Flying Monkey Productions

Time, Time, Time, See What's Become Of Me?

2012-02-07T09:03:00.000-08:00

I'm coming up on 5 months of unemployment, and am busier than ever. I have commited to writing for about an hour a day, and this has benefited my primary project, a chapbook with a horse theme. In fact, it may grow up into a full-length poetry manuscript if things keep going the way they are. On my to-do list is to get all the stray projects I have in careful files, boxes and folders and arrange them in my writing nook to be easily accesible. This way, when each particular Muse strikes me, and they do strike, I can grab said materials and get going on it!

Other goals I have include cleaning out the basement, cleaning off the refrigerator and rearranging the corner shelves so that I can properly display my new Jadite bowls, a foolish layaway that I choose to consider an early birthday present to myself.

One difficulty for me has been something that may be common to most artists. I have trouble justifying any time I spend writing. There's a guilty little voice in the back of my head that seems to insist I look for a job twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Then the house beckonss, and cleaning chores seem to always need doing. That call is relatively faint. I am a firm believer that even a lousy poem will have more meaning to humankind than an empty sink.

Perhaps this is why I've never been able to fully commit to writing as a life. I have never been able to really, truly acknowledge that my work has value, that it is important, to me and to others. There is of course the issue of money, which really is always an issue, but there are so many hours in a day. Why do I begrudge myself just one or two of them to devote to the only thing that makes sense, the art I have chosen above all others to express myself in?

I know I'm not Shakespeare or Plath or Jurkovic. I have my limits, but I am growing. This year in particular I am striving to reach beyond my familiar circle of friends who have supported my work and my readings for many years. Part of that is being true to myself and my work. It is my account of my days here. It is my witnessing. Right now, I have black bean soup in the crockpot, chicken fat rendering on the stove and plans to be out by 12:30 to get to the gym, and an eye appointment at 2:30. I should be home in time to make dinner, the unspoken deal I have with my boyfriend, since he is out of the house all day.

I may type a poem or two up while the chicken is simmering. And oh yes, perhaps toss another resume' out to the four winds, hoping it will land in some sympathetic employer's lap who may even email me to say s/he received it.

Poem: "Mustangs"

2012-01-30T07:53:00.000-08:00

-for Susan now

The thing I admire about Marilyn is how she tried,

with makeup, with movies, with husbands.
In that last film with Gable and the mustangs,
black and white Nevada desert,
she was really good. But then, she was always good.

She looks like a voluptuous ghost,
stiff blonde wig to make her hairdresser's
work easier on location.
Marilyn did her job, when she got to the set,
when she let loose, went into motion.

Even in black and white, her eyes still
burn like blue coals, even this late
in her soap opera of her life.

Did she stall out of terror—of Gable?

She looks so at home in his big tanned hands,
ready for bedtime stories and tucking in.
Not the camera; they had a thing, her steadiest beau.
Their love alone has stood the test of time.

Maybe under those Western stars, far Vegas overkill
black between the lights, endless Sierras
rimming the horizon, she felt even smaller.
Maybe Norma Jeanne
kept Marilyn up all night.

"We're all dying," she says in the film,
and what kind of line is that to stuff
in the mouth of the woman you used to love?
Bitter Valentine, a caution to other women
who think they're safe with a writer.

Mustangs at the end of Gable's rope
snort and buck, give a good performance,
slick with prop sweat.

I admire how she worked to stay alive.

Consider how little Norma Jeanne
was ever worth on the open market.
She knew that with Marilyn
the sky itself
was the
limit.

CAR 12/2/99

They Come In Threes

2012-01-24T17:13:00.000-08:00

This one has absolutely nothing to do with poetry, but the events of the last couple of weeks. Three deaths in one week is just stupid in anyone's life. The myth is that poets thrive on death and tragedy. Just like everyone else, we each react in different ways. I wasn't particularly thrilled, nor was I inspired to pen an ode to each of the three who passed. Yet my work was affected, as every life changing event will affect your art.

My Auntie Dottie died on January 15 after complications following a heart attack. She was a funny, caring woman who has been through a lot in her 71 years. I will probably never really grasp the fact that she's gone. I chose not to go to the services for various personal reasons, but even seeing the body sometimes doesn't make it any more real.

There is this cast of characters in my family, the aunts and uncles I grew up with, and in my mind's eye they never change, they never age, and they never die. I suppose moving away from Long Island to go to college, then never quite moving back, has frozen them in my mind. In a way, they are all parts of the foundation I built my life on. When they die, my foundation is literally rattled. This is how her death affected me. The landscape is forever changed.

I haven't written a thing about her yet, but I'm sure she's somewhere back in my arsenal of images. I am working most diligently on a chapbook of poems about horses, having grown up around them. So did Aunt Dottie. I usually shy away from dedications on my chapbooks, but this one will be for her. Maybe I can include that beautiful picture of her on horseback, as a teenager. That would be perfect.

My friend Rosanne called me about the death of our friend Susan the day after I found out about Aunt Dottie. Susan, Rosanne and I were all part of the Stone Ridge Poetry Society back in the mid ‘80s, but I don’t remember Susan from those days. She always said she remembered me! Of course, I was the woman with two first names then. At least that much did stick in a person’s mind!

Everything that could possibly be wrong in someone's life was wrong in Susan's, yet whenever we spoke, she always had a plan, several plans for the future. Ultimately, her body failed her, in part due to stress, but I'll always be inspired by her persistence. She, too, was a funny woman, smart and independent. It's the stubborn independence that may have contributed to her early death at 57, but it also enabled her to live the life she wanted for many years. I will always miss her hospitality, her insights, her easy ear. Real confidantes are sometimes hard to find, and Susan was one. I hope I listened sometimes, too.

The third passing didn’t hit as close to home as the first two, but was still saddening. In the spring I reconnected with my ex sister-in-law, thanks to Facebook of all things, and she and her husband Andrew even attended one of my readings. Unfortunately, Andrew was in and out of the hospital for most of the summer and we never got together again except for my visit to his hospital room one day.

Bella was so obviously the reason for his being. I'm sure she kept him going. They made the trip down by car to Florida for their annual snowbird exodus last fall. He died last Thursday, his body finally too tired to go on. I haven't spoken to Bella yet in person, but I'm flattered that in all her grief, she thought to call and leave me a message about Andrew. I long ago lost any rank or importance in her family, but not to Bella I guess. I can't wait to see her again.

Before these passings, I had fallen into a regular routine of writing and revising poetry for at least an hour a day. I hope to get back to that, and have done some work in the last couple of days. I hate when people pretentiously speak on behalf of the deceased, oh, ‘So-and-So would have wanted it that way…’ We can’t really be sure. Susan knew how much poetry means to me. Aunt Dottie and Andrew knew I was a poet. It just wasn’t a part of their life experience.

I have to continue. I don’t have a choice. I’m the one who’s still here, somehow.

COAST TO COAST- Poetry Chaplet

2012-01-11T05:29:00.000-08:00

COAST TO COAST, original poetry chaplet by Cheryl A. Rice, c. 2011 Flying Monkey Press, only $5, postage included.

From the title poem:

"Coast to coast doesn't have to mean
Silver Zephyr, Orangeland Express.
There are commuters, the bi-coastal,
but the way I was raised, it's a world away."

A collection of poems about love lost, found, then lost again on opposite sides of the country. Quantities are limited!

Email me at dorothyy62@hotmail.com for the address to send your order to! Thanks!

2012: Year of the Chapbooks!

2012-01-07T06:19:00.000-08:00

2011 ended on something of a downbeat. In October, I was "let go" from my job as manager at the Inquiring Minds Bookstore in Saugerties. This was not a surprise, and I should have been preparing for it long before it happened. And it’s not without a little satisfaction that I now learn that I was replaced by a part-time manager! Onward and upward!

Eligible for unemployment, I have spent a good portion of the last three months organizing my life. After last summer's horrific storms, I was inspired to begin tackling the piles of goods I have managed to store up in the basement of Casa Diva in the ten years I've been here, and the five my boyfriend has spent here as well. Consolidation, charity, out in the trash-- all options have been exercised. I don't ever want to move as much stuff as I did when I moved in here. The thing is, this house was the first place I was able to have all my possessions in at one time since I lived with my parents. It is time to let go of so much.

I have also used the time to put together a couple of chapbooks, mainly from existing work, and I'm pleased to announce that I have TWO chapbooks scheduled for publication in 2012. In December, I put together a small chaplet through my own Flying Monkey Press as well. "Coast to Coast" is only $3, and believe me when I say quantities are limited. I'm not trying to be cute; only sixteen of them came out well enough to sell!! The chaplet is an homage to a special person who inspired a number of poems over the years, and although not enough to qualify as a full blown chapbook, I felt I wanted to get what work I had regarding this person out there, and in some kind of collected form.

I sent a manuscript titled, "My Minnesota Boyhood" to Finishing Line Press back in February for their New Women’s Voices contest and heard nothing about the outcome until just a few days ago. An email informed me that the book had been accepted for publication, outside of the contest. Attached was their standard contract, requiring a presale of fifty-five copies for the minimum press run. Although satisfied that my work was in fact acceptable, I was somewhat annoyed at their total lack of communication beforehand. I had to keep checking their website to find out when a winner had been declared in the contest. In this age of email, I don't see any excuse for not sending a quick note to contestants.

My friend Guy Reed had a book published by Finishing Line last year, and neither of us was altogether thrilled with the experience. Strange delays, oddly impersonal, form-type emails-- one had to wonder if his manuscript had been read at all. The final product was very nice, though in my opinion a bit overpriced at $12 for a stapled binding, but the content is of course excellent. I highly recommend "The Effort to Hold Light," and it's available through either Finishing Line or Amazon.

In the meantime, I offered the same manuscript to Dayl Wise at Post Traumatic Press, based in Woodstock, NY. He had already put two months work into the book when I got the email from Finishing Line. He thought I was crazy to turn them down, I supposed because in some circles they might qualify as a "real" publisher. Dayl's press, started to in part provide a forum for the writings of military veterans, is as real as it gets. If I was to receive some sort of cash prize, I would have had second thoughts (see above). But all things being equal, I will continue to "dance with them that brung me," and "My Minnesota Boyhood" will be coming out in the next couple of months.

