Under the waiting rain

I passed through you
under the waiting rain.

the lighter pulp is heavy
under the waiting rain.

a Portland ghost- you-
two iron balls weighted
against a scale, measured.

you thought you were
a dark marauder. A boy

with Greta Garbo eyes- two
coins for the Styx current,

This day you are a ghoul,
a gated coast to walk through-
And I have no regrets.

Background happenings...

Ms. Abbey and I actually workshopped tonight!  Woo, it's been FOREVER since I had a good workshopping.

Also, Ms. Anna will be in town for a month; she has instigated a weekly workshopping.  It's like I'm a writer.  What's the shit with that?!

heee.

Anyway, summary: NaNoWriMo is successful, so far!

Love, sunshine, kisses and puppies,
Kirstikins

Poem 8

Funeral Procession II

A field in Amherst, Massachusetts
The white lady passes as a shade
over the bursts of buttercup

We will paint murals of her, later
and let her Mona Lisa smile
double over lychen encrusted bricks

For now- we will whisper Susie's name
and hug the ghome's girlhood
after the carriage kindly stopped

Poem 7

Funeral Procession I

Carry her through the streets.
Wrap her in four-point gauze.
Throw the sun-glazed confettii
into the canopy of music,
of weeping, of singing, of
old hands sweeping strings
For she brought a populist God
to his knees.
She broke his
paintbrushes over the backs of
his lovers hidden in siennas,
lapis, thick modernist lines.
She pulled a small death from her
body, not once, but twice,
and carried it on her shoulders
and still stands, she does stand
an iron-backed woman, with
steady eyes and a canvas heart.

Day 5, Poem 1 & 2

Spring & Summer, by Angelyn Taylor

The Acorns

They line the window sill, this mast
tradition is a ritual in nature's mass
You follow spring's unfurling roots
Where the acorns bask in the soft morning.

This is the place where lightening
has been made to feel unwelcome-
A god can rest beneath your canopy-
A quickening, you pray palms raised.

This Summer

This ocean is in bloom

It rocks against the humid

tide and pulls the mosquitos,

The june bug's awkward hum, 

The cicada burrows as pin-

pricks at the oak tree's base.

Indian paintbrush sways 

with the tide, in bloom and 

wild geraniums fan their hands 

in the wind's floatsum-

We have reached this ocean

to compromise with God.

Update!

What happened to Day 3 and Day 4?

I'm four poems behind and I'm having serious issues with my prompts.  So here's what I'm doing- prompts when I want, gone when they're an impediment.  Hopefully I can get caught up this weekend.

Day 2: Art Prompt

Winter, by Angelyn Taylor

The Lovers

Thick salvia clusters
the evergreen hedge
a graveyard of crackled

shades and spikes that
weave and bop- a
tapestry of embrace. They

are tangled, interlocked,
caught naked by the
ancient holly berries.

Day 2: Art Prompt

Fall, by Angelyn Taylor

A Gift from Heliopolis

And she is veined in gold glit-
a fan-leaf phoenix.

I bring her frankensence-
She gnashes at the egg shell.

toes flexing above Buddha,
Medea in her palm,

She curls into the sky, braided
up through November gusts.

Day 1: New Writer Response Prompt

Rondo
by Janet Holmes 

The noun one keeps batting away
refuses declension. 

He says, I don’t want to be
twenty-four again.
Twenty-four was a handful: 

the flawless
meatflesh, best self, miraculous
leap/thump on the hardwood,
the twist and splash. 

The exuberance
in the present tense, 

the timebound blood pump
two throbbing lungs butt
in their bone cage 

surges to bursting.
He does not perdure 

in this internal defection:
so rare, and so heroic.

Ritornello

To this you must admit
Her skin was a coat of glitter
amber-lit.

She whispered the wind in code-
her sharp canines could not remit
a simple slither
at the funeral home visitation..

