Thirst

Thirst

Everyone knows that berries go to seed.
How did this one become a pendant against my heart?

We know that limestone, under pressure and heat,
becomes marble to line my bath.
Instead this cracked and crumbling grout?

And what about the plum?
Not a tree, not a tart, but a windshield splat.

I choose this water--not fresh
falling snow, not steam that clouds
the mirror--and swallow minty toothpaste.

Misdemeanors

Misdemeanors

Out front a cafe two folding chairs sit together,
a couple; a third to the side, a therapist or priest.

Between them a folding table. Even in bright sun
they are obviously waterproof. Longing for cotton

lycra blends, the chairs strike inviting poses
near a happy face chalked on the sidewalk.

After some time one chair challenges me.
“Why are you sitting over there?” I wish

I was waterproof too. The table is level
on rough pavement--no coffee would spill.

The chairs are similarly competent and measure
their worth in conventional terms:

number of butts cradled, calves itched,
how they stand up to weather. In these

terms they are feeling blue. They strive
to take each moment as it comes.

They imagine their each thought
is a white fluffy cloud crossing the sky.

"Oh it’s there. Look!” they say to each other.
A crow is not measured by who slips

past his perch. A flower, not by how
many bees drink her honey.

The table and chairs resist being swamped
by externalities they can barely influence much

less control, but most days they struggle.
I fold them, and sneak them onto my patio.

I place a budding pink rose in a vase
on the table's brave surface.

It complements the table.
My small crime.

the sense of touch

I

imagine

it blue or green. I am certain

it is a button. So sure I am that I don’t smell it.

Everyone had a parka, right? With thick buttons a mother

could fasten wearing gloves. It is the right size and has no

corners. My finger lolls its smooth belly from side

to side. Its top is crenulated like a slumping

stocking cap or the tented crowns of a

Russian orthodox church. I mistake

the shank for what remained

of the acorn’s style. Once

I say acorn it’s

over.

We need a bigger Sun

We need a bigger Sun

That was still when wires were small,

I tell my absent son. Before the walls

were alive with things. The refrigerator

slept when yogurt was low. The displays

didn’t listen for your tongue’s double click.

The power lines grew thicker until no poles

could raise them. They lined the streets

like maples and in the plants turbines grew

feeding our need to communicate. Now

it takes all the energy of the sun to teleport

just one ounce of you within this universe

and avoid the windshield of a passing car.

Stories we tell ourselves about Money, for example, or Love

Stories we tell ourselves about Money, for example, or Love

What if my phone was really big and came only in black?
What if it was tethered by twisted steel cable,
and I could only talk if I had a round piece of metal
and had thumbed through pages of names?
What if all the phones were connected by wires

like trees and grass by mycelium
like our homes by cleaned water in pipes?
I couldn’t drop it on the sidewalk and shatter its display.
I couldn’t lose it in my purse or silence it at recitals.
I couldn’t smell the last caller’s breath or feel his heat on my face.
The stories we tell ourselves would they stay grounded--
when our loved ones die would the stories hold meaning?
Like voices do when they bounce on a wet string
between dixie cups not at a loss for something to say.

Waiting for the big things

I've been reading Elaine Barry's Robert Frost on writing. In 1932, in a letter to protégé Kimbal Flaccus, Frost wrote (pg. 111):

[Art ] should be of major adventures only, outward or inward--important things that happen to you, or important things that occur to you. Mere poeticality won't suffice.

We must wait for things to happen to us big ... you can't have them at will.... And when you get a good one, given out of nowhere, you can almost trust it to do itself in poetry.

So, these two poems of mine don't seem very big to me. I rationalize them to myself this way--writing them is good exercise. And also, to stay in poetry land where I'm receptive to noticing the big things. But would I subject the world to the poems? (This blog? Are they ok here?)

In Frost's first book, A Boy's Will, the youngish (1913) Frost gives 1-line summaries to each of his poems. For example (pg. 37):

IN NEGLECT He is scornful of people his scorn cannot reach.
MOWING He takes up life simply with small tasks.
MY BUTTERFLY There are things that can never be the same.

These are some of the big things.

At a recent reading by Lucie Brock-Broido she said she goes 1000 days (plus or minus) after finishing one book before she starts writing again (and she starts writing in autumn). In a 2013 interview for Guernica, Brock-Broido tells Ricardo Maldonado:

As a writer, I am hard on myself. I write so much more than I would ever publish. I don’t write manically, the way I did when I was in my twenties, when I was writing 300 poems a year and I would just conjure up the verses every night.

Other topics in the book:

• metaphor vs. simile (pair)
• sentence sound (voice, tone are only part of it ...) vs a grammatical sentence vs a "book sentence"
• style (what makes us like a poem)

How much do you tip a mariachi?

A butterfly settled on the salty lip

The sun behind it boomed

I found myself in a flight path

The margaritas bounced

and for what seemed like days
the tables flitted this way and that

The mariachi bowed

and I bought them drinks

The sun behind them boomed

I am a sentimental drunk

She twirled a paper parasol between her lips

I brushed salt from them with mine