image feels like freedom and trapture

life on the half shell

For the other side of this room, see B.A.P.blog post, including notes on my underground, by which I mean thoughts on a lower case, by which i mean, would you like mustard with my subconscious?   

after jury duty today

AFter being deemed peerless and cast from the pool for my doctorate we went on the F about 15 stops.

KFU

we had dogs, chili dogs, raw little necks, fried clam strips, fried shrimp, beer, lemonade

you can't say we didn't cavort

tide

ride

hey joey

garden jewelry II

A bleader comments regarding my garden jewelry.  Yay, if I may.  Here are two more pics, click to get closer. xox

If on a Sunday night a traveller

A poem from my new manuscript, first published in the Mississippi Review. And then a poem from my second poetry book, Funny.

 

Monolog for Mother to Newborn Son

The other animals were such animals:

wolf, shrew, weasel, hawk, snake,

always hassling each other.  It is less

spooky without them; less looking over

one’s shoulder, less looking on at

the feasting carnage.  I am often

hungry, however, and it seems

there are limits to my pity.

 

Actually, this philosophical conversation

is a ruse to avoid the truth while

speaking of it.  The truth is, last night

in my dream I ate you with a knife

and fork.  After a while I noticed

you were half eaten and felt very

sorry about it.  I woke up sick about it.

 

Still, you are wonderful

and your cheek is a tasty, chewy treat

I will try to protect you from my hunger.

 

The Sound of Those Drums

A man, walking alone

in the wild woods at twilight

begins to hear a rhythmic

 

pounding, resounding through

the space between massive

trunks of trees.  I don’t like

 

the sound of those drums,

he says, frightened, aloud.

There’s a pause, then a woman

 

yells back He’s not our regular

drummer. Come out from in there. 

 

Walk out from the darkness

between the evergreen and

 

deciduous and say it is ridiculous,

this hiding in my song.  What

 

a bunch of brave brutes we

are; how talented it is

 

to fearfully play in our combo

even when we may be mistook

 

for threat of war, or, worse,

critiqued for our interpretation

 

of the score.  How we arrive

with our casserole dishes

extended, our chocolate hearts

 

on a platter of fingers, lips

pursing in the plump of a kiss,

 

offered and offering!  He takes her

in his arms, whispers that he is

 

always scared, she says she’s

sensitive to negative critique.

 

He takes her in his arms, whispers,

I don’t like the sound of those

 

drums, she says, He’s not our usual

drummer.  Through it all a sweet

 

groaning, intoning.   The more

they understand of these

 

translations, the more

they lose interest in this plane

 

of existence.  Instead, it is still

wintertime.  People have been talking

 

a lot about snow.   You are

letting go of even letting go.  You are

 

listening and it is sometimes

very interesting.  You keep

 

your eyes at a far-away glaze,

You feel the weight of your hands.

 

The trees shimmer, tinseled

winter tremors in the wind.  Things

 

have a salt haze.  Life is a plump

plum today, a thump on your

 

skin, an unknown drum, humming. 

 

in which i make eggplant parma

click here: for an aubergine dream

yes these two purple beauties are the same two eggplant that are in the photos on this blog, but no they are not the ones in the dish.  those two are quite soon to grace a plate, but so far i love them too much.

garden jewelry

why do i string large glass beads on wire and hang them from my trees and trellis?   because i do.  because i am trying to be a normal person and it comes out weird.   

poem

Trotsky’s Hand

I
It’s like dreaming of someone
too much while you’re away
at war; then you come home
to his fingered hat or her

faltering hemline and it’s 
What the hell was I fighting

for? Just another example
of how biography works.
Your character has got 
to have a narrative arc,

some drawbacks, 
something irredeemably awful,

along with his or her strong 
points, to be believable. 
Yet we all recoil in disbelief 
when anything of the sort cuts

a form into our real lives, 
the life of the author. Don’t

despair! It’s just the demands
of narrative! Leda, after all, 
probably never even thought 
to fear anything like that.

Then one day, there it is,
the century actually over

and most of its artifacts
still entirely inexplicable.
This is no walk in the park
with spinach, Swee’pea,

I’ve got no idea where to go 
for extra strength.

