With me above you
we kiss inside
a curtain of my hair
curls nearly dry
and multicolored
(photo taken at Kyle and Jessica’s wedding, March 2011)
Category: california
Passover prose poem (mine).
You know I used to play tennis with Robin Williams’ mother. She had her own way she liked to play: we would just hit the ball back and forth, no games, no sets, and sometimes it would finish and someone would get a point or they wouldn’t. She was really a very quirky woman, a real character, I think that’s where he got his sense of humor from. She used to put Band-Aids on the sides of her eyes like this to give herself “facelifts.” And she had this great story about her friend. This friend never did laundry because she was always playing tennis! And this went on for many weeks and her husband was, you can understand, getting a little annoyed with her, he said, I don’t even have any clean socks! But she loved playing tennis so much that she never had time to wash their clothes! So one day what she did was she took all of their socks, and she put them all in the dryer! She didn’t even wash them first! And then they all went back in the drawer! God knows if her husband even noticed!
O how unlovely!
Pacing around my house, laughing
and crying at the same time, this is
the closest I’ve ever achieved at doing
both together, it’s a Frankie sort of verb,
laughingcrying, and an ice cube is dripping
off my face and onto my sweatshirt and
leaving little puddles as I walk around and
O Caity Baptiste I need you now! This
is going to be a cyborg of a cold sore it’s
gonna be full-on one-sided Botox of the
lip it’s gonna stun all your med schoolies
into silenced awe it’s gonna make y’all
reassess your medical vocations, it’s won
the Golden Globe for Most Likely To Make
You Not Wanna Disrobe Me, it’s the best
and worst thing my body’s done all week,
it’s making me laugh then cry then repeat,
a crunching of the face where I get those
creases round the nose (the face Jen loves
to try to do) and then laughing looking
out the window as the dapper drug dealer
in his white fedora walks by with the dog
-owning homeless addicts and the ice is for
the lip because Lorelei Frantz (of the Blue
Camel Café, of ginger peach tea and my
employment) told me that’s how you burn
a coldsore away, you ice it out, you decide It
Is Not There, you chill it freeze it drip it all
around the house is what I’m doing, a messy
sort of process but somehow worth a poem,
Please come to the sideyard reading on Friday
at 7pm! and see for yourself the evidence! of
me attempting everything at once, of trying
to get everything right the first time around,
the proof is on my lip, it’s a mountainrange
of dripping sickness but wait it’s not so bad
in profile in fact it kind of makes me feel
voluptuous and I hey, NEVER feel voluptuous
The morning makes the day.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Thank you, Misha
Happy poem in your pocket day (April 14)!
Today I celebrated a holiday that no one ever seems to believe is actually real. The night before this day each year, I stay up as late as I need to writing poems on stationery emblazoned with my name in purple script (thank you, Jeannie Scheinin). Check out these pocket-sized poem PDFs, if you want one of your own.
If I saw you today, I gave you a poem. Here’s the poem I gave to Misha today.
Letter Poem #3
The night is quiet
as a kettle drum
the bullfrog basses
tuning up. After
swimming, after sup-
per, a Tarzan movie,
dishes, a smoke. One
planet and I
wish. No need
of words. Just
you, or rather,
us. The stars tonight
in pale dark space
are clover flowers
in a lawn the expanding
universe in which
we love it is
our home. So many
galaxies and you my
bright particular,
my star, my sun, my
other self, my bet-
ter half, my one
-James Schuyler
Today was a poem.
Today I saw a chicken on its first day of life. It was yellow and it hid beneath its mother mostly, and I loved it.
Today I saw my favorite bumper sticker. In bold letters, on a back of a truck, the only sticker:
I Love My Wife.
Today I saw Jason and Jenna and Frankie and Ryan and Dorothea and Claire and David and Jessica and Chris and Stephanie and Marshal and JP and Spencer and Jimothy and Stephen and Shanny and Sara and Anita and Scott.
Today a field of wildflowers overlooked by Tijuana saw this:
Today was good.
Home (photo & poem).
Thursday
I chop off the hats
of purpled radishes
he’s nearby singing out
my given name like
it’s a jump rope rhyme
Thursdays (mine).
The last of the LA poems (mine).
“New scenery, new noise”
said Rimbaud. I slept
through the traffic. I’m so
spoiled I get humble then
romantic. I’ve never held
a gun but I’ll sit beside you
or behind and ride and ride
*
Cougar on wheels
The bike changes
gears automatically—
I’m fast I’m slower I’m
skidding a little in the sand
I’m a sea snake on land
*
Last Wednesday
“It’s like your name is
‘Taylor Katz comma poet’
she said across a burrito
as the rain decided on us
*
“Hello I love you won’t you tell me your name”
I’ll be your amulet,
baby
*
Lost Angeles
Goodbye hand sewn Barcelona
pouch with the three overlapping
stars. Goodbye mint chapstick
from the pack of three and the birthday
lipstick; goodbye pocket mirror with the red
bunnies from the party’s grab bag. Goodbye
eye drops, olive green pencil from the notebook
set. Adios scar like a broken trident
on the left side of your face, see you
later, see you soon
LA poems, 11-15.
Black tied
Thinking of Paris, France.
Thinking of mangy cats
in garbage piles.
A hair cut can change everything.
*
The Latter
“Do you think we’ll ever stop
becoming ourselves? Maybe
around 40? And then we cruise?
Or will we die at 86 having
come right up next to it?”
*
“Ok can we stop being serious now”
because it’s nearly 4am & late
to be a soldier for the word
“treasure” for the first time in my life,
but goddammit you are such a.
And hardly anyone knows it.
*
World Famous Big Dean’s
This is the first time I’ve wanted
a Coca-Cola this badly in years
*
Boarding
BUY ONE GET ONE FREE!
BUY ONE GET ONE FREE!
yell the kids at the pretzel shop but
don’t we stop needing salt as soon
as it’s offered? Take me to the ocean.
panache, perhaps 