasn’t happened in awhile. Years. The reason? I haven’t been sending work out. I have sent work out very occasionally. Very selectively. And have seen poems taken up.

Yesterday’s rejection from Global City Review was no big surprise. I didn’t think my aesthetic and theirs fit up well. But I had bought the latest issue and I was pushing myself to get work out somewhere, if not just anywhere. I was following the advice to send to a magazine you’ve studied. The poems I sent seemed somewhat Global-City-ish. Besides, it’s always seemed silly to me to hold back sending good stuff because the magazine hasn’t (to one’s own knowledge) published exactly that sort of thing before. Maybe it’s cuz they’ve not seen it? Does one only ever eat hot dogs because one has never tasted kielbasa? Or because one just doesn’t like anything else? You can’t know for sure. It’s not like I offered up an uncooked eggplant.

When sending work to a new place I wanted to send a poem written especially for them. I’ve done that three times now. The first time the magazine chose one of the poems in the packet but not the one I wrote to their announced theme. The one I wrote for Global City was versioned on LuvSet. It turned out the least Global-City-ish of the batch. Not that, in their case, they went for one else. The last of the three magazines has not yet responded.

I imagined my vow would result in more poems going out. It has, I suppose. But drip-drip turning into a trickle?

comments on "On the Edge" version 3

I tend to read a poem aloud repeatedly during revision. Have to adjust the sounds, sound often pushing around meaning, though must take care with that.

The poem is addressed to the seersucker itself, rather than the wearer. I’ve long thought the second person (the you) problematic as when I read a passage written in the second person I resist it. What, it’s telling me what I did/am doing/would do?

You lift your face to the sun, its warmth soothing you. … Or maybe making you squint? The worrying type has already put on sunscreen. … The I speaks for itself. The he is spoken of. But the you is a form of address, a command form. Not to say I haven’t used second person many times; I am wary of it.

In the original “On the Edge” the person addressed is described in such detail that the reader is unlikely to mistake the you for himself. Is changing the addressed from a person to a suit of clothes a touch too whimsical? Does it sap the drama?

As I said in my last comments I reread “On the Edge” and don’t see a new way for it. But I’m having fun with this alternate poem. We’ll see if they grow together or remain apart.

"On the Edge" version 3

Bespoke, custom-cut, hand-stitched,

even so some threads bunch, it’s the weave

gives you that pucker, which feature

lets in what stirs in high heat a summer.

Blue-and-white pinstripe number,

to normal wool cool alternate,

but what to wear with you? It’s a light

buckskin lace-up with sole of red rubber,

paisley blue tie, a pink button-down,

white pocket square and hat of brave straw

that won’t overdo. Though suspenders? A no.

Where to take you on a day like this? The coast?

The cliff? The rocks below wet like lips?

Those flops of seaweed and blue mussel shells,

barnacles in their beak pucker white.

It’s too late, the sea wind sings, checking the watch,

thin and gold among the dark hairs of the wrist.

The wind will wear you, won’t she, work her way

through to the boy inside.

comments on “On the Edge” version 2

I can’t find a way in to the old version of “On the Edge”. Often in poems I will see a new version shrugging out of the old, like a bright snake from frayed skin. That’s not happening here.

But I got interested in seersucker. Tell the truth, I didn’t know what seersucker was when I wrote the first version twenty years ago. I just thought it meant something high class, formal. But not tuxedo formal. After failing to find a way into “On the Edge” I started doing research into seersucker. At ehow I found some advice on how to wear/what to wear with a seersucker suit and at Wikipedia I found a description of seersucker fabric. The version here excerpts much from those sources.

I had fun with this. Little idea of what next, though.

“On the Edge” version 2

Bespoke, hand-crafted, custom-fit,

woven even so so some threads bunch,

giving you that pucker, which feature

lets in what stirs in the high heat a summer,

what airs the affections and moves over skin.

Blue-and-white pinstripe number,

cool alternative to normal wool,

there's more way than one to wear you.

It's a light buckskin lace-up with red-rubber sole,

tie of blue paisley, a pink button-down,

white pocket square, and a hat of brave straw

won’t overdo you, no, though suspenders? No, no.

Much depends on where you go. Coast?

comments on "On the Edge"

I haven’t presented myself with a revision challenge in awhile. “On the Edge” was written in February 1985. I was 19. It’s from the notebook “Spring Breeze on Purple Iris” which I filled over the course of a month (mid-January to mid-February), a level of production I may not have matched since. The work that begins the book is not the work that ends it. There was a qualitative change. I wrote my writing better. I’m not going to say the work up to this notebook was bad and the work after it was good, but I didn’t expect to find within it any particular change – trying new things, sure, working in a productive vein, perhaps. I’ve been reading through my old poetry notebooks, wondering sometimes if it’s worth the bother. Even allow-for-its-time-and-place me can tire of reading bad poems.

I am posting “On the Edge” because I like it. I wouldn’t submit it for publication. I doubt I ever did, though I may have read it at an open mic. I have only the vaguest notions of what I could do with/to this poem. But that’s the challenge!

"On the Edge"

It’s too late to intervene.
You look so clean-cut in your seersucker suit,
your argyle socks, your thin gold watch.
You look so debonair, so fair, in the rare air
at the tip of the cliff, where wind whiffles your pantlegs,
invades your short hair, curling it back from your face.
Such clear skin, close-shaved dark beard in pale cheeks
and firm chin, bright blue eyes, thick black eyebrows.
One seagull cries, hovering – you glance at him, his gray wings, dingy white breast,
his squawk is nearly soundless as the gusts whip up from the waves, carry off his vowel screams.
You lean forward, cup one blunt hand against the buffeting wind, catch a tingling of sea mist spewed from the crash of waves.
Arms of wind reach inside your jacket, fingers caressing your back.
Another feather of wind seeks up your pantlegs, tickling your shins, knees, thighs.
You lean further into the wind, let it buoy you up, let it tenderly rescue you from gravity,
from the beckoning wave gestures, the seductive kiss of foam, the seaweed with arms to hug holding tight a rock.
It’s too late for fate to save you now should the loving wind recant and slip away, allow you to fall.
You spread wide your arms and still the wind licks your stomach, clambers over your shoulders, brushes your hair,
holds you so gently on this cliff
so gently high above the edge of the sea.
Now lifts, now lifts you, and you hover like a seersucker seagull.
Only the wind hears your vowel shout.

