Absynthe

Whenever I get a wall calendar or shop for one, among the first things I do is to look at November. Because my birthday is in November. The November page contains an important message. If it’s a calendar with dogs, what breed of dog will be on the November page? If it’s a Paul Klee calendar, which painting will it be? Which flower, which skyscraper, which optical illusion? Which drink recipe, which Gee’s Bend quilt? It’s not that finding out what's on November is going to make or break the calendar deal for me. The essential deal is already made. The page is going to reveal something to me about myself. Something immutable. I have complete trust in the calendar. It is omen, astrologist, and psychoanalyst.

(quilts are here)

Ground Shadow

I’m going out with the storm cloud.
I’m leaving now, staunched in gauze,
clotted with vapor and rain.
I cruise the chewed edge of the pothole
then drop from the foot of the wren.
There is no stay. What does it matter?
What on earth doesn’t end up in tatters?
I’m going to fall hard and get up again.

toast

It was my turn to hold the remote. This was more difficult than it sounds, the remote being a cool and elusive thing, often hard to grasp. But there is lay in my palm, jabbering.

“I think your toast is burning,” I said to my husband.

We’d spent so much time quarrelling over the remote. He said I was too rough with it. I hated the way he held it, with his sweaty palms.

Worst was the time he sat down on it, which sent the room spinning.

He quit the room, leaving me in control, if only from the look of things, since what the remote offers isn’t really control, but manipulation. Because it’s what the remote conjures that has the controlling hand, proven simply by how much we want to hold it.

Sometimes I put such a tight grip on the remote that the buttons jam. It’s as if the battery’s dead, and I’m stuck in place.

It happened when my husband went to check his toast, leaving me husbandless, just as I was in the long-ago, and might remain, suspended, into far-off future.

in which I am ravished by wolves

I’ve got two poems in the new issue of DMQ Review – This Was My New England and Quite at Home, a cento. I’m pleased with both of these poems and think this is a really good issue of DMQ. The artwork is terrific – bold and a little folky.

Concerning a recent bit of criticism that my poems don’t touch relationships, I can only say that indeed many of my poems spring from solitude and often focus on the ordinary everyday, including a whole series of poems I’m forever at work on about household objects, including the whisk, the toaster, and bad toothbrushes.

If you want tear-jerkers I must beg you to look elsewhere, but that my poems ignore human relationships isn’t true. Take My New England, for example – what is the poem about if not a disappointing love affair? Why would someone flee for Canada, to escape foliage season?

Other poems of mine that deal with emotions and relationships, for easy reference:
The thin line between pain and ecstasy!
Human stupidity!
Sibling rivalry!
Relentless despair!
Grandmother elegy!
Resilience!
Desire and loneliness!
Optimism amidst adversity!
Another failed relationship!

Shit, I could put together a whole book of gush.

museum shop

For spirituality, you can get the Mark Rothko gravelike placemats and magnetic 15th Century Buddha bookmarks. For sensuality, there’s the Egon Schiele masturbatory silk throw pillow and Henry Moore bulging salt-n-peppah shakers. The practical among us go for the William Morris Poverty-Proof Tote Bag, which eternally belches the smell of new plastic. And you can get a Tiffany scarf, the very last word in really good, bad taste. Or luggage tags picturing Hokusai’s "Great Wave," the last word in really bad, good taste. I particularly like the “Flight into Egypt” holiday cards, now 75% off. The Babylonian Carnelian multi-bead necklace that was $148 is now a bargain at $97.87 for members. Maybe you’d like to become a member? What better reasons than the deep discounts and show of deep cultivation? It’s almost embarrassing, how high class you can be. Who would have thought it possible? What a grip the museum shop has on sophisticated visitors! Some people never get past it.

K'ang Keaw Wayn Gai

Today I read this sentence in a poem and it struck me funny: I can be had.

“Had” used in this way for me implied “purchased,” as in “the gigolo can be had for $60.” But “being had” also means “was able to be fooled,” as in the revelatory buyer’s remorse epitaph “We’ve been had!”

I think the weird part about this usage is the having seems transitory, like you’re “had” and then you’re let go, mostly because the “had” seems so past tense. But in fact it’s the perfect participle, the equivalent of “you’ve been eaten,” “it has snown,” “the oats were chewn.” You know.

I think one of the stupidest set phrases I know is “Fun was had by all,” or as the British say, "Fun has been had by all."

And so 2009 was also had. Fun was had, anger was had, gladness, regret, the gigolo, the flu and item #43 on the menu at the Thai restaurant with dishes I can't otherwise pronounce.

And, while on the subject of stuff had and abandoned, on New Year’s eve we went to a party where folks re-gifted their unwanted Christmas presents. I took along a pair of duplicate pajamas. (I’d gotten the same ones last year.) And I received a super anonymous soccer trophy! Miles got a huge paper-maché purple rabbit. Carlo got a black plastic desktop pencil organizer and Luisa got junk sunglasses.

The year that was. I think my accomplishment of 2009 was I finally had a poem accepted that had been rejected by 33 different publications. Most sane people would give up, and I’ve given up and put poems aside before in the face of lesser humiliations. But I really like this particular poem and had some trouble understanding why it needed counseling. What I finally did was change the title, and believe it or not I think that was the hitch.

miss scarlet with a candlestick in the dining room

If I had a license, I’d go the other route to the airport, not the way my husband takes.
If I were a tea rather than coffee person, I’d do Darjeeling.
If I were a man, I’d probably be a worse slob than I already am.
If I were a novelist, I’d spend less time describing the landscape, and the pale, pink, amorphous light that falls on the landscape like a malnourished drunk.

and there in a wood

I've had some time off, which means walking the dog. On one of my many journeys through the park, I was naming the trees (Octopussy, General Grant, Burgermeister Meisterburger, Frau-Frau, Funeral, Scarface...), and it occured to me that the famous Bong Tree of The Owl and the Pussycat fame must be the Baobab.

