Something I’ve Learned From Author Photos
I don’t have the right glasses
to be successful.
Category: sigh
Poem of this weekend (poem of many things) (mine).
This Weekend
One red felt hat three pairs of boots three
pairs of fancy low-but-clicking pairs
of shoes two bikinis one Boy Scout
backpack one pair of light light blue
Levi’s mom jeans one white lacey
t-shirt three slips one long salmon
-colored nightgown one silk periwinkle
top seven pairs of stockings one pair
of socks with flowers on them one pair
of sparkly pink socks one tiny purple
apothecary jar three bandanas one jean
skirt that Jessie from Saved by the Bell
would have worn one black dress given
to a pregnant friend two quarts of pickled
radishes one red dahl maybe two dozen
elderflower heads one busting bag full
of dried wild mint three sunflowers now
blooming four iris stems in a lilac-colored
jar one thousand pieces of Israeli
cous cous one iced coffee in a big red
cup one hay fork two axes one double
-size cast iron griddle three checks
made out to Free Verse Farm twenty
pounds of strawberries two containers
of curried chickpeas one batch of basil
hummus one can of IPA six tins of tea
two tinctures six jars of no-cook
strawberry jam one goal scored
by Germany one three egg omelette
with scapes & onions one black fly bite
one phone call with sis one phone call
with Katie one phone call with dad
one shower two dirty feet four clean
pillowcases and one lightswitch switched—
A marriage poem for abundance (mine).
Abundance
for Scott & Josh
There will be days of singing & days of silent throats
There will be days of bouquets & days of empty vases
There will be days of thirst & nights of drinking
There will be raspberry days & days of stale crusts of bread
There will be days of nails in the wall & artless days
There will be harvest days & long nights of winter
There will days to gather & days to await the gathering
May the thin days make the days of fullness all the sweeter
May your fruits be many and your backs be strong
as you launch together
into your days
of abundance
July 5, 2014
(photo of the couple’s first steps toward marriage by Misha M. Johnson)
“My Life as a Minister” (wedding poem) (mine).
My Life as a Minister
(for Kathryn & Andy)
To say “You may now kiss the bride”
is a treasure far beyond
most treasures I’ve known.
A treasure of love (my bests,
my only kind of treasures),
a treasure built of words (my tools),
a treasure said in public
in the presence of a trove
of dearest friends—
a treasure known by all, the words
learned early on, the script, that scripture,
holy words of matrimony, most of which
I banished from the ceremony. But not
those words, and not the kiss
which with light within me
I gave permission for.
You may now and you may always
and may you for all the days
kiss and kiss and kiss
the bride.
***
Little moving poem (mine).
(Written before we moved. & now that we’re settled, whew. I feel good.)
***
Today, Thank Heavens, I Have Hands
I think less of people who think
little creatures are stupider than big ones.
I try not to think about how heavy
and tedious moving is,
though there’s some fleck of comfort
in the known physical difficulty of it
and the general commonness
of packing stuff in boxes. Watch
as I move to a new home: what I can lift
I am touching with my hands.
And on the days when I have no hands,
I lift all the invisible things.
Poem from over a year ago (melancholy, rambling, true).
Pizza Time
Sometimes I feel like I’m whispering
into a megaphone that’s turned off
says Sean, reading from a blue notebook
he made in art class last semester. He sits
down. I’m already sitting and I know
what he means though I ask the wrong question,
the one about the girlfriend. No, he isn’t sad
and missing her. He’s sad walking around.
I’m sad walking around, too. We sit and no one
walks past in the hallways because everyone
leaves our school as fast as they can. ]
Whole days go by and I see no one
that loves me, I say. He says, It wasn’t the same
at my other school. I say, Me neither. He’s
already closed that notebook he made.
But it’s not that there aren’t good people here,
I think, or say, we’re talking and not everything
from the brain exits the mouth. We have to go
to a poetry reading but we’re going together.
We get up. We pass by the side of the library
that’s covered in glass, the glass covered in blinds.
Is it us, or this place? one of us says and I say
This place, and mention New York and Kathryn
in the back of my car, nodding at how her city
gives back, makes wintertime worth it, all those
exhibits uptown and trombones in the park
and you can take the subway anywhere. Here
we get the sun, every day. And that’s nice, we say.
But that’s not anyone’s doing! We’re laughing
but it isn’t funny. And sleeping alone in a bed is lonely,
Sean says, I could wake up dead and nobody
would know it. I know what he means. I think
it has to do with bearing witness. About visiting
Klee hung on a wall. About loving a person
by cooking them tofu. Or something to do with
inertia. Or people with grit. Or an older
America. The reading takes place where
readings take place and waiting, we talk about
Jericho, being so smart, writing those poems, knowing
those songs. The poet in front says “fadder”
for father and it sounds more correct. Everything’s
over in about forty minutes. I say the word pizza
because it’s Sean’s favorite word. Two slices with pesto
and two with ricotta. The game is on loud
in the kitchen; the kitchen is next to the booths.
Before dropping me off, Sean gives me a sticker
from a band he was in. It’s likely that I’ll save it
for seven years, then paste it to a letter to him.
Dear Sean, I’ll write. The Holsteins here
are sick of their milk. The fruits on the trees
wage war by wielding juice. All the poems we wrote
in school are finally getting acted out.
Just a book (wish).
I just wanna be published, you know? Have a book with my name on it? Hardcover preferably, light purple in cover, somewhat slim, priced to move, about me on the back flap, a list of titles at the front, one poem per page? Just a book I wrote, that someone liked, and wanted to make, and printed copies of, and told their friends about. Even if no one bought it except people who know me, it’d be a book that exists, a quarter inch on the shelf at two small libraries, a book that I wrote by myself, that some people would read, some people would hold. I would just love a book.
(via siesta)
Sappho Saturday (fragment & photo).
Some men say an army of horse and some men say an army on foot
and some men say an army of ships is the most beautiful thing
on the black earth. But I say it is
what you love.
-Sappho, as translated by Anne Carson
photo of Littleleaf by Misha
Saturday song (The Head and the Heart).
Katie put this song on a mix for me. It’s track 14 and I skip to it as I drive up the winding hill toward home. And I sing along to it very loudly, especially the lyric that Katie must have known I’d need, the crescendo of “Been talking ’bout the way things change/my family lives in a different state.”
And then today talking to Andrew of Shake the Baron who is my friend and is moving to live in a cabin by a lake and teach guitar and record music for people and make songs through the winter. He listens to songs for melody, I listen for lyrics. Hopefully someday we’ll write a song together.
This video is is in a lonely place, a high underpass somewhere where the acoustics make them loud and resonant. I wonder how much of songs is still in the stones there. Either way I’ll sing along.
West Coast Poetry Project: Portland poem.
Stumptown Poem
You can see a bit
of every woman’s
back here in hot
summer Portland.
Mine, too. This dress
not stolen, stitched
on Saturdays, blue
buttons down front,
I sewed them on.
I could never buy
a cup of coffee
every morning,
can’t start my day
with paying for it.
I brew my own bad
habits, good stove
coffee, plans for beds
of flowers. Foxgloves
finished with their bells
drip the streets, black
-eyed Susans stare
and stare at sky. Too
hot to hate, names
of authors occur to me
too slowly, Larkin or
Levine, the faces
hidden from me
stay in hiding,
the thieves who took
our precious gems
are out there holding
books I chose
in San Francisco,
spending time
with photographs
of trees so tall
they split in two,
their faces painted
gaudy in my blush,
toes white with toothpaste
intended for my teeth.
*Our car was robbed in Portland, all our good stuff stolen.
panache, perhaps 