this shouldn't be allowed

For the 40th anniversary of the Booker Prize, they've shortlisted six books from which you can vote for the best Booker winner. Maybe you've read all six of these:

The Ghost Road - Pat Barker
Oscar and Lucinda - Peter Carey
The Siege of Krishnapur - JG Farrell
The Conservationist - Nadine Gordimer
Disgrace - JM Coetzee
Midnight's Children - Salmun Rushdie

I've only read two - Disgrace and Oscar & Lucinda - so I don't think I'm qualified to vote. They were both excellent, but if you pushed me to the edge of a cliff and made me choose between them, I'd choose Oscar & Lucinda. What can I say? I'm a hedonist.

The only thing I didn't like about my copy of Oscar & Lucinda is the movie promotional photo on the cover. I just hate that.

To be honest I think the whole voting thing is a sham.

friday confession

I write because I don’t like television.
I write to get revenge.
I write because it keeps me off the streets.
Because of the goblet and the alphabet.
I write because it makes me late for dinner.
I write because I’m not big on talking.
I write because of that guy waving out the window in the building across from me. Because of his beard and his star sign.
I write because I’m passive-aggressive.
I write because of the drunk’s Labrador.
I write because time tells me to.
I don’t know. Indulge me.
I write because of laundry and froth.
Pillar, plank and slab.
I write because of noodles for breakfast.
I write because who knows what could happen.
I write because what else is there to do.

landscape with rubberband

In the building across the courtyard, a man waves at me from a conference room.
He has a beard and he's smiling.
I smile back, as I'm expected to.

It is April. It is May.
Then it is almost June.

i've been so tired

we had a long weekend here, which meant vegetation. now I'm doing stint #5 in my staggered and staggering crash course on latin since Luisa has a test tomorrow and has decided now that I'm home from work that she doesn't "get it." and it's hot as summer here, the pollen is afloat, etc, and all the chinese people are breaking my heart. sometimes it sucks working in the news, watching the tally.

"Rain falls into the open eyes of the dead
Again again with its pointless sound
When the moon finds them they are the color of everything

The nights disappear like bruises but nothing is healed
The dead go away like bruises"

from "The Asians Dying," by WS Merwin

a small world, small & flawed

My poem "Folk Art" is featured on Verse Daily today.



yippee.

walking man by bill traylor from the american folk art museum.

friday confession: peeves & italian voodoo

I hate it when people over-pluck their eyebrows. It makes their faces look like fruit.

I hate it when you're taking the clean whites out of the washing machine and some of them fall on the cellar floor.

I don't like dyed or highlighted blonde hair. It's so obvious. Nevertheless, I have often fantasized about what it would be like if I highlighted my mousy brown hair.

I hate that plastic that ob tampons are wrapped in. It sticks to your fingers and won't goddamned come off.

I also don't particularly like the number six. There's something wrong with it.

Bonus! --->
Here's one from my husband. When he was a kid he had an action figure (read doll) called Big Jim. I don't know if this was like Action Jackson or GI Joe or what, but he kept it in his drawer. Before he'd go to school in the morning, he would dress Big Jim in clothes similar to his own.

rugburned

My poem "Used Books" got a nice mention in a New Pages review of Bateau.

ovipositor

I dreamed my friend X. had written a marvelous poem, all crafty
and delightful. Towards the end – it was a print-out, not
handwritten – a new stanza began, “Hey, Po…..,” and I couldn’t
see the word right but read it as Pocahontas. It was perfect how
X. slipped in the Indian Princess. On second glance, though,
it turned out to say “Polaroid,” which seemed even better.
I woke up and realized it was a dream, and that I should
quick write down those words, and – it occurred to me –
also the word pissoir.

moss phlox

Photo: AP
Here's more

going nowhere

The only thing worse than having
to run for the train is to miss
the train. Except worse is you run
but miss the train anyway and you
left your book on the table at home.

friday confession: planet of the apes

At dinner I asked how many planets there are in the solar system. No one knew for sure.

