the dust of daily life

The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.
Pablo Picasso

Lately, I have been buried in the dust of daily life. The most hectic time of year at the middle school. New dogs. The son home for a brief 6 days before returning south to school for the summer. Trying to write covered in dust just leaves crumbs on the paper.

Luckily, some spring showers have come to wipe things clean. The final proof of The Imagined Life of the Pioneer Wife arrived today, and it is more lovely than I could have imagined. Parchment paper. Internal botanical illustrations. An amazing photographic cover. It should be available for purchase VERY SOON! I will be sure to let you all know. Working with Redbird Chapbooks has been a delightful experience all around. They took extreme care with my words and in making sure they were presented in a beautiful way.

And…my residency is less than a month away! I have made my travel arrangements to head to the Kimmel-Harding-Nelson Center for the Arts on June 10, and I hope to be posting regularly while there to keep you updated on new projects and how I handle all that time alone with my thoughts.

*******

(and now it’s time for a word from our sponsor…one of them, anyway)

Also, good friend and fellow poet Kristin LaTour’s new chapbook Agoraphobia is now available from dancing girl press, who will also release my chap We Build Houses of Our Bodies later this year. Check out Kristin’s book and the press, now having its summer mixtape promotion – 5 chaps for 25 dollars!

Day 20: little lines of lonely

I got the news today that the galleys for The Imagined Life of the Pioneer Wife should be headed my way soon. So excited about the design elements that the editor/designer at Redbird Chapbooks has proposed.

Playing around with phrases today, a sort of continuation of the tiny little poem I wrote the other day. I don’t know that it makes sense, but it’s okay just to play around once in a while. Again, although it’s Day 20 of the month, this will count as Day 13 for poem-a-day.

without you

the seaboard floods, poisoned

fish in the sunlit bay, my fingers

sunk like hooks into their scales

*

all the knives smell of onions,

all projected theologies just

dull, empty murmuring

*

all my hubris dragged clean

out like a labor – that push,

that pain a ransom unpaid.

*

Day 19: april redux

I went to meet two dogs at the shelter this afternoon, brothers who the shelter wants to adopt together. They were adorable and loving and open as dogs are, and we will go back to see about bringing them home early next week. Dogs always make me happy, which is something I needed this week. The news has been full of cold and floodwaters and explosions and sadness, and April does not seem at all like spring this year. It seems gray and unwelcoming and depressing all around.

So I started to think about the draft I wrote earlier in April, which took lines from other poets about this traditionally spring month. And I felt I needed to take a different take on  this particular month.

So, for Day 19 (but only the 12th poem):

April, Redux

What blows. What freezes. What weather

grips our tender flesh and squeezes hard.

What floats. What floods. What waters rise

and lift the heavy boxes that hold our days.

What crashes. What thunders. What clouds

billow and slip tears beneath our eyelids.

What hides. What is discovered. What fear

behind the doors, beneath the bloody boat.

*

NaPoWriMo Rewind: Bad at Math

Yes, I know it’s day 17. And I am not having much luck keeping up with the poem-a-day. But I decided to do some revision work today, and I’m feeling much better about at least attempting to keep my mind occupied with poetry this month and keep the practice going.

So even though it’s day 17, I offer here Poems 10 and 11, one a very brief little nugget and the other a revision of a poem in a series I was working on earlier in the fall using titles from “Battle Hymn of the Republic” lyrics.

Day 10: “without you”

without you

*

a 19th-century tubercular

lung-clenched, linen-fisted

awaiting a waft of salt air

*

Day 11: Succor to the Brave

succor to the brave

you crawl across concrete, broken bottle

mosaic pressed into your knees, and

you bleed for me

and I am sick at the sight, heaving,

wailing while you suffer, still

you bleed for me

and I shrink from your shredded flesh,

your war-fresh stigmata, yet

you bleed for me.

I flinched as I poured the alcohol, first in

your wounds then into our mouths -

you bled for me

and I dabbed with my best tenderness

at the places you were broken and

you bled for me

and then I cradled your head and stroked

your hair, your mangled limbs in our bed  -

my God – how you bled.

 

Day 8: A Little Late

I confess that I did not get my poem posted yesterday, but I did draft it. While I was attending a book release reading for John Goode, a talented poet and super sweet person who finally has a book out in the world. Graduating from Eternity contains John’s special blend of surreal urban landscapes with a tenderness that is sometimes heartbreaking. Check it out.

Anyway, John’s reading was at one of my usual poetry haunts, and last night it lived up to its “haunt” reputation in a different way. I realized it was at last year’s April reading at this place (at the same table where I sat last night) that I last spoke to a good friend who then left this world shortly after. After this realization hit me, I was not really able to focus on the open mic for a long period of time, so I began scribbling in my notebook instead.

This is by no means a proper or completed tribute to the friend who is gone, but it is an attempt. Which is the best I can do at this point.

The Corner Table

We try not to wake the painful parts, spinning them

away on a roulette wheel with a ball that never drops.

(Remainder removed for editing)