A second manuscript, this one a collection of poems inspired by the city of Albany, NY and my experiences there over the last twenty-plus years, is in the works. Dan Wilcox is the proprietor at APD Press in Albany, and a longtime friend. He puts out few chapbooks these days, what with demonstrating and reigning as the Capitol District's Old Beatnik of Letters, but what he does do is carefully selected work. I am honored that he's accepted my work. I think we might be looking at fall for this one, and it's as yet untitled, but I will keep you posted on its whereabouts.

In the meantime, I'm writing, revising, and oh yeah, looking for a day job. I in no way believe that I'll be able to earn a living as a poet, and frankly, this gives me the freedom to write what I like, instead of what others assign to me. Better for my art, better for my mental health. Pass along any leads on work, and let me know if anything sounds interesting... anything, really!! It's been too long and I have no excuses for getting at least one update a month up here. Mea Culpa, as the overeducated say.

Happy 2012!!

Poem: "No Judgment Zone"

2011-10-28T05:41:00.000-07:00

O beautiful woman at the gym with your big body and your highlighted hair, your black button-down shirt and sneakers,

thank you for being here, whatever the reason.

It's a no-judgment zone, but that doesn't mean I can't look

at the pregnant woman in the long tight shirt pulled snug over five month belly,

man in the wife-beater and sunglasses, fingerless gloves,

tattoos that blend into his dark skin,

soft man in white , bright red face,

twenty minutes on the treadmill, TV tuned to MSG,

soft woman in pink sneakers, t-shirt advertising our gym, following a

trainer from station to station like an advocate of an unseen cross,

all here to look better, or feel better, or because their spouses want them to be,

or to be somewhere that's not their own house,

to meet somebody sober, somebody in the same sweaty boat.

I've never found romance here, but I've taken kisses

from an old friend dripping with effort on the elliptical,

giggled at later by ladies watching, not judging me.

And there is the beautiful man I've been watching for years now,

beautiful because he keeps coming back.

He is always on the stationary bike when I begin my careful routine,

is still there when I come back for my last fifteen minutes, on a bike too.

He's the only one I recognize week after week, three years now,

and he isn't getting any smaller, but he's here, keeps coming back.

I want to thank him, this beautiful man in the dark goatee.

I want to tell him that some days the idea that he might be there,

keeps being there, is the only reason I come.

I want to thank everyone for coming, and to skip the free pizza

on first Monday nights, unless it fits in with their food plan,

but it's a no-judgment zone, and doesn't that include cheerleading?

I am there myself to get it over with,

to lounge guilt-free before the fireplace video,

devour homemade popcorn 'til I pop myself.

I am here not so I can live forever,

but so I don't die quite as badly as I might otherwise.

O beautiful man, o beautiful woman,

thank you for joining me at the purple fountain, for the company

on this arduous stroll across the universe of machines,

into the path of most resistance.

CAR 2/1/11

Poem: "Iowa"

2011-09-18T18:38:00.000-07:00

A kindly tourist explains the difference between

the heat in the Hudson Valley and Iowa, his home,

which can get this humid but, he said, it's hard to explain.

This New York valley holds the moisture in its bowl,

and that's what makes the trees so green,

then the autumn colors so vivid. He says the weather here

is comparable to southern Iowa or Missouri.

Twain spoke at commencement for the girls at Vassar

once upon a time, a century ago.

Was the weather like home then?

The tourist begins again on the shelves of books on autism,

says he's finished the top two, and has three more to go through.

He gets a hot coffee, despite the heat outside,

inadequate air cooling inside, dark, no milk,

lidded before he leaves the counter, so sugar is out, too.

Missouri, Iowa are faraway countries from upstate New York.

Nothing is far enough away from Long Island, and

inconsequential in any case. There are no beaches

on the shores of the Mississippi. There are no shells

in the mud of the Big Muddy. The sunlight, quickly returned

after a brief, hard shower, enters the shop with some

resistance from the awnings. The glare off cars across the street

is sharp and familiar, a part of summer sunshine in June,

when the light lasts longer and has more to say,

has a more definite impression to make.

Milt Jackson's metal bubbles pop on the CD,

barely audible in the background.

Ambience. It doesn't stop the kids in the afternoon

from playing with the puppets, using a flannel mouth

to say what they mean, assuming the dull roles of

physician, cheerleader, pirate, dragon.

Only Coltrane, narrating his own destruction,

Can chase the teens out into the heat,

down to the park, to smoke as teens always smoke

before their lungs fall out, beside the Esopus,

tribute to the Hudson, distant cousin of the

Mississippi, both being of water, both rolling

while we here stop and talk about the weather.

CAR 6/1/11

I'm BAAAAAACK!

2011-09-10T07:14:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note today, but after a few months of pretending to live like a non-poet, I have decided to embrace my fate and recommit to the Writing Life. I have several projects in the works, and a reading on Oct. 1 at the Beahive in uptown Kingston (part of Phillip's Levine's COW series), so I need to be back on the poetic ball. Bohemian Book Bin in November and Vooreheesville in December are a couple others readings I see on my dance card.

Wondering whether I should put another chapbook together on my own, or put some energy into shopping manuscripts around to some of the smaller presses. What's your opinion? I like the artistic control of doing it all myself, but of course being published by an outside entity is tremendously satisfying and validating. Perhaps I'll do both...

I think writing time will have to be carved out of the evenings. Mornings are a little rough lately, what with the back out and the allergies due to come back in full force any day now... So, I'll be cutting way back on the Netflix dinners with my Beloved Roomie, TMM. Except for "Gomer Pyle, USMC"...

Green Eyes & the Green-Eyed Monster

2011-05-18T05:08:00.000-07:00

Just so you don't all get the idea that I'm the benevolent, generous and all-supportive Poetry Diva of the Hudson Valley you thought I was, you should know that a friend shared a pre-production layout of a postcard promoting a first book of poetry, to be published by a real press, and after my initial thrill, the very next emotion I experienced was jealousy. I feel like the last kid to get my ears pierced, despite my many self-published products, appearances of my work in over 40 literary journals and my recent success with the RANDOM WRITING poetry workshop. I think what pushed me over the edge were the three endorsements for the book, written by mutual friends. Wonderful, insightful remarks all, but I really wished they’d been about my work.

Not that I often think my work is worthy of professional publication. I know how much sweat and blood my friend put into the preparation of that manuscript. I helped with the revisions, and had the opportunity to read a large chunk of this work all at once, the same experience readers will have when they order the book. Dues have been paid and publication earned. I fluctuate about the quality/value of my work between somewhat worthy and total crap. I don't write this to fish for compliments. It is really what's happening between my ears. I continue to write mainly because I continue to need to express myself, to witness, to shoot my mouth off in a subtle way that I suspect will deteriorate over time into blatant curmudgeony haiku.

I am also very aware of the serendipitous nature of the publication game itself. I have often read published works that very clearly illuminate the sexual relationship that surely exists between editor and poet. I do know black from white. My efforts at publication have also been intermittent at best, and life at large usually gets the best of me these days. I have work out now, not much new but little circulated. Coming back to it a few years after its composition, I had the ability to cast a fresh eye on it, and saw it was good. Good enough for publication? I don't have that answer. All I know is no one will publish poetry that's still in my computer files. Otherwise, I'd have been the new Plath by now. Although Sexton had more fun.

Incidently, I wish my friend nothing but the best in this endeavor, and am honored to have been included so intimately in the process. I'll keep you all posted, and you'd really be doing yourself a favor to pre-order when the time arrives. 55 must be pre-sold for publication to take place, a practical stance for a 21st century publisher to take. I'll keep you posted.

Poem: "The World Stood Still For Easter"

2011-04-24T05:27:00.000-07:00

God, the world stood still for Easter,

no Walmart strolls for fun after church,

no super sales at the mall!

You were lucky they had milk left at the 7-11,

to make it to the deli by noon!

We got up early for our chocolate bunnies

(one year blinded by my brother before breakfast),

chosen not for the taste, but their fascinating shape,

rabbit fur, sometimes a cart molded into their waxy shells,

silky pressed daisy pasted onto their necks,

and jellybeans eaten in order of preference:

green, yellow, orange, red, sharp pink, black,

always one lost in the cellophane grass

until next year.

Breakfast was eggs we dyed the day before,

R2-D2, or just a crayoned name,

stripes or stickers on impatient pastels,

a few muddied experiments,

some tucked into a braided wreath of bread.

Then into new outfits for church,

my small rosebud bonnet early on,

sheer white shell covered with gauzy flowers

that hung around for years, then went away,

navy pantsuit, black for optimists,

and always new shoes, black velvet wedges when I was older,

strappy white sandals when the weather held.

And sometimes spring was with us by Easter and

sometimes not, but we always gambled to dress the part,

though some years winter coats covered

sky blue, peach pink granny gowns.

And our church had Easter in it every day,

giant paper butterflies hung from the clean rafters,

white and orange and yellow blocks of glass

glowing in the morning light and sometimes sun.

Hymns we knew all the words to on Easter,

jiggling the plate with envelopes of change.

Dinner was pot roast or sauerbraten,

Sunday dinner where we all behaved,

sat politely at the picnic table we kept for dining

in the little kitchen, fire at my mother's back,

spoke to each other as if we'd just met,

wondering how to proceed,

the promise of a new meal

broken by the last crescent crust.

And dessert was solitary relief in front of the TV,

Davey and Goliath faded with the noon and the robin,

shoes and long dresses discarded,

descent into puddings and cakes and all heaven,

Peeps silent in the common basket,

bonnets laid aside in the dark.

CAR 4/11/04

Town Versus Gown: Academic and "Street" Poets

2011-03-28T06:49:00.000-07:00

Last week, a friend of mine was featured reading his poetry on a local radio station, along with a professor from one of the area colleges. Mike Jurkovic has no college under his belt that I'm aware of, but 25+ years of fairly technical experience at Cosmodemonic Communications. The professor's work I am aware of, but I don't know him personally. The contrast in style was striking and as most poets know, there is something of a split in the poetry community between those with schooling and those who are driven to express themselves in words without a formal education. Generally, I can see the positive attributes to both types of writing, but personally my taste does lean towards the so-called "street" poets.