Miles said three: earth, sun and moon.

Carlo, intoxicated as he is with the metric system, said ten.

Luisa took the 5th and Alex was almost right, having counted Pluto. I was off by one as well.

Luckily, ignorance was righted by a nearby reference book. We did better on which planet is closest to the sun, and the general order of things.

Actually, now I’m thinking Pluto may have been reinstated. What was the verdict?

Is it just us who can't name and number the planets without a collective effort?

*thx to oh my cavalier for the constellation of bees, which hangs in my study.

come walk a mile in my plus size pants

Popular routes to here:

Beautiful Nude Lesbians
The Bong Tree
Couples in Matching Clothes
Tweed Day
Gymnophobia

Book Club Guide to Discussing "Tess of the d'Urbevilles"

Seat the ladies in a circle. Drizzle fresh strawberries, rinsed and capped, with balsamic vinegar, which makes the taste more vibrant. Dredge with sugar and allow an hour to set. Serve sprinkled with pepper. To finish: a small glass of Dvorák. The smell of candles, snuffed.






photo: erin tyner!

friday confession: happily left behind

I’ve never seen Sex and the City.
I don’t know the characters’ names on Sex and the City.
I don’t know which neighborhood(s) the characters live in.
I don’t care what neighborhood(s) they live in.
I don’t know the characters’ shoe sizes or measurements.
I will never watch Sex and the City.
I am wearing jeans today and a black blouse.
I don’t give a shit about Sex and the City.

Happy Earth Day

Save the earth and save a bundle
Save the earth and lose weight
Save the earth and get rich trying
Save the earth and save energy
Save the earth and fight diabetes
Save the earth and find a hair gel
Save the earth and turn a profit
Save the earth and look terrific now
Save the earth and cook great meals
Save the earth and save your ass

shawls, bonnets, armbands, hoods and underpinnings

I finished This Republic of Suffering this weekend. What an original idea to look at death and the concept of death in a certain place in a particular historical period. I really enjoyed it and was occassionally moved to tears. At the same time it could be annoyingly academic at times. The author seemed obligated to be redundant in order to prove her thesis, and pushed some points beyond their usefulness. Anyway, definitely a good read, and a must-read if you're interesting in death as a topic.

In other book-ish news, I watched Atonement today. My mother gave me a copy of the Ian McEwan book months ago, but a neighbor borrowed it around the same time and is still reading it. I did want to read it before seeing the movie, but a colleague who belongs to a DVD-by-mail club handed it to me last week, saying I have to mail it back by tomorrow, so that was that. I felt awkward asking my neighbor to return it briefly just so I could let the book industry kick the movie industry's ass. Anyway, the movie was terrific. In terms of sound effects/score, I especially loved the sound of the typewriter. But considering the time warps, the sexy scenes, and the surprise ending, I am sure the book is superior. Now I'll probably never read it.

I stopped at the perfumerie

I’d written down some scents I wanted to try but of course didn’t have the scrap of paper along. At least one of them was from Guerlain, so I headed there. I didn’t recognize any names so I tried L’instant Magic. I liked it. Then I tried regular old L’instant and it seemed chemically. I switched back to L’instant Magic and suddenly it smelled like Play-doh. Cute bottle, but it was over.

(I read an NYT article recently where a perfume maker refused to send samples to a particular critic because “writing about perfume is like dancing about architecture.” I thought that was wonderful. I would like to see someone dance about architecture. But only for like 5 minutes.)

