My garden

Hush, be still

button, turnip

turned inside me so fast

wound up tangling

strangling

it doesn't matter

anymore

you were born

unborn, backwards

white, still as a stoppered heart

drifted snow on a draped railing

blankets carefully folded

put away

you slowly vanished, disappeared

flowers rotted in vases

we did not notice

we told ourselves

nothing, it was nothing

you were nothing to us

an old mirror of wavy glass

little raisin, little mouse

don't haunt our house

Too soon to go-such beauty

It isn't warm here (sigh) but not raining so off I go to the bike trail. This time, I'll go slower and longer, maybe. I always forget that as far as I go in one direction, I have to return. Ha ha ha ha. Duh.

I sorted through an enormous pile of poems yesterday and found some treasure, including the first poem I brought to a Radish King writing group I was in way back when. It's better than I remember. Yesterday I recorded myself reading poetry for Menacing Hedge. I told Gio I want some Vincent Price movie music playing in the background with faint screams. I don't think he's going to do it so I'll have to settle for jazz. (What about bongos?)

Can I say here-I dislike penis poetry. Let me explain. These are male poets who feel the need to name drop in their poems, the Beats, esp Allen Ginsburg and, of course, Bukowski. And they get up to shenanegans when they read; they yell, they stab the air, they twirl on their manly toes. Blech. And they're of a certain age. I try not to criticize but geez, enough already. Let your work stand on it's own without all the posturing and hubris. And maybe you'll hear if your work is actually decent. I often want to see the page when I hear spoken word and the like. How does it hold up? Am I engaged and curious? Do I want more? Do I return to the work again and again because there is always a new discovery? Am I challenged by the language and the rhythm?

Yelling and gesticulating is not necessary. Not. Necessary. (see above)

Off to bike the Green River/Interurban trail.

I rode my bike a long way and felt invincible. Then I rode back and realized I was riding with the wind at my back before and now I was riding into the wind. I downshifted pathetically and doggedly rode in the lowest gear. I could hardly drive back. Jell-o legs. Drippy sweat. Fie on physical fitness.

The cats have it right. Sleep all day, especially if there is sun, have an evening meal, repeat.

Today, I watched as a young woman on a skateboard haul ass down a busy hill, weaving in and out as her backpack slid around on her shoulders. She was brilliant. No knee pads, no helmet, just her tail of hair flying out behind her.

I'm reading the winner's chapbook from a chapbook contest I entered and (obviously) did not win. They sent me an honorary copy (gee, thanks). I'm trying to be gracious. I found one poem I like. Really, one line. A line I might steal, if I scramble the words.

I'm much more careful about who (whom?) I submit to. I read the editor's works. I read previous editions to see if my work 'fits'. Journals will say they publish experimental poetry but they don't. They publish safe, tame work.

Sorry, Glee is on. I LOVE Glee. As much as Dexter. Seriously.

I watched a biopic of Beethoven and it was so heavenly because it was full of MUSIC, concertos and symphonies and choral works and string quartets and talking heads talking about his failed love affairs and his bad health and his hearing and Vienna and on and on. His scores were scribbled and crossed out and splotted with ink. The piece he wrote for Napoleon had a big hole in it where he crossed out Napoleon's name after Napoleon decided to be king of the universe. I had to go listen to the 5th again because it brings me to my knees.

Beethoven's hand span was super-human. His piano works are practically impossible for me. My wee hands. Good for midwifery, not so much at the piano.

Last night I dreamt I forgot to feed the chickens. I picked one up and she felt so scrawny. I felt terrible, and tormented. How could I be so forgetful and careless?

Then I woke up in a panic. Then I remembered we don't have chickens.

Oh.

But tonight we looked at chicken coop plans. By the way, if you want to bring your favorite chicken into the house because you can't bear leaving her outside, there are 'chicken panties' for her to, um, poop and pee it.

Really. As Deb said, "Why was I born on this planet, what did I do?"

Six of my poems got accepted, count 'em, six. I'll post where when I see the whites of their leetle eyes.

I'm gonna go crack my poetry knuckles now.

There they go

Wisteria

Sean came over and tore down the railings around the deck. Actually, they fell off from rot. Nice. So most of the wisteria is now lying on the grass. That's ok because wisteria is impossible to get rid of. Impossible. Next, he'll tear off the whole thing and rebuild. We'll have an 'outdoor area' where we can eat breakfast under the apple tree and read the paper and eye the garden to the sounds of chickens clucking and the imaginary poodles romping.

Today is rapture day. Huh, I'm still here and so is my tenant. That's no surprise because she has frequent loud sex with a variety of boys. And I'm busy today because I have a mom in labor so I'd have to rapture after the baby is born and it might be too late. I think the whole neighborhood is still here. Our zip is 98118, the most diverse hood in the country. I think heaven is mostly white people so we're not going anywhere soon, except to see if there are any empty houses with wide screen tvs and leetle cans of gourmet foods, olives, fig preserves for Rebecca and fancy olive oil. Oh, and my neighbor's old Chevy. Although they're godless heathens. I'm a Buddhist so technically I don't even have a religion. Nobody prays to the Buddha. That would be silly. I guess I'm an atheist.

