Disclaimer

Working on an introduction for a new collection of poems but cringe at the idea of doing something conventional or predictable. Any ideas? This is what I've come up with so far... The thoughts expressed in this collection are strictly my own and do not represent the teachings of my old department nor the official positions of a well-intended editor any of several previous religions current or former lovers known literary traditions or my ancestral tribe

I hate re-writing

but sadly I'm sitting on dozens of poems that feel like they are 90 to 95% there but definitely not finished. I'm having a hard time working on new things while knowing there are poems I've already written that need a lot of work. I'm the Octomom Poet. Squeezing out new ones has become more important that caring for the ones I already have. Maybe I'll get a visit from the Poetry Social Worker, who will find a home for the older ones and raise them properly? Or maybe there's a workshop to help me with this?

What you dream while he's away at Model United Nations

I. Perched up in a high corner of his room you hear his alarm and see him motionless you never lost your fear of SIDS it sounds your own alarm He’ll grope for the snooze button and sleep in late because he can he sleeps well in hotel beds they're newer and bigger than his own and because you’re not there with your muted morning sounds and the unspoken lure of white mocha II. He’s a well-prepared diplomat with detailed policies and positions but he’s caught by surprise when the ambassador from Zimbabwe gets all precious and blocks his resolution Bono shows up to smooth things over but these things take time so everyone agrees settle things over World of Warcraft and Red Bull over ice III. Trouble finds him because he’s still really young and lacks street smarts A brown belt (while better than nothing) can’t stop the vicious gang from Singapore who target young, healthy quarry so they can knock them out and harvest their organs IV. There’s a big dance on the last night and he meets a nice girl maybe not as nice as you’d hope but nice enough for him to loosen up and dance You worry that she’s a little more experienced a second child with a rapacious older sister her parents have full cable you know she’s seen it all She talks about Burning Man and getting her own place Her face morphs into something predatory you wonder if there’s a Latin word for Skankasaurous Rex and you scream a scream he’ll never hear V. He appears old and it takes a while for you to know it’s him If he’s that old it means you’re either frail or dead and you wonder if you’re seeing him from now or through the lens of the Summerlands VI. He comes home intact and you’re both tired him from his travels and you from fevered dreams

Grave Accent

The grave accent is a diacritical mark used in Breton, Calalan, Corsican, Dutch, French, Greek, Italian, Mohawk, Norwegian, Occitan, Portuguese, Ligurian, Scottish Gaelic, Vietnamese, Welsh, Romansh, and other languages. Until very recently I misunderstood what this term actually meant.

Sometimes
there’s the meaning we believe
the real meaning known to everyone else
and we’ve no idea they’re separate things

I was certain that term
grave accent
meant the reverent tone
reserved for graveside services
our dignified whispers
saved only for the grieving and the dead

But no, it’s a linguistic thing
a diacritical mark taught in the academe
and known from Corsica to Wales

First used by the ancient Greeks
it marks a lower pitch to accentuate
the higher pitch that follows

On this mournful day
I hear grieving Tuscans
gently intone
morì
virtù
portò
he died
with virtue
and was carried here

I was wrong
I didn’t know
but in my providential world
where graveside visits are rare
and higher pitches follow
my tone would have been
just right

The Dad turns 80

Legacy

To begin each day
early and with purpose

To know the first secret of life
showing up

To imagine results
before they’re achieved

To plant and harvest
hunt and dress

To build monuments
outlasting us all

To have loved and lost
remembered both

To guide those who’ll listen
Give back where needed

To balance the certainty of faith
with the magic of wonder

To create a legacy and pass it along

Arriving a commoner, retiring a king

This is a life well lived

My Dad turned 80 this month. We have never pretended to understand each other well, but I've grown to love and respect him. He can't imagine a hobby that doesn't involve firearms or power tools, and I can't imagine a waking moment without the joy of language. Here's to genetic mutations.

Sorting and Pitching

Something about this time of the year, I'm going through piles of old stuff and pitching what I don't want or need. It's easy with material things. If you doubt that, you haven't any clothes left from the 80s.

With writing it's different. I can store five years of work on a $4 jump drive. Just don't ask me to find anything quickly.

I did manage to find the outline for a workshop I led last May on the Poetry of Protest. It was a lot of fun, great turnout, and forced me to gather together some examples from my own work:

- Artist of Discarded Instruments (returning veterans)
- What Do You Fear? (Bush White House rejection of poets)
- Julia, Who Can Speak Now (Sudanese refugees)
- Trudy, From Cameron Parish (British Petroleum Oil Spill)

Protest is hard work and I'm tired. Starting to think about more uplifting topics like love and redemption. What are you writing about? Inspire me. You know how.

