The Storialist

Video: Reading at Paging Columbus

2012-02-10T03:35:00.000-05:00

Happy Friday (again), friends! Today I have some video footage taken at last week's Paging Columbus event (featuring readings by Terry Hermsen, Dionne Custer Edwards, and Jeremy Glazier).

To begin the night, I read "The Fire Cycle" by Zachary Schomburg. Warning: this poem is flammable. And inflammable. If you like Zachary Schomburg, check out his site and this book and this book.

Hope your weekend is incendiary (or flame-retardant, depending on the kind of week you had).

Nothing Is Wasted

2012-02-09T01:04:00.000-05:00

Nothing Is Wasted

The college course I took in Clothing
and Textiles, useful for recalling

now the meaning of the word gamine.
How the girls in sixth grade would preen

before their lockers, spraying CK One
onto a brush or denim jacket, or Sun-

Ripened Raspberry right into their hair.
How certain girls would choose dare

over truth at sleepovers. The half-healed-
over hole above my navel, semi-sealed

and without jewelry. The swoony letter
I left in a boy’s car. The blue sweater

I buy again and again, only slightly varied
in proportion and weight. How I’ve carried

Japanese coins in my change purse for two
years because I like the hole cut through

the coin, and its raised chrysanthemums,
and also, just in case. The banana that becomes

more valuable when it browns, for bread.
The hours of sleep, and what I’ve done instead

of sleeping. The cities I’ve lived in and gone
away from. The money I gave to a salon

for the uneven haircut, the months I never
cut my hair before and after. The clever

joke I made once, but cannot retell.
The broken sand dollar. The lost seashell.

Plein Air

2012-02-08T01:10:00.002-05:00

Plein Air

When we look out at the land,
it will always look back at us,
bottom-heavy. Nothing grows
from the ceiling down, or from
the sky. Give helium balloons
a day or two, and down they go,
like wedding guests dancing
to “Shout,” a little bit softer now,
softer, crouching lower and
lower. Give us enough years,
and our bodies shrink. On a
doorway in your childhood
home, a pencil flips around
and scrubs away a mark with
its nubby eraser. We can sort
everything in the universe
into two categories: stuff
or space. Stuff stays down,
space goes up. If the river
didn’t lie down beneath the
ground, and if the ground
didn’t stay so obediently,
how could we trust our easel
to stand up when we wanted
to paint the sky in the water
and the sky in the sky.

Tell Me No

2012-02-07T01:43:00.001-05:00

Tell Me No

Say no to me.
Do not give me

what I’ve asked you
for. Not a keepaway

game, but a final
answer. Say that nothing

will persuade you to
reconsider. You have given

this good thought, all
morning, all afternoon, you

have been shaping your
side of the script.

Do not say sorry,
even though you are.

What matters is the
no, not your sadness

because of mine, not
a caveat, not an

asterisk you fling to
me like a frisbee.

It is never going
to happen. Tell me

that. Let it out,
give me the bad

news and don’t prevent
me from receiving it.

This is never going
to happen, tell me

over the telephone if
it is easier for

you to not look
at me. Compose an

email and delete half
of it. Press send,

and delete it from
your sent folder. Type

no no no no
no no no no

and print it out.
Make three thousand copies,

cover my car with
them (it’s the gray

one, you’ll know it),
shingle my roof with

no so that I
can thank you for

stopping up the hole
that lets in rain.

Do not waver, darling.
It will always be

no from you, I
can live with this

word every morning. Your
no becomes the morning,

becomes the soil, the
fields, the trees and

gravity, my blood, my
little cells chirping no

and still doggy paddling.
Let me hear you

say no in every
language, with every inflection.

Use up each euphemism,
do not regret that

you must say this
thing to me, do

not explain, I know
what you might wish

for me. Delete unfortunately.
Delete difficult decision and

not meant to be.
Your no is what

I depend on. I
have stopped swallowing vitamins

since you began saying
no, my hair gets

longer faster. I have
come to crave it:

no, an evening primrose
opening to the night,

to the sound of
your voice and mine.

Hide

2012-02-06T01:20:00.001-05:00

Hide

What does the cowhide hide.
The fact that it used to hold

a body, breathing, sleeping,
finding pleasure in sunlight.

Where does that knowledge
go, when we buy the rug,

bring it home, sliding it over
the wood, a brindled amoeba.

We can hide from the idea
that somewhere, there is a cow

missing its skin, wandering
ghostily through the fields

where it once muddled orchard
grass and clover in its mouth,

sweet, gluey. The cow was
rewound, unspooled. We need

to undo it far enough to forget
there was an animal born in it.

Text-Based Art: Rothko Logic

2012-02-03T02:00:00.000-05:00

Rothko on the brain, and Rothko in the sky (with diamonds...).

Happy weekend and February, friends!

He Wants Out

2012-02-02T01:55:00.000-05:00

He Wants Out

Looking down is
looking up. You know,
Rothko-logic, as above,
so below, horizon as
equals sign. Or as the
white space between
the dark bars of the
equals sign. The earth’s
crust as horizon. As barrier
between polka-dotted
fiery freedom and
the irony, nickely fist
closed round the center
of the planet. Which allow
for each other’s existence.
We can’t differentiate
between enormities, the
big, big ocean, the ocean-
sized one patch of sky
we are always mooning over.
As I’ve heard humans
say about their dog:
he wants out. No verb,
just the result, inside
and warm one moment,
then poof, the open air
and all the stars to stare
back you, walls for windows
and ground that swings open
like a screen door to the sky.

Antibacterial

2012-02-01T01:18:00.000-05:00

Antibacterial

There isn’t a moist towelette
voluminous enough to clean
the world to our liking.

We wash our hands and have
to find a way out of the bathroom
without touching the door.

Goes Without Saying

2012-01-31T01:58:00.001-05:00

Goes Without Saying

What goes without saying, some things
do. What should we know without
speaking. Can we differentiate when truth rings
out in all brains, and when we ferret it out

because it has been withheld from us.
How much direction do we need, the sign
saying Please Flush Toilet, not just
one, but several, to intercept any line

of vision: in the stall, near the faucet,
above the silver Dyson Airblade.
From the sign, the bathroom seems desperate
for you to agree with the rules it’s made.

Magic Eye

2012-01-30T01:24:00.001-05:00

Magic Eye

When you focus your eyes,
what are you unable to see.

The chair loses its doubled
silhouette, slims and simplifies

like a woman sucking in
her stomach and tilting her

pelvis out to exaggerate
the sharpness of her hipbones.

The undulating darkness
of a bedroom settles, stills.

Look more quietly. Make
the corner of your eyes

their new center, so you
can see what flits about

you peripherally, really.
Try not to startle it away,

whatever it it is, your two
pupils boring into it like

black headlights. Allow your
gaze to slouch, let it yawn

and stretch an arm over the
shoulder of your blind spot.

It’s been following you since
you recognized your first face.

Text-Based Art: So Many Selves

2012-01-27T01:39:00.000-05:00

The blue (periwinkle?) wall was too good to pass up. I'd like to go leave letters around the neighborhood, if I could. Until then, there's Photoshop.

I wish you (and your various selves) a delightful weekend.

Jet Lag

2012-01-26T01:12:00.000-05:00

Jet Lag

There are so many selves these days,
living in many places at once.

When we travel, we leave a self back
at home, to remind us what we

would be doing if we wouldn't have left.
The traveling self receives

the thoughts of the one at home, as if
over a baby monitor,

feels unstuck from time. Yesterday,
I answered the phone

and spoke to Kathy. Sorry, who is
this, I asked, and she

said, Kathy, your across-the-hall
neighbor in number 4.

Not neighbor, actually, not for a year,
and a couple thousand miles

away, several states. It’s easy to
forget where here is,

when now is. In my Twitter feed,
hundreds of people

who live in places I have left, telling
me about the clouds

and mild temperatures, and out the
window here, clouds,

no snow. The town you return to is
only partially the place

itself. Your memory sketches over
it, like architectural plans

in reverse. It is still what it used to
be to you, every version.

