Poem-A-Day #232 : Masc4Masc

Masc4Masc

must                    clean                   revolver
     keep it     gleaming               like                the sun
no
                    milksops               here       no faggots
        we play                     tennis cricket volleyball golf
are men
                         must keep          being clean men
                                                                               fire
in                place               our cocks are shuttled
are being a spin
                        in a chamber
                                          scar tissue across the cheek

Poem-A-Day #92 : And I Can Say

And I Can Say

Above the bar - a sort of haze on the television
a sport with a ball -

I make the same joke I always do about sportsballs and no one laughs -

There is a slippery moment - when I think I am more in tune
with the people in the now - a sort of - haze envelopes me and
I can say the things I want to say -

Let's talk about being away from this room -

The lack of noise outside the cars on the road and the crickets in the grass -
it's a calming tone - we are told it is a calming tone - it is a calming tone -

You want me to be hysterical - depressive - to have razors against my flesh -

The sound of breathing - of thinking about a word for 'this is not sad'
that is also a word for 'the mist on a lake in California right before dawn' - it doesn't exist
it exists outside of this place - a sort of haze in the mind

Sellers : Calico Joe

Calico Joe
Author: John Grisham
Publisher: Doubleday (4/10/12)
208 pages

Writing ebbs and flows. Sometimes it feels good, easy, like magic. Other times that magic fails and the whole thing honestly goes to shit.

I wonder if writers like Grisham have these shit days. He currently is turning out two books a year. Three if you count the young adult series he recently started. Almost every single one has the same basic plot - lawyer, unbeatable/confusing case, miraculous solution.

He is the definition of 'commercial'. And here he is giving us a book about baseball. About a pitcher purposely hitting and injuring a batter. About a son reuniting these two now retired players years later.

If this sounds like the plot of some terrible movie, you would probably be right. I wouldn't be surprised to see this popping up any day now since 9 of his books have been turned into films. The Firm was recently re-imagined as a TV show.

I haven't read Calico Joe so am not in a place to judge the writing. I can only guess how this 208 page book lays out this decidedly well-trod story.

When I have a block I try to write outside my comfort zone. In 2004 I started writing long-form poetry intensely studying one object. Exhausting my abilities to describe in an attempt to jump start the muse. It worked. I'd like to think that this little jaunt afield (HA!) from the law is a similar thing for Grisham. The difference is that mine don't sell millions of copies.

Grisham has sold more than 250 million copies world wide. He is one of three authors to sell 2 million of one book in a first print run. Tom Clancy and J. K. Rowling are the other two.

These authors are above critique. It is useless to say that clearly Grisham writes the same story over and over, useless to point out that this 208 page book is not worth my $20. To call Grisham vapid, dull, predictable or anything else is beside the point. The point is that he wrote a book about baseball instead of lawyers. And that should be exciting. But it just feels like a calculated effort to get people to write headlines like 'Grisham Strikes A New Pitch' or 'Bottom Of The 9th And Grisham Fakes On The Fly'.

In other words. Yawn.

On Wednesday I'm going to talk about another author who seems to write outside what's expected of him but with very different results.


Sellers is my attempt to examine what books are topping the best-seller list and why. To talk about and understand the trends in popular writing.

The Day After

The Day After 2/6

Under foot dark blue glass like the ocean : Windex

Imbedding in the heel of new shoes

Each step : sound : peanut shells cracking

There are two full Corona bottles on the sidewalk
50/50 chance they are full of piss

Super Bowel

Super Bowel 2/5

I
can eat glass
in seconds

The iron in
nails keeps
my blood thick

This heap
of rotted leather
cuts my teeth fine

Those foods
meat, fruit, bread

soft.

Insensibility

Insensibility (Munich Massacre 1972) 9/6

Teeth marks on rope

The Olympics

Summer in Western Germany

The hooded man stands on the balcony

Israel

There are 5 no 8 no 3 terrorists

Palestine Ikrit and Biram

Three men shot at point blank range with a Kalashnikov assault rifle

Grenade in a helicopter

Tarmac smell in heat

Slimy

Slimy (Defection of Igor Gouzenko 1945) 9/5

Nothing like a disgruntled employee to ruin all the fun

Pavlova

Pavlova 8/23

Ballerina are you a dessert ?

A tutu shaped trifle - rainless cloud

Taffeta darling

The Dying Swan
On a table
To be cut into

Ballerina are you a meal for the hungry ?

On your toes - dance for us

Darling taffeta light and airy

On one knee wings trembling
Breaking light on horizon
The edge of the stage

The end of the world
Glowing embers of the sun

Doosra

Doosra 8/10

Wood hitting wood falling to ground and clicking in running and going and faking it right when it looks left the other one crashing and running and all that...

Galactico

Galactico 8/5

I need a new starter in my life

Who can do the heavy lifting
in my head and arms and legs

Make this mess clean itself

Kick as many goals as can be kicked
touch the roof of the net darling

Touch all of the net

Niblick

Niblick 7/14

On Sundays
they take the
walking sticks
and they golf
with them

The priests don’t
notice or choose
not to notice
the soft gently
curved handles

Small pocked
balls and long
grass chopping
sounds over
the church bells

Salchow

Salchow 2/11

The body pulses
                        like paused film
your hand raises
floats
away just as suddenly is back

                        and your
eyes

they are a full stop
                                    a jumping quotation
                        set to music

This
is a
body
sudden
and
ripe
citrus
full

The pause
                        stretches out and
jerks back

Is over
before anyone
catches breath