New [fragment]

How do you break

[

up

] the narrative?

How do you loosen into the nonlinear?

How do you let go?

In April, I took a class on short poems with Sarah Vap at Richard Hugo House—and last night, I took the poem I'd been working on from that afternoon to my poetry group.

They asked, "What was your process?"

The best answer is: "Take a class from Sarah."

I stand by that.

But in the interim, here's how I approached my poem.

(This is the reduced version. For the full experience, again, take a class from Sarah.)

1. Print out a copy of a poem that speaks to you. (In class, we looked at many examples of different shorter-form lyric poets.)




2. From a stack of images (old pictures or postcards, thoughts you've jotted down, anything that sticks—although I do think that the more visual and foreign, the better), choose a few and then write images in the margins of that printed poem. Short images. One or two words. Riff, but don't force anything.




3. Pick a number (x). From the poem you chose and the images you wrote, write a poem in x number of sections.




4. Choose the word that speaks to you. Circle it. (This word will become a theme that runs through your poem.)




5. Start a new page, and choose a different word (so many choices!). Write a new poem that uses the new word over and over and over again—as much as possible.




6. Start a new page, and write one line. Turn the page.




7. Whatever you want to do: short bursts, anything goes, turn the page each time. A lot of fresh pages.




8. Now, take a little rest.




9. The next day, in the margins of each page that you wrote, write more images that come to you. These are not whole poems or even whole poems. These are bursts.




10. Repeat as many times as you want.
    
    This is fun. This is play.




11. Repeat this again over several days. The margins will be one Hell of a mess.




12. Pull everything together into one place—a page in OneNote, another file in your computer, more pages in your notebook.




13. Highlight the lines or images that still feel important to you.




14. Write or type those images onto a new page or file.




15. Take a good look, or wait. Take out anything you don't need.
    
    Maybe, take out more.

This experience took me way outside of my comfort zone. I like narrative, I like all the blanks filled in, and I feel a little edgy around fragments. But learning to write, however uneasily, with the fragments was good. It was even fun.

Two for Dan

Yesterday was my friend Dan's memorial service, an afternoon of many stories, songs, and tears. A big gathering, with comfort and sorrow, with music and more stories into the night.

Here are two poems that I wrote during the couple of weeks.

Our Hard Watch


In my sorrow I plant beans.
Scarlet runners fall from the packet
marbled red and night, a handful of magic.

We hoped for a miracle, red cells blooming
through arteries, day after day waking
to a new wonder. Through the long

treatments, chemo rounds like a boxing match
pummeled you—and you still standing at each bell.
You learned a hook or two.

Wood sorrel clouds the ground.
The dock sends stalks skyward,
feathery flags waving.

I smooth the dirt over.
Teases of rain spit from the sky.
The crows may uncloak their mysteries.

This is better than waiting
where my words fall, fail
like old seeds in a field of stones.

Dusk grows in the garden.
Everything hovers—breath, hands.
Time balances like a boy on one foot.

To keep a vigil from the far side
of the water. To keep the fury out
when it wants to surge in as hard as the sea.

You move through a larger circle,
but it feels like an eddy,
a swirl, a suck out of time.

We must hold you,
love you, let you return.
We miss you before you go.

***

Walk With Us


Evening grows in the garden.
Walk with us in this hush
of light falling.

We must send you off into the lilac dusk,
into the darkening cedars and firs,
but you can walk with us.

Bang on the pots and pans.
Bring your guitar.
Walk with us.

Emptiness reaches up to the sky,
too early for stars.
We could be better at letting go.

You must move on and yet a part of you
lives in a cup under our ribs,
in the night's quiet valleys.

You are a clear note through the distance.
You are a ray through the world,
a sunlight we touch, and our hearts

are pierced by it, and we open
our hands to find maps we didn't know
we held, our possible hours etched

on our palms. Walk with us
through this shivering, into the garden
where birth sprawls green.

Walk with us.
Help us to live the rest of this life.

Poems online

These poems on the Hektoen International website are from my manuscript The Body Makes a Plot.

I don't smoke and I don't have a dog, but...

I do have poems in the new issue of The Smoking Poet.

And I'll be guest-editing the spring issue.

On a happier note, new poems online

The new issue of Ekleksographia, guest-edited by my good friend Judith Skillman, is now live—and it includes two of my poems.

