I knocked on the tin roof of the fish

On vacation, I finished the Booker Challenge I began in January. It was easy - just read six Booker prize winners or short- or long-list nominees in 2008. My sixth book was Anne Enright’s The Gathering, a novel about a woman whose older brother commits suicide. The book has a strong negative charge that I enjoyed, but to be honest, although the writing is good, I found the first 2/3rds of it pretty humdrum. Nearer the end, the writer revs things up emotionally and psychologically, but it still didn’t make the book all that remarkable.

I hadn’t been planning to read The Gathering, but when we flew to Italy, Alitalia lost our luggage and I sent a desperate email to my mother, who was coming to join us, asking her to bring along something for me since I was nearly done with what I was reading.

I also read Machado de Assis’s Epitaph of a Small Winner, written from the perspective of a dead man. It was original and very entertaining. It’s considered an obscure classic, but I found it more prosecco than champagne, and not a must-read.

I also read Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner, a long novel that won the Pulitzer Prize in the early ‘70’s. It’s about a man confined to a wheelchair who writes about the lives of his grandmother and grandfather in the West, interweaving it with his own biography. The story was engaging and very good. I really hate the ‘70’s though. There’s something grotesque about them.

The best book I read on vacation was Daniel Mendelsohn’s The Lost, about the author’s great-uncle and his family who are killed in Poland in the Holocaust. It’s probably a prerequisite to be at least slightly interested in the Holocaust to enjoy this book, but if you are, it’s a fascinating, terrible and beautiful story. The story itself isn’t brilliant since unfortunately it’s similar to what befell millions of terrorized European Jews. What’s brilliant is the way the author uncovers the story, the riveting discovery of the story. He pursues it with such loving care and tells it almost unbearably well. I cried all over it.

I also read 12 of the 20 stories in The Best American Short Stories of 2002, which all in all were quite good. There are a couple more stories I want to read before putting this back of the shelf. So far my favorite story in the collection was Richard Ford’s “Puppy,” which you can read here.

Here are the books I’ve read so far this year, excepting poetry:

Schindler’s List – Thomas Keneally (Booker Challenge)
The Color of Blood – Brian Moore (Booker Challenge)
The Reader – Bernhard Schlink
When We Were Orphans – Kazuo Ishiguro (Booker Challenge)
Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro (Booker Challenge)
Rule of the Bone – Russell Banks
Last Orders – Graham Swift (Booker Challenge)
The Year of Magical Thinking – Joan Didion
Eclipse – John Banville
A Dangerous Friend – Ward Just
This Republic Of Suffering – Drew Gilpin Faust
The Kiss – Kathryn Harrison
Stoner – John Williams
Epitaph of a Small Winner – Machado de Assis
The Lost – Daniel Mendelsohn
The Gathering – Anne Enright
Angle of Repose – Wallace Stegner

friday confession: leaky

I went through airport security with four different liquids on my person: a vial of perfume, a bottle of hair detangler, a juice box and some patchouli body lotion. Is security sleeping on the job or what? I actually didn’t mean to smuggle these over the border. But since I don’t associate any of these liquids with potential hazard, I forgot. At check-in they even asked me if I had any liquids in my hand luggage. Since I wasn’t planning to bring down the plane, I guess it just slipped my mind.

I do love the expression “on my person.” It rejects all slavery.

-Do you have any liquids on your person, ma’am?
-I carry most of them inside, thank you.

I do wonder how much good it does making everyone throw away their liquids and fluids at airports. Aren’t there other ways to screen for danger without trashing everything wholesale? We must be talking mountains of (wet) plastic garbage. We could start a new ocean.

toast

I'm still in Sardinia, but dropping in to say I have a poem in the new issue of Green Hills Literary Lantern.

I've read a bunch of books I may blog about later, but mostly I've just been sitting on the beach. Every blue day is a carbon copy of the last, cloudless, blazingly sunny and hot.

seemingly reasonable desires

a little peace and quiet
whole milk instead of skim
a restaurant that doesn’t keep red wine in the fridge
a lunch break, occasionally
an optimistic fortune cookie
colleague not talking while I’m talking
absence of ant infestation the day before going on vacation

Any Major Dude

I dislike going to work because it means you have to get prepared. Besides getting dressed, which must be preceded by selecting appropriate clothes, if you are conscientious you will also need to brush your teeth and wash your face. Maybe there’s shaving; maybe there’s makeup. We’re talking time.

