"Nothing good ever comes out of Hickory." (facebook status updates are really interesting. this is a quote by a doctor talking to a nurse about sending a patient to that place for a surgery. such an awesome quote)
12/16 - No men! No men! No men! I am over 50.
He speaks to me in lowercase... (this came from a freewrite, so there's more.)
"But was it wild?" -Marianne Moore
"I wish I could show you my body without clothes on." -hilarious in real life, useful out of context.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Strategy Entry Week 3
Edit:// I accidentally posted this as private yesterday... not that the strategy entries are the most riveting to read I imagine but.. you know.
Throughout "Mixology" Adrian Matejka employs references from various cultures and musical traditions including hip-hop, rap, "prog rock," jazz, and even nods to folk. This blending and cautious inclusion of dialect succeeds because the different elements are in conversation, rather than competition, with each other. Specifically in "Green Jeans" Matejka combines a more classical form with contemporary language. Matejka blends words in a clever juxtaposition in the lines “There is a plastic/ spoon pressing down this state’s/ tongue that makes dat from acrobatic” as “dat” that next to the rest of the poem could seem out of place, but Matejka’s word choice is so delicate as that one word helps tie this piece to the remainder of the collection. That minute detail is key in what makes this piece function as a part of this collecton. In this piece, Matejka mentions musical artist Beck, introducing rock references into this specific poem. The phrasing of Beck’s lyrics here, despite not coming from a directly hip-hop or rap source, adhere to that same speech style in “to get me some pants.” Although many of the Texas poems in this collection differ boldly from the rest of the pieces, generally including less rap and hip-hop style diction, delicately chosen diction keeps the cohesion of the collection while still providing a different taste of the Matejka’s style.
Throughout "Mixology" Adrian Matejka employs references from various cultures and musical traditions including hip-hop, rap, "prog rock," jazz, and even nods to folk. This blending and cautious inclusion of dialect succeeds because the different elements are in conversation, rather than competition, with each other. Specifically in "Green Jeans" Matejka combines a more classical form with contemporary language. Matejka blends words in a clever juxtaposition in the lines “There is a plastic/ spoon pressing down this state’s/ tongue that makes dat from acrobatic” as “dat” that next to the rest of the poem could seem out of place, but Matejka’s word choice is so delicate as that one word helps tie this piece to the remainder of the collection. That minute detail is key in what makes this piece function as a part of this collecton. In this piece, Matejka mentions musical artist Beck, introducing rock references into this specific poem. The phrasing of Beck’s lyrics here, despite not coming from a directly hip-hop or rap source, adhere to that same speech style in “to get me some pants.” Although many of the Texas poems in this collection differ boldly from the rest of the pieces, generally including less rap and hip-hop style diction, delicately chosen diction keeps the cohesion of the collection while still providing a different taste of the Matejka’s style.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Imitation Entries Week 3
Both of this week's entries come from Adrian Matejka's "Mixology."
Entry 1:
From "Winter / Weird Fishes"
"Every morning, you loiter/ like a middle-aged sugar mama/ once the sun's up, hoping/ to be more than a meal ticket."
Every morning, I loiter, a middle-aged
Go-nowhere, do-nothing kinda way about
my life and these streets, sidewalk I walk
when the sun comes up, and I’m hoping,
you’re hoping to buy my meal ticket for
Tuesday, not that I asked, I just assumed,
assuming you’ll be around this side
of town, of sidewalk to talk, talk about
sun’s and sons and Sons and meals,
but I always turn it into me-alls and I know
that, know that I’m sorry. I know you’re not
anyone’s sugar mama, but I would be your sugar,
Mama. I know you better than you know I do,
don’t know when I’ll know about anything more
than loitering and leaving, leaving you
in the dust of my transgressions, sweeping
up sidewalk chalk and negative talk. I’m sorry
I forgot my wallet, I told you that but you know,
knew I’d do this. I always do this, don’t do
anybody any good, just loitering, littering,
pitter pattering and taking up the space
and leaving you in space, my sun.
Entry 2:
From "An Old Hand"
"But this man shook my hand/ like he was the lucky one./ Instead of that being me,/ counting up my nickels/ at the end of the day, hoping/ they make some kind of sense."
