For a few minutes of fun, try www.googlism.com. Here is a googlism for 'the united states." How strange when products like google become verbs?

the united states is becoming more vulnerable to natural
the united states is still bombing

the united states is disintegrating
the united states is a threat to world

the united states is the world leader in innovation
the united states is problem
the united states is not in prophecy
the united states is a diverse country

the united states is a democracy
the united states is falling
the united states is over 150 years old

the united states is putting the world at risk

the united states is still a british colony

the united states is becoming more vulnerable to natural disasters

the united states is in deep doodoo
the united states is now the only industrialized country in the world that does not use the metric system as its predominant system of measurement
the united states is still bombing iraq
the united states is available
the united states is about to take place
the united states is now included in this conservative block that opposes women’s and children’s rights
the united states is against terrorism
the united states is now our foremost enemy
the united states is a symbol of freedom
the united states is on the continent of north america
the united states is a threat to world peace
the united states is failing in the fight against aids come demand real domestic responses and real global solutions
the united states is rooted in oil
the united states is the world leader in innovation and in the trade of goods and services of knowledge
the united states is doing more harm than good in israel
the united states is one of the best tax havens in the world
the united states is the largest producer of tomatoes in the world
the united states is unfounded
the united states is over
the united states is banning books
the united states is a safe haven for more than 1
the united states is the only country to base its society not on a shared past or culture but on an idea

Let's try something new. A poem in process that first appeared here. I suddenly love the word gurgle.


The Neighbor's Dog

It is the ending that makes everything worthwhile.

The yellow bamboo leaves spike without question
less diligently. Dishes exonerate. Intentions
do not pile but spread, stave off less compelling ones.

She frequently looks up the difference between
transitive and intransitive verbs.

Metonyms have left her
stranded. Adjectives heap themselves in succession
in light of the coming holidays. Sugar tells stories

when no one's looking. Someone is always looking.
The neighbor walks the neighbor's dog.

She considers what she can throw away, what
she cannot buy, or whether carried from subject to object.

The writer has no need to ask
what makes her so. Logic is such a foe. And in the end
we all cheer for the woman who burns down the town.

No one would be prepared.

pituitary
gatekeeper

sweat
lodger

phenomenal
light
smoother

come take a look
behind the shed

heaven
swears
in 32 lanuages

does it
in succession
without stones

or stick figures




)(


the kitten had twins

shows up wrestling
with mickey

mouse #1 (said it, I gave
in) you brought a

stuffed one
like turkey
stuffing



)(


don't you just want to scream
Happy Holidays

Rudimentary

Do I post so my "readership" doesn't stray? Do I post because I am compelled? Do I go postal because I don't post? Would past tense be appropriate? In the shower I consider that I am half the blogger I could be, and possibly on the way to a have-been. Ultimately, I'm amused by such simple worries. I've given musings, but not much more. As I figure out the technicalities of posting poems that would maintain line breaks, maybe this could change. Maybe you won't stray.

It is the ending that makes everything worthwhile. The yellow bamboo leaves spike, without question, less diligently. Cookbooks piled on the monitor-on-its-way- out by way of a trip to the basement are frisky. Dishes exonerate. She frequently looks up the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs. Metonyms have left her stranded. Un-called-for hyphens deserve different homes. Live a little

language. Adjective s heap themselves in succession in light of the coming holidays. In a community imagined in a yellow evening you leave without question to go to work. The writer has no need to ask what makes her so. Relieved of reoccurring migraines, she has only the traces such as vomiting. Intentions do not pile,

but spread. Stave off less compelling ones. She will consider what she can throw away, and what she cannot buy. Logic is another foe. And in the end we all cheer for the woman that burns down the town. No one would be prepared. Sugar tells stories when no one's looking. The neighbor walks the neighbor's dog.

Only Mercedes Sosa can make me this happy listening to her album, huhmm, cd "Mercedes Sosa en Argentina," recorded in 1982 at the Buenos Aires Opera Theatre. Inserted in the front of the cd case is my ticket stub from attending her concert in 2002 at the Berklee Performance Center. Gracias a la vida!
I was in the third row with my friend Bhavana who thought that we were getting the tickets at half-price. "Thought" is the operative word.

