I’ve been writing poems this summer and I wrote this for a friend who is falling in love. It’s a rough draft, but it’s so sunny and warm out that i don’t care about the parts that don’t work.

This Is Going to Break My Heart, but Ain’t it Grand

She loves pancakes,

especially when I make them tall and fluffy

but not so big that there isn’t room

on her plate for two slices of bacon

or a couple links of sausage,

an indulgence I knew we both loved,

but I only just found out that she loves bacon more,

just like I do.

Before I even start mixing the batter

I take the butter out from her fridge

so it will soften up under the knife,

and melt beneath the syrup

I warmed up the way she taught me to.

It makes her smile to see the the glass bottle

bobbing in the heated pan of water.

I tend to pour the syrup more generously than she does

over the three or sometimes four pancakes

we’ve stacked up on the dishes I grabbed from her drying rack

and placed on the kitchen table across from each other.

“It looks just like a table for two,”

she says laughing between bites

And it’s so amazing to me

the way her mouth gets sticky

just like mine.

CLAUSTROPHILIA

by Alice FultonAUGUST 2, 2010

It’s just me throwing myself at you,

romance as usual, us times us,

not lust but moxibustion,

a substance burning close

to the body as possible

without risk of immolation.

Nearness without contact

causes numbness. Analgesia.

Pins and needles. As the snugness

of the surgeon’s glove causes hand fatigue.

At least this procedure

requires no swag or goody bags,

stuff bestowed upon the stars

at their luxe functions.

There’s no dress code,

though leg irons

are always appropriate.

And if anyone says what the hell

are you wearing in Esperanto—

Kion diable vi portas?—

tell them anguish

is the universal language.

Stars turn to train wrecks

and my heart goes out,

admirers gush. Ground to a velvet!

But never mind the downside,

mon semblable, mon crush.

Love is just the retaliation of light.

It is so profligate, you know,

so rich with rush.

When art and politics are mixed just right it’s a pretty incredible experience. I’ve not read this poet before, but she sure got my attention with the following verse.

False Documents

They ran the numbers twice for you
giving you the benefit of the doubt
but you knew the computer at the other
end of the officer’s PDA would not find
your brown number in its little black index.
You drove exactly one mile per hour below the speed
limit. You buckled your baby into his car seat according
to instructions. You signaled for exactly three seconds
before you turned left. You wanted to hide the Subway wrappers,
the empty box of Orbitz gum. Evidence of Big Macs.
You wanted to drink the Mountain Dew before it turned toxic
in the hot Phoenix sun as you asked, doesn’t this green
sludge make me American enough? But you didn’t
move because you knew the officer would have taken
that for gun-finding or drug-hiding or some other supposed
Mexican sport. You with your hands at ten and two
wondered how long the bus ride the officer would take you
on would last and whether they would provide any water.
You wondered, as the officer put hand to holster,
how dangerous it would be to down that Mountain
Dew then and there, in the wide-open American air.

Nicole Walker

Cast a spell

on me
wrap me in

whatever
warp of words

come to
your mouth

until I gulp
them whole

of thought
whatever spin

we enter when
we so imbibe

what neither
had in mind

-Ciaran Carson

Sheez, it’s raining cats and dogs this morning and I’m missing summer thunderstorms. So I read some poetry.

A Color of the Sky

Windy today and I feel less than brilliant,
driving over the hills from work.
There are the dark parts on the road
when you pass through clumps of wood
and the bright spots where you have a view of the ocean,
but that doesn’t make the road an allegory.

I should call Marie and apologize
for being so boring at dinner last night,
but can I really promise not to be that way again?
And anyway, I’d rather watch the trees, tossing
in what certainly looks like sexual arousal.

Otherwise it’s spring, and everything looks frail;
the sky is baby blue, and the just-unfurling leaves
are full of infant chlorophyll,
the very tint of inexperience.

