— a poem by Mary
WARM ME UP SUN YOU
BACK ME UP……..SINGS
ONE BIRD MEe TO THE
OTHER
KUSTER’S DEAD END ROSE
BUSH PURPLE RED
A W A K E N I N G
HEARLD IN SUN BLUE
EASTER EGG BLUE SKY
SEEDS FEED BIRDS
AWHILE SHADOW TREE BARK STAINED TO
GREEN
RAIL TRAINS PASSING IN
WITH DAWN !
A W A K I N M E
[I read an excerpt of the exhilarating novel The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski. In the excerpt, the reader is granted the perspective of a dog. The writing changes, the details change, as the view from a dog is understood like I have never understood it. It is so tender and melancholy and filled with longing. I think that longing — as well as Wroblewski’s ability to use fifteen words where I would have only thought to have used one — really set the tone for the workshop and the writing that emerged. There was so much dynamite writing today — maybe it had something to do with the prompt of getting outside of one’s own voice to write from the perspective of something else. Sometimes I worry that prompts like that will loosen our already tenuous grip on sanity, but today it led to creativity. Today’s attendees: George, Courtney, Mary, David, Karen, Amy, and Matt.]
_______________________________________________________
The Perspective of the Seat of the Chair I’m On
— by David KE Dodge
For hours- days- it just sits there. It’s just there, in the shadow of the table, touched by nothing, just sitting, waiting, under the table, with the cloth just tantalizing, just a few inches above, but unreachable. Just sitting. But every now and then, a butt. Sometimes- usually- only for a matter of minutes; once in a wonderful while- more than an hour. Not butt, but butts. Heavy butts, light butts; little butts, big butts; hard bony butts; firm muscular butts; soft, fat butts; butts in gingham, in plaid, in pastel, in corduroy, in black clerical cotton; hairy, wrinkled butts; clean, smooth butts. Usually, adult butts, but once in a glorious while, ever so far apart, a child’s small butt.
How to feel, when the butt rises, and leaves the seat to face another long period of isolation, of meaningless purposeless abandon? Grateful, for a function fulfilled, for however short a period? Heartbroken, for being thoughtlessly left alone? Most likely, indifferent- just content to wait, its potential ever present, ever offering comfort to the occasional visitant to Tatlock Memorial Library, at St Andrews Episcopal Church in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
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A Squirrel in a Tree in Winter
— by George
The squirrel must have liked winter, for it was then that his fur grew thick and when its nest of sticks and leaves high in the maple tree seemed most safe and secure. Of a summer night, hot and humid, the squirrel might splay itself on a thick lower limb to sleep, comfortable but exposed to a sudden July shower and, worse, vulnerable to the rumored night hawk who would swoop down and rob a sleeping squirrel of its tail.
Winter was more comfortable, even the cold windy nights when the nest rocked in the nimble trees—that was something of an adventure, but nothing more daring than to leap from tree to tree, to fly to the slippery ends of the maple’s high limbs and scurry quickly toward the trunk, each step quick so as not to assemble weight on any one place, weight that would surely bring it down, but the fall from which would not bury it, for it would catch another branch on the way and repeat the branch dance that failed above but which never failed to work all together.
And there was suet, a greasy, seeded conglomeration that appeared only in the cold time. Easy to find, the suet hung from the same branch of the maple tree, sometimes shrinking in size, sometimes increasing, an alteration the squirrel associated with a man. The man. He could be a hazard. The man yelled at the squirrel, and shook his fist. His face turned red from the cold. The squirrel ran up the tree. It licked its lips. It rubbed its whiskers with its paws. It yelled back to the man with its own language.
_______________________________________________________
Feral, the black one (Beautiful)
— by Courtney
The styrofoam home empty, the large white house purring but empty. He lay on the bare-bone porch on the heated mat beside his mother, fitting just on the edge, and first the cold wind and then sleep overtook him. He dreamed of food always before him, kibble rising up from the porch like the yellow flowers that once covered the grass.
When he woke, the sun had lowered, the sky blue-gray through the porch windows on the west and gray-blue from the south, pieces of pink reflecting somewhere far away where the warmth was kept from him.
His mother twitched when he moved – raccoon coyote, dog, just kitten. He did the same, his ears flickering as he smelled the gray air – raccoon, coyote, dog, just mother. Together and alone, his sister dead long ago, white fur turned to mud where his mother had held watch for days in the spring.