In case you are more interested: http://www.easybuenosairescity.com/biografias/sosa1.htm

Stem cell said to Iraqi man
you are more evolved,
why don't you live?
Iraqi man said
your President won't let me.
My water is polluted.
My brother has died.
My sister's wedding was bombed.
Stem cell joined up with other powerful stem cells
for a conference on peace treaties but
the President was busy blowing hot air and missiles.
In the end, stem cells broke up with the President
and joined the Red Cross, then the Revolution.

Lantern Parade

Threadbare words cut out of tissue paper
In nothing but plastic glued to foggy lake
Waddling when need be a wink away
From worn-out face holding a lantern
at a parade

celebrations
always slap me
in the back

the futility
of reaching out buries me

alive
Is a state of mind

Malfuncion

I really sucks when an I becomes I hen says I suck I wake up earlier
o wrie wih my missing
I is so cold I hink ha winer comes and I don' wan I
o come and I keep pressing

like 's maer even more in life now I know hey are missing if I were o open any book and coun 's my kiy can' go ouside because I closed he window maybe all 's flew ou window of my scaered hear lifeline is a hold up for space loveliness when you are around I will fill in all your leers if you demand equaliy solidarity just when I get into this spellcheck interferes

marketroid

Just in case you were wondering....

marketroid /mar'k*-troyd/ (Or "marketing slime", "marketeer", "marketingdroid", "marketdroid") A member of a company's marketingdepartment, especially one who promises users that the next version of a product will have features that are not actually scheduled for inclusion, are extremely difficult to implement,and/or are in violation of the laws of physics; and/or one whodescribes existing features (and misfeatures) in ebullient, buzzword-laden adspeak. Derogatory.

Love...you are my luminary

My liver is
a gunshot
a swollen timeline
it's about time
swelling found a home
in a string of words
about to fray

Guerrero Viejo

After finishing an amazing book of oral history and photographs called Guerrero Viejo, I was drawn to write a poem in Spanish. I rarely write original work in Spanish, nor work that sounds so formal, but this is what erupted. Let me finish by saying that this book Guerrero Viejo by Elena Poniatowski (author), and Richard Payne (photographer) poignantly illustrates how the citizens of this town were uprooted when the Mexican and U.S. government constructed the Falcon Dam on the Rio Grande. The town, once under water, is now completely dry. A few people refuse to leave. ( I need to figure out how to create accents within this blogbox. Advice for mac?)


A Dona Julia de Guerrero Viejo

Amor,
no te espero sino estoy en vigila
con mis veinte chivos y un becerro.
Y en la noche no te espero
con una veladora para mis santitos
y otra luz encendida de una bateria de carro.
No necesito un carro,
sino una luz. Nunca voy a salir.

A la mala gente, no tengo miedo
de tirarla en las patas
si se trata de robar La Virgen
en mi iglesia sin muros completos.
Nunca sera vacia.

Amor,
en la casa del doctor del Flores
crecio un arbol inmenso. Se parece
que el hogar ofrecio su techo alto.

Amor, soy la unica que guardo todo.
Y cuando me muera, no se le olvide
que quiera una cruz negra
por todo lo que he sufrido.

Virgin Galactic

for $210,000
I can go to space

"It will be humbling. It will be spiritual. "

just like mom's red handprint
on my slapped ass
when I talked back

i stared at it in the mirror
and traced the far-flung fingers
with my eyes: those satellites
from earth

blood rushed up
to hit you back

got caught up
in skin

money is no object
to some

we advance

a bloodless frontier?

Ordinary

People expect me to work

This is hard work

Take the reins

Overthrow me



Take care,

Cinderblock

Quizilla strikes...What childhood toy from the 80s am I?
You're a Spirograph!! You're pretty tripped out,
even though you've been known to be a bit
boring at times. You manage to serve your
purpose in life while expending hardly any
effort (and are probably stoned to the gills
all the while).


What childhood toy from the 80s are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

If I knew which mask, I would take it off.

Medical Interpreter at the Beach

See that feather.