They make some kind of sense, I guess, nickels but who needs ‘em? Who needs me,
Weak in the knees, Snickers kneads my abs like a baker, a broker (I’m overdrawn
$1.27) broken by an office space, a space ship, a ship wreck and I can’t do it anymore.
It’s never hot enough and you’re always on fire. I’m not paranoid but I have this pair
of noisemakers… I’ll sell them to you, your lucky day, my luck is changed from that time
I paid my rent in nickels in dimes, spending too many fives on dime bags and sorority hags,
haven’t cut my hair in months and I think my mom hates me now. He was the lucky one,
didn’t have to do nothing but be born. That man, at the end of the day, he’s the lucky one…
A right hand man, didn’t do nothing to deserve it, just be born was all… instead of that
being me, it was him, the lucky one. But Disaster don’t care about your luck. She asked
for him by name because it was her turn. Man then me, she said, man then me, she managed
to mask it by playing on your superstitious “when you turn fiftyish” and he didn’t even
know if that word was real but he knew her real well and she always
make some kind of sense.
Entry 1:
From "Winter / Weird Fishes"
"Every morning, you loiter/ like a middle-aged sugar mama/ once the sun's up, hoping/ to be more than a meal ticket."
Every morning, I loiter, a middle-aged
Go-nowhere, do-nothing kinda way about
my life and these streets, sidewalk I walk
when the sun comes up, and I’m hoping,
you’re hoping to buy my meal ticket for
Tuesday, not that I asked, I just assumed,
assuming you’ll be around this side
of town, of sidewalk to talk, talk about
sun’s and sons and Sons and meals,
but I always turn it into me-alls and I know
that, know that I’m sorry. I know you’re not
anyone’s sugar mama, but I would be your sugar,
Mama. I know you better than you know I do,
don’t know when I’ll know about anything more
than loitering and leaving, leaving you
in the dust of my transgressions, sweeping
up sidewalk chalk and negative talk. I’m sorry
I forgot my wallet, I told you that but you know,
knew I’d do this. I always do this, don’t do
anybody any good, just loitering, littering,
pitter pattering and taking up the space
and leaving you in space, my sun.
Entry 2:
From "An Old Hand"
"But this man shook my hand/ like he was the lucky one./ Instead of that being me,/ counting up my nickels/ at the end of the day, hoping/ they make some kind of sense."
They make some kind of sense, I guess, nickels but who needs ‘em? Who needs me,
Weak in the knees, Snickers kneads my abs like a baker, a broker (I’m overdrawn
$1.27) broken by an office space, a space ship, a ship wreck and I can’t do it anymore.
It’s never hot enough and you’re always on fire. I’m not paranoid but I have this pair
of noisemakers… I’ll sell them to you, your lucky day, my luck is changed from that time
I paid my rent in nickels in dimes, spending too many fives on dime bags and sorority hags,
haven’t cut my hair in months and I think my mom hates me now. He was the lucky one,
didn’t have to do nothing but be born. That man, at the end of the day, he’s the lucky one…
A right hand man, didn’t do nothing to deserve it, just be born was all… instead of that
being me, it was him, the lucky one. But Disaster don’t care about your luck. She asked
for him by name because it was her turn. Man then me, she said, man then me, she managed
to mask it by playing on your superstitious “when you turn fiftyish” and he didn’t even
know if that word was real but he knew her real well and she always
make some kind of sense.
Free Entries Week 3
Entry 1:
First off, let me preface this little number by saying I wrote most of it on a barf bag while on an airplane Sunday night on my way back to Georgia. I couldn't unbuckle my seat-belt because the buckle lights were on (for those of you unawares, I'm generally a serious rule follower) and it was the only thing within reach. I'm only saying because I thought it was funny... and funnier since I have to stare at a barf-bag the whole time I'm typing this. But I only know what it means as much as you will...
Entry 2:
First off, let me preface this little number by saying I wrote most of it on a barf bag while on an airplane Sunday night on my way back to Georgia. I couldn't unbuckle my seat-belt because the buckle lights were on (for those of you unawares, I'm generally a serious rule follower) and it was the only thing within reach. I'm only saying because I thought it was funny... and funnier since I have to stare at a barf-bag the whole time I'm typing this. But I only know what it means as much as you will...