That was before he saw the human who poured food into the bowl each morning. The bowl that was always almost empty when the pink detached from the sky and fell away somewhere, blanketing someone else.
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The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
— by Mary
Rising tension no relief the antithesis
of interspecies exchange where
dogness reigns midst dayness
Morning nightness dawn and evening
Restfulness
Glorious to share the intelligence of
elemental partfulness seen undisguised
The Dogness of earthful touch repose by
mindful respect
The absence of interference collects as
morsel muddy balls dry and tangle my dogness
hair as one I am in love supreme my
doggie giveth me
x x x
Edgar saw and telles s s s tales in
perpetual yeasty songs skipped beats
skipping breaths – propels intrigue
beware \ black must defend against
Edgar’s unreleasing prisoner taking
intention
But for Edgar the advantage be while
first move secures his vantage point
inner squares e4 d4 his tale
aligns its moldy expanding
momentum
- Pause
_______________________________________________________
Writing from the Perspective of Somebody Else
— by Matt
Judgmentalism.
Why do we do this to ourselves?
The most judgmental people I know are often the most depressed, having such high expectations of others they can never accomplish anything themselves.
This used to be me.
I mean, I understand the perspective of others (especially chipmunks), but, I believe, if something is eating away at you, it might be best to sit back, take a pill, and relax.
I’ve often been asking, “Did you take your medication this morning?”
The answer was often “no,” and this came from a state of paranoia and rebellion.
In game theory, political scientists often say how crucial it is to look at the perspective of others.
Otherwise, mistakes can be made (sometimes fatal), and the results are often disastrous.
Why then do we have to be such assholes to each other?
In this age of Nuclear Weapons, I believe this is a fatal mistake to quickly judge others.
I mean, I like Shakespeare’s Dramas, but I think I like his comedies the best.
In sum, I am a sucker for happy endings.
Lighten up, let others live, and let go.
Otherwise, you should have nightmares about the things you should’ve done but didn’t, in the process of harming others.
Amen.
ps.: You don’t’ know who I am, or what I’ve been through, so stop judging others.
The End
p.p.s. Laxatives are highly underrated.
I wish my brother would take some.
[Food Writing is a genre usually reserved for the elite. Educated, wealthy people write critically about high-end restaurants and about food that is expensive to buy. But what if low-income people had a say in the genre? What is it like to write about food critically when you’re have little say what you’ll eat and when? If writing about food is always writing in a way about a greater hunger, about love, and about culture, what is it like to write about these subjects from the perspective of someone who is doled out food in a church basement?]
_________________________________________________
Untitled
— by Mary
Oh the moments of food remembrance past
Sunday afternoons with Laurie
Colwin’s swelling eggs turning
Birthday cakes in golden orange
Breakfast nooks.
Craig Claiborne’s braised short
ribs with mustard and white wine.
an offering of peace to a party
A bribe…. please like me – Love me
Remembrance, past –
And now
Hunger and shelter are intermixed.
Starve the fever, feed the old.
_________________________________________________
— a second poem by Mary
You and food, the balance you
tender wild
worlds put together fired
and flashed.
You tender, I yearn to swallow
Garden plucked, freed, to
become your tendered
darken leaves
I yearn – zizzling sounds
your sauce but to mouth
digested from pan to _______
statehood of you and me
I pray
_________________________________________________
Date Line- Washington DC
July/August 1987
A psychotic from Michigan arrived via an economy airline at Washington National Airport and went directly by subway and sidewalk to the White House mailroom, where he left a message for President Reagan, demanding an audience. Then he went to Lafayette Park, to wait for an answer.
After a few days, the psychotic got mad, and upped the ante. He left a message at the White House mailroom, advising the President that he (the psychotic) would not eat until he had seen the president.
How did the psychotic survive the next thirty-three days, without eating anything, and drinking nothing but salt water? Easy: he conceived a book about food- not the rich, high calorie food he, as an American, was used to, but light vegetarian fare, he vicariously ate, by thinking about the dishes he would prepare for himself, if he had the kitchen, and if he were not in the middle of a protest fast.
Protest by sublimation: what a powerful weapon.
How did it all end up? Maybe next week, if you’re all good girls and boys, and if I feel like, I’ll tell you.
For now, good night, and sleep tight.
_________________________________________________
Food Writing
— by Matt
Waste.
What a concept.
It simply blows me away what people throw away.
Today I was reading about Native Americans and how they save everything.
I also read about American Consumerism and how they waste and destroy.
The smartest people I know are broke.
