Stars and Stripes

Sweatbox, laser beams, flashing lights, wild cards
Men from Mars, dressed in Stars and stripes
Eclectic electric
Ladies of the evenin'
drinkin' booze and minglin'...



So, the first person who can identify where this is from wins the gift certificate to evil Amazon. No strings attached. Just post the answer in the comments. So, that is that. Identify where these lines are from and you win. The first to identify correctly wins, that is... If confused, see my previous post.

Just Because

I think I will give away a $20 gift certificate to Amazon on this blog. Yeah, call us KCDY, Muse Radio. I just can't figure out what kind of contest to hold. Oh well, I am sure I will think of something soon. Tune in!

Head Off

I have to be quick posting this morning because I have Cancer Conference at 7:45AM, and I need to be on time. I didn't get much done yesterday, but it was a good day of recovery from the trip. Today, back to work. And tomorrow? My partner heads off to St. Thomas until next Monday. So, it is now my turn to mind the shop solo. It will be a busy week. But I think I am ready for it.


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I did, in fact, see the feature of Brian Turner on PBS's Newshour last night. Newshour did a good job with it. It wasn't as hoaky as it could have been on, say, FOX. But then again, I cannot imagine FOX doing a feature on a poet.


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Heads off // Off with her head

Sorry, just thinking out loud.


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Already got my tax refund from both State and Federal. I swear the direct deposit of taxes is the best thing on earth. It was in my account in barely one week.


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Sorry, no poem today. No time to type it up. Must run. Maybe I will find some time to return later to post one.


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Soft Cell

The Winter issue of NER is out. Poets included in the issue are:

BOB HICOK
MARIANNE BORUCH
JENNIFER WHITAKER
ALFONSINA STORNI (translated by Orlando Ricardo Menes)
BEVERLY BURCH
VICTORIA CHANG
NATHANIEL BELLOWS
LEE UPTON
PETER PEREIRA
RICHARD HOWARD
AVERILL CURDY
DAVID KOEHN


You can check out three of the poems on-line by clicking the highlighted names above. And you can order the issue or subscribe if you want to check out Victoria Chang's long poem, the wonderful translations of Storni, or any of the poetry above. And as always, tons of fiction and non-fiction in NER. I always sit around in anticipation of the issue just to check out the fiction and non-fiction, genres I have no part in selecting. I am always surprised and amazed, though I realize I am biased.


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I thought I escaped Florida without a mosquito bite. I was wrong.


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I swear the air in an airplane is worse than the smog in L.A.


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I find it harder and harder to watch the news lately. It gives me heartburn and upset stomach.


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After Everest

Jacob and I met my sister, her husband, and our nephew at Disney's Animal Kingdom yesterday. It was a beautiful day, weather and all. They have a new roller coaster, Everest Expedition, set to open officially in April. For some reason, they were running it this weekend on a trial basis. It was phenomenal. It is simply the best Disney coaster I have ever ridden. Most Disney coasters are kind of tame. This one was simply crazy. An entire segment of the ride is backward drop down into a cave with the coaster dropping at over 55 mph! It was incredible. Jacob and I had to ride it twice.


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Heading back to SF today. Unfortunately, we have to make a connection in Houston, so the trip will be closer to 8-9 hours with the layover. We leave here around 3pm and get back to SF around 8:30pm. Gag!


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Clue: Most popular "vegetable" that isn't even a vegetable.


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PARIS


Childcity, Aprilcity,
Spirits of angels crouched in doorways,
Poets, worms in hair, beautiful Baudelaire,
Artaud, Rimbaud, Apollinaire,
Look to the nightcity--
Informers and concierges,
Montparnassian woe, deathical Notre Dame,
To the nightcircle look, dome heirloomed,
Hugo and Zola together entombed,
Harlequin deathtrap,
Seine generates ominous mud,
Eiffel looks down -- sees the Apocalyptical ant crawl,
New Yorkless city,
City of Germans dead and gone,
Dollhouse of Mama War.


--Gregory Corso


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The Future Is Closer Than You Think

It has never been such an exciting time to be a radiation oncologist. I was blown away by some of the presentations this morning on radioimmune therapies for lymphoma (where radioactive materials are attached to an antibody specific to the lymphoma and injected into the blood stream), nanotherapies utilizing metal that are "programmed" to go to certain organs to deliver radiation, functional targeting where dose can be deposited based on the activity of the tumor, etc. I am just amazed. I remember being amazed by radiation oncology when I was a medical student because it seems like one of the most technologically advanced fields of medicine. We are making gigantic leaps. I am already looking to sign up for a specific course in prescribing, planning, and administering radioimmunotherapies. The data presented was phenomenal. I hope, as was projected, that 15 years from now we will look back and laugh at how we treated cancer. I am just totally pumped up to learn this new way of delivering radiation. I already know many of the management issues because of the way we do radiation now, but it is still exciting to think in this way.


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Jacob is off playing with our nephew and hanging out with my Mom. Pictures are coming soon. Jacob in massive sombrero is sure to be a hit.


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From Disney

Well we made it in one piece. We are hanging out at the Contemporary Resort for the next few days while I do the whole medical conference thing. And, as with all medical conferences I have ever been to, this one starts tomorrow at 7:00 AM. That is going to hurt because I am still on West Coast time! Outside our window just a few minutes ago were the fireworks going off over Cinderella's Castle. I know Rebecca Loudon is gagging just about now, but they were actually quite amazing, even if we are in the Land of Satan.