Day 1: Old Writer Response Prompt

Emily Dickinson 

Her breast is fit for pearls,
But I was not a `Diver' -
Her brow is fit for thrones
But I have not a crest.
Her heart is fit for home -
I - a Sparrow - build there
Sweet twigs and twine
My perennial nest.

The Flight of Emilie

My sparrow is, at once, here
she is in the night of time
and paces the door frame-
She ruffles against grain,
but she isn’t trapped by stars-
There is a moment before flight
and she, with again human
hands, presses against me
and mutes my breath.

National Novel Writing Month (sort of)

Friendly readers (who exist mainly in my imagination);

I fully intend to participate in National Novel Writing Month tomorrow-Nov 30th. I will be writing poetry instead of prose, with no intentions of meeting the word requirement.

Now, I know you're about to tell me about National Poetry Writing Month, and rightly so.  You might suggest that NaPoWriMo fits my needs better- but I cut my teeth on NaNoWriMo many years ago, and I enjoy participating with my writerly friends who (for the most part) are prose writers (or mostly prose writers, or graphic novel writers turned prose writers for the duration of November, or kindly fauns with a penchant for words).  Or maybe I didn't realize there was a NaPoWriMo until today... You know, whatever.

Either way, I'm excited!  Ready to be back on the wagon!

So here's the game plan: I have planned themes for each day of the week.  I'm going for 2 poems a day, for 30 days.  Obviously, I'll update here.

• Sunday Historical People Prompt
• Monday Picture Prompt
• Tuesday New/Old Writer Response Prompt
• Wednesday Art Prompt
• Thursday Form Prompt
• Saturday Geographic Prompt

Turned to Stone

I have always loved your bird's nest,
snap curling twigs, your egg bald spot,
even when it was a nest of snakes.

A disservice of fairy tales

the wild geraniums grew up the
fence, the vines choked out the
sunlight and wrapped their arms
around our bungalow, confused our
siding with earth until I slept

the charmed sleep while the
crickets made homes in the walls
the cicadas burrowed under the sink
These clouds laden with water
billowed over, feeding the new,

green walls, letting only a haze
of light filter through the ivy
Our house turned 100, and you
counted the spiral of glass above
the mantel, faceted ghost of now

A record of night

Sometimes a star is just plasma
clasped together in gravity
wavering, but fixed in our sky

And sometimes stars are just
dust burning away in place
waiting for a peaceful passing

And sometimes stars are luminous
folded in the dark of your eyes
quiet and soft against midnight

Howl and Other Poems

I just finished watching Howl.  Dear invisible readers, it made me cry.  I picked up Howl and Other Poems when I was 15, if not younger.  My exposure to reading had, up until this book of poetry, consisted of used fantasy/sci-fi from Nancy's Trade-a-Book and $1 Dover Thrift books.  I was already in love with Byron and Matsuo Basho, but I hadn't read anything like anything like anything like it.  I read it over and over.  I didn't understand it, but it struck me numb.  It changed the way I viewed words.  It pushed me down and made me look again.  I think I saw the name and thought of the kindly old man in a movie that made me cry, so I just got it on impulse.

Later, I picked up On The Road and realized that I could love an entire book based on a simple sentence.  Even if the rest of it was drug-induced, self-indulgent masturbation.  I began looking for new poetry and I found Ogden Nash and weird zines filled with strange things and new words and new images.  I decided that my pipe-dream was to go to the University that Allen Ginsberg taught at- and cried all night when he died.

I think this movie did an incredible job of relaying the irreverent humor and innate humanity that really pulled me into his work.  In retrospect, I think his naked queerness gave me a voice for accepting myself, too.

I mean, I can't really express how much he and his work meant to me.  I love him, dearly.