Sometimes I just want them all to shut up, you know? Just shut the fuck up… It’s all just noise, you know? I don’t care where you got your shoes or who David started screwing. I don’t care, just leave me alone. I sit here every morning pretending to finish trig homework but you know, I drew fifteen elephants upside down and carved the alphabet on each one, that’s what I’ve been doing. Don’t you see? I see purple dragons melting into my walls before I fall asleep every night, their oil-stain scales layering their skin like sheet after sheet of the wall paper they live on, and I want to touch them but I can’t because I come here every morning and it’s so noisy and my head is a trashcan like your stomach… I wonder if this is what babies dream about in the fetus… those lights when you close your eyes, the dragons, purple and that lightning shade of yellow the one that hurts to think about, patterns in black and is it scarier when it means nothing to them or me? I have these dreams, you know, when I take a lot of asprin before a nap and the purple dragons turn into cotton ball clouds with cartoon faces and there’s nothing I can do about it.
Entry 2:
She shook her head and told Him to hush, another plague won’t do nobody
no good. They don’t know no better than You did and You know it. And He said,
I was wine drunk and fell asleep watching The Office. He’s down there in his
Sunday hat telling people I said they shouldn’t drink wine. I never told nobody
not to drink wine. I never told no one they shouldn’t get naked. I never asked them
for nothing more than some conversation and a thank-you card. I’m putting the House up
for sale; I don’t wanna live here no more. I just wanted them to like Me, Momma,
just like anyone else. You wanted me to talk, but they won't listen. Nobody ever asks if I’m okay...
Remember when our boy died, Momma? Remember when our boy died and they hung his picture all over My House? Did it to hurt me, make me feel guilty… I know it’s all my fault, Momma, but it don’t make no difference now, Momma.
You know them damned fools put “wholehearted” in the glossary? No more, here on
out. They want Me to stay away but they keep throwing balls in the yard, Momma, right
over the fence like I built it over night but Momma, it took seven days, you saw it go up.
You wanna know what? In the beginning was the Word and the Word was
a mess. Spelled wrong and backward in sideways cursive and too many silent letters...
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Junkyard Entries Week 3
I slaughter smurfs in my shower and leave the evidence in my hairbrush. --- This is pretty easy to figure out if you've seen me today or yesterday or if you've ever dyed your hair blue... basically it looks like that. Smurf massacre.
"What are the words you are born from?" -Randy Hendricks (brilliant man!) said this today in class. I write down everything he says.
I will be 21 in four hours and I told myself I'd be dead by now. -- I wrote this right before we left Poetry today. I write down a lot of these during that class. This kind of came from the mini-chat about the "most significant birthday" and the difference between 16 and 21.
"We have each of us, nothing. We will give it to each other." -Carolyn Forché
"I'm not inside your head. I am your head."
"What are the words you are born from?" -Randy Hendricks (brilliant man!) said this today in class. I write down everything he says.
I will be 21 in four hours and I told myself I'd be dead by now. -- I wrote this right before we left Poetry today. I write down a lot of these during that class. This kind of came from the mini-chat about the "most significant birthday" and the difference between 16 and 21.
"We have each of us, nothing. We will give it to each other." -Carolyn Forché
"I'm not inside your head. I am your head."
Strategy Week 2
First of all, I would like to say (again, apologies for my incompetence) that I guess I went in the wrong direction with last week's strategy exercise (which is a shame because it was my favorite entry of mine from last week. thank god for bad reading - sometimes.) but I got it now, I think.
The strategies Gary Jones incorporated to create the piece "Run of Weld Before Lunch" rang as some of the more valuable in the work discussed thus far. By sorting through his natural junkyard and freewrite phrases, Jones found an unexpected direction to follow; his intention was not to write a draft about "machine-shop workers" but as that seemed to be the main subject of his freewrite, he found a topic of interest and researched it further as to create a new conversation between the poet and the past. Instead of just being satisfied with the images Jones's free-write summons, he searched for more real-world images to create a historically accurate, more rounded topic which gives his draft more depth and meaning. Being aware or having a "historical consciousness" illuminated a new path on which Jones could travel to make interesting and meaningful poetry. Another vital factor Jones incorporates in the creation of his later draft was the expansion, contraction exercise explained earlier on in our text.