House Keeping

2012-01-25T01:55:00.000-05:00

House Keeping

Don’t forget to take your
house. You put it down
at the front door. To dry.
Because you had been
walking in the rain with it.
Mine’s the one with the porch
across the hall from yours.
They like each other, it’s
sweet. They play well
together, look how yours
taps the swing on mine.
And the swing set, with
the silver legs that can rear
up like an angry horse. Don’t
leave it here. That’s yours.
We don’t want some other
house falling over your
swing set, do we, now,
no, of course not. I would
never suggest that your
house is ill-behaved.
I would never. We teach
houses how to treat us
with the land we tuck
them into, the additions
we give them or snagged
screens that go unpatched.
There are no bad houses or
bad owners, just bad plumbers.

Birthplace of Aviation

2012-01-24T01:33:00.000-05:00

Birthplace of Aviation

The place where the plane
first walked on air, or the place
where the makers of the plane
were born. Or the place where
the steel in the plane was
forged, or the college where
the best mathematician
of the class of 1854 smiled
at a man in the hallway,
welding his heart to
walls of his chest when
he saw her, and when
they married and had
children, they named
the second one Wilbur
and the sixth Orville.
How about the French
designer of the model
airplane which flew
because of a twisted
rubber band, the one
who killed himself
when he was 30, but
lived long enough to
inspire toy helicopters
to be crafted and wound
with rubber bands, one
of which was given
to the little Wright
boys as they sprawled
in the grass after
dinner in the August
dusk, looking up.

The Only Rose There Is

2012-01-23T01:31:00.000-05:00

The Only Rose There Is

Not
what were roses like
when you could touch
them, Great-Great-Great-
Great-Great-Great-Great-
Grandmother,

but
the week-in-the-vase
rose on the table now,
heavy-headed, a girl
with a bonnet for a face
sewn to a blanket.

Text-Based Art: Forever You Will Never

2012-01-20T01:39:00.001-05:00

Forgive the heavy stuff this week. At least I've matched the existential with pink and purple, right?

I'm playing with the idea of making postcards of some of these....what do you think? I was even investigating temporary tattoos a bit....though that idea is a bit more ridiculous!!

Happy weekend to you!

Which Year’s Magnolias

2012-01-19T01:29:00.001-05:00

Which Year’s Magnolias

Picture frames kneel
or prop themselves up
on an elbow or with a
fist under the chin, senior
portrait-style. Inside
the frames, more posing,
smiles summoned and
held, eyelids lifted high
and eyes looking out
from the table, back at
those in the living room.
Little herds of framed
photos become sculptures
to those who often sit
in the room with them,
small rectangles with
painted surfaces. Faces
flatten into pattern, and
so does what happened,
the details of who took
which photo, which baby
is in the stroller or yet
unborn, which year’s
magnolias were so pink.

From Whence

2012-01-18T01:12:00.000-05:00

From Whence

Where are you
at, from whence
do you hail. From
where do you
come from.
I give the ATM
machine my
PIN number.
Acronyms
cave in, and
grammar, when we
flood the engine,
give our words
too much gas.
Alls we want’s
to say it natural,
to put our thoughts
out into the light
for somebody.
We slip an extra
syllable or letter
into a word,
onion with a “g”
ongion, or alvacado
because we can’t
believe words end
where they do,
so soon. The ends
of our sentences
sizzle with vocal
fry, like wooden
doors endlessly
creaking open.
Hows come
Pop Rocks
don’t count as
punctuation.

Eggshell Eggshell

2012-01-17T01:28:00.002-05:00

Eggshell Eggshell

We want the insides of our rooms
to resemble the outside of an egg.

Not the color of a white eggshell,
but its texture. Perhaps also the color,

Benjamin Moore Eggshell Eggshell,
for wherever we need to reflect lots

of light, kitchens, bathrooms, mud
rooms. When we look at our walls

from inside our homes, we want to
feel that we are looking at the outer

edge of an egg, its shell, and we
also want to feel we are within it.

We want to have our egg and eat it,
too, and we do. To draw the planet

Earth, we draw a blue circle with
a green flotation vest flung round

its body for land, blue scribbles
wherever it isn’t green. Our planet

can fit on paper, on a tabletop.
We have seen it from outer space

in a photograph. All we want is
to pop by a neighboring galaxy

so we can look out its windows
at us. What do we look like to them.

Fraction

2012-01-16T01:45:00.001-05:00

Fraction

One day, my heart will stop beating. (not everything is a joke)
-Jimmy Kimmel in a tweet on January 13, 2012

There will be a world with no you in it,
and it won’t be lopsided here without you.
The people who knew you will also be
gone, and then the people who had been
told about you. A child in each playground
swing, a dog at the end of every leash.
Water will course through the pipes
in the city you no longer live in, in your
home that you are not inside of. The new
inhabitants will hold a pot beneath
the faucet in the kitchen, place the pot
on top of the stove, just as you did.
Some of your objects remain, have
been reassigned. Your guitar is held
by a boy whose mother purchased it
from a resale shop. Your gray pearls
are with a woman flecked with your
genes. Many of your books have
disintegrated. A few of the things
you made still belong to someone
else who looks at them. There are
television shows starring humans who
were born long after you disappeared.
Feathers fill the pillows, and teens
and preteens take the risk of placing
their tongues in each other’s mouths.
Forever, you will never come back.
Ninety-eight or eighty-three over
infinity, it is almost not even a fraction.

Experiment in Text: Slow Yes

2012-01-13T01:39:00.001-05:00

Uh-oh. I....got....Photoshop! Definitely tricky, but it will be very fun (any tips from those of you that are Photoshop experts?). This image above came from a walk I took this week, in the weirdly warm Ohio temperatures (which are now gone again). My neighborhood is bricky.

Happy weekend, everyone! What projects are keeping you occupied these days?

How to Make a Waterfall

2012-01-12T01:16:00.000-05:00

How to Make a Waterfall

Hand me that cliff
behind you on the table,
and pick a river. If
you can, just keep it stable
while I thread this fault
line through it, hold the wheel
while I drive. A waterfall
needs a delicate touch, a real
light grip even though
it squirms like the dickens.
Don’t let it overflow,
we need to let the current thicken
and set. I can only stand
here squeezing this bellows
for so long. Give me your free hand,
would you. I’m leaving you those
rocks, there, these trees, some pine
and spruce. Trust me, you’re doing fine.

Slow Yes

2012-01-11T02:45:00.000-05:00

Slow Yes

Let the objects and locations
around you grow stranger.

Let the road smack your foot
in the jaw when the cobblestone

is higher than you expected.
May the branches corkscrew

and twist as they reach away
from the trees that own them.

May you, a pedestrian, gesture
to cars to allow them to turn.

Doesn’t the insurance company
look bewitching in her bricks.

Doesn’t the nude light bulb
in the third floor of the vacant

building gleam with good health.
Keep trying tomato juice and olives

and whiskey (not together) in case
your taste buds reupholster themselves.

Keep hold of the year you were
born so you always know your age.

Scarecrow

2012-01-10T01:18:00.001-05:00

Scarecrow

We gather an old shirt
and a pair of pants
and a hat, and build
a body from straw
and sticks, a snowman
in summer.

The sleeves catch
on the sharply-angled
sticks chosen to perform
as limbs, dangle, move
as if the man we’ve made
is moving to step down,
toward us.

The more we stare at him,
in that shirt we used to
see the back of in
the mornings, when
he stood at the counter,
pouring water from
a glass into the back
of the coffee maker--
the more we stare,
the more scared
we are.

The Invitation

2012-01-09T01:23:00.000-05:00

The Invitation

The honor of your presence
has been requested. By me.
I’m requesting that you

join me, temporarily,
bring your dishonor and
your favorite dessert

only if it is ice cream,
mint studded with
chocolate chips like

a green ermine coat
in a cup. I want to eat
a meal with you, food

as trickling hourglass,
course after course to make
the evening stretch. Time

is like spandex, it snaps
back and flattens with no
body in it, without your

body. Wear what you like,
your luckiest garment,
and I will be the one wearing

the mask of your face
tied on with curling ribbons.
I promise to take it off

once you have found me.
I am looking forward to
sharing oxygen with you.