Luckily, none of the poets I know who might fit into that category actually live on the street or spend most of their time there. Their poems can often be grammatically incorrect, or the meanings of words bent or broken, depending on how much they rely on computer thesauruses. One can be critical of these flaws, or accept them as part of the creative process. I can only completely do that if I know the poet made those choices to err consciously and deliberately. I still believe in proper grammar and usage because they are elements that make the language common to all of us-- the level playing field on which we all interact.

Academic poetry (for lack of a better term-- I see Mark Doty has recently taken exception to it, but until the lines become blurred, if ever, it will be the one I choose) has a tendency to rely too much on form, in my opinion. The lines are carefully crafted, with rhymes and rhythms perfectly assembled. More often than not, however, I find the overall effect of such poetry gutless. It rarely soars for me. There are exceptions of course, but I am speaking now of my personal experience with poets in my immediate radar. The chances that street poets take in content, metaphor and vocabulary interest me far more than the level, sanitary structures that are the rule and not the exception from the Ivory Tower.

I think perhaps the two groups could benefit from more exchange. The street poets could only make their work stronger by nailing down the basics of grammar, spelling and usage. Then variations would be deliberate choices for effect and not accidents. The benefits to academics would be less precise, but no less valuable. The subjects that street poets write about are far more wide ranging than those of the academic. Opening up to that expanded realm of possibility can only enrich their work.

Writing is a solitary activity. Going out to open mics and hearing other poets from anywhere is always a broadening experience, even if you don't connect, even if you don't like what they have to say or the way they say it. Reading big and small publishers and going online, where many of the little magazines are migrating to because of economics, helps to remind us why we all do this. We are trying to communicate our feelings, our thoughts and our observations. The language that we are using, whether flawed or stilted, isn't really all that different when it comes down to it. Listen beyond the words, read between the lines. Go to the streets and climb the Tower. It will be an adventure, at the very least.

Janine Pommy-Vega Celebration- Woodstock, NY; 2/20/11

2011-02-21T04:38:00.000-08:00

There was a celebration of the life of Janine Pommy-Vega yesterday in Woodstock, NY. Vega, who passed in December, 2010, was one of the few females allowed into and promoted by the tight, male-dominated circle of Beat poets in the 1960s. She was a force unto herself as well, and for almost 30 years taught writing workshops in the prisons of New York State. Two former workshop participants were among the speakers, and they revealed that the groups often referred to Vega as "Mother".

I knew Janine only as an acquaintance. My shyness, which may come as a surprise to some, sometime prevents me from taking advantage of the poets around me, the big leaguers that we are accustomed to having among us here in the Hudson Valley. The same is true of my relationship with Enid Dame, who many recall as perhaps the least threatening person to inhabit the planet. I was lucky to have had her attentions for one morning at a small workshop, but I do regret not just going up and chatting with her at the many readings she and her husband Donald Lev attended. Donald is still here, and yet I still feel that absurd intimidation with him at times, though I do my best to go beyond it. Regret is a bitter, irrevocable emotion, but one that can perhaps help to change my future behavior, at least a little.

Vega was genuine, tough, dynamic, and yet so sunny and positive that if one didn't know better, one might think it was merely an attention-grabbing false face she wore at readings. Even the last few times I saw her read, her once strong body crapping out on her big time, the energy behind her words remained. I was privileged to have seen her up close and it action. She grabbed your attention, that's true, but it was because of the power of her words, her energy, for lack of a less Woodstocky term. She had the beat, she was a Beat, and that rhythm will echo down through future generations of writers, activists and optimistic doers.

I will remember two things about Janine. During a chat after a reading, we were talking about chapbooks, and she advised me to use a spine as opposed to a folded and stapled format, so that the book would be visible on the shelf. What an excellent observation! I also have an image in my head of driving down the back roads of Woodstock during a fireworks display, sometime in late summer a few years back. We passed by Janine, standing beside her car, left foot wrapped in the boot that had become a permanent part of her wardrobe. She was looking up at the sky. smiling. Janine Pommy-Vega, who had traveled the world, charmed hardened criminals, moved mountains as she hiked them, could still be delighted by the simple spectacle of summer and gunpowder. What an example for us to follow, always trailing behind where she cleared the way.

COLLEGE OF POETRY- SPRING 2011

2011-01-05T05:25:00.000-08:00

NORTHEAST POETRY CENTER

COLLEGE OF POETRY

SPRING 2011 CURRICULUM

MARCH 19-MAY 7

RANDOM WRITING- CHERYL A. RICE,

SATS. 10 A.M.-12 NOON

dorothyy62@yahoo.com

RANDOM WRITING is a poetry workshop based on Inspiration, Word Play, Text Play and Peer Response, designed to encourage prolific and satisfying writing.

20TH CENT. LATIN AMERICAN POETRY IN TRANSLATION- JANET HAMILL,

SATS. 1:30 P.M.-3:30 P.M.

www.janethamill.com

Hamill’s course will examine the exciting panorama of 20^th century Latin American poetry in all its regional and stylistic diversity.

TUITION: $150 PER 8 WEEK COURSE.

FOR MORE INFORMATION OR TO REGISTER:

WILLIAM SEATION, 845-294-8085, SEATON@FRONTIERNET.NET

Northeast Poetry Center, 7 West Street, Warwick, NY 10990

Poem: "Blessed"

2010-12-16T04:39:00.001-08:00

Blessed

"Is Jesus still alive?" my niece whispers to my sister,

unconvinced by the pomp and ribbons

of the decorated tree before us,

o holy night carolers trembling song,

dark-robed minister and his simple good grin.

"He was a good man, and that's

why we celebrate his birthday,"

is my sister's ecumenical reply.

We have talked about this, and agree about

the man, the story, the not believing.

I am not guilty as this litany assumes,

wasn't born bad, have not gone,

owe no apology to some Great White Father King,

but the congregants recite,

in the glow of electric popcorn balls,

30-watt savior device in the popsicle creche,

their apologies.

My nephew and niece are invited to the menagerie,

handed a small stuffed donkey, plaster lamb

to add to the crowd in attendance at the celluloid babe's cribside,

after the second hymn, second verse, O Little Town tonight.

They don't know the words,

and we are so distracted by the lights and burgundy and

gold on the tree tumbling into our laps

that they almost miss their cue.

Yes, Jaimee', there is a Jesus,

and he lives as surely as Christmas returns,

with or without the snow you missed,

without blame, even without faith,

He fills the pantry for the poor that

the minister says is bare already, only December.

He carries the souls of the suddenly light into the next act.

He lays in the bed of straw, patiently waiting for his attackers

to come with their gifts, to cover the earth in gold,

surround the barn in a cloud of frankincense,

lubricate his small limbs with myrr

for the sleep of

the peacemakers,

for they are blessed.

CAR 12-28-01

Writer's Block & Therapy

2010-12-06T04:40:00.000-08:00

I've been seeing a therapist for about a month and a half now, due to some issues that I was no longer comfortable boring my friends with. And trust me, I did enough of that this year. So, in that time, and maybe for a while before that, I haven't written one poem. Now, there are times that I say that and go back into my files and find one or two that have somehow leaked out and avoided my conscious memory, almost like they don't count as poems. But that's not

the case now.

As usual, I had a flood of ideas after the Dodge, and two or three of those became poems, but after that-- just silence. I don't really let these silent times bother me much, because I have learned from experience that I will come around to writing again. I am, however, contemplating the connection between therapy and writing. Is it a drain on my creative resources? Is the break my Muse is taking related more to the holidays than the biweekly sessions with a loving,

receptive sounding board who validates my essential sanity and instincts? Or is it that, because most of my poems are of such a personal nature (hopefully personal in a way that is universally recognizable and accessible), I am afraid that the therapist is my only audience right now, and my best "material" is going to her and not the page?

There is no doubt that I was in need of an objective ear. I have been fighting depression on and off all year, the kind that won't just go away with a little yoga or Budweiser. And I don't anticipate that this round of therapy will go on forever. But I am a teeny bit anxious about writing. Anxious now to get back on the literary "horse" I rode into this blog on, and so much else in my life that's worthwhile.

I still trust I will, but for now, I am doing the mechanical work of being a poet. I have sorted through twenty years worth of poetry, cleaned out files and thrown away multiple copies of no use. I managed to complete the application for the New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship in poetry, offered only once every two years. I read a few old Christmas poems at a party yesterday (invited to, incidently, NOT forcing myself on an otherwise jolly affair!). I went to a terrific reading on Saturday night hosted by my friend Rebecca Schumejda and featuring three talented Hudson Valley writers: Guy Reed, Glenn Werner,

and Will Nixon. I am still going through the motions.

I have made some notes for a drawing that I'd like to begin. A sort of expression of my anxiety this year. For the many who don't know, art and writing were neck and neck in my life for many years, before I chose the language route in college. I even earned my Regents diploma in art. I still keep drawing supplies around, but rarely use them. Perhaps this quiet time is the time

to go back to that nonverbal express. Or, a time to restore visual art to my creative options.

I do trust that I'll be writing again soon. I have projects planned. But this time of year, everything seems to be planned for "after the holidays". I am coasting now. It's OK. I'm still breathing, therapy is going very, very well, and I look forward to seeing more friends over the course of the season. All is well today.

Poem: "Devoted"

2010-11-27T06:03:00.000-08:00

There are people devoted to a cause,

a talent, who abandon their homes, families,

go sleepless for weeks perfecting a move,

filling a canvas, and I wonder,

what I’ve ever done for love?

I drew in high school, but it was too easy.

I could see it and copy it, line for line,

and there it was.

I sang in the chorus, too shy for solos.

Ditto for theater, my single performance

the role of a nameless villager

in Fiddler on the Roof,

on stage without glasses to

manage my fright.

I was never an athlete or dancer,

and writing, writing was breathing,

just notes stuffed in bottles

thrown out into the world.

There are no Help Wanteds for poets.

The only thing I can think of,

my desire, my passion, was to get out.

I wanted to make my own home,

come and go as I pleased,

create my own space, not an eggshell in sight.

It's the only thing I've accomplished,

created here among books written by others,

other people’s paintings, movies, CDs.

I have crocheted the odd baby blanket when necessary,

cook avant garde meals depending on my food zone,

but the only thing I've actually completed

was escape into my own

solar system of existence.

And having gotten out, all I remember

is being in, and I can't get that out.

I can't get away from that.

