floating somewhere in between

I wrote a good omelet . . . and ate
a hot poem . . . after loving you

Buttoned my car . . . and drove my
coat home . . . in the rain . . .
after loving you

I goed on red . . . and stopped on
green . . . floating somewhere in between . . .
being here and being there . . .
after loving you

I rolled my bed . . . turned down
my hair . . . slightly
confused but . . . I don't care . . .

Laid out my teeth . . . and gargled my
gown . . . then I stood
. . . and laid me down . . .

To sleep . . .
after loving you

[Nikki Giovanni, 'I Wrote A Good Omelet', from Love Poems]

I'd love to spit some Beechnut in that dude's eye and shoot him with my ole forty-five

1. How did you meet your best friend?
   one of them was a classmate in a couple of my major classes in the first quarter of our first year of college. We were both "townies" living at home, fairly quiet (which is a funny way to describe us now), and without much research it was determined that we're basically the same kind of weird. I often ate Pop-Tarts during class that term, or grapes from margarine containers, and would flop hanks of my long, curly hair over the top of my head down onto my forehead to check for split ends. During class. She was a better student than I, but woefully easily distracted. I could convince her to skip class with just one poke to the forehead, and off we'd go to the Happy Chef, for chili-n-sticks or cinnamon rolls the size of our heads. Those really were the days.
2. Mother Winters used to say she loved all us kids equally, but at various times she liked one of us more than the others. Does your "friend ranking" ever shift? Or is the person you think of today as your best friend always #1?
   sure, the rankings sometimes shift. That's what makes it fun, I think. One person's particulars start to wear on you, so you spend more time with someone else, and then the first person's absence becomes less welcome. It's part of being a grown-up.
3. What makes you a good friend?
   good question, and one better asked of the recipients than the donor, I'd say
4. Think back to your childhood--what games did you and your friends like to play?
   I lived in the country. We played outside all day, every day, year around. If four girls could contrive a way to play it, we'd play it.
5. Would you rather lose your hair, or the little toe on your left foot? (Yes, you must commit to giving one up.)
   I'm pretty fond of that little toe, and it serves a purpose: Toes are necessary for balance! Take the hair, which is rather a pain in the ass a lot of the time anyway.
6. Think of the phrase, "like nails on a blackboard." What is your least favorite sound?
   one of my coworkers has a mindless, throat-clearing cough that I can only describe as "whiny". If I never heard that sound again, it would be too soon.
   Oh, but wait! Now I've got a better one. My %^&;*!# neighbor (who really ought not be described with that 'n' word) just moved his vehicle from outside of his garage to the inside. It is a process that, for a normal person, would be nearly silent and would take less than a minute. This impossibly rude prick went outside, got into the SUV, turned on the stereo FULL BLAST, blaring music so loudly that it was at an uncomfortable level inside my apartment with the windows closed, played the music until the song was over, then started the engine on the SUV, waited until a new song started (still at full volume, of course!), backed the vehicle into the garage (so that the noise was not only coming in through the crappy windows here, but also Up Through The Floor), let it play until the song was nearly but not quite over, and then shut it off. And then closed his garage door, and pounded his way up the stairs again, as if there is some sort of Olympic medal for foot stomping.
   THAT is the most annoying sound EVER.
7. Do you add fabric softener to your wash or place a softener sheet in the dryer?
   liquid, in the wash
8. Showtime, HBO, or neither?
   neither. If I could afford pay-TV, I'd be living someplace far from these inconceivably rude people, for whom torture and...yeah, no--no premium channels.
9. Have you ever fired a gun?
   I have, indeed

[from The Cat, who got it here; the title quotation is by Hank Williams, Jr.]

A blessing I didn't see

But what else should we try to fulfill? Work
And love. What else is out there? Nothing worth
Pursuing. I've seen men sidetracked by less,
Believing life's a trick, when it's a test
Of will. It's a world filled with temptation.
It's a world of adult situations.
It's up to me to figure out the path,
Whether with a wife or not, the road's wrath
Awaits me. Leaving South Dakota was
A blessing I didn't see because
I couldn't hear the message calling out
For me to stop acting a knockabout.
Where are the voices of expectation?
Of people in action? Their vibration?

[A. Van Jordan, from 'Int. Hotel Room, Chicago--June 1913--Day' in The Cineaste: Poems]

My love of you was life and not a breath

Vien dietro a me e lascia dir le genti.