"They sailed away
for a year and a day
to the land where the Bong tree grows.
And there is a wood...."

Don't ask me why I had this revelation on a frosty grey German day. There wasn't a Baobab in sight. But recently I’ve been leafing through a book called Remarkable Trees of the World, which features a number of fabulous Baobabs. It's also called “the bottle tree” (and you need a bottle to make a bong, right?). It's also called “the monkey bread tree,” “the cream of tartar tree,” “the chemist tree,” “the sour gourd” and “the lemonade tree.” And get this - there's a place in Tanzania called Bong'wa where this tree grows. Tanzania is a coastal country, thus reachable by peagreen boat. I know I've sometimes taken the Owl & Pussycat thing too far, but I'm sure Edward Lear couldn't resist slipping Baobabs into his poem, disguised as water pipes.

This photo shows Baobab alley in Madagascar, which, as you probably know from playing Risk, is an island off the eastern coast of Africa that split from the continent 160 million years ago. Since then you've had to sail there, although of course these days you could also fly.

There are different species, but mostly Baobabs are famous for just being weird and difficult to climb. You can see more here & here. And here are a bajillion more.

Daphne

When my kids were little, I told them everyone in the world has their own personal tree somewhere. I don’t remember why I made this up. Maybe I was trying to get them to look more carefully at trees. In any case, the idea of having their own tree intrigued them, then seemed to start gnawing at them. What if they never found their trees?

Eventually I tried figuring out how many trees there are in the world (approximately, of course, since right now the parks department is uprooting a diseased elm, developers outside Saginaw are bulldozing a few acres, the Christmas tree growers are replanting, etc etc). I started at the corner park, which is fairly modest, and got to fifty-three, but then gave up when I came to one of the pathways in, which is crawling with trees and tree-like bushthings that I don’t know if they qualify or what.

I can only conclude that spread out over the face of the earth are five trillion trees, give or take a few. So, the chance any of us would ever find our trees seems remote. Luckily in the seven years or so since I had this brilliant idea, the kids appear to have forgotten it completely, and moved on to finding other important stuff of the teenage variety, like a boyfriend who calls when he says he will.

But I haven’t forgotten the tree idea. It’s romantic and quixotic, and I am in fact always on the lookout. I will let you know when I find my tree. I hope it will be an Laurel or Oak or something flowering, but I’m afraid it may turn out to be a bushthing.

bridges, cheerfully burning

1. Eat more broccoli.
2. Read David Copperfield.
3. Save the planet.

less waystation than common grave

I have two "new" poems in Swink. "New" as in newly published, but in fact nearly two years old. Well, Swink is a good zine that takes its time.

The poems are "Staring Contest" and "Bedside Books," the former about defeat, the latter about . . . bedside books! Surprise!
Welcome you enjoy.

the priest sat in the airport bar, he was wearing his father's tie

The name of the tram stop two stations south of mine has been changed. What used to be Versorgungsamt is now Prieststrasse. Until just recently the Versorgungsamt, a state office that deals with subsidies for maternity and paternity leave, was here, but apparently they’ve packed up shop. Versorgungsamt translates literally to something like the “care-taking office.” The nearest intersecting street is Prieststr., so the stop has been renamed, even though the priest surely left ages before the care-taking office did. There is neither a state office nor a Christian authority at this stop to care for you. What is there, and very prominently, is the new Jewish cemetery. It’s easy to identify because of the bright Hebraic script above the entrance, but otherwise it’s fairly nondescript. The best name for the stop would have been "New Jewish Cemetery," but as you might imagine, those who take care consider it better not to draw attention to this.

gladsome tidings

The Snow is an Intelligence Officer

It’s one subtle secret agent, the snow,
dropping like a soft abductor.
I didn’t know it had this many fingers,
this many keyholes and doors.
There’s never been a mission
so openly covert, such
a pouring on of camouflage.
Flush with this cache, I assume
a new identity. I’m going to wear
a sherpa’s cap and let my hair grow long.
The world’s a mess, but not this morning.
The snow has kidnapped my opinions,
absconded with the list of wars.
The world and I pass by
the bakery window:
we never looked so pretty –
the snow is that smart.

ash, timberwolf, plum

I’ve been meaning to mention that Read Write Poem is hosting a virtual tour of my chapbook In the Voice of a Minor Saint. Yesterday Dave Bonta reviewed the chap at Via Negativa, and a week back it was reviewed by Joseph Harker at Naming Constellations. I’m of course happy and grateful to have people read my poems.

The upcoming tour stops are here.

Otherwise not much poetry news. I got a Pushcart nomination from Apparatus Magazine for Tinder Box, a prose poem using the colors from the Crayola box of crayons. I’ve had a few acceptances recently but also a disappointing rejection of my little ms of home totem poems. Otherwise, I’m futzing around with a ghazal and some revisions.

