Reason #328 That I Suck

is that I forgot Poem Sunday. Which I've been saving up poems for... well, forever. And so, I now decree that it is Poem Monday. Yes! Poem Monday! Bigger, better, and... on Monday.

Adam and Eve
by Tony Hoagland



I wanted to punch her right in the mouth and that's the truth.


After all, we had gotten from the station of the flickering glances
to the station of the hungry mouths,
from the shoreline of skirts and faded jeans
to the ocean of unencumbered skin,
from the perilous mountaintop of the apartment steps
to the sanctified valley of the bed--


the candle fluttering upon the dresser top, its little yellow blade
sending up its whiff of waxy smoke,
and I could smell her readiness
like a dank cloud above a field,
when at the crucial moment, the all-important moment,
the moment standing at attention,
she held her milk white hand agitatedly
over the entrance to her body and said No,


and my brain burst into flame.


If I couldn't sink myself in her like a dark spur
or dissolve into her like a clod thrown in a river,


can I go all the way in the saying, and say
I wanted to punch her right in the face?
Am I allowed to say that,
that I wanted to punch her right in her soft face?


Or is the saying just another instance of rapaciousness,
just another way of doing what I wanted then,
by saying it?


Is a man just an animal, and is a woman not an animal?
Is the name of the animal power?
Is it true that the man wishes to see the woman
hurt with her own pleasure


and the woman wishes to see the expression on the man's face
of someone falling from great height,
that the woman thrills with the power of her weakness
and the man is astonished by the weakness of his power?


Is the sexual chase a hunt where the animal inside
drags the human down
into a jungle made of vowels,
hormonal undergrowth of sweat and hair,


or is this an obsolte idea
lodged like a fossil
in the brain of the ape
who lives inside the man?


Can the fossile be surgically removed
or dissolved, or redesigned
so the man can be a human being, like a woman?


Does the woman see the man as a house
where she might live in safety,
and does the man see the woman as a door
through which he might escape
the hated prison of himself,
and when the door is locked,
does he hate the door instead?
Does he learn to hate all doors?


I've seen rain turn into snow then back to rain,
and I've seen making love turn into fucking
then back to making love,
and no one covered up their faces out of shame,
no one rose and walked into the lonely maw of night.


But where was there, in fact, to go?
Are some things better left unsaid?
Shall I tell you her name?
Can I say it again,
that I wanted to punch her right in the face?


Until we say the truth, there can be no tenderness.
As long as there is desire, we will not be safe.

T4: Back For More

I almost missed poem Sunday, due to putting the Christmas tree up today. I'm too tired to post pictures, so I'll do that tomorrow. But I do want to give a special Thank You to Velocibadgergirl for naming our Christmas tree this year.


What Would Freud Say?
by Bob Hicok


Wasn't on purpose that I drilled
through my finger or the nurse
laughed. She apologized
three times and gave me a shot
of something that was a lusher
apology. The person
who drove me home
said my smile was a smeared
totem that followed
his body that night as it arced
over a cliff in a dream.
He's always flying
in his dreams and lands
on cruise ships or hovers
over Atlanta with an erection.
He put me to bed and the drugs
wore off and I woke
to cannibals at my extremities.
I woke with a sense
of what nails in the palms
might do to a spirit
temporarily confined to flesh.
That too was an accident
if you believe Judas
merely wanted to be loved.
To be loved by God,
Urban the 8th
had heads cut off
that were inadequately
bowed by dogma. To be loved
by Blondie, Dagwood
gets nothing right
except the hallucinogenic
architecture of sandwiches.
He would have drilled
through a finger too
while making a case for books
on home repair and health.
Drilling through my finger's
not the dumbest thing
I've done. Second place
was approaching
a frozen gas-cap with lighter
in hand while thinking
heat melts ice and not
explosion kills asshole. First
place was passing
through a bedroom door
and removing silk that did not
belong to my wife.
Making a bookcase is not
the extent of my apology.
I've also been beaten up
in a bar for saying huevos
rancheros in a way
insulting to the patrons'
ethnicity. I've also lost
my job because lying
face down on the couch
didn't jibe with my employer's
definition of home
office. I wanted her to come
through the door on Sunday
and see the bookcase
she'd asked me to build
for a year and be impressed
that it didn't lean
or wobble even though
I've only leaned and often
wobbled. Now it's half
done but certainly
a better gift with its map
of my unfaithful blood.