Experiment in Text: Do Not Disturb

2012-01-06T01:20:00.001-05:00

Menace

2012-01-05T01:40:00.000-05:00

Menace

The jumbled geometry
of the skate park
collects snow in its
curves. No one skates
or lurks here today.
If the skaters were
out, there would be
at least one with a cast,
a swatch of dried blood
on a shin or chin. These
boys arrive pre-bruised,
marked by play.
They are used to crashing
into dirt or concrete.
Little blond Dennis
pedaling his trike around
the block becomes
more menacing the older
he gets, mopeds, cars.
Bart is safer on a
skateboard than on a
golf cart. The ground
doesn’t move if
they smash into it.
They keep trying to
swat something loose,
so we give them a
park with no trees
and listen to their
wheels growl as they
scrape across cement.

Heartland

2012-01-04T01:42:00.001-05:00

Heartland

Iceland is not only ice, nor is Greenland
very green. The only way to know

about a place is to see it, to go
there. Keep your days unplanned

so you can discover the cafe
in which you will eat one meal,

alone. Later, you will recall the feel
of the warm cup in your hand, the stray

mint leaf in your mouth that swam
upshore from the teapot. A trip

levels every place, makes you rip
apart the truth of where every damn

person is. Chiefly, you. You know
we can only have one experience

at a time, must not shift verb tense
in the same line. But when you go

home, you will miss the place
you just came from, and when you

travel elsewhere, you will want to,
eventually, go home, to your trophy case

of lustrous cities you almost fled
to, that you loved but only got to first

or second base with. Homesickness hurts
because it will always be unrequited.

On Eggshells

2012-01-03T01:10:00.000-05:00

On Eggshells

Whether you walk on eggshells
or stomp on them, you will
trample them. To compile
a pound of eggshells, you would
need six hundred twenty-five
empties. Tiptoes and caution
still shatter calcium carbonate.
Anyway, they were made to
be broken. You are noisy
even when you are silent,
the world is dripping with
Do Not Disturb signs in
languages we don’t even
recognize as languages.
As a hearing aid with the
volume cranked lets out
a squeal, you are loud
because you are here.

Belt

2012-01-02T02:05:00.000-05:00

Belt

The verb belt,
meaning to latch
a belt around,

to torture
a garment
by twisting

its lines, to
bring the waist
of a sweater

or dress closer
to the waist
of the wearer.

When I bought
my wedding gown,
I was zipped up

by an Ichabod
Crane-esque
man who claimed

he could put
any girl into any
dress. One

two sizes too
small, he convinced
to close in on me.

In every city
I have lived in,
I find a reliable

tailor. Whatever
is ill-fitting, I
isolate it, threaten

it with thread
and needle,
or leather.

Do you or
someone you
know share

in my fetish
for strategy:
how should we

go about this,
which elegant
approach will

I uncover that
has never spoken
to anyone else.

Strategy or
strangulation,
their hands

look the same,
draped around
a lover’s throat.

Experiment in Text: Clover

2011-12-30T01:55:00.001-05:00

Thank you for reading this, now and always. A very happy new year to you, full of pale green things...

Clover

2011-12-29T01:47:00.001-05:00

Clover

The ashtray on the porch
is a houseplant that died.

The cigarette butts look
like the chewed-up stubs

of pencils. In the gaps
between the trash, leaves

small and round as an infant’s
nails. Clover sprouting up

by the half-handful, some
sprigs already strong. You

didn’t water them, but you did
leave the ashtray in the rain.

Next Door

2011-12-28T01:06:00.001-05:00

Next Door

Through this door,
another room
and another door.
Another room
through it, more
doors. Assume
every hole is a door,
each space a room.
The gaps in the floor
stand open for you.
You start to look for
the final room,
the exit, the porch,
even a solid broom
closet that can’t pour
you into a new room.
You meet others, for
whom endless rooms
are exhilarating, or
others who assume
that the architecture
knows best, the rooms
are a benevolent force
offering to us new
finishes and textures.
But neither plaster, nor
marble, nor stucco rooms
end your search for
the end of the rooms
or a roomless door.

Bad Posture

2011-12-27T01:23:00.000-05:00

Bad Posture

Dibs on the broken chair,
the one with the slipped
disc in its lower back.
I know how to hold my
body while sitting in it,
how to allow for the bad
posture of beloved objects.
The fickle deadbolt, stubborn
in winter, easygoing in
spring. The drooling
coffeepot, whose chin
I mop with the yellow
towel with a charred
splotch in one corner.
The gleaming car with
one scratch in it, that car
calls to me. Not what is
wholly ruined. Not what
won’t run. But the chipped,
the scuffed. The runt.
The stuff that lets you see
how it has been touched.

Long Time No See

2011-12-26T01:54:00.000-05:00

Long Time No See

When was it that
we last saw one
another.

We use our whole
conversation to
uncover when,

picking through
events and dates,
eliminating

the times we did
not meet by
mentioning

and discarding
them, pulling
the peanut

shells with no
peanut inside
from the bag.

It is satisfying
to sort the years
by talking

to each other,
each comparing
our skulled-up

versions of how
we’ve forked
over time.

Experiment in Text: Unsummoned

2011-12-23T01:50:00.000-05:00

I think I was drawn to this image because it is so NOT of the season (I guess that's not entirely true....Hanukkah is "The Festival of Lights," so "The Festival of Pyrotechnics" is just one cognitive door down...). I do like imagining this as a holiday card, though...

A very happy holidays to you, whatever it is that you celebrate! I hope you are enjoying the people and things that you love!

(The text in the image above is from "Unsummoned,"---here is the full text.)

Enchanted/Haunted

2011-12-22T01:43:00.000-05:00

Enchanted/Haunted

When the fridge unplugs itself,
coughing up a couple of cubes
of ice onto the floor,
and reaches its cord out like a tentacle
and slowly scoots away
from the wall.

When the piano whinnies
and snorts through its keys.

When one fork squeezes
its tines from the drawer,
scans the room, and signals
to the others that they
can begin their expedition.

When the lightbulbs unscrew
themselves, and spin as they fall
toward the floor so they won’t
break when they drop.

When the electrical outlets
erupt in a chorus of ooohs.

When the kitchen faucet confesses
to the carpet what it would like
to do to it.

At night, when your objects
come to life and scuttle
around your home
as you know they do,
what kind of castle
do you feel you live in.

****
This poem owes something to Zachary Schomburg's superb "Scary, No Scary." And also Beauty and the Beast. Also, thanks to The Jealous Curator for introducing me to Beth Katleman in this post.

Just Us Chickens

2011-12-21T02:18:00.000-05:00

Just Us Chickens

The you is implied
in any sign, STOP,

you, or hey, you,
this street is called

Liberty Street and
wait for pedestrians,

their human legs
on which they pedal

and propel themselves
across the concrete.

What pronoun would
signs use if they

could, maybe we
or the omniscient I.

What’s the POV
in this story, a student

once asked me,
stripping the letters

from the phrase
fluidly, as we drag

wrapping paper
through the legs of

sharp scissors to cut it.
To ensure privacy,

please turn lock fully
and pull to check,

the sign on the back
of the restroom door

roots for your
modesty by keeping

everyone else out
of the room with you,

grammar curtseying
and tripping over its

skirts to protect the
bond it feels with you:

intimacy so pure that you
mistake it for being alone.

Let Me Look At You

2011-12-20T01:26:00.000-05:00

Let Me Look At You

Stand up against this here
wall. Were you always this
tall. I’ll show you, put my
hand where your head is

now. Step back, and look:
your height, how much space
for your body to rise. This is
how others experience your

presence, I wish you could
feel this. The mirror places its
heel over you, squishes,
invents a version of your face,

flipped, flattened. Can you
blink when I do, stare and
think at time so it steadies,
gripped in your open lashes.

Take a look, we say, as we
might reach for a wall, a
light switch, the emergency
brake, to pull and release.

The Consult

2011-12-19T01:26:00.000-05:00

The Consult

Doctor, it hurts when I do this,
but I can’t stop doing it.

All habits lead to injury,
eventually. Running weakens

the knees, and reading melts
your eyeballs into hazel stew.