Two poems online

Yes, I'm telling everyone, because I'm so happy that two poems from the manuscript (yes, the manuscript) are now online at The Wild Goose Poetry Review.

Such a nice way to start a week.

It's all about the food

Continuing the wrap-up from my NaPoMo poem-a-day effort, I found myself several times finding a way to turn the prompt into an fine reason to write about food. That was fun!

Here are those rough efforts:

After the Whole Day

Let me feed you
cheeses on a plate.
Let me roll for you
raviolis of gorgonzola,
swirled in a cream sauce
with walnuts, tarragon.
See how the water simmers.
See how the windows steam.
Let me serve you a salad—
frisee and pear,
delicate curls of pecorino,
a whisper of truffle oil.
I have in my kitchen
scallops to sear,
chicken to roast,
and a medley of roots
tossed with oregano, balsamic,
and then a little lemon tart.
When you come home
with the sound of the saw in your ears
and mahogany dust in your hair,
let me pour you a glass of Champagne,
let me take your hands
and lead you to the table you made.
Let me feed you, fill you.

***

The Job I Could Not Keep

March darkness patches window panes black
and the kitchen settles, sinks a little deeper
into early morning chill. Any step seems too loud,
an intrusion at this hour, but I measure flour,
warm the water, soften the yeast. I pare
fruit for a pie, cut butter for scones
to sell at the pizzeria down the street.
I stir and and I knead—quietly.
I lie down on the linoleum floor, stretch
to the back of the oven with a match,
but the brioche don't plump up into pillows.
The pastries are reprieved, mostly uneaten
in the clean glass case, and my dream of being a baker,
my solo roll into business,
rises only a couple of weeks
before I succumb to the market's reality,
my own lack of math, the stress
of silence, and a flat exhaustion.
Now the nurse who works swing shift
and lives in the basement
can finally get some sleep.

***


I Am So Over Dinner

On Sunday night, it might
be an extravagance, an event
prepared with attention
and the seven flavors of love,
but Monday I'm back to slinging hash,
fixing chicken or pork chops,
harried after a day of work
and a long bus ride,
the stop at the store,
heavy bags to carry home,
the television's yelling,
persnickity palates to please,
no meat for one, avoid avocados,
olives, and eggs for another,
a third prefers no broccoli.
The knife slides through an onion.
The oil heats. A sizzling begins.
The cops make an arrest
or the doctor makes
a diagnosis. I made
a mistake, but the show must go on
until I can set a plate
in front of each critical eye,
sit myself down
with a glass of wine,
eat quickly because I do,
while the pans wait to be washed.
This could be a ritual,
but it lost its mysticism
back in the last century.
Instead let's eat salads.
Let's just eat cake
or take-out. I've got
a drawer full of menus.

***


Time to Hit the Ground Growing

Try the cherry 100s.
That's the whole reason to grow your own tomatoes.
The Romas don't taste as good—but those cherry 100s.
That's what you want.
Saute them in a little butter
with some almonds and fresh basil.
You can't get better than that.
You can put the lettuce and chard in now.
For basil, you need to wait
until it's hot. Grow it in a pot
now on the window sill,
but don't sink it in the ground
until high summer—July.
The cilantro will bolt but sow itself
and then it will grow on its own time
like gangbusters.
You can grow potatoes now,
but wait for the carrots and beets.
Plant them in the fall.
I need to start some parsley.
We use up a lot of thyme.

Three for the 19th

Today, I haven't been able to fit everything into one haiku:


After that morning
I write this poem many times
It's never finished

On that other hill
We left you when you left us
Fourteen winters pass

The years don't erase
Imprints of death and then grief
Slowly, writing fades


For a little history, here is an older poem, from A Steady Longing for Flight:

December 19


Rain soaks the spare grass without mercy.
I come here less and less,
wait for the stone chosen last summer.
A slab of granite, an odd comfort.

You left behind anniversaries
like so many crumbs of bread:
the night we met,
the morning we married
and now this holy day
I observe on my own.
I can get to the cemetery myself.
Beyond that, I have no maps, no rules,
no way to call up and ask
if I'm doing this right.


I see a little sun right now, and feel thankful to be alive.

Yum!

One of the things I enjoy on the Virtual World: Peter's details about the fabulous dinners that he and Dean make and serve. They always sound perfectly leisurely and scrumptious.

