at the AWP in denver, colorado

some things i realized while i was there:

1. more is not always better when it comes to books.

2. more is often better when it comes to rainbows.

3. i have drinking limits

4. language is only and even a material

5. the letter "u" can be really dirty

6. i will probably always be a starbucks yuppy

7. alone-time is underrated

8. expensive hotels can be really nice

9. there are a lot of things i'm not sure about

10. there is something to be said about fake plastic dripping blood

11. books are much heavier than clothes

12. language is everywhere

13. language is everywhere

14. people are very similar in many ways

Poem as magnetic field

he hates the feel of work
her father
growing money in the garden
all wrapped up in paper and canary gold
foil and pretty looks in the pictures
she'd wake up on the driveway eating
radishes in red teeth
her mother drove
death like wind carrying pearls like
they do in high fashion
magazines
like girls wear pinecones
inside their hair and talk to each other
in opposites
she thanked death's
sway and taught people to feed camels
the sea foamed at night
when she traced water onto scratch-paper
absorbing expression and the
grass fleeing when it got too wet
now she freezes midway among
ornaments hanging in the attic
she waits for the sea
like her camels coming home.

Poem as Gentle Riot

1

Strictly speaking, there is a narrow definition: the fauna communicate in automatic modes of speech through an understanding that there are certain conversations to be avoided, not speaking of the ones they never had nor would they completely draw a person they’ve never met, but the practicality is heavy without taking its place; you, sitting across the street near a phone booth, regret not approaching such icicles of speech, but hey—throwing paper airplanes in a churchyard can be pleasing and a little wish.

2

Keep that hot head away from your daughters, because years later it will all feel the same, strictly speaking. The boring words slack on the page and the big houses live on water; the antelopes are glistening in their finely tuned hammocks. You’ve finally made it and you’re playing footsies with money to entertain your wanderlust. Question: how can you turn a squid into a mustache? Answer: design a new way to feed the rich.

3

It’s like those kids on a football field stealing the football, and then they cut it in half and flip it upside down, and they turn it into a boat and some of them are pouring out everyone's Gatorade and making a gigantic lake, and then they sail the football from one side of the lake to the other, and all the football players and coaches and cheerleaders are confused and freezing, and the football in two parts is now two sailboats and everyone is thirsty and extremely careful, you could call it a gentle riot.

like Silverstein, but different

I'm on an anagram binge as part of an exercise to get me thinking differently.

I Won't Hatch!

by Shel Silverstein

Oh I am a chickie who lives in an egg,
But I will not hatch, I will not hatch.
The hens they all cackle, the roosters all beg,
But I will not hatch, I will not hatch.
For I hear all the talk of pollution and war
As the people all shout and the airplanes roar,
So I'm staying in here where it's safe and it's warm,
And I Will Not Hatch!

****

Oh, a Twitch

(by me)

I tell her as I watch a streetcar go by,
I watch at smoke dripping by,
I tell a small troll holla
until the troll can't see the walk
or the phallic innuendo
or the hollowing out.
He clinches her shawl and pieces a
vanilla whatnot on the habitat;
wait for the ash thing which is normal,
of low finite kind: a nail, a hue, a hiss.

arrgh!

never a bad time for a good pirate reference.

question:

are new versions meant to replace the old ones, or is it possible for all varieties to exist peacefully together?  do "rough drafts" somehow weaken the point of the finished product?  or is it some sort of humble/helpful reminder for anyone to see where anyone else has come from?

when we replace things, is it ever possible for us to not be hiding something?

re~place \ri-'plas\ transitive verb substitute a person or thing for another that is broken, inefficient, lost, no longer working, or no longer yielding what is expected; switch seemingly equivalent items.

----------

i am learning to end things sooner, as in now.

words at their best

definition of the day: poignant \'poi-nyent\ adjective
sharp-pointed, keen, incisive, penetrating, neat, eloquent, applicable, relevant; evoking strong mental sensation, to the point of distress.