Poem-A-Day #360 : When I look up and try to speak the shifting world wakes me

When I look up and try to speak the shifting world wakes me

At the table - in a field
no
a parking lot - two tables
one crowded

I tessellate leaves
alone
as they discuss - climbing
Mt. Everest

At least one - a man
I wanted something of

Desperately -

The second - the one
about airports - I help
a woman
alone with a stroller

That I dream in fragments
and that they connect
across seasons -

Dreamt the first half
a year ago - the part
where
I run off with the man

He sings to me as we go

And at the airport - I am
detained - trapped
on the escalator
by a woman with a stroller

It is hard to know where
the table fits
in the narrative - or where
Everest aligns

I fix my car and drive from them
when was the car broken
hovers - a future question

Poem-A-Day #293 : Reminder

Reminder

I cannot help I cannot help
I cannot help I cannot help I cannot help
I cannot help
I cannot help I cannot help
I cannot help
I cannot help
I cannot help
I cannot help I cannot help I cannot help I cannot help
I cannot help I cannot help I cannot help I cannot help I cannot help
I cannot help I cannot help
I cannot help I cannot help
I cannot help
I cannot help
I cannot help
I cannot help
I cannot help I cannot help
I cannot help I cannot help I cannot help
I cannot help I cannot help I cannot help I cannot help
I cannot help I cannot help
I cannot help

Poem-A-Day #290 : Nightscape

Nightscape

On your skin

A color like purple

It thighs and glides across surfaces

A woman is thrown into the pool of a taxi

There is night and then there is city

Each thing defines itself against the void of space

Your eyes are glares

The streetlight blinks yellow banishing color

Mono

A wish to be the reflection in your sweat

The smell of garbage

A rat across your foot

Uber and crash

Your teeth are violet

Poem-A-Day #201 : Eleanor

Eleanor

At 32 who could see the shower of stones
the calcification of small guilts

The universe inside becoming one millimeter smaller

I have been spending my life waiting for a house
to open its doors and eat me until my molecules separate

The fantastic reproaches both small and gigantic

What if you flip cards over and I guess them all right
the  windows wouldn't shatter - that will come later

Or not at all

At 32 the hall of portraits of faces that are known
becomes a hall of empty frames

It constricts like an eye in the bright light of day

Youth is binge and age is purge
it is the sound of air sucking into long locked rooms

THIS! 9/14/12

THIS! on September 14th, 2012

1) Murp

2) The Donkey Sanctuary

This is a great organization that rescues abused and elderly donkeys. They give them a place to rest and recover from their lives. They have an amazing store where you can buy cute donkey things or give money towards improving working conditions for these animals.


3) Farren's Dream Dog

Farren is a special lady. She is a talented writer/editor and an amazing person. Earlier this summer she lost her cat very suddenly. Her dog was diagnosed with a terminal illness almost at the same time. She's finishing grad school and facing bills bills bills and no one should do that alone. Give a dollar or two to help her get a French Bulldog!


4) Ampullae of Lorenzini

Sharks and a few other marine animals have gel-filled spots on their noses that allow them to sense electric fields. This is awesome.

THIS! 7/27/12

THIS! on July 27, 2012

1) Printing Reflectance Functions

So when you print something it becomes a 2-D object. Photos show a moment frozen in time. The light cannot change. Some people at UC Santa Cruz got together with HP and 3M and asked the question: What if the light could change?

That isn't a hologram. The idea is to allow a printed image to change as the real life image would. So you could see 3-Dimensions without 3-D.


2)

3) The Wall by Jose Angel Araguz

Tiger's Eye Press has published Jose's chapbook The Wall. I highly recommend it.

Fair warning, the site has no online ordering and you have to send a check or money order, but the reading should make up for this oddly anachronistic system.

THIS! 6/29/12

THIS! on June 29, 2012

1) American Motel by Eric Cousineau

This is a Kickstarter started by Eric to finish his great series of motel photographs. Take a look at the link and look at his work. He's offering great rewards and really deserves the chance to finish this project.

While you're at it, check out his website. He does weddings!


2) Tableau Vivant

And while I'm talking Kickstarters. This is probably one of the strangest, most beautiful things I've seen lately.



Sarah Small's project reminds me of turn of the century salon presentations. The tradition of tableau is weird and amazing. Here is a Huffington Post article about the project, which features a fellow CSF alum, Janie Martinez.

Pitot

Henri Pitot invented the pitot tube in the 1700s. It is L-shaped. Like an arm bent at the elbow. The tube is used to measure fluid flow.

Dreams are a sort of measure. This one was definitely a nightmare about the end of things that I care about.

Side note: I notice that some of my lines are too long for the posts. If it looks like the word should have been on the line above, it should have been. Like in this poem.


Pitot 6/22

They all come walking into the field with their elbows bent outwards like pitot
They are pulsing their blood flows and making their eyes bulge
Somehow they control the dropping of bombs on the assembled guests
This is a barbecue for everyone you've every known
They have all assembled and are eating hot dogs hamburgers
Zombie Nazis are coming over the hills your guests sing your praises
With their akimbo arms and popping faces they are eating across your family
Your friends are rising an army of undead people you love they come at you
Elbows bent pitot the pressure coming up as the bones melt under the weight
They are coming up the hills a terrible history of somehow some when