– Dante

Contando i casi della vita nostra.

– Petrarca

Many in aftertimes will say of you
‘He loved her’ – while of me what will they say?
Not that I loved you more than just in play,
For fashion’s sake as idle women do.
Even let them prate; who know not what we knew
Of love and parting in exceeding pain.
Of parting hopeless here to meet again,
Hopeless on earth, and heaven is out of view.
But by my heart of love laid bare to you.
My love that you can make not void nor vain,
Love that foregoes you but to claim anew
Beyond this passage of the gate of death,
I charge you at the Judgment make it plain
My love of you was life and not a breath.

[Christina Rossetti, 'Many in aftertimes will say of you']

all your Heart melodies

Bring me all of your dreams,
You dreamer,
Bring me all your
Heart melodies
That I may wrap them
In a blue cloud-cloth
Away from the too-rough fingers
Of the world.

[Langston Hughes, 'The Dream Keeper' from The Collected Works of Langston Hughes]

the words would be there forever to remind me

I can burn the pictures, but not the poems
since I published them in books, which are on shelves
in libraries and in people’s homes. Once my cousin told me
not to write anything down because the words would be there forever
to remind me of the fool I once was. My cousin
was the little dog on the Tarot card, barking at the Fool’s heels
as I headed right toward the cliff.

When James Taylor and Carly Simon

broke up, I was shocked. Taylor’s drug use or not,
couldn’t they work it out? I was in college
and, though I didn’t really believe in marriage,
I believed in them. How could they part
having written those love songs? And how could they go on
singing those love songs after the divorce?

But now, I know.

After time, when they reached for those notes,
there wasn’t really a beloved there anymore,
just a strand of hair each left behind
on the other’s scarf or pillow, a cologne trigger that transcended
into something more real than they were,
the lovers themselves ephemeral muses.

It’s still hard

for me to accept the notion of love outliving the lovers—
a notion so romantic, it’s unromantic. Hard to accept
that those big lumps of affection
would find alternate places to stick,
that Simon and Taylor would be swept away and marry
others. That need is not so much a deficit

as an asset,

like a wallet that keeps manufacturing its own dollar bills
even after it’s been robbed of everything.
Or to say it another way: the plant that will bloom
despite being uprooted. The new seedling that will pop up.
It’s hard to believe when you are down to your last penny,
when the soil is dry and rocky and full of weeds,

when your love

is freeze-dried into a metallic pouch and you are full of snarky rage.
You look back at a love poem you wrote and ask:
did I really feel this way? Even if you no longer remember tenderness,
even if the verse was simply artifice, your idea of love, a subspecies
you made up to tag and define that one poor sap, you read the poem
again, grateful, holding the words in your hands like a bunch of flowers.

[Denise Duhamel, 'Old Love Poems', from Blowout]

make free the path

Move away, make free the path;
Your mind is heavy with the burden of doubt.
The stream of life flows lightly
With the music of murmuring waters,
With the frenzy of ecstatic joy.
Its waves alone lighten the burden of the Past,
And by their restless thrust
Straighten the tortuous ways of life.
Their clash
Sets free the tangles of life’s net,
Cleanses all pollution,
And takes away life’s weariness.

They are like clouds
Drinking in the morning light;
Like countless waves of the sea,
Like the exuberance of aimless winds,
Like the ceaseless flow of trees
That rejoice the heart of earth,
Like the first streaks of light
At the edge of ancient night.
They are children playing on the shore,
Maidens radiant in their youth,
Heroes who with courage conquer danger,
Their chains, echo the song of freedom
In their hearts.
They have no fears,
No worries for the future—
Over the future they are victorious.

At the call of the Unknown
From everywhere they emerge;
In darkness and in light
Rush to meet what lies ahead.
Begone, O Coward!
Bent under your burden of doubt.

[Rabindranath Tagore, '7. The Free Path', from Later Poems of Rabindranath Tagore]

I would do anything for a different look from you.

I put my hand on your hand. Mostly I meant to
be good. It was the shaking sky and what I wanted
to see below. It is always shaking where I am.
What do you know from the shoulder up?
I know you can only watch the plane
until you can't. Prominent cloud features are not far
from my mind. It's an attempt to protect
both of our mind circumferences from being mistaken
for a shark that stops swimming. And other forms
of disaster. I apologize. I would do anything
for a different look from you. Animals in the ocean
make mistakes too, maybe. And our memories.
I know memory is remarkable and unpredictable.
And I am meaning to be better with what I know.
I know now is not the time to take up flying.
You say, I'm watching you. And I say, No, I'm watching you.
I am the government on the moon and
I mean to let you forgive me.