Yesterday morning, I rode my bike over to the neighborhood farmers' market, and later we had a big Sunday dinner for six: salad made of shaved fennel, mushrooms and parmesan with lemon juice, olive oil, and black pepper, then bell pepper ravioli from the farmers' market in a sauce made of garlic, olives, sun-dried tomatoes, and basil, with a dash of cream, and then halibut with a lemon and caper sauce, baby bok choy, and mashed potatoes. Just add water, wine, and much laughter—a nice way to end the weekend and start the week.

In that spirit, I've added a few food poems to the sofa.

Poems (what an idea!)

"I wouldn't want to be faster
or greener than now if you were with me O you
were the best of all my days"

(from "Animals," by Frank O'Hara)

This morning on the bus I was reading Frank O'Hara's collected poems. How lovely, and how energetic. Ultimately, tragic and ironic at the same time. It was a good day for all of those things, and the sun was out then.

Someone asked me whether I posted my poems on my blog, and I explained that there was a potential for publication conflicts, so I had pretty much not posted many poems so far. He thought it might be nice to see more samples of what I write. Hard to quibble with that, even if Frank is a tough act to follow.

Here are a few.

This is the second poem in a series of sonnets (my informal formal verse) in Weathered Steps.

Des Moines


Heat lightning scrapes the late sky tired, dry
when the smudged glass doors of the depot close.
We huddle on the stoop, our gear piled high,
watch through the weather’s threats for an old bus
that might not come. Cabbies flock like bored crows,
peck at conversation, offer advice
with doughnuts from a pink box. Thunder grows
in my other ear. We hedge, out of place.
They say that we can ship our packs ahead
but not the dog. “I-90 isn’t far,”
a driver suggests. “You can hitch that road.”
For the cab fare, he’ll even take us there.
We hold the shoulder, watch cars leave a while,
feel days—and many miles—from Seattle.

Here is one of the poems that I read at the dance concert last weekend. It originally appeared in Heliotrope and in Tattoos on Cedar.

Somewhere in Florence

Rapunzel Considers Italy


Lone tower or second-story bedroom:
any chamber will suffice
to keep me within by charm or choice.

The witch remains elusive,
a vapor or a cure,
a pale root in the garden below.

I retreat more often into my bones,
veil time with the mystery of the carpets,
hair in lamplight, my rampion scraps.

In the dark snarl of hours,
I plait arguments, tell myself maybe this tale
should move to a house outside Siena.

Beneath a slender moon, sky seeded with stars,
perhaps a plot is sown with tomatoes and greens.
Olive leaves might turn their faces away

from the wind’s first private breath,
a breeze brimming with language
and few familiar syllables.

I remain here, far from Tuscan enchantments,
stroke the simple doubt that any home
could satisfy my quest for quiet

until solitude would lose its luster,
lead me to leave my peculiar prison,
clip my locks, walk into the daylight world.

Here is one of the Pandora poems. It originally appeared in Ascent.

Immaculate


Without being born, Pandora has no middle age,
only this endless procession of centuries
gone as dank as a cellar, plastered with plans
and the most familiar fictions:
What everyone wanted,
what everyone thought.

She knows there must be a stairway,
a way out, a walk through the cedars
and brambles that tumble toward open shore.
There will be wind enough
to swing her around like a horse on a roof
until she needs no sense of direction,

no ears for more voices.
She will stand at the seam between sea and sand,
feel her body fill like a sail
in the sharp gusts, slaked by sky
as it flees the horizon’s hard line,
by ocean and salt and that clean, dousing light.

Finally, here is a poem for fun. (I am on some kind of mailing lists!)

A Brief Meditation on Why I Won’t Be Renewing My Subscription to Your Esteemed Magazine


Dear—

Was it nearly a year ago
your invitation came in the mail,

mentions of martinis, a picture
of a blonde clad in something
as sheer as a summer’s day, swept by wind?
(Always, there must be wind.)
My heart—and another organ or two—leapt as I
said Yes.

Then, when your thick, slick book arrived—
words, words, words.
No drinks, no dames.
Not even an olive. Not a twist
in sight (but for literary device).
Merely glib or utterly—

imagine young women clad
in tattoos and cynicism,
spending their last cents
on stamps and cigarettes
and those lonely boys hanging out of windows,
working on their verbal swagger.

You might see the glass half-full,
but when we talk about cocktails,
it will always look empty.

These days are chock-a-block
and I have sports to watch
before I sleep. I think I’ll keep
my money in my wallet
and one eye open for that girl.


Ciao!