Megs in Blue

I loved the peach, but after a year, I was ready for a change.

There went Sunday night. :)

It's poem Sunday again, but I'm tired, so it's going to be a little one.

Tired Sex by Chana Bloch

We're trying to strike a match in a matchbook
that has lain all winter under the woodpile:
damp sulphur
on sodden cardboard.
I catch myself yawning. Through the window
I watch that sparrow the cat
keeps batting around.

Like turning the pages of a book the teacher assigned --

You ought to read it, she said.
It's great literature.

Poem Sunday

I Go Back to May 1937

by Sharon Olds

I see them standing at the formal gates of their colleges,
I see my father strolling out
under the ochre sandstone arch, the
red tiles glinting like bent
plates of blood behind his head, I
see my mother with a few light books at her hip
standing at the pillar made of tiny bricks with the
wrought-iron gate still open behind her, its
sword-tips black in the May air,
they are about to graduate, they are about to get married,
they are kids, they are dumb, all they know is they are
innocent, they would never hurt anybody.
I want to go up to them and say Stop,
don't do it--she's the wrong woman,
he's the wrong man, you are going to do things
you cannot imagine you would ever do,
you are going to do bad things to children,
you are going to suffer in ways you never heard of,
you are going to want to die. I want to go
up to them there in the late May sunlight and say it,
her hungry pretty blank face turning to me,
her pitiful beautiful untouched body,
his arrogant handsome blind face turning to me,
his pitiful beautiful untouched body,
but I don't do it. I want to live. I
take them up like the male and female
paper dolls and bang them together
at the hips like chips of flint as if to
strike sparks from them, I say
Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it.

Poem Sunday

Last night I was out with some friends, including a very smart man that I went to graduate school with. He was describing a poem to me, and he told me that the poem had a humorous taint.

I laughed so hard I almost fell down. My friend stood there, looking at me disdainfully as I choked and gasped for breath. I held my hand up, both to beg his patience and to indicate my age.

"Five," I sputtered. "I'm sorry. I'm 5 years old for a second."

"And you just dragged me right down with you," he said.

So, for your enjoyment, a poem with a humorous taint.

Sea of Faith by John Brehm

Once when I was teaching "Dover Beach"
to a class of freshmen, a young woman
raised her hand and said, "I'm confused
about this 'Sea of Faith.' " "Well," I said,
"let's talk about it. We probably need
to talk a bit about figurative language.
What confuses you about it?"
"I man, is it a real sea?" she asked.
"You mean, is it a real body of water
that you could point to on a map
or visit on a vacation?"
"Yes," she said. "Is it a real sea?"
Oh Christ, I thought, is this where we are?
Next year I'll be teaching them the alphabet
and how to sound words out.
I'll have to teach them geography, apparently,
before we can move on to poetry.
I'll have to teach them history, too--
a few weeks on the Dark Ages might be instructive.
"Yes," I wanted to say, "it is.
It is a real sea. In fact it flows
right into the Sea of Ignorance
IN WHICH YOU ARE DROWNING.
Let me throw you a Rope of Salvation
before the Sharks of Desire gobble you up.
Let me hoist you back up onto this Ship of Fools
so that we might continue our search
for the Fountain of Youth. Here, take a drink
of this. It's fresh from the River of Forgetfulness."
But of course I didn't say any of that.
I tried to explain in such a way
as to protect her from humiliation,
tried to explain that poets
often speak of things that don't exist.
It was only much later that I wished
I could have answered differently,
only after I'd betrayed myself
and been betrayed that I wished
it was true, wished there really was a Sea of Faith
that you could wade into,
dive under its blue and magic waters,
hold your breath, swim like a fish
down to the bottom, and then emerge again
able to believe in everything, faithful
and unafraid to ask even the simplest of questions,
happy to have them simply answered.