And the dumbest ones, it seems, seem to have the most money.
I once read an article in AnnArbor.com about fine dining, and to be honest, I was truly nauseated.
Why does everything have to be so refined?
I’m reminded of the fat dude in Monte Python’s “The Meaning of Life” who says, “Get me a Bucket, I’m going to throw up.”
I don’t understand why people have to consume things in mass quantities, and yet sometimes throw away the things they need the most.
I’m often reminded of the book “Elements of Style” in which E.B. White says writing should “Have no unnecessary parts.”
Why, then, do we have to accumulate so many things?
If I lived in a mansion, I’d simply pick a room, gather my belongings, and live in that room only.
It’s often been said, “Live simply, so that others can simply life.”
I think that’s good advice for anyone, who simply knows how to live.
I remember on the GRE how terribly I did on the analytical section.
I simply hate complicated crap.
Why can’t people simply be honest and straightforward?
I’m reminded of a song by Rush, in which the author described such “Complexity and confusion.”
Obfuscation is the enemy of life.
I would rather die than be so possessed by my most prized possessions.
_________________________________________________
Food Writing
— by Amee
Some people eat to live and others live to eat. Food, I think, is one of the most misused substances in our economy. Children are growing up obese. Food should be used very sparingly. The Canadian government has merged with the U.S. government on October 21st to make food safer to eat. We get a lot of our food from Canada. People take abuse from growers of food and people that run plantations in other countries. Since the 1900s, food has changed a lot. There were originally 500 varieties of food; now there is about 1500 varieties, because food is processed with many additives, so it can be made into many varieties. A lot of our food comes from China, like kiwi. Food in Belize is exported, yet many people in that country go hungry. Today in our society there are many food books and these are having shortages. I think if more people would be vegetarians, we would be able to feed more people. A lot of food has additives now to add vitamins and minerals, which was unheard of in the past years. Now you can even get food in pills, liquids, and intravenously. Some foods in past years such as fattening foods with sugar were only for the wealthy and rich.
_________________________________________________
Untitled
— by Bob
Where is my next meal coming from
I hear a grumbling in my tum
The church bells ringing signaling me to come
I don’t know where my next meal is coming from.
I don’t have any money
I’m so broke it’s not funny
I have a hole in my tummy
maybe they can fix it here.
I am sick of eating alone
at a restaurant or at my home.
Day after day walking the road
I guess I am eating all alone
Now it is time to do the dishes
They won’t get done just by wishes
Fill the sink with soap and water
A little too cold, make it hotter.
For dessert I think I will have some citalopram hydrobromide.
[The prompt was Richard Siken’s poem “Detail of the Woods” — but the prompt was more specific than that. My prompts usually are thematically based (rather than asking for a specific form without giving the content, for instance), but otherwise quite free for personal exploration. This prompt was strict: write in the exact form of Siken’s “Detail of the Woods” — that is to say, write lines roughly the same length, use roughly the same punctuation. It felt, in a way, like we were babysitting a poem beside us as we tried to write our own poem, having to pick whatever content came into our heads and out on the page in fifteen minutes. Most followed the prompt closely, though some chose their own way. I love restriction, I love the constraints of form. Much was written that could not have been written with any other prompt and with a prompt of lesser constraint. Mary’s poem in particular is remarkable for its beauty, and I wished I had a voice recorder during workshop: sections of the poem were sung.]
___________________________________________________________________________
Detail of the Sidewalk
— By David KE Dodge
I looked at all the gum and didn’t know what to do.
A bottle made out of broken glass.
How operates a mind, to leave such things? A mind, mindless. How rude.
All humankind, ignored. Why they don’t care.
I try to ignore, redirect. But cold vomit, long weathered.
From the gutter: three pennies at the meter.
In better times: quarters were left.
I turn away. A sense of disgust.
But my steps demand care.
I think I’ll go to the Delonis Center for greasy cheese sandwiches.
___________________________________________________________________________
Detail of the Something?
— by Matt
I looked around, and I found myself clueless.
My rake is my favorite tool.
When you mentioned the woods I can’t help but think back to the rapist in Eberwhite Woods, who was caught many years ago.
I wish they would find these latest rapists, but I’m afraid they may never will.
Passion. Continuity. Communication.
These are the skills I think it necessary to take throughout life.
Why does everything have to lie in the “Grand Scheme of Things?”
Why can’t we simply live and let live?
Death comes to all; and yet, I can’t help thinking Death will come to others more quickly than myself.