CAR 5-5-10

Thanksgiving & Grandma Mi

2010-11-11T04:08:00.000-08:00

In honor of my Grandmother, Marcella Kozloski Mihovilich, on what would have been close to her 100th birthday:

Thanksgiving Too

Her funeral priest spoke in general terms,

but we knew from experience that with two sticks of bread

Grandma made a fire of feast,

a little anise behind her ears,

dear roast held over obedient flame,

soup from the bones of leftover husbands,

sugared hands that sweetened the meal,

poisoned her own blood,

snow pudding melting in waves of green foam

on the tongue, custard avalanche behind.

Even small Arnold's slices at her breakfast table

morphed into something better than bread.

At Thanksgiving, perhaps, my mother won,

where my father, with his low drunk tolerance

for sentiment or hors d'oevres,

would rather have spit it out, destroying the evidence.

My mother and her own oven won a little those days.

It was a bird bigger than eagles in this world

that flew from our forks to paradise of stomachs,

then to the sewer's afterlife, and the journey

was olive sweet, cranberry bright, carnival shimmer

in the nut bowl's glory, crackers at rest.

And the bones rested after in a hot bath of boredom,

surrendering to noodles their last bit of light.

CAR 1/5/04

College of Poetry!

2010-11-10T04:42:00.000-08:00

     I have been asked to teach in the spring of 2011 at the College of Poetry in Warwick, NY, a relatively new endeavor that bodes well for the future of poetry in the Hudson Valley and beyond. The current format includes three eight-week courses and one or two guest poets per semester, and past participants have included such heavyweights as Ed Sanders and, upcoming on November 13, Janine Pommy-Vega. I am unbelievably flattered to have my proposal accepted, and I'm probably most excited about being involved in the College so that I'll be able to say I was there "when".

     The board of advisors consists of several poets whose work and personas I have been familiar with for years. William Seaton is a brilliant man, with an intimidating joy that he finds impossible to repress. Steve Hirsch is the longtime publisher of Heavenbone, a spiritually oriented literary magazine whose staying power is a miracle unto itself. Robert Milby is the hardest working man in Hudson Valley poetry, now hosting a mere three open mics every week but who has managed many, many more. He also keeps us up to date on who's birthday and death anniversary it is, and those juxtapositions alone are often intriguing and thought provoking. I am less familiar with the other members: Steve Calitri, Janet Hamill (who will also be offering a course this spring), Lynn Hoins and Mona Toscana, but their devotion to poetry is apparent by their very presence.

    There is no great financial reward at this point for teaching at the College of Poetry, about an hour and a half from my home. There is rarely any financial benefit to poetry, unless one counts the money saved on therapists and bullets. But the satisfaction of participating is what excites me. An entire school devoted to just poetry! Sounds almost illegal, doesn't it?

     I'll be teaching a version of my RANDOM WRITING workshops, which in themselves are intended to show poets where to find inspiration around them. A sort of planned obsolescence. Check out the website for more information, and contact Seaton on how to register at seaton@frontiernet.net. The College of Poetry is at http://www.collegeofpoetry.com/index.html.

November Inventory

2010-11-01T04:35:00.000-07:00

Over the last couple of months I've taken on a task that some days seems like a cowardly escape from the business of writing poetry, and other days an ingenious excavation into my archives, mining for forgotten gems and possibly a chapbook or two based on themes instead of chronology, my usual format. I have been sorting through 20 years of poetry, year by year, file by file. As disorganized as I
often feel, I have at least been throwing my work into folders each year, and dating each poem as I write it. With open mics and submissions, I've begun to accumulate multiple copies of certain poems, and scant few of others. Tossing these extras is always good; my file drawers are somewhat limited, and since I expect to continue to write for a few years, every inch of storage space counts.

Another goal is to create a master list of titles from which to draw from for chapbooks and readings. I had a large stack of what I thought was a good variety of work, but now seems limited to more recent, and perhaps more currently meaningful pieces. I am assimilating these poems into the general file, and within each file, organizing poems alphabetically by year. The master list will cover
the years 1990 through 2010. Work prior to 1990 I still consider somewhat immature (even for me), but some nuggets may be found there yet. For now, 20 years is quite enough to deal with.

Since my poems have always been very personal, traveling back through the years this way is somewhat unnerving. Some years were more prolific than others. In 2001, I wrote something like 74 poems, most before the Towers fell of course. Although I have always said 9/11 left me speechless, poetry-wise, for months, my files tell a different story. I was up and running a lot more quickly than I recalled. Survival, I guess. I was also hearing too many bad odes to the victims, etc., things you would typically expect poets to write after such an event. That alone must have driven me to try to capture the mood, my reactions in a different way. In part I succeeded.

In 1993, I was in grad school in Albany, and taking a poetry workshop with Judith Johnson. It was a tumultuous year which ended with my moving back to the Hudson Valley and quitting school. In that year, I counted 7 poems that began with the word, "I", a record for even me. It is not my best year of work by a longshot. I moved in part to escape a failed romance, and started one in Albany that was doomed from the start. I worked in a chain bookstore at the Crossgates Mall (with aforementioned doomed object of affection) and barhopped most nights. From what I can see now, little of that material is salvageable, but I'm sure it helped me to stay functional and make the good choice of returning to Ulster County, where many longtime friends were and are. It was an experience and I still go to Albany for the active poetry scene there. Not so much for the romance...

In fact, one of the blessings to come from this sorting is the amazing realization that I can no longer name every lover obliquely referred to in a poem. Ah, thank goodness for that middle age forgetfulness!!

I am in the home stretch of this project. I have 1999 to sort through, alphabetize, discard extras and remove the many staples I must have felt were vitally necessary the last time I tackled this. I have the rough drafts for many poems, and I hope these will help in rewriting. Is this a worthy activity or just a way to hide from the subjects I have yet to explore? Both, I think. I can go back and confirm that I have accomplished something over the years, that I have at times written poems that satisfied me somewhat. It is reassuring at a time when I am a bit tongue-tied. I always have things to say, but not always the balls to do so. And yes, women have balls too, according to Joan Jett. They're just higher up.

I need to find my balls again. Reassessing my past is one way to invigorate my future.

Poem: "No Songs, No Packages"

2010-10-27T05:14:00.000-07:00

-On Sylvia Plath's 68th Birth Anniversary

No cake, no candles, no flames to burst open
with the blow of a matronly sigh,
she has long been missing these affairs,
our jelly glass oracle,
frozen in the oily panic of youth
for almost forty winters now. Look,

she has done it again, and made it stick,
since fox let the secret out,
a stench no clove stab can cover. Look!
Even her husband, who bore the weight of
those cold candles, waxy tears stuck
in that moment, even he has gone where
no song is celebrated, skull moldering next to hers,
bright now with forty years grub fest, Daddy in fist, how

could you? After the roar has subsided, look!
No hats, no crepe paper carousel roofs,
the show is over, the exit is out, you can go
with your painted bricks, your sobbing crocodile slaves,
crow feathers pinned to your bosom in black recall.
The ending, unfit as it is, is theirs,
details of potatos and bees and

babes, milk gone sour is
all we have, all we are allowed.
Let us close up the cottage on that fairy scene.
They are happy there, before the fall, hives full,
thatch tight with blue promise.
It is not for repair, for figuring.
It is to close, like a book of bad dreams,
leaving the dreamers to sleep at the last.

CAR 10/27/00

Happy Birthday, Sylvia Plath

2010-10-27T05:10:00.000-07:00

By my reckoning, Sylvia Plath would have been 78 years old today. It's difficult to imagine her as a mature woman, with a body of such personal work that tends to freeze her in the mind at the age she died, 30 (sadly, far short of the 9 times to die she claimed to have available in "Lady Lazarus"), a young mother, a betrayed wife, a frustrated writer. It is hard to imagine what the rest of her life might have been like, and later work with the added perspective of experience and time.

But time was not something Sylvia had a lot of. Mental illness is still a mystery to medical science, and was that much more in 1963. Recently at the Dodge Poetry Festival, Joseph Millar said, "Your poetry will save you," and I sobbed, knowing how true that has been for me. How much more does that apply to Plath? Without that particular outlet of expression, how many comebacks could Plath have managed after all? Would she have drifted off into the Atlantic as a child, the first near-death experience she describes in "Lady Lazarus" as an accident?

I think poetry saved her for as long as it could. Along with the sadness, there is empowerment and inspiration in her Ariel poems. They often seem to be the words of a sorceress conjuring up a new life, a new world to move into just as soon as this one passes. In "Lady Lazarus", the speaker isn't falling, but rising. She is triumphant over those in her life who would oppress her. It seems to be only in the last few poems, written when she was sick, worn out and grief-stricken, trying to surviving the coldest London winter in decades, that the voice becomes resigned to a terrible, final failure.

For 10 years I hosted an event in Kingston, NY called "The Sylvia Plath Bake-Off". I billed it as perhaps the world's only combination open mic and baked goods contest. I was harassed by Pillsbury for the use of the term "Bake-Off", but oddly never by the Plath estate. No insult was ever intended, and the tone of the readings year after year never failed to be anything but honorable, sympathetic and appreciative of Plath and her work. We had all been too close ourselves, as poets and performers, to "our boy" (Anne Sexton's waggish term for death and the lure of suicide) to be anything but.

I am older now myself than Plath ever was, the same age as her son Nicholas, who committed suicide not long ago. I no longer have the heart for smarmy, eye-catching names for events. Many here in the Hudson Valley remember the Bake-Off fondly, and keep hoping I will revive it. Once a thing has outlived its white heat, it is finished. I may gather poets together again, but in a more gentle manner. Not at the expense of one whose pain draws closer to me and becomes more real every day. Rest in peace, Ms. Plath.

For Enid With Love & Home Planet News

2010-10-17T07:29:00.000-07:00

I received in the mail yesterday morning a copy of a new festschrift, or collection of writings dedicated to a scholar of note. For Enid With Love is for Enid Dame, and saying I'm pleased and honored to be included doesn't begin to express my appreciation. Enid Dame and Donald Lev were the founders of Home Planet News, an old-style tabloid that features poetry, short stories and essays. Their politics is apparent in Donald's notes at the beginning of each issue, but they never dominate or infringe on the writings therein. Since 1979 Home Planet News has appeared sporadically throughout New York City and the Hudson Valley, and since Enid's death in 2003, Donald has continued on alone, supported by a faithful group of editors and supporters.