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Survived dinner with the parents at a Teppanyaki slice and dice. Maybe the scorpion bowl helped. Hell, it helped a lot!


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Random Acts of Kindness

I had a wretched day yesterday. You know... one of those days where by the time you are home you in a totally foul mood. A bunch of packages had arrived by UPS. So we started opening them. They were, one and all, wedding presents. Well imagine our surprise as we opened the last package to discover it was from one of the poet-bloggers! We were both simply shocked, and then we were moved. That someone who has never met us would think to send us a wedding present almost made me cry. I am not a weepy person, so this is more of a statement than many would guess. Anyway, a proper thank you note will go out to this blogger, but I had to say here that this gift meant more to me than most would ever know, not the present itself, but the feeling of having been hit by a random act of kindness. Thank you.


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Well, time to head to the airport and begin the awful transcontinental flight to the East Coast. This evening, we will be in the land of Mickey (or what Rebecca Loudon might call the Land of Satan).


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Ever notice how Disney sweetened every one of the truly fucked up stories and tales it absorbed into the Disney fold? Cinderella? Sleeping Beauty? These were messed up Fairy Tales. In both, the violence and evil has been subdued but the person performing them has become more evil, less like us. Well, they aren't less like us. We are all capable of unthinkable thing. Just a light airy thought.


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One Red Apple

One of my best friends is in Ireland right now, living in a town that is half in Northern Ireland and half in the Republic of Ireland. I talk about poetry more with this person than anyone else on earth. We can talk about poetry for 2-3 hours on the phone, hang up, call each other back half an hour later and talk for another hour or two. We never tire of poetry. We can spend whole hours talking about diction. I will be very happy when Ireland's hold comes to an end. We don't talk much now because it isn't very easy to do so. The Irish town is barely 500 people. No coffee shop. No extras.


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ANGINA PECTORIS


If half my heart is here, doctor,
the other half is in China
with the army flowing
toward the Yellow River.
And every morning, doctor,
every morning at sunrise my heart
is shot in Greece.
And every night, doctor,
when the prisoners are asleep and the infirmary is deserted,
my heart stops at a run-down old house
in Istanbul.

And then after ten years
all I have to offer my poor people
is this apple in my hand, doctor,
one red apple: my heart.
And that, doctor, that is the reason
for this angina pectoris--
not nicotine, prison, or arteriosclerosis.
I look at the night through the bars,
and despite the weight in my chest
my heart still beats with the most distant stars.


--Nazim Hikmet


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For his communist leanings and his writings, Hikmet was put in prison in his homeland of Turkey. I know very little about this poet except for maybe ten of his poems. I cannot read Turkish, but it is amazing how much Hikmet seems to come through regardless of the translator. Something clean, stripped down, basic about his poems. And yet, there is still a surprising wildness to his poems. I think Norton or some other press brought out a volume of his work last year, but I haven't seen it. It may have been lost in the move.


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Found an old letter I wrote to a friend in 1992. I almost died reading it. I did, in fact, stick with both Poetry and Medicine. I wasn't as crazy as I thought I was. Well, that is still an open-ended question.


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Clue: Mirror, Mirror...


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Too Nice Outside

We left here Saturday, drove up to Napa, tasted cake and decided not to drive home. We spent the rest of Saturday and yesterday incommunicado. And that was a good thing. Back in SF now, and it is beautiful again. The cold rain is gone (for now). It is almost like Springtime outside. I may need to go outside for a bit.


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Ah, where did Jimmy go now?


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Back to work tomorrow, then off to Orlando on Wednesday morning on an unGodly-houred flight. Jacob is practicing piano in the other room. It is sunny. I can't concentrate. I am so out of here now.


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Oranges

The American College of Radiation Oncology has its Annual Meeting next week in Orlando, and Jacob and I will be there. The meeting is at Disney's Contemporary Resort. I am going for the meeting, Jacob so he can go to Disney. The man is a big child who loves Disney. And my parents now live in that area as well as one of my sisters. And of course, our favorite nephew. So, it should be a good time. We fly off on Wednesday and return to SF on Sunday. So, I just realized that I am only working 1 day next week, Tuesday.


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Here at the Muse, we decided to do something a little different today. I wanted to post a poem by Frank O'Hara, but I couldn't decide on just one. Seriously, I couldn't. I kept changing my mind half-way through typing out the poem. But I wanted them all. Anyway, today we have four poems, all from O'Hara. I love O'Hara's work. I always have. I cannot even explain why, but I just do. They is play. There is camp, which I understood even before I knew what camp was, even before I fully realized I was gay. It may sound odd to say this, but in his work there is a kind of soul, a kind soul, a man who was insecure but lived in a public world. I know little about O'Hara's life, but I feel like I know men like him. I just know he was witty, quick, bitchy at times, biting if need be, all the old defense mechanisms of the insecure gay boy. But there is that heart, too. The one that desperately wants, hungers even, for someone to love. Okay, I am rambling here, but these things are in the poems. I hear them, relish them. It is almost as if O'Hara was the first test of my "literary gaydar." Of course I knew he was gay, but I am not talking about that.



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Number 1 (1948) by Jackson Pollock



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DIGRESSION ON NUMBER 1, 1948

I am ill today but I am not
too ill. I am not ill at all.
It is a perfect day, warm
for winter, cold for fall.