Last summer’s song is making a comeback on the radio,
and on the highway overpass,
the only metaphysical vandal in America has written
MEMORY LOVES TIME
in big black spraypaint letters,

which makes us wonder if Time loves Memory back.

Last night I dreamed of X again.
She’s like a stain on my subconscious sheets.
Years ago she penetrated me
but though I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed,
I never got her out,
but now I’m glad.

What I thought was an end turned out to be a middle.
What I thought was a brick wall turned out to be a tunnel.
What I thought was an injustice
turned out to be a color of the sky.

Outside the youth center, between the liquor store
and the police station,
a little dogwood tree is losing its mind;

overflowing with blossomfoam,
like a sudsy mug of beer;
like a bride ripping off her clothes,

dropping snow white petals to the ground in clouds,

so Nature’s wastefulness seems quietly obscene.
It’s been doing that all week:
making beauty,
and throwing it away,
and making more.

 -Tony Hoagland

The best thing you can possibly do with your life is to tackle the motherfucking shit out of it . . . Don’t be strategic or coy. Strategic and coy are for jackasses. Be brave. Be authentic. Practice saying the word love to the people you love so when it matters the most to say it, you will.

Love Song (Lame)

This is a little like high school
he said, when I wouldn’t take off my clothes.
It was true, although in high school
I would’ve come over to torture him deliberately
and now the torture was an unfortunate side effect
of my sadness, and had nothing to do with him at all.
Sleeping with you would be like
a drowning woman grabbing an anvil,
I explained. A burning man guzzling gasoline.
Lame analogies, but I was trying to make a point.
When he got up for a drink, I missed him
but that feeling disappeared once he came back.
I sat there and tried to feel sad,
tracking my blue mute form
as it sank to a furrowed ocean floor.

-Courtney Queeny

New Ohio Review
Spring & Summer 2010

Wow - sunshine! It’s all promise and hope right now. All warm air on my skin and blue sky every where. It’s lyrical stuff. Speaking of which, I keep meaning to post William Matthews short summary of all the subjects of lyric poetry. I love reading this when I’m feeling too serious about being serious.

• I went out into the woods today and it made me feel, you know, sort of religious
• We’re not getting any younger.
• It sure is cold and lonely (a)  without you, honey, or (b) with you, honey.
• Sadness seems but the other side of the coin of happiness, and vice versa, and in any case the coin is too soon spent on we know not what.

Ned linked to this great piece on writing by Barry Sanders.

I do believe that as you write more and age, the arrogance and most of the vanity go. It is a vanity met with vast gratitude: that you were hit by something as you stood in the way of it, that anybody is listening. When you are ashamed and revising your comments to old girlfriends of thirty years ago, you might be shocked to find out you really have nothing much better now than what you said in the first place.

Two weeks of rain in late May. Oh Portland, you’re breaking my heart. I should be used to this by now, a spring that runs from February through June, but every year it bums me out more and more. And this year I seem to be adding salt to the wound by looking at Facebook photos of friends in t-shirts and shorts and reading about how it’s hot and sticky and time to get out the kiddie pool. Today, I feel almost desperate for warm weather and sunshine. Fucking desperate. The prospect of having to wear a coat or a rain jacket on my birthday is bringing me down and pissing me off. I swear that I’ve got to reclaim my birthright for a summer commemoration.

May marks the end of my writing program. It’s been a terrific experience. I’ve met some really wonderful people, written my ass off and learned how to layout, print and bind a book.  I was so ambivalent about writing when I applied for the program. Grief had knocked so much out of me; it’s amazing now to feel that I want to write. Hmm. The end result of this endeavor is a self published book. I’m already getting ready to print  my 2nd edition seeing as how I found a number of typos in my first. And I cut it crooked too. There’s always a learning curve. But my plan is to have a pdf version available for download here for free and then sell the book version which has some extras, like photos, appendices, nice paper and a cool cover. Stay tuned on that note.

I’d be forever grateful if you sent me some wishes for sunshine.