Ew. Even the perfect body
is disgusting, intestines and

blood and hair. Hold on to your
stomachs, it is natural to be

repulsed by the matter splashing
around in you, unceremonious

as a child kicking water from
a fountain, shrieking and giddy

in this new knowledge: look how
much I can do before I get in trouble!

Experiment in Text: Eye Contact

2011-12-16T02:37:00.000-05:00

Something about those black cows on a green hill, right? Much love to you and your corneas this weekend.

Trail

2011-12-15T01:52:00.000-05:00

Trail

A path. A stripped-
off stripe of lawn
with the grass gone,
dirt exposed. Gravel
over top, or rock,
or mud. A place
that tells us where
to cross a field
as if it were a
river. A scar we
give to the ground
by pressing down
on it with our feet.
We drag our bodies
around and rubble
trails behind us,
a shadow, a tail
of rattling dust and
debris, plumage
loud as the cans
strung up behind
a sedan proclaiming
Just Married!

Eye Contact

2011-12-14T02:18:00.000-05:00

Eye Contact

It’s not that the airplane is small,
but that it is far above us.
The sky is not a tarp, not a blue line
suspended across the top
edge of a sheet of paper. It isn’t even
blue, but appears that way
because of the atmosphere capping
the Earth, the planet’s cornea.
And your cornea. This place is strewn
with corneas strung up before
us like wet bedsheets pinned to a line
stretched through the yard.
Eye contact lets us speak privately,
walkie talkies with channels
that seem silent to all but us. Do you
copy. Honk if you hear me.

Attentiveness Is Currency

2011-12-13T01:09:00.000-05:00

Attentiveness Is Currency

Limping grocery cart
in the store, and the one
full of trash in the park.

Tangled mess of lobsters
in the supermarket tank,
yellow rubber bands
ringing their claws.

Delicate plastic for
the produce, how we
shake some air into it
to open it.

Chanted needs hovering
in the mind: pepper
pepper pepper.

Voice from behind
the milk that we hear
when we open the case,
I’m tellin’ you, man.

Coffee shop within
the store. Bored barista
adjusting muffins.

Encoded fruit, every
orange numbered.

What Do You Take Me For

2011-12-12T01:19:00.000-05:00

What Do You Take Me For

Equally, my cat bats
at the rubber band

I hold above her
and its shadow on

the off-white carpet.
Both seem to reach

for her, then recoil
from under her paw.

The moon glows
when we look at it

through the darkness
at our end, even though

gray rock does not
make light and spill

it down onto us.
We don’t respond to

the thing; we respond
to what it looks like

to us. What do you
take me for, every

circumstance asks, and
we answer by reacting.

Experiment in Text: You Can Do This

2011-12-09T02:12:00.000-05:00

Getting Ready

2011-12-08T01:43:00.002-05:00

Getting Ready

For how many hours, total,
have you showered.
How many inches of hair
have you sliced off
and let fall. Self-maintenance
is manageable as
a small component of the day,
but if you collected
each sliver of time in a pile,
what structure could
house it. We could fill canyons
with nail clippings
and individually dislodged
strands from our
eyebrows. Getting ready is
a ritual. How will
our bodies and faces appear
to the world today.
Which plans call for the most
mirror-scrutiny.
We must make ourselves
presentable, must
take responsibility for the
bruisey stripes beneath
our eyes, the texture of skin
and edges of nails.
When you do your hair, do
translates one way
for you, another for me. Do
not rush. Put on
your face so we know who you
are, and let us
take a good, long look at you.

You Can Do This

2011-12-07T01:23:00.001-05:00

You Can Do This

You have parallel parked in a space
just five inches bigger than your car,
smoothly. You know Queen Anne’s lace
from poison hemlock. You are
adept in remembering names,
and people’s small quirks, you know
who has cats or dogs, who trains
them. You know an Aries from a Virgo,
a Libra from a Taurus. You have worked
at 4 AM, or for 15 hours in one shift,
spoke cheerfully while your life jerked
and jolted. You found a gown in a thrift
shop, and it is beautiful. You are learning
to call to what you love, to see it returning.

Charms

2011-12-06T02:14:00.000-05:00

Charms

My lucky fill-in-the-blank.
How does an object earn

our devotion, and how come
certain items yield favorable

outcomes. The heavy clusters
of green plastic grapes dangling

from my earlobes, chosen in
fourth grade to help me pass

my math tests, which,
apparently, conjured three

separate and unexpected fire
alarms in school. You don’t

know a belonging is lucky until
something good happens while

you’re holding it. The blue
guitar pick on the floor of

the post office, waiting for me.
When I drink from the coffee mug

with my name painted in black
script across it, the day will be

good, or will improve. The trick
is to recognize the good luck charm

amidst the junk surrounding you,
the gold lamp with its belly full

of a genie in a headlock versus
the gold lamp full of nothing.

Toys Are Us

2011-12-05T01:15:00.001-05:00

Toys Are Us

Toys. Figurines. Dolls
and plastic animals,

hollow, pliable, or stiff
and jointed, as if

life equals limbs that bend.
Hair helps us pretend

that toys breathe when
we touch them, and then

lose consciousness away
from our hands. If they

could reason, they might
see us as gravity, or night,

or hunger. We happen
to them, dance and spin

them around the room,
and let them drop. Zoom

back in time, to the earliest
people: blade in one fist,

rock or clay in the other.
They’d chip a tiny mother

from the stone, or bash
a bird into it. Materials thrash

about in our hands, while
we whittle them down, file

them into totems, our copy
of a being. We are sloppy,

inconsistent, see them as real
and not real. We repeal

their existence when we need
to. Toys and stuffed animals feed

our first experiments in truth
and desire--the dolls of our youth

are pets, children. We call
to our toys, and they all

leap up, paw at our jackets
and faces. The racket

of our own loneliness is loud.
We crave a friendly crowd,

smaller than us, but the same.
We carve them, make a game

of choosing their dresses and
homes, their dreams. They land

at our feet, and we’ve forgotten
we made them. When I was given

my first Barbie, at age five,
I knew that she wasn’t alive

but I could not reconcile her brand
with who she was, couldn’t understand--

But what’s her real name, I kept
asking my parents. I couldn’t accept

any answer. She is a Barbie, so
what’s her real name. Do you know.

Video: Reading at Skylab

2011-12-02T05:22:00.000-05:00

Happy December, everyone! On Sunday night, I gave a brief reading at Skylab, and then showed a few video poems (thanks so much for having me, Skylab mad scientists!). I wanted to share two poems with you, especially: "Your Neck of the Woods," and "Pressing Ghosts."

Hope everything is going well in your neck of the woods (and not too cold!).

Caring for Your Memory

2011-12-01T04:30:00.000-05:00

Caring for Your Memory

Jog your memory
daily, open the screen door
for it when it whines.

Learn to listen for it,
figure out its sounds and
how to translate them,

its cautionary squeaks
and exhausted thumps. Don’t
forget to feed it, make

a note to refill its bowl
and leave yourself a voice mail
saying read the note.

Your memory will
become muscular according to
how you play with it,

huge haunches
but weak knees, or long-limbed
and limping. You will

always injure it
by what you do. There are
consequences for how

you call to it and
reward it, how and why
you scold it, bad

memory, horrible
memory. It isn’t what it used
to be, nimble, limber,

a climber. You have
been training it to dance alongside
you without any rest.

Going Through

2011-11-30T04:44:00.000-05:00

Going Through

Through, and into
what. Mink and fox
coats, hinterland.

If it’s too dark
to see, your hands
will become your eyes,

reaching into the air
ahead of you, reporting
back to your brain

what is coming. Who
is in the wardrobe
with you, maybe

a dog, a guide,
a witch, or a ghost,
clothed in the sheets

that used to stretch
across your childhood
bed, white with

pale blue blossoms,
blinking at you
through the eyelets.

You are going through
this so you can learn
where it leads,

where you are leading
yourself. You are.
You make your way,

we say, just as we
stage our dreams,
enact and watch them.