The man cleaned his ear
with a pigeon feather
since the doctor told him
no Q-tips. When the doctor
looked inside his inflamed ear,
the hammer peeked out at him.

how did i get trapped by goodness

headless chicken squawk
contagious spit

no good
this day

but others are branded

you want brandy?

my traditional tibetan healer told me
less alcohol
no more than a glass

guilty the day after

ugh. those day afters

i lost my bra
that i just began to wear

have you ever burned one?

burning...

i may have jumped too quickly
without weighing other options


my preoccupations are space, bodies, gaps,
grief

tense body
past eyebags

past tense
of body bag


bye

i looked back after leaving the train
i was still sitting there

good thing I had my keys in my hand

i'm always losing my keys



that waiter
reminded me so much of an ex
my receipt is about to blow away

the big man at the next table
asked for sweet and low

and that little child was wearing
an Old Navy t-shirt

the woman talked to an old man on the train who started talking to her while leaning over her shoulder to read her papers and she responded because she rarely speaks to people over seventy like him, and she laughed saying really? entrepreneur, huh?


belonging is complicated

It took me days to find imprint
to fit inside a poem
for a translation that doesn't know where to go
I want to end the other poem
"I watch it in slow"
On the verge of crying three times
on the Monday
train to work
I will stop
reading Tuesdays with Morrie
to start my day

i wanted to take a nap-e-poo
but i have to watch Jesus get flogged

never again will i go to Man Ray
where women who play nuns
on tv are fingered by men
with dark sunglasses

and the bartender gives me my drink
wearing a schoolgirl outfit and pigtails

next i'll be drinking pig ears

"language is a deluge
from one small corner of the heart"

-Lu Chi, translated by Sam Hamill

The Hood of my Care

When the woman rolled up the hood of my car, the clothes from her laundry basket flooded my windshield. I became keenly aware of the blue steering wheel in my hand, and the blue interior I was encased in. The woman who rolled up the hood of my car said I must have sped up to hit her, told the cop that she had heard the motor revving up. I was watching how we were held by the cops on different sides of the parking lot of Mt. Pleasant Laundromat. I was talking to the other cop and watching the distance between us. Not talking to her felt like a hit and run, but I figured she didn't want to talk to the woman who hit her with a car. I was the enemy. I was just a figure being directed by the cops keeping the peace, jotting their notes. She was yelling. I was sobbing. I kept wanting to approach her. I had never hit someone before. The cords of my empathy rarely knew how to slacken.

As a singed spider

I return to the cavalcade of obesity
hang on to the green patina of copper
between the grey and the laconic.

My latinated hojas flutter in questions:
Am I the lacuna or that which surrounds me?

Will I weather the storm?

Some Transtromer

In this quote United States poet Robert Bly talks about the Swedish poet Tomas Transtromer, "Even at 17 he realized that the dead 'wanted to have their portrait painted'." I love Transtromer's poetry. Here is an excerpt from one of his poems translated by Bly (please forgive, I forgot the title).

"A letter from America drove me out again, started me walking
through the luminous June night in the empty suburban streets
among newborn districts without memories, cool as blueprints."

Growing up in the suburbs, this resonated a lot for me.

August notes

Aug 5------------
Unlike this bug, if I were to be flung to the ground at a height one hundred times my size, I wouldn't scurry or crawl away after the landing. I am not as agile.
Poor humans.


Aug 6------------
'll show you my family tree so you know not to reference the stupidity
of a Billy Bob or someone living in a trailer park
like the ones my grandparents lived in.
I'll say "no thank you." You didn't even make me chuckle.


Aug 8------------
I was talking to my mom on Thursday and I told her that I don't talk to my sisters very often. I told her that they must think I'm a bad aunt. She said, "No. Well, you don't have much in common besides being sisters." My mom makes me laugh how poignantly brief she can make a true observation. I've always thought that my sisters were so much older than me that we didn't have much to say. It seems that when I realized this, I began to change it.

I always thought my mother's common sense pragmatism had a monstrously stifling affect on my creativity. Yet, there are moments when she says so much in a few words that I wonder if she has instead inspired the poetic thread in me. It's brief truth moments.


Aug 9------------

Preoccupation=
before occupation

and before
I would have thought
distracted

I scan magazines
event planning to disease

a quiet demeanor
is unoccupied

a quietly enraging demeanor
is occupied

occupation has become
my preoccupation

It is a condition
I'm looking into
while I am not inside it



Aug 10------------

Rain is exercise
to come

I love blackstrap
molasses on Bisquick
roll
some on my tongue

green beans
sliced tomatoes with black pepper
corn cobs
BBQ pork sandwiches fried flat on the pan
fried potatos
mashed potatos patted into
potato pancakes after adding a little bit of egg



Aug 15------------

Time for showdown
in store for
thievery
hold up
I'm catching up
to a memory
of my brief acting days
as a convenient store
robber in the black box
theatre



Mid-August------------


My Questions:

Will underlining
go out of style
when highlighting
satisfies all?


Will I be diagnosed
with post-beginning
tramautic disorder
because the middle
can seems so bland?