Amusement Park Horror

I love the Roller Coaster. And, yes, I have gotten nauseous on them twirly-spinny rides, but mostly no. Mostly I just like ‘em.

I don’t like lines. That’s about the worst thing about amusement parks. Except maybe getting killed by a ride. That would be pretty high in contention among worst things at amusement parks.

Last week an amusement park worker in New York got killed by a ride. The article I read was vague on how it happened. She was getting off work but told her replacement she was going to lock in a last batch of riders. The new guy started up the ride. Did he start it up before she’d gotten out of the way? The article says he shut down the ride as soon as he “noticed [her] still on the ride,” which implies she’d plopped into a seat herself. But she “already had been thrown from it” before the big machine could stop.

I’m not one to dwell on the details of other people’s deadly accidents, okay? But I live with an employment law expert. And he comes home yesterday and tells me he had to post a reply to some “expert” who sniffed that this accident “highlights the limits of workplace safety laws” as though such laws were powerless before “human error” … thus, what, we’re better off without them?

Anyway, the original post appears here with Kent’s reply below it.

“An off-duty (perhaps tired) worker was improperly loading passengers (late arrivals) on equipment that was not using all appropriate protective equipment [this was acknowledged in the news item] (precaution not followed) in a park that (recently) is killing over one person per year.”

How, K’s saying, is this not an example of a preventable accident? This is the very thing well-enforced laws would make less likely.

The Bush program

Here's a link to an AP report. It's three minutes long, audio & slideshow. Charles Hanley has returned after a year away from the country. Misleadingly the report is titled, "Reporter sees little change in Iraq since last year." Yes, all the concerns are about the same -- lack of security, electricity, government. But progressive degeneration is change. And there's been a lot of it over the year Hanley was elsewhere.

"More grim gray blast barriers, more checkpoints, more nervousness ... car bombings, deathsquads, kidnappings, escaping to Syria or Jordan ... two US soldiers are missing, captive ... last year two US soldiers were missing ... the headlines are all the same ... Shiite & Sunni deathsquads have cleaned neighborhoods of the other sects ... 110 degree heat ... no air conditioning, refrigerators become cupboards ... the US army is stronger than before but more than 600,000 refugees have joined the 1,000,000 already out of the country." [some paraphrasing]

statistics

I was writing steadily on Dare I Read. Then I stopped. This seems to be my style. Regular, steady writing. Then a pause. Not always planned. I never know how long the pause will last but it rarely drags on. I don’t get that scare, that feeling I’m never going to write again.

This week I added a stats service to LoveSettlement. It’s all the way at the bottom of the page. Open to anybody who wants to click. When I first looked at the stats I was startled to see my average reader spending 3 1/2 minutes on the site. It didn’t take long to figure out that my average reader was me. I will open the blog and leave it up while I’m writing a new post or searching the web, so the stats show a “visitor” hanging around for a half hour. Average that across a few visitors who somehow manage to stop in for 0.00 seconds and you get a … you get what I saw.

I’ve had three visitors over the last three days (yup, one a day) who have actually stayed long enough to read something. The visitor today was reading posts from 2004, having followed a Google search result to the blog. Yesterday’s visitor had followed a Technorati search. Neither read beyond the post the search led them to. The third visitor got here, I think, via a bookmark, so is probably somebody I know. (Hi!)

A few years ago I set up my poetry site (also called LoveSettlement). I added a counter (how many years has it taken to turn to 7400?) and a free webstats service. I was involved with an online poetry workshop and whenever I posted a new poem or commented on someone else’s I would include a link to my site then would rush to check my stats. Look! I would exult. Readers!

The stats service got buggy at just about the right time. When it failed to load I would feel anxious, frustrated. When at last I removed it I felt more relief than expected. It felt so good, in fact, that I began to hate stats. Nobody reads poetry, right? How could one expect a big readership at a poetry site, especially one by a poet who has never published a book (not counting chapbooks!), never taught a class, has let his push to get his work into magazines (& ezines) subside to an occasional gentle poke in a random direction?

I chose not to pay Homestead to allow me to update my poetry site. So it sits there, still mostly useful. A few of the links are dead, but it’s not quite a graveyard yet. I’m not much interested in the mechanics of making websites. I could do a great deal more to promote myself and my work. Thing is, the writing energizes me, the marketing wearies me.

When asked, “Are you writing?” I answer, “I am always writing.” The Dare I Read project is one that will hit periods where I resist it – it’s a memory project, not just a booklog – but after a rest I know it will come back. I write poems, but rarely post them online. I keep an offline diary, too. There’s a manuscript that started up last fall; it has topped 40 thousand words. It might be close to done. I’m giving it a new read. A novel? A memoir? Something like that.

the gay parade

one of Kent's photos from yesterday's SF gay pride parade

poetry

I sent poems to Poetry. I haven’t done that in years. Poetry is dedicating its summer months to reading poems by poets who have not yet seen work in their magazine. What a good idea.

Back in 2004 I checked out from the library the 2003 issues of Poetry. There were a handful of decent poems but on the whole I decided if Poetry were poetry I would not read poetry. Many many poems were just bad. At the tail end of 2003 longtime editor Joseph Parisi gave over to Christian Wiman. It seemed to me the few issues I read with Wiman in charge were better than the Parisis. But surely he was working mainly with Parisi’s backlog. I haven’t read an issue of the magazine since.

But one of the parts of my new send-work-out resolution is that when I send poems to a magazine I will try to include a wholly new one, a poem I have written specifically for that magazine. The one I sent Poetry was based on poems they posted on their website. I was thinking I was going to be producing poems somewhat akin to the editor(s)’ aesthetic, the poem thus having a better chance than most to make the cut. I’ve yet to see the result. (Of the three batches I sent out this year not one has seen a reply.) I rather doubt I’ve bettered my odds with these magazine-tailored poems. Who knows? But I do like the challenge; it’s an opportunity to make something new, whatever/wherever it ends up. The poem is my project. I have long since let go of expectation that I will build a poetry career that breaks even, or that brings fame. The poem is the thing, what it does.