A fine day for seeing. I see
ceramics, during lunch hour, by
Mir6, and I see the sea by Leger;
light, complicated Metzingers
and a rude awakening by Brauner,
a little table by Picasso, pink.

I am tired today but I am not
too tired. I am not tired at all.
There is the Pollock, white, harm
will not fall, his perfect hand

and the many short voyages. They'll
never fence the silver range.
Stars are out and there is sea
enough beneath the glistening earth
to bear me toward the future
which is not so dark. I see.




MUSIC


If I rest for a moment near The Equestrian
pausing for a liver sausage sandwich in the Mayflower Shoppe,
that angel seems to be leading the horse into Bergdorf's
and I am naked as a table cloth, my nerves humming.
Close to the fear of war and the stars which have disappeared.
I have in my hands only 35c, it's so meaningless to eat!
and gusts of water spray over the basins of leaves
like the hammers of a glass pianoforte. If I seem to you
to have lavender lips under the leaves of the world,
I must tighten my belt.
It's like a locomotive on the march, the season
of distress and clarity
and my door is open to the evenings of midwinter's
lightly falling snow over the newspapers.
Clasp me in your handkerchief like a tear, trumpet
of early afternoon! in the foggy autumn.
As they're putting up the Christmas trees on Park Avenue
I shall see my daydreams walking by with dogs in blankets,
put to some use before all those coloured lights come on!
But no more fountains and no more rain,
and the stores stay open terribly late.




WHY I AM NOT A PAINTER


I am not a painter, I am a poet.
Why? I think I would rather be
a painter, but I am not. Well,

for instance, Mike Goldberg
is starting a painting. I drop in.
"Sit down and have a drink" he
says. I drink; we drink. I look
up. "You have SARDINES in it."
"Yes, it needed something there."
"Oh." I go and the days go by
and I drop in again. The painting
is going on, and I go, and the days
go by. I drop in. The painting is
finished. "Where's SARDINES?"
All that's left is just
letters, "It was too much," Mike says.

But me? One day I am thinking of
a color: orange. I write a line
about orange. Pretty soon it is a
whole page of words, not lines.
Then another page. There should be
so much more, not of orange, of
words, of how terrible orange is
and life. Days go by. It is even in
prose, I am a real poet. My poem
is finished and I haven't mentioned
orange yet. It's twelve poems, I call
it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery
I see Mike's painting, called SARDINES.



POEM


Lana Turner has collapsed!
I was trotting along and suddenly
it started raining and snowing
and you said it was hailing
but hailing hits you on the head
hard so it was really snowing and
raining and I was in such a hurry
to meet you but the traffic
was acting exactly like the sky
and suddenly I see a headline
LANA TURNER HAS COLLAPSED!
there is no snow in Hollywood
there is no rain in California
I have been to lots of parties
and acted perfectly disgraceful
but I never actually collapsed
oh Lana Turner we love you get up


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Bright Edge Deep

Thanks to Jeff Bahr for this very interesting list. I didn't even know the Poetry Foundation published such lists. Anyway, I find it interesting that Brian Turner is, for the most part, the only poet on the list besides the expected Collins, Oliver, and Angelou. Turner's book is a powerful book. And I am sure the feature of him on NPR helped get his name out there. I am mostly glad that Alice James, a small independent press, gets to profit from his exposure.


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I am so glad this is a long weekend. And I am SO glad to be off call in less than 2 hours. Tomorrow is wedding cake tasting day. I just cannot restrain the joy (dripping with sarcasm). I am really glad this week is ending.


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DIGGING


Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; as snug as a gun.

Under my window a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade,
Just like his old man.

My grandfather could cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, digging down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mold, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.


--Seamus Heaney



This poem is from Heaney's first book, Death of a Naturalist (1966). It is hard not to read the opening lines of the poem and not think about the difficulties in Northern Ireland. But in actuality, the poem predates that trouble. Still, what is probably a symbolic gesture takes on a kind of weight only history could give it. Still amazing to think this poem is from Heaney's first book.


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Hey, I am curious. Can you satisfy this boy's curiosity? Oh for God's sake get your mind out of the gutter. I am not THAT curious. What I am trying to ask is: What is the last book of poems you read?


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Utterly Disgusted

Over the past two days, I have gotten two emails and five voice mail messages telling me that a member of Congress wants to bestow upon me a Leadership Award. Well, I was awfully suspicious about this, so I called back. A woman answered the phone by saying "Republican Outreach." So I told her I had gotten a message and she immediately said, "Doctor, can I have your last name?" I asked her what this was about and she said she wanted to get information from me to prepare a press release for my local community. That is when I had to put the smack down! I said, "Look, I'd like to know what this is about before I agree to anything." She tried to evade and evade and finally admitted this was a way for me to become more involved with Congressman ______________'s office. My response? I will gladly accept a Leadership Award from a Democratic Member of Congress. I went on to say it would be a very cold day in Hell before I let my name be used for anything involved with the Republican Party.

So, the Republicans are targeting doctors by trying to appease their egos. Giving them awards and putting them on "committees" so they can turn around and ask them for campaign money. What the fuck ever! I told her to take my name off the list and never call me again. When she tried to apologize, I told her I was this day going to call the Democratic Party and pledge $500 of support. And I did!