The strategies Gary Jones incorporated to create the piece "Run of Weld Before Lunch" rang as some of the more valuable in the work discussed thus far. By sorting through his natural junkyard and freewrite phrases, Jones found an unexpected direction to follow; his intention was not to write a draft about "machine-shop workers" but as that seemed to be the main subject of his freewrite, he found a topic of interest and researched it further as to create a new conversation between the poet and the past. Instead of just being satisfied with the images Jones's free-write summons, he searched for more real-world images to create a historically accurate, more rounded topic which gives his draft more depth and meaning. Being aware or having a "historical consciousness" illuminated a new path on which Jones could travel to make interesting and meaningful poetry. Another vital factor Jones incorporates in the creation of his later draft was the expansion, contraction exercise explained earlier on in our text.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
SIDE NOTE
does anyone know how to make it post the right times/day without editing it every single entry?
Imitation Entries Week 2
I think last week was more of an imitation whereas this week, I'm going to go with more of an improv kind of thing. I'm still getting the hang of it... and this blogging thing... I'm used to livejournal. Forgive my incompetence.
Entry 1:
This one needs a preface since it isn't really specific in the syllabus what I am allowed to riff off of... I'm improving from the first (?) draft - page 142 in WP- of Trista's "Persephone" because I liked the sounds.
Beginning lines of Trista's draft... "Things that crack, things that fracture:/ show me a book, pages and pages of/ millions and millions of/ fragmented lives who give up, are given up,/ forgotten of, forgotten to."
Forgotten of and forgotten to, two of them size 7 left
for dead on the corner of Telegraph and Russell
and the sophomore with the purple hair picked them up -
because they were her size (almost) - on her way,
her way to the Buddhist temple you see after the arch
way of posies and pansies and princess flower, glory bush, purple glory
bush, purple glory she wanted them all to be purple.
All of it, all of everything, the purple everything
she wanted to carry around in her pocket because
everything fits in her pockets with the picture of her mother
and the note she found "written by jeff." dave was our
street jesus, jesus christ! Christ is somebody that gave
up. That's not how I would write the gospel. Did you see it?
On the history channel? I wanted to brush her hair and make her
lunch because i know jesus won't, because he's broken, because he broke
up with her when she was twelve and took her mom
because he could. He had, what, five punctures? but she had a million,
a million! The holes from before left in the crease of her speghetti elbows
and she's like Jesus, too. She doesn't know but she is
my Christ, my Dave, my Mom. Electric.
Entry 2:
Sheshy- If you read this, it's funny because I ended up using your concern for my discomfort from Friday. I didn't actually feel this way. Inspiration.
From "Aubade" by Philip Larkin (page 133 in WP)
"I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare."
Half-drunk and second hand smoked out
because I'm first hand allergic and dependable,
depending on the day (Mondays- I'm free).
She doesn't mean to wake me but it's four
in the fucking morning and I can't sleep
with this stench of dependence in my hair
and her legs wrapping mine, tight ballerina thighs
I've known for a decade, a decade with my tiny dancer,
her heartbeat the cadence of mine. All I want
is to sleep on the couch by myself, by my
self. We'll tell each other stories before we fall
asleep. I'll tell me my secrets because I, you, I
already know them.
But she's here and she won't leave
because I asked her to come, come out
from some dark place into my dark place
because my pillows are handmade and I thought
I was lonely. But I had myself, my self and me
don't need nobody else. I've been screaming
since we were just two kids but you don't listen
because I never made you. But you made you
love me. And I made you make me and we made
nothing our best friend. We're nobody together,
and nobody likes to sleep alone without the neighbors
and red fox dogs like busy bees in tree trunks,
the one that killed the boy with the glasses
and we raised our glasses to not
being killed.
But you're killing me. And I let you.