The garden is beautiful. Like a fool, I agreed to be in the garden show this year (again). It's in July, when the garden looks like poop; no flowers, hot and dry. Except maybe this year it will rain ETERNALLY so the plants will be sparkly.

I feel delirious with drunken with sunlight and all the flowers smelling like, well lilacs and ginger and roses, yes roses. When it is sunny in Seattle, it is the most beautiful place on earth.

The poem you might have written but you didn't

Squirrel Adventures

My neighbors, who have for years had a family of sparrows nesting in their stove vent (which I can see from my kitchen window, this year boarded up the vent. (sob!) That's OK, they probably had issues with nesting material igniting or something.

Now they have squirrels. I saw them going in and out of a crack in the roofline. Bruce has been up there many times with wood, nails and hammer to close up the access. And each time, they chew their way out. They make a leetle hole that slowly gets bigger, amid much loud crunching and scraping.

I stand below, cheering on the squirrels.

Go squirrels.

We got all the plants planted before it started to rain. We went to Sky nursery. It's one of those nurseries with water features and shade gardens and acres of rhodies and azaleas and roses. You stagger around trying to figure out what you can afford and will it fit in your car without breaking all the branches and where in your yard will you plant it and do you really (really?) need another hosta...and so forth. After the most pathetic frozen Spring on record, honestly, we were all rather giddy. The parking lot was full.

I wanted an oriental pansy in the worst way but they were $100. I mean, one plant for $100 dollars. I could pay my water bill with $100. So I didn't buy an expensive pansy. I contented myself with a maidenhair fern. I won't kill this one. I won't kill this one. I won't. Why do they have to be so finicky?

Sheesh. One day they're fine and the next they're all dried out and curled up. My house is not the rain forest or whatever it is they want. What? Singing? Red shoes? Chocolate? What?

What do maidenhair ferns need to be happy?

I opened the very expensive bottle of port I've been saving for an emergency. It was that kind of day.

It was an emergency. I'm going to have another lettle glass.

halogen breathlines

fearless less fear

stop struggling

throw down with horses

their tangled in the wild

make them behave

no

naked and the dead

see the mutations

finite so finite

organize your notecards

surge onto the railways

a matchbook was found

press your fingers here

suppress your finer moments

coil the rope no coil the timers

swallow vinegar and swill

no list no orders no mountain

oily napkins cover your face with pandora

panic night vapors vespers

bread with lemon

all directions forward

birds gathered to crush a withered sky

welter a flickering flatline

purse your handhold

carry yourselves covertly

I was in Canada. O Canada. Peace Arch. Huge ferries with the continuation of bad food, but a veggie burger with glop so it tastes like **meat**.

I did see Canada geese. And eagles. And one frog.

Soon, Sean will come over and tear off the deck because it is rotting. MY BIG FEAR: I will forget there is no deck and I'll run out in the middle of the night with my birth gear and step into------nothing. Then my chin will hit the support beam and I'll break my neck. After that, I'll be in a wheelchair I operate by blowing through a straw.

How can I write poetry then? By blinking my eyes? And the cats will sit on me for warmth and I won't be able to wipe their (drool, fur, hair balls) off me.

Nightly-Hugo and Lola engage in a tussle involving laid back ears and yeowling. Fur floats through the air. Then Hugo makes a wad of the rug by the stairs. Every night. This is why they will never go to college and make me proud. They're in a rut. Because of the size of their brains and their, um, proclivities. And when they sleep on the bed, they pin me down with their weight so I think I've had a stroke in the night and can't move my legs. This is their job. Their only job.

Osama bin Laden's mother is grieving. For her son. Once he was a baby inside her. No matter, we were all babies once.

While walking around my yard, I stepped in dog poop. Since my dogs are imaginary, it couldn't be them. However, Lola, the downstairs dog is an actual dog and makes poop.

Then I found a busted robin's egg with a fully formed baby robin inside, yellow beak and featherless body. Momentarily, I pondered warming up the baby, bringing it back to life with my extraordinary powers and teaching it to say my name...on the other hand, my immortal powers are better saved for getting dog poop off my boot so I buried the baby robin and her shell.

There's an eagle nesting in the tallest evergreen. She makes her chirruping song in the evening. Crows dive bomb the nest. They see their own doom.

Tomorrow, Ina May Gaskin is at the big hospital here talking to the OB/gyn residents about normal birth. An anthropological inquiry since normal birth is not something they study. They don't see normal birth, they don't understand normal birth and they think we midwives are somehow loony. Ina May is a shrewd harmless granny with an alternate worldview. We're showing up in force to watch. I want to get there early to get a front row seat. NOONE sits in the front row at Grand Rounds. Ha.

We're contemplating a chicken coop for our as yet imaginary chickens. We want to have chickens like every other neighbor in our hood. Our chickens are gonna pack some heat for the raccoons, thieving bastards.