My perfumerie is big but it doesn’t have many smaller perfume makers. They have a section of Jo Malone, which I wasn’t familiar with. Right up I should mention that I insist I won’t wear anything that smells even remotely of food, or use vanilla bathgel, for example. (I also refuse to eat food made to look like other objects, like carrots cut and curled to look like roses. Oh god… that gives me the willies.) So I don’t know why, but I tried Blue Agava and Cacao and just swooned. I’d never heard of agava before. I hoped it wasn’t some South American bean. I’ve since googled it – it’s a flower. I was lucky, too, because shops never give away samples in Germany unless you’re making a purchase, but I left with one. I also tried Vetiver, which was nice, but by then my nose had had enough. In a half hour I figure you should smell only three at most four fragrances before you hit olfactory overload.

I almost never buy perfume. Mostly I just stop in and enjoy. At home, I have Chanel no. 5 and Clinique Aromatics Elixer, both of which I love. And I can’t get away from them because my mother knows I wear them, so I have an ever-elapsing lifetime supply. I’ll buy something new if it’s drop-dead gorgeous, though. It just takes a number of tries to establish that.

Ironically enough, Jo Malone’s website says Blue Agava and Cacao is inspired by Latin music. So I guess perfume can smell about dancing.

friday confession: rejections!

Here some publications that have rejected my poems over the past 3-4 months: Anderbo, Bare Root, qarrtsiluni, Valparaiso and Terrain!

Once again, I have had to take my soothing Necktie Cape out of the closet.

a groovy, a juicy

Obama's race speech, and Obama in general, sparked a bunch of fiery discussion, and interesting phrases, too. Today I read something about the bitterness comment concerning "downscale whites." I had to think about that for a moment. Does that mean they're some low-glow shade of grey, or deep beige? Can someone downscale her whiteness?

I also recently saw a survey asking people how they feel about "the opposite race." I rolled that around a while. What is it? If we're talking "color," then everyone knows most "white" people aren't white - they're pinkish with spots. And there aren't really all that many black-black people. In Germany the kids say "brown girl/boy" instead. Still, if we're approximating and the opposite of white = black, what is the opposite of Asian? And Slavic? And if Native Americans are "The Red Man," is their opposite green?

Or maybe "race" is a competition, making "opposite race" an inversion. So, may I think of "the opposite race" as the person running towards me?

rosebud

The new issue of Eclectica is up today with two of my poems: Ghazal of Lost Sleep, part of my "Gazillion Ghazals" series, and Elegy, an elegy for my grandmother. She had a Mynah bird named Lucky whose favorite shriek was "Eleanor!" And she smoked Lucky Strikes, mostly in secret. She lived to be 95, though she said she was 94.

Thx to ohmycavalier for the wonderful drawing.

friday confession: recidivism

Our faucet is broken. It seeps from the base of the neck, slowly flooding the countertop. I said to my husband, “We’ll go to Hornbach (Germany’s Home Depot) and get a new one.” He said he hates Hornbach, probably because he read something today saying such hardware stores are the equivalent of perfumeries for women. He wasn’t sure if that was a jab at men or women. I said probably men. Because I like perfumeries, too. I stop by a lot after work and spritz myself with something. Often it’s Mark Jacobs or Mark Jacobs’ Ivy. Today it was Ivy. I rationalize that I’m still trying them on, and can’t commit yet. Too bad I have only two wrists, and one nape to seep from.

Come, walk a mile with my compass

Whenever I see that poor, beleagured Olympic torch being jeered and attacked on its run around the world, I can't help but think of the (slightly-nonsense) poem "Das Knie" by Christian Morgenstern. Every day it's something else. People shouting at the torch. Giving the torch the finger. Wrangling for it. Headlines like - "The Torch Boards A Van," "Torch Badly Shaken By Protests." It's just a torch!
Here's the Morgenstern poem, with my bad translation. I know a thin thread connects the knee to the torch, but I've told everyone at work about it now, so it's your turn.

Das Knie

Ein Knie geht einsam durch die Welt.
Es ist ein Knie, sonst nichts!
Es ist kein Baum! Es ist kein Zelt!
Es ist ein Knie, sonst nichts.