Because I'm half drunk and out of shampoo
and I can't look into those glaciers on your face
and say good bye or even good night. you know
the night isn't good because I'm half drunk
and I drunk half that bottle myself
to forgive you so you would give me
what I needed, somebody to keep me
from myself, my self, the only girl
i loved. and loathed. loathed like that wart
on my elbow they burned off and that skin
burned and i could smell it for weeks
haunting my nostrils and burning my boogers
to a crisp with that stench.
it's four in the morning and i can't count sheep,
i don't remember what they look like or why they
look like sheep. why we would count an animal
when we could count each other... there's two of us
or three. you, me, and myself. my self. my self.
Entry 1:
This one needs a preface since it isn't really specific in the syllabus what I am allowed to riff off of... I'm improving from the first (?) draft - page 142 in WP- of Trista's "Persephone" because I liked the sounds.
Beginning lines of Trista's draft... "Things that crack, things that fracture:/ show me a book, pages and pages of/ millions and millions of/ fragmented lives who give up, are given up,/ forgotten of, forgotten to."
Forgotten of and forgotten to, two of them size 7 left
for dead on the corner of Telegraph and Russell
and the sophomore with the purple hair picked them up -
because they were her size (almost) - on her way,
her way to the Buddhist temple you see after the arch
way of posies and pansies and princess flower, glory bush, purple glory
bush, purple glory she wanted them all to be purple.
All of it, all of everything, the purple everything
she wanted to carry around in her pocket because
everything fits in her pockets with the picture of her mother
and the note she found "written by jeff." dave was our
street jesus, jesus christ! Christ is somebody that gave
up. That's not how I would write the gospel. Did you see it?
On the history channel? I wanted to brush her hair and make her
lunch because i know jesus won't, because he's broken, because he broke
up with her when she was twelve and took her mom
because he could. He had, what, five punctures? but she had a million,
a million! The holes from before left in the crease of her speghetti elbows
and she's like Jesus, too. She doesn't know but she is
my Christ, my Dave, my Mom. Electric.
Entry 2:
Sheshy- If you read this, it's funny because I ended up using your concern for my discomfort from Friday. I didn't actually feel this way. Inspiration.
From "Aubade" by Philip Larkin (page 133 in WP)
"I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare."
Half-drunk and second hand smoked out
because I'm first hand allergic and dependable,
depending on the day (Mondays- I'm free).
She doesn't mean to wake me but it's four
in the fucking morning and I can't sleep
with this stench of dependence in my hair
and her legs wrapping mine, tight ballerina thighs
I've known for a decade, a decade with my tiny dancer,
her heartbeat the cadence of mine. All I want
is to sleep on the couch by myself, by my
self. We'll tell each other stories before we fall
asleep. I'll tell me my secrets because I, you, I
already know them.
But she's here and she won't leave
because I asked her to come, come out
from some dark place into my dark place
because my pillows are handmade and I thought
I was lonely. But I had myself, my self and me
don't need nobody else. I've been screaming
since we were just two kids but you don't listen
because I never made you. But you made you
love me. And I made you make me and we made
nothing our best friend. We're nobody together,
and nobody likes to sleep alone without the neighbors
and red fox dogs like busy bees in tree trunks,
the one that killed the boy with the glasses
and we raised our glasses to not
being killed.
But you're killing me. And I let you.
Because I'm half drunk and out of shampoo
and I can't look into those glaciers on your face
and say good bye or even good night. you know
the night isn't good because I'm half drunk
and I drunk half that bottle myself
to forgive you so you would give me
what I needed, somebody to keep me
from myself, my self, the only girl
i loved. and loathed. loathed like that wart
on my elbow they burned off and that skin
burned and i could smell it for weeks
haunting my nostrils and burning my boogers
to a crisp with that stench.