In Hamlet, Shakespeare wrote of “Desperate Acts.”
My dad thinks most people live quiet lives of desperation, but I think this need not be the case.
I think people are desperate because they’re grasping for things they cannot attain.
I found a penny yesterday, and I was so pleased.
I once found a $20 bill, and that would have been great had I not, at the time, been so pissed off at the world.
Why does everything have to be in such great commission?
Why can’t we be happy with the things we have, and cherish the things we don’t.
I think sludge is highly underrated.
I think I’ll go buy a balloon today, and see with it what I can accomplish.
I like to contrast the Woods with this age of Nuclear Weapons.
They talked about, on the internet yesterday, about setting the Doomsday clock forward.
I think it best if you don’t give a crap, and move your life forward.
Politics is for the dipshits of this world.
___________________________________________________________________________
Detail of the Heart
— by Mary
I am because of heart unable to see.
I wobble with muffled paws
What else can I do? My heart, pawing blanks.
Soft giving fleshy, pools. It bears no light or smell of safety.
In my heart only I follow the throbbing pulse of waving public nods.
Aqu-a-ahh-wee-essing parting: Mucus membrane maps in flow.
Grab hold the molecule: Mucus membrane maps in flow.
Jumbled lids begin to open. Watery blurs of shaped colors
Blinking swallows burst forth.
Any day now little children the OPEN HAND EXTENDS.
___________________________________________________________________________
Detail of the Field
— by Courtney
I walked out to the field and the trees lifted away.
Pink burrs and razors on my ankles.
What constellation? Queen Anne’s Lace. A telegram.
Send helicopter. I can’t tell if I want invisibility or to fly.
A coyote pounces on something. Right here a cry dissolves.
I bend down to know: a clay pigeon.
From the ghosts that slept here: a clay pigeon.
I put the broken birds in my pocket. The world is more doomed than I can believe.
I turn back to my porch where the blankets sway.
Yesterday I saw a photograph of whales from below, unafraid, lit by their ocean.
___________________________________________________________________________
Detail of a Stench
— by George
I looked in all the cupboards and didn’t know what to do.
A mouse in its own feces.
What else confounded my nose? A fart, an old hose. Nevertheless.
Some smells just like civilization. A compost heap. A declaration.
I kept my noise to the grindstone. Cold stone, lonely nigh8t.
From the moonlight: a shadow box
From the trench: a terrible stench
Maggots so many they could carry water.
The grinding, illuminated mass of them.
There in a kitchen cupboard.
[I read a poem called “Te Deum” by Charles Reznikoff, based on the Latin song that, Catholics say, if sung on New Year’s Eve in public absolves you of a sin for which you have already confessed. The prayer is simple, humble, not asking an enormous amount of the new year. We responded with our own poems, possibly in the same spirit of honesty with a hint of depression, an “auld lang syne” tone to our mood.]
_______________________________________________________________________________
Take Account of New Year’s Day
— by Mary
Account the day between
the world of one year
to the next
In its vacancy no
people are about
not even birds but
gold vacuums of
rising heat that
congeal round my
rubbered toes —
Frozen afraid to
leave their mark
against the snow my feet are still
I look up look down
it’s snow that
blusters round
the truth this day
between the
shroud of
moisten death and
spring-fed birth –
Announced in silence
this in between can only mean
one must become
one must take shape
Allow by effort
one’s toes to wiggle free
to
a vast explosion against
the speckled
gray – a sea of rising birds
_______________________________________________________________________________
Untitled
— by Mary
New Year commence
I’m ready for your
breath – in fact
I plead for your
freshness – help lighten
me – And Float I will
I will sing let me
find you inside of me –
_______________________________________________________________________________
New Year
— by Matt
New Year.
I don’t feel New.
In fact, I feel old, decrepit, and obsolete.
How is it people go jogging in the morning,
in the dead of winter.
If I id this, I would be carted away in an ambulance, almost every day.
On the other hand, I like the fact that the New Year symbolizes the possibility of hope for the future.
Why does everything have to be so amazing?
I wish I were on a raft sometimes, and could drift away in the future.
Why do we have to be amazed at student loans, cars and houses, at the very time forgetting about our neighbors?
For the New Year, I plan to go ahead living as I’ve always done in the past (and this includes smoking).
Apathy is Death. And I don’t know why anyone would think of anything else for themselves.
You see, I believe the answers in life lie in cleaning solutions.
I don’t understand how people have such a hard time getting up in the morning.