Im Kriege ward einmal ein Mann
erschossen um und um.
Das Knie allein blieb unverletzt -
als wär's ein Heiligtum.

Seitdem geht's einsam durch die Welt.
Es ist ein Knie, sonst nichts.
Es ist kein Baum, es ist kein Zelt.
Es ist ein Knie, sonst nichts.

The Knee

A knee roams lonely through the world.
It’s just a knee, that’s it!
It’s not a tent, it’s not a pearl!
It’s just a knee, that’s it!

In war a man was shot to death,
to smithereens and bits.
The knee alone was left whole,
as if a saintly relic.

Since then the knee goes through the world.
It’s just a knee that’s it!
It’s not a tent, it’s not a pearl.
It’s just a knee, that’s it!

judgement, as in showing a lack of

I read today that soon passengers on European flights may be allowed to use their cell phones on board. How's that for living hell? Sartre can come back from the dead and write "No Exit" all over again. I vow that if the person next to me is yakking away on his cell phone, I will read my book out loud for the benefit of everyone. I just started reading This Repubic of Suffering, which seems apt.

forest, n. wood(s), tall timber, timberland, woodland, grove, coppice, copse, thicket

My bedside is a miniature city of books, piled like smokestacks, row houses and dilapidated shacks.

I don’t know what half those books are doing there. I read in bed very rarely. When it’s time for bed, it’s time. Lights out.

A couple of my bedside books I never intend to read, like Sue Miller’s While I Was Gone. It looks interesting, but it’s way low on the list. It’s not even on the list. So why is it next to my bed? I was browsing it once, and there it is, having nowhere else to go. Going on three years.

King Leopold’s Ghost is also there. This is on my to-read list. Someday. I guess it’s there to keep alive my vague commitment.

The Bible is there, which I occassionally enjoy for its language. But I don’t pick it up and read a daily dose of verse. Hell, I’m an atheist.

Oscar Wilde’s De Profundis is beside the bed because I’d like sometimes to blame my misfortune on someone else. With passion and eloquence.

The Penguin Book of Women Poets is there, which I got in college. I don’t crack it open often, having pretty much memorized it, but it’s nice to see it every day.

I’ve got a couple reference books bedside, too. Eric Partridge’s Smaller Slang Dictionary is one, though it isn’t all that good and besides the slang is British. "Theoretical slang."

Roget’s Thesaurus is also there, probably the bedside book I look at most. I read recently that Roget began compiling lists of synonyms to distract himself because half his family was crazy or suicidal and he was also prone to depression. I like that. It’s also a good motivation to read the thesaurus.

**Thx to Erin Tyner for the photo from her Half-Awake series.

tea ceremony

I finished 30:30 yesterday. Part II was much tougher. Tea saved me for a stretch near the end with poem ideas. Here they are:

30. East Coast Toodle-Loo (My father is a non-fiction)
29. Bedside Books (No one remembers where they came from)
28. Thé Neige de Jade (the kettle uneases)
27. Darjeeling (what makes the glow, what lights the fire)
26. Thé Nil Rouge (One could always pour more)
25. Kwai Flower Tea (When rasping steals my sleep from me)
24. Thé Rushka (Turned in spring, the loam lies cold)
23. Earl Grey: Bergamot and Blue Flowers (There’s so much I’ll never know)
22. I Thought the Airplane Was in Me (In the bathroom with thin windows)
21. Moody Nonsense Poem (Snow brings the necessity of sleds)
20. Waking up within the City (The empty saddle of the courier)
19. Come Away (His face was full of forget)
18. Dead Man’s Purse ( Show me where in the skein of Hudson)
17. Scullery (The mop makes a dismal instrument)
16. Haus der Geschichte (The up-elevator clanged past the café)

