Knocking From Inside

Glass Blocks

2009-07-17T11:43:00.000-07:00

glass blocks created in Apophysis; photo courtesy of Chelsea Turner
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Portland area readers...

2009-07-16T08:56:00.000-07:00

you should be following this blog: Reading Local: Portland

And Portland area writers, you should consider what use you can make of it.

I understand there's a Seattle cousin, Reading Local: Seattle, but haven't checked it out.

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can your barista do this?

2009-07-15T11:33:00.000-07:00

fractal generated in Apophysis; coffee cup courtesy of ilco
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Country Rides

2009-07-15T08:05:00.001-07:00

3 Word Wednesday: Drip. Hypnotic. Sulk.

hypnotic dripping
of water from sulky wheels
horse trots steadily

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An Afternoon at the House of Captain Faulk

2009-07-10T12:27:00.000-07:00

The seance ends. The medium is slumped
upon the divan's sky-blue velvet, lost
and looking dazed. Worldly news has trumped
the attendees' attentions. Smoke of sauced
tobacco loiters round the room, from flaming
charcoal braziers (breathing out monoxide).
Fickle hearts—but there's no use in blaming
them for running off to wait at dockside:

their father, by acuity and stealth
slipped the blockade, defeating the embargo
bringing in a ton of precious cargo,
furs and amber to restore his wealth.
The outlook's sanguine for the Misses Faulk
who've lost all interest in spirit talk.

--words courtesy of Read Write Poem
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What I Hear

2009-07-10T10:55:00.000-07:00

owl courtesy of Marja Flick-Buijs; fractal created in Apophysis
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Recipe for a Homunculus

2009-07-09T00:38:00.000-07:00

A pinch of cornstarch, splash of lemon juice
as if for stubborn sauces that won't thicken:
stir and let ingredients reduce.
Hermetic subtle processes will quicken
base materiél to emanate
its soul, a substance held both rare and noble.
Dinner can go hang. You contemplate
the swirling simmer of the Primum Mobile--

oops! You've scorched the mixture. Scrub the pot.
Today you won't produce homunculi
so next time, take more care and keep an eye
on temperature control. And if this lot
has failed in yield, it's not a total loss:
it gives a little body to your sauce.

--for Read Write Poem

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Miscellaneous notes

2009-07-08T11:56:00.001-07:00

Should probably mention that I sent off the manuscript of my novella, Killing Time, to F&SF yesterday. Expecting a response by mid-September or so.

Also over the holiday weekend, I put together a manuscript of poems and submitted it to Tupelo Press for their open reading period. I've gotten a number of free books (they only charged postage) from Tupelo over the last few months, and I think I got a pretty good idea of the kind of poetry they like to publish. So we'll see.

Recap of April's submissions: I got poems into Barefoot Muse, The Lyric, also Raintown Review and The Road Not Taken, both still forthcoming. Haven't heard from Eclectic Muse, Windfall or Tiferet. Got rejected from a whole slew of other journals, most of which were long shots. After I hear from Tupelo one way or the other, it'll be time to put together another stack of submissions.

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Crusades

2009-07-08T07:45:00.000-07:00

3 Word Wednesday: Gloom. Kneel. Transparent.

crusader banners
shed gloom over kneeling ghosts
transparent victims

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After the Fourth

2009-07-05T17:28:00.000-07:00

nation's eyes open
smoke-reddened and underslept
from watching fireworks

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October

2009-07-03T13:33:00.000-07:00

is a flamethrower,
kindling leaves, then shriveling them to ash.
October is a woman straining
her spine to see if she can still reach her toes.
October ends in quiet rains.

Not a good month for beginnings:
fold for storage, pickle and jam,
count over blessings.

--for Poefusion

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Wolf's Tooth

2009-07-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

O I have put my hand on the wolf's tooth
hidden among green parasols and whorled towers
of purple and white. O scorpion bedded upon agates,
stonefish at the gate of a jewelled coral castle.
Venom at the heart of the gaudiest blooms,
poppy blowing sleep into the sultry air.

Now the howls of the black dog pull the edge
of evening over the city like a velvet painting
of Elvis in a suit of lights. Now three-legged cats
with angular bodies stalk the top of the fence.
Gull and crow negotiate meticulous division
of a dead squirrel. A sacrifice is exacted.

The wolf licks my blood from his lips and grins.
I use his tongue to warn the cats away.
Spangled velvet shadows full of poison glide
before us and toss their heads like giant bulls
scenting the arena. Diamond scales glitter
at my bitten wrists, streetlamp bracelets.

Have you seen me?

Look again where the oak roots have lifted
the sidewalks away from the blind earth. Worms
flee the drought into deep soil. If there is
brightness there it may be the sun glinting on
the teeth of my companion.

Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Undertaker (illo)

2009-07-01T16:20:00.001-07:00

The following poem was left at Miss Rumphius' acrostic prompt by Jane Yolen. I've taken the liberty of illustrating it with a slightly macabre fractal.

