the INLAID EAR

In Bed The Kiss, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1892   We rest, rung. On everything, a slight blur. Parisian. Post-coital. Like Sleeping Beauty in reverse we kiss, then fall into deep sleep. Next day, we eat the city. Then we rest, run. Gone. Very thin gaslight makes cities of our bodies. We’re natives and we’re newcomers. We kiss one morning, and the sun goes down. In the dark parlor where we restrung one very thin gaslight, we conjoin at the window. The whole world seems underwater: how seas support our own wet weights, and how all our souls, wild as thoughts, were strung on everything as light.

Abecedarian: what they’re thinking. Anthropomorphizers might imagine             an avocado feeling rotten. Bullies seeks a satisfaction             they never felt. Clients don’t know what they want,             just what they don’t like. The thoughts of our inner demons             deepen as they eat. “I know nothing.” This will-o-the-wisp             sometimes startles experts. Friends demonstrate such endurance             focusing on our sweetness. Gonzo journals thought themselves             cool, and thought themselves cool. Sometimes I think I'd...

Queron is a new poetic form I developed during the November 2009 Poem-A-Day Challenge hosted by Robert Lee Brewer at Writersdigest.com. Influenced by Rilke’s advice to “live the questions now,” I developed queron to support the way my mind engages questions—which is what it does when I write poems. Counting syllables slows me down into a state of attentive curiosity. Interweaving rhymes mirror the way the mind flashes back and forth as it grapples with questions. The stanza breaks offer opportunities to shift the perspective of the poem and consider the central question from different angles. The ending couplet can offer a sense of closure—whether an answer or a surrender to not having an answer. Writing queron requires attention to meter, rhyme and content. Here’s the recipe: Seventeen lines are grouped into three quintets and a final couplet. Each line has an equal number of syllables. Rhymes interweave in this scheme: ababa bcbca cdcdb dd. The poem includes a question....

While the flowers grow, the trees blow in the wind and I say, “Why do I see these plants in bloom? When it’s fall, they won’t be blooming anymore. They will be falling and making the leaves fall. But when it’s summer again the trees will bloom. the leaves on the flowers will bloom, and the trees will fall in the wind.” I look at them quietly breeze through the air when the trees blow. I want to do a haiku: While I see the flowers bloom, they blow, and then they’re done blooming.

"I Knew a Woman" by Theodore Roethke I knew a woman, lovely in her bones, When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them; Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one: The shapes a bright container can contain! Of her choice virtues only gods should speak, Or English poets who grew up on Greek (I'd have them sing in chorus, cheek to cheek.) How well her wishes went! She stroked my chin, She taught me Turn, and Counter-turn, and stand; She taught me Touch, that undulant white skin: I nibbled meekly from her proffered hand; She was the sickle; I, poor I, the rake, Coming behind her for her pretty sake (But what prodigious mowing did we make.) Love likes a gander, and adores a goose: Her full lips pursed, the errant note to seize; She played it quick, she played it light and loose; My eyes, they dazzled at her flowing knees; Her several parts could keep a pure repose, Or one hip quiver with a mobile nose (She moved in circles, and thos...

(This is a poem about my daughter's preschool, El Cerrito Parent Coop, which is all about play.) Open that box. Release the zoo. Uncap the bottle. Dump the glue. Free the marbles, tipping the jar. Where are those hats? Empty the drawer— there are projects we need to do! In the worlds we reveal, what’s true is the plenty of me and you with all this permission of more. Open that box— the big one we can’t see into. It will yield a surprise or two, an impulse to paint or build or enact scenes on a distant shore. Friend, we’re lucky to be those who open that box.