Recently I wrote a poem to a generic magazine editor begging to be included in their magazine. I was resisting writing it – absurd subject! Then I remembered, what steps up to be written is what makes it to the page. I’ve learned that my writing is what my writing wants to be. There are all sorts of things I’ve wanted it to be over the years – salable, for instance. And I’ve had plenty of clever ideas for stories or experiments. But what gets written is what wants to be. If the writing is me forcing something into words the writing is going to be abandoned.

How long

How long will this post sit here without comments?

Good

Rep. Sarah Peake of Provincetown said afterwards that tension was high even for lawmakers, who were unsure of what was going to happen even as they filed into the chamber.

Peake, who is openly lesbian, said that she sat next to Rep. Christine Canavan of Wakefield in the chamber. Canavan had previously backed the amendment [to the Massachusetts constitution, which amendment would have eliminated the opportunity for same sex couples to marry]. As Canavan went to vote, Peake said, “She banged me on the shoulder and said, ‘Rep, watch this,’ and she pushed the ‘no’ button.”

“When I saw her finger hit that red button, it was momentous,” Peake said. “I gave her a big hug and a kiss.”

from Bay Windows

*

The Massachusetts legislature was voting on whether to allow the populace to vote in a general election on the proposed marriage-bashing amendment. To move to the general election ballot the amendment needed the votes of only 50 legislators. The amendment lost its chance by a vote of 45-151.

response poem

RJ has recently posted short poems at his blog. I left the following response to the one he posted June 4:

I am so common,
filled by wishes used to loneliness,
levers against ever. Elsewhere
a woman looks, and across her
I confess.

**

The response poem uses the original poem for its words and some of its ideas.

critique

In a post at the blog Very Like a Whale the writer wonders about critiquing, especially in an online workshop then says, “Once a writer has got beyond the usual yeek-cliches-and-abstractions stage and has stopped obssessive-compulsive telling, once they have a good grip on the basics of the craft - what is there to separate one poet from another but the personal taste of the reader? We respond to what we read the way we are. Critiquing others’ work now just seems an exercise in talking about myself. And a rather futile one at that.”

I left the following comment:

I’ve recently become part of a small poetry group/workshop, having not done such a thing in several years. I find it much easier in person than on line.

When I was heavy into an online poetry workshop I would write comprehensively about the poem, which was a lot of work and, even when appreciated, it was hard to tell what got through to the poet, what mattered to the poet, what was needed, what a waste of time. When I stopped learning through the experience (a big part of why I did it) I shifted to quips — making quick comments about a particular piece of a poem, praising a sharp metaphor or chiding a lazy one, for instance.

It’s a relief to be working with two poets face to face who have writing poems 20 or more years whose egos seem not easily bruised. In workshop I go thru the poem top to bottom, giving a reading as best as I understand it, saying what confuses me or delights me as I go along, making general comments about poetic strategies, and summing up with what pleases me most &/or what leaves me unsatisfied. The idea (at least in my mind) is no longer offering fixes for another poet’s work, but exposing to the poet what is going on in this close reader’s mind as he is going through the poem. If the poet sees that his poem is not doing on the page what he thought it was doing perhaps he can see a way to shift it toward doing so. But I’m mindful not to make prescriptions. It’s better for me not to, as then I won’t feel I have some stake in (my view of) the poem’s success.

sexing the marrieds

One of the things that’s puzzled me about the marriage debate – i.e., who gets to – is, if marriage is going to be restricted (via constitutional amendment, even if only state constitutional amendment), when will the time come that the government will face the problem of defining once & for all what a man is, what a woman?

An essay by Alice Dreger at the Intersex Society of North America website recently came to my attention. She talks about the experience of the International Olympic Committee in determining who gets to participate as a woman or as a man. Dreger says, “There isn’t any rational way to decide, in many cases.” Naturally, rationality and human behavior coincide accidentally, but, what the hey, law likes to claim it’s all about rationality, so let’s play pretend.

“The International Olympic Committee [IOC] figured out the high frequency of intersex the hard way. Before the 1936 games, athletes were allowed to sort themselves out. But then Hermann Ratjen cheated by trying to pass himself off as a woman and, though Ratjen lost, he set Olympic officials off on a quest for the ultimate divider of males and females. First they tried genital exams, but that didn’t work so well. They found that a lot of athletes had confusing parts. (Intersex.) Then in 1968 the IOC turned to buccal smears for would-be competitors in female sports. The idea was to rout out anyone with a Y chromosome. That didn’t work well either; a number of women athletes had Y chromosomes because they were born with androgen insensitivity syndrome [AIS]. (Intersex again.)

“…For a few years, the IOC in fact did try to insist that AIS women were men; once they figured out which women had AIS, they tried to get them to give back their medals. But the medical establishment, to its credit, rallied around these women and explained the facts of biology—especially intersex—to the IOC. And so the IOC finally gave up gender verification.” A genetic XY with AIS is actually at a disadvantage when competing against an XX athlete as AIS prevents all metabolization of testosterone, whereas XX athletes can take advantage of some.

“If history is any guide, as gay marriage prohibitions make their way through the courts, a scientific expert here and a medical expert there will offer up one little gene or one type of anatomical tissue that might be used as a male-female sorting mechanism. But such a sorting system simply won’t accord with what people see on the outside and feel on the inside. The fact is, every anatomical bit you think of as female (breasts, XX-chromosomes, even ovarian tissue) can be found on someone who has looked and felt like a male since birth. The opposite is also true.”

empty

m nt n

em ty

p

empty

m nd

empty

mountain

empty

the bowl for my morning cereal

anywhere at any time

Rachel Dacus decided to try the National Poetry Writing Month poem-a-day exercise. She writes about it on her blog: “[I]magination is like any muscle. As any dancer or athlete knows, the more you stretch and tone, the more articulate that muscle becomes. Writing a poem a day, even a stinky poem, strengthened that muscle to the extent that I don't fear the blank page or the need to write as much as I did at the start of April. … Inspiration (as they call it) is mysterious. But what I discovered was that it's always lurking under the surface.”