Winter Solstice

I’m intrigued by the Solstice. Though never officially diagnosed with Seasonal Affective Disorder, my endurance and warm disposition are tested by the short days we get here, just below the 45th north parallel. Jimmy Buffet said it best: tempers in need of repair.

We like our stories with arcs and twists, and our universe delivers by tilting the earth so that nothing is ever the same. When it’s winter solstice here, which usually means things are cold and wet, the sun is directly overhead along the Tropic of Capricorn, places like Sao Paulo and Brisbane. What to do if you’re both fundamentalist (which I’m not) and light-loving? Thou shalt not covet those savory UVs. But we can’t help it. We like the light and miss it. And we can’t wait for it to return. That goes for all of us, pagans and Christians and everyone else.

It’s a well-trodden fact that most Christmas symbols were borrowed from folks who lived well before the arrival of the Baby Jesus. And though there’s some compelling evidence his birthday was actually in the spring, there were (and are) a lot of compelling reasons to celebrate it on or near the solstice. The ancients were used to gathering then anyway. Stored food didn’t get any better if you waited a few weeks. There was still plenty of firewood, and the beer and wine created from the last harvest was just about ready. When it’s that cold, why not stay indoors and celebrate?

I looked into traditions of earlier peoples. Many cultures – too many to list here - performed solstice ceremonies. Many contained common threads: eating, drinking, storytelling, hooking up, setting things on fire. Their motivation? Probably a superstition that the declining light might not ever return unless we (humans, or the deities we asked) did an intervention.

The Mesopotamians may have come up with the earliest version of the 12 days of Christmas. Their 12 day festival of renewal was celebrated for the purpose of helping the god Marduk calm the monsters of chaos for one more year. Wanna bet that some form of monsters of chaos has probably been translated into all known languages? Or that Mardak had kindred spirits in other places?

It’s not difficult to see how many of our current traditions (unity, giving to others, candlelight, feasting, evergreens) are modern versions of what our ancestors did before we had rural electrification or office parties.

And what did they do? Wiccans burned Yule logs to encourage the return of the light and honor both life and death. Scandinavian families placed all of their shoes in one place, believing that this would cause them to live in harmony for the next year. Romans honored Bacchus by (what else?) drinking heavily during their festival of Brumalia. The Chacoans (ancestors of the modern Pueblo people of New Mexico) gathered at the Sun Dagger site of Chaco Canyon and danced the sun back into their days.

No Christmas letter from me, at least not here. I love this day because it represents a convergence of so many things I appreciate: light, enlightenment, physics, forgiveness, redemption, boundaries, friendships, hope. But today, mostly light. I hope the light is shining where you are.

I Imagined Stopping

We've had a few days of cold, enough for the water in the fountain to ice over and the roads to get slick. So be careful out there, okay?

Once I rounded the corner
saw your tail~lights through bluish steam
your tracks through drifting snow
halting at the aspens
I imagined stopping
to aim headlights at your bad luck
grabbing for a blanket
and hurdling toward your car

I heard my knuckles tapping
on your vapor covered window
hoping the only red I’d see is lipstick
that you’d still have all your life-signs
and my breathing could resume

These images I formed
because my mind's eye loathes a vacuum
I cannot picture blankness
when the story line’s unclear

I imagined stopping
while our narrative’s still forming
as our lives are intersecting
grateful I’ve got time to choose

Survivor

The Teen-in-Residence is reading Whitman for a school assignment, which led to questions about Meaning. I don't remember much about Whitman but do remember connections to nature and changing seasons. With temperatures dropping into the twenties, our season is changing here as well.


That last remaining leaf
on the windswept, proud pin oak
has earned my full respect

With her pluckiness and grit
I’m pulling for her
hoping she holds on tight
to the only life she knows

And when it’s time for her to leave
I hope it’s on her terms
that the fall to earth is gentle
her only sound a joyful noise

Office Hours

Not sure if I've ever posted this one before. My educator friends can all relate, it's something we've all been asked at one time or another...


When you asked me
if we covered anything important
I didn’t pause to wonder

I got into this work
because it’s all important

But since you asked
then yes
I imagine we did

We watched a bootleg copy of King’s I have a dream speech
took turns playing Vivaldi on the Stradivarius
correctly calculated the date of the rapture
made routine repairs to the space station
hosted a gymnastics team from Sweden
brokered a peace deal in Palestine
isolated the gene for breast cancer
produced an Oscar-winning film
blew up some shit in Chemistry
solved Fermat’s Last Theorem
created a masterpiece in oil

And did some prep for the final

Missed you

Things that could have stopped me

A normal childhood
without pharmacology

Never learned Latin

My parents stayed together

Don’t own a tweed jacket

The voices inside my head encourage
but never scream

Incessant cries of the breakfast flock

Living in countries
where poets are killed

Time changes and the dark seasons

Red pen within

Celebration of Clay Art

This evening, I will have the good fortune of co-hosting an event commemorating a new collection of rare and valuable Northwest ceramic art. Every meaningful event in life deserves a poem...