it's four in the morning and i can't count sheep,
i don't remember what they look like or why they
look like sheep. why we would count an animal
when we could count each other... there's two of us
or three. you, me, and myself. my self. my self.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Freewrite Entries Week 2
Entry 1:
Walking to Townsend after ENGL 4109 saved in my cell phone: Sounds of horror on a night like this the wet grass to quick sand to swallow my baby body… am I the final girl, redeemed? A new virgin born of necessity survival as my soul breath (ruah, ruah) drops of rain like gun shots street lights like dim burning candles whispering to me telling me to run like hell. I saw regan last night, or puzuzu, I can’t keep them straight anymore, the girl from the demon, they’re the same to me, in me we’re the same. the shadows tease me and tell me to watch out because the boogie man is still real, like the angel that was in my parents bed during that thunderstorm in the third grade. Do you remember that?! We always remember but nobody believes us. She was older than me like she still is now of course, brunette but we have the same eyes… same parents too of course, but the same face, same big ole teeth, same memory of that angel with the gold hair in the middle of that bed they never shared and I always slept in until barbies got old and so did i… why am I so scared? It’s all the same hallucination, regan and the angel are the same because they are as real as the beers that conceived me and made us look the same and laugh at anything with cats on it. Mama said he got in some fight and his face was bleeding when she woke up, a fight probably my fault (don’t raise your cat to be gay) so he was laying in the middle of her sheets pathetic as can be just like me for way too long. I locked my car right after shutting the door and its okay you know, this is all okay.
Entry 2:
It’s like I take in a breath and suddenly the whole world is breathing with me and I hold my breath to pause but she breathes with me and I’m scared. I’ll never be able to tell you how this feels. I’m on this plane, you see? I stare at the tree bark until it becomes my skin and it wrinkles and cracks like me when I’m laughing and when I am old. In my hand the skin hardens so can we know how she feels? The whole earth breathes with me and we laugh to shake the leaves in each tree and the birds mock the passersby because they cant hear her laughter. Can’t you see, this is no metaphor but my whole body… we pulse and hurt and it’s a lot of pressure to understand her.
Both of these are kind of just prosey nonsense pieces from my reg journal and notes saved in my cell phone... Also, I dyed my hair blue today. Just sayin'.
Walking to Townsend after ENGL 4109 saved in my cell phone: Sounds of horror on a night like this the wet grass to quick sand to swallow my baby body… am I the final girl, redeemed? A new virgin born of necessity survival as my soul breath (ruah, ruah) drops of rain like gun shots street lights like dim burning candles whispering to me telling me to run like hell. I saw regan last night, or puzuzu, I can’t keep them straight anymore, the girl from the demon, they’re the same to me, in me we’re the same. the shadows tease me and tell me to watch out because the boogie man is still real, like the angel that was in my parents bed during that thunderstorm in the third grade. Do you remember that?! We always remember but nobody believes us. She was older than me like she still is now of course, brunette but we have the same eyes… same parents too of course, but the same face, same big ole teeth, same memory of that angel with the gold hair in the middle of that bed they never shared and I always slept in until barbies got old and so did i… why am I so scared? It’s all the same hallucination, regan and the angel are the same because they are as real as the beers that conceived me and made us look the same and laugh at anything with cats on it. Mama said he got in some fight and his face was bleeding when she woke up, a fight probably my fault (don’t raise your cat to be gay) so he was laying in the middle of her sheets pathetic as can be just like me for way too long. I locked my car right after shutting the door and its okay you know, this is all okay.
Entry 2:
It’s like I take in a breath and suddenly the whole world is breathing with me and I hold my breath to pause but she breathes with me and I’m scared. I’ll never be able to tell you how this feels. I’m on this plane, you see? I stare at the tree bark until it becomes my skin and it wrinkles and cracks like me when I’m laughing and when I am old. In my hand the skin hardens so can we know how she feels? The whole earth breathes with me and we laugh to shake the leaves in each tree and the birds mock the passersby because they cant hear her laughter. Can’t you see, this is no metaphor but my whole body… we pulse and hurt and it’s a lot of pressure to understand her.
Both of these are kind of just prosey nonsense pieces from my reg journal and notes saved in my cell phone... Also, I dyed my hair blue today. Just sayin'.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Junkyard Week 2
Peanut Butter Fingernails
"CARA THOMPSON IS NOT A LAUNDRY LINE."
