Category: poetics

Sideyard success. Serious joy.

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The sideyard was so much fun. I was this happy:

Except I was wearing a blue crown with curled ribbons longer than my hair, a patterned poncho, and wings made out of leaves (made by Jen), and not a clown costume. As Frankie puts it,

best thing about the sideyard poetry readings:

the folks walking past on the other side of the hedge

on their way to friday-night-party

catching clips of outloud poetry

and the quick image of

a writer in the light

as they pass

What was also wonderful was how many people there were (estimates are in the high 90s), and the flower bouquets with artichokes in them (made by Ellie of course):

and how everyone got so drunk that no one bought books like these:

and perhaps the greatest miracle of the whole event is that not a single neighbor yelled at us. And people bought Misha’s photographs! And I didn’t even have a hangover the next morning! And the next morning was Saturday, and Ellie and I split a mushroom and bacon fritatta covered with blue cheese with whole wheat toast and raspberry jam. The end.

Poem of things I want to do tonight (mine).

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Tonight I just wanna

 

drink sarsparilla, cut tomatoes and watch their seeds drool out, paint my toenails raspberry, eat four pieces of bacon, roll down a hill of grass, drink an olive-juicy cocktail, hang out with Maya Rudolph at a bowling alley, cram onto a single bed with all my college friends and yell stories over each others’ stories, finish that friendship bracelet I started, read Sartre, carve my own stamp design into rubber, make a dozen beeswax tapers, soak my feet in hot eucalyptus water, lie in a room covered in fresh mulch and ducklings, talk on a landline with a coiled cord, stay in a hotel with really soft robes, get a fancy haircut, race a friend on parallel moving sidewalks, watch “Prime” with my sissy, grill peaches, drink whiskey in the thunder, wrap gemstones in gold wire, type up poems on the street and sell them for a dollar, bake chocolate croissants with Meryl Streep, or whittle a piece of cedar into a breakfast spoon.

 

 

Springtime in the sideyard (EVENT)!

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This Friday is the Spring Sideyard! All the info is on the gorgeous 70s poster below, designed by Misha. The only thing about this event is that you must now, right this minute, please I am asking you nicely, do a No Rain on Friday dance. Please just do a little shimmy for no rain on Friday. Normally I shimmy FOR rain, but this week my shoulders are aligned with the sunshine.

 

I hope to see you there! I will be thinking of all my friends and loved ones who live far away who I know would love to be there! I miss you all!

 

 

 

List poem (mine).

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Things I didn’t know I needed

 

Altars, clean hair, a working watch, stones in my pocket. Flowers, sage, mailed correspondence, shock factor, long hair, heavy blankets, salt. Women, women, ten hours, red towers of time, the dream of a yellow house, strong locks, plain toast, less glances, my liver. The desert, Greek gods, Shabbat, more bracelets, illustrations, the diminishment of lists.  To file away under the heater, to delete, to wallow, to MC, to stay home all day in a chair. Stamp pads and stamps, embroidery, valerian. A beer, to edit, a plan, a mentor. A full inhale. Bare walls. Fresh garlic, long rains, sleet, ice-stuck doors, sweet chai, a mezuzah, marrow, to kill a bird with a blade. Night quiet, new pants, traditions, to stretch, more hats, to birth, two floors, a goat, a mint, sweetgrass. And scotch.

 

“Cutting Bread” (poem by a woman I just wrote fan mail to).

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The poet’s name is Shannon Burns. I searched all over the internet for her and finally found her on goodreads of all places. I wrote her a message because I bought her little book in Chicago and I love it. The look of it, the size, the poems. But whoever checks their goodreads messages? I didn’t even know there was such a thing until this week. But I hope she reads it and thinks I’m crazy-in-a-good-way. I like her poems. Here’s one:

 

Cutting Bread

 

I could be cutting bread. All the sharp knives

are dirty, ragged edges, sesame seeds on my hands,

on the sticky counter, on the cool floor. They could bloom.

