I think I’m over the hump of what the hell is going on with Teresa Ballard. The surgery is minor and I meet with the surgeon on Friday and they are not doing the actual operation until next week but I’m fine. Nothin’ to see here folks...

Except that it is almost May Day and I will have giant puppets in my front yard, children running through my flowers and a parade—they will be a parade. All my friends will march and I will watch with Em and her mom. My girls will be on stilts or sun runners. It is my favorite day.

In poetry news, Valzhyna Mort is making me incredibly jealous. She is on the cover of the new Poets & Writers. I can’t wait to read her new book but I swear to god, if she tried to published the manuscript “A Factory of Tears” through the normal venues of sending to a first book contest---it may not have seen the light of day.
But maybe I’m wrong. Am I cynical to believe that we offer foreign born writers more freedom with poetry?

After my fourth conversation with my mother this week I decided to look up my horoscope and see if Mars was in retrograde again. Actually after the week I had, I wanted to see if it was possible Mars BLEW UP or some shit like that b/c my universe was definitely wacked.

My parents after 40 some years of marriage, which explains why a lot of poems are DARK, seem to have succeeded in finally killing each other, unfortunately they don’t do well without an audience so they’ve been trying to include us every step of the way.

My brothers, sister and I voted tonight and we are officially all adopted. Thank god I live half way across the United States---though this unlimited phone minute thing is killing me.

My horoscope quoted Carl Jung “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate." And that my friends just about sums it up.

Today we woke to snow so I closed the door and went back to bed. In four days E’s mom will be here and in five days I will have surgery. Only E’s mom was expected. I hate people seeing me sick so I plan to be instantly better, five minutes after I see the doctor.

At the thrift store we found a first edition Anne Sexton which convinced me once again, that I don’t like most poetry books written in the last twenty years. Maybe it’s the modern voice. Maybe I have old ears. Yet give me Sexton and Celan each and every day. I think old poetry can heal me.

Oh and did anyone else read the Spencer Reesce became a priest?

I’ve grown tired of the excessive
noise within my head. All the rooms
of the body lock down with the same key,
yet faith where do you live?

I do trust anything,
facts are fractal, even the blue door
is every color but blue, my eyes call it so,
and my tongue follows.

Here are the words my mother taught me.
Yes, there’s nothing here but silence

and the blue door, closing
over and over again.

 

A bit of devastation, a bit of pestilence

So I’ve been in and out of the doctor’s office/ hospital the last few days and I need to go back on Friday for an ultra sound. Professional note: I really think doctors should have different hand outs for moms to be, verses people who are getting scanned for tumors. The note about being able to bring a “partner” and video tape the whole procedure is very disturbing when it is the latter.

And if this isn’t hell enough the dreaded “lice” parasite has found my house again. Yes, my daughter Bella still hugs with her head but it was I, her mother who was escorted OUT of Aveda by way of the back door, my head still dripping wet while they “yellow taped” the station I was sitting at.

Emily is still laughing and I feel like a leper.

Because I was alone in the house for two whole hours at supper time I decided to eat the things in my fridge that no one else would eat. The lone pickle, the half eaten sandwich because I reasoned, in my rather adult head, that even if it didn’t satisfy me or made me slightly ill, I would NOT feel guilty for throwing large quantities of food out come Saturday morning.

Well friends, I’m here to tell you TWO HOURS LATER that guilt is not a physical response--- food poisoning however, sure the hell is!!!!

Rule number one in life: never, ever put anything in your mouth you don’t want there.

Rule number two: if someone else puts it there---spit it the hell out!

Why do I always feel like I’m living one of those educational videos of what not to do with your life.

Okay so I suck at a poem a day and I’ve turned in my poet badge and my secret de-coder ring. I know I can’t be in the club so I’m starting my own with a top-secret handshake and you don’t have to write anything unless you want to. Swing to your own drum. Play with sticks.

On Friday I went to see the wonderful Lee Ann Roripaugh read and then we went out for dumplings and Saturday we went out for sushi. It was a high holiday weekend. And this weekend looks to be more of the same. Ms. Fannie Howe is coming to my town, along with Mary Jo Bang & Mathea Harvey, they will be at the Loft this Friday in Minneapolis at 7 p.m.

I will be the girl in the audience drinking beer, because at the last reading I found out that if you go to the coffee shop and bitch the manger brings you out one from the "back room". I will also be the girl, next to the girl who is trying to sneak my beer because she never, ever buys her own!