Death comes in twos, and I don’t see myself getting dragged away in the morning.
I want to retire, but not like this in the morning.
I also don’t understand why I have to get this amazing job and neglect all the things which are truly important to me.
I’d rather be raking leaves than owning a BMW, for instance.
Why do we have to trample on the heads of others to get ahead in the world?
Light up, and life will come to you.
Laugh, and you will have millions of friends.
I’d do anything it seems for rather than a full three-course meal simply getting a glass of water.
Nothing is more important in life than we think it would seem.
_______________________________________________________________________________
New Year
— by George
Hear hear to the New Year
Hoping that all the bad
Wash off
As cleanly as water
Off a duck’s back
That the sour dreams turn sweet
That the log in your own eye
Falls out
And the sight creates quiet
Understanding where before
Raged debate
Hear hear to the New Year
To the music you call home
To the comfortable end of a couch
Where you get to lay your head
When the music stops
And though you loath being first
You sleep
And find peace there
Opens your heart
To things you never expected to recognize
Let alone understand
_______________________________________________________________________________
Untitled
— by David KE Dodge
The poem as object,
a creation out of nothing?
Is it ever? Can it ever be?
Pigmented grease on cellulose, perhaps.
But any more than that?
Do we substantiate, can we,
that grease into anything more?
Perhaps the “firing of neurons,”
by the release of pre-existent
chemicals across synapses,
requiring oxygen to be
combined with carbon?
Perhaps.
But no: there is no change in
mass, of the ink and paper,
of the carbon and oxygen.
Any tears produced in consequence
arise from the blood;
each ounce emitted
requires an ounce reduced.
Conservation of matter is the law.
We can do no more.
We can do no less.
Our limits empower us.
We cannot substantiate,
but we can transfigure;
by denial of the first,
we are driven to the other.
We do what we can- muchly so.
God make us more.
Amen.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Te Deum
— by Courtney
Say it in public on New Year’s Eve and you are forgiven. But no one asks for forgiveness anymore, we are already absolved. Birds gone. Fresh start, the girl says, lessons obscured by the bells. She didn’t come home because she didn’t want to, she said. Isolation resolution new year, in bed with bread and vomit. Meditate upon this shadow, meditate upon compassion’s animals circling, hunting for meat. How to look an open wound in the eye. How to wear clothes that repel titanic sorrow. There is no way to the birds but to wait for them to descend. Her hair a beehive, leopard bra straps. Black short dress, fat wrangling. I want suffering to lead to absolution. I want to dig and uncover a new animal of solar compassion when the bells ring.
[In the upstairs of the church school, there is a library that is used mostly as a classroom for a fourth-grade class on Sundays. It is where we are sometimes sent by the church staff if our usual lounge writing area is occupied by another activity. It is a daunting room, filled with religious books, large books with strange titles, gold-rimmed books. I said to the workshop a few weeks ago that the next time we are sent to this room we will use the room as our prompt — which is what happened on December 20, 2011. I think there may have been some groans. The prompt of a room takes more work to find poetic inspiration from, perhaps. There were a lot of still pens at first. But the writing that emerged felt less cerebral and more corporeal, more of the present moment and less of the philosophy of the mind. This made for a nice change.]
___________________________________________________________________________
Sermonettes
— by Courtney
People of the Lie, the dog has not returned from the backyard shadows.
How to Live with Another Person, she is under the light balls somewhere.
My Soul Looks Back in Wonder, there are neither leaves in the air nor snow.
A World Waiting to be Born, skin fluorescent, pale new grass skin fluorescent.
The Leap of the Deer, the fire is out again, get the matches.
The Word is Very Near You, the boy draws crayon circles in his fever.
Creation and Fall, glitter constellations on the living room floor.
God’s Frozen People, the dog sings to the string lights and their halos.
Till We Have Faces, at midnight the boy asks for milk.
___________________________________________________________________________
The Room
— by Matt
Dark, dank and classic.
It actually reminds me of Rackham
(the graduate school at the University of Michigan).
I’ve always lived in a room of some sort.
I don’t really believe in living lavishly, or owning a lot of furniture.
I do believe in competence though, and having some sense of being together.
I’m not sure, nor will I ever be, why so many people are going around chasing money.
I’d rather live modestly than lavishly,
or with the overwhelming feeling that life sucked.
I’ve invited people to my room sometimes
(and not for the wrong reason), but usually there are no takers.