[Emily Pettit, 'How to Recognize when You Have Behaved Badly and Behave Better' from Goat in the Snow]

it is a man's own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways

    Weak and not terribly heartfelt apologies for the lack of spontaneous and original content lately. I am, in a word, exhausted. Between the 9-to-5, the weather (rainrainrain), the guy next door with his over-loud hip hop music, the other guy next door on the other side who's ripping up carpet until 2:00 every morning, the need to get the car to the shop before it poops out completely, and the need to find a new place to live before I'm living in a storage unit with all my crap, I can barely see straight. Besides, my answers to these little quizlets are original, even if the questions sometimes are not.

• So, do you like beer?
  so, yeah, I do kind of like beer, now and then, yep. Some recent big winners include these two:

  

  Fulton Legally Blonde

  

  Breckenridge Vanilla Porter

• What's your least favorite repetitive task?
  opening file cabinets - the metal kind with the little latch next to the handle. I developed De Quervain's tendinitis from it!
• When was the last time you rode a bus? Where was it headed?
  it was probably an airport shuttle, from O'Hare to parking
• What song from your childhood could make a parent's nerves stand on end?
  any juvenile media is enough to make me want to punch a nun
• The US Presidential election cycle [was] drawing to a close [as this meme was originally posted], and the third and final debate was held [the night before]...what was the last thing you 'debated about'?
  oddly enough, I was involved in a group conversation today involving the use of language in an official capacity - during which one member of the group had both feet and head planted in the sand - and then another meeting that was a lot like inadvertently choosing the non-functional bumper car at the fair and being stuck, motionless, in the middle of the floor while getting slammed in any direction, willy-nilly, by whomever felt like ramming the car.
  You could call that a "debate", I suppose.
• Can a person make too much money? How much is too much?
  yes. Enough is...
  oh, it's like the Supreme Court's test for obscenity--which, if you get it, you get it, and if you don't, you're probably just going to be snide about not getting. So, just leave it as, yes, I strongly believe that a person can make too much money. How much is too much? Well, that's pretty obvious, isn't it?
• Pop-soda-Coke-something else ... what's it called where you live?
  pop
• Insert your own random thought here.
  "The kindest word in all the world is the unkind word, unsaid." I don't know whose words those are, but they've rung through my head lately, at top volume. So many times in the past few days, weeks, and months, someone has said something to, about, or around me that's left me wondering, "Why couldn't that have gone unsaid?" Snarky isn't funny; it's mean. Mean isn't funny; it's sad. Sad isn't funny, ever.
  "Silence is golden." [Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus]

[from The Cat, who got it here; the title quotation is a Buddhist proverb]

that special one Who has an instant claim On everything I own

No, I have never found
The place where I could say
This is my proper ground,
Here I shall stay;
Nor met that special one
Who has an instant claim
On everything I own
Down to my name;

To find such seems to prove
You want no choice in where
To build, or whom to love;
You ask them to bear
You off irrevocably,
So that it’s not your fault
Should the town turn dreary,
The girl a dolt.

Yet, having missed them, you’re
Bound, none the less, to act
As if what you settled for
Mashed you, in fact;
And wiser to keep away
From thinking you still might trace
Uncalled-for to this day
Your person, your place.

[Philip Larkin, 'Places, Loved Ones', from Collected Poems]

he needed her to be there in order to make her gone

Cleopatra Mathis, from Book of Dog: Poems--

When She Spoke, He Closed His Eyes

So she tried to disappear, obliged 

by his own disappearing, becoming

who she wasn't. Not there was not

who she was, and not how she was.

She could tiptoe out, he could be

relieved or (surprise!) come searching.

But how would that work

when he needed her to be there

in order to make her gone, disappeared

into other. What other? she thought, wondering

how to make herself into someone

absent, so she could be the one

he would welcome, wide-eyed, wanting

to hear whatever it was she had to say.

God loved the birds and invented trees. Man loved the birds and invented cages.

