Life & Death-In Remembrance...

Robert Creeley once said: "Williams puts it best in Paterson: "Because it's there to be written...." If one only wrote "good" poems, what a dreary world it would be. "Writing writing" is the point. It's a process, like they say, not a production line. "

Goodbye

Now I recognize
it was always me
like a camera
set to expose

itself to a picture
or a pipe
through which the water
might run

or a chicken
dead for dinner
or a plan
inside the head

of a dead man.
Nothing so wrong
when one considered
how it all began.

It was Zukofsky's
"Born very young into a world
already very old..."
The century was well along

when I came in
and now that it's ending,
I realize it won't
be long.

But couldn't it all have been
a little nicer,
as my mother'd say. Did it
have to kill everything in sight,

did right always have to be so wrong?
I know this body is impatient.
I know I constitute only a meager voice and mind.
Yet I loved, I love.

I want no sentimentality.
I want no more than home

Tumbleweed

I've stumbled across or rather am getting sucked in to the world of graphic novels. I have to say I'm not putting up much resistance. I'm enjoying it. Especially this collection of shorts by a bunch of new artists that primarily met over the internet. It's called Flight and Volume 1 is amazing, Volume 2 is coming next month. Go and buy it. Now. Right now.

I'm by no means a comic book expert but I like this. I like graphic novels that are more story and less standard comic book graphics. I like pretty graphics Catia Chien style. Yup, pretty pretty.

Swimming round as the rain comes down

This is the Astrid that was featured in a much earlier post. I'm attempting to figure out what to do with these particular characters and if it's worth pursuing. This Astrid is much different from the earlier Astrid...

The Wall has Fallen

There is a huge wall and Astrid is inside the house in the bathroom. The house is next to the wall. She is getting ready to leave, in a mask. As soon as she walks outside the wall is being destroyed.

astrid
Put the tint on, cover it well
exposed will never work
[Cover it up well]
High cheekbones and a rosy glow
[Masked aversions]

her mask
The wall has fallen,
the wall has fallen

astrid
Quick sew the patches back—
my jaw has come unlocked.
A painted on face
[a presentation of self]
is all that’s left; a colorist sees shade/depth
block me in primary.

her mask
Hands and limbs are under bricks
the wrecking ball is tight and strong
the impact exact—
a self is here, and then here, and over here
[none a full composition]

astrid
Go, fetch the limbs
pile them up nice
go for the gore, scrimp on the shoes and tattered cloth
[quantity of whole] anew

her mask
the jigsaw puzzle has come unlocked, unhinged
is severed—build anew
start again. [Throw me out]
refuse the scavenging

astrid
Permanently tinted
a stain on my iris eye
this world seen through
a wooden fisheye lens

Pretty hands do pretty things when pretty times arise

Just this week-

I drew a black and blue mustache on a piece of paper I was editing for work, it’s quite realistic.

Colin Meloy sounds just like Dave Foley when he speaks, this would then follow, that Dave Foley sounds just like Colin Meloy if he were to sing. Yup.

Watching the rain from the Hyatt was one of the highlights. Sometimes it’s just nice to sit and reflect and remember where you’ve been living for over a year.

The robot ate me is my new obsession. You go find out why.

Proteas are my favorite flower because they last forever in their dried out form. I have a dried out protea hanging from a nail in my kitchen.

Rain makes my head cloudy and now with the appearance of the sun, I just feel confused.

Bimbo’s has great atmosphere but a cramped stage.

I like bands with compelling, well written lyrics. Ex-MFA students should start more bands.

AND the recounting of a birthday-not mine in poetic form

And I’ll huff and I’ll puff, and I’ll…
-an epic recounting of 3-22-05

walk to the train - sit down thigh brushing thigh - you cheeky little devil - white envelopes handed over - an excited walk up and out of a subway - a breakthrough in the clouds, temporary relief - white shelled everything - a handful of music - your new clear roped bag

a drowned out sidewalk - horizontal rain drops - treaded on cuffs - a sit down at the Hyatt watch it come down - sugar rimmed glasses, sticky stems - embarcadero centric