Also included in the festscrift (a word I became familiar with during the time I worked for Norman Levine at Editions, his eclectic used and rare book business based in Boiceville, NY) are such heavyweights as Ed Sanders, Bob Holman and Janine Pomme Vega. Hudson Valley poets include Larry Carr and Matt Spireng, among others. I was familiar with Enid and Donald from hearing them at readings, sporadic chats afterwards, and of course, their publication. I was thoroughly intimidated by both of them, not because they were overbearing or arrogant people, but because they were so thoroughly accomplished in their art. Their average Bohemian style, Enid in her Mexican embroidered dresses, Donald in his suspenders and scuffed totes full of newspapers and chapbooks, belied their finely crafted poetry.

Ultimately, I and a couple other friends hired Enid for a private poetry workshop, not long before she died, as it turned out. Her insight into the art of the midrashic poem, a concept she borrowed from Jewish intellectuals and made her own, was also a peek into her own creative process. I should have recorded it, but only have my usual illegible notes to remember it by. Who knew it would be my last chance to work so intimately with Enid? I regret allowing my shyness to rob me of years of her acquaintance that could have been more productive, for me at least.

But, no one can take her poems away, and For Enid With Love includes a teasing sample of her work. I have only started it, after having of course checked the spelling in my own contribution (looks OK), but I look forward to reading more, seeing what I miss, mourning with the others that this bright talent, warm soul departed much, much too early. For Enid With Love can be purchased directly from the publisher, NYQ Books, at www.nyqbooks.org for $16.95.

Meanwhile, Donald struggles financially in these lean times to produce every issue of Home Planet News. This accounts for its even more sporadic appearances throughout the course of the year. A fundraiser is coming up in November at the Bohemian Book Bin in Kingston (http://www.bohemianbookbin.com/), but don't feel compelled to wait that long to subscribe, or contribute. 3 issues are $12, and a special sustaining subscription is just $50 for life. Send your checks to: Home Planet News, PO Box 455, High Falls, NY 12440. Or, catch Donald at one of the many Hudson Valley readings he attends every month. His presence continues to enlighten and delight us, as does Enid's memory.

Poem: The Universe Moves

2010-10-15T04:34:00.000-07:00

Not worth waking him, I
come back from the bathroom at 2:30 a.m.
full of helpless anxiety, a dream
where, watching the moon pass behind
a cloud in the night sky,
another moon comes into view,
racing more quickly, in another direction.
Soon, the sky full of the other planets
all rolling where they will,
I know it's bad, but there's
been no effect yet on weather, gravity.
I know things have changed for good,
and if it wasn't for the natural disaster
about to befall us, I dream I am
a little curious about how the people will react.
I decide myself, in the dream,
that circumstances are such that
really, this time, nothing can be done.
Across the sky then are lawn gnomes,
teddy bears, but not the actual figures,
outlines, like you'd see at the planetarium
when the man with the laser pointer
is showing you where to find Orion, Ursa Minor.
I decide to do something wonderful
in the time I have left. I wake up
before I find out how the rest of the Earth
takes it. I wake up before I see
how it all turns out. I'm not a big sci-fi fan,
don't look for Orson Welles to tell me, finally,
arm twisted behind his back, that this was
all a dream. I know that, but the tension
remains, a sort of 9/11 feeling
where so much, happiness, assistance,
is out of my power, and sleep
may come back, hangover from
weekend of friends, travel, camping
have been cured by an afternoon nap,
but sleep now, after a vision of
the universe sliding away before my eyes,
ending before the fires, the earthquake,
the terrible riots, is hard to shake.
I am waiting for the last movement
to see what the consequences of
the universe moving might be.
I am waiting, wide awake, to discover,
whether or not I have to go in to work.

CAR 9/6/10

Dodge Redux- Newark 2010

2010-10-13T19:49:00.000-07:00

This was at least my 5th visit to the Dodge Poetry Festival, the biannual celebration that's been going on since 1986. Lucky 13 was almost canceled, but rescheduled at the beginning of this year and held in the city of Newark, New Jersey, a drastically different venue from the country scenes of old, but with numerous advantages, and oddities, that total up to a successful poetry event, if not the Dodge I knew and loved.

Newark welcomed poets with open arms. A Shangri-La of sorts was created in the several blocks around the New Jersey Center for the Performing Arts that served as home base. Police barricades kept traffic and other undesirable elements away from visitors, and made strolling other event sights, such as the First Baptist Peddie Memorial Church, the New Jersey Historical Society and the Robert Treat Best Western ballrooms as easy and safe as a walk in the park. However, the constant police presence began to wear on me towards the end. I began to wonder about the everyday state of the area, without the benefit of Newark's Finest. The Newark Police Department, by the way, was nothing but friendly and helpful to festival goers. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

Past festivals for me have been a mix of mediocre academic readings and a few shiny rockets of words that make the whole event worth enduring. I didn’t see any rockets this time, nor did I suffer through the expected lows. New discoveries for me included Joseph Millar, a fellow phone company escapee turned poet, and the Dickman twins, Michael and Matthew, young phenoms of the poetry world based out of Portland, Oregon, followed by giggling groupies like rock stars. Hey, whatever it takes to get poetry out there… and they’re excellent poets, too. I didn’t hear much new work from Billy Collins onsite, but this past week’s New Yorker featured a poem of his that seems to be a departure for him, longer, more classical references, yet with a hint of that Collins ironic wit that his other work is so well known for.

Sharon Olds was there, too, down from her newish home in New Hampshire after years in NYC. Forgive me for dwelling, but she is a goddess, just as sweet and genuine in workshops as she is on stage or while signing books. The stuff I heard her read was not new, for the most part, but she has a book, Stag Leap, about the end of a long marriage, coming soon. Look for it. I enjoy the way Olds takes chances, and though for me she doesn’t hit the high notes every time, when she does, it resonates.

Other poets in attendance that I came across included Bob Hicok, Kwame Dawes, Rita Dove, Kay Ryan, and Rachel Hadas. Memorable moments included a tribute on Sunday afternoon to Lucille Clifton. Promoters used a quote from her poem, “Blessing the Boats” to both honor her and set the tone for this new venue: “may the tide/ that is entering even now/ the lip of our understanding/ carry you out/ beyond the face of fear.” I was lucky enough to hear Clifton at several Dodges, and mourn her passing with the others. Joseph Millar won my heart when at a panel discussion about poets and their day jobs, he proclaimed, “Poetry will save you!” I am living proof of that. And Amiri Baraka, living history, read some powerful words that were partially obscured by the jazz quartet behind him. This prompted me to buy his collected works just to read more. And obscured is sometimes OK, just making the voice another instrument in the band. Loved the jazz at 9 a.m., while my poetry partner went to hear Galway Kinnell read his translation of Rilke’s Duino Elegies in their entirety. G. came back all glassy-eyed like after a good romantic encounter. “Got Rilke?” says the Dodge mug he gifted me with, and soon I will.

Once onsite, events were well managed and organized, but remnants of the former confusion remain even after the fact. Two days after the close of the Dodge, I received a glossy promotional flier in the mail, almost a duplicate of one I’d received months ago. I live in upstate New York, and I can’t imagine it was mailed from too far away. How much money was wasted on that? Food at the festival was a cut above past years, and still I chose a cheeseburger for breakfast. My bad, not theirs. I also avoided the exhaustion of tramping across Waterloo Village, where I was often dehydrated and sleepy. Only one program had me drowsy, and that was due to the soft light coming in through the old stained glass at Peddie Baptist, and the heat rising up into the loft I was seated in. Luckily, the Robert Treat was steps away, and I got to nap in my bed this time and not a car in the parking lot.

My accommodations at the Robert Treat, a totally random choice that put my upstate friends and I right at the heart of the festival, were adequate, although oddly lacked a microwave in the room itself. I got a hot bath in, and a stunning view of Newark both day and night that I still haven’t been able to adequately translate into words. Dinner on Saturday night with friends from home, a longstanding tradition, was at Maize, the Treat’s in-house restaurant, an overpriced affair that was only convenient, not efficient or even worthy of the cost, no offense to Carlos, our diligent waiter.

I made notes for many poems, and rough drafts for three, while in Newark. I jotted down quotes like Millar’s for future sustenance. I am refreshed and recommitted to my art. I got out of Dodge for the weekend, and into a whole ‘nother animal. Now, back to the Patch Mines and the day job.

Note: I need to mention here the fliers that circulated around the festival concerning the closing of several public libraries in the city of Newark, an ironic twist if ever there was one. Taken as an isolated act, this is of course a disaster. However, knowing what little I do about Mayor Cory Booker and his dynamic efforts to revitalize this once vital city, I have to believe that it’s part of a bigger plan, and that his priorities for the city required it. Anyone with more information is requested to comment.

Here Come Da Dodge: Pre-Festival Jitters

2010-10-06T04:22:00.001-07:00

    This weekend is New Jersey's biannual Dodge Poetry Festival, now transplanted from the bucolic setting of Waterloo Village in Stanhope to the rising city of Newark, and headquartered in the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. An article in yesterday's New York Times seems to do its best to justify the move by quoting such folks as NJPAC President Lawrence Goldman, who said that, "In the 21st century, poetry belongs in the complexity, density and energy of an urban setting." Such a notion seem to me to pigeonhole poetry as much as those who may feel that the only place it really belongs is in an antique village.

    The move was prompted primarily by two factors: a precipitous drop in the assets of the Dodge Foundation, and the physical deterioration of Waterloo Village itself, which in recent years has only been opened for this event. Trust me, toileting at Waterloo was an antique and risky experience in and of itself. Suggesting that the very nature of poetry itself has evolved into an urban art (therefore more marketable too, to those who's only interest lies in the cash-ola potential) puts limits on a type of literature which, on the contrary, has come to speak for broader and broader cross sections of society.

    Certainly the city of Newark's open-armed welcome to the Dodge Festival is a hopeful sign. My companion for the weekend, upon ordering tickets, received a welcome packet that includes a map and visitors guide, highlighting restaurants in the area of the festivities. I have never been to Newark but am anxious to conquer it, vehicularly speaking. It is accessible by public transportation (one supposed complaint about past festivals, but Stanhope was an easy 2 hour drive for me), but due to scheduling conflicts, we won't be arriving until Friday night.