1. Do you have any friends you regret not keeping in touch with?
   I think that everyone does. Andrew, Becky, Chris (not that one). Tammy. Dan. Vicki. Josh. JJ....
2. Would you have one of your fingers surgically removed if it guaranteed immunity from all major diseases?
   sure - take my left pinkie, since it seems to draw papercuts like crazy anyway
3. Which is would be creepier to see in your kitchen: a mouse or a cockroach?
   a cockroach, for sure. A mouse could have wandered in with me on the return trip from the place where I spend my days, after all. Cockroaches are filthy, fast, and hard to get rid of. Mice are stupid and (relatively) easy to eliminate.
4. Show and Tell. What comes to mind first when you see this picture? Or, tell a story if it reminds you of one.

   

   Public Domain Photo

   this picture reminds me of a small zoo (it's small enough that it's just called a park) near my hometown. I guess the zoo's not open anymore, but the park is still very cool.

[from the original source; the title quotation is by Jacques Deval, Afin de vivre bel et bien]

Your most subtle and deadly adversary

I asked a scholar the meaning of the tradition which
says, ‘Your most subtle and deadly adversary is the
sexual energy in your loins.’ ‘The reason is this,’ he
answered. ‘Any ordinary enemy that you treat politely
will begin to be your friend, except that lust-energy.
The more you indulge and placate that, the more
powerfully it drags you both down. Strong discipline
needs to be brought forward to stop that bully from
killing you.’

[Saadi {Abū-Muhammad Muslih al-Dīn bin Abdallāh Shīrāzī}, ‘I Asked a Scholar’ (trans. by Coleman Barks)]

I like your lean spine

Love is an awkward word

Not what I mean and
too much like magazine stories
in stilted dentists’
waiting rooms.
How can anyone use it?

I’d rather say
I like your
lean spine
or your eyebrows
or your shoes

but just by standing there and
being awkward

you force me to speak

love.

[Margaret Atwood, ‘4’, from ‘Letters, Towards and Away’ in The Circle Game]

the distance between us grew steadily

When I left her door I thought

she’d try to stop me

                  and we might be reconciled.

The wind billowed through our clothes;

and as she uncrossed her legs to get up

                  I thought she’d come to call me back.

But she didn’t try to stop me

and she didn’t ask me to stay;

                  and she didn’t call me

                  and she didn’t ask me to come back.

I walked away slowly

and the distance between us grew steadily,

                  till our separation became finite.

[Kaifi Azmi (Syed Fateh Hussain Rizvi), ‘Humiliation’, trans. from the Urdu by Mumtaz Jahan]

I'm free to leave

On our first drive when you yelled "Snake!"
I braced against the lump
under your tires;
the men I've known would swerve across two lanes
to kill a sunning hognose,

its harmless rattle lodged inside
my throat. Not you. You stopped
the car, crouched by
the snake. Your fingers caught its neck like you'd
pinch lightning in mid-air. Awed,

you showed the grotto of its jeweled
and earless head, white-welled
muscle of mouth,
round eyes free of venom, mosaic vent
beneath where excrement

comes out. Far enough from the road
you disarmed each other--
almost purring,
it unwound, silk spirals into kudzu,
then vanished. Since then, more than once,

love-wracked, you've turned with that same awe:
"How is it you love me
so much?" Well,
because you stopped. Because your fingers cup
my neck, and tenderness rises

beneath them. Because I'm free
to leave. Open your eyes,
my charmer: I'm
still wound around your arm. When the snake loves,
it's the fiercest kind of love.

[Beth Ann Fennelly, 'The Snake Charmer', in Open House]