UPDATE! DMQ Review wrote to say they've also nominated a poem of mine for a Pushcart. The poem, Monarchs, was in the spring issue. This is the second time DMQ has nominated one of my poems for a Pushcart. I'll have two poems in the next issue as well.

nice work if you can get it

I’m not a fan of Silvio Berlusconi, but still found it terrible that he’d had his face smashed by a replica of Milan’s Duomo, leaving his teeth and nose broken. I didn’t laugh at the jokes about how he’d need more cosmetic surgery now, etc., but I did find this report on the BBC a bit funny:

'An attack on Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on Sunday was premeditated, Italy's interior minister, Roberto Maroni, has said. Mr Maroni said the suspect had been "developing a rage" against the PM "for some time."'

The funny part about is the invisible question mark after “for some time.” What does it mean? Months? Years? Since the previous Tuesday? Did the assailant sit down that morning and start developing his rage? Where did he start? What tools did he use?

“Developing a rage” is a close relative of “working yourself into a frenzy.” Some people have a great talent for this; for others it takes practice and intense concentration. I find the task of frenzy fairly easy myself. If there are any job openings in that department, I'd appreciate a heads-up.

spiff & clunker

Everyone’s starting with year-end booklists, so I’m jumping in. Below are the books I’ve read in 2009. It may seem like a lot, but many are short e-books, or poetry collections I read in a couple days. I’ve starred my favorites in different categories.

The book I’m reading now – The Kindly Ones – may end up nudging The Book of Evidence out of the top spot in fiction, if I finish this year (hope!). But maybe not. Otherwise I struck out on novels this year overall. Too few really good ones, at least compared to last year. I did better with non-fiction. Although I picked Evocative Objects as the best non-fiction for this year, the Helen Vendler book on Wallace Stevens may have been better, and the hilarious memoir Running with Scissors is also worth the time, although I was reluctant to read it.

In poetry I picked New European Poets mostly for the spicy variety. There were terrific poems in there, but also some eye-rollers, as it must be in an anthology. There were some typos in the book, which bugs the crap out of me. So much care is put into it and then, boom, typos. I also liked Heather McHugh’s Hinge and Sign a lot, and Maurice Manning’s unexpectedly wonderful Bucolics.

Clunker of the year was definitely The Jewel of Medina, which was a gift from a well-meaning person (husband). I am lucky he tried the book, too, and had the same opinion I did, i.e. what is this shit? Apparently he thought the book would enrich our understanding of Islam! Instead it read like housewifey marshmallow-soft porn written by a sixth grader.

I’ll add books at the bottom if I manage any more before January.

1. Regarding the Pain of Others – Susan Sontag (Jan/Non-fiction)
2. The Jewel of Medina – Sherry Jones (Jan/Novel)
3. Hikikomori – Tao Lin and Ellen Kennedy (January/poetry ebook)
4. Observations from a Children's Bookstore – Ryan Bradley (Jan/poetry ebook)
5. The Ice Storm – Rick Moody (Jan/Novel)
6. Escapes – Joy Williams (Jan/Stories)
7. The Life and Times of Michael K. – JM Coetzee (Jan/Novel)
8. Wideawake Field – Eliza Griswold (Feb/Poetry)
9. Dirt Music – Tim Winton (Jan/Novel)
10. Caves - Matthew Simmons (Feb/poetry ebook)
11. Souvenirs – Bronwen Tate (poetry ebook)
12. Permanent Record – Ted Greenwald (Feb/poetry ebook)
13. The Voice at 3 am – Charles Simic (Poetry)
14. Poems for the Year – Chantel Guidry (Chapbook)
15. Yesterday I Was Talking to Myself – Ellen Kennedy (May/poetry ebook)
16. Meine Bilder – Francis Bacon (Art)
17. Going Fast – Frederick Seidel (Mar/Poetry)
18. Hinge & Sign – Heather McHugh (Mar/Poetry)
19. Crazed by the Sun - Lynn Strongin, ed. (Poetry)
20. a// long / division – Hanna Andrews (poetry chapbook)
21. The Unconsoled – Kazuo Ishiguro (May/Novel)
22. Water for Elephants – Sara Gruen (May/Novel)
**23. The Book of Evidence – John Banville (May/Novel)**
24. The Crimson Petal and the White – Michael Faber (May/Novel)
25. Mandolintires – Philip Nikolayev (June/poetry ebook)
26. Prairies – Natalie Knight (June/poetry ebook)
27. Down and Out in Paris and London – George Orwell (June/Reportage)
28. Wolf Totem – Jiang Rong (June/Novel)
29. Imitation Animals – Julie Platt (June/Poetry ebook)
30. Wallace Stevens: Words Chosen Out of Desire – Helen Vendler (June/Lit Crit)
31. Rogue Male – Geoffrey Household (June/Novel)
32. Winter’s Bone – Daniel Woodrell (June/Novel)
33. Manhunt – James Swanson (June/Non-fiction)
**34. New European Poets – Kevin Prufer, ed (July/Poetry)**
35. On the Beach – Nevil Shute (July/Novel)
36. Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant –Jenni Ferrari-Adler, ed. (July/Essays)
37. Rising – Farrah Field (July/Poetry)
38. Inside Bone There’s Always Marrow – Rachel Mallino (July/Poetry chapbook)
39. Case Histories – Kate Atkinson (Novel)
40. Running with Scissors – Augusten Burroughs (Aug/Memoir)
41. All Shall Be Well, And All Shall Be Well – Tod Wodicka (Aug/Novel)
**42. Evocative Objects – Sherry Turkle, ed. (Aug/Essays)**
**43. Like You’d Understand, Anyway – Jim Shephard (Aug/Stories)**
44. Working in the Birdhouse- Justin Evans (Aug/Chapbook)
45. Olive Kitteridge – Elizabeth Strout (Sept/Novel)
46. The Private Life of Chairman Mao – Li Zhisui (Oct/Biography)
47. Butcher’s Crossing – John Williams (Oct/Novel)
48. Night Shift – Stephen King (Oct/Stories)
49. The Stray Dog Cabaret – Paul Schmidt, ed. (Oct/Poetry)
50. Mister Skylight – Ed Skoog (Nov/Poetry)
51. Cabinet – Claire Hero (Nov/Poetry chapbook)
52. Affliction – Russell Banks (Nov/Novel)
53. How to be Perfect – Ron Padgett (Nov/Poetry)
54. The Place You Love is Gone – Melissa Holbrook Pierson (Nov/Non-fiction)
55. Fabulae – Joy Katz (Nov/Poetry)
56. Moth Moon – Matt Jasper (Dec/Poetry)
57. Bucolics – Maurice Manning (Dec/Poetry)
58. Lark Apprentice – Louise Mathias (Dec/Poetry)
59. The Sad Epistles - Emma Bolden (Dec/Poetry chapbook)
60. The Kindly Ones - Jonathan Littell (Dec/Novel)
61. 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die - Peter Boxall (Dec/List?)
62. No Country for Old Men - Cormac McCarthy