He packed kitty cat breakfast in my lunchbox
they turned Jesus into lunch and asked for his baby face on a cookie cake
snow is a road block, a toe block, a block buster busting blocks like megatron tron tron tran transvestite superheroes swimming stupid, stupid cupid's lucid dreams seem, seems, seams sews snows show, snow block.
"CARA THOMPSON IS NOT A LAUNDRY LINE."
He packed kitty cat breakfast in my lunchbox
they turned Jesus into lunch and asked for his baby face on a cookie cake
snow is a road block, a toe block, a block buster busting blocks like megatron tron tron tran transvestite superheroes swimming stupid, stupid cupid's lucid dreams seem, seems, seams sews snows show, snow block.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Imitation Entries Week 1
Entry 1: Going off Professor Dr. Katie Chaple's poem on pg 74...
Across the sucrose stained countertop, I am waiting
for a middle aged paper pushing divorcee to ask
for what I already know he wants, White Chocolate Macadamia
and a Sugar cookie, for his four year old, who
"gets her attitude from her mother,"
while giving me a toothy grin and an eyebrow
that asks if I'm interested
and I wonder, what if,
what if, I pushed against this crumb caked tile
and sprung against the counter shoving my fist
toward his mouth, scattering napkins and straws
causing security to abandon their segways to do an actual job, for once,
just for being like every other scummy man his age
who thinks he can talk to a 20 year old girl
like she would be lucky to sleep with him?
And I wonder if his wife left him
or if he left her for somebody
like me, like a child. Did he want someone younger
or dumber? For someone who wouldn't mind
the 300 calorie snack he feeds his fat daughter?
I click the side of my purple phone to light up the time
and wait, like I have for four years, for this man
to ask me for what he wants
so I can give him what he wants
or at least part of it.
Entry 2:
Working with the poem "Paramour" by Angie Estes on pg 67
Named for a Shakespeare's shrew
they called me "Kate,"
and just that, which means
"pure" in some
language that isn't my own.
Named me, after a girl,
(a girl!) with a screw
or two loose, bad
tempered and stubborn.
The truth is, I didn't have
a say in the matter.
He named me as I appeared
to be, and I guess
he knew before I had a chance
to change his mind.
Who doesn't want
to be called something
other than the name
we're give? The older
I grew the more I proved
that a rose by any other name
would be a different
flower. Daddy
could have called me
Juliet, or Bianca.
But I was named for
the bitch in the story,
the too true screw loose
shrew in desperate need
of an attitude adjustment.
Across the sucrose stained countertop, I am waiting
for a middle aged paper pushing divorcee to ask
for what I already know he wants, White Chocolate Macadamia
and a Sugar cookie, for his four year old, who
"gets her attitude from her mother,"
while giving me a toothy grin and an eyebrow
that asks if I'm interested
and I wonder, what if,
what if, I pushed against this crumb caked tile
and sprung against the counter shoving my fist
toward his mouth, scattering napkins and straws
causing security to abandon their segways to do an actual job, for once,
just for being like every other scummy man his age
who thinks he can talk to a 20 year old girl
like she would be lucky to sleep with him?
And I wonder if his wife left him
or if he left her for somebody
like me, like a child. Did he want someone younger
or dumber? For someone who wouldn't mind
the 300 calorie snack he feeds his fat daughter?
I click the side of my purple phone to light up the time
and wait, like I have for four years, for this man
to ask me for what he wants
so I can give him what he wants
or at least part of it.
Entry 2:
Working with the poem "Paramour" by Angie Estes on pg 67
Named for a Shakespeare's shrew
they called me "Kate,"
and just that, which means
"pure" in some
language that isn't my own.
Named me, after a girl,
(a girl!) with a screw
or two loose, bad
tempered and stubborn.
The truth is, I didn't have
a say in the matter.
He named me as I appeared
to be, and I guess
he knew before I had a chance
to change his mind.
Who doesn't want
to be called something
other than the name
we're give? The older
I grew the more I proved
that a rose by any other name
would be a different
flower. Daddy
could have called me
Juliet, or Bianca.
But I was named for
the bitch in the story,
the too true screw loose
shrew in desperate need
of an attitude adjustment.
