everything feeds process

I am participating in the August Poetry Postcard Challenge this month. Each day, I send a new postcard with a poem on the back to a recipient on the group list.  We began on July 27, but I am posting these a few days late, so that my pen pal can see them first. Enjoy!

What I Know About Missing Sleep

I wake to a rounded world
where even my walk wobbles.

I weave around corners, careen
from moment to moment

without memory. I find myself
in a room I barely recognize

wondering how the world was wrapped
in cotton, without me ever knowing.

Sent July 29

I am participating in the August Poetry Postcard Challenge this month. Each day, I send a new postcard with a poem on the back to a recipient on the group list.  We began on July 27, but I am posting these a few days late, so that my pen pal can see them first. Enjoy!

Wisconsin, 1885

The misery whip’s teeth sink
in the trunk, teetering
like a drunk. With his silent
partner, Sven begins to saw. Hands frozen,
to the metal handle, he pulls
with all his strength, then surrenders
as his partner pulls him back. Progress
is slow. On both good and bad days,
the misery whip reminds him of his marriage,
the times he must drag her along
like a cord of wood and the times
he must be dragged. Today, he only thinks
of warm coffee and his long walk home.

Sent July 28

Blender

We spin a terrible speed. We stutter
and stop. Arms outstretched in silver
horizon lines.  The world curves
and dips behind us. We stop again.

Our whirring pace pushes
everything away from our center.

***

We finally have a new blender, after months without one, so for the past few days I’ve been blending my heart out.  So, the blender has been on my mind.  I had hoped to write more object poems, but I just haven’t found the time, now that I’m back to work.  More tomorrow, once the migraine goes away.

I am participating in the August Poetry Postcard Challenge this month. Each day, I send a new postcard with a poem on the back to a recipient on the group list.  We began on July 27, but I am posting these a few days late, so that my pen pal can see them first. Enjoy!

At the Hotel Breakfast Bar

We don’t eat when we’re not hungry. We eat
when we are full. We eat until
there’s nothing left, except
ghosts of scrambled eggs and fluorescent
Lucky Charms dust. We lick the cooling
waffle griddle, raid the toaster’s crumb tray.
We steal oatmeal packets, screw the hot water.
Still not hungry and not entirely satisfied,
we finally eye each other, our plump
legs and soft bellies. We are still
a bit too reserved to introduce ourselves
as we clutch our plastic knives and saw.

Sent July 28

I am participating in the August Poetry Postcard Challenge this month. Each day, I send a new postcard with a poem on the back to a recipient on the group list.  We began on July 27, but I am posting these a few days late, so that my pen pal can see them first. Enjoy!

Men in My Neighborhood

drive crotch rockets and burn
through stop signs. They carry
half-empty fifths of Jim Beam
and a bottle of PBR, on the way
to a friend’s house. They play
rock-paper-scissors to see
who has to be the designated
driver tonight.  The men
in my neighborhood, they know
not to follow too close – half
a block’s distance, especially after
dark. They wear skinny jeans
and carry old-school typewriters.
They work downtown and walk
the whole way there. The men
in my neighborhood fight
with their women in the parking lot
behind the liquor store. And they also
buy stargazer lilies at the grocery store
and carry those purple throated
ladies all the way home.

Sent July 27, 2010

Below is my rough draft of a poem for yesterday’s Mindfulness Month prompt on My Hands. It is as yet untitled, which is okay.

I’ve been a little behind for the past few days, because my work life and social life got the best of me. I found, quite suddenly, that I was six days behind on exercises with very little time to create on the horizon. This is not to say that I haven’t been working creatively: I met with my writer’s group, I’ve posted a habit picture, and I’ve been doing some revision on my chapbook manuscript.  But, I haven’t been creating new work nor following these exercises as diligently as I would have liked.

Luckily, I found a little stretch of time this morning. I knew that I had an extra hour before work and I forced myself to get up early and create.  On any other day, I might have slept in but today, I dug deep and found a little discipline. It also helps that I am giving myself permission to post rough, untitled drafts, knowing that I can always revisit and revise later.

***

I regret my hands for all the things
they will and will not do: all

the books that I have touched
(and have not read), all the food

I carried home, only to spoil
in the fridge. What is the matter

with these hands who want
and want, but never abstain?