these things they go away, replaced by every day

1. Put your iTunes on shuffle. Give me the first 6 songs that pop up.
   iTunes (on this computer):
   1. "Nasim Joon" by O.A.R., from Stories of a Stranger
   2. "The Cross" by Prince, from Sign O' the Times
   3. "Gone" by Daughtry, from Daughtry
   4. "Universe & U" by KT Tunstall, from Grey's Anatomy: Original Soundtrack, vol. 2
   5. "Soldier Boy" by Four Fellows, from Doo Wop Box, vol. 2: 101 More Vocal Gems
   6. "The Lady Killer Theme" by Cee Lo Green, from The Lady Killer
   iPod:
   1. "Welcome to the Jungle" by Guns 'N Roses
   2. "Hash Pipe" by Weezer
   3. "Lose Control" by James
   4. "Oiche Nollag (Christmas Eve)" by Dordan--thus indicating one of the drawbacks to shuffle on an iPod
   5. "Baby" by The Bird & The Bee
   6. "Love in an Elevator" by Aerosmith
2. If you could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?
   a little girl named Fiona who turned 13 months old today
3. Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 23, give me line 17.
   "...Belden and GOOG are fluent, but Magyar Tavkozlesi Részvénytársaság..." I haven't yet started reading this book, and now entertain serious doubts!
4. What do you think about most?
   my immediate (the next couple of months') future
5. What does your latest text message from someone else say?
   "Yessss!"
6. Do you sleep with or without clothes on?
   yep. It varies with the weather and, er, atmospheric conditions, so to speak.
7. What's your strangest talent?
   depends on your definition of strange, I suppose. Perhaps I should leave that one open to individual external interpretation.
8. Women...tend to frustrate or anger me (if at all) in practical ways; Men..., on the other hand, bother me in more unrealistic, emotional, or symbolic ways.
9. Ever had a poem or song written about you?
   ha--I'm so vain, I'll bet I think all the songs are about me!
10. When is the last time you played the air guitar?
    prehaps never? I am a highly accomplished air drummer, though.
11. Do you have any strange phobias?
    again with the 'strange'! I guess that my lack of fondness for butterflies could be perceived as odd, from a certain perspective.
12. Ever stuck a foreign object up your nose?
    no, I only jam domestic objects into my nostrils. See this post for a gentle reminder.
13. What's your religion?
    "Rivers, ponds, lakes and streams--they all have different names, but they all contain water. Just as religions do--they all contain truths."
    [Muhammad Ali]
14. If you are outside, what are you most likely doing?
    traveling to or from the place at which I toil
15. Do you prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it?
    behind, of course!
16. Simple but extremely complex. Favorite band?
    that depends on the day, the hour, the minute. Lately I can't get enough Sister Hazel, but I also just bought Alkaline Trio's new album, My Shame is True, and The Sheepdogs' Trying to Grow.
17. What was the last lie you told?
    it was a kind lie of omission, and I'd do it again without compunction
18. Do you believe in karma?
    sort of
19. What does your URL mean?
    "uniform resource locator", just like everyone else's
20. What is your greatest weakness; your greatest strength?
    my greatest weakness is my neck muscles, and my greatest strength is my thighs
21. Who is your celebrity crush?
    I would probably do great damage to get anywhere near Mark Wahlberg
22. Have you ever gone skinny dipping?
    yep. It was a good time, and has probably mellowed with nostalgia overlaid by "Nightswimming" melancholy for days gone by that cannot be relived
23. How do you vent your anger?
    I yell a lot, I cry a little, I very rarely drink too much, and sometimes I'm terribly vindictive
24. Do you have a collection of anything?
    um, yeah
25. Do you prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online?
    video chatting is the work of the devil. Given the choice between the two, there is no choice at all. I obviously prefer IMing or texting to either of those, though--or, God forbid, email or actual, handwritten letters. I know, right?

[from The Cat, who got it here; the title quotation is from "Nightswimming" by R.E.M.]

I want to say so much and I freeze

I want to write, but out comes foam,
I want to say so much and I freeze;
there is no spoken cipher which is not a sum,
there is no written pyramid, without a core.

I want to write, but I feel like a puma;
I want to laurel myself, but I stew in onions.
There is no spoken cough, which doesn’t end in mist,
there is no god nor son of god, without unfolding.

Let’s go, then, through this, and eat grass,
the flesh of sobbing, the fruit of groaning,
our melancholy soul preserved in jam.

Let’s go! Let’s go! I’m wounded;
let’s go drink that already drunk,
let’s go, raven, and fecundate your rock.

[César Vallejo, ‘Intensity and Height,’ in The Complete Posthumous Poetry]

it will come to pass / They’ll call this undying love

Triumphs, vacant and shuttered,
The mysterious nontryst,
Speeches never uttered,
Words that don’t exist.
Looks that do not see
Don’t know where to go,
And only tears are happy
That they at length may flow.
The clawing wild roses, alas!
Go with this, hand in glove,
And it will come to pass
They’ll call this undying love.

[Anna Akhmatova, ‘4. First Little Song’, "Wild Roses are Blooming (From a Burned Notebook)" (1942), in Poems]

art is inspiration

[the title quotation is by William Blake (1825)]