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Victoriously Perched

I was happy to hear recently that David Barber's second book will be published by TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern UP. David is a fine poet, and he didn't deserve what Zoo Press did to him. Yes, you read correctly: ZOO! David was one of almost a dozen poets who had books accepted by Zoo but never saw one day of production on the books. Thankfully, most of the poets found new publishers fairly soon. I am keeping my fingers crossed for the poet who won the Kenyon Review Prize. I am hopeful something will come through. I will say it again: DO NOT ENTER ANY CONTEST AT ZOO. It is unlikely they are still a viable operation, regardless of the fact they haven't updated their website.


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FOR AN ALBUM


Our story isn't a file of photographs
faces laughing under green leaves
or snowlit doorways, on the verge of driving
away, our story is not about women
victoriously perched on the one
sunny day of the conference,
nor lovers displaying love.

Our story is of moments
when even slow motion moved too fast
for the shutter of the camera:
words that blew our lives apart, like so,
eyes that cut and caught each other,
mime of the operating room
where gas and knives quote each other
moments before the telephone
starts ringing: our story is
how still we stood,
how fast.


--Adrienne Rich


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I am still intrigued by the narrative running beneath the surface of this lyric poem. I am fascinated by it, even if I cannot tie it down entirely. There is a playfulness there, but there is danger. There is gravity and there is a lightness at the same time. And that "Our" is both wonderfully open and problematic at the same time. All of humanity? Two specific people? A group of people? The first person afraid of being alone so inviting the reader in on the poem? So wonderfully oblique without ever being obscure.


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Clue: The square isn't square and more visit it to watch men play chess in front of a bakery or to rummage through old music stores and bookstores than because of its namesake.


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Clue: Birdshot!


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Rice

I was just chastised by a friend of mine for having a Cuisinart Rice Cooker in our gift registry list. This friend told me it was about the most un-Asian rice cooker he had ever seen and that I should be ashamed of myself. Well, should I be ashamed? I mean rice cookers aren't all that different. Should I be listing a rice cooker from China or other Asian country just because I have Chinese and Indian blood in me? Seriously, don't people have better things to do? All I want is something to cook rice in.


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On a different note, the computer game I got is killing me. I totally lose at Craps always on this game. I mean always. Thank God I win in real life. I even lose at Baccarat on this computer game. Jeez.


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Spent virtually my entire day organizing and doing the preliminary paperwork for my taxes. It looks like I will be getting a nice refund from both the IRS and the State of California. Thank God for TurboTax.


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I want HBO to announce a third Season of Carnivale. I want them to do this NOW!


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The Board

Finally received my subscriber copy of POETRY yesterday. I just don't get the mail system they use. I routinely get my copy half way through the month, sometimes as late as the 20th. What is the point of subscribing? I can almost always go buy it off the shelf at a bookstore before it arrives in the mail.


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I think I am finally settling in to the new place. I am starting to rethink poems, and that is definitely a sign I am getting comfortable with this house and its space. I also find myself mumbling poems as I move around the house, which also tells me I am getting comfortable. Yes, I realize wandering around mumbling could be seen as something else altogether, but I already know I am not normal. But who is? The wretched suburbanites living outside (insert major city)? The ones with the endless discussions of language schools for the three year old and how to pick a nannie?


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I sometimes think people don't really die.


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A KNOCKER


There are those who grow
gardens in their heads
paths lead from their hair
to sunny and white cities

it's easy for them to write
they close their eyes
immediately schools of images
stream down from their foreheads

my imagination
is a piece of board
my sole instrument
is a wooden stick

I strike the board
it answers me
yes - yes
no - no

for others the green bell of a tree
the blue bell of water
I have a knocker
from unprotected gardens

I thump on the board
and it prompts me
with the moralist's dry poem
yes - yes
no - no


--Zbigniew Herbert


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Oh, I Almost Forgot...

Happy Valentines Day!

And if you want to see one of the cutest valentine couples ever, check this out. So freaking adorable. And to think they are both poets!

A Darkening Slice of the Moon

I took down the post I made yesterday after a tough day at the hospital because I didn't want to come off as whining. I love being a physician. I love being an Oncologist. Yesterday was just a rough day. Very depressing and very difficult. In Radiation, I do not usually have a day where ALL three of my consults are tough and two are patients with a tumor that is pretty much incurable. I just felt a little overwhelmed toward the end of the work day yesterday, felt a little worn out from all of that sadness and anxiety. I shouldn't have posted. And so, I took it down. Thankfully, just seeing Jacob at home last night and talking made me feel significantly better. I am so lucky to have someone like him. He is the first person I have ever loved that loves me so much that I never have to wonder if he loves me. And there is strength to this love. Some would say there is currency, that it has physical worth. (Isn't there an Economist out there who puts monetary values on different relationships?) Anyway, just knowing he is there and that he loves me no matter what made all of that sadness I had to hold yesterday seem a little less difficult to handle. Yesterday I felt like a glass blower. Today I feel like a wrangler.


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I have found the most amazing game for my computer: Yup, I can now play Baccarat and Craps on my computer. It is all the more fun because it is not real money, just a computer game! Now I can get my fix without leaving home. Mwa-hah-ha!


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CURRENCY


[POEM EXPIRED]


--C. Dale Young

(appeared originally in Chelsea, forthcoming now in The Second Person, Four Way Books, March 2007).

Dragging

I feel like the weekend went by too quickly. I wish it had been a 3-day weekend. Alas. Must get to the hospital shortly. I am totally dragging this morning. Coffee is just not kicking in.


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We finally got our Chinese scrolls up in the dining room. There is only very little left to be unpacked now. We also went out yesterday and bought Rosemary plants for the bathroom. Small steps at this point, but good ones.


