Sonnet

I like this one, so I'm reposting it here.


Sonnet for an Absent Spouse

I almost wrote “an empty house,” but it isn’t, still three of four

on site: Son, and dog and me. In your absence, I chauffeur Son

and walk the dog. I text “I miss you.” Is that the vodka (80 or more?

calories) talking? Or maybe it’s the delicious and necessary wine

(5 ounces Merlot = 120 calories) that makes my thumbs light.

When I miss you, I drink whiskey (110 calories), I let Son spend more

time watching “Firefly” on his computer to avoid the nightly fight.

I imagine expensive additions to our home: a deck, French doors

opening off our master bedroom and into the backyard, fertile

with rosemary, tomatoes, chard, sunflowers, and orange poppies.

When you are gone, I am uncharacteristically morose. I wile

the hours away reading actuary charts which forecast our untimely

demise. It’s not wise, the way I spend my time. Wait: that’s a lie.

I imagine the hours we’ll spend, sipping wine, until we die.

National! Poetry! Month!

Welcome to April, in which two poets test themselves against time, meter, rhyme, and the days that demand poems. That's right, it's National Poetry Month which means that HighTouch and I will be writing a poem a day, and you know what that means! Lower those expectations. Let's go!


April Fool

Perhaps there is a spaceship where astronauts
grow tomato plants in zero gravity.  Perhaps there is a zip code
where anyone can live, their mail circulating in some imagined zone
Perhaps instead of a tax refund, I am buying you an air conditioner
or a refrigerator or those teal shoes that you love.
 I am leaving them on your front porch, surreptitiously,
for you to find.

Perhaps I am pouring water on you to wake you from your sleep,
only it's a pitcher full of shredded newspaper,
confetti of the displaced, the forlorn,
the slightly out of date.

Perhaps I am beckoning you near with only a whisper,
trying to dump water, soapy and warm,
down the front of your blouse, rendering you rain-
soaked, stained and foolish.

Or maybe I am a lie, a single red tulip,
planted years ago in a patch of dirt beside the house
that bursts forth unexpectedly every year this day.

I still have a Blog!

You guys, I still have a blog!
Which sits here, dormant, like a piece of white paper that, for some reason, is growing mold.
BUT
Poetry Month will soon be upon us and Hightouch and myself made a somewhat informal pact to revive our Poem A Day project during Poetry Month, which is April.
So, I decided I would write a poem a day but BY HAND. That's right. Like, in a notebook and shit.
With that in mind, I decided having a daily writing project (a la Hightouch) is a good idea. I have been Facebooked into brevity, but, my dear readers, I have more to say.
Yes, I will not be contained in a mere Status Update.
No, my words will be many and my sentences will be convoluted.
I HAVE ALL THE BEST WORDS.

and out

Last Day of PoMo

I fell woefully behind on NaPoWriMo, but I had to write a poem today, for the last day. I was thinking a sonnet, but then this one turned...I don't know, political? Inspired by listening to the radio on the way home and having some theory thoughts about all the violence we're experiencing, and then hearing a man talk about the long history of race riots in the US.
In any case, here's my sonnet. It's pretty bad, I won't lie, but maybe I can fix it.

Sonnet for the End Times

every generation seems doomed to repeat the same problem

Today they riot in Chicago and New York and Baltimore.

Before that, Ferguson, and Brooklyn and L.A.

Since America has been a country we’ve been at war

with ourselves. Or let me be honest: they,

the whites, we have been at war with black men. Four score,

a hundred years, a century, more. In 1919, play-

ing at Lake Michigan, a young black boy crossed a line, bore

the weight of ensuing riots on his thin corpse. Today

this same black boy wears a hoodie, does not answer, Sir,

does not defer, physically, to the Law. They will say

he was armed, he attacked, that’s what Police are for.

They shoot; we riot; played by the game.

Tell me, Fire, who burns in the flame?

"Against [her] own best time"

Well, it is April now, and National Poetry Month, so why not a post that takes a line from a poem?
I've been thinking of this line from Sharon Olds' poem "Sex Without Love" but totally out of context.
Yes, you naysayers and skeptics, it DOES have to do with Crossfit, thanks for asking.
Because, as you know, Crossfit workouts are usually timed, so, ostensibly, one competes against her neighbors and compatriots. But...BUT what she, one, I am actually competing against is "my own best time" meaning, I'm just competing against myself.
Of course, in the poem, Olds thinks this is a bad thing, because she compares it to sex without love. I won't comment on that, but she disparages runners because they "know they are alone." I love running and one of the reasons I love/d it was because it was something I did alone. I didn't need a gym or a partner to do it.
But I love Crossfit for the opposite reason. I do need a community, a coach, a competitor to do it. However, I also need to be reminded (like, every day) that I am not in competition with everyone or even anyone. Other people can make good motivators, the clock can kick you into action, but ultimately it is you against your own best time. And, I might add, your own standards.
I made myself redo two push ups today because I wasn't happy with my form. So. It's not enough to do it fastest, to do it best. You have to do it right.
That's some zen shit.
Happy Poetry Month!

Sex Without Love

How do they do it, the ones who make love
without love? Beautiful as dancers,
gliding over each other like ice-skaters
over the ice, fingers hooked
inside each other's bodies, faces
red as steak, wine, wet as the
children at birth whose mothers are going to
give them away. How do they come to the
come to the come to the God come to the
still waters, and not love
the one who came there with them, light
rising slowly as steam off their joined
skin? These are the true religious,
the purists, the pros, the ones who will not
accept a false Messiah, love the
priest instead of the God. They do not
mistake the lover for their own pleasure,
they are like great runners: they know they are alone
with the road surface, the cold, the wind,
the fit of their shoes, their over-all cardio-
vascular health--just factors, like the partner
in the bed, and not the truth, which is the
single body alone in the universe
against its own best time.