I left the following comment:

I went to a poetry reading last night. During the break I got some sangria and chatted with a couple strangers. Then I ran out of schmooze and thought to myself, If I'd brought my poetry notebook I would sit down and write a poem.

Then again I do carry loose paper in my travel pack and I had the portable writing surface of a library book (a mystery by Joseph Hansen) so I pulled out paper, pen, and book and started writing. The poet/audience member next to me later said, "Were you writing a poem?"

When I acknowledged the fact he said, "You've got more balls than me."

I can write anywhere at any time. All it takes is giving oneself permission to write crap. Many a first draft written under ideal circumstances is crap, anyway. And sometimes writing in the midst of distraction leads you to interesting places. On the other hand, it wasn't all THAT chaotic in the break between readers at a poetry event.

which is the poem?

At her blog Reb Livingston was pondering publication. What is it? She was at a conference where, she discovered, “Apparently I was the only person in the room (world?) who doesn't consider posting a poem on a blog or personal website to be the equivalent of publishing in a magazine (either online or print).” She likens the blog poem to the poem read aloud “in front of 100 people” or printing up “500 copies of a poem … and hand[ing] them out to people on the street.” Surely neither of these can be considered publication?

I left the following comment:

On one of my blogs I version poems. I've been going thru 20-yr-old poetry notebooks and taking out poems I think have potential, I post the poem on the blog, make a few comments on it, then post revisions separately and comment on them. Even though, so far as I know, I have no readership for these, I imagine readers intrigued by the disappearing comma of version 3, the exploded cliche of version 8. At least one of these versioned poems has subsequently been published. The published version differs fairly slightly (but, to me, significantly) from the last version that appeared on the blog. I don't think of the versions as published. Each version exists and is accessible. Which is the poem?

if I mean to mean

At Geof Huth’s blog he says, “As writers or artists, our role is not to interpret our work; ours is to create a work upon which interpretations can be built. The experience we create is not the message of the work, but the work itself. Even misunderstood or not understood works can be experienced. Our job is merely to create those experiences, not to create their interpretations.”

I left the following comment: I've made this argument about visual art. Such a work can be experienced by anyone not blind. Beyond that one works with one's box of interpreting tools -- one's cultural assumptions, one's experience in looking at art, etc.

The field is less wide when you're talking language art as such arts are built from meaning objects. Language is an act of interpretation.

Vispo is somewhere between the two.

The point of my second paragraph is not that there is only one interpretation for a work. Rather I mean to say one must start with the meanings of the words/phrases. Our role as artists should include interpreting our work. You had an interpretation of the abed piece. That is a good thing. Knowing what the piece is saying assists in the crafting.

Naturally, once it exists independent of author, the piece is available to a myriad of interpretations as its new context is that of the lives/thoughts/experiences/philosophies of the reader/viewer.

I don't claim to know what my pieces mean. (I won't insist a poem doesn't mean what you think it means.) I have readings for my poems. But they mean what they mean, which is not necessarily what I think I mean or imagine I mean, even if I mean to mean something which sometimes I don't. (Meanings will accrue, no matter.)

zombie government & other quotes

"Alberto Gonzales is now among the political undead -- not alive, but unvanquishable in his own liminal existence." -- Josh Marshall


*


"It’s a Justice Department that is running amok." -- Tom DeLay on being investigated by the FBI

"We are very comfortable that the Justice Department is proceeding properly and expeditiously." -- DeLay's attorney

quotes from TPM muckraker


*


“The fastest way to defeat al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) is probably for us to leave and let the Iraqis do it themselves.” – Kevin Drum at Washington Monthly


*


“Within moments of handing a piece of paper with the words ‘Don't Discriminate’ to a person who asked me for it, I was grabbed, my wrists and arms twisted to near breaking behind my back. I was shoved down a hallway, banged against a wall and slammed to the ground.” -- Nadine Smith, the executive director of Equality Florida, describing her arrest for handing out fliers at the city council meeting where the city manager was fired for being transgender. When felony charges against her were dropped, Nadine said, I’m supposed to be “bathed in relief”?

doll

My sister Sevilla has begun crafting dolls. Something to do in her tiny Alaskan town, a small plane flight from anywhere? The doll looks happy. Nice toes.

blog

The new LoveSettlement! Somehow my archives had become inaccessible, so I knew I had to change something. Before I did that, though, I wanted to make sure I had everything saved. Yesterday I went through and copied to my computer what I hadn't as yet. Today I decided to see what I could do to resurrect the archive. New template seemed to be an answer. So here it is. New template. And now I find I'm able to change all sorts of stuff without having to troll through tiny print html coding to figure out where to effect the change. Does this mean LuvSet will be afflicted by all sorts of new snazziness?

exercise's completion

And love lasts past
thank you, she says, folding this
that you placed in her hands,
and fall, the time of year
someone left on a doorstop to wrinkle,
your shoe impressing its pattern on the face
stands startled in a tumble
your soft heart dimpled by a raindrop
landing hard as a period.

What, starved of home, compares
Now there, now here, to an hour
from both ends. A dry kiss, a
wet kiss, a kiss laid open, a kiss
that could settle into a pillow,
or, buried among papers, could
but hear what wants up.
Of pulling, she says, she’s had to
remind herself, she's done.
The soft is softer.

comments on exercise

Sunday night Alan Bern came over for our poetry group. The other member of the group had a bad ol' headache so missed out. After we workshopped a poem by Alan and a poem by me Alan admitted he hadn't come up with any clever writing exercises. As I'm rarely at a loss, really, I pushed my poem across the table to Alan and told him to fold it in half lengthwise. I did the same to his. What remained of his poem is what you see below. Now, I said, write a poem using the words/line fragments as you see them on your paper. Complete the lines. I used Alan's as beginnings.

exercise's beginning

And love

Thank you
that you
and fall

Someone l
your shoe
and start
your soft
landing h

What star
Now there
from both
wet kiss
that could
or buried
but hear
of pulli

Remind
The soft

comments on "snow on snow on snow"

I sent "a rest of six beats" off to Global City Review. It is unlike anything I read in the magazine. Thus I do not think they will choose to publish it. In my experience people seldom like something that is unlike what they have up to now liked. However, I sent it because I wrote it for Global City. The first version is more like what they publish, I think, but the first version is dead. The version 4, just below, is only slightly different from the version I mailed. Most significant change? Changed "corners rounded" to "figures rounded". The other poems I sent along with "a rest" are more conventional in their syntax & presentation. Maybe they'll like something. Who knows?