slumming becomes me

Another long day at work, but overall good.
The office party. I planned to go, but never made it.
Due to jugglers in the lobby. True story.
College was one of the best times of my life.
My grades improved. I read a lot.
Babies were better. Especially when they were asleep!
I am trying to write a ghazal.
I am trying to write anything.
So many things never work out.
I think things like “The Happiness Project” are total bullshit.
If I have to engineer happiness with months of planning, then screw it.
If I set up a program for achieving happiness, screw that.
If I have to establish a “moderator/abstainer” blueprint for enjoyment, nope.
Lists of resolutions and tics on the chart, points, etc., screw it.
Joy never came with a plan. Control freaks did that.

le monocle de mon oncle

Sometimes I wonder who comes up with the “Word of the Day” at Merriam Webster. I get this in my email and today the word was . . . fiery!

Is there someone who doesn’t know this word? Or does it have some fascinating etymology? No. But every dog has its day, I suppose, and the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to me that fiery is far superior to fire, because finally that itch to pronounce fire as two syllables - /faI/ - /ur/ - can be realized! Throw that /i/ on the end and you’re smokin’. Why did the spelling change to fier(y), though? What would have been wrong with firey? It’s kind of cute, like a little fire.

The birthday present I bought myself finally came today. It’s a monocle! When I saw it I thought of the Wallace Stevens poem and was seized by desire. I’m going to wear it with blouses and, on sunny days, use it to start little fires in the yard.

the hour between sardines

Sometimes things just go wrong. Your poems are rejected. Your children don’t want breakfast. Employee morale is low. You die from buttocks surgery. Your eye hurts.

You’ll be advised to lay off the Bach Cantatas, turn off the news and read some uplifting poetry. But really it would be better to put all that baloney aside and go with the truth. Misery loves company, especially when the company’s misery is way worse than one’s own.

What better time to wallow in a book about life at its most deplorable, like The Kindly Ones. Here I am on p. 420, where, after apparently being shot in the head in Stalingrad, Hauptsturmführer Aue is hallucinating about riding around in a dirigible with the mysterious Doktor Sardine.

“Suddenly, Sardine put his glasses on his eyes and leaned forward to examine me: ‘And are you looking for the end of the world too?’—‘Sorry?’ – ‘The end of the world! The end of the world! Don’t act innocent. What else could have brought you out here?’ – ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about Doktor.’ He grimaced, bounded out of his chair, ran around the table, seized an object, and hurled it at my head. I caught it in the nick of time. It was a cone mounted on a base, painted like a globe with the continents spread out around it; the flat base was gray and bore the caption TERRA INCOGNITA. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve never seen that?’ Sardine went back to his seat and was rolling another cigarette. ‘Never, Doktor,’ I replied. – ‘What is it?’ – ‘It’s the earth! Idiot! Hypocrite! Two-faced bastard!’”

I’m lucky, too, that there are a lot of lice in this book. I love stories with lice. I haven’t seen so many lice in a book since the magnificent/significant Kolyma Tales! Go Russia!

I’d like to thank Jonathan Littell for this book. Whenever I open it, I feel like I'm entering a dilapidated and rotting mansion, at once fascinating and disgusting. That ear infection scene - wow! My son asked what I was grimacing about. And when I told him, he had further questions.

studies show magnificent differences

I recently misread the word "tampon" as "lampoon," and soon stumbled to "poontang," and then all the orthographic resemblances got crazy mixed-up in a funny and inappropriate position.

This morning I decided that in all the news and research I had to read today I'd replace the word "significant" with "magnificent." Too much of the former and not enough of the latter out there, in my opinion.

Also in my opinion, writers and poets should know how to conjugate "to lay" and "to lie" correctly. And if they don't know, at least their editors at respected university presses should know. Is this so much to ask, language people?

let us eat cake

So it’s my birthday so the first thing I did when I woke up was bang my head against the door. I look much younger now, like I’m still up for a brawl in the wee hours. Goes well with the twitch in my right eye.

