Ninety-Seventh Entry

Friday is a busy day for me, but here goes nothing:

Saw quite a few poets the other night at Cafe Loup, some I see a lot, some I hardly ever see. It was nice to see all of them. Now that I'm writing more frequently I feel like I fit in there more.

I'm currently working on a manuscript (these new poems you're seeing will be in it) and I'm researching book prizes, etc. So if you know of any good ones, give me a holler.

The Dick Pig Review will be having our event at Galapagos Art Space on Sunday, April 8th at 8:00. Should be a lot of fun.

Also, I have two poems up in the beautiful Sink Review. Here's my poem:

FORT

Humorous childhood analogy. I’ve been there.
My body was small. Now I dominate hallways,
grasping at fluorescents like a monkey at vines.
The demure orange of horizon’s line is nothing,
a function we devised, like TVs in movies,
always with the plot-specific information,
never with tasty static. My organization
is prepared to sell you a tee-pee. Resisting
the choice of raincoats and dwelling outside,
rose-colored berries, the hue of a choir-boy’s
cheek. The empty pail of my bank book. Long
gone are the banquet days, the seemingly forthright
simplicity of the coin being flipped, then resting
on the top of the hand, then revealed.

Ninety-Sixth Entry

Kseniya and I are going to the Boston Zine Fest or Zine Fair or some such. I've produced a whopping three zines for publication, which I hope to turn into one decent new chapbook which I will sell at my readings and on this site for a less-than-princely sum. Kseniya's desire to make me a self-started is beginning to pay off.

Here's my poem:

PENCIL

Resentment of sweatshirt
for wearer of sweatshirt: A symposium discussing
a circle drawn in this dirt. My horse gave up the chase,
the fox has learned to live outside my sight. I promise
your finery will guard the vanity mirror, actual pearls
on a pink night of stormy wrong-headedness. Weakly
I shake my face in the truck-stop pisser. Here goes
nothing. The racetrack emptied of cars is a Stonehenge
lined with beer cans, the purpose equally vague.
The delights surround me like dolls in my sleep,
blue cheeks from a strong gale in the alcove
in front of my door, where I usually keep the light on.

It is my policy to smell your feet after the day
you walk towards the pencil sharpener, alone
in the parochial school, in the hallway sweating
with its smallness. I put my uniform in the mailbox
and it came back the next day. I save mpegs
of myself seemingly working hard and leave them
open on other’s computers. Clarity,
while once the terrain of medicine men,
has recently opened up shop on cable access.
My cucumber-colored sweater is all that’s left
of my happy times. Your skin has withered,
blown away by the vacuum. I seem rutted
in a lottery run by the local police. This promontory
seems easy to jump from, skidding through the brambles
like a turbulent plane. The difference is the calm
when your body is picked up by yourself
and walked back towards your car.

Ninety-Fifth Entry

Approaching the hundred poem mark, and this blog is circling the drain. You know what's gonna fix it? NAPOWRIMO! National Poetry Writing Month is very near at hand, and I for one and taking it as a clarion call to get some new work done. And I've already made some major progress, having finally started a manuscript project in earnest. Also, two readings are coming up. One is the Dick Pig Review reading on April 8th at Galapagos Art Space, with the estimable David Lehman, some Dick Pig regulars, and the cabaret magnificence of none other than Miss Harvest Moon. The second is a reading at the 440 Gallery in Park Slope. I'm forgetting the date, and the last time I went to a readinf there, I looked for the place for an hour and couldn't find it. Hopefully I will find it the night of the reading.

Here's my poem:

SKELETON

Worried about New Wave?
I can remember so many chilled white mornings,
the warm red of my sweatpants, the shine of green
glinting off of the wrapping paper. That convenience,
like that convenience store, disappeared and was replaced.
I go by the hair salon everyday and wail on the rubbery
glass and then run away. The hot air mixing
the tobacco cuts through the lung. Tiger
in display case, passive lips, a night
at the county jail, immobile like a fossil
with a grin on its face.

This imagination is more pleasing than flannel sheets,
in which I tangle. I’m not uncomfortable while sleeping.
I have a crush on the girl who hands out tickets
at the outdoor theater. The night is always brown
with geraniums bouncing out of the creek while she sheds her skin,
like peeling a chicken, slow and noisy, and sliding in.
I like when she glows in the water, like I imagine a radio wave.
Unhealthy. Something alien about seeing her bones in motion.
Once a fish has curled in her swimming ribs,
They shrink it into a crumble of scales. I’ve been trying
to talk to my mom, sagging and growing more pink and skinny.
I’m great at sulking. I break every matchstick
and put it back in the box. Someday
I’ll tell her when I hand in my money for the ticket.
You see, everybody I know is a widow.
Even my best friend smiles with a skinny widow’s grin.