But I am swinging, feeling the slight curve of my back

 

against the wood, feeling my face flush and numb,

watching movement in windows. People are cutting bread.

Their sticky hands live in cabinets. Mine are hot and full

of blood, melting watermelon candy in my pockets.

 

I am making noise. People cut bread to the rhythm

of my creak and whine. Weeks ago the wind blew

a child’s pool in the shape of an elephant over the wood

fence. You can see it from the road. Some day

 

it will be warm again, I think.  I think: joints, gums, children,

knowing where to go. I remember this swing overturned

in the yard, my father painting it green. I remember standing

at the kitchen counter with my mother, cutting bread.

 

***

 

click to hear her reading her sweet little poem “What’s the Scoop?” on the jubilat site!

Bird poem by Sean T. Randolph (he’s my friend!).

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Thoughts like ill-fitting socks

 

Many people write about birds

but not about birds’ thoughts.

I guess it doesn’t interest people

 

that all pigeons dream of living

in Paris, Texas and most penguins

prefer the look of mourning-men

 

to mailmen when given the choice.

When people write about birds

they often think only of themselves

wishing they could be birds.

 

 

(That’s Sean T. Randolph with his eyes all squinty from laughter, and that’s his girlfriend Hellen who is hilarious on Twitter. I took this photo in my kitchen over a year ago and both of them will say “shucks i look terrible!” when they see this, but GUYS, YOU LOOK GREAT. You look like life is funny. Which it is.)

 

 

“We sleep like wine in the conches” (poem) (Paul Celan).

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Corona

 

Autumn eats its leaf out of my hand: we are friends.

From the nuts we shell time and we teach it to walk:

then time returns to the shell.

 

In the mirror it’s Sunday,

in dreams there is room for sleeping,

our mouths speak the truth.

 

My eye moves down to the sex of my loved one:

we look at each other,

we exchange dark words,

we love each other like poppy and recollection,

we sleep like wine in the conches,

like the sea in the moon’s blood ray.

 

We stand by the window embracing, and people look up from the street:

it is time they knew!

It is time the stone made an effort to flower,

time unrest had a beating heart.

It is time it were time.

 

It is time.

 

 

Short-lined poem (mine).

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I do declare

 

Life’s not rich

from items—

thin futon, donated

chairs, dirty fake

-tiled floor. Used

books, used rags

& the sink’s not

silver anymore.

But the toilet’s

always clean. &

there are hooks

for keys and towels.

& signs that lean

on ledges, painted

wood, wood with

words burned

in. We’ve had

these sheets since

we were twenty.

They’re so poor,

people think, so

planless. But with

our altars & our

bottles & our bowls

of stones, we’re

healthy. With

a little liquor

& earplugs,

we sleep.

 


“Straight up gangster celery” (poem) (Nick Demske).

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…From Otis Henry

 

Otis Henry is a straight up gangster.
Everything Otis Henry does, he does gangsterized
Because he is such a straight up gangster.
When Otis Henry walks, he walks gangster.
Look at Otis Henry’s walk—
Oh Lord, it is too gangster!
When Otis Henry is hungry, he gangster eats.
Eating hard!
Ripping the celery from its stalk.
For that is what true gangsters eat.
Straight up gangster celery.
When Otis Henry drives a car—you guessed it:
Gangster.
How do gangsters drive cars, you ask?
Answer: just like Otis Henry.
Superduper gangster.
After washing his hands, Otis Henry straight up gangster dries his hands.
He dries his hands like a straight up gangster
On a gangster hand towel
Monogrammed with a G.
Cause everybody needs to know that this is a straight up gangster hand drying party
And Otis Henry
Is the original
Straight up gangster.
And when I say gangster
I mean gangster gangster ass gangster.
And when I say gangster gangster ass gangster.

I mean poet.

***
(via pank, where you can find more of Nick Demske’s Otis Henry poems.)