Then I took the dog out in the still-dark and the crazy tincan man was out rifling through trash bins for cans and bottles to return for deposit. His theme this morning was “Arbeit macht frei!” Not only does work set one free, it especially sets the jews free, according to him. It was turning into a great day.

Still, my husband and kids left a present for me on the kitchen table.

And I recently discovered I share a birthday with Allan Sherman, a man I appreciate.

And at work I was presented with a bouquet that included berries and white roses.

People asked why I hadn’t taken the day off and the truth is I don’t have enough free days left to spend on my birthday. So my boss told me to leave early.

Which I did.

Leap, year

Fall was always my favorite season but ever since fall morphed into spring, I've pledged allegiance to spring. I went out this morning with the dog into wet, fresh air, reminiscent of spring, and it was gorgeous, really, but also disorienting. While it's very pleasant and I like it, right under that immediate reaction is the knowledge that I shouldn't like it. The Weatherwoman of the Apocalypse would call it "terrifyingly mild." I could see my breath, at least, so I drew an approximate parallel to March. This must be positive: the last two mornings were firmly set in April. Maybe by mid-December we'll arrive in February, and by January everything will line up right.

going down the stoney end

I've lived for ages in Germany and always miss Thanksgiving. I managed to be in the states for the holiday about two years ago and although it wasn't the huge shindig I was used to as a kid (due to divorce!), it was still lovely and replete with yummy American food. So just to drum up sympathy, here's a sad list of everything I ate today, not necessarily in order and omitting water.

1. 3 cups of coffee with lots of milk
2. 1 stick of Orbit spearmint gum
3. 2 sticks of Orbit peppermint
4. 1 roll with brie, lettuce and tomato
5. 1 cup cocoa
6. 1 Twix bar (actually two, because they come like that)
7. Cucumber slice
8. 1 Chamomille tea
9. Garlic clove (fried in butter, too complicated to explain why)
10. Stilton cheese (dog ate the crumbly parts from the floor)
11. Italian red wine

Not too festive, eh? Oh well. Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat.

the moorman polaroid

It's that day again. I always remember it because I was born eight days later into a very sad country. The footage of the motorcade has been burned into America's collective unconscious, but here's a polaroid I'd never seen before. You can see it and a number of other related shots here.

Anybody know any poems about Kennedy? I've got one for Jackie; it was published in Snakeskin a few years ago as part of Jessy Randall's alphabet issue.

Jackie O.

O New York orchid
Oysterbed of aristocracy
O gorgeous orphanage

Tack a letter

(like an operatic holler,
like the dark of owl sunglasses)

to identity

O madonna of obituaries
Orgy of national sadness
O strike up the orchestra
Our lady of high offices

Ghostbusters

For some time an acquaintance at work has wanted me to out myself as a poet, and I have resisted because 1) it's not relevant, and 2) unlike her, I don't think most people see anything positive about being a poet. There's no esteem to be earned from it, esteem that might be earned by admitting to being, say, a passionate cook, or a hobby pilot. Instead, poets in the general imagination seem to be goofy or dreamy or sissy or taking themselves too seriously. This editorial from this morning's Guardian proves my point:

"Who do you call when you want to call Europe? After five years of wrangling designed to deal with the Henry Kissinger question, the EU last night failed to provide a satisfactory answer. The first ever president of the European council is to be the haiku-writing Belgian prime minister, Herman Van Rompuy, who is still little known in his own country, let alone the wider world..."

Can you believe it - a HAIKU-WRITING prime minister? What is the world coming to? Really, doesn't "haiku-writing" in this case seem to be a synonym for ineffectual, namby-pamby and/or ridiculous? Or am I being, god forbid, overly sensitive?

notes on a cocktail napkin

I hadn’t read Ed Skoog before putting my hand up to review Mister Skylight, but I subscribe to the Dive-In School of poetry and this volume came with three good omens.

1) Ed Skoog. You can’t do much better than to be a poet with a name like Skoog. Half a verb, half a Seussian entity.

2) The title. Even before I knew what the phrase Mister Skylight meant, I loved it. When I found out what it meant, I loved it more. For those who don’t know, it’s the code used to alert a ship’s crew of an encroaching calamity without clueing in the passengers. Mister Skylight is a character in this book, one who, when you tell him your disturbing dream, doubles your prescription. This title is an apt metaphor for a country that often feels it’s being left in the dark.

3) The cover photograph. Great impact. But as much as I like the perch, looking either into or out of devastation, I found Skoog’s poems much less lonely than the cover shot would suggest, because the poet keeps “building things where the obscure forest used to be,” that forest being memory.

Even if written in thoughtful solitude, Skoog’s poems are quickly peopled, and thinged, as in the beginning of Canzioniere of Late July:

"Almonds drop and temple the soil. / Carrots grow longways into earth. / The Mississippi carries clouds of soil / in gigantic purling. Winds erode soil, / making it savage to live above dirt, / always shifting. Listen as whispering soil / becomes a tropical opera of soil..."

The speaker in Skoog’s poems seem to gravitate towards company and/or activity. If it sometimes turns surreal, it’s more Bruegel than Magritte.

Take The Carolers, in which a gang of Christmas carolers tempt the speaker from his doorway to join their revelry. Although tempted, he hangs back, but experiences in a kind of dream the carolers’ night as if he’d gone along when they climbed through his Ford “pulling ‘I Saw Three Ships’ through the car like a rope.” (You can read this poem, and four others, over at Dave Jarecki’s blog.)