Your Thoughts on This

2011-11-29T04:09:00.000-05:00

Your Thoughts on This

What are you going to wear,
I ask, to determine what I should
wear. You wear a dress, and so
will I. There is solidarity in having
to make our individual choices.
Even flats or heels. Even jacket
or no jacket. My decision rolls
more smoothly if I borrow a bit
of your momentum. I’ll have it
back to you by tomorrow. You,
selecting the best recipe for soup,
omitting garlic and adding cayenne,
knowing how much to prepare
because you have decreed it.
How close together should the
letters be. Do you throw away
food you’ve let go bad, your
rotten good intentions. How many
scoops of coffee and how much
water, gasoline in the car today
or tomorrow, the Check Engine
light investigated or unchecked.

Aftermath

2011-11-28T05:22:00.000-05:00

Aftermath

The math after.
A fallout of numbers,

numerical confetti
where the piñata

once dangled.
The carcass of

a machine, a body,
either too old or

newfangled to
disappear in

usefulness. Thing
that lingers,

that loiters.
The black bags

of trash that
lollygag in alleys

and in bins,
dark and shiny

skins holding in
what we abandon.

All is disposable,
except for that which

persists. The echo
unhinged from

the sound that
threw it. The part

of the party when
it has ended

and the guests
have returned home,

when they slouch on
their couches in

crumpled suits and
gowns before sleeping.

Stay Still

2011-11-25T04:57:00.000-05:00

Act As If

2011-11-24T05:25:00.000-05:00

Act As If

Enough pretending, and you can
convince the self.
We learn this early, as kids in
the back seat
of the car, parents up front, radio
releasing into the car
parts of the world that have nothing
to do with you
yet. Are they sleeping, one of them
asks, your mother,
and turns to look at you and your
sister, heads flung
back against the seat, eyes closed
as if in sleep but not
sleeping. A few miles more, and
you buy it. You wake
to the seat belt unbuckling, retracting.
To feel happier, smile.
When they ask you in the interview,
Even though you have
no experience in this area, you are
confident you could
excel in this position, You say, Yes,
of course, conjure up
certainty in your diction and tone,
AbsoLUTEly.
Strong voice for strength. A lie,
even, the thing
we want to be real, chanted,
for instance, I am
not scared of the dark basement,
the spidery, decaying
basement. After all, you live so well
above it every day,
because the basement goes away when
you are not in it.

Waiter

2011-11-23T05:18:00.000-05:00

Waiter

The car gulps the gasoline
by itself. The nozzle and hose
hang from the tank’s mouth
like a cigarette. A loud click
from the handle, and the black hose
twitches. Full. $26.81. My hand
back on the handle, depressing
the trigger in short bursts. $26.89.
$26.98. I’m trying for an even number,
whole, no pennies swimming from
my bank account to the Shell station,
just invisible bills. This is the game
we keep engaging in, Finding
a Good Stopping Point by
Seeing Clues in the Universe.
We imagine a cohesive creature
gazing at us across the ping pong
table, eyebrows raised to see
if we are ready for what it will
bat toward us. The waiter,
that’s us, twisting the top
of the pepper grinder like a
door knob, black dust covering
our guest’s dish like soot.
Tell me when, that’s us,
grinding, waiting. Say when.

Repurposed

2011-11-22T05:16:00.000-05:00

Repurposed

Gray is the new black.
Thirty is the new twenty.

Clamp a wrench around
what you perceive, and turn.

Reality wobbles and rolls
on its side, so we can pat

its belly. What is under
the thing you think is true.

What else could it be.
How can you use it again.

Shove dirt into a rain boot
and then pansies. Drill

a hole through a Jack Daniel’s
bottle, and you have half

a lamp. Stay still, we ask
our things, while we repurpose

them. What we mean is stay,
still, we need a little longer.

Bottomless

2011-11-21T04:32:00.000-05:00

Bottomless

Permanent marker
might as well be chalk.
It cannot be scrubbed off,
but the wall on which
you draw can be
demolished beneath
your hand, can be
bulldozed. How do
we decide what is more
readily disposable, and
what to keep using.
The perfect plastic vessel
housing hand soap
empties, and is thrown
into the blue bin
with the other bottles
and jars that hold nothing.
To mean anything,
a container must store
a visible substance.
We destroy them, melt them
all together, make them
into new versions
of what they were already,
fill them again.
Bottomless refills, some
restaurants promise.
For as long as you
exist, and so do they,
they will bring you soda
in clear red cups.
There is plenty of sugar
and water, and carbon
with which to manufacture
tiny bubbles cupping air.

Art: Collaboration with Jessica Bell

2011-11-18T04:00:00.000-05:00

I have been unbelievably excited to share this project with you. As you know, my poems are ignited by looking at visual art. I look at it, and examine my own reactions--what is it about this piece that speaks to me? Why?

I'm thrilled to let you know that I've been working with artist Jessica Bell in the reverse of this process; I shared work with her that speaks to what she does as an artist, and she has created something visual in response to my poem.

If you don't know Jessica's art, I'm happy to introduce you to it (I know you'll love it). Her works remind me of maps, the sky, aerial views of land. When I look at her pieces (whether textile, paint, paper, or photography), I think of icebergs, stones, the ocean, and constellations.

Appropriately, Jessica chose to work with a poem of mine about the stars--"Apparent Magnitude." Just as my poems are not simply descriptions, her art is not a literal translation of this poem. Our work is a dialogue about proximity, language, and finding order in this unraveling world. I'm crazy about what she made, and hope you are, too. In the future, there may be more of these...

Here's the piece she created, and the larger piece in which she included the text of the poem (click the images to see them more closely).

Apparent Magnitude by Hannah Stephenson and Jessica Bell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Sometimes, Always, Never

2011-11-17T05:21:00.000-05:00

Sometimes, Always, Never

Repeat this to remember how
to decipher the buttons on a jacket:
sometimes, always, never.

Do up that middle button, quick,
and get your hands off the last one.
Didn’t you hear yourself.

Existence is mighty confusing.
The rules help. A bit. I before E,
we chant, except for the times

when I does not fall before E.
Rules electrify the exceptions,
the experiences that slip between

what we expect and what arises.
Man walking down the street
with a lady stands nearest to the road,

but what if there are two ladies,
or none. Two men. One man
and three ladies. And why, too,

what protection does this offer
women. Liquor before beer,
or the reverse. Red sky at night, then what,

the morning. Count the seconds
after the lightning. Listen as
your numbers call forth the thunder.

Truth Serum

2011-11-16T04:18:00.000-05:00

Truth Serum

Can you name the key
lunging into your locks.
Which truth serum
persuades you to talk,

and what aftertaste glows
in the ceiling of your throat.
Which room would you
talk to me in. What code.

What is the difference
between speech and song.
Do you notice your cadence
wandering around along

the edges of melody.
How are you training,
based on the scenes
you keep recreating

and painting. Which
dark art is your specialty.
There is always one,
at least, a jagged tendency

that you drag out to
play with. Have you seen
what you are trying to teach
yourself through routine.

Discount Adult Video Superstore

2011-11-15T04:50:00.000-05:00

Discount Adult Video Superstore

Adult videos for sale. Tons of them.
Adult means dirty here. Sexually explicit.

Not evil, necessarily. Your brainstem
might just have a craving for the illicit

but reasonably priced. Feed me, Seymour,
feed me, your inner Venus fly trap growls.

Overflowing stacks and shelves. A superstore,
Smutmart, Lustalot, descending into the bowels

of the planet, an upside-down skyscraper,
thirty floors below ground, each more strange

that the one above it. Copy machine and stapler
flicks a few floors down, fetishes arranged

with the neatness of a library. Bondage and feet
on 1, food on 2. Any desire you have ever had

materialized on film. Our billboard is indiscreet
so you know what we sell: scantily-clad

and naked bodies, teleporting onto your screen,
into your homes. Why shouldn’t fantasy

be affordable. When times are tough, the obscene
can comfort us. Shop here. Stimulate the economy.

The Berm

2011-11-14T05:46:00.000-05:00

The Berm

If I photographed the trees
on the grassy, leaf-strewn land
holding the highway’s hand,

with my lens, I could block out
the unbeautiful elements. The road,
the black and white billboard

that tells us, in caps, Hell is Real,
the H in Hell filled in with dark red,
a jaunty patch on a varsity jacket.