Undertaker

Victim look up.
Under a low and
Lowering sky, the undertaker comes
To carry your particulars
Up to a bleak, black heaven.
Read the set of wings, cruel beak, hooded eyes. This is no
Easing into eternity but a short, sharp shock.

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Violinist

2009-07-01T14:37:00.000-07:00

violin courtesy of LastClick; bow courtesy of Rainer Schmidt
figure produced with Apophysis
Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Readings in July

2009-07-01T13:06:00.000-07:00

I'm giving two readings this month:

July 15 at the Lloyd Center Barnes & Noble
7-8 PM, with two other readers

July 21 at the Rockwood branch of the Multnomah County Library, 17917 SE Stark
7-8 PM, with Dale of mole

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I've done a bad thing

2009-07-01T12:56:00.000-07:00

I've started to play with Apophysis.

metal boxes

fish bones
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Geography of Memory

2009-07-01T10:25:00.000-07:00

From the North Pole all directions
are south. From the tip of the gnomon
all directions are past and downward
so you step up, into empty air,
the halls of thunder, the glass floor of sky
paved with cirrostratus tiles.

There are no landmarks here. Navigate by
pigeon auspices. The compass spins on an axle
of childhood desires and fancied slights
pointing Dream by Dream-Need
across the geography of memory
and into the unexplorable future

where rivers you can't step into
flow over stones you can't refute.

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Azan

2009-07-01T09:16:00.001-07:00

At first light the call comes:
Leave your beds and pray.
Lilting across the roofs
At first light, the call comes.
House windows light
Up as the faithful rise.

At first light the call comes.
Kneeling and prostrate
Hear how they murmur:
"Beloved, be with us
Allah, grant that we may
Remember you always."

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Bing!

2009-07-01T07:44:00.000-07:00

3 Word Wednesday: Collapse. Sweet. Yearn.

yearning for cherries
sweet flesh collapsing into
purple-staining juice

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Wind Silver

2009-06-30T13:04:00.001-07:00

Wherever the wind turns it finds silver:
on the corrugated surface of the lake
under the tossing leaves of alders
sliding along the stems of foxtail grass.

As if the world were made up of sofa cushions
and now and then God has to rummage for
spare change. He throws a handful of quarters
in the ocean, they turn into a school of anchovies.

I hold my hands up to the rushing sky
but the wind just riffles my hair.

Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Stone Rainbow

2009-06-29T09:21:00.000-07:00

original image courtesy of Carole Nickerson
Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Bottom Wakes

2009-06-28T22:15:00.000-07:00

Bottom. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to
say what dream it was: man is but an ass, if he go
about to expound this dream.
--Midsummer Night's Dream, IV.i. Wm. Shakespeare

so here I sit:
under a tattered umbrella-- no,
it must be the sails of a windmill
which, as all men know, means madness.
Poor Bottom, first a fool, then mad,
preyed on, like spring lambs by eagles,
by visions no sane man would harbor.

But I would not trade this donkey head
for common wisdom, weights and measures,
the petty daily round of common life.
I'll eat grass like Nebuchadnezzar--
mad, but still a king. I'll go on all fours,
Bottom, but still a donkey. Into the arms
of spinning windmills, Sancho, ride me!

--image courtesy of oncle Jim via Read Write Poem

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The Old Toy Chest

2009-06-28T21:57:00.000-07:00

We had us an old wooden chest
with a lock that had long lost its key.
The toys that we had were the best
that any kid's playthings could be.

Marbles and Lego blocks
A horsie on springs
Old keys with no locks
and puppets on strings.

The toys that delighted a kid
are worn out or broken or chipped.
The names that were carved in the lid
have faded to shadows of script.

A train with caboose
on a grey plastic track
A brown velvet moose
with a corduroy rack.

The chest we have given away
to younger kids making a start
in teaching themselves how to play--
but I kept the key in my heart.

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Neap Tide

2009-06-28T21:24:00.000-07:00

Today the falling surf uncovered rocks
that rarely see the sun; encrusted with
goose-barnacles and kelp and softer things,
the fleshy blossoms of the sub-littoral.
If it's true Kharybdis was a goddess
of the tides, anemones should be
called kharybdimones, for they are stirred
by tide as land anemones by air.

Upslope the sand, untouched by water these
three days, was sculpted by the wind into
fantastic dunes.The flats between were carved
to spiny ridges, hoodooed shelves that begged
for tiny shadows of some caravan
to give them planet-scale. Next week, I know
these lands will lie forgotten under waves
and wind and sand will write their names in shale.

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Dragon Year

2009-06-25T15:37:00.000-07:00

"So what's your sign?" My kinship is: with boats
that race to scarlet drums, their oars like legs
on water-centipedes; with kites afloat
above forbidden cities; pearls or eggs
encysting essence; rulers of the flood;
warden of temples and pavilions;
source of a pigment that resembles blood
which painters use, and call vermilion.

The zodiac's a bracelet hung with cryptic
charms called constellations, symbols worn
like ruts into the path of the ecliptic,
to which Western horoscopes adhere.
My heritage is elsewhere. I was born
in nineteen sixty-four: a dragon year.

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