there is good news

You remember all those summer clothes I sorted from my closet in November to bring down to the cellar? How I hung them on the hooks behind the bedroom door “for a few days” like a flag to show what an organized grown-up I am? Then all the mental anguish and turmoil I went through every time I got a glimpse of them hanging there waiting for a responsible person to store them away for the winter months? I realized I had no intention of carrying them downstairs. I couldn’t be bothered. Well, we were out in the garden on Sunday dealing out death sentences to various underperformers. These sentences soon morphed into stays of execution because there’s nothing but sissies in my house. It was sunny and warm and maybe things would, you know, improve for the green things. Anyway what I want to say is remember those clothes that were breaking my heart and making me feel like shit simultaneously? You know, the sleeveless tops, the linen pants, that hoity-toit blazer from Piazza Sempione? Well, they don’t have to go downstairs anymore, but can just go back in the bedroom closet. Or stay right where they are for all I care.

napotomy

Emily Anderson's new zine Warbler is on sale at etsy, one of my favorite haunts. Two of my poems are included and I'm looking forward to getting my copy. If you're interested, Warbler is $4 here.

For those who ask/care/want/whatever, I'm doing NaPoWriMo. It is a bit of a shock to me to find this out, being just two days away from finishing the 30:30 workshop at ITWS, but so be it. I'm making it easy on myself, though. I'll do both new drafts and revisions. Revision can also mean I added a comma. I'll post the poems for a few hours or the German night and then knock them down over at Blue Hookah.

friday confession: got a mule, her name is sal

Until this week I thought that the Suez in Suez Canal was Zeus spelled backwards. On Tuesday I learned it's a real place. Come to think of it, it would be cheeky for the canal builders to choose a name as a kind of trick. I think I may have gotten this notion from a crossword puzzle clue years ago.

chorus of mutes

Caught a cold but the really important thing is laryngitis.
It's a pleasure not having to talk. And the whole family
whispers in sympathy - a relief when you live with Italians.

friday confession: creeps

When a comma is placed outside quotation marks, as in British punctuation, it gives me a cold feeling in the bones of my right hand. As in -

I must withdraw my poem "Creeping Mobocracy", which has been accepted elsewhere.

Aaaaaaaah!

As a schoolgirl, I had a similar problem if the teacher, in erasing the board, left little chalk marks up like random sticks and dashes. Neglected. Abandoned. Worse if it happened in math class.

Everything Becomes Aroma

The second issue of Dirty Napkin is up today.
My poem Outdoor Café, October is included.
Based on a true story.

gelid chambers

Woke up brooding about something that happened at work.
Then there was the whole scene with the raised voices!
My husband snored a bunch so I slept on the couch and it
was cold, but I couldn't be bothered to get another blanket.
If there can be no coconut custard pie in the morning, I said,
at least let me find an acceptance notice in my inbox. And
I did! Eclectica took two poems - "Elegy," which I wrote for
my nana, and "Ghazal of Lost Sleep," which is a recent one.
Thank you 'clectica.

To buoy the mood, I got word my "Jellyfish"
is up at Blood Orange Review today.

also clouds assume oddball shapes

Halfway through 30:30 at Inside the Writer's Studio. It's markedly less stressful than previous rounds. Writing along are Liz G, Nicole CD, Brenda N, Arlene A, Annie B and Sharon H.

Here's my playlist so far:
1. Wild Card (The sky looks convincing this morning)
2. Reading While Walking (The book opens and the street shuts up.)
3. Passing Through the Train Station (In the morning all I want is …)
4. Why Pregnant Women Don’t Tip Over (Because a single thought …)
5. The Previous Owner (I warp the cloth of the dormer blinds)
6. Midget Pony (I lift my chin like the ladies / traipsing the covers of Bazaar)
7. Beacon (At midnight, all that lolls / falls asleep)
8. Hard Candy (Who put this horseshit in my tire tread)
9. I Have the Feeling You Enjoy Stress (Just fill my pillow with tinder)
10. Amber Alert (The mother swears something is missing /from Sundays)
11. Man Found Guilty of Gruesome Doodling (His suit was saddle-stitched)
12. Men in Suits (Hatch still sealed, the airplane / vestibule crowds)
13. Potato (The potato holds a hospice./ Nurses serve in dense attendance)
14. Flesh Made Word (Bounding over land demands flounce)
15. Cowboy at the Sushi Circle (I want a square meal)