Three times in the last month
I almost parked the car at the side
of the freeway. In my mind,

I see myself leaving the car,
clambering down the berm, the slick
gravel and grass. Wooly mist

drifts through this patch of trees,
a copse, I think, and see the word
wrestle with its lookalike neighbor:

a corpse. I want to stand in
this fractured meadow, and stare
at the fiery leaves leaving their

perches, flinging their orange
bodies at the green ground. The trees are
not dying, just some of their parts.

Video Poem: Three Contemplate Infinity, by Lesley Jenike

2011-11-11T04:11:00.000-05:00

Yippee---my first video poem using another poet's work!

I'm excited to share this with you. The poem is "Three Contemplate Infinity," by the brilliant Lesley Jenike. I love how skillfully disorienting this poem is--and the book that it comes from, Ghost of Fashion (quite possibly the best title ever), is equally enthralling.

For more about Lesley Jenike, click here. Or click here to learn about her book (and how to buy a copy).

There, There

2011-11-10T05:42:00.000-05:00

There, There

There, there,
we say to a crying person,
touch them
twice, on the arm, flat palm.
Ascertaining
location is comforting, and
nearness,
and the knowledge that while
despair
can come from you, it is not
lodged
within you. Soothing someone
is a form
of exorcism, shooing away pain
so the person
can become themselves to us
again.
People are places, we admit
mid-pat,
once for them, once for us.
We want
this wailing to roll to a stop.

No Problem

2011-11-09T05:10:00.000-05:00

No Problem

To get the jam on the bread
without a knife, use the back
of a spoon. A pencil, and gravity.
Hell, a finger. A screwdriver.
What couldn’t you use, really.
Here is a stack of solutions
offering themselves up to you
every moment. What tools
swirl around you, a school
of glowing fish, of clues.
First we learn to count, and
then to add. Because that is
how life works, one thing,
and another, and another,
until something slips away
or multiplies or splits.
What are you working on
over there. Which problem
are you on. I think we’re
doing this right. Aren’t we.

Methodology

2011-11-08T04:49:00.000-05:00

Methodology

Methodical, melodic, or
madness, haphazardness.

Wildness can be a risk,
haphazardous. With blades,

or construction, or driving.
Any heavy machinery

calls for care, forethought,
a level sense of what goes

where. But what joy can
caution bring us, some

warm, furry sensation
unfurling gradually.

We borrow from both,
illogically. How I leave

the house, for example,
hurricane of keys and

sheets of paper, the feeling
that I am forgetting fifty

things. Or the bout of
flossing that occurs before

the dentist, training my gums
to bleed less as evidence

of splendid dental hygiene.
What is the difference between

chaos and order, anyway.
Where would we look

to measure this. The before
or after. Where do those start.

Experiment in Text: Show Me Your Chords

2011-11-04T04:47:00.000-04:00

Untitled

2011-11-02T04:27:00.000-04:00

Untitled

Every room is full,
even the empty ones.

A house is brewed
from plans. Here is

your master, says
the realtor to the

twenty-three year
olds, leading them

through one room
to the bathroom

without the bathtub,
his and hers sinks,

though, so they can
each have a drain

to clear the frothy
toothpaste from their

mouths. No one
had ever lived in

the apartment, and
yet, with confidence,

the realtors knows
what goes where.

Future home of
more homes, like

the sign says,
not a dug-up lot

but an intended site,
future home of

some yet-unnamed
place, to be announced

as soon as a pencil
says it to the blueprints,

claiming this land
with certainty

as if uncovering
a name already planted

within the plans and
waiting to be called on.

December

2011-11-01T04:11:00.000-04:00

December
A Fantasy

Somewhere, a woman wakes up
in a bed that she fills half of.

Her white dog hops onto the bed,
the white sheets and comforter

and coverlet, and its gold ID tag
delicately clinks against the collar.

The dog smells like pancake batter.
Its paws are white and clean.

There is no dog hair on any blanket,
nor on the carpet or hardwood floors.

The house offers her a pink bathrobe
on a silver finger poked through

the bathroom door. Here, take this,
her house is empty again, no sign

of dog or human, the kitchen counter
has never been used, the knives

sparkle in their wooden slots, undulled.
Her husband is planning a surprise

for her, that is why he left so early.
We know it, but she doesn’t.

The morning is dark and full of possibility.
She could do anything today,

especially in her home, she could wear
any of her dresses or flowing blouses

and never leave the house, she is so
satiated. When she opens the door

to let the dog into the yard, we see
it has just snowed, the sky glows blue

and we pan back for her reaction to
the silver car in the driveway, big bow,

red, satin, plopped on top, dog yipping
for her to notice the gift, the keys

jammed into the ignition, a silver heart
dangling from them like the pendulum

on a grandfather clock, like the heavy
silver heart that he gave her last year

to string around her throat, so that he
can see how his choices for her please her.

The Thing About

2011-10-31T05:05:00.000-04:00

The Thing About

The thing about
saying the thing
about any thing

is it obscures.
All sense-making
does, except

those examples
I will exclude
here. Ignore

what you do
not need, sure,
to embrace

the singled-out
thing about
the thing.

The eye gets
grabbed when
it looks, gets

fondled, felt up,
falls in love
with one facet,

one sparkly patch
from the oceanic
fields of things

that exist, that
were formed
before you saw

them, long before
your eyes were
born. The birches

on one street,
knock-kneed
and ridged

as unpeeled
carrots, or the
funny foliage

before that
freeway exit,
high ends and

vines folded over
the center, like
fingers raised

in praise of
heavy metal,
a fist with horns,

a tailless Y in
sign language.
The thing about

attentiveness--
the more you
notice, the more

you look, and the
more you look
the more you

will have to
overlook, as you
have already.

Audio: With Love

2011-10-28T04:41:00.000-04:00

This week, I had the itch to record some audio. So here's "With Love" for you, a poem I wrote last fall.

A while ago, I looked myself up at Klout, which supposedly measures your social media influence. It points out who you interact with most via social media, and mentions topics that you are supposedly influential about. It used to say that I was influential about "neurosis," "wine," "helium," and "mattress." Somewhat true (well, not the helium bit), I suppose, though I'm quite happy that the currently listed topics are a little more aligned with my actual interests (the site now mentions that I'm allegedly influential about "spoken word," "authors," "disorders," and still, "helium").

Some of my poems definitely have a neurotic tone to them. I don't know if it's necessarily a bad thing--I like to think that while they might sound a bit strange/obsessive, they are also playful and giddy (Woody Allen meets Peewee Herman). Is neurotic always negative, do you think? How would you characterize your writing voice?

Hope you enjoy the (very neurotic!) "With Love."
With Love by The Storialist

We Look for Migration

2011-10-26T05:11:00.000-04:00

We Look for Migration

For months now,
I notice what seem

to be to leaves floating
and flapping in the air

over the freeway, above
my windshield and car.

Butterflies. Buttery
yellow and orange,

mottled brown.
I see them and drive

beneath them,
their small, fervent

thrashing. Winged
things always look

like they are leaving.
Above the butterflies,

clusters of black birds.
For months, I’ve read

the scattered tea leaves
of their flight as departure.

Where we look for
migration, we will see

migration. If we anticipate
what we think we know

is coming, we won’t be
as startled by what it

brings, the evening where
the afternoon once was.

Analytical Distance

2011-10-24T04:53:00.000-04:00

Analytical Distance

Step back to see
what you thought you were seeing
clearly. Amidst
is a mist. Fetch the edges instead
of the center,
the yellowing silver maple, the ends
of its leaves
serrated like paper snowflakes,
the gray sky
behind all of this, and us, the year
and decade
we belong to. The century and those
adjacent to it.
The hemisphere, and the planet.
To learn more,
put your life on a table. Take your
hands away,
let it clatter against the table until
it stills. It will,
and then you can look. Crawl around.
Install yourself
in a high corner, between the ceiling
and the wall
where a waiting room television goes
and watch.
The first thing you feel. Notice it,
and walk
through it, backward, pointing out
what you have
been trying to tell yourself for years.
Keep moving
with the surety of a student tour guide
coaxing anxious
families through a college campus,
Here is the library
and the dining hall, and next, the best
dorm, the biggest
and most popular, evening quiet hours
gently enforced
and, of course, a real sense of community.

Experiments in Text: This Unearthly Pace

2011-10-21T04:22:00.000-04:00

Away

2011-10-20T04:49:00.000-04:00

Away

Throw it away,
we say, but where
does this directive
lead. Where is
away. We know it
suggests distance
and removal, that
the thrown thing
is no longer visible
or retrievable.
In theory, it is gone
for good, forever
or for a very long
time. We trust
it will biodegrade
into nothing, into
matter smashed up
microscopically
or reabsorbed into
the air or dirt.
We believe in
the dumpster.
We assume it takes
our trash from us
and does away
with it, undoes
what we don’t
have room for in
our homes, what
we refuse to
claim or tend.

Great Plains

2011-10-19T04:53:00.000-04:00

Great Plains

Every continent has its flatlands,
its great plains. Planned plain land,

green with grass or grain, without
close-set trees or oceans. Unmown

meadows, flat and vast. The veldt,
wide yellow belt of wildness. Fever

country, fields in which thousands
of people would fit, if they lived

nearby. Heath, moorland, pasture,
outback, tundra. Windy, hindered

lands, places in which to graze and
wander, to walk through while

wondering, Where should I go
so the wind can reach through me,

so I can rifle through life while
living it. Prairies help us hear

the quietness hatching within
us, help us feed our prayeries.

Freshening Up

2011-10-18T04:12:00.000-04:00

Freshening Up

They put the new road
right on top of the old one,

spill blacktop on the street
and roll it smooth as if it

were paint, shiny, black.
Trouble is, in places we

can see the previous lane
markers, blacked out but

slightly raised from the road
like goosebumps or hives.

The fresh white paint insists
we drive between its lines,

but the way we used to drive
along this street still reaches

out to guide us. The road
can erase only so much of

itself. Even the newest batch
of drivers will notice how uneven

the road’s skin is, as their cars
push into the new road and

the roads living beneath it,
blacktop, brick, and dirt.

Experiments in Text: Precious Moments

2011-10-14T05:00:00.000-04:00

How You Can Tell It’s a Playground

2011-10-13T05:50:00.000-04:00

How You Can Tell It’s a Playground

Manmade archipelago, a low, clustered
city of materials, red plastic and steel.
Green turtle sandbox, sand in the shell.

Yellow seesaw with red seats. Slide
with bumps molded into it, an ode to
warped journeys, and the black rubber pail

of a baby swing dangling from two lengths
of chain, each clutching the seat with a free
hand. Mulch, and mulch dug out where

feet go, under the tire swing, at the base
of the slide where the kids collide with
the ground. Fence around it, and a gate

that you can unlatch and push to open.
Paved path nearby, leading there or through,
and a school that can be walked to, or

a daycare. Thick-skinned structures that
want to roughhouse, gently. You can fall
here, and be hurt only a little, a knee

bloodied or bruised beneath unbroken denim,
palmfuls of splintered mulch. Jump. Climb.
Run. We’ll help with the consequences.

Precious Moments

2011-10-12T05:08:00.000-04:00

Precious Moments

The moony eyes of Precious Moments figurines
ogle the swelling crowd on the other side
of the glass. From the neck down, the shop

is peachy. The Royal Doulton ladies simper on
their glass shelves, the hems of their gowns
swirling around slim ankles. The fat faces

on the jugs leer with customary drunkenness,
and ceramic puppies pause from gnawing
at your slipper, the very picture of adorable

guilt. But the red neon sign, Alan’s Collectibles,
and everything above it is on fire. Flames
chew through the green awning and roof

patiently, and shreds of the blackened canvas
drift down like foliage. Framing the fire,
but unaffected by it, the orange and red

leaves of neighboring trees, and, of course, people,
standing still to watch the fire, holding out
cell phones like torches, pointing them up.

ASAP

2011-10-11T05:50:00.000-04:00

ASAP

Do it A.S.A.P., ASAP,
as soon as possible,
or A.S.A.H.P., as soon
as humanly possible,
start completing this task
while I am speaking to you.
Do it A.S.A.P., A-sap, ace-app,
eight-zap. The sooner,
the better, even now would
be too late, but acceptable.
Act now. I don’t mean to
panic you, but you have
three minutes starting now.
Hurry up, but get it right,
to show you how serious
I am I have omitted most
of the letters. Let your
eyes or ears scan the words
for a corresponding meaning
that beeps into being
in the cash register of your
mind. Speaking only slows
us down, the process, so
listen faster. Hurry up,
hurry the hell up, the hell
of being told there is no
time to respond so do it
now, do it now, with every
breath you take you could
be finishing this task.
What are you waiting for.
Really, I’m asking you,
what thing do you need
to start. Haven’t you already
started just by picturing it.

Structurally Sound

2011-10-10T05:02:00.000-04:00

Structurally Sound

How softly should beginnings begin
so they mark a shift in sound, yet
do not startle you away, listener.
First silence, then the first stirrings
of intended noise. Fingers lifting to
strings, oxygen sucked into a mouth,
numbers. One two three, two two three,
the song is here. We can step into it,
inhabit it, its voice feels familiar.
The chords, the walls. The melody,
the light, and harmonies for windows.
We want to live inside of it, to bask
in sound waves. If we can stay here,
we will never die, will never not know
that plain objects possess magic
that we activate, the silver stapler,
the glossy calendar, the brick building
against the gray sky, these can shimmer
with longing when we look at them
with the right eyes. Generosity, yours,
calls out, and every sound comes
inching out to greet you, the tambourine
and the hands that hold and collide
with it, the obedient guitar strings.
The chorus, a succession of beds
for you to choose from and climb
into. You know this will end, that
minutes will paddle faster and faster,
the song will retreat as you chase it,
transpose itself into a higher key,
beatific. The gospel choir, an aerial
view of what you will soon return to
as it approaches. See how natural
endings are, the outro croons,
as a whole house scuttles away,
dragging the block behind it
like a billowing, sparkling nebula.

Video: Light House

2011-10-07T04:20:00.000-04:00

I'm very happy to share with you this video poem for "Light House."

The footage was shot at Rooms to Let II, a temporary art space created and curated by Melissa Vogley Woods. Melissa selected artists to create installations in each room of a house, and showed the amazing creations last Saturday night. Lucky for all of us in Columbus: Rooms to Let is holding a closing reception tonight, from 4-7 PM(click the link for location and details).

Do Not Take This Medicine

2011-10-06T04:43:00.000-04:00

Do Not Take This Medicine

If you are pregnant, or are actively seeking
pregnancy, or are even picturing
yourself as a pregnant person, the yellow dress
with the empire waist you could still
wear, all the extra fabric gathered up when
you wear it now.

If you are prone to depression and feelings
of loneliness. To not deleting
voice mail. To forgetting how old you are.

If you also take other medicine, or if you are
allergic to chocolate, or oxygen.

On an empty stomach. Because we’ll know
if you’ve eaten. We designed
this pill to self-destruct if, when it tumbles
down your throat, it ricochets
around the lining of your stomach, unable
to rest and sink in.

From strangers. From doctors who are acting
a little strange, shaky hands
scratching tree branches onto prescription pads.

If you cannot say how sick you are. If you
cannot rate your pain.

If you have a heart murmur, or if your heart
murmurs to you what it wants
or doesn’t want. Ask your doctor if your
heart is healthy enough for
what you are feeding it.

Narrowing It Down

2011-10-05T04:07:00.000-04:00

Narrowing It Down

In a room full of black cats,
I know I could find mine,
but how long would it take me.

I know her face, her mouth,
her extra toes in front
so she seems to be wearing

oven mitts. This will never
happen, me locked in
a room with forty other cats,

the floor teeming with shiny,
dark creatures, some
authority demanding I select

and retrieve my animal from
the flock. I test myself,
hypothetically. How would

I respond in this fantasy, after
the panic, the ground
roiling around me with black fur

and claws, limbs and tails
and teeth, yellow and
green eyes dotting the shadows

like a mess of Christmas lights
plugged in, fizzing
light. Narrow it down, I coach

myself in the imagined chaos,
and then speak to them
to see how they behave. Let

them bite you. I will find her
eventually, as long as
I chant, Take as long as you need.