I guess that’s what 
they’re selling.
It’s an incidental 
that it cleans your laundry,

scrubs your teeth. What is of note 
is that it is a source of extra

strength. Extra strength! Thank
God! That’s what we’re going 
to need in case they all switch back:
the swan, the prince, the salt.

Even if you weren’t ever accosted
by a feathery god,

you take some heavy losses early on, 
and that will leave feathers everywhere
for the rest of your life; as if 
you were wearing an eiderdown coat;

you just walk around and molt. 
As for the man in the tiara,

that’s a transformation
you never want to go through 
twice, but do, coaxing every
so often your sad, damp, frog

back into his palace. Don’t 
you like your scepter? Won’t

you wear your robes? 
Lastly, salt. Well, who doesn’t 
turn towards the sepia for a second 
look; into the carousel music

and the tortured plaster horses
of the past? But this sympathy

does not imply that I want 
Madame Lot back here
knitting itchy sweaters.
Let’s just try to calm down.

II
When Stalin took power
he had Trotsky erased 
from the photographs. 
Sometimes, you can still see

a floating hand. Left behind.
So disembodied as to be

almost meaningless. We try 
to ignore it, floating there
in history. We get to work.
There is something to be said for that.

You can’t really expect me 
to roll around naked in a garden

letting Trotsky’s severed hand 
float around my body, 
knowing my body better 
than any lover, his soft,

soft-focused, probing hand.
Yet, how can we do anything

serious with that thing hovering
overhead? A woman working
at a table in the park swats 
away the tickling hand

of Trotsky, and intones
as if to all of history:

Not now. Trotsky’s hand, 
abashed, moves on
to pick some flowers. 
So much is gone that

what is left is inexplicable
without memory, and memory

is painful and very difficult 
to explain. Which isn’t 
to say I mind Trotsky’s hand

snapping its fingers 
and flapping itself like a bird

above my desk or would rather 
have him back, extant,
yammering about world socialism 
and complaining about

the samovar: Is this thing cold again?
So, is this more of a lament

than a complaint? Sure.

But it is always there. This
burden of history is not a bird
but a hand, its wrist a tiny cloud.

It’s very quiet. It fills the quiet sky.

///

It is from my first poetry book, The Next Ancient world.  I'm not sure what made me want to say it to you just now.  Oh but now that I think about it I suppose a few things come to mind.  the prince, the swan, the salt.  note to self: keep your eye on what transforms, note what of it doesn't change, and henceforth keep your eye on that.

danger, flammable

jess

a portrait of the artist as a young

your ad

"this could be" most powerful

go eggplant -- go eggplant -- go eggplant

If you look back a few posts (no more than one page back) you can see this mighty nighty grow from a marble to this muscle on the arm of the garden. 

sea egg

emergency

pixies acoustic

you never wait so long

plant plant plant

levis

Baby Bee Bomber

There was a mighty waterballaduel.  The loser ran off alone, while the winner followed those footprints towards Gilder.  Bzzz.

waiter, waiter

If you are in the desert and there is nothing but hot sand and white sky in every direction you call out Water.  But you don't really want water.  As below.

If you are in the ocean and there is nothing but cool water and white sky in every direction, you call out Land.  But you don't really want land, as an immediate transfer to the above situation makes clear in quick abundance.

What you want is border, edge, beach.  As I discuss in my poetry book Funny a desert is exactly the same as a beach, except for the ocean.   Come to think of it, an ocean is exactly the same as a beach, except for the sand on the latter.  

If you are going to use a latter to prune the plum trees please get a spotter and use her.  If you are in Lincoln Center hunting ballet dancers, use a leotard spotter.  If in Kenya shutter-hunting big cats, use a leopard spotter.  If throwing bowls and the King of Belgium, use a Leopold's Potter.  If you are an aquatic rat better sexy than your bff, you are the hotter otter.  Go to Boston.  Find a priest.  Call him Fodder.

Arm angry. Bad place to hula.

this rules

a cute girl let me take a pic of her hilarious and perky shirt.

a tree grows in brooklyn (tat at prospect park bandshell)

ATM machine, steak fajita, eggplant plant

Pretty pretty.  Nice night.  Forced repetition.  Repeatedly.  Flash photo of an urban garden.  The blur is my breathing.  I braced the device against my breath and held both still as I could.

kiss a shark?

It would be tricky to love a shark.  See hear.