Strategy Entry Week 1
He was born on the shores of the Bay, under the Golden Gate
Bridge and California sunsets after twenty-three years of breathing in
Thank-You Ma'ams and Nana's sweet tea. Yes, he screams in the face of the filth
drenched bums on the corner of Haight and Valencia, because he can, says he’ll die happy
if he never sees another god damned Waffle House again.
His new body falls into Mexican restaurants in the Mission
and he, like the newborn he is, cries because the air tastes
different. He wanted to run away but he ended up here. All he wanted
to see was anything but red clay and exit 24. He died on that plane,
he says. He died after the complimentary Coke crossing over the Rockies,
sunk his hands into the thirty degree salt water when he got
there, just for the hell of it, just to say he did.
This is using pages 40-42ish.
Bridge and California sunsets after twenty-three years of breathing in
Thank-You Ma'ams and Nana's sweet tea. Yes, he screams in the face of the filth
drenched bums on the corner of Haight and Valencia, because he can, says he’ll die happy
if he never sees another god damned Waffle House again.
His new body falls into Mexican restaurants in the Mission
and he, like the newborn he is, cries because the air tastes
different. He wanted to run away but he ended up here. All he wanted
to see was anything but red clay and exit 24. He died on that plane,
he says. He died after the complimentary Coke crossing over the Rockies,
sunk his hands into the thirty degree salt water when he got
there, just for the hell of it, just to say he did.
This is using pages 40-42ish.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Free Entries Week One
Entry 1: This man reminds me of the smell of a long running bookstore, Moes in Berkeley. He looks like that smell... I want to spend all day getting drunk off his words and direction (CAFE LATTE WAS INVENTED HERE!). He's worn in the right ways, precise and delicate but clearly enduring, passed from life to life one hand to another hardback hard back his back hardly broken but broken edges or just worn. Gray hair becomes silver if you articulate articulation articulotion! He tells us we are just a carnival of superfreaks. But the language is buried in the basement.. only the freaks can open the chest. He is a preacher, a prophet of the carnival. He calls to the freaks and we listen. Ringleader! Ringleader! We beg for more and let him drown us into a baptismal tub. We drown in monomania and complicated business. Give us more book store sell us whatever you can sir all we want is to drown to drown to drown. Tears are not hand sanitizer. I transplanted my mom into an ocean because I could because I read the Babysitter’s Club books, the whole series, when I was in first grade. I told him that. Can you believe it?
Entry 2:
“So… do you live here?”
He wasn’t dating her. I could tell. I knew that whatever he told me after we’d gotten back was sincere, that I was the first girl he’d met in college that he really wanted to pursue. I never took him for much of a liar. Good intentions, that sort of guy.
“No, I go to school at West Georgia.”
But they’d messed around, maybe. She’s definitely interested in him or she wouldn’t be talking to me.
“Aww. Well, how do you know Jeff?”
I hate when people say “aww” after I tell them where I go to college, like it’s adorable that I think I’m being educated there. People who do that generally attend some larger university with a more accurate reputation than my school has. These people are always girls, always assume I’m younger than I am, and are generally majoring in something their parents asked them to. These girls generally have no clue where my school is actually located and they would hate it here. I’m not interested in these kinds of people.
“We were on the same study abroad trip this summer. So, yeah…”
I give her a brief account of our shared five weeks, the things we enjoyed as a group, leaving out the things him and I had enjoyed together, the two of us. I leave out my favorite story… the first time he came back to my room with me after an accidental rendezvous at Campus. He stayed with me that night and left his sock.
She was trying to see what he sees in me, putting me in some box or place, a label which probably is wholly inaccurate. But I don’t mind, see? I don’t mind because she doesn’t matter. So I look at that boy who does and I feel a little crushed. I’m here for a job right, in his town. I’m here, getting paid to walk around talking to drunk college students about their shitty phone services while handing out free bottle openers (note to self: pointless. Bottles are expensive. Cans are cheap.) and there he is. I mean, two or three weeks without a stupid text message and it’s whatever really. I’m not the kind of girl to flip out over some unanswered texts from a boy… I mean, we never agreed to anything. He didn’t do anything wrong.
But he’s here. And I hate him for it.
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