the INLAID EAR

A playful series of short poems titled with the single words the poems are about.  Spontannuity An Elvis impersonator I once interviewed used this localism more than twice. You can understand it to mean a specified income payable at stated intervals for a fixed or a contingent period, such as a lifetime, in consideration of a gargantuan pompadoured banana skating across frozen bacon grease.

This was the first, or one of the first, in this playful series of short poems titled with the single words the poems are about. Detail As I played with a tiny toy horse, my mom noticed and commented on the way its crafting included “every little detail.” I said, “No, it's an h -tail.”

Question: is blogging still a thing? Effective for purposes of what? And then? But anyhow, here is this project I'm thinking on, and maybe if I start to post the pieces here, they will appear to coalesce (I love the word coalesce) into something besides coal in lumps. The Words Thing: short poems titled with the single words the poems are about. Favorites. Least favorites. Fascinations. Miscellaneous. Embouchure. Heliofranticulating.  Ah, the spell check doesn't like old coins. All the better. So:  Rote This , written, is set unchanging in place. Still this, literally this, set. I may change my mind but these words, these this-es, repeated, are rote.

This ran up in the poetic forms challenge for Decima at good ol' Writer's Digest. I'm glad -  I am pleased with it: Globe of matter If ants weren’t so hungry, or if the queen disbanded the army, idle ants would do as we do: play poker, write memoir, sniff wines and pass their time in earth adrift in the disinterest of matter. We sleep through the pitter-patter of their gustatory footsteps and get up, upset to accept they have found a glob of batter.

         —after *J* Blue light and piano— a tickling brook of notes— and the damn mosquito that browbeat us all night. Blue light from the window, notes by David Benoit, and our blood endowing us with life—and that nit now paused on the window digesting as I go to get Ceramics Now , an old, bloodstained issue, folded. Good morning. Pow. Here’s a wad of tissue stained with our blood that’s naught but toilet food. I kiss you in the day we’re into.

Rockin' the dot matrix!

[I revised/improved this one somewhat from the 30-year old original]   Ony Ody Firstly heard the one called Melo Speaks to Harmo clear as a bell-o: “Harmo, I need you. You can tell-o. I’m the tasted without the smell-o. Yes, the water, but no well-o. I’m the goods that will not sell-o. You must talk so I can yell, so Separate, we are doomed to hello.” Answering the one called Harmo Speaks to Melo smooth and warm-o: “I, the fury, but no storm-o; Aye, the bones—without the arm-o. Animals without the farm-o. Without you I have no form! Oh, You’re the bees, but I’m the swarm, so Conjoining states must be our norm, yo.” Melo sings sharp and Harmo hums hollow. Melo speaks bright and Harmo thrums mellow. Harmo flows blue while Melo shows yellow. Melo’s the peaches in Harmo’s Jello. Melo is famed more than Mel’s fellow. But Harmo leads for Melo to follow.

I am pitching Mortified , a live show where, if I am accepted and choose to go forward with this, I will be reading pages from my late high school diary that clearly illustrate my sexual confusion and why I was such a late bloomer. It was interesting to have this reflected back to me by Kevin, one of the event organizers, based on my first submission: "I'm especially intrigued by the idea of fancy poetry about adolescent sexual frustration, though I have to say the samples you've attached seem almost too sophisticated to be mortifying." I had been embarrassed by my old writings, but now I see there is some sophistication there. Take this sample sonnet where I am rigid in my iambic pentameter. I think this one isn't bad: Sonnet From what you’ve seen of me, I am a fool Today back to the time you saw me first. Before your eyes, I’ve stumbled from the rule. Yet I do swear you’ve only seen my worst The words I speak to you ...

I like this about having written poetry for thirty years: I can go back to old notebooks or old electronic files and find things I wrote that I don't now understand. I can see me in there, but I can't recall what I meant. So the poem must stand on its own. I assume, then that this poem from seven years ago was actually from a dream. If it makes sense to you, explain it to me. "Noodle prophecy from a dream" Sensible custom says that when the emperor offers you a noodle from his priceless bowl of udon, bow your deep gratitude--and refuse. His servant will offer noodles to everyone. All will bow, smile, bow, refuse. The emperor, one day soon, will need to fight for udon, defend each sesame seed from huns and djinis and dragons, protect our right to eat soba with smoked trout with his considerable armies and all his myth. But what if, tourist that I am, I accept the noodle? What if I suck it from the chopsticks the ser...

My attention in grad school divided. Some stayed on my declaration to be a master of poetry. Comedy, on the other hand, was an equally attractive mistress-muse and one I'd loved almost as long—and I loved me on stage. To rage or parody or flat out goof or pratfall or streak naked—I was free, and on that stage, I needed no more proof. The undersexed (thus socially awkward) protopoet, who was never aloof but seemed to be so, found his misfit tribe acting out his angst in blood-red self-spoof. Ruttish sex, deviant sex, vibrators, weed, nitrous oxide, mushrooms, LSD— all in play—while in poems I circumscribed subterranean fires like some chaste scribe.

this is how I feel about the book project  * * * I WANT it! I can't stop looking at it. I study its shape and odor and size as though expecting it any moment to shift, change, vanish, explode. If flung, I will go after and get it on the first bounce. If hidden, I will sniff where last seen until it's revealed. If held, I will continue to stare up, my whole face quivering, my whole body poised to, to, to I focus on how I will chew it, how I will lick into its very essence and the directories of its pieces, the threads that tie it up to the rest of what is keeping me away right now. I will free the cloudy stuff inside it, the piece of its core that makes the sounds. I will fling the disassembled unity into the air in a new broader unity — like the big bang — and roll in all the stuff that flies around artfully scattered, array all around me, panting in utter joy that smells like triumph.

Buckle the seatbelt of your mind: we’re blasting off.             Nod to Charles Stross Physical encryption in linguistic code—books and the like—obsolesced within six millennia. Pressings of music took a century and a half between becoming and becoming extrinsic. A microgram of matter may contain the complete recorded works of Mozart. We send our abstract designs in advance of ourselves: when more matter is made smart, we will be data; and protoplasmic expression can recycle as an art. Physical selves will be irrelevant, but we—our biomass long discarded— can stretch out in a spacious petabyte, recombining to the edge of finite, expanding the boundaries of “the present,” surviving our sun’s fated extinction.

In a place where people expect their dreams to come true, I’m China street glucose, and you’re endless grass and a huge, flat moon. In plaster and wood on the other side, I’m the cardturner, and you’re writing in my sun room. In a Rocky Mountain city, Denver or Salt Lake, I’m naked in the street, and you’re gazing into a green valley from a peