9 to 5 Poet

After a couple of weeks of missing the caravan in the Traveling Poetry Show, I’ve finally been able to catch up. Here’s my interpretation of this week’s prompt — Utopia. By the way, the story that this poem refers to is Ursula Le Guin’s story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.” If you haven’t read it, you should go. Right now.

Topos

I faced them, white board behind me,
blank unsmiling faces starting at me.

Only half had read the story:
an emaciated child, imprisoned in a basement

so that everyone else could live
in blind hedonistic bliss. The language

was difficult, predicates and modifiers
constructed in too tall towers. They gave up

by the end of the first page. I drew a line
on the board, wrote UTOPIA on one side

DYSTOPIA on the other. I asked them,
what does a perfect world look like to you?

The told me: no school, no worries,
money whenever we need it, no responsibilities

no jobs, no nagging parents, teachers or wives, no
children to feed. Their answers spun around me,

no, no, no. They slashed the ties that bound
their bodies to their heavy, weighted lives,

lives of waiting and listening and not doing. So,
I asked, how could this go wrong?

At first they were quiet, unable to imagine
how these limitless lives they just constructed

could topple. We wouldn’t know anything,
we couldn’t have anything, we’d get bored.

I imagined them drifting, experience to experience
like slowly deflating balloons, imagined

these driftless, half empty lives they try
to escape. I brought them back to the surface,

the root of the words, from the Greek:
topos means place. Dys means bad –

ruined utopias are bad places. U means
not, topos means place. Utopias

are not places, not realities
we can imagine existing, even for a while.

Last week, in my weekly word count post, I complained about the writing drought I’ve had for the past month. Well, it’s raining now! Thanks to sites like Writers Island and the new Traveling Poetry Show (nee Poetry Thursday), I’ve been writing up a storm!

This week, I wrote two poems, two revisions, and a haiku. So all told, that’s 1700 words this week alone! That brings me up to 22,217 for the year.

I should be careful, because I don’t want to jinx it, but when it rains…

This week’s Traveling Poetry Show trigger, as it was called last week, is about confronting my writing fears. I knew exactly what I needed to do, as soon as I read the post. I need to revise some poetry.

I’ve written about revision here before, but I’ve been doing a paltry amount of revising lately. Why? Because I contemplate revising with a combination of fear and dread. Even though I love editing other people’s work and encourage them (and my students, for instance) to revise, revise, revise, I approach revising with a combination of fear and dread. I fear it because, basically, there are so many what-ifs involved. What if I make the poem worse? What if I can’t make it better? What if I can’t see the true nature (and therefore the truth) in this poem?

But, I did it, because I was forced to revise this week, or else find something else to be afraid of, I revised two poems that I wrote for Poetry Thursday long ago. Now, I revised based on my writing group’s (she’s really just one other writer) suggestions, so they aren’t dramatic re-visions. They are more tinkering. But dang it, I tried. Click on their titles to see the original versions of the poems. I welcome any feedback on the new versions.

Spare Some Change

On the day I was baptized,
I chose my new name, not the one
my parents had given me, the one
I’ve outgrown, like two year old jeans.

My new friend, God, cornered me,
dipped his dirty fingers into our bottle
of Popov Vodka, and sprinkled
fiery drops on my sunburned forehead.
I was already living for two months
on this empty road, alone.

Already traded my pink retainer
for 5 dented cans of beans. Already defended
our drafty warehouse squat
from rats the size of my two fists. Dove head first
into the McDonald’s dumpster, rescued
three garbage bags of stale hamburger buns.
Drank rainwater from crumpled coffee cups,
thrown in the gutter. Memorized
my own way of asking for change:

Spare some nickels for a girl
who can’t go home?

Already thought of home
on those dank drizzling nights when I shook,
even in an alcoholic slumber. Healed
from my first street beating, black eyes
and cracked rib, for picking
someone else’s off ramp. Already remembered
Dad’s hands on the covers, on the blue nightgown

the thick stench of whisky and coke
on his hot breath. Already forgot
that girl I once was,
braces, B-average, and brand new
shoes every other month. Already tried
calling Mom twice,
hung up before I lost the change.

the day I was baptized, renamed
on a barely lit alley at midnight,
behind the restaurant dumpster,
in front of all of my friends,

I’d already chosen this empty stomach life
because some things are better
than living at home.

* * * *

Self Portrait, 1991

Red Lipstick

Each morning, I painted my lips dark red
with Wet N Wild 99 cent lipstick, number 516.
I dreamed myself invincible,
as I blotted, pressed and powdered
until I a brown-red stain

seeped into my skin. I turned
my music up loud, listened
to Rage Against the Machine,
and thought I could,
listened to The Cure
and waited for it. In school,

I was mostly invisible, silent,
next to all the other girls with blue-red
war paint smeared across their lips.
I was just another one, cloaked
in black and skinny enough
to squeeze through the crack

in the high school fence. We broke
into our parents’ houses, with keys
hidden in secret pouches
in our Pic N Save purses, punched
in the alarm codes,
before it went off.

My house had Bud Light and nosy neighbors,
Elena’s had a liquor cabinet
with Sharpie lines drawn on the bottle’s sides.
We cracked open Cokes
and poured in whiskey and rum,
vodka and peach schnapps,
filled the bottles with water, right below
the line. We invited the boys
to watch them slam beers
and mosh to Metallica.

One guy said he went to juvie
for assault with a deadly weapon, pulled
back his bangs, bared his forehead,
where he bashed the guy’s skull
open with his own. I laughed,
but left him alone.

One afternoon, Elena’s dad came home,
found us curled on the couch,
drunk and watching MTV.
Her father screamed in Russian,
his face red and swollen. We snuck
out the back door.

The next morning, she answered the door,
slowly, wincing as she moved. Her nightgown
slipped to show her shoulder
covered in red welts. Her father
stood behind her, hand above her head,
pushing the door until it clicked shut
and I walked back to school, alone.

I’m glad to see that Delia at Left-Handed Trees is posting Poetry Thursday this week. She wrote a lovely mini-essay on poetry and reading TS Eliot, as well as the optional idea for next week: confront your fear. The post next week will appear on Carolee’s site, Polka Dot Witch.

I think this a way for us PT junkies to rehab gracefully. So, here is my offering for this week, which I actually wrote last weekend.

At the Howard Johnson’s on Cornhusker Highway

Labor Day Weekend

Children run wild
in colorful bathing suits, clutching
2 liters of generic Mountain Dew
while slip-sliding around the indoor pool.

Parents line the edge of the fenced-in
swimming hole, sipping $2 Buds
and watered down margaritas.
They say no and spank bottoms lightly
when asked for pizza and quarters
for the video games. Inside

teenage girls smear black
mascara rivulets running down their cheeks,
and playfully splash ambivalent
teenage boys. Adolescent acquaintances
(introduced in the hallway last night)
tentatively hold hands
under the jacuzzi bubbles, and roll
their eyes at their too awkward, too

enthusiastic younger siblings. They holler
at the kids to go play
in the room, watch cable, go anywhere else
but here. Everyone is practicing
for real life, assuming it starts
just after tomorrow’s long drive home.

It’s more than a little bittersweet posting my last Poetry Thursday post ever. I think that Dana, Liz, and the entire PT community should be commended for the coolness that they created. I will definitely miss it… until the next project surfaces.

Here is my poem — this is what immediately occurred to me when I read the trigger of “open a window.” I don’t know what it means, and it’s awfully rough, but here it is.

After the Well

I remember bottles of potions, arrays
of sweets, all displayed within my reach.
Their tags, “Eat Me, Drink Me”
sang in soft tones. I remember
being so small, I could squeeze
through doll-sized doors and tiny keyholes.
This was okay, this insignificant size
until everything

loomed large around me. I was a small
seed, ready to sprout. Hours later,
wiping frosting off my lips, I was
expanding ever so quickly. I remember
my arms ached with growing pains, muscles
taut from so much stretching. I was
an unraveling vine, a creeping myrtle,
bursting with shoots, tendrils and leaves.

Before my snack, I fell asleep in fetal position
on the ground, dwarfed by furniture legs
and pebbles. As soon as I ate, I shot
forward, fast and against my will, crowding
the too small house. Chairs and tables
pressed into my flesh, swallowed by
soft folds of my skin.I thought

I would burst at tiny seams; I thought
I should open a window
or door, make room for myself. Just then,
my elbows shattered four panes of glass,
breaking the confines of my too small house.
I remember thinking, Oh bother,
now I’ll never get home. This was the least
of my many young worries.

I am very sad to report that Poetry Thursday, my favorite poetry site on the web, announced today that they will be closing up shop at the end of the month.

The ladies at Poetry Thursday, Dana and Liz, created a wonderfully giving and inspiring community that I was lucky to be a part of for a little while. I really appreciated being able to get feedback and support on my writing, as well as an automatic deadline — every Thursday. I also am lucky to have found the blogs of other like minded writers who create and work and live their real lives. It definitely made me feel less alone in my commitment to my poetry.

Luckily, they mentioned that there is a new poetry related project in the works, so hopefully the community will continue in a new evolution. Until then, I’ll have to actually give myself deadlines and stick to them. Sigh!

For this week’s Poetry Thursday post, I was inspired by Patricia Smith’s Hip-Hop Ghazal, which appears in the current issue of Poetry magazine. I think she really captured the flavor of the music, in a traditional form. So, I applied the ghazal form to the music I listen to, angry alternative chicks like Ani DiFranco, Regina Spektor, Tori Amos, and the like. Enjoy!

What My Song List Tells Me

Anger echoing off fret boards, thick with scorn and unsung rage,
her lyrics like my teenage diaries, torn from unsung rage.

Voices plaintive as breaking plates, echo off our earphones while
we walk for miles. Even our shoe soles are worn from unsung rage.

Every man a mystery, an anonymous stranger or
long lost daddy, leaving us roses, thorns tipped with unsung rage.

Every night is Friday night, every fight a catastrophe.
We keen alone in broken basements, dreams borne from unsung rage.

What else are we to do with this, our broken fingernails and
calloused hands? Girl, pick up your guitar, perform your unsung rage.

Outside your song tracks and flashbacks, your life is now quiet,
you once wore spite like a spiked choker – mourn your lost unsung rage.

Swimming Lessons

Last night, I felt the memory
of a gentle undertow
push me-pull me
until I fell asleep. Yesterday,
I swam in the topaz sea
remembering you, clutching me.
I arched my back, floated
on the surface like a cork
allowing the currents to guide me
while I watched a motionless
cloud streaked sky. Ripple
waves carried me, rise
and fall, rise and fall, and stained
my skin with salt. I began

to count the waves, like you taught me
knowing every seventh was the big one
On the seventh, the break line
crashed over my head, and
I tumbled, topsy-turvy
and breathless, until the water
subsided. Your hands never left
my hands and I watched,
salt stinging my open eyes
as ocean debris (kelp, shells,
bottle caps, rocks and wrappers)
ricocheted around me. I learned
this moment was inevitable
and temporary, so I waited it out.

Inside,I am still
that little girl
whose hands you held
in the choppy gray Pacific,
while we counted. My tiny feet
are still planted in soupy sand.
I am still counting waves
laughing and shrieking in joy
(and fear) as you and the ocean
lifted me. You tried to teach me
to respect the wide gray water, know
that it could change
smooth or rough, depending on the weather.

You served me well:
I am you buoyant
and watchful daughter, wiser
in the ways that everything
can change as it lifts me.

For the past couple of days, I’ve been posting haiku that are inspired by a recent walk I took in my neighborhood with my digital camera. I live about 4 blocks from downtown Minneapolis, so most of my neighborhood is comprised of apartment buildings and stores. However, in a hill above my house there are some really lovely city houses with gardens. This is where I took the majority of my pictures.

This has also helped me to get a jump start on my 100 Haiku project, because it had been pretty stalled. I’ve been trying to write 100 urban inspired haiku, with a focus on the seasons, as is traditional with haiku. However, it seemed like winter was a more evocative season for the city, until I found these flowers. Click on the 100 Haiku label to read the others. Enjoy!

Sidewalk Garden

In concrete confines,
a manufactured chorus,
voices singing spring.

I was having a bit of difficulty with this week’s Poetry Thursday
prompt of “rivers.” Even though we passed many rivers in Iowa this weekend, I just didn’t feel a connection to the image. Then, this morning on my walk in my neighborhood, I watched the freeway full of commuters and realized that there are many different types of rivers.

Freeway Overpass

I cross the one-way
river, crowded with cars, stalled
as I am today.