    The schedule is missing some of the mainstays of past festivals as well, including Sunday morning Rumi readings with Coleman Barks, and the mere presence of the adorable Ted Kooser. Brian Turner, an Iraq War veteran, will be reading in Woodstock the Saturday of the festival. The roster is pared down, but other regulars will be there. Galway Kinnell will be reading and speaking about his translations of Rilke's Duino Elegies. Sharon Olds and Billy Collins will be there too. Sunday will feature a tribute to Lucille Clifton, who passed away this spring and has been an active presence at past Dodges.

    Collins' remark about the upcoming Dodge, "Poetry itself is in a postpastoral condition...," must be read with the kind of tongue-in-cheek reasoning that the man and his poems are known for. There is a place for pastures and parkways in poetry. Let's hope the move to Newark for the Dodge doesn't place undo emphasis on replacing one with the other. Let's hope Coleman Barks is back for the next edition.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/06/books/06dodge.html?emc=eta1

Poem: "Trigger at Auction"

2010-10-04T05:01:00.000-07:00

Trigger at Auction

"When my time comes, just skin me and put me up there on Trigger, just as though nothing had ever happened." -Roy Rogers

Handsome as my grandfather,

Roy Rogers, the original Chinese cowboy,

had his best horse stuffed in 1965,

the year that Trigger died,

for all to see, Golden Palomino,

because he couldn't bear the thought

of Time galloping past them.

Finally, Time pulls ahead,

and the museum in Branson, MO

closes, all the little buckaroos

gone to Florida compounds,

assisted living facilities, none

stuffed, none really preserved

for the ages. Along with the

silver six-shooter, the fringy shirts,

Trigger, what's left of Trigger,

ends up on the auction block.

The winning bidder is a TV station

in Omaha, intentions to follow.

Where my father grew up, in

rural Long Island, before pavement,

when the best way to get there was

by train, truck or horseback, my

Chinese grandfather had a

corral full of horses, and as each

one went on to that Great Pasture,

they would dig tremendous holes

here and there, and bury the bodies,

hide, bones and all, deep enough

to keep the raccoons away.

Is there a separate museum where

Trigger's bones are safe, or

someplace where they're honored,

at ease, carefully arranged in

the sign of the Double R?

Or were they buried, along with

his sins, his temporary flesh?

Skinned like a buffalo, like

a young hunter's squirrel,

are the bones of Trigger

planted deep enough to beget

a fresh crop of sidekicks,

ready for the next new Roy?

Is the Golden West ready?

Or should we, as Roy suggested,

go on pretending nothing

ever happened?

CAR 7/20/10

First Saturday Poetry, Half Moon Books

2010-10-02T09:43:00.000-07:00

After her usual series of multiple emails, I suspect there's a Teresa Marta Costa reading somewhere tonight ;)... Support your local used bookstores as well. Who knows when they'll stop making the damned things altogether, and then we'll be stuck with whatever The Man deems worthy of Kindle (or whatever the Underground manages to slip to us...):

FIRST SATURDAY POETRY

TERESA M. COSTA

ELIZA PRAETORIUS

Saturday October 2^nd 6:30 PM

Half Moon Books

93 North Front Street

Kingston, NY

(845) 331.5439

Reception & Book Signing

All Welcome No Admission

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GROUCHO!

2010-10-02T06:03:00.000-07:00

Life At the Speed of Groucho

It took you eighty years, more,

to live it, and the facts

are sketchy, clipped as they are

from the script of your life.

I wonder about the texture

of your bald head, the smell

of your greasepaint moustache.

It took me a couple of weeks

between calls at work, a

page or two in the evening,

to run thru the stats,

get the wives, daughters,

mother straight, but Groucho,

Julius, twenty years after you

wheezed your last crack,

(a nurse looking for your

temperature was teased with,

"Don't be silly; everybody

has a temperature...") your true

walk will never be clear, how

your black eyes rolled over

this same white way at the

start of the last hundred block,

A doctor?

Minnie knew better. Your meds

wouldn't fit in a bottle,

ills of the world better served

by a Hackenbush, a Spaulding,

a Groucho ready to spring,

ducked into low crouch out

of Establishment's way,

clawhammer coat prying the dust

from Edwardian minds,

Groucho at the mic,

and the secret word is

CAR 8/5/01

POETS SPEAK LOUD AGAIN!

2010-09-30T04:50:00.000-07:00

Monday night, Sept. 27, marked the return of one of the Emerald City's most interesting open mics, Poets Speak Loud. The series was suspended in May after the devastating fire that closed, for good it seems, the Lark Tavern. Their new home is McGeary's, off Clinton Avenue and spittin' distance from the Palace Theatre.

Host Mary Panza took a few minutes to thank Tess, the Lark's mistress and current manager at the rapidly rising McGeary's. Tess thanked the poets and artists and all who have supported her since the fire. Next was an orderly progression of poets, writers, and other bon vivants who've been saving it up all summer.

For the blow-by-blow, always check out Dan Wilcox's blog at http://dwlcx.blogspot.com. In fact, see him for every literary thing in the Albany area, and sometimes even down South. Poets Speak Loud is held on the last Monday night of the month, beginning at 7:30 p.m.

New RANDOM WRITING Workshop Series

2009-12-29T14:40:00.000-08:00

Just a reminder: On Jan. 13, I'm beginning a new RANDOM WRITING poetry workshop series. It will be held on the 2nd and 4th Weds. of each month, at the A.I.R. Studio Gallery in Kingston. The workshops are scheduled to run from 6-8 p.m.

For the first half, I'd like to hear what you're working on, and be open to feedback from others there. In the second half, I'll offer a writing prompt, or you can go with an idea inspired by the writing of others, or your own mind breaths.

$10 per night, 6 workshops for $50. Call to confirm or with questions: 845-339-8686, or e-mail me at dorothyy62@hotmail.com.

Poem: "Ice Fishing"

2009-12-09T06:43:00.000-08:00

Ice Fishing

You and your father and Karen Carpenter

drive slowly out onto the lake

as far as it's safe, then farther,

windows rolled down, doors unlocked;

or, leashed to a rope for safety,

you or your father slinks across the surface,

cigarettes sending up signals

to the other fishermen:

it's safe, it's safe, it's safe,

then farther still.

You haven't told me yet about the

hairline cracks in your solid Minnesota,

midwest fields, woven plaids of green and grey and brown,

or how to cut a hole in a foot of ice

to get through to the real water,

where fish don't know it's Christmas again,

just when they thought it was safe.

CAR 11/30/09

Poem: "Fish House- Lake Mille Lacs"

2009-12-09T06:36:00.000-08:00

Fish House- Lake Mille Lacs

Purple rising into pink, into blue,

slateful of snow, one narrow path

plowed up to the fish house,

a fancy one you say, not the

plywood shanties you remember.

I know that blue from Catskill winters, twilight,

punctuated with acorns, twigs,

irreverent leaves freckling the surface.

That clean, blue sheet across the frozen water

must be crisp and neat the whole season

but for a hole, a few footprints,

a few lost souls whose fins freeze

quickly in the Minnesota air.

Many Lakes, you say it's called--Mille Lacs,

Ojibwa by way of French traders,

heat-seeking Canadians just steps

from the border, and with this solitute,

lines we draw between countries,

between each other, declarations

blow apart into so many blue stars,

nestled together in the sky above this shack.

The windows glow yellow, bright,

a bit of warmth in all this consistency,

hope for the fish that remain

that somewhere in this frozen landscape

fire survives.

CAR 12/1/09

*Poem: "Mary the Second"

2009-11-24T04:27:00.000-08:00

Mary the Second

Luckily, silver becomes me,
shines like a river against my brown skin.
I’ve always been number two.
Even in grief, when we set out for His tomb,
after the soldiers told us where He was stashed,
His Mother tagged along as if we didn't
deserve a little time alone to say goodbye,
like she still didn't trust Him,
didn't trust us.

His buddies ate first, slept beside Him,
asked Him over and over
the obvious questions we had already answered
in the early morning, our time.
He was mine then, but even so,
I could always smell Martha’s oil on His head, His feet,
knew she had been there before me again.

In a previous life, my specialty
was cleaning up afterwards,
comfort, do-overs.
They came to me for something more.
They left with too much.

He called me Beloved.
We bickered and bantered
like an old married couple,
but I knew we’d never marry.
He was a busy man,
never in a place long enough
to pin down about it, anyway.
I like my time alone, too.
After a long day of splitting fish and bread,
who wants to come home to a multitude?

He told the world He cast out my seven demons.
I told Him they were all just friends,
seven veils, seven wonders,
seven deadly sings of joy.
He knew others too, before he got
the nod and wink from Johnny on the Spot.

I introduced Him to the body
He’d only starved and run ragged through the desert.
He made wine from water, brought back the dead,
but never really tasted Himself
before I came along.

So I went to His tomb that Sunday
to bless his battered body with sweet oils myself,
the Sabbath leaving no time for such niceties
(take my advice: never die on a Friday;
your shrift will be short and mumbled),
and like I said, the Mother tagged along.
She never approved of me.
It wasn’t her approval I wanted.

When we got to the tomb,
we saw that somebody had beaten us to the punch.
Somebody had moved the rock!
I ran back to tell the posse.
They didn’t believe me.
They never did listen to a thing I said,
like I got by on my good looks
alone all these years!

He had to tell them Himself,
let that fool Tom poke his fingers
in the hole in His side.
I always knew it wouldn’t last.
Ascension was the last straw.

Now I sell t-shirts at the outlet mall in Tel Aviv.
I sold my story to the Star a while back;
People did a nice thing, too.
I still got it. Men sip from me
like hummingbirds, bees, nervous bridegrooms,
stop for a taste of the eternal,
and go home to meatloaf.

Poem: "Donald at Boughton Place"

2009-10-13T05:24:00.001-07:00

Donald at Boughton Place

A small dog darts out in the highway,
but not a dog, a red fox,
drags a grey-furred mass off to the side,
glances back at me when he's safe,
black pointed ears, tail.

Black geese, down for the night,
cluster in twos and threes
don't pay attention as the fox
drags his prey past them.
It's not clear what he's got,
but if it's goose, they don’t care,
engaged as they are in discussions
of weather, direction.