Will the shoe shine
busy bee miss me?


Will the Charles river
sailor woman drop her keys
into never-retrieve?


Will his lost gaze
sit atop his slumped spine?


Will there be enough time
for me to begin?


How is that we
must wake up
to ourselves?



Aug 30------------

Damn poetry

Our poetry
doesn't
move
that
fast
says
bookstore
owner


"Books of poetry, my dear Miguel, catch on very slowly." I encountered this quote written in a letter to Miguel Hernandez from Frederico Garcia Lorca. It reads (Translated by Timothy Balard. I need to find the original Spanish.)

Back from NYC Protest

I just returned from the Anti-RNC protests in NYC. I went to the Books not Bombs Youth Convergence on Saturday, and the United for Peace and Justice March on Sunday. Organizers of the march estimated 500,000 people in the streets. I have no idea how to estimate such a crowd. As a speck in the crowd, marchers and signs were the only things I could see. And all I heard was chanting and chanting like "The people united will never be defeated." "El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido," "Bye, bye, Bush goodbye," "Money for jobs and education, not war and occupation," "Show me what democracy looks like. This is what democracy looks like, " and many more chants that kept the pace for the 5 hours we walked. It was so hot. The signs, puppets, and costumes were amazing, although I did get tired of the "Bad bush, good bush"-type messages after so many similar ones. I may laugh at the mockery, at the mask of Bush on wheels dragged by the man wearing boxing gloves and red, white, and blue shorts who punches him out, but I don't think mockery is very effective. I don't want to punch Bush out even if he is standing in front of me (although I doubt that will ever happen.) But, I want to defend myself against his actions that serve the interests of the most wealthy. I do not want them to consume our spirit for justice and peace. It feels exhilirating to take over the street in protest, and demonstrate that I will not be complicit to the agenda of our government and its effects on the people on earth. It was important to me to march, and send a message internationally. I don't want to fall for anything....

Expand ...

...Pincers

Poof

Roiling
aftermath

half-expecting
full return
(that)
takes me shopping
to poetry section
big fat Garcia Lorca
and Giovanni

the henna on my hand
from the Indian festival
claims new veins

winds down
my pointing finger

oh no
I think of the colon I wrote
earlier
what a catastrophic mistake

I shake off
ridiculous
remorse

I'm reading "Noticia de un Secuestro" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez about the kidnappings in Colombia by the drug traffickers. Last night I had dreams of speeding cars, unidentified bones, and mass graves. I think I'll stop reading the book right before bed. This is the privilege I have since I am not experiencing such imminent threats.

A perfect house

Poked. Pricked. A parable for belonging. A vehement bandwagon for the begotten. I belonged in no other. In the all over. In the continuum I banged, staring at white walls for a vision. Saw battleships in doorways. Passageways in potholes. I was a visitor. A lampshade. A saddle of wounds. Doorways were a spectacle I could stand in. A rod of conditions. Thunder. The sketch of a horse. Drawing of a woman with frozen elbows since the talent stopped growing. A house without books. Except my books. A wooden door. The screen door. The door was knocking faster than the spaces could contract or expand or slice. A slit. Squeaking linoleum. Patterns of brown. Velour lime green chairs in a room with light maroon carpeting. Color was a platform. Rhythm was inevitable. Life was to be gotten over if the living could begin. I began to rock the steady. Start the laughing. Hit the sack. Suck up the juice. Sneak boys in the window because trying was the fun part, then they were expecting. Then they were there. A story. A memory tossed around. I didn't have any pets. Midnight. A leg on the windowpane. A stain from throw-up on kelly green carpeting. It was as far as I could crawl.

Wide-open

"A telegraphic message!" she cried; for the convenient word telegram had not yet been invented. "What can be the matter?"

She looked up at her husband with wide-open, terrified eyes, and seemed half afraid to break the seal. The envelope was addressed to Miss Lucy Graham, at Mr. Dawson's, and had been sent on from the village.

"Read it, my darling," he said, "and do not be alarmed; it may be nothing of any importance."
(excerpt from Victorian novel Lady Audley's Secret)

How many times has "wide open, terrified eyes" been written? Too many, perhaps. Why do we rely on the eyes to show this ballooning, exhausting fear? It must dwell in more places than the eyes. Were does the terror dwell? My mother always says "Don't dwell."

best begin

I best begin with the face

tongue of the country
parading, electing
an eye, and an eyelash
for good measure.