(I’ve promised to use at least one semicolon every day, by the way. Sometimes when I'm talking.)

What makes me feel bad are the people going to work who apparently think they’ve done okay but who have failed dismally. This morning I saw a woman whose blouse didn’t sit right. I think she must have pinned the blouse above the top button but mis-measured before fastening, making the cloth into a peephole. Looking in one direction seemed fine but when she looked in the other direction the cloth opened like the mouth of a fat slow-swimming fish. She’ll be walking around all day like that and when she gets home she’ll probably forget the pin and tear the blouse trying to get it up over her head. That’s what I do anyway. I always pull the blouse up over my head when undressing. I never unbutton it. That’s because, of the two kinds of laziness, I belong in the avoid-spending-time lazy category rather than the avoid-trouble lazy category. I’d rather climb the fence than walk around it. This made me an outcast in my family. And means I spend a lot of time waiting for people who walk around the fence. Which is why I always have a book along.

My thoughts about laziness are many, but I digress.

There are plenty of people walking failed into the morning. It’s easy to fail when you’re half asleep. The guy in white socks. The bling people. The woman in the very wrong outfit. And all the people, myself included, pitifully overdressed for what awaits them.

lemonhead

We’re off to Sardinia for a two-week vacation on Wednesday, to Cagliari, Carlo’s hometown. We’ll be staying outside the city at the beach. I’m sure it will be warm enough to swim, not like last year’s vacation to Denmark, where the only one with nerve enough to brave the cold was the dog. We haven’t been in to Sardinia in a long time. Carlo’s brother recently visited us, so the kids and I are all polished up on our Italian.

Most important is my reading list:

1. Personal Memiors of Ulysses S. Grant. I’ve been very very busy not reading this very very slowly, but plan to see it through, probably with copious skimming.

2. Epitaph of a Small Winner by Machado de Assis. I’m about a quarter of the way through, and enjoying this. The beginning was not particularly promising, then the narrator began hallucinating.

3. The Best American Short Stories 2002. I especially like reading short stories in summer, and especially on vacation. I’ll also bring The O. Henry Awards from 1998, which has been on my shelf ten years. I’ve read a couple of the stories in there but just notice it includes "Brokeback Mountain," which Laurel insists we all read. I’m trusting her.

4. The Metaphysical Club by Louis Menand.

5. Either Wallace Stegner’s Angle of Repose or Ward Just’s The Weather in Berlin. Decision deferred until I’m walking out the door.

6. Poetry is up in the air at the moment. I like to take a big anthology for variety, but the ones I have I’ve pretty much devoured already. I may have to take The Random House Book of 20th Century French Poetry, though I’ve got it nearly memorized. I really could use some recommendations on anthologies. I'm reading one at the moment - Language for a New Century - which is just not doing it for me.

I think I’ll also take Jay Hopler's Green Squall, Pier Giorgio di Cicco's Living in Paradise and Mercy Seat by Norman Dubie, three of my favorites. I’ll need something by Lucie Brock-Broido and a couple journals, too.

Friday Confession: Late Sleeper

You’ll never find that line in my bio "she was born with a pen in her hand" or "she has been writing for as long as she can remember." I didn’t write a poem until I was 38 or 39 years old. I was born with a pen in the back of the bottom drawer of my desk.

My bio should say something like "When she began writing it was about 7 o'clock in the evening."

doorstop and spitoon

What is it with journals that don’t take simultaneous submissions but also don’t send rejections – only acceptances? And on top of that don’t indicate how long their response period is (for accepted pieces)? What do you do? Grow cobwebs?

And ezines that only take postal submissions? The word that comes to mind is hypocritical. I understand the logic of this policy, but this policy is selfish.

I prefer if journals allow electronic submissions. I live in Germany, modestly. It gets kind of expensive. Don’t even ask about SASEs.

I also like journals that answer me in one or two days, and the answer is ‘yes.’ Call me if you know any of these.

Speaking of ‘yes,’ I love the last passage of Joyce’s Ulysses: and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

I also love Aretha Franklin singing "I Say a Little Prayer." That is hard to beat.

I do enjoy fat novels, too. Anna Karenina, Les Miserables, Bleak House, Cloudsplitter, Daniel Deronda, The Stand.

Don’t tell my colleagues but I like the coffee from the office coffee machine.