That’s why I’ve dubbed these “meditative action poems” – there’s always something happening, and the poet participates or just observes, but lets you know what it was like to be there, to breathe there, to experience and think through.

While there is a lot of “happening,” there are quieter moments, too, as well as focused dreams and still, surreal images. One of the most tactile and pleasing comes at the beginning of Season Finale:

"My last look around the house / took so long that the vine / climbing the rosebush climbed / into my eyes. . ."

While I’m generally partial to shorter poems, in Mister Skylight, Skoog shows his strengths and riches in the long poems and sequences – Canzioniere of Late July, Mister Skylight and Memory Loss, a gorgeous poem in which, once again, experience and reflection send the speaker back out into the arms of the world.

That quest for company, to share experience, surely contributes to the sense of hope that finally glows in these poems, but also the poet’s disposition, his “version” of what he sees. In the last segment of the poem Mister Skylight, garbage men hang from the moving truck, throwing in cat litter, electronic appliances, bubble wrap, diapers, and finally –

"the sheet music to “Clair de lune,” / cuttings from a holly, oyster shells / on top, round mirrors of the dawn."

One of my favorite poems in the book is the first one, a preface called During the War. This is a list-like poem of what the speaker was up to during whichever war we’re on, and it sets the reader up for the narratives to come, all the characters and places, the American landscape.

"I lived in two houses, one apartment, / took notes on a cocktail napkin / and a record store receipt my salary / almost covered. / I abandoned my longing / to be more serious, and grew out my hair..."

The notes on that napkin are what you will be served in this book, serious poetry, rooted in places, characters, a culture and time.

***

This is the last stop on ReadWritePoem's tour of Mister Skylight. The other reviews and information about the tour can be found here!

rollercoaster, of love

I sat on a bench across from the big drop of the rollercoaster. I liked listening to the people scream. Some of the screams were enthusastic, like the man who went down with a series of monosyllables – something like whoa-hoo-ya-di-ya! Others seemed sincerely surprised - one guy erupted in a kind of gurgling wind-up at the top of the drop, then paused, then resumed screaming halfway down. Of course there were the glass-shatterers, mostly female, who let loose at one rippling pitch all the way to the bottom.

I had a sinus headache that kept me off the ride, but the rest of the family went on. The line was long, and I’d experienced a great deal of screaming by the time their turn came. Still I laughed like hell when I saw my husband round the uppermost curve, and heard him scream bloody murder into the plunge.


(this is a re-post in honor of finally getting the photo scanned)

Opium is the opium of the people

A man walks into a bar.
The man walks out of the bar.
The man crosses the street in front of the bar.
The man is a comedian.

Afternoon of an acquaintance of a faun

I’m not living virtually much right now. My computer broke. It wasn’t me.

My computer “broke” a couple days before the washing machine took the same route and a few days before my husband had a small (one-vehicle) accident with the car. He pleads “no comment” when asked about the repair cost. I didn’t pursue the query, especially as we’re having a jillion-dollar heating system put in this week and are thus very brokely.

The accident took place just a day or two before another of my son’s teachers called to complain about his work habits. I grounded him.

The teacher (the English teacher, no less) called the same day I stupidly left my 1,000-page copy of The Kindly Ones on the train. It’s only as big as an elephant. Somehow I just overlooked it.

There is the feeling I’ve had my share of bad luck.
Or at least my capacity for surprised dismay has diminished.

In any case, I went to the lost & found at the train station Monday and they had found my book! Bookmark still tucked in p. 280. And, with a little arm-twisting, my son has been good the last few days. Ok, so he has nothing else to do.

Still, one can hope. The computer repairman is at the house …

like a cat in the dark

There’s nothing really new about downloading music. More than 30 years ago my sister and I were doing it in our bedrooms and then sharing “files.” The downloading process in those days was all about being poised for opportunity. It was low-tech. It was done with one of those old tabletop cassette recorders, the kind that lie flat, and we’d sit like birds of prey in front of the radio waiting for a song we liked to come on. When it did, click! Push play/record and you had the world’s crappiest download on a shitty cassette with plenty of fuzz, the DJ interrupting the end of the song, the dog barking and your mother calling you to dinner somewhere in the middle of Stevie Nicks’ “Rhiannon.” This operation was probably just as illegal as downloads nowadays. You are allowed, however, to download music directly into your brain via memorization. You can even write the words down, as long as you don't try to pass them off as your own. And you are welcome to sing them very loudly in front of the mirror in your room with your high-tech hairbrush microphone bristling with static, as long as the door is closed.

Friday Chapter Summary

A Very Long Chapter of Little Significance
A Heavy Brush with Foreshadowing
Wherein We Encounter Juan, Whom We’ll Never Meet Again
The Hour between Sardines
Nothing Happens in Geometry
Things That Matter Not One Whit
Lather, Rinse, Repeat (if necessary)
Employing A Scientific Metaphor
Chapter 9
Being A Short But Pivotal Chapter, Perhaps Too Hastily Staged
In Which We Are Annoyed by The Word ‘Boudoir’
Sing O God of Fury
Chapter Meant To Atone for The Bad Writing of The Previous Ones
A String of Seemingly Irrelevant Events
DNA in the Argentinian Criminal Justice System
The End

if death smells like nutmeg

I have a poem called “Training” up today at Linebreak, the clean, well-lighted site that offers its poets a whole week in the sun. Click on the sound icon you’ll hear Aran Donovan read the poem (thanks!).