"snow on snow on snow" version 4

a rest of six beats



in cloud, in rest, in abyss

crystal caught crystal


white-limned white

six sides


tires

the snow sleeps


corners rounded

a softening, a baffling

"snow on snow on snow", version 3

crystal caught crystal

a wheel locked

the snow tires

the snow quits

sleeps

a drowse over, arrest of

a softening, a baffling

a rest of six beats

six sides

corners rounded

lines elide

white-limned white

comments on "snow on snow on snow"

I don't know about you, but I'm getting tired of this poem. Plus which if I'm writing it for a certain magazine I'd better wrap it up soon cuz the deadline for the theme issue is May 1 and I've gotta mail it so that means allowing for the neither-rain-nor-snow-nor-dark-of-night crowd to get it from this coast to that one. Besides, I can't send just one darn poem, right? Gotta find some others that are vaguely "knittish". Pheh. This little resolution is heading toward no-fun-ville. Let's say I have to print out and mail the batch by next Friday. That'd be the 20th. That will give the 'velope a whole week to plod across the nation (getting high on rocky mountains, oaring through the amber waves) and heave itself smelly & exhausted into the too-late pile. It's a plan.

"snow on snow on snow" version 2.9

crystal caught crystal

a wheel locked

the snow tires

the snow quits

sleeps

a drowse over, arrest of

a softening, a baffling

a rest of six beats

six sides

corners rounded

lines elide

"snow on snow on snow" version 2.8

crystal caught crystal

a wheel locked

the snow tires

the snow quits

sleeps

a drowse over, arrest of

a softening, a baffling

a rest of six beats

six sides

corners rounded

comments on "snow on snow on snow" in progress

November was declared National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) by a group in Oakland. I toyed with the November novel, but couldn't get it going. I completed the three-day novel a few years ago (there's a competition; I didn't win).

Some poets, feeling left out, or inspired (or both), decided since April was already National Poetry Month, why not make it NaPoWriMo? Write a poem a day! There are those who write a poem each day and post it to their blogs.

I've written a poem a day before. It's a useful exercise. It gets you past the feeling you don't have anything to say. Cuz you gotta put a few words down anyway.

But I think I've learned all I'm going to from the exercise. Plus I find that a pause in poetry writing actually recharges something. If several days have gone by since I wrote a poem the poem I write is often lively. Enforcing a silence is about as silly as forcing a noise, that is, one can learn from it, but hopefully one of the things you learn is you own best rhythm.

Rather than write a poem a day this month I decided to write one poem, each day one line. (Yes, I missed the first few days but things are going right along now.)

"snow on snow on snow" version 2.7

crystal caught crystal

a wheel locked

the snow tires

the snow quits

sleeps

a drowse over, arrest of

a softening, a baffling

a rest of six beats

six sides

"snow on snow on snow" version 2.6

crystal caught crystal

a wheel locked

the snow tires

the snow quits

sleeps

a drowse over, arrest of

a softening, a baffling

a rest of six beats

"snow on snow on snow" version 2.5

crystal caught crystal

a wheel locked

the snow tires

the snow quits

sleeps

a drowse over, arrest of

a softening, a baffling

"snow on snow on snow" version 2.4

crystal caught crystal

a wheel locked

the snow tires

the snow quits

sleeps

a drowse over, arrest of

"snow on snow on snow" version 2.3

crystal caught crystal

a wheel locked

the snow tires

the snow quits

sleeps

"snow on snow on snow" version 2.2

crystal caught crystal

a wheel locked

the snow tires, the snow quits

"snow on snow on snow" version 2.1

crystal to crystal, a wheel locks

comments on "snow on snow on snow"

I've made a minor resolution (meaning, I'm not going to beat myself up if I break it): I will send a batch of poems to each of the literary magazines I've bought recently once I've finished reading it. A couple slipped by before I made the resolution so I'll not worry about those. A little over a week ago I sent poems to 26 Magazine. 26 Magazine is nearby (St Mary's College in Oakland) and the work it publishes is like enough to what I write as a matter of course that I think my poems have a decent chance with them.

The resolution is being tested by my attempts now to put together a batch for Global City Review, a magazine that ... seems to like work I'm dubious of. Why would I want to have a poem in such company? Well, it's not like they're Fox News. Having a poem in Global City Review would not be joining up with the enemy. I do like things about the magazine, some of the work. Another thing that hangs me up: Global City Review does theme issues. Can I find pieces that match their announced themes? The one I'm trying for is "Knit Together", the deadline in May.

"Snow on snow on snow" is my entry in the "Knit Together" sweepstakes. So far it feels pretty fragmentary. I had the magazine open as I wrote, trying to find a style friendly to what's in it. The poem so far has got snow doing stuff -- healing wounds, melting in the exposed water as the ice breaks, humping along as glacier. But I don't live where there's snow. My direct experience with snow has been very occasional. Its coldness always surprises me. So I'm putting the beginnings of this one out there. I'll poke at it some more.

snow on snow on snow

snow on snow on snow
crystal to crystal, a wheel locks

when the ice breaks
you are standing on what
used to hold a camper van
door open to Cash and Carter
a barbecue on three legs

firm footing begins its wander
nudging under
a crumble at a corner
in between the black
color of hidden water

snow snuffing dazzle instead of building banks
having brought white from the sky
to give it up?
never gonna give the mountain up
crack and crinkle, though stone
healed – bandaged anyway – by this soft press
of white on white

such white as colors lose their way
can’t find a place all winter
to raise a flag

used to be new snow would sift down on old snow
this year’s tamping last year’s
until mounds rivaled mountains
without the same patience
and the big cold territories would slide
one slushy gravelly boot grinding away

hipppy

hippy

hippen

hippy

hahoo

hippy

hip hip

hippy

hippo

hippy

a coup stick

acoustic

ten of

often

funny

not funny

potatoes

Potatoes are in the microwave.

