poetry and poems

i heard back from new england
i got in!
havent heard back from the other two, my fingers
are crossed...
heres a poem thats still a draft...
xoxo
e

Fairytale Wedding

I am in a violet wedding dress with bullet holes
something seems out of place
Everyone else are wearing caps and gowns

There’s an audience applauding no one
Mother and Father are dressed in Sunday’s
finest; there’s a stain of something
resembling split pea soup
on Father’s tie

I try saying I think we are supposed
to be at the church at seven
but raspberry bubbles come out of my eyes
my mouth is sewn shut with licorice sticks
the color of my grandmothers cheeks
when she was seventeen, a raven haired vixen
from the old country, getting fat on ice cream and love

She will teach you her secrets–
how to make a man fall for you
Lust, she will tell you is the trick
Make him desire you, and cook your way into his soul

The groom is headless
and he’s not wearing any socks
The maid of honor is fucking your brother
It’s almost June
grandmother says, You look a little rosy
a little plumper and juicy, I could almost eat you up
I want to stick that beautiful bouquet of calla lilies up her ass

Run away before my life is over
this is not a fairytale
He is not the one

speaking of valentines day...

here's one i wrote on the first day of new poems week with sharon olds awhile back–
read it the other nite for anitvalentines salon, if any of you find your way to ny, pls let me know, the salon was huge success, already planned for march and starting april, was all sorts of fun
which i needed bc i just finished applying for low residency MFA programs, and was up till four am everynite, i planned it a little late!! hope everyone is well
xoxo
e

I’m Hooked

They married last night
Jenny and Richard
I hate them in their happiness–

Their journey begins
Dreams and fairytales

I’m hooked on the ventilator of life

Hatred and fear
I want to poison their love
Make them feel like me

stream of consciousness from Nura, hoping for a snow day

Thursday night on my mother's 81st birthday,
the telephone florist couldn't locate yellow roses
and so I think she's unhappy with the sunflowers.
I'm watching Celebrity Rehab after the Obama Clinton debate-
ice cream and TV have been my best friends this month-
February is very February and without the poetry class
I teach I wouldn't write anything but emails at work
but I made a promise to write a poem a week, none of which
are worth posting but it's good to keep the pen moving
toward the notion of a poem- like praying during crises of faith.
The lunar eclipse last night,
the promise of freezing rain,
all the Valentine chocolates vanished,
at least I'm not on Celebrity Rehab.
I myself love sunflowers.

Love, Nura and Yay Molly! and THANK YOU Erica I love reading your work on the blog.

To Red

My skin is a thousand eyes
and my body a liquid
yes to your dropping stone. . .
and in the orbits of those widening
ripples
our children nestle,
unconceived.

Saw this today and thought of you guys...

The Kiss

by Stephen Dunn

She pressed her lips to mind.
—a typo
How many years I must have yearned
for someone’s lips against mind.
Pheromones, newly born, were floating
between us. There was hardly any air.
She kissed me again, reaching that place
that sends messages to toes and fingertips,
then all the way to something like home.
Some music was playing on its own.
Nothing like a woman who knows
to kiss the right thing at the right time,
then kisses the things she’s missed.
How had I ever settled for less?
I was thinking this is intelligence,
this is the wisest tongue
since the Oracle got into a Greek’s ear,
speaking sense. It’s the Good,
defining itself. I was out of my mind.
She was in. We married as soon as we could.

the waiting game

I got accepted to Emerson's MFA program this weekend, and I've learned that Cornell did phone calls (which means I will get a rejection shortly). Two down, sixteen to go. I'm dancing about with anxiety.

The Boogeyman In My Closet

Hi all...
another dream poem
busy here
things are good
if you want to see my work online go to http://www.sundress.net/wickedalice/contents19.html
and also there's http://www.sundress.net/wickedalice/contents14.html
i also have a lot of creative non fiction which is elsewhere but will put that up later
hope everyone is doing well
if anyone is on myspace pls let me know, i have blog there i keep daily

erika

The Boogeyman Living In My Closet

Enters me through my pinky toe
each night at midnight

Sleeping with one eye open
is not as easy as it sounds
one foot supplanted to the ground

How does he get inside my head?
I want to banish him to a land of
my choosing, where little girls with
Barbies and tea parties would put him
in his place, shackle his pathetic little
body to a monstrous tree, perhaps allow
a lion to use him for a lollipop or a latrine

The buzzing in my brain will not end
I feel like I am going insane
this brain, on fire
man for hire, take your ass back into the night
you’re not wanted here–

When I put my head onto my pillow
I am afraid of sleep
cannot close my eyes
afraid of what’s underneath the bed
of what is inside my head
I don’t know if he is me, or I am thee
what is real, or fantasy
slumber, lullaby
hush little girl, don’t say a word…

2 things

Hey all:

1. Major Jackson did a photo essay from the Poetry Festival and a whole bunch of my images came up. It's on the Poetry Foundation's website here. You can view my full photo set of the experience here.