It took me years to write this poem, literally, from writing down the first few ideas, to revising, to putting the poem in the ice file, to revising, to throwing up my hands, to finally coming up with a way to “solve” the poem, which is what I call finding the wording that lets the poem say and do what it wants to.

I was inspired to write it way back when after reading a poem by David Ignatow that began “I must train myself to no longer exist…” You can see where the title comes from. His poem is here! Read it. He’s one of those wonderful, unique poets no one reads enough of.

Such a long wait for a poem to finish itself I also had with “Curtains.” I had the beginning in my notebook forever and ever, and slowly built a body but never seemed able to find a satisfying ending. It languished for a long time even though I was fond of it. Finally, I don’t remember how, but the heart’s “monstrous socket,” came to me, the pain caused by having to be involved emotionally with the world, and not being able, really, to wrap yourself up in heavy curtains.

friday confession

budge BULGE budge BULGE budge
BULGE bugde BULGE budge BULGE
budge BULGE budge BULGE budge
BULGE budge BULGE budge BULGE
budge BULGE budge BULGE budge
BULGE bugde BULGE budge BULGE
budge BULGE budge BULGE budge
**

So goes the slug.

I need to atone for one I killed when I was a kid. I sprinkled the poor thing with salt. It was a self-dare meant to impress my stepbrothers, which achieved nothing but disgust. Still, despite the self-loathing it inspired, it also perversely heightened my revulsion for slugs.

When I learned the German word for slug, I originally thought it was called the Nachtschnecke, or “night snail.” After literally years of wondering what slugs had to do with the night, I realized the real word is the Nacktschnecke, or “naked snail.” Nacht and Nackt sound very very similar. In any case, mystery explained! It seems so obvious now.

Maybe I’d like slugs more if they didn’t creep about crazy naked. Or if they limited their nakedness to the night. They’d look better in snug slug sweaters, like the one above. I’m thinking of adopting one from this knitter, who likewise suffers a slug obsession.

big rock candy mountain

I’m reading The Kindly Ones, a holocaust novel. I ordered a used hardcover, and wasn’t prepared for how huge it is – just a few pages shy of 1000. Still, despite the time I know it will take, did I scare off? No. Call me a glutton. I love books where you have to make a chart of characters inside the back cover, complete with arrows, nicknames, time lines, maps and family trees. I love referring to glossaries of terms provided by the publisher, especially in a foreign language. Books that can be used as doorstops, books that deflect bullets. Books with which to press my shirts. Balanced on the head, bulging books can improve your posture. I love sprawling, war-torn landscapes littered with wayward morality, shame, death and big questions. Big books are good for toning the arm muscles. A large, stable hardcover in itself makes an excellent bookend, and a handy portable chair. I love long sentences, lengthy paragraphs and chapters seemingly without end. It’s good to know the author didn’t skimp on the adjectives. Keep those novellas for the easily cowed. I like a book that won’t fit in my purse – a book that is its own suitcase. Bring on rich, leisurely and long-winded profusion! Get that editor out of here! Reading a tome like this makes me feel like I’m taking a long night flight with no one in the neighboring seat. The stars are out. Here comes the Japanese stewardess with my scotch, a pillow, and my plush white washcloth, steaming with lemon-scented water. Be prepared for turbulence. After all, we’re orbiting earth.

photo: Abelardo Morell

Eamonn's model bio

Eamonn was born in 1970.
Eamonn has written hundreds of stories.
Eamonn is a he, with two n’s.
He was born in New Jersey.
He is of Connecticut.
He is a two-and-a-half-hour drive from the beach.
Eamonn is of two minds.
Eamonn is insanely happily married.
Eamonn lives inside his wife with three cats.
On top of Old Smokey.
Eamonn was born for San Diego.
Eamonn’s work has appeared, or will appear.
Eamonn has been published in one hundred magazines.
He comes from contented.
His auspicious.
His auspicious beginning.
His auspicious beginning has not been snuffed.
His limp is the product of a childhood crush.
He was born and bred like a sheepdog.
On a dude ranch. On the moon. In rapid succession.
Eamonn has been born again and again.
His is the numberless, and at random.
He takes place in the plural.
When the mood strikes, he sits down like Salvador Dali.
All covered with snow.
Eamonn is the awkward author of this sentence.
Then suddenly he’s not.

Downright rude, chance of b.o.

The other day the forecast said "sunny and beautiful," and the Wednesday Addams in me who likes kohl clouds and branches swooshing in the rain would like to ask "beautiful to whom?"

The forecast for the next day said "sunny and pleasant," and I’d like to know why one day is “beautiful” and the next merely “pleasant.” The sun was at work in both cases and the predicted temperatures were only two degrees apart, so the weatherman must be choosing adjectives without much backthought. What happened to unbiased journalism? Are weathermen journalists? Should they be forcing their opinions on us? Weathermen should stick to the facts, which include "sunny," "cloudy," "xx% chance of precipitation," "temps in the mid-xxs," etc. Facts don’t include "fabulous" or "crappy."

Some late fall days have been so “unseasonably warm” that I don’t find them beautiful, but frightening. I think I’ll make that part of my forecasts. “Partly sunny and angst-ridden.” “Clear with 80% chance of neurosis.”

If I’m driving west late in the afternoon I’m not going to find full sun beautiful, but blinding. And if I put on a wool turtleneck in the chill morning only to find it’s pushing 70 degrees later in the day, that is not "pleasant," not for me, and not for anyone in my sniffing vicinity.