overheard on the bus

"A man drives a bus for 50 years and retires -- all he's going to dream about is buses."

htlv

aeiouyyuooei

hltv

htvl

lvth

I love you

yvuoolie

y vuoo lie

I hate you

aeihouty

aeiouy ht

a ehio uty

Best Picture

We watched a few minutes of the Oscars last night. I wanted to see how Ellen mc'd. Naturally I caught more commercials than Ellen. Her "casual stroll" down the aisle to put Martin Scorcese on the spot (and hand him a script she'd written) -- more uncomfortable than clever. The Jack Black/Will Ferrell/JC Reilly song skit about comedians never getting nominated for their acting -- droll. The dancers who made shadow puppets behind a scrim to celebrate some of the nominated pictures -- a few more seconds that could have been cut.

The Departed is out on DVD and Kent's been antsy to see it so I suggested we walk a block to the drug store and see if they had it for rent. They did. So instead of watching the rest of the Academy Awards last night we watched what the Academy voters decided was last year's Best Picture. Though I did have one question when the movie ended: What happened to the manila envelope?

Look! Look!

See! See!

colors

Should browns go in the wash with reds? Or do they keep better company with greens?

The reason my feet are cold

I am not wearing socks. And it is still winter.

no complaints

It seems to me I oughtn't complain.

Sundy is fine

Yup, kitty is his old self. By Sunday evening, in fact, he seemed much recovered. The healing powers of catnaps!

And Monday morning he was jumping to the bathroom sink and draping himself happily over a shoulder. Tuesday I picked him up just the way that had caused him to hiss on Sunday and gave him a cozy shake. He hung in my hands uncomplaining, then I whisked him into the crook of my elbow and kissed him on the head. So, yeah, didn't take him to the vet.

Looks like rain today. And my umbrella forgotten in the workroom at the library!

Sundy's sick

Sundy is limping. When I picked him up this morning he hissed. Reflexively, a cat way of saying OW! Kent and I have been feeling him up, tapping and pressing, and we can't find an abscess, though I suspect one. I couldn't quite tell where he was hurting until I followed him down the stairs. Out would go the right foreleg, it would take his weight, then the left foreleg, which would crumple as soon as he leaned into it. He purrs and he likes being handled but he's obviously uncomfortable, not his usual rambunctious self. We will keep watch over him today. I could take him to the vet tomorrow.

Weather's nice. We had our Sunday brunch on the deck at Chester's. Kent is still sniffly, groggy, and wishes he were well already; he was plonced in front of Sin City last I saw him. I seem to have picked up a little bug, too, but it's not been much trouble so far, some fuzziness in the throat, cough, a few aches. I think I'll go for an afternoon walk.

no more bad poems

I won't post any more bad poems. Not unless I really see potential I want to work on. I went through the last pages of the poetry notebook and typed a few of the poems, but I won't post any. I put that notebook away. I got out the next one. I think it's the next one. There's a two month gap. It's possible I filled an entire notebook in those two months. But there have been times I took a break. I filled this one in two months: 11/18/84 - 1/11/85

Cursorily flipping through it I'd say there isn't much that will show up here. But I'll give it a read.

Going through my old notebooks & diaries I keep wondering if they could be the basis of a memoir or novel.

comments on "Telephone Poles"

I might revise this one. I don't know. It has some nice sounds and the kids in line idea isn't bad.

Yes, this is another poem from Sept 1984.

Telephone poles

Telephone poles recede
into dwindling distance.
From wooden shoulders swing
slack cables which support
the black birds. In even
single-file rows like kids
in cafeteria
lines. And these waiters shift,
fidget, bob for balance,
their black heads undulate.
Walkers watch the tightrope,
count the birds in their lines.
But black eyes scrutinize
passers-by, check movements
for hostile hints in arms
and hands and walking legs.

comments on "The Alphabet Song"

Here is another poem from 1984. You have leave to think it awful. Why would I be posting bad poems from old notebooks? After all, somebody might form a low opinion of my work by reading LoveSettlement!

I don't know why that doesn't bother me. It's supposed to bother me. Allowing mediocre work out under my name, as though I approved of it! The work as my representative in literature. Only the best, only the best should be seen. All crap should be burned! Or moulder, at least, in a bin.

I could mumble that I'm not showing my worst poems. But I probably would show a really bad poem if I thought it Fun bad. Come to think ... yeah, that's pretty much what "The Alphabet Song" is. It's an exercise. An attempt at an abecedarian, a poem that starts each line with a letter of the alphabet in, naturally, alphabetical order. And I think it fun. Unsuccessful. But fun.

The Alphabet Song

Alive upon the
Broken Universe the
Catbird
Drums a tune. He
Elucidates the
Falling
Gradients, achieving a
Hierarchy of
Interior numerology. But
Just the jay
Kawing on the
Limb of a nearby
Maple
Nods,
Only he is
Persuaded in the
Quietness before the catbird
Reads aloud. All the other birds
Sing, strewn along the
Tailings of the
Universe. There with
Vibrating
Whistles they
eXonerate all the
Young eagles, panthers, ants, and
Zebras unable, among them, to speak.

absolutely limitless

I'm contemptuous of Slate Supreme Court watcher Dahlia Lithwick's crush on Justice (sic) Scalia. But she seems to be getting a clue about Bush, "The endgame in the war on terror isn't holding the line against terrorists. It's holding the line on hard-fought claims to absolutely limitless presidential authority."

I hate craigslist

Poetry & Pizza can survive without craigslist. Say that again, Glenn.

Poetry & Pizza will do just fine without craigs-fucking-list.

The admin folks at craigslist just deleted the announcement for today's P&P.

They did it once before, claimed the prohosting site was "a commercial site" ... I wrote them a protest letter which they ignored. This deletion was done without comment.