Poem Sunday, for Michelle

It is always hard to declare what you love most, because there will always be people who do not love it, or worse, hate it, and look at you with eyes that say, Really? But I thought I knew you. I thought we were the same.

Recently, I coerced my friend Michelle into reading The Time Traveler's Wife, which, I have come to know now, is my very favorite book. From the time it first passed into my hands (loaned to me by my sister), I have owned 5 copies, as I cannot stop pressing it on other people. Read this, I want to say. Inside you will find the contents of my heart.

After Michelle told me that she had begun it, I picked up my copy, half-knowing what I was about to do to myself, but unable to deny myself the pleasure of reading it along with her.

The other night we walked, slicing through the cold air along the river, feet clomping on the boardwalk, all the lights dancing on the water. Once we saw a rat, a river rat, I guess, and we clutched each other and danced away, screeching and laughing. And while we walked, we talked about this book.

Finally, we came to talking about the epigraph, a poem by Derek Walcott, and Michelle told me about reading it, and what it made her feel. "It's funny," I said, "I have a story about that poem, too." And I told her that when I first started at UNCW, and I was meeting with my new advisor, I blurted out what I had not yet managed to tell anyone, that I was divorcing, that I found myself in Wilmington without friends or acquaintances, that I couldn't drive a car, that I was living in a hotel, holding on to the writing program like the victim of a sinking ship, clinging to a piece of sodden driftwood.

A week later, this poem was in my mailbox. I took it home and thumbtacked it to the wall in my first apartment, right above the computer. The place where I finally typed enough words to make myself a boat.

This is not my favorite poem, but it reminds me of so many things, not the least of which, now, is reading my favorite book with my dear friend.

Love After Love by Derek Walcott


The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Poem Sunday #1

Everybody's got a gimmick for NaBloPoMo, right?

Right?

Well, mine is going to be poem Sundays. Some of my happiest blog memories come from sharing my favorite poems, so this month you get four more.

Lawrence

by Tony Hoagland


On two occasions in the past twelve months
I have failed, when someone at a party
spoke of him with a dismissive scorn,
to stand up for D. H. Lawrence,


a man who burned like an acetylene torch
from one end to the other of his life.
These individuals, whose relationship to literature
is approximately that of a tree shredder


to stands of old-growth forest,
these people leaned back in their chairs,
bellies full of dry white wine and the ovum of some foreign fish,
and casually dropped his name


the way pygmies with their little poison spears
strut around the carcass of a fallen elephant.
“O Elephant,” they say,
“you are not so big and brave today!”


It’s a bad day when people speak of their superiors
with a contempt they haven’t earned,
and it’s a sorry thing when certain other people


don’t defend the great dead ones
who have opened up the world before them.
And though, in the catalogue of my betrayals,
this is a fairly minor entry,


I resolve, if the occasion should recur,
to uncheck my tongue and say, “I love the spectacle
of maggots condescending to a corpse,”
or, “You should be so lucky in your brainy, bloodless life


as to deserve to lift
just one of D. H. Lawrence’s urine samples
to your arid psychobiographic
theory-tainted lips.”


Or maybe I’ll just take the shortcut
between the spirit and the flesh,
and punch someone in the face,
because human beings haven’t come that far


in their effort to subdue the body,
and we still walk around like zombies
in our dying, burning world,
able to do little more


than fight, and fuck, and crow,
something Lawrence wrote about
in such a manner
as to make us seem magnificent.

