Category: poetics

West Coast Poetry Project, Part 2: San Luis Obispo!

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San Luis Obispo Poem

 

for Rachel, who said I had to go to SLO

 

“Let’s just take in this purple

for a moment” and we do

as the line for meats grows

longer and the street fills

up. We thought we’d just stop

to café but we chatted to a stone

man who told us that the market

would be starting soon and here

we are. We types can’t miss

a farmers’ market. We gotta

see the squash and beans

for sale, we buy more apples

and some avocadoes and a pint

of Golden Kiwi raspberries.

A man named Rick asks to take

our picture and we say yes.

We eat our good brown bread

with cheese and talk to Rick

and watch the kids around

eat corn. Kindergarten gymnasts

do their flips and men in camo

are the band. A kid can bounce

in one of three inflated castles

and I want to. The jacarandas

haven’t finished blooming here.

We catch the purple petals

that fall and strew the ground

like rice after a wedding.

We keep our purple vows.

 

 

The West Coast Poetry Project, Part 1.

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Wore a headlamp in Hollywood, walked to see
my only cousin in a one-room apartment
with blue carpet and a Yankees cap
hung on the heater
One parking ticket and four apples later
we got “the hell outta dodge”
as my father would say
or as my mother would say
They both say what the other says now
so it’s hard to know who started what
And now I say what they say too
and I say “bellicious” and “Why I outta” with a little shaking fist
because Ellie says it
And she says it because her mom said it
and a kid said it and it sounds
good to hear your mouth say what your family
and your friends have said
Just like it feels good to obsess
over a spider building its own home
anew every day
There’s a reason poets are in love with spiders
There’s a reason we’re not driving straight back east
There’s a web wet with rain that’s threaded north
We must wreck what we’ve built
so we may build the home again

A poem of farewell (mine).

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Misha’s off to work in a shirt that’s too big

on him but he loves its colors. I bake the bread

 

when he leaves, mist it and cover it, cooling.

On my bike around town my clothes don’t

 

get caught in the pedals. At the café I edit

my poem, the one that’s now eight pages,

 

I drink my favorite coffee. The man to my left

says to his friend, “We’re here to share stories

 

and energy.” His beard is braided. I ride my bike

to the store, I see Christina who makes earrings

 

out of old records, John from Self-Heal, and Jeff

from the fruit stand is my cashier. I treat myself

 

to sushi at the high chair that overlooks the street

and see the Suzie’s truck roll past, the one I rode in

 

yesterday. I’ve lived here three years and the food

I eat is delicious and so much of it I’ve planted

 

with my own short thumbs. I’ve lived here three

years and I get across town on my feet, I’ve made

 

human mistakes and baked foods in summer, heat

overtaking the kitchen, the kitchen that leads

 

to the porch where tools are hung or lean, the porch

that steps out to the yard where we grilled and drank

 

and read our books, the yard we bought a table

and umbrella for, the yard where poems woke

 

the neighborhood, where sunburns sang and worms

were fed on foodscraps. Friends visited and friends

 

stopped by and friends brought food and friends

bought books or art and used up all the toilet

 

paper. We met them and we said come in and now

the nights are warm enough to let us go out

 

into them, the nights we hope will lead us

heavenward into a land we’ll plant ourselves.

 

 

 

 

“Summer Song” (poem by William Carlos Williams).

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Wanderer moon

smiling a

faintly ironical smile

at this

brilliant, dew-moistened

summer morning,—

a detached

sleepily indifferent

smile, a

wanderer’s smile,—

if I should

buy a shirt

your color and

put on a necktie

sky-blue

where would they carry me?

***

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

photograph: “Le velo du Printemps” by Robert Doisneau, 1948.

 

 



			
		

	
	



			
				



	
	

		
		
Yesterday’s poem of the morning (mine).

				

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I’m wearing all my rings this morning


Norah Jones is singing about flowers growing


 


in the frozen snow, how it’s all a show


She’s saying everything she wants to in a song


 


It will take me my life to say everything I want to


especially on the topic of hands and feet and happy


 


I shined up all my rings this morning


The broken turquoise one, the thin swoop of gold


 


from Sam that I wore for weeks after her surgery


I shined my only sapphire and my TAYLOR ring


 


given to me by whom I can’t remember


What’s the point if I can’t remember who gave it to me there still


 


must be a point


I have fat thumbs and new sandals


 


from Moya who said, Oh just take them


they’re your going away present you’re going


 


away now you’ll remember me


 


 


			
		

	
	



			
				


			
				


			
				


			
				


			
				



	
	

		
		
“I want to shake out a fat broom” (poem by Alice Walker) (hand-lettered).

				

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It’s funny to me that I don’t even know Lisa Congdon and yet I post things she’s made, like the above Alice Walker. I guess that’s what blogs do, let us be in touch with people we wouldn’t otherwise. I like it when people tell me that they read my blog–it’s always a confession. If you’re reading this, thanks for reading this. When you tell me that you read this, I get pretty joyful.