Side note: at my feet right now ----- a purple mermaid, a monkey, pink bunny ears and a panda. The cats are fornicating again with Bella’s stuffed animals and it is oh so very wrong!!!

Thank you for noticing

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): The feats you're pulling off may not appear spectacular to a casual observer. But in my view, they are some of the most interesting accomplishments you've enjoyed in a while. Here's a brief description of some of your subtly glorious breakthroughs: 1. You've made yourself less susceptible to being manipulated by guilt or pushed around by bullies or fooled by phonies. 2. You're getting smarter about how you treat the people and things you love. 3. You're at the peak of your ability to discern the difference between rash risks motivated by fear and smart gambles driven by authentic intuition.

Alex’s reading was really fun last night. Milkweed hosted it in a place, where you actually have to walk through a bowling alley to get to the theatre. This strongly appeals to me. A friend opened with guitar and was amazing; music, good food, and a full house of over a hundred of people who came to hear Alex Lemon read---not a bad way to begin your second book.

Milkweed is having an open reading for poetry in June. Come one, come all. Out of the six books up for the Minnesota book award, they had I believe five. They are a press to watch, not to mention they have the good beer at their parties.

But where oh where, are the female editors of small presses, does anyone know??????

In other news, Spring lasted a total of 48 hours in Minnesota and then promptly hauled its ass inside and shut the door. Today Em and I are supposed to do our taxes but it is 10 in the morning and still black night outside. I think the coyote urine caused an eclipse in our front yard---not to mention the fact that it didn’t work at all!

day four

All of it is about longing
blossom and branch, cup and saucer
even contentment in her little white slip
is swaying away.

Yes I know I owe you two!

Even though I haven’t been writing much, my poetry life feels incredibly busy…as busy as it can be with my other life which often seems like this giant poetry weed killer that sucks it all dry. I enjoyed the craft talk with Raphael Campo a few weeks ago very much, and last night I went to a wonderful reading and sat next to my friend Alex Lemon who has this brilliant new book out and a book opening tonight at The Bryant Lake Bowl. If you happen to live anywhere near this part of the world GO---I will be the girl wearing black leather boots and drinking beer. And Em will be the poor tired girl I dragged along to go with me.

This morning the poetry editors of Milkweed Press, Coffee House Press and Graywolf had an open forum. It was good though lately I feel like sometimes my new work is like building a lightening rod in the middle of a field. It is possible I may get hit by lightening and an editor will notice but it seems to happen to men 10 times more;)

Did you know there’s actually a metal in the male bloodstream which makes this statement completely true? Oh the things I know and have no way to work into a poem.

Right now I am sitting here feeling sorry for myself, which E says is the highest form of laziness. On a side note: the squirrels are eating my bulbs and leaving beautiful yellow stamens on my door step to make me cry. I can’t even kill a squirrel with my bare hands. I lack in all forms of character--- I must use five gallons of coyote urine which supposedly will make them leave me alone.

I've considered bathing in it for the bravery factor but I’m sure the E would leave me.

Poetry month sucks

It seems I write short poems b/c that’s my way of cheating and getting it done and it still gives me time to watch trash TV before I sleep. Pitiful I know. E has challenged me to write a ghazal which will really suck b/c I have to show her I can do it and I don’t think I will be able to pull it out of my ass—maybe those should be my closing lines. Ass rhymes with so many things:)

Really there should be a list when you fall in love, things you won’t ever be asked to do! I don’t mind weird sex play but who the hell thought of ghazals!!!!!

Day Two

Day II

Oh the body temporal! Oh the mind obtuse!

Lift your fingers to the sky—
Everything is gone: trees, blue

Only the flesh survives. If God
Is next to cleanliness, only

Earth survives. Call me brother
Let me remember

What a cock feels like.

So this is the challenge

Post a poem a day on your blog for thirty days (even if it is crap) not to publish or work on, or include in your manuscript, or add to a fellowship app or turn in, or give to a lover, or seduce. Write a poem a day, for thirty days just for the beast of poetry.

Day 1

This is a poem without animals,
nothing braes, bothers or finds its way through the grass.
This is a poem absent of reproduction:
the fuck, the sway, tilt of the hip.
This is a poem drained, left on its side,
white grass under stone, deformed.
This is the sprout and the seed, the cock and the void.
This is the thread sewn into our eyes, here is the needle
This is the point, silver and clean, absent of sacrifice.