I am extremely fond of Paul Klee’s painting Fish Magic. It’s in the Philadelphia Museum of Art where I have seen it many times. Paul Klee is one of my favorites. I once seduced a very handsome man by talking about Paul Klee. It wasn’t my intention when I started talking. Other Paul Klee paintings I like are Landscape with Yellow Birds, Pastorale (at MoMA) and Vocal Fabric of the Singer Rosa Silber (MoMA).

I am a big fan of thunderstorms, too.

Not to mention Camper shoes.

et Guillaume Apollinaire!

dice

cinched just enough sleep. pockets of melancholy,
but there’s room for everything.
no appointments today!
it continues to be cool.

* *

last trip to Paris i swear i found the Rue Obscure.
i’ve lived on Marlboro Ave., Ten Eyck St., Baldwin, Main, 21st St., Watchung Ave., Martorff and Parcusstrasse, Adelaide St., Somerset and Nanshang Rd. others, too.
best name was Via Copernico.
there was a fireplace in the kitchen.
how it snowed that year.

serve your notion

K: By the way, H. says 9.00 doesn’t work for him as a meeting time. Better would be 9.07.
A: Well, we could also have it at 9.04 or 9.08.
M: What about 9.05?
K: He has a comment to write at 9.00 and can’t make it. 9.07 is the best time.
A: Anytime is fine, just have to decide, so we don’t stand here waiting.
M: What’s wrong with 9.05?
A: 9.05, 9.10, anytime is fine.
M: How about 9.07?

friday confession: singing in the wires

I like my greying hair. I don't have so many grey strands, but the lighting in my office elevator reveals every one. They're strong and wiry, different in texture than the brown. I'm almost sorry when one falls out, though it gives me the chance to inspect it closely. In all its literal brilliance.

Finding a grey hair always reminds me of when, as a kid, I'd find those colored telephone wires on the roadside. They stood out so sharply against the pavement. I wondered why the telephone linemen would leave those beauties behind.

so as not to lose these

chestnut / odious / apparatus / vellum / nanate? /
bullfight / gypsum / barista / potion / Belair /
appartchik / etiolate / tapioca / sorcery / syncophation

friday confession: half a werewolf

My daughter got one of those girl’s how-to books that has a section on palm reading. She asked me if my ring finger is longer than the index, so I looked at my left hand, which I instinctively look at, and it was. "Good," she said, "that means you're creative." She went on reading and I checked out my right hand, and believe it or not my index finger on my right hand is longer than the ring finger! I never knew this! Right in front of my nose!

Everyone knows if your ring finger is longer than your middle finger it means you are a werewolf, but I figure I’ve come pretty far with my weird constellation and I am half a werewolf. Maybe I am an arrested werewolf. Or maybe I am active already - I do wake up pretty exhausted some mornings without any recollection of what happened while I was asleep. Supposedly asleep.

Anyway, I googled “ring finger longer than index” and found that this not only suggests I may be gay but I am also at risk for “a painful joint condition” called osteoarthritis, which affects the knees and hips. And I am very worried how I will pursue my nocturnal work as a werewolf, possibly a gay werewolf, bounding across moors and forests, leaping from behind trees onto my surprised victims, with bum knees.

the moon like the rhine moves northward

Splash is a nice word but plash, which means the same thing, is even nicer. I suppose it’s because there’s no initial /s/ to detract from the pla with that long /a/ and the pl of plush, plop and pleasure.

Both words require liquid so maybe it’s the kind of liquid or its consistency that determines if it’s to be splash or plash. Like is it mud or is it ocean or is it 7Up? Or maybe it’s the agent entering the liquid that decides, although strictly speaking an agent may not be necessary. Bubbling hot oil, after all, splashes up like a goddamn. (And this is not a case for splatter, which needs an object. A new white blouse is good.)

Most dictionaries don't differentiate but some suggest it is a matter of degree separating plash from splash. To my ear it sounds that way, plash being a damped-down version of splash. People should use plash more often, helping to prove that -

1. All bath beads dropping into water plash.
2. Cream being agitated with a churn to make butter splashes.
3. Wooden spoons whacking the surface of a thick, simmering pudding plashes.
4. Suicides jumping from bridges into rivers splash.
5. Children playing in a pool plash, until things get out of hand, when they splash.