2. Two of my poems were published today here.

Hope you are all doing well! I'm in dire need of a nap. :)

xox

I was amazed after I finally posted what I backwash of shame I felt. It took four days to work up the courage to come back to the site. So now I'm here I wrote this incantation. It's not really a poem. It's a blurt.

Incantation

Ask.
Knock.
Squeak.
Speak.
The word is strong.
Sound is essential.

Defy the shame.

Come out.
Show up.
Dig up the talents.
Release the light.
Dare.
Vote.
Shout.
Shine
Be still.
Be radiantly,
quietly,
articulately,
completely
yourself.

Hello

Hello,

I am so happy to see all of you have kept in touch. I am new to the blogger world and I just created my own account (very exciting)! I hope to post some of my poetry soon to see what you all think of my writing. I hope you are all well and continue with the creative spirit you showed at the festival.

:0) Jessica

Friday Evening February First

Gratitude for the poems and messages you have posted on our blog. Reading them lets me be with you all again and inspires me to write.

I think we are a rare group of poets, and I am sustained by us.

I rarely miss the past but the fact is that I miss our time together.

Nura

From Eliza, as she tries to learn how to post :)

Dear Friends:

I feel like a mid-night stalker: I don't know how to come out of the dark and actually post! So here I am commenting and filling up the airwaves.

But because my resivion has to do with my conflict about speaking and being heard I'm sending these three poems which are the middle of a set of six called "Revision." They're a response to our gathering and my inability to revise the last poem I brought to the group.

Take Note

What’s alive is never what you think.
What you think is already dead.
No, these words are mis-said.
What’s alive is in between. . .
like Kachinas. . .
stepping down. . .
or across. . . living as they do in the cracks
of dimensions
so they appear – if you happen to see them – spindly,
loose-limbed, gigantic.

Everything you see is questionable.
What you think, more so.

But I still lift my head to look out
the door at the river roaring
with Saturday boats.


The Teacher

I’m sure we all wrote a hundred poems
the Saturday after Malena’s workshop.
Twelve disciples in a room communing
with each other’s work.

What else could we do?

Gurdjieff says we go to church for the sex
of gathering bodies, the electricity of minds
brought to attention. . .
. . . and her stillness,
her clarity
held up before us.


The Work We Do
(Sunday)

1.
My brother the engineer builds giant buoys
that ping the China Sea. Counting fish,
the government says.

2.
Like a whale sounding his sea, mapping passage, gauging
threats - where shallows lie, where canyons rise, or fall,
where others group, where dangers lurk - we gather feedback,
collect echoes, test the limits of our event.

3.
After that first gulp, that first smacking cry, the falling panic
at the grave grip of a dry sea, the hard edged world of flat echoes,
unbearable light, what comfort? Who responds late at night?
Are you angry her cries break your sleep, her aloneness echoing
your own?

4.
The buoy’s pings are so loud they stun whales,
my brother says regretfully,
at the end of his career.

5.
If I squeeze into a small enough box, if I muffle
the sound, will my siblings be safe?
Will I?

These poems feel incidental, trivial. But the process of writing them was interesting.

Thanks to all, e.

Oh, my goodness! I'm here! After all that huffing and puffing and leaving stray comments.

Thank you all for that wonderful encounter. I've so enjoyed reading your posts and amazing poems. It's so good to have this venue. Thank you, Molly.

E.

I wrote a dozen poems the days after the workshop, and this is one of a series of six called "Revision." None of the poems have much gravitas, but they're playing with the event and the issues that troubled me about the poem I failed to revise.

The Teacher

I’m sure we all wrote a hundred poems
the Saturday after Malena’s workshop.
Twelve disciples in a room communing
with each other’s work.

What else could we do?

Gurdjieff says we go to church for the sex
of gathering bodies, the electricity of minds
brought to attention. . .
. . . and her stillness,
her clarity
held up before us.

State to State: Minnesota and New York poetry contest