Blanket Flowers

cradled toes weeded in dirt
huddled shoulder to shoulder,
their bending spines
back against smooth back

Practice

I latched on to the clothe

spread a dull, ache across forearm

puckered skin, against a summer broom skirt

yellowed in the sun

I love you the way things should be shown

not spelled out

Get in the practice

Surprise gladiolas came in

during the end of our 3 month

3 digit July heat wave

Spiked gladiators sprawled

and thrived in the sweat

Car Poem [WIP]

You and I chase the fingers West
towards home
They curve into the moon
Grasping at beams, out of reach

We made you a scarf during summer

These watery knuckle bones wrap down the row,

Kyle's loops.  They were made under the reading

arms, boughed under the weight of a howling

beatnik, who hissed, several decades too late, 

then moved to the city of fountains and 9to5.

The waves of rows moved on to Raven, who learned

to make knots in the wind, only for you.  Cindy

and Kokapeli pulled in the middle, Cody and I

and made up for the time between needle points.

Sunburned, two left hands, with the West Winds,

circle sitters, outdoor academics, we made you

a scarf while you made us weigh the leaves.

A little hummingbird hovered over me

Seriously, that just happened.  It was very interested in my laptop.

What days rival the days 

when your windows are open

They thrust sun in, let loose 

to play with 7 sets of slit-eyed

cats who play with Bast 

and forget your patient hands

A tight grasp of lover's fingers

A deer clasp holding cunt 

and sky together

kneel with muddy knees

forgive the toes wrapped

in earth worms

Let me have a lost day [WIC]

Let me seep through
the floor boards into
the grain and flow right
on through the knots

Melissa

Untitled [WIP]

I roll you under my tongue
a Southern Rock Python,
I start at your toes and work
my way up your thighs, I drag
my teeth in lines from your ankles
to your nestled clavicle

Passion [wip]

Passion

I’m uncomfortable with the word-.
It lacks meat, it lulls in juice, it falls flat
It’s not a steak, thick on the tongue, breaking
hot against the back of my throat, a tender,
twist of tendrils and muscle.
I can’t rip into it, gnashing teeth against flesh,
pushing it against the roof of my mouth
The preferred word is- as in rioting
as in London is burning in the riots as in
Did you buy mace, bear mace, not weak rape
mace because I am so hungry, so hungry
that my hands are shaking down to the ground
and I am so hungry.

It will not last the night

Hello, interwebs!

My name is Kirstin, Ms. Steitz, if you're nasty.  Seriously, I want to start this blog with earnest.  The past couple years have marked a long, dry spell in my writing life.  I dropped out of College my senior year, to the quiet dismay of my family and friends; but it was a good step for me.  I had reached a point of no return.  I was scared and hurt and barely able to make it through the day.  Assignments piled up, I skipped class like a jump-rope pro, and my bar tab was immense.  I was disillusioned with the academic industry and terrified that I just didn't have what it takes to be a "real writer".  I needed to move on and find a place where I could be myself and have a full nights sleep more than 2 weeks out of the year.  After almost a decade of classes and work, I needed to focus on improving my life, so I quit.

During this lull, I tried to publish my poetry.  I tried to keep writing- but every rejection letter was a knot in my stomach.  I wasn't strong enough to keep submitting and received very little feedback from editors.

A year after I quit school, my mentor passed away.  The woman who had literally informed almost every aspect of my literary and spiritual life for the past 9 years was diagnosed with cancer and left us very quickly.  It was a quick, excruciating and fraught exit from our lives.  It tumbled down and crushed me.  Her passing sent me into a spiral.  I would sit in front of a notebook or laptop and stare at the screen, unable to find words.  Her passing marked an end to my writing.  It was as if the universe said "Oh, hey!  Silly girl, this writing thing is a fluke."

So I watched my friends and former partners-in-crime go on to publish, to become teachers and Directors, and to successfully pursue their craft.  I cheered them on (and still do!) but mourned the little deaths of my made-up alphabet.

So this blog is my apology to myself.


Dear imagination,
I have forsaken thee.  I have neglected you and spit on you.  I have lost you in my fear.

I started writing when I was wee.  I started writing around the things I wanted to say because I didn't know how to say them- then I wrote around them because saying things directly never relays the meaning, and I finally knew that.

I'm sorry.  Here's a cookie.  Let's be friends again?

love and kisses,
Kirstin