The boy I love

turns 10 today.

mix n match bathing separates

i'm writing a ghazal. it's taking a long time.

that said, i’m going to have a poem called “Canaan Ghazal” in the next Unsplendid, i hear. it actually adheres to the form. they are considering another ghazal, too, which semi-conforms.

i’ll have a poem called “Scullery” in the Dossier section of the next issue of Court Green. This is an epistle to a mop, froth, and futility in general, which abounds.

i am not going to have a poem in the next Rhino, which has rejected my submission.

i am going to have two poems – “Why Pregnant Women Don’t Tip Over” and “Reading Kolyma Tales” – in issue #3 of Bateau. I am really glad about that. I am really glad about everything.

i’m going to have a poem (“Hive,” previously published in Boxcar Poetry Review) in an anthology called “Crazed by the Sun” being put together by Lynn Strongin. i do not know how this happened. i was informed.

i hate the smell out today

it's so cellophane tape
it's so old cigar extinguished in Guinness
it's so board the humongous bus to Nowa Huta via Dortmund
it's so mechanic's ass

happy 12th birthday, or enough holocaust already

-I checked two bookshops but they didn’t have the book you wanted. Sorry, honey.
-That’s okay. (sussing out the present with her fingers through the gift wrap.)
-I got two other books I hope you’ll like.
-Thanks. Mom, there aren’t any murdered jews in them, are there?

the ghost in you

My penpal should be a woman with marvelous handwriting. She should choose her words carefully, even if she makes them up. No one complacent because I like to hear complaining sometimes. (In my letters, I will complain.) No one too conservative or too liberal. No one closed-minded. God help her if she makes judgements she’s not qualified to make, like saying poor people are lazy, as a lazy example. Best is she’s my age and reads good books, no schlock. There should be no enjoyment of schlock whatsoever. Ok, closet schlock. She should not give away the plot. No teetotalers. Some understanding of economics is good because, like libido, economics makes the world go round. Whimsy appreciated but not frivolity. I will gladly read of her sexual exploits, even if they are in the past. Better if they are in the past. Perhaps it’s petty but in letters I appreciate good grammar and spelling. I also appreciate fine stationary. I'm very into that. She should have an active sense of humor. She must understand why Roz Chast is funny and explain it to me. Her letters should contain no text-message type abbreviations. Words were meant to be written.

enter the octopus

also deciding not to finish a book is a way of reading a book.
also deciding not to read a book at all is a way of reading a book.
also knowing everything about a book without reading it cover-to-cover is a way of reading a book.
also having looked at a book from the day you were born until now without cracking it open is a way of reading a book.

marlon brando, pocahontas and me

Being abroad, I pretty much forgot it was Memorial Day on Monday. I only realized it when I got to work and there was no US news except for barbeque murders and fiery freeway accidents. And of course all that endless relentless undying inextinguishable bullshit campaigning.

In January it always slips by me that it’s Martin Luther King Jr. day. I’d left the country by the time it was instated as a public holiday. I recall that as a kid we had separate holidays in February for Washington and Lincoln’s birthdays, and now they’re conglomerated into the generic Presidents Day. Okay, let’s agree that not all presidents should be celebrated.

I said to my colleagues it’s odd the Germans don’t have a holiday for a person. But in fact the US seems to be one of the few countries, aside from monarchies celebrating a royal birthday, that have national holidays in honor of one person. (Of course, I joked that the US just has better heroes. We even took Columbus.) I think Germany should have an Oskar Schindler Day, or something like that. Von Stauffenberg Day. Marlene Dietrich Day.

I'm leaving out Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha and all the saints and holy rollers.

Most countries have a Labor Day, a Memorial Day and an Independence or Unity Day. Myanmar has holidays celebrating the full moon. Ecuador has a day in honor of a battle. Japan has Coming of Age Day. And all UK holidays are in honor of a bank. Which bank I don't know.

what's yours?

things i learned in germany

1. The Rhine flows north, which is why the Swiss feel free to swim in it.
2. An ear infection is best treated by wrapping a halved onion in gauze and pressing the cut side against the ear.
3. A chimney sweep brings good luck, as does a pig.
4. It is bad luck to have a birthday party before the birthday.
5. Say hello to everyone when you get in the elevator, and goodbye when you get off.
6. Ditto the doctor’s waiting room.
7. The most popular German pet name is »Schatz«, which means „dear.“ After that come the animal pet names: Maus (mouse), Hase (bunny or rabbit), Bär (bear) or Spatz (sparrow).
8. Goebbels’ wife killed their children.

so much for inspiration

Lumina: Must be a student, alumnus, or faculty of a graduate writing program to submit.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.