I wonder who has raised them, slapped
their backs when they strayed,

rubbed them together in the cold.
They are out of control. I beg them

to clean their rings, clip
their nails and fold themselves

together quietly. They refuse.
They dig in the dirt, scratch

at my skin. They never stop
for rest.  I am stuck with them,

these restless  pests
and all they carry for me.

I wrote this poem in response to two different prompts. The first was yesterday’s prompt for my Month of Mindfulness. The second was for Big Tent Poetry’s prompt this week. In this prompt, the author Nathan Landau suggested that we write a poem in code. Once I mashed these two seemingly disparate prompts together, this poem arrived, demanding to be written down.

Some poems are difficult to write. Some I have to craft and eke out word by word. This poem just sort of wrote itself. In fact, it wrote itself so quickly and suddenly that I had to write it while blow drying my hair prior to work this morning. These types of writing moments are so few and far between that I have to pause and recognize how lucky I am when they happen.  It’s like committing to mindfulness is working…or something.

Love Note (in Code)

I love you like I love the taste of green.
You are my avocado
and like a spoon, I carve you out.

I love you like the smell of grass at night,
sweet and still warm from the sun.
I love your unripe bits, your rind. I even

love the spots where you’ve gone wild:
your open fields, your weeds.
I love your bitter leaves I am

still and always surprised by you, my mint,
my jalapeño, my fuzzy spot of mold.
I love your spring and bloom, your wither

and your rot. I love you as you allow
me to devour you, you who are always new
and always multitudes to me.

This (very rough) draft is in response to yesterday’s prompt. I am running about a day behind, which is reasonable for me.

Vanilla

At fifteen, I read that boys loved
the smell of vanilla. It reminded them of home,
so I stole extract from our kitchen
and used it as perfume. I smelled like
cookies all day: sweet, warm
and wholesome. I remember the stain
the extract left on my wrist – a brown
smear I could lick hours later
and still detect its sweetness and the sting
of alcohol. I wanted to smell
safe and familiar. Harmless. Even today,
I buy bottles of vanilla perfumes
and lotions and layer them on:
disguising my true scent.

Sounds from the Farmer’s Market

The rustle snap of plastic bags
as shoppers murmur, then select
heavy tomatoes, showers of sugar peas.

A colony of bees hums softly behind glass
as their owners offer teaspoons of their honey to sample.

We all hum, in conversation over the price
of parsnips and pork, the rising cost of kale
and the absence of asparagus. The air

is heavy with humidity. We stroll the aisles
and sweat, salivate at the sizzle
of sausage on the grill. Children cry

in their strollers. Sellers sing their prices,
two dollars a tray or three for five. We chat
about our choices: cherries, peppers and garlic
or berries, rhubarb and chives? We debate

as we drift through the crowd. We are pressed
into ever more narrow avenues, press
our bodies against strangers. We heave our bags

over our shoulders, groan at their weight.
At the end of an aisle, the busker croons
into his mike, strums his guitar strings
and thumps his bass drum in time to our steps.

***

This poem is in response to today’s creative exercise about a collage of sound & inspired by the above photo taken at the Minneapolis Farmer’s Market.  I may still play with line breaks and repetition for more musicality, but I’m leaving it like this for now.

I am playing catch up on this week’s exercises, so I am completing two exercises in one poem. The below poem is intended to complete yesterday’s prompt of playing with form (in this case a pantoum) and today’s prompt of overhearing something from the television (in this case the Uruguay-Germany World Cup match).

Pantoum for Soccer

I love to watch a game
I barely understand. I listen for screams
of ardent fans, so I know how to reflect
their sorrow. I adopt a lingo

I barely understand. I listen for screams
and strings of curses. I listen to the constant hum of
their sorrow. I adopt a lingo
based on colored cards, body parts,

and strings of curses. I listen to the constant hum of
the horns, the swarm of angry bees. I adjust my posture
based on colored cards, body parts,
and the distance between the ball and the net.  I ignore

the horns, the swarm of angry bees. I adjust my posture
every time I see them dance near a goal. I blink
and the distance between the ball and the net
collapses as I close my eyes.