At the reading, on a circular stage
layered like a wooden wedding cake,
Donald Lev is the feature.
He reads love poems for Enid,
ever regretting his choice to leave
the hospital that night and who
knew it would be her last?

Donald, eyes of snow, four separate seasons,
reads Enid's own lament for Sari,
lost biblical sister moved to suburbia,
remembering her desert commune.
Donald won’t be mistaken for a fox,
this lazy-haired poet alone
in his house of lemon balm and books.

Thunder rattles the theater.
Donald is undisturbed.
Red wine trembles in our glasses,
and already Donald has tried
to wipe a spill from his large, white heart.
Too late, it's already stained through.

CAR 7/31/09

Poem: "Song of Washington Park"

2009-10-13T05:22:00.000-07:00

Song of Washington Park, 5/31/09

I.

I bring my copy of Leaves, mass market paperback,
purchased the summer before I went away to college
at the Walt Whitman Mall in Huntington, Long Island,
with my my birth name neatly written in my 18 year-old hand
in the upper right-hand corner of the first page,
and a bookplate inside the front cover
with my short-lived married name, from when I was into
Aubrey Beardsley bookplates and married names,
both seemingly the thing to do.
In the park is a birthday reading for Whitman, of Whitman,
his "Song of Myself," not about him,
and the weather is clear this year,
but cold, colder than the mall I've just been to,
and the gym I endured this morning.
Listeners are gathered around the mic in lawn chairs,
wearing baseball caps, multicolored shawls,
gloves, scarves and blankets.
My boyfriend is dressed for summer,
white linen jacket, straw fedora, short-sleeved shirt.
Dan, our host, dons his customary black beret.
I have my black jeans, shirt, sandals,
tortoise-edged sunglasses, and nothing more.
My boyfriend retrieves our picnic blanket from the car
and I wrap it around myself, him being stronger,
less inclined to expressions of discomfort,
We who are unafraid of the mic take turns.
Even my boyfriend assists, offers up the unfamiliar lists
to the busy wind, as the sun dodges out
from behind newly leaved trees, new May trees,
new green, suddenly full.
We stand at the base of the Robert Burns' statue.
The mic stand is decorated with Tom's Day-Glo streamers.
One tears off, blows away, and I chase it down, a memento
of Tom, the mic stand, the green.
Power walkers in the park walk more forcefully
when they pass the poetry readers.
Rugby players at the adjacent field,
high strung and giddy with games and the day,
pay no attention, no mind at all.
A jogger heads off in the opposite direction,
bald head gleaming in the distance.
A marching band practices its routines somewhere out of sight,
Elderly sweethearts cuddle on a park bench
under a spreading oak, then come closer,
cross before the mic and readers,
step in unison left to right.
An ice cream truck drives by, Mr. Ding-A-Ling,
and the electronic tune is foreign,
not "The Entertainer," or "Yellow Rose of Texas,"
I hear at home, complete with
automated whinny of a Texas horse.
Two rugby players stop him for treats.

II.

Then I think, this reading should be in my old mall,
mall of my memory, fountain in front of Macy’s
standing in for Robert Burns,
water swishing, gurgling, drowning out
shoppers’ quick steps, clean-shaven cascades,
pocket change minnows glimmering in the pool,
and shoppers rushing past, big, crinkling red bags
stuffed with cashmere jock straps, alligator bras,
nylon nylons, exotic perfumes brewed East of the Expressway.
Should we read on the roof,
plush pads of moss to cushion our steps,
bold gulls improvising blocks from the Sound,
up where we can see Pinelawn in its orderly splendor,
bones as broken in death as in life,
and Adventureland, popping lights, pirate logo,
rocking metal galleon thrilling ticketholders and us?
The human stew remains the same,
though the spices vary.
I take the bus there, the mall, too small for a car.
With Walt’s words to move through my mouth
I see what he would see, the wild frontiers
of A&S, Penneys beyond my $5 spear,
soft pretzel and slushie at McCrory’s before the fire,
Foods of All Nations, where the sugar-covered violets come from,
a book shop at end tip of one wing,
comic books, paperbacks, where I buy my copy, Walt’s book,
carry with me, unread, for decades,
bring to this reading in Albany today,
leave in the car, because I know Dan has a script,
bigger letters for older eyes,
and I do my part, tandoori chicken vapors
mixing with the wind and my hair.
The mic rustles, and Robert Burns
remembers his night, Tom’s beret,
and the snow that surrounded his birth.

CAR 6/1/09

Poem: "Sherlocks"

2009-10-13T05:19:00.000-07:00

Sherlock's

It hasn't been a bar for years,
the Board of Elections office,
uptown all offices now, so at 5 o'clock,
glass doors are locked, plastic blinds pulled
and the homeless take back their places
at the foot of stone basement steps,
down narrow alleys with broken iron gates,
or out in the open, slapdash park,
new tree, glistening green bench where
the tollbooth once stood for the parking garage
that started to crumble, then was demolished.

It hasn't been a bar for years,
but once upon college days it was
the fern bar of fern bars,
actual ferns hung in the front windows,
intimate tables on various levels,
and I was into Sea Breezes, now forbidden,
grapefruit juice incompatible with Lipitor.
My soon-to-be ex-husband drank bitterness
anywhere he could, huge mugsfull.

True, the gods had not been kind to him
in the Good Looks Department.
He was short, very short, and not handsome,
too uptight for sneakers, t-shirts, a bit of beard,
and his friend Joe treated us to drinks
while we worked for his ill-fated city campaign.
I lusted for Joe, and my husband was jealous
of everyone I talked to, and juggled
his own affection for him, their good times,
and me, the unfamiliar woman who had
taken the vows, put on the ring.

He must have thought I'd stop looking then,
made me guilty for still being alive,
and I'm not sure I ever loved him now, really,
certainly never loved Joe, but
I did meet a True Love soon thereafter,
two weeks after I married, in Joe's kitchen.

Joe's mother is dead, and that man
I met wasn't Mr. Right either,
but that's the love that blooms
in me, an air fern needing neither light nor water,
reminding me to never settle, never put up with,
and even in neon pinpoints of barlight,
there are greys we can't imagine when we're
18 or 25, or even 40.
There are teetotallers living a somewhere life
that later, when you are both sober,
arrive gratis from the closed saloon,
mysterious waters suddenly clear,
to sate your deepest thirst, last call,
when you can't stay where you are.

CAR 6/2/09

Poem: "HGTV"

2009-04-29T12:28:00.000-07:00

In those designer homes on TV,
there's no room for prayer flags,
Kwan-Yin cut from a junk mail ad
and thumbtacked to the wood panelled wall,
no thumbtacks at all.

There are no piles of half-read, re-read, soon-to-be read
books next to the bed, beside the wastebasket,
no tissues either that missed the basket,

no magazines opened up to a recipe for Pumpkin Bread
with whole wheat flour, agave nectar and applesauce
on the kitchen counter, though plenty of counter, empty.

There are no birthday cards taped to a doorframe,
no place for unwashed laundry, litter boxes, dirty plates,
burnt toast, yarn scraps, dog-shit covered boots.

Just quiet breath, hands folded to lap,
flat screen TV tuned to the Fireplace Channel,
CD in the player enclosed by an oak entertainment center,

set on repeat-repeat-repeat- to a
copyrighted theme without words,
without staples or a strip of duct tape
to make it home.

CAR 11/5/08

Poem: "Three Hours"

2009-01-30T07:06:00.000-08:00

Three Hours

Three hours behind me every day
and as I finally my eyes
droop before the DVD de jour,
your evening is just beginning,
supper dishes drying perhaps

if you are one of those that still does that,
or maybe the dishwasher has ceased
its recycled rumble, the sound
you’re unaware of until it stops

like the trains that pass my house
a couple blocks away, 11:04, 11:35,
and which is the wrong side
of the tracks from here?

Midnight, prime time on your coast,
sit-coms just starting in earnest.
If we had cable it would be time for Bill Beutel
to say goodnight to Roger Grimsby.
I leave the bedding of Mrs. Calabash
in your nostalgic hands.

My head tilts up on the pillow like a baby bird
hungry for any worms the night can provide,
trains huff through the backyard,
sirens for no one on the tracks.

If you were here, you’d hear the birds have
already begun their mindless chant
for sunrise, and at 4 a.m. I know
where the term, 'birdbrain' comes from.

We are three hours, three thousand miles,
several partners apart, and just as the sun
reaches the high point over the Catskills,
hides behind as many clouds as mountains,

you are ready for a second cup of coffee,
check your e-mails, watch those celebrated frogs
settle into midmorning callesthentics,
and I wonder what with all the tectonic shifts
in our friendship, how time will fly before us,

if our suns will come together, mountains part,
and we'll share a cup o' joe from the same pot.
I'd look in your eyes, colored the same
sarcastic tone as the rest of your sad bones,
eyes that have it where the rest of you is
overshadowed, shark-skinned and cautious,
chink in your herringbone armor.

Three hours, three thousand miles, a couple of
lives before, we meet again and again,
you my ambassador to the world of high standards,
red-striped ties and a sense of what
good can do in the lives of strangers
and other insidious creatures
on the left coast of life.

CAR 6/19/08

Poem: Blessed

2008-12-23T15:30:00.000-08:00

Blessed

"Is Jesus still alive?" my niece whispers to my sister,
unconvinced by the pomp and ribbons
of the decorated tree before us,
o holy night carollers trembling song,
dark-robed minister and his simple good grin.
"He was a good man, and that's
why we celebrate his birthday,"
is my sister's ecumenical reply.
We have talked about this, and agree about
the man, the story, the not believing.
I am not guilty as this litany assumes,
wasn't born bad, have not gone,
owe no apology to some Great White Father King,
but the congregants recite,
in the glow of electric popcorn balls,
30-watt savior device in the popsicle creche,
their apologies.

My nephew and niece are invited to the menagerie,
handed a small stuffed donkey, plaster lamb
to add to the crowd in attendance at the celluloid babe's cribside,
after the second hymn, second verse, O Little Town tonight.
They don't know the words,
and we are so distracted by the lights and burgundy and
gold on the tree tumbling into our laps
that they almost miss their cue.