The prohosting site is a free site. Used to be free was the thing around the web. Presumably craigslist is still free if they decide to let you use it. I don't know what their beef with prohosting is. Unless it's something else entirely. Like they're fucking anti-Semites and want to make sure we don't collect any money for Rabbis for Human Rights tonight. Yeah, that's probably it. Craigslist is run by a bunch of Nazis!

it's a lovely day in Berkeley

I dropped off the Poetry & Pizza postcard design at the copy shop, plan to pick it up this evening. There are about 250 people on the P&P mailing list. It takes maybe 40 minutes to put the address labels on the postcards, rubber stamp them with the restaurant's return address, and add the postage stamp, especially if Kent helps, which he did last time. Don't have enough stamps. I'm not sure the grocery store sells postcard stamps but if they do I can finish the whole mailing tonight. If not I will buy more stamps tomorrow morning, finish stamping at the post office.

We ate lunch at Saul's. Kent had eggs scrambled with lox. I had a Middle Eastern fried bread thing with two eggs over easy.

Kent is upstairs watching Constantine, which I kind of want to see, but the TV room gets so much sun you can barely see the screen. I'm wearing an overshirt I just took out of the drier. I finished writing up the sources for my favorite poems of 2006. I suppose I'll post that list on DIR.

It's actually pretty warm out. Shouldn't this global warming thing worry me? It's not unusual for it to be this nice on a day in January. When the sun goes down it'll get cold. I think I am going to take a walk. Where should I go? Over to Solano and poke around Pegasus Books? Take the path to Indian Rock? Or just stroll the neighborhoods?

comments on "Struggle"

Another 1984 poem, this one from September. I am not going to revise it.

It's built of rhyming couplets, some nearer than others (darkness/hiss, cot/not, always/space), with the last line orphaned as I think I just stopped writing. I won't even try this sort of thing these days, mainly because I don't find it fun. I don't care much about rhyme schemes and I'm not likely to try writing a nocturnal fight with a knife in a close room into a poem, so this is a glimpse of the road not taken, I guess. "Struggle" is not something I would include in a book I'd want people to pay for, but I thought it rather giddy so here it is.

Struggle

She dropped the act
and swiftly attacked,
sliding the dagger
from her garter.
It flashed silver
briefly, moving quicker
in the darkness
with an inaudible hiss
through the folds
of his robe.
And there beneath
the cloth it would meet
his unprotected skin.
But the thin
blade tasted no
blood, thrust into
nothing, slashed only
the robe’s weave.
For the man was not
asleep upon the cot
in the night-encrusted room.
Wracked by June
fevers he had stirred
incessantly, his blurred
consciousness never fully
dampened into sleep.
The sheets in sweaty creases
swaddled his limbs. Pieces
of portioned moonlight illumed
his arm. The nocturnal sounds exhumed
insolent memories.
And like virulent flies
molested him always.
But in a moment’s space
when his breathing was still,
the delirious summer ill
giving him sun-edged clarity
between heat-induced insanity,
a shadow tinged his wrist
the way a snake’s tongue flicks,
swift and silent.
Only instinct sent
him backwards, escaping
the shimmering steel scraping
his garment. He was
against the wall, the buzz
of delirium poured
from him. The torrid
heat momentarily forgotten,
he leaped from the bed, dropped and
rolled, the gritty boards
emitted raspy chords,
impatient music of her
small weight moving quicker
than a striking snake,
of his heavier form, awake
and fully aware now,
his reflexes rapid. How
they fought in the snatches
of moonlight, each watching,
calculating the implied motions
of the other, how their positions
mimicked that of the eagle
and the cobra. Eyes seeking meager
outlines in the dark.
She had made no mark
until freeing the knife.
She had been the life
of the vine, without sound
but constantly moving. She found
an opening, darted forward
but her blade scraped the board
wall, slicing the dark where
the man had been. A stair
creaked, loud even in their
battle. She froze. Who was there?
She was in shadow, opaque,
allowing no light. But the squeak
of the stair was silence to him
as he rushed to pin
her where she hid.
She slid
down and to the side.
The door latch was being pried,
and she heard every rattle
of the metal on metal
with empty ears.
At the wall the mirror
picked out the door frame,
the wiggling knob. The latch came
with a ratchet, snapping free.
The knob turned fully.
Her head was yanked back,
his hand dealing a slap
that jarred her inside,
but her arm swung wide,
the dagger aimed for his chest.
But the light bulb dressed
the barren room. Filling all
the unseen regions, the white wall,
bed, rumpled sheets, window,
streaked portrait, snub-nosed pistol
firing, firing, firing. The lead
bullets shrieked, blasting into the head,
thrashing her away from the man,
her hair left in his hand.
He was frozen in time,
his hand still trailing her fine
hair, his robe whispering from the draft.
He knew the woman as she laughed,
knew her from the glinting gun,
from the way her face twisted all at once,
from her brushed-back black hair,
the way she cast him a contemptuous glare,
he knew her well.
The blood on the white-washed wall
oozed quietly toward the floor.
Crumpled at his feet, four
fingers grasping motionless at naught,
his night time opponent had caught
every shot in the face.
At the back of his throat a taste
bitter and brackish swelled to his tongue.
His face felt numb.
Only thirty seconds had gone
since the dagger had dragged him from dreams.

happy new year!

Dave Navarro & Tommy Lee say, "Happy New Year!"

comments on "Broken Arrow", version 2

The title in the notebook is not "Broken Arrow" but "Broken Arrow - Broken Phrases". It wasn't so much a title as an explanation of method. I took notes during the documentary intending the notes to be fragmentary. I like poems that seem built of shards. And I liked the idea that it was a poem "about" a charged political topic -- nuclear weapons and the possibility of an accident that could harm people who just happened to live near them -- but not really about that at all. It was more about breaking language and the charged political topic provided conveniently breakable text. Now it's even more broken.

"Broken Arrow" version 2

640,000 people in the country
depend on winds.

*

San Francisco Harbor
cruising around.
We’ve trained a lot of people.

Carried to a logical conclusion
the Soviets and Americans
already know
people will be unhappy about it.

*

Some sincere
treaties
endanger the
species.

*

“Still dark,
can’t see beyond the light,
can’t see any fire burning.”