I don’t understand why people isolate so much or why they have such a hard time sometimes making friends.
I think you lose if you’re anti-social.
If you put anything above your friends,
I believe you will be the loser in the end.
I also don’t understand why people are often so obsessed with politics, while their personal relationships flounder.
Why do we have to put so much above ourselves, like something is more important than the people down below.
In the age of Nuclear Weapons, I can’t understand why people would put politics ahead of the common interests of others.
When I die, I want to die peacefully, instead of simply grasping what I can from others.
I don’t believe for the need for atrocities, and why some people simply put their interests always ahead of others.
I’d rather go last and be happy than go first and always feel like my life sucked.
I believe gems are found in the human beings we know.
I also believe if you die hating, you will face the most miserable fate of all.
I believe our next President should be a chipmunk, and that is the only one I would vote for.
Relax and it will come to you.
Stress out, and you will die in misery.
___________________________________________________________________________
“The walls are cracking”
— by Mary
The walls are cracking
in this room –
can you see
the tell all
lines of myriad vistas
shattered in decline
that risk – some untold
fortune yet to become –
LIBRARY
— by Mary
Angels, clocks on the quarter,
hymnals leather bound
histories stacked upon the
old and new
Somehow I might find
a way to hear or say
this is the truth
given for this day –
[George brought in for the prompt a poem by a local poet, Lizzie Hutton, from her new book, She’d Waited Millenia. The poem, “Pollen Cross-pollen,” was both honest and poetic, painful and beautiful. It gave us permission to write honestly about pain and insecurity. That sort of permission is a gift.]
____________________________________________________________________________
Where Do We Come From?
by Matt
Where do we come from?
Who cares?
I simply can’t stand when people are so obsessed with breeding.
I’ve seen homeless men flourish, while the most talented fall.
Why do we have to be so obsessed by family, and where our reputation comes from?
I’d rather be a mutt than a thoroughbred, as long as me and my friends remain happy.
People are so obsessed with jobs and works, it’s really ridiculous.
Whatever happened to the patience of the soul?
I can’t stand millionaires, and yet I think if I were a millionaire myself, what would I do with the money.
I’ve seen so many people with money unhappy, and so many without retaining their souls.
Perfectionists, it would seem, are the ones who are going to die first, while those who let things go seem to have the fullest lives.
Vanity of Vanity.
Solomon said it, and I think said it best when he said vanity was like chasing after the wind.
I’ve seen so many, in their vainglorious attempts to be wealthy, fall at the drop of a feather because their foundation of life was not solid.
Live and let live. Praise may go to the patient.
You will die just as poor as when you came into this life.
Why then do you have to be so obsessed with the future.
Relax, and let go, and things will surely come to you.
Cling to life and it will flee from you.
My Father’s House has many mansions,
this is what Christ said.
I’ll have plenty of time to be dead in the future.
____________________________________________________________________________
Waste
by Courtney
[He is half his sister’s size. He likes to play with dirt and sticks in the woods behind our house. He is transparent, blond. He is only beginning to have thoughts that aren’t tangled in the mechanics of the radio or how to assemble a Lego kit. He eats three bites of pancakes and says his stomach hurts. He then enters a diatribe about the effects of cooking a compact disc in the microwave. His sister is out of earshot when he speaks: “Sometimes I think she’s going to kill me.” The house shakes when she sits down to eat. Her leg shakes when she looks at her plate. The brother puts on his headphones. She brings her full plate to the sink. I never want to be a teenager again. I feed everyone’s food to the dogs.]
____________________________________________________________________________
Jilted
by George
The first time I hated myself
Some piece of ill-fitting clothing
My mother had bought for me
And the girl I loved knew
There at the bar she smiled
Without affection
Flicking me from her awareness
An annoying speck from her eye
You are just a boy, she said
Referring to that Neiman Marcus shirt
I wore. Or was it the wing tips
That I thought offset so well my jeans
Or was it something more deep-seated
My blue eyes, her brown
My fingers trembling, hers calm
My talk of date-making, her charm
we homeless want our words
to make it so,
for want of reality,
christmas candles, lights, and smiles
Something- get on back home -
see. whats goin on-
See they a job…they really be - safe
in words, to make it so
how can a line
so, utterly, breathless
bring form sublime, inauspicious,
and divine.
how can a line make reason
without mind, without word, or sound
and emante design from porous pools
of lead picked over - seized- released and blown
as if, by nagle horns
remind me of my home, my dog beloved,
my longing lov line