Cartoon Physics

Thomas and I took all our change to the coinstar on Friday night. We made 122 dollars and went promptly to Best Buy to get the first season of Heroes on DVD. Neither of us had ever seen an episode before, but we'd heard that it ruled.

This morning, as we were watching the second episode, and we were whispering things to each other like, "Ok, so I guess we're to understand that it runs in families" as we figured out the rules to this alternate universe, I was suddenly reminded of a poem I love by Nick Flynn, called

Cartoon Physics, part 1.

Children under, say, ten, shouldn’t know
that the universe is ever-expanding,
inexorably pushing into the vacuum, galaxies

swallowed by galaxies, whole

solar systems collapsing, all of it
acted out in silence. At ten we are still learning
the rules of cartoon animation,

that if a man draws a door on a rock
only he can pass through it.
Anyone else who tries

will crash into the rock. Ten-year-olds
should stick with burning houses, car wrecks,
ships going down--earthbound, tangible

disasters, arenas where they can be heroes. You can run
back into a burning house, sinking ships

have lifeboats, the trucks will come
with their ladders, if you jump

you will be saved. A child

places her hand on the roof of a schoolbus,
and drives across a city of sand. She knows

the exact spot it will skid, at which point
the bridge will give, who will swim to safety
and who will be pulled under by sharks. She will learn

that if a man runs off the edge of a cliff
he will not fall

until he notices his mistake.

Word to Your Mother

I've never been one of those people who equates song lyrics with poetry. I don't mean that as a value judgement; it's not as if I consider songs to be intrinsically less important than poems, it's just that I think their aims and concerns are different.

I think a song works alongside music and those mysterious notes that are proven to evoke certain emotions in the listener. A song is meant to be heard aloud (yes, I hear you poetry students: a poem is meant to be heard aloud as well. But how often does that really happen? There are no radio stations for poetry) whereas a poem is most often heard in the mind's ear. And because it is heard aloud, it can rely on the vocalist's tone and inflection in a different way than a poem can.

Though, still, I guess it's all a means of communication, the constant struggle to deliver meaning with imperfect words. And then, too, in poetry, one of the things I love best is to hear the language played with, manipulated: people taking pleasure in the sounds of words.

This is why I love rap. That always strikes me a slightly hilarious, that I find rap so much closer to poetry than anything else. But there is something about a really wonderfully crafted series of words (particularly when it's off color, but that may be just something about my taste) that can force a delighted giggle out of me.

I've been reading Billy Collins while I do my algebra. I often tell my students, as I bumble through my explanations of x and y, that specialization is fine and normal and that I specialized in words, but that they may specialize in math and that neither is more important than the other (although I secretly think that they are both pretty worthless as far as daily life is concerned for the majority of the population. It's not like anyone ever comes up to you on the street and demands to know the slope of the line or what the direct object is).

But I do vastly prefer my words. And Billy Collins is the God of Words, soothing my burning, math-laden brain.

Thesaurus by Billy Collins

It could be the name of a prehistoric beast
that roamed the Paleozoic earth, rising up
on its hind legs to show off its large vocabulary,
or some lover in a myth who is metamorphosed into a book.

It means treasury, but it is just a place
where words congregate with their relatives,
a big park where hundreds of family reunions
are always being held,
house, home, abode, dwelling, lodgings and digs
all sharing the same picnic basket and thermos;
hairy, hirisute, woolly, furry, fleecy and shaggy
all running a sack race or throwing horseshoes;
inert, static, motionless, fixed and immobile
standing and kneeling in rows for a group photograph.

Here father is next to sire and brother close
to sibling, separated only by fine shades of meaning.
And every group has its odd cousin, the one
who traveled the farthest to be here:
astereognosis, polydipsia, or some eleven
syllable, unpronouncable substitute for the word tool.
Even their own relatives have to squint at their nametags.

I can see my own copy up on a high shelf.
I rarely open it, because I know there is no
such thing as a synonym and because I get nervous
around people who always assemble with their own kind,
forming clubs and nailing signs to closed front doors
while others huddle alone in the dark streets.