Awesome in America

I figured I’d share a couple of my real-life encounters with Awesome in America. The first sighting was at a Hanes shop, where I bought a pair of pondgreen polka-dot pajama bottoms. As I was paying, the salesclerk told me “those pants are Awesome.” It seems she had the same pair at home. You can bet I was mighty proud of my choice!

The second sighting took place at the legendary Dreamaway Lodge in Becket, Mass. We were ordering dinner, and my father chose the spicy Thai salmon. “That’s Awesome,” the waitress assured him. We had a good chuckle about this after she left. Seems I’m not the only one in the family with a thing for the Awesome. I’m considering making Awesome a regular part of my life.

Big in Japan

My bus passes a stop called Casual Male XXL.
Is there anything casual about being an extra-extra-large male?
Perhaps among elephants?

funk is not enough

I'm traipsing around massachusetts and new york state but wanted to drop in to say I have three pieces up at Apparatus Magazine - First Thing, Tinder Box and a techno poem.

ode to rudolf diesel

The east coast is beautiful and I can overlook traffic and superfluous strip malls but I can’t forgive the ubiquitous muzak (read: 80's innocuous pop) being pumped like gas into parking lots and shops. If we could ban smoking. If we could mandate seat belts. I come out of Pepperidge Farm and can it be that the back of the Goldfish bag says “Challenge yourself to find something GOOD in every situation?” (caps theirs) So much baloney. I think prohibiting consumer muzak would be a giant step towards improving American health care. If we could invent the air bag. If we can bomb the moon. Of course, if it happened that I -walking across the parking lot, forced to process Huey Lewis and the News- burst into gaseous flame, I might find some good in that.

the great oxgoad

It’s Wednesday and I’m feverishly reading The Private Life of Chairman Mao. It’s a mission. 635 pages, not including notes. I’m on page 268, which brings us to early 1958, right after “Let 100 Flowers Bloom” and The Great Leap Forward. Despite the title, there aren’t all that many juicy details. Lots of political infighting and plenty of reason for disillusionment. The book was written by Mao’s personal doctor, and so far the most lurid segment had to do with the Great Helmsman’s teeth.

“As I looked into Mao’s mouth, I saw his teeth were covered with a heavy greenish film. A few of them seemed loose. I touched the gums lightly and some pus oozed out.”

I have a couple more decades of sleazy hygiene to cram before I return the book to a friend who used to work in our Frankfurt office and now works in our New York office. I’ll see him in NY next week, and hell if I’m lugging Mao’s formaldehyde corpse across continents again.

Another apparently senseless thing I'm doing

I’m saving corks. One of the markets downtown collects them. “Recycles” them. Honestly, I didn’t know cork was endangered, but as soon as I found out, I began filling all available receptacles with them. I like to do my bit. I have flower vases in the cellar full of corks, cookie tins and plastic bags. I add about two or three corks a week to my collection. The problem being that I never seem to get around to taking them to the store. If God decides to flood the world again, and I understand this is not a ridiculous notion, I hope he chooses to let me know. I could build one badass cork ship.

bermuda triangle

Aside from narcolepsy, the only reason to stop on the highway is to use the bathroom. And the only decent highway rest stops are those with gas and restaurant emporiums. Such stops have trim, litter-free grounds and sparkling bathrooms with a middle-aged Eastern European lady who charges 50 cents per pee. I don’t begrudge the 50 cents, even per person, but I do dislike the 16 euros we end up spending on gummibears and Coke. So, although I hate them, I advocate the downgrade to the pull-off stop with picnic benches and toilets. This isn’t without its price. The company, for one, is way bad. The grounds are filthy and the bathrooms smell like a septic tank upchucked. This could be bearable if you look straight ahead and shallowly breathe. But you have to touch the door to the bathroom, the lock on the stall and you have to push the flush button (unless you are truly inconsiderate). This will compel you to wash your hands. If the faucet works you’ll have to touch it. There will be no soap in the dispenser. You’ll have to screw the dirty faucet knob back off and and then open the enormous bathroom door with the handle that all the people who haven’t washed their hands have pawed. You could use a paper towel as a glove but there won’t be any because the dispenser has been vandalized. You’ll want to wash your hands again. Before you know it you could be stuck.

sugarfist

I got my share of rejections over the past couple weeks and if you seem to be missing some, I got yours, too. But Whiskey Island accepted two poems that I was really happy about – “To Long Division,” and “Riding Backwards on the Train,” and RHINO recently accepted two of my home totem poems - “Steam” and “sPonge.” I've been in both journals once before, and they're terrific. That's RHINO's rhino that I've borrowed.

Elsewhere, Literary Bohemian also wrote to say they nominated my prose poem(s) “Attending the Tasting” for Best of the Net. Literary Bohemian is a beautiful and novel publication, so I was heartened. In a last bit of news, I have some fragments up in the new issue of Fraglit.

I’m counting down the days until the kids and I fly to Amerika for our annual family shindig. Today the number is 3!

Can't we put them all there

It had been a long time since I’d been to the ceiling.


poof

book as magic box

This is "Pandora's Box" by Su Blackwell, an artist who cuts sculptures out of books, making delicate, mysterious scenes. I can't help but think of Pandora herself, except instead of a box it's a book and what you find there is the product of your own mind. Check out her site. My favorites are the dark ones with light installed, but they're all extremely interesting. I'd love to wander into one.