E-Z

2011-10-04T04:45:00.000-04:00

E-Z

E-Z Keyz and Lox. E-Z Cleaners.
Hertz Carz: Let Yourz Be Ourz.
 
Why. Z’s in for S’s are repulsive,
twisted the wrong way, sticking

to the teeth as they buzz out the
ends of words. The sound is right,

almost, but heavier, scratching up
the voices dragging it out. Visually,

even, it is grotesque. The eye’s
stomach churns at the scissored

version of the word. Easy, those
hills you like to drive through,

the meandering freeway, goldenrod,
green fields, the end of the y dangling

down like a cat’s tail as it sits
on the window sill. E-Z slices

out two vowels, tacks the capital
letters together with a hyphen,

scotch tape. A botched surgery,
suggestive of an eye chart, of

weakening vision, an amputated
alphabet. This is not what we want

from experience, life balled-up
and hollowed out, a one-stop shop

so we can get in and get out, forget.
But ease, we do long for that, and

the acknowledgement that when
things break, parts of us must halt,

must ask strangers for repairs
that happen carefully, gently.

Pick Up Sticks

2011-10-03T04:39:00.000-04:00

Pick Up Sticks

Baby, I like how you
are assembled, one atom

snapped into another
like tinker toys. Tight genes,

baby. Dominant, too.
Where are my manners,

I suppose I haven’t
learned them yet, or they

haven’t stuck. Your
skin is the color of band-aids,

freshly unwrapped,
you smell like My Little Ponies,

like sugary, pliable
plastic. You could camp out

in my love for you,
because it is in tents. Pillow

forts and night lights.
Sleepovers. You are so fine,

baby, do you know
you are going to be just fine.

Experiments in Text: Olden Days

2011-09-30T04:47:00.000-04:00

Another experiment. Not sure about this, but it's fun (and a little scary!) to stretch. More to come, maybe.

It Depends

2011-09-29T05:27:00.000-04:00

It Depends

My answer to any question:
It depends.

All answers need annotation.
Show your

work, math teachers tell us,
and give credit

for the process and partial
truth-telling.

The deep end of experience
and knowledge

can be siphoned, spooned out
for us based

on what we have to hold it in.
How can

every action be equal, every
problem

solved and dissolved with one
word, one verb

or proverb smoothing over the
pockmarked

circumstance, as peanut butter
sliding onto

still-warm toast. The temperature
of the bread

matters, the type of peanut butter,
the knife.

Response depends upon the laws
of gravity,

which planet, which people and
what they know

of one another, the discussion
one just finished

at home and the just-diagnosed
gluten allergy

of the other, the season, the rain
that just let up

and the sharp, candied-citrus smell
of the detergent

on the rim of her glass as she raises
it to her mouth.

Counting Chickens

2011-09-28T05:12:00.000-04:00

Counting Chickens

The day does what it always does:
goes away. We convince ourselves

to forget with contentment, with
fatigue. Who are we when we sleep.

Why do we need unconsciousness.
We lie down, position our bodies

so they are parallel to the floor
and beneath it, the ground, and

scoop up the night’s ration of
stillness. It’s still early. If we can

fall asleep now, we will have almost
seven hours of rest, at least six

solid hours. We pile them up like
ice cubes in a glass, and in the glow

of our attention, they drip, disappear.
That panic you have felt at 3 AM

is real, but was not caused by what
you thought it was, a phone number

you meant to dial earlier and did not,
the money you sent or spent. Count

out three long draughts of oxygen
to nudge your mind back toward sleep.

It’s late tonight, but still early, no light
in the sky yet for tomorrow. Every year,

we relearn how old we are by subtracting
the year of our first recorded appearance

from the year the calendar says it is.
We need time to keep starting over.

Light House

2011-09-26T04:59:00.000-04:00

Light House

Light, the mother tongue,
a tungsten tongue in
a glass mouth. The throat
opens, exhales heat into
the bulb and the voice
splashes out for our eyes.
Illuminated air and ground,
clarity, warmth. The world
makes room for us, we think,
shows us where to go with
light, walk here, live here,
drive here. We create the road
by pouring our headlights
over it so we can see and move.
And in the well-lit places
where the sun is not enough,
bulbs tell us to hurry, that
we are wanted there now.

Video: Ships Set Out

2011-09-23T04:04:00.000-04:00

A Prezi for you (Prezi is a type of presentation software that allows zooming, and it is my new addiction) of my poem, "Ships Set Out." To view it, you have a couple of options. One option: click the "Play" button, and then move the cursor to the right side of the video onto "More," and click "Autoplay" (the video will play through without you having to press anything). The other option: Click the "Play" button, and then click the play button to move through the poem, line by line (after you've read each line). The circle button will allow you to zoom in on the very start of the poem (the title), or zoom out so you can see all of the text at once (if you get stuck here, press the "play" button).

Hope you enjoy it! And if you make a Prezi, be sure to share...

Sinusitis

2011-09-22T04:41:00.000-04:00

Sinusitis

When I crunch into the apple,
or when I walk or jump,
I can feel the holes

in my face sloshing around in
response. The infection
is gone, but the sinuses

are still sensitive, cringing
at how brazenly my
muscles and bones

canter across the pavement,
the tile. Our bodies
are full of pockets,

both full and empty, and they
stay silent for so long,
until they speak.

They communicate to us in
discomfort or pressure,
speak with pinches

and elbows and fists. The reward
for listening is pain, and
a clear source of

what hurts. The body cries, and
we hold it while it settles,
searching for sleep.

City

2011-09-21T05:41:00.000-04:00

City

Let’s name the buildings here
after the families that did not

die first. A hardware store,
Boardman’s Tools, is inserted

into the ancestral line. Then
a library. Next, Boardman

Ford and Boardman Honda,
Boardman Heights High School

and Stadium. Each new structure
is an ageless baby, a borrowed

forefather. The city and its
inhabitants, blood brothers,

Boardmans. The family name
crawls onto the land, Boardman

Avenue and Pier, Boardman
Bay. Genes waft through the city

like pollen, like the smog clinging
to the scalp of Boardman Tower.

The Copier's Mouth

2011-09-20T05:33:00.000-04:00

The Copier’s Mouth

What’s the word for
when we mistake the thing
for what it looks like.

The purple and blue
polka-dotted umbrella under
the desk looks just like mine.

It is. Ownership is not
my first thought, but familiarity,
recognition of form and color.

What is this the evidence
of, my delay in comprehension,
a cognitive pause. It’s Platonic,

this problem, forms with
a capital or lowercase F, the object
blocking the light or the shadow.

The new copy machine
makes copies and takes pictures
of words that can be emailed.

I forget the document
in the copier’s mouth, so I download
the file and print it out.

Which version should
we work from. I can’t not double
check my copy against yours.

Video: Matters

2011-09-16T05:59:00.000-04:00

A new poetry video for my poem, "Matters" (click the link to see full text of this poem).

I love how I can hear a woman in the background saying, "That makes sense."

Hope it's a good weekend for you, full of sense and nonsense.

Always Dangerous

2011-09-15T05:01:00.000-04:00

Always Dangerous

Backing your car out is what,
asks the state of California
on their written driver’s test.

I got it wrong. California says
that it is D, always dangerous.
I chose B, that backing your

car out is safe only when you
do it with caution. If I wrote in
always, I would be more right,

I can think of ten examples
in which backing out is no threat
to any creature or object,

like when the parking lot
is empty and fenced in, when
I have already checked that

no cat is sleeping beneath
the car’s warm belly, that
the gravel is sturdy enough

to hold the car and that
no asteroid is shuttling out
toward Earth right now.

Even today, pulling out of
the faculty lot at the same time
as the car next to me was

not a dangerous situation.
The professor next to me braked,
and held out an empty hand,

palm up, go ahead, and finished
singing along to the song I could
hear through our closed windows:

Everything, everything will be
just fine, everything, everything
will be alright, alright.