I would rather see words out on their own, away
from their families and the warehouse of Roget,
wandering the world where they sometimes fall
in love with a completely different word.
Surely, you have seen pairs of them standing forever
next to each other on the same line inside a poem,
a small chapel where weddings like these,
between perfect strangers, can take place.

Hoo-Rah! It's my Blogiversary!!

Ok, so I just made horrible montages of pictures of me from 1980 to the present. But I think I've decided that they are better saved for my 30th birthday, which is in a scant two months, and will be, more properly, a celebration of the 30 humiliating years of my life.

But, Fear Not. I will, today, provide you with evidence of the child prodigy who would later create this blog. Or else I will post some really, really embarrassing poetry from when I was 17.


However, first, some thanks to those of you who have kept me blogging, lo these 12 long months. Thanks first to my MFA peeps, who got me started on this thing and who keep reading, even when I am a slack-ass fool: Cue, Pen and M, Kim, Tom, Ashley, HAT, Duck, Growler, Eli, and Daisy. And thanks to the real-life blogging friends I've picked up along the way: Slater and JoshUA, that's you.

Huge, mindblowing, fireworks-like thanks to Velocibadgergirl, Gina, Lauren and Amanda, who read even though they don't know me from Adam. That makes all the difference in the world.

Whew! That was a lot of linkage. Thanks to my lurkers, who I know are out there but who never say hi and please feel free to chime in anytime. I know you will want to berate me for what I'm about to share with you.

Early works of literary genius (elementary school):
All punctuation and spelling left intact.

City and Onion (essay)

A city and an onion are alike because they probobly manufacture smelly pens and an onion smells. They are also alike because there is alot of traffic and when someone is run over everyone cries and when you peel onions you crie. There are citys of all sises and onions of all sises. Onions can be a reddish color and some signs in a city can be a reddish color. When onions are cut they can be stringy and maybe Italian people live in a city and eat spagetti.

Journal Entries

Today we were putting soup on my dog's food but it had jelled. I showed it to her and she backed away like it was an enemy. She sniffed it and ate up the jelled soup. Yuck!
***
In four days are chicks will hach. I cant wait!
***
Some chicks hached! They were supesd to hactch tomoro. I was surprised.
***
There are 4 more pages in my journal. I am excited!

A Story About One Time I Got Very Angry

When I lose my temper I end up huring sombody (probuly my sister).Once I was swinging on my swing, I was playing Traffic Jam. After you crash 3 times you get to swing and I did not even hit her one time and she said it was time for her turn. I felt like punching her. I walked away.

Surrender Pretender (poem) (interesting that I'm already employing line-breaks)

Surrender Pretender
I know you remember
that I'm not your maid I'm
your mother.
So do not shout and pout and shout,
or shouting back will wear my
voice out;
And how great it will be
when you Social Studee
and find out that
the world is free of slavery.
But 'till then I say--
Surrender Pretender!

Further staggering works (Middle School):

Poem

Its night and I am terified
I see a ghost that is 3 eyed
Help Help it is a scary sight
Oh no Oh no where is the
light?
My mom is coming what does
she want or is it another
ghostly haunt?
I'm very scared, worried,
confused.
Maybe the lights are all
defused.
I think I will lay and make
myself flat.
What!!--that ghost is only
my hat.

Journal Entry (apparent exercise in stream-of-conciousness)

We are now going on vacation. We will be in the car 6-7 hours. Yuck. We are at Ms. Jones house to give her the silver and the mink. Ali if you are reading this quit it. I am bringing Bomby his new baby and 2 of his old babys and Bop. I can't wait 'till school starts. I've gotten all new school stuff I'm glad. Mommy and Daddy just started the car. Im going to quit writing now We are in Penna. I can't wait till we get there. I just had a cheeseburger, chips and fries. I got to hear turn the radio up for that sweet sound. I adore that song. We were at Granma's for 10 minutes. We are not staying here we are going 2 tawanda I adore that name. The place was the pits. Mommy is laughing her head off. Now we are going to find something to eat. My favorite book is Anne of green gables. It is so, so good. Hi!! I don't know why I wrote hi. The dog is panting loudly. I miss Julie.