Union Square a sea of grey concrete - a walk to wood paneled walls, orange muslim curtains - black rimmed glasses, slight frame—will you do us a dance? - kombu noodle, black bean mole tart - pinot blanc—half full - a gluck walks in, a quick tap on glass - cocooned in the corner, invisible

stabby, stabby - chocolate cake, hard shelled edges - a yellow duck on blue waves - a floating about - white flashes and crotch shots - shot glasses of cranberry - graphic novels in stacks and stacks

drone on seersucker eyes

Nature Tromp

i. Hive

pistil of the flower—squat and soft
stretching backwards, down into the stem
petal into a blossom
little bee, steal nectar
pollen-extracted on tiny hairs
demand to be fed.
flutter off-off
in your asymmetrical way
fertile Queen, swollen and ready

drone on with
way worthy wind

a quick blow up a skirt
pleated mid-thigh through hem
tickle a touch, swirl fast
then out—warm and breezy

seersucker eyes steady
hone in on your death mate

the “dancing” to
signal a new—
tail wiggle shake
yellow pollen spores stuck
deep in an ear canal
can you hear the buzz?
a throat tickle, post nasal drip
cough cough

green stemmed sepal robbed—broken
down—wither away
a petal drops off. Dried scent, scattered ovules
stained fingertips

sterile worker work on
climb into your
honey comb home
texturized sweet and sleep

Collaboration Nation

I've been thinking a lot about the advantages and disadvantages to collaboration. I've been feeling like I want to do more than just create poetry, revise, send it out to journals. I've always wanted to start my own non profit whether it be a literary journal, a chapbook press, or whatnot, but it all boils down to time and what's more important ulitmately- the time for creation or the time spent creating the end result, the thing that people see.

A bunch of possibilities on how to expand this has come to mind:
1. I have lots of artist friends, a collaboration of art and words in which both images appear on postcards has come to mind.

2. beginning a chapbook press simply at first, with hand bound books and an additional artist component for the cover.

3. participating in some public art forum that really speaks to people and makes a difference.

4. begining a small, as in size, poem distribution, kind of like a zine would function, but more professionally. Where you would print one poem by a writer in a small 3x3 booklet and print them in quantities of 100 and sell them for a $1 or $2.

Lately, it feels like I've been seeing the same poets over and over again in journals and I'd like to open things up in a different vein. Get more work out there in interesting collaborative forums. I'm not sure why i'm feeling so restless about this in general, but I'm feeling like a fusion of something besides just words is in order.

A professor of mine is participating in this exhibit called shopdropping. Maybe I should be more proactive in seeking out organizations such as this...

14 Hills Reading

14 Hills Reading for Volume 11 Issue 1

City Lights Books
261 Columbus Ave. at Broadway in North Beach
Tuesday, March 15 @ 7:00pm

Featuring poetry and fiction by:

Maxine Chernoff
Natasha Moni
David Beavers
Paul Barrows
Mike Sikkema
Pony Smith

The reading is free and open to the public. Come and support local SF writers.

textures

Water Works

texture
i.
turn the flat metal handle, push. swing upward with the glass panel. wish that your finger could skim the bay. seals are belly flipped at your disposal. waiting to feel that ripple-that balance that water can carry from a touch. throw them a cracker taken from the box on the desk. watch the ripples take it under. dip and dive under the blue of it all.

texture
ii.
barefoot-narrow wood paneled deck. sea salted spray. a world of dips, appearing in waves. 4X6 feet is compact yet kaleidoscope fractured. dependent on direction-north facing brings—the blue jelly fish indigo in their bellies. the sand dusting their rubbery insides like powdered donuts. earlier I said, “don’t poke, walk ‘round.”

texture
iii.
cold metal benches, painted white flaking a previous blue. the ferry is swaying up, then down, then up. balancing a plastic cup on my thigh, ankles crossed. birds dip into the swell of the boat, wings splayed back, never beat, looking to reach a bony foot onto a bar. gripping tightly it waits. head cocked to not one side or the other. skittles flying by.


Home Front

texture
iv.
hearst castle white gleam. rain rain rain. rain whipping. rain turning. rain under the umbrella. quick snap, camera flash yellow, around a cheating covered finger. tsk tsk tsk or even a big woah, head shaking. “wait now, no more of that.” zebra striped behinds from beneath a frothy window ledge, look just there under the cherry blossom pink. just there, just look.

texture
v.
gluck gluck gluck. a rising up and then down and then rest. again. the sand is splayed out in a white sand just stormed sort of way. pockets of elephant seals here and there. then driftwood here and there. fenced separations. the sound travels to the 1 and when we leave our car wheels ride on. galuck, galuck, galuck.

texture
vi.
opossum is tree sitting, skinny little fingers reach reach reaching. hooks on bird box and tips. tree branch tips, ‘possum tips, dog barks and sits. sits and waits, then sits and runs, sits and stares. play dead little one, play dead. later we’ll knock you out cold with a broom bottom. relinquish that grip on death and run—tipsy short legs—run.