A blog about poems but not a poem about blogs

well it seems like just last year that it was national poetry month...oh, right...because it was. As April comes to a close I feel to honor this month that honors something that has been such a huge part of my life at every stage

As a hapless, nerdy 16 year old discovering Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Seamus Heaney and shock! and awe! Indigo Girls and Tori Amos
As an almostadult discovering the power of confessional poetry and Frank O'Hara's New York
As a student finding my heartbeat mirrored with more beauty than seemed possible in Yusef Komunyakaa, Louise Gluck, Langston Hughes, Amiri Baraka, Barrett Watten, Elizabeth Bishop,
Being taught by susan stewart (oh, sigh. beautiful language magician) and language poet Bob Perelman...
As a working stiff serving wine and cheese to the poetry world at the Kelly Writers House, slinking through literary conversations as though I belonged there... idolizing poets Kerry Sherin, Heather Starr and the universe that held them.
As an indoor poetry kid, sharing stories and words and jokes with brilliant poets all just trying to keep our words alive beyond desk jobs- nano, natalie, shari, jerry, john, adri
as a dreamer drifting off to the sounds of Ranier Maria Rilke poems and Ray Lamontagne songs...

I believe! I believe! I believe!

"Words ought to be a little wild for they are the assault of thought on the unthinking." -Oscar Wilde


I wrote something finally last night. I don't really care if it's good. I don't really care if anyone likes it. If you google Susan Stewarts name and get to this page, this is no indication of her talent as a teacher. It's just the tinkling sound of something that's been quiet for a long time.

After Walking on That Treadmill

We were children.
We could do splits and turn our bodies like windmills.
Here we were anchors, finally
strong against the pull of our tendons and young skin.
We could lay down with one foot high into the blue and the other
pressed against the ground to feel the rhythm of kingdoms beneath us;
Kingdoms where they lifted 150 times their body weight
And carried food without guilt- A prize.

I came back here with sweaty lips and matted hair
To see if I could find you somewhere in there.
Under brown layers of decomposing things
you were brought once
held high above the heads of everyone
moved along like an ocean liner on a sea of black bodies
and tossed lightly home.
Under blankets,
Under skin.
You did exist.
You do now, pressed between the spider and decaying leaves
Positioned like powder
Ready to dissipate, a disintegrating fossil of a raisin
You give life to the air.

And I am peaceful about it now

You knew it was coming. If you've known me, you've expected it. Even I expected it. So it was no surprise that after a straight week of complaining that I looked like a chick in some 1987 Whitesnake video, I chopped off all my hair. The surprising thing was how emotional it was for me. The haircut was a little bit like choosing to kill a dream. Long haired Girl NO MORE. Now everytime I look at a girl with long hair who is successfully pulling it off, I feel a little like I did when I was a kid watching "Kids Incorporated" or "The New Mickey Mouse Club". I could do that....if I wanted to....

hmmmm....

All the Sea Monkeys (TM) are dead

That's right. I killed all the sea monkeys (TM) that were supposed to be the pinnacle of our unit on Life Cycles. They were meant to hatch, flourish, procreate and wear little sea monkey outfits to the little sea monkey mall demonstrating to 16 curious first graders the miracle of life. But I didn't pump any oxygen into their little pink castle tank and now instead of a thriving urban metropolis, it is an underwater mass sea monkey graveyard. When the kids shake it, all the limp lifeless bodies of our class pets float to the top giving the illusion of activity and spirit. But like a snowglobe, it's revealed as a cruel cruel illusionary trick when the murky water settles.

If this is any indication of my future parenting skills, perhaps it is better that I'm single and fruitless.

Sea Monkeys RIP 2008.

Watch the guy in the front

He can't decide if he's going to pass out, finish the song or act like a gorilla. Sometimes he just needs a little break....just keep watching. This is why I come to work everyday.

Wasting TIme With You...

I don't want to work. In fact, right now, I wish I had an internet boyfriend. Someone that was willing to chat incessently with me on IM from wherever he existed in the world. Someone that made me get all riled up when the orange light dings. It can be our secret. I would like to have a secret right now.

But alas, I am just blogging. Sipping a diet coke, thinking about the work I should be doing, ignoring the chatter of 5 year olds in the hallway, suppressing that teacherly instinct that would normally make me jump up and hunt down the loud ones in order to force contrite hallway repentance.

I'm thinking about all the poems, pictures, music and words that I lost in the harddrive debaucle of 2008 and wishing that I wasn't feeling nostalgic for Salt Lake right now. Or rather, I want to just melt into the nostalgia and look at pictures of my old apartment, my old life, my old work but I can't.

It's spring here. The trees exploded over the weekend. I want to write an urban pastoral poem about it. I don't take good pictures, well not artistic ones anyway so I'm left trying to describe it in words.

Pink fireworks/ quickly thrown buildings outlined in cherry blossoms/ then simple yellow trickling from bent branches, heavy with the weight of regeneration/ the defeat of angles/ the ascent of probable and maybe/ I will view this river brown water / it will continue / where I walk.

Ok, maybe I'm not good at that either. I guess you'll just have to come to Korea to really experience it. I like it here.

When I have my 15 minutes of FAME...

I will hire this photographer and fly him across many oceans to make me look amazing in every shot. Minseung. Lupe Studio. http://www.lupestudio.co.kr/