Diary Entries

Dear Diary,

I have had a fun day but I have a ton of homework. Poor Christy Mr. Patti called her sir. She doesn't look like a boy that much. Gosh.

Meg Wittig

Dear Diary,

Little Raven is sososososososososoossoossoosososos CUTE. He has a tantalizing smile. He is in my English class.

Meg

Heart (an unfinished story)

"Once upon a time" nope to fairy talish for this romance.

Love at its best remains undisturbed until the right circumstances take place. It is like Melissa and Steve. They knew each other since Mel was in third and Steve was in fourth grade. Mel is turned on by polite guys. This one seemed pretty polite--but nothing serious happened then. Years went by before they really thought 4 a minute about each other.
At the end of 4the grade, Mel decided that she liked Steve. I mean, just as a cute guy. But then it happened!!!

3 Way Tie, or Triple Knot (story with pictures!!)

Diary--
Danni, I saw him today.
--Eva

DIARY--
CUTE BOY ALERT
--RITA

Rita and Eva, picture perfect best friends. You could never separate them. They did everything together. They sang, danced, spent weekends and nights together the even rode their ten speeds together. Rita and Eva normally shared even their opinions. They used each other as motivation for things. They agreed on everything untill one subject--who got Danni.
It was a never ending argument causing hatred and hurt feelings. But it was Danni who had the problem. I'll show you what it was.



Yes Danni's problem was choosing. Two beautiful girls they adored him and they were his for the taking but whitch one-wich one should he pick.
"He likes me better" shouted Rita. "He does not he adores me and Im prettyer" said eva.
...
Mean while Danni was pondering over he problem Brains or looks brains or looks.



All right. Here's the part I've been really dreading. High school poetry. Feel the angst, baby. (All poems here were written following the same breakup. Thanks, Matthew!)

Stages

In the first few moments
there is nothing but stunned
disbelief;

It slowly fades into a sort of
endless agony
as one ponders the ramifications
of such an event;

People make light of it,
thinking that they are helping you
in some way,
Cheer up! Calm down!
(yeahmakeupyourmind)

And in the end it is acceptance.
The pain doesn't die, you just
become tolerant of it.
You live through it.
And you are never the same.


Lonely Time

There is a time, each day
Between seven and nine.
When living becomes a struggle...
When each breath seems to catch
in my throat.
When each tear seems to travel a mile before
dropping,
silently,
from the tip of my nose.
When my hands reach upward,
outward,
and find no one.
when it is too late
and too early
at the same time.


Immortality

And I can just recall
loving you on that 10 hour trip
Wishing almost, that the car
would
spin out
and crush our fragile mortality
crush my female belief that
love is forever
before we fell out of it
(You fell out of it)

Silence

I once knew a girl whose jet black hair provided her wiht a shield from the world, but not really. She loved with a ferocity that frightened the others, but she did not trust. To trust is to hand people the instrument with which to beat you, she reasoned. And so her love was silent, but not really. I once knew a boy, wholehearted in his belief that he could not love, but not really. He said that he watched his life from afar. I do not understand love, he reasoned, and I cannot accept what I do not understand. And so, he shunned feeling, but not always. And when they met, it was like a silence breaking. And when they kissed their carefully built walls came tumbling down. I love you she said, you have set me free. But in his mind he doubted, do I love? He questioned: What is love? And so he retreated, leaving her lost and without trust.



OH MY GOD, have you had enough? Can you even believe that I have a degree in Creative Writing? Can you believe I didn't beat up that guy? Aren't you glad you read the ramblings of the mind that produced all that?