Yes, Jaimee', there is a Jesus,
and he lives as surely as Christmas returns,
with or without the snow you missed,
without blame, even without faith,
He fills the pantry for the poor that
the minister says is bare already, only December.
He carries the souls of the suddenly light into the next act.
He lays in the bed of straw, patiently waiting for his attackers
to come with their gifts, to cover the earth in gold,
surround the barn in a cloud of frankincense,
lubricate his small limbs with myrr
for the sleep of
the peacemakers,
for they are blessed.

CAR 12-28-01

Poem: "Love Wants To Be My Friend"

2008-12-03T07:33:00.000-08:00

Love Wants To Be My Friend

On MySpace I get an invitation--
Love wants to be my Friend.
After all these years Love
has been waiting for me,
browsing the Internet,
and comes across my intriguing profile.
Love wants to be my Friend, and
we should start as Friends, I think.
This time, we should go slow,
exchanging e-mails, MP3 downloads,
maybe a little YouTube if things
seem to be progressing.
Love wants to be my Friend, for once,
after all the angry breakups,
swearing off for good--
it seems Love wants to start up again.
I am ready this time.
I have my buttons before me.
All it takes is one finger
to block it all, delete Love
if things start to go awry.
Love wants to be my Friend,
and what the heck?
It's been a slow week.
I accept the offer,
and already I feel that old electric rush
coursing through the keyboard,
up through my fingertips,
into the light.

CAR 11/26/08

*Poem: "Thanksgiving"

2008-11-18T07:49:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving

Nibbling on crackled turkey skin for lunch,
delayed Thanksgiving roast on my own,
plenty of sage to make it right,
surprise of granny apple in the homemade stuffing,
of course I remember you, Ma,
and the smells, the good behavior, the heat
of the kitchen spilling into the open living room,
big olives pushed onto my fingers
imitating Buckingham guards,
pound of mushrooms shrinking to nothingness,
tiny pile of savory at plate's edge,
nuts we knew by a dirty name,
impossible to open, then not worth the trouble,
green olives settled for when the black ones were gone,
parade on TV featuring an occasional Long Island band,
though somewhere in New York was enough to satisfy,
balloons and early risers,
Betty White and Lorne Greene days,
sometimes cold, sometimes wet, and relatives dribbling in
to squeeze around the picnic table, our kitchen table,
sturdy and large and red and cheap,
crescent rolls left to burn, annual sacrifice,
yams from a can heated through before serving,
ours not a marshmallow family,
the pumpkin, the apple pies, the mincemeat tarts
apparently only you and I loved,
all covered, all pies with real cream, whipped
and sugared with a careful hand,
my mother's giant iron arms
handy for such a task.

Poem: "Paul Newman at the Dodge"

2008-11-16T04:48:00.000-08:00

This is my latest, and a work in progress (aren't they all?) Suggestions and feedback would be much appreciated-- CAR

Paul Newman at the Dodge

At the poetry festival, passing from tent to tent,
no umbrella, my sister calls.
Without cellphones, we'd have no news at all.
This morning she says Paul Newman is dead.
I am hardly surprised. We media mavens
saw the telephoto snapshots in the raceway pits--
this spring Paul Newman was gaunt, stooped, unhandsome.

In this antique toy woods occupied by
allied forces of spoken and written,
Paul Newman's death, much as my own,
will be just another writing prompt,
a place for odes to go when nobody's home.

The poets here in their dollar store hefty ponchos,
Ren-fest capes, elbow patched cardigans
will beat Paul Newman's cunning eyes blue,
hang every sentimental maxim they ever read off them,
his long, beefsteak marriage fodder for sonnets,
his carved beauty beside Jackie Gleason's
rotund gentility the stuff haikus are made of.

Didn't we all want to sleep with him?
Or told that we did, obediantly half-believing
until we saw for ourselves.
Drizzle in the woods pecks at the canvas rooves.
My date for the weekend goes off to hear
the academics and their sauntering poses.
Since Paul Newman and I aren't well acquainted,
Paul Newman, to me, is alive as he was last night,
and will be come suppertime.

With so many stars shot from the Hollywood firmament,
it's hard to believe Paul Newman lived this long.
My date and I crawl back to the motel after a day's
bombardment of memoirs, pithy quips, occasional truths,
and out of respect and morbid curiosity,
we turn the TV back on after lights out,
and CNN continues live coverage late into the night
of Paul Newman's death, and nothing changes,
not the photo montage, the few details repeated
in the crawl at the bottom of the screen.

Paul Newman's still dead, same film at eleven,
midnight, one a.m. and fo a moment we
look to each other from separate beds.
I don't know the color of my date's eyes.
His beard fades to red and grey in the morning.

Paul Newman could fuck the camera with those blue eyes.
We kept looking, hoping that perfect god
would descend from the multiplex altar
to fill us with his perfect, blue-eyed dick.
That's what we paid for.
The lengthy panoramas of sagebrush and bus stations
is when we people get to roll over, light up a smoke
(these gods encourage that sort of thing)
or run out to the bathroom, for popcorn.

The rain at the festival never ends.
There is no more Paul Newman for us to fuck,
but no less than most of us had before.
We blow out of Dodge when the big guns are empty.
We forego free mums, given by the organizers
to help clear the stage they've adorned all weekend.
We're like Butch and Sundance up on that cliff.
Where to from here? There's only one way down.
They, we, always decide to fly.

We like to believe we'll survive the fall, too,
make it to Mexico and the lucky senoritas,
soak up the sunshine and the tequila
under the blue skies over the border.

CAR 10/14/08

*Poem: "Strawberry, Unselfconscious"

2008-11-12T05:25:00.000-08:00

Strawberry, Unselfconscious

Exposed, vulnerable to the expert tooth
of every unselfconscious,
the strawberry seed, much imitated part
in embroidery stitches, dabs of paint,
king berry al dente,
rides atop the mother fruit
for the coup, holding fire,

clings unselfconscious to the shiny skin,
sonar by the heart of stitches,
rides on the tongues of the
strawberry, passes its flesh through
ten other rabbits and men, dependent on
unselfconscious shortcake taker,
the patch green crew, portable,
part of the delicious strawberry experience.

Knolls exposed, vulnerable,
holding firm, unrinseable,
strawberry of paint nosh in embroidery,
strawberry barren, flesh tender or tart,
elves only ride atop,
dependent on picking
the shiny skin, woodchucks cling,
portable orgy, seasonal strides.

The strawberry passes itself on,
takes rages, meant through discount,
green crewcut hulls for handles,
raw berry equal to ides,
aces, unafraid (yikes!), no channel
through us, through the rabbits and woodchucks,
seeds on a tear, equal to the patch,
unafraid of electric discouragements.

The tracing knife, seeds on the outside,
one owl, alms freed of cream,
one on the counter, freed by the slicing knife,
plumber, some left in another,
several in the bowl, returned to other.
Under a memory of cream and sugar,
sun's harried heart, summer's tongue of straw,

some left in the farmer's palm,
shortcake or luscious stone,
returned to earth another spring,
the uncut hull, sun's harvest,
inseparable orgy, berry skirt,
another summer's harried heart.

CAR 9/13/07

*Poem: "Conquistador"

2008-11-12T05:22:00.000-08:00

Conquistador

Now is the time for a cigarette,
but my asthma won't have it.

Before waking, the bathroom,
ears ringing before breakfast and

the treacherous course of the day,
again I fight so desperately, for what?

Again I scratch my sister’s chest,
red scrape, red gash, jealous apostrophe.

The pink scar shows in her prom pictures,
pink gown, red satin jacket

my mother made at the kitchen table,
sewn with the grey Kenmore

Santa brought her one year.
Again the necklace, shattered,

Shell hand-painted over Schaefers.
Again I press my ignorant, knowing body

against thin shower curtains.;
Again I drop straw hat, fedora pretender,

from the car on the way to the Catskills,
held out to feel the rush of the mountains.

Safe, awake now, no two points alike,
no phone chords connect my orange quilted throw

to the plaster conquistador lounging
in somebody's second-hand life.

CAR 5/3/08

*Poem: "Superstitions"

2008-11-10T15:19:00.001-08:00

Superstitions

Say "rabbit, rabbit, rabbit" on the first of every month for luck,
or hold a buttercup under your chin.

If it reflects back yellow, you like butter.
Salt over the shoulder we brought to the table from Bugs Bunny,

and the fantasy that stale pepper from a tin could make you sneeze.
A bruise from a pinch could bring on cancer,

and dandelions gone to seed, then blown apart
could carry a wish to completion.

The first robin seen in spring had the same magic ability
as the first star each night, to grand any desire.

I never saw shooting stars until I laid among the rocks at Cragsmoor,
far from the expressway, the malls and international airports.

Over Ellenville, perched at the edge of the Borscht Belt,
faded to a TV test pattern, all that was left there were the stars

shooting like marbles across the play yard of the night sky.
An occasional plane below teetered into the landing field

where LBJ once landed, civil rights in his left pocket.
Blueberries at Sam's Point, sweet stars of June,

fenced in for safety now, on posted lands surrounding town,
bad luck no rabbit triplets can dislodge.

CAR 4/13/08

Introduction

2008-11-10T11:08:00.000-08:00

Well, better late than never, as someone said. I finally thought of a good reason to start a blog. I can post newspaper and magazine articles that I've recently written, and give more people access to them, especially those that live outside of the Hudson Valley area. I can also post recent, classic and seasonally appropriate poems. In other words, it'll be like my own little online press. And for you, Reader, it's free. It's great to be here in the 21st century.

Flying Monkey Productions

*Time, Time, Time, See What's Become Of Me?*

*Poem: "Mustangs"*

*They Come In Threes*

**COAST TO COAST- Poetry Chaplet**

**2012: Year of the Chapbooks!**

*Poem: "No Judgment Zone"*

*Poem: "Iowa"*

**I'm BAAAAAACK!**

*Green Eyes & the Green-Eyed Monster*

*Poem: "The World Stood Still For Easter"*

**Town Versus Gown: Academic and "Street" Poets**

*Janine Pommy-Vega Celebration- Woodstock, NY; 2/20/11*

*COLLEGE OF POETRY- SPRING 2011*

*Poem: "Blessed"*

*Writer's Block & Therapy*

*Poem: "Devoted"*

*Thanksgiving & Grandma Mi*

*College of Poetry!*

*November Inventory*

*Poem: "No Songs, No Packages"*

*Happy Birthday, Sylvia Plath*

*For Enid With Love & Home Planet News*

*Poem: The Universe Moves*