Good morning.

When writing is more real than life
hunker down,
but sometimes
in the dripping summer heat,
that doesn't burn the way it
did when the constellation of freckles
between my shoulders
wasn't skin damage,
there were no words;
just kissing boys on thigh-searing
car hoods under a canopy of oak trees,
holding sweaty hands at movies,
falling asleep drunk and raw
insisting that we practice more
to really perfect the french kiss-
words were excuses.
Hunker down,
when there are no words.
Now I write about a stable love,
a flock of cannibal chickens,
a pride of barely domesticated
house cats, a sink of dirty dishes,
fingers ringed like Saturn, a mesh of legs
crossed beneath a thinning quilt,
lazy Sundays, fights in the kitchen,
breakfast in bed, rushed morning kisses goodbye.

Poem about a river

May on the Pomme de Terre river

Sweater weather, cold noses at night,

A thick fog, a firefly traveling downstream,

 a remnant shooting star, your hand on my hip

An update, of sorts...

The power cord for my laptop is caput so I'm updating from my phone. Ahhh, technology! 

We had a fabulous workshop tonight; the first in many months. We even talked more about putting out an anthology in December. Huzzah!

Rachael read the next chapter in her grotesque and wonderful novel. I can't wait to see how it goes... So creepy and engaging!

I'm  having an early night. More later, kittens.

Rambling, as per usual

I wrote a poem! Yays! It may make the next poetry compilation.

An observation: it is spring.

These are the flowers at our back fence! Proof of Spring!

I like to sit outside and write on my laptop in the backyard, on our patio table. Winter is so quiet. Spring is another story... it's like everything is alive. the ground even makes noise. It's just a clicking, chirping, thumping buzz. I love it.

Chase a ghost

On the side of the cement trail,
naked rib cage curling into the sky,
broken spine crushed into the dry earth.
Too big to be a rat or a squirrel,
too small to be a human, and the vertebrae
 the diameter of a toddler's sticky fist.
Surely the prey of some moldy goddess,
half-chested, grieving with her arrows,
a prayer, an offering to the flesh eaters
and spindly dandelion roots, desperate
for the fertile soil of another new Spring.

In which I ramble about roller derby and poetry

Is there anything poetic about roller derby? I mean, sure, kind of? My body sings when I hit a good pace. I feel like I'm in sync with the world... but I'm going to be real with you. I don't like sports poetry. I don't like most war poetry, either. I don't know what that's about. Maybe because of the aggression? I don't know. I don't even like hula hooping poetry (and there is a lot of it, believe it or not). This is a frustrating conundrum as I've started training for roller derby and it's pretty much all I think about.

Anyway, this month is all about refocusing on poetry (and derby derby derby derby, okay? okay). I haven't written as many poems as I'd hoped (I never do) but I've written about 10. 2 I think I might even like. I remember when I was in college, I tried to write a sonnet-a-day. That was just flat-out ridiculous.

I think I tend to write more poetry during the spring and summer because I'm outside more. I think about the things I see- I stop and hike and look at weird shit. That's normally good fodder. Oh! I'm going to quit and post this because I'm thinking about an animal skeleton I saw when Mel and I went for a skate outside. IT WAS WICKED INTERESTING.

Happy poetry month!

Peace
Love
Poetry

Concentric

The ground has been root-soaked
three weekends already, this spring.
I haven't dug my toes in the mud, yet.