Earth, long before us
alive, now and forever
today, source of joy


.

Narratives From Her Return

In loops reminiscent of planetary arcs
she’d sail to the far corners of the earth
then return for some respite and a soft, clean bed

While there
as here
she lit up doorways and gained favor
by learning the ancient greetings of her hosts
peering into their worlds through newly borrowed words

Once home, she’d unpack new stories
of long hikes, throbbing feet
and close calls
each one starting with a greeting of place

From the cabbie in Guangzhou
Have you eaten?

The warriors of Masai
How are the children?

In the rarified air of Bhutan
Is your body well?

And my favorite
from the Twi of Ghana
How is your soul perceiving the world?

Showering with Perseid

It's August so I've disappeared, on the bike for long pulls, in the kayak for long paddles, and writing without posting. It's catch up time.

This time is ours
but only while I’m kneeling
at her altar

Paddling through the blueness
of the deepest lake I know
precious time before moonrise
I feel her stinging sparks of light
assaulting every pore

Exotic sounding neighbors
with their names so unfamiliar
make me pause enough to wonder
if the Soho field is artsy?

Is Virginis Gamma blushing?

Does Elenin need a friend?

Half a world down under
just beyond my line of vision
there’s an unseen comet burning
on a mirror of glassy water
swirling dust across the outback

I still think of her at night

Rescue Team

God help me but the next time I see this kind of cruelty I may be forced to lose my sunny disposition and take up weapons...


My angel saw him first
fur coat and glassy-eyed
stunned by the heat
of that first scorching day

Blame my devil for hurling
the brick through your windshield
knowing the freedom
that broken glass brings

Office Hours

Okay, the academic year is coming to a close, so what's a little cynicism among friends?


When you asked me
if we covered anything important
I didn’t pause to wonder

I got into this work
because it’s all important

But since you asked
then yes
I imagine we did

We watched a bootleg copy of King’s I have a dream speech
took turns playing Vivaldi on the Stradivarius
correctly calculated the date of the rapture
made routine repairs to the space station
hosted a gymnastics team from Sweden
brokered a peace deal in Palestine
isolated the gene for breast cancer
produced an Oscar-winning film
blew up some shit in Chemistry
solved Fermat’s Last Theorem
created a masterpiece in oil

And did some prep for the final

Missed you

Toasts

On this beautiful day
draped in regalia
and the echoes of droning speeches
our story concludes
with the toasts we didn’t make

To that tease of a thesis
who kept taunting you
until the last possible moment
when she finally got dressed
and made it on time

To the lecherous advisor
who finally backed off
during your senior year

For the untold hours
spent holding hands
watching the IV drip
because her parents
wouldn’t understand

To the vapid electeds
who waited to undermine
higher education
until you walked

To the girlfriends
who used reliable birth control

For running out of champagne
before Gramps got too loopy

May we all die in the proper order
May our suits always fit so well

Truly Alive

Ackkkkk! It's a beautiful day in our little town but the work was piling up so I snuck in to the office catch up on some things. Even so, there is nothing like a poetry break to invigorate the senses...


Through these high rise windows
I stare at the joy of smiling dogs
catching sailing disks
little ones practicing the May pole dance
runners with endorphin highs

There’s a woman today
who seems too old to swing
but she’s doing it anyway
getting really high

Her face is filled with joy
so much that I want to go out there
drink in her contagious smile
invite her to stop
so I can give her a big hug

The kind of hug that says
thank you for sharing
and steer clear of careers
where the only possible joy
is staring at verdant parks
at others who are truly alive

NW Poets' Concord

On Saturday I had the rare pleasure of attending the NW Poets' Concord in Newport, Oregon. In its third year, there were about 100 poets in attendance. It was a real treat to look around the room and note "I had a class from her" or "I just read his book and it rocked" or "he's the guy who sent me that one rejection letter last year." Oregon is a small, mostly rural state but we are blessed with an abundance of creative talent.

I especially enjoyed serving on a panel for a discussion about political poetry, along with Marianne Klekacz, at the invitation of friend and poet Catherine McGuire. It was our intention to stir things up and from every indication, we were successful.

Done

April is over and with it National Poetry Writing Month, the challenge of writing a poem a day. I managed to write 40 original poems - still having trouble with directions, I suppose. I'll probably back off on the writing a little and do some serious re-writing, as most of these were written in less than seven minutes. Some are truly dreadful and others might look better with a good bath and a hot meal. We'll see.