getting even

It can happen that I mix the evenings up. What I mean is sometimes one comes disguised as the other, as in having an evening out. Is it a noun describing a time of day, or night, or pre-night, dinnertime, twilight or late late afternoon, or any one of the cocktail hours? Or is it a progressive verb perhaps encompassing all that timely baggage as well as a general leveling - the bottle of Syrah aerating on the counter, the oven in a phase of pre-heating, the childhood hypnosis of Nickelodeon, the up-elevator clanging past the down, the moon bulging out of the chimney across the street? Maybe it’s just an evening out of everything, a bulldozery, a reckoning best represented by darkening.

tell me something good

There was some downtime at work so I was reading the paper and saw a vaguely familiar face. Turned out to be Matthew Sweeney, who's reading tonight in Frankfurt. So that's where I'm off to. I just have to change from my blue cords and blue turtleneck into black cords and black turtleneck, brush my teeth, and that's it.

Flight

The airport wants my shoes.
At last I see the trapdoor in the soles
toggling down the x-ray ramp.
My shapes have never shone like this.
My whole life lights up in vials and doses.

When I fly, I fly entire and abandoning.
The animal lies down with the mineral -
a leather belt curls around my mints and keys.
At the threshhold, a man draws his detector
down my spine, that hinge, the leash
that grounds me.

His convex glass magnifies my need, though
he gets too close to see the blue fuse inside.
He'll never leave the earth; the machine
will never see the seams of an overloaded suitcase
rip with wishes, rent as a lost continent.

whistle the threshing song

I'm so lucky. I get to go to work today. I don't have to look at the dust on the shelves. I don't have to decide where to sit - I have my rolling office chair. The dog must stay home without me. If she's whining I don't hear her. If the kids come home and want sandwiches, I figure they'll have worked it out by the time I get there. I don't have the foggiest if the refrigerator door is properly shut or not. If the apple man is at the door, I'm not answering. Is a cat pissing in my garden? Are the trains running on time? Is a flybuzz torturing my pillowcase? I don't have the faintest idea!

Happy International Women's Day, sort of

moonlighting as me

Three of my poems are up at nth position.

the fairest one of all

I wanted the morning to last so I went to a place where they serve breakfast all day. I usually wouldn’t spend the money. Usually I’d just wolf down a hot pretzel for 60 cents and have it done with, being thrifty and all. But there I was drooling for a fried egg, sunny side up. The Germans call it the “Spiegelei,” or “mirror egg.” Why that I don’t know. I’ve tried it. I got down real close to the yoke but didn’t see myself there, even when I closed one eye and squinted. Anyway, the cook arranged two fried eggs on a rectangular plate alongside three crescents of ham. Perhaps not unintentionally did this arrangement resemble leaves around two flowers. Come to think of it, these eggs might more aptly be called “daisy eggs” rather than “mirror eggs,” whatever language we’re in. Three sprigs of parsley were splayed on top, green and flat as the lawn outside a pharmaceutial company headquarters. They were really beautiful. I considered taking them home and reusing them, thrifty as I am.

drumming

My poem Rainmaker is up at juked today.

friday confession: oops

I came back from walking the dog. There was a tissue on the table, perfectly new from the pack, so I used it to wipe my nose. I wadded it up in my coat pocket since I had to go back out and could re-use it. Later when I took it out to blow my nose I noticed there was some black pieces or something in it, so I unfolded it thinking I must have a coal-fired power plant booming in my nose. In fact the black was three scribbled lines of Italian, a poem that my husband, lacking paper, had apparently jotted down, turned over and left on the table.