-- August 1984

comments on "Broken Arrow"

Yet another piece from August 1984. This one is notes from a documentary on the possibility of a nuclear accident (broken arrow) in the San Francisco Bay area. There were (likely still are) several nuclear weapons facilities around the Bay and the weapons don't just sit in one place. They get moved around, which, you know, could be dangerous. That's not thinking about the nuclear attack aspect.

I wanted to make a poem out of broken phrases taken from the film. I never did anything further with it. Shall I now?

"Broken Arrow"

There’s gonna be a collision in a fog
and nuclear weapons’ll be
scattered all over the Bay.

San Francisco Harbor
cruising around.
We’ve trained a lot of people.

We have less-than-high-school-graduates
guarding our nuclear weapons.

Carried to a logical conclusion
the Soviets and Americans
already know
people will be unhappy about it.

640,000 people in the country
depend on winds.

Planning for nuclear weapons’
accidents is just beginning.
Defense Nuclear Agency.
NuAc 79.
Radioactive contamination in the area.

Negotiate some sincere
treaties.
Endangers the survival of this
species.
The next broken arrow
the next nuclear weapons’ accident.

“Still dark
can’t see beyond the light,
can’t see any fire burning.”

comments on "The Old Lady Around the Corner", version 3

Merry Christmas. Days getting longer. Coming up on the new year. It's been four years of LoveSettlement the blog.

I know I don't have comments enabled for LoveSettlement. I do for the sister blog. I wonder if people read this. I know a few do. So if you know I know you do don't feel like you're slighted. If you've never said anything but wanted to, feel free; email's in the upper left.

I don't know anybody else who regularly revises poems on a blog. I am the only one I've seen who puts up his reasons.

I am posting this version of "The Old Lady Around the Corner", though feel a bit odd doing so. Why? It's so little different from the last version. Whether it's better or not ... I like it. I like not being in it anymore.

The Old Lady Around the Corner, version 3

She’s left us tomatoes
on occasion
and little sour plums
and the grapes that break
between your fingers,
loose in their skins.

My mother goes down
to her house, takes
extra apples,
some potatoes.
When she sees her in town
my mother walks with her
taking small steps, listening
to her talk.

comments on "The Old Lady Around the Corner"

I think this is an improvement. By the details you know my attitude: the plums are sour, the grapes break. In the first version I behave "politely" and my "courtesy" is merely in "passing." Too much tell? Too pushy? In this version "I say hello. / I smile." Tone is difficult. I think the contrast between the description of my mother's involvement with the woman (walk with her, listen to her talk) and the description of my own (say hello, smile) is enough to indicate my lack of connection. But I'm not sure. Sometimes I think I've put enough in then find by not laying it out more explicitly readers will think I ... well, in this case, say hello and smile because I like this woman.

I barely remember the person upon whom this poem is based. I remember disliking her, but I couldn't give you any reason for it now.

The Old Lady Around the Corner

She’s left us tomatoes
on occasion
and little sour plums
and the grapes that break
between your fingers,
loose in their skins.

My mother goes down
to her house, takes
some extra apples,
some potatoes.
When she sees her in town
my mother walks with her
taking small steps, listening
to her talk.

When I see her in town,
I say hello.
I smile.

comments on "The Lady Around the Corner"

This is another poem from 1984. August, I think. I wasn't dating poems individually at the time. I thought it odd to date a poem when like as not I would make changes to it. To be consistent oughtn't one date every change? These days I write the date before I begin the poem and it's not so much to fix the poem to a particular date as it is to restrain its free floating. It doesn't really matter, does it? It's a way to impose some order, if arbitrary.

I like this one for its quietness and some interesting details, like the grape skins. I'm a bit put off by the poet's attitude, which, I think, is one of the reasons I didn't put a (*) by it. There are a few stars in the notebook and they indicate which poems I would read out at the local poetry series. But it's okay not to like a narrator if what he says is interesting. I'm posting this one with an eye to revision. Primarily I see myself cutting it. I've been told I can cut the heart out of old work. That's the risk, I guess.

The Lady Around the Corner

The gray lady walks
by outside.
She’s left us tomatoes
on occasion
and little sour plums
and the grapes that break
between your fingers, not
firm but weak in the skin.

Mom goes down
to her house, takes
some extra apples,
some unneeded potatoes.
When she sees her in town
Mom walks with her
with small steps, listening
to her accented English.

I’ve seen her myself in
town and have politely
said hello
but merely in courtesy
and on passing by.

Dark Side of the Dorothy

So Kent has been fascinated by the idea that Pink Floyd's album, Dark Side of the Moon, provides an amazing soundtrack to the MGM Wizard of Oz. There's even a Wikipedia entry about the startling coincidences -- "Fans have compiled more than 100 moments of perceived interplay between the film and album, including further links that occur if the album is repeated through the entire film."

I brought home the DVD of Wizard, Kent cued up the CD of Dark Side, launching it, as one website suggested, on the MGM lion's third roar. We sat down to be wowed by the coming together of disparate genius -- Roger Waters and Judy Garland, David Gilmore and the Munchkins.

Ye gods. Whoever started this must've been really stoned. Yes, if you are stoned you will go, "Wow, the music (sorta) matches (once in awhile)." If you are not stoned you will go, "Huh? Well, the music SORTA matches ONCE IN AWHILE, but mostly NOT."

I was impressed by the clarity of the print used to make the Wizard DVD. But I suspect your iPod playing shuffle will provide as many coincidentally appropriate tunes to movie X. I remember playing dance music and flipping through random channels on the TV. Yeah, I remember thinking, that's a pretty darn good video.

walker

Theo Jansen makes sculptures that stroll about on many legs. Follow the link to more videos (one of the videos is a BMW commercial, though the clip does not include any image of a BMW).

Jansen has his own site, but I can't get it to load.

comments on "The Edge"

This is another poem I like from the 1984 notebook. I don't think I am good at description. Still, clean up the grammar a bit and "The Edge" draws a decent enough picture. What is "the edge of the world" and who was going over it? The whole party? As with the last poem I posted I don't see myself revising here. Yet I don't think it's "done" enough for publication. I like its strangeness.

I remember making a joke to Beth about divorce which annoyed her. How long did this marriage last? Two years? Four?