Congratulations!

Well we have sufficiently handled National Poetry Month, and I for one am pretty impressed with the amount and quality and diversity of the work posted in the last thirty or so days. But, i am sincerely hoping that this is not the end of a communal web space where we can post minor parts of our writing and keep in touch through our creative efforts. Therefore, two things need done:

1. Name Change - Because I know other writers are just as sensitive as poets, I think it worthwhile to change the name of the site to something more universal and inclusive. So, reply and post an idea, and we can vote on them. I've vetoed, from the start, Leaves of Sass or anything else that predetermines the tonal quality of the work. You weren't even that sassy, Dinah.
2. Others - Feel extraordinarily free to invite others to the blog. Just have them email me and I can add them to the roster. As a communal space, the more the merrier.
   

Ok, that's all for now. Perhaps Rose Awards will be posted soon...

Visions of Hosea

[I know, write about something else, right?]

Married to a prostitute Hosea sought the beds
Of others, authored his dowry
*
His wife [...], himself a prophet, he chaste,
Eyes closed, knew each night, before, during

He spoke to her You are my wife I am your
Husband, wrote homilies on fidelity, tried
*
Your means, he said and trained the cords
To loosen in muscles when [...] her work
*
Stay, he said, Don't go, she left, he
Ate alone in the mornings
*
Nothing said, something understood between
them, always [...] welcomed back
*
Let me not, he prayed, See, hot coals, his eyes, no matter

What We Haven't Done

She, black, sixteen, the back
of the El, legs folded,
he facing her from where he sat,
wide wide apart his legs,
sweatpants rolled up, eyes,
his eyes, "Almost," spat,
muttered bold, "see her cunt," my
ears, my body right there, "What?"
she said, loud, "I'm sixteen"
the metal scream, the next stop,
doors unshut, can't, he, black
giant, cursing, she so old, so old,
"Your momma," advised, "Ought
to have taught you better," her eyes,
straight into his cursing, "My
momma had me," doors shut, unshut,
"she was sixteen," my body, me,
"Get out," she said, "Get out,"
he, rising up, a djin or a
doubt, a tornado, me, sitting,
I twisted the cord of my headphones
around each of my fingers and,
he whipped around, left, her
silent, me silent, "Get out,"
what I never, said, me, silent.

World Without End

From the edge to             grass-blade

Edge, endless edge of     grass-root
Shape upon boundary-   grass-seed
We run fingers along      root-heart
World growing in           seed-heart
Palm, eye, mouth,          blade-blade
And word of                   heart-blade
                                       grass

Untitled

No one embodies a metaphor
for sleep better than a lover
or my fish, Hamlet. In the dark,
he sinks beneath his flat eyes.

Poemism

Chips, Starburst, Nutell-
a, and icing with a spoon
is how I write poems.

Steel and Wire

Gum, metal, and bone
I run my tongue along
the back of white enamel
and swear I can taste blood.
The gleaming brackets plump
my lips and people say,
"Look at that mouth,"
not knowing that I carry
steel and wire on my teeth.

Vandalism

I have slashed the screen
to reach the bush of lilacs
outside my window.

Nice Legs, My Friend

"Can you come outside a minute?" she asked,
On the first truly warm day of the year,
Wearing a corduroy skirt high above
Her knees. Her sunroof would not open.
"My friend," she said, whatever that means,
"Had it working the other day, but now
It's stuck." Seated in her car, her skirt exposed
Even more of her pale thigh. I often told her
that she had nice legs when she was not just
My friend. I poked the sunroof with my fist,
It slid open, and I went back inside,
Feeling victorious.

original sin

I don't have any poems yet (that I like). But I have memorized, due to my mother's consistent quoting and re-quoting, my supposed "first poem." Does it count?


Pens, pens, pens
Birds, birds, birds
Me, me, me, me.

Uncollege

I was always told that I am
who I choose to
be
- some kind of vestigial
anthropology where we close
our eyes and
fill in belief with the niceties of infinity. Well

I've felt the swallowing
drop, the hardening concrete around every single
choice

that I have made that has made me into
what cannot purely make myself into
whoever making whatever

but me, right here. I am who
I have chosen to be.

For the Flight

She is riding far too far away from us because she is yours,
your Cordelia. And she yells through curls
It is the cars, Daddy. Daddy, look at the black!
She is riding from them. What I would give
to catch her; I think I would let you go and would leave
you. I think I will go now and go
through cars and bodies for years. So often you, as anyone,
I have thought of what I would give
and tried often to make you have
entire drawers of me
paltry things I had wanted to have. You would remember
the bird perched on brown knotted leather,
kneeling and never ready to steal
itself away from your breast because you know it
for what it is and know it is not
a thing that is best. It is felt on you always
for the distance that exists. And we learn
a little more each year how to exist by giving each other less
because giving is baring us
as a confession. We are learning to love
turning ourselves into our opposite.

Saturday, Night

Let us now waltz down the glimmering streets until
Rising, a stained sun enamels our feet.