***************************


My brain is too dead this morning to remember any poems.


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Clue: What the Doormouse Said...


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In a Chinese Screen

Sunny and warm today. Surprising for San Francisco. It was this way yesterday. It looks like Spring outside, feels like it, too. Even flowers are starting to bloom. It is kind of wild. I may need to go down to the ocean again today just to watch all the people running around like it is summer. Because, when summer does get here, it will be too cold to run around on the beach!


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The cross-cutting shredder is amazing. It even cuts credit cards.


***************************


BLACKBERRYING



Nobody in the lane, and nothing, nothing but blackberries,
Blackberries on either side, though on the right mainly,
A blackberry alley, going down in hooks, and a sea
Somewhere at the end of it, heaving. Blackberries
Big as the ball of my thumb, and dumb as eyes
Ebon in the hedges, fat
With blue-red juices. These they squander on my fingers.
I had not asked for such a blood sisterhood; they must love me.
They accommodate themselves to my milkbottle, flattening their sides.

Overhead go the choughs in black, cacophonous flocks --
Bits of burnt paper wheeling in a blown sky.
Theirs is the only voice, protesting, protesting.
I do not think the sea will appear at all.
The high, green meadows are glowing, as if lit from within.
I come to one bush of berries so ripe it is a bush of flies,
Hanging their bluegreen bellies and their wing panes in a Chinese screen.
The honey-feast of the berries has stunned them; they believe in heaven.
One more hook, and the berries and bushes end.

The only thing to come now is the sea.
From between two hills a sudden wind funnels at me,
Slapping its phantom laundry in my face.
These hills are too green and sweet to have tasted salt.
I follow the sheep path between them. A last hook brings me
To the hills' northern face, and the face is orange rock
That looks out on nothing, nothing but a great space
Of white and pewter lights, and a din like silversmiths
Beating and beating at an intractable metal.


--Sylvia Plath


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By Your Gate

Not much to report. Went to Japantown and had shiatsu. The only odd thing was seeing my friends Ron and Kevin at the Hot Springs. They were there getting massages, too. I thought it would be weird being naked around people you know. Well, it wasn't. Naked is naked. After so many years being a doctor, naked people don't really surprise me. And I am not weirded out by my own nakedness. So, it was pretty much Japanese Hot Springs as usual. It was tempting to talk to Ron, but I knew it would mess up my meditative space. So, I just followed my usual routine of steam then hot pool then my massage then hot pool then cool down then hot pool then steam then cool down then shower. I love the Japanese Hot Springs because I totally fall into a kind of trance state there. I had hoped to find some lines of poetry while in that state, but all I found were schemes to go to Vegas soon. I kept having visions of Reb Livingston at a slot machine tossing her head back and laughing.


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And I did no harm
And I did no harm
And I did no harm...

Each Day

(cannot stop singing this!)


***************************


RSVP's have already started rolling in for the wedding. And people have actually already bought us stuff off the registry! This is kind of wild!


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A POEM BY DEAN YOUNG


Don't think for one fucking instant
that I don't have a broken heart.
The man in briefs in an infinite sea
believes there is no subconscious
nor is he aware tempora exists.
Don't think I have not eaten
in the most beautiful Chinese restaurant
in the world. Don't think I have not written
on the walls of my bathtub.
Don't think I have not poisoned a snail.
Don't think I haven't ignited
the sulfur of the fortune teller.
Of course I have written a poem by Dean Young!
More than once I have written a poem by Dean Young.
More than once I have left them by your gate.
More than once I have stuffed the eucalyptus leaves
in your mouth. More than once I have lived,
more than once I have died because of it.
I love you. This remarkable statement
has appeared on earth to substantiate the clams.
Perhaps now we can reach an agreement in the Himalayas,
returning shortly thereafter as gods, the kind kind
largely ignored by larger and more sensitive organisms.
Don't think I wasn't shocked when
you were a traffic signal
and I a woodpecker.


--Mary Ruefle

(a poem titled "A Poem by Mary Ruefle" appears among Ruefle's work but was written by Dean Young)


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The Left Hand

I was thinking we were so on top of things. Got up this morning and realized we still need to order wedding bands! Jeez. I now am sure there are things we should be doing that we aren't doing.


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Glad it is Friday, but not glad to be on-call. A week of call starts today at 5:00pm. I am just overjoyed.


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I am glad people are enjoying the poems. To answer a question I have seen in some emails, I basically just post poems I admire. No agenda. No lectures. Just poems I admire, for whatever reason.


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TATTOOS (13)


What I remember is fire, orange fire,
And his huge cock in his hand,
Touching my tiny one; the smell
Of coal dust, the smell of heat,
Banked flames through the furnace door.

Of him I remember very little, if anything:
Black, overalls splotched with soot,
His voice, honey, O, honey...
And then he came, his left hand
On my back, holding me close.

Nothing was said, of course--one
Terrible admonition, and that was all...
And if that hand, like loosed lumber, fell
From grace, and stayed there? We give,
And we take it back. We give again...


--Charles Wright


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The Dragon

Okay, the tuxedos are out of the way. So, I guess the programs are one of the only things left. Let me never have to get married again. When I got married the last time, back in 1993, I was so poor we couldn't afford much. The good thing about that was there was little for us to do. But I want this time around to be special. And I think it will be.


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Has anyone seen a copy of A Public Space yet? Has the debut issue come out? I am curious to see it. I think Brigid Hughes will do a great job.


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THE DRAGON


The bees came out of the junipers, two small swarms
The size of melons; and golden, too like melons,
They hung next to each other, at the height of a deer’s breast
Above the wet black compost. And because
The light was very bright it was hard to see them,
And harder still to see what hung between them.
A snake hung between them. The bees held up a snake,
Lifting each side of his narrow neck, just below
The pointed head, and in this way, very slowly
They carried the snake through the garden,
The snake’s long body hanging down, its tail dragging
The ground, as if the creature were a criminal
Being escorted to execution or a child king
To the throne. I kept thinking the snake
Might be a hose, held by two ghostly hands,
But the snake was a snake, his body green as the grass
His tail divided, his skin oiled, the way the male member
Is oiled by the female’s juices, the greenness overbright,
The bees gold, the winged serpent moving silently
Through the air. There was something deadly in it,
Or already dead. Something beyond the report
Of beauty. I laid my face against my arm, and there
It stayed for the length of time it takes two swarms
Of bees to carry a snake through a wide garden,
Past a sleeping swan, past the dead roses nailed
To the wall, past the small pond. And when
I looked up the bees and the snake were gone,
But the garden smelled of broken fruit, and across
the grass a shadow lay for which there was no source,
A narrow plinth dividing the garden, and the air
Was like the air after a fire, or before a storm,
Ungodly still, but full of shapes turning.


--Brigit Pegeen Kelly


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Yeah, now THAT is a poem! I LOVE that poem. I still remember coming home from the hospital to find a stack of submissions to NER had just arrived. I remember seeing the envelope and being shocked (Brigit doesn't write a lot and doesn't submit much). I tore that envelope open immediately. I didn't even sit down. When I read this poem, I was stunned into silence. It went on to appear in BAP and in her latest collection, The Orchard. Brigit's work isn't for everyone, but I love its strangeness, its dark pastoral, its ability to instill doubt by making the most incredible things seem almost plausible.


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Good God!

Some of the searches that led to this blog include:


"sprint pcs sucks"

"filthy whores"

"bert and ernie gay"

"po chai pills"

"leather daddies"

"penis reduction"

"why revenge is good"


Uhm, what the hell are po chai pills?


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Fingers Crossed

[UPDATED POST--POEM ADDED @ 9:41AM]


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In my hectic day yesterday, I totally missed this. Copper Canyon has officially taken on Peter's second book. Stop by and leave some congratulations love for that stud!


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So, I processed the first payroll for my new medical practice last night. You should have seen me. I was a total nervous wreck. But I think I did it correctly, and we will know the results on the 14th. I have my fingers crossed the direct deposit and everything works okay.


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Today we have an appointment with the Tailors about the tuxedos. I pray they aren't as pushy and weird as the floral designer! But the floral designer is kind of famous, and I guess she is known to be somewhat eccentric. The Tailor guy is simply from Brooklyn.


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I keep toying with the idea of starting up my own literary magazine. But I have friends who have done this, and I fear it might be too much work for me to take on currently or anytime in the near future. But I think about it.


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Clue: What killed off the Aztecs and Incas?


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MOCK ORANGE


It is not the moon, I tell you.
It is these flowers
lighting the yard.

I hate them.
I hate them as I hate sex,
the man's mouth
sealing my mouth, the man's
paralyzing body--

and the cry that always escapes,
the low, humiliating
premise of union--

In my mind tonight
I hear the question and pursuing answer
fused in one sound
that mounts and mounts and then
is split into the old selves,
the tired antagonisms. Do you see?
We were made fools of.
And the scent of mock orange
drifts through the window.

How can I rest?
How can I be content
when there is still
that odor in the world?


--Louise Gluck



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I have always been fascinated by this poem by Gluck. Always. The language in the poem is as simple as can be, stark almost. But the poem is, itself, very complicated. A famous poet-critic once posited that the speaker in the book Triumph of Achilles is actually Patroclus. Ever since I heard that, this poem has a different existence for me. Could it be true? Could the speaker of this poem actually be Patroclus, a man? If so, the "love" between Achilles and Patroclus takes on a very complicated and difficult shading. That love becomes one-sided. If this is Patroclus speaking, then although he was the beloved of Achilles, he also hated Achilles, in some way. I know that is a gross oversimplification, but this poem suddenly calls into question that ancient "love story." Ever since hearing this poet-critic expound on this, this poem lives in my mind in two separate ways: one with a woman speaker and one with Patroclus as speaker. And I love both poems.


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The Next Level

Well, it looks like I will be able to pay myself in about a week. Yay. My first paycheck from the new practice. All of this business stuff still amazes me, but things are going okay. Scary, but okay.


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A few people emailed me to ask about where I got the Li-Young Lee poem. It is from his third book, Book of My Nights, a gorgeous work based in insomnia, family, and the darknesses of the heart. I read that collection as one long poem in sections. It makes more sense to me that way.


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Jacob and I have crossed over into the next level of paranoia. Yes, we bought a cross-cutting paper shredder that can even shred credit cards. From now on, nothing with any numbers on it will leave this house in a whole and readable form. Nothing!

We have crossed the threshold. We are now identity protectors. Hell, I already have a service that monitors my credit reports and alerts me whenever there is a change or if anyone requests it. We have fallen so low. We have given in to the panic. I mean it is hard enough being us. We just can't imagine other people being us, too.


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Poem expired



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Bill Coyle

I just got an email announcing that Bill Coyle won The New Criterion Prize. Well, I have this very strange feeling that this Bill Coyle might be the same Bill Coyle I went to undergrad with; well, he was a year ahead of me, I think. Does anyone know this Bill Coyle? Did he go to Boston College? That is kind of weird if he did. I vaguely remember Bill Coyle. I remember liking his poems. That would have been around the time I started writing poems. Anyway, regardless of which Bill Coyle he is, Congratulations to him.

Frequent Flier Miles

Trip to Orlando: check
Trip to Austin: check
Trip to New York: check
Trip to Gainesville: check

I have been a total Travelocity whore lately. And what is up with United. Why is it I find flights on Travelocity that no matter what I do I cannot find on the United website? So weird. I am flying United to Florida to go do this reading/lecture. I don't usually fly United, but they had a better fare by a couple of hundred of dollars.


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I think I am swearing off adjectives in poems for a month. Of course, I know within minutes I will change my mind. Sadly, I love adjectives, as flawed as they are.


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Clue: Flower named for its supposed resemblance (when closed) to a testicle.


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The Veil

I want to re-read Heart of Darkness. I remain, after so many years, still beguiled by its "veil of accessibility." I have been thinking about this off and on over the past 7 months. It remains one of those literary pieces that on first reading appears to be a simple story but with every return is actually more and more complex and complicated. I think I want to do a lecture next summer at Warren Wilson titled: "Heart of Darkness: Lessons for a Poet"


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The florist, I mean floral designer, came by yesterday to go over space and form and color and movement and earth and water. She reminded us over and over that it is all about harmony. We'll see how harmonious we feel when we get the invoice!


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THE MOON FROM ANY WINDOW


The moon from any window is one part
whoever's looking.

The part I can't see
is everything my sister keeps to herself.

One part my dead brother's sleepless brow,

the other part the time I waste, the time
I won't have.

But which is the lion
killed for the sake of the honey inside him,

and which the wine, stranded
in a valley, unredeemed?

And don't forget the curtains. Don't forget the wind
in the trees, or my mother's voice saying things
that will take my whole life to come true.

One part earnest child grown tall
in his mother's doorway, and one last look
over the shoulder before leaving.

And never forget it answers to no address,
but calls wave after wave
to a path of thirst. Never forget

the candle climbing down
without glancing back.

And what about the heart
counting alone, out loud, in that game
in which the many hide from the one?

Never forget the cry
completely hollowed of the dying one
who cried it.

Only in such pure outpouring
is there room for all this night.


-- Li-Young Lee


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Clue: The symbol of our Lord and the French Monarchy.


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Ashbery Returns

Tried to post yesterday evening, but I couldn't log in to blogger. Not sure if it was my computer or blogger itself. Anyway, yesterday was a busy but good day. After hours and hours and hours, Jacob and I folded and stuffed all the invitations and enclosures. The French-style invitations looked great to us when we looked in catalogs, etc. Little did we realize that it involved folding everything! And folding everything so that the ragged parchment edge overlaps the rest of the edge of the fold. So, after folding the invitations, the reception announcement cards, the RSVP note, etc. we then had to stuff the envelopes. It took as pretty much half a day. But the first batch of invitations are off.


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John Ashbery returned last night in one of my dreams. I swear to God this man is haunting me, except he isn't dead! In the dream last night, he was pacing in my living room wearing a white t-shirt and very red floral boxers. He kept pacing and muttering and nothing else.


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GLASS


Li Po was glass.
Kant was glass.

We observe ourselves like transparent
sea anemones.
We see the dark purple heart
beating,
we see the gray lungs, wings
rising and falling,
we see the oligochaetic
worms of thought
gnawing under the cap.

Linnaeus was glass.
Mozart was glass.
Franz Josef was glass.

In the transparent belly
we see the tubular moon,
and behind the crystalline mouth
the swallowed words.

A prisoner is glass,
a policeman is glass,
sixty robots
reside in the castle.

Behind the swallowed words
we see the glass-wool
of incessant melody.

Only the dead
draw the curtain
from within.


--Miroslav Holub


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Until Now

Still reeling from the news yesterday of the 18 year old guy who went crazy and started attacking folks in a gay bar in Massachusetts. I cannot imagine how unreal the whole thing must have seemed to the patrons in that bar.


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The poetry blogosphere seems overly tense and stressed out lately, kind of on edge. Just a feeling I have. It seems pervasive. Maybe this is me projecting all of my wedding-planning anxieties on you all. Who knows?


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Well, speaking of wedding, we have a florist now. She does only weddings and big special events/parties. Apparently, she is famous around the country for ichibana. She also sounds a little crazy on the phone. I mean she was way more excited about these flowers than I ever could be. But she sounds receptive to ideas and sounds really smart about how space can be used and manipulated. She spoke of flat bowls of water with curled moss in a ring, a branch, a single large leaf, calla lilies and a float of 2 or three blue hydrangea. Sounds good to me. Hell, it almost sounds like a poem. To make it one of my poems, we would just add some darkness, something old, a hand, and maybe the word, on a torn piece of paper, "blood." Just kidding.


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LUMINISM


And though it was brief, and slight, and nothing
To have been held onto so long, I remember it,
As if it had come from within, one of those scenes
The mind sets for itself, night after night, only
To part from, quickly and without warning. Sunlight
Flooded the valley floor and blazed on the town's
Westward facing windows. The streets shimmered like rivers,
And trees, bushes, and clouds were caught in the spill,
And nothing was spared, not the couch we sat on,
Nor the rugs, nor our friends, staring off into space.
Everything drowned in the golden fire. Then Philip
Put down his glass and said: "This hand is just one
In an infinite series of hands. Imagine."
And that was it. The evening dimmed and darkened
Until the western rim of the sky took on
The purple look of a bruise, and everyone stood
And said what a great sunset it had been. This was a while ago,
And it was remarkable, but something else happened then--
A cry, almost beyond our hearing, rose and rose,
As if across time, to touch us as nothing else would,
And so lightly we might live out our lives and not know.
I had no idea what it meant until now.


--Mark Strand


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Horrible

There is just so much hatred in the world. I find this report terrifying. That someone could go to a bar to hang out and have a drink only to have this happen is seriously scary.

Good Mind

Oh, to read the post of Kasey's I mentioned in my last post, check it out here. He also wrote a follow up post as well. Both are good posts. I don't always agree with Kasey, but I have the deepest respect for him as a thinker. He gives good mind.


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MARE INCOGNITO


The moon makes my son go silent.
It sucks the fight from his mind,
leaving him hollow in my arms,
like a final piece of tunnel
diminished between lights.

I lose him to the brighter world;
the dark one vibrates with alarm,
as if the storm about to come
had sprung upon its axis.

Trees turn blue from drag;
leaves, like minnows, in reverse,
breaking for the shallows.
In human terms, in human terms,
their flesh is being stolen.
Long bone shadows slam into the ground.

His head is cold all over.
Its curves extend forever.
In the high winds, in the high key of heaven,
he is totally filled with God.


--Larissa Szporluk



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Clue: Never silent, but never noticed.


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Migration

At dinner tonight, two guys at the booth behind me kept talking about how there are too many Indians here now, that there are more here now than there are in Britain. And then they talked about how it was all the fault of the British for letting "these people" migrate all over the place. Well, let me just say the Indian blood in me became more and more annoyed as these guys talked, rather loudly, until I was just filled with anger and rage. What makes them think they are so superior? What makes them assume that somehow they are right and these "these people" are somehow filthy, money grubbing, aid-seeking dirtbags. It just made me sick. And then when they got up, I couldn't believe my eyes. Two total shitheads. They couldn't have looked more the part.


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Yay! We have a photographer. And he only uses film. Real film. No digital (though he will provide us a disc with the negatives as well). He has even shot other same sex weddings before. We will be his 5th. And he sounds nice, disarming, a good quality for a photographer. Also sat and addressed invitation envelopes today. I got a lot done today.


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I haven't yet seen Legitimate Dangers, so I cannot comment on the introductions or anything. I have to say I have been quite surprised at how much attention (good and bad) this anthology is getting. It is just another anthology. That said, it takes a lot of time, effort, and serious work to compile an anthology, collect all the rights, standardize the format, get the contracts, etc, etc. The publishers rarely do that stuff. It all falls on the editors. And I am not surprised it is billed the way it is, whether it is definitive or not, because publishers want to sell books. These anthologies aren't cheap to print. Again, I haven't read the anthology yet, but just take a step back y'all. Put yourself in their position. You spend almost three years working on a project only to have it finally come out. Imagine how you would feel if it then got ripped several new A-holes by people in public forums like blogs. I am not saying we can't be critical. Kasey does a good job at striking balance but still making it clear what he thinks. It is just another anthology folks. There have been so many of them in the past 6 years. I am sure more will follow.


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Aperture

I just couldn't watch the State of the Union address last night in its entirety. It was just too painful and annoying for words. I am praying the makeup of the House and, particularly, the Senate change later this year. I think our country needs some checks and balances, and it is clear the makeup of the Supreme Court now offers no such thing. I would expound more on this, but I am not Seth Abramson and have not the mind for clear rhetoric regarding politics.


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I am starting to understand why people elope. I am now only thinking about the honeymoon, being sequestered on a ship in Alaska. With 87 days to go, we are feeling quite behind in planning. But today I will iron out the photographer issue and the florist issue. It makes me feel tired. And family members aren't helping. They seem to think we are their concierges. Well, we are NOT concierges!


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I am happy to say that I have found quite a number of good poems for NER over the past five days. The Winter issue is off at press and should be out in a few weeks. I thought, naively, when I started editing poetry, that it would get easier as time went on. I was very naive. It doesn't get easier. It is always a lot of work. And it is a thankless job in more ways than I can explain here.


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WHO CARES ABOUT APERTURE


She may be a lover, may not.
It's like walking into a church.
Who cares about aperture, about crawlspace?
I sat on the front steps with my arms
turned up. Such a small bird with such a long beak.
As if that wasn't my life behind me, inside that house.
As if those logs were something other
than trees. The thing is, he kept saying, in the summer
all you want to do is fish. She may be a lover, may not.
It's like walking into a church.
I sat on the front steps with my arms
turned up. Who cares about aperture,
about crawlspace? As if that wasn't my life. Such a small bird
with such a long beak. Behind me, inside that house.
The thing is, he kept saying, in the summer
all you want to do is fish. As if those logs
were something other than trees. She may be
a lover, may not. It's like walking
into a church. Inside that house. Who cares
about aperture, about crawlspace?
Such a small bird with such a long beak.
The thing is, he kept saying, in the summer
all you want to do is fish.

When it's this windy doesn't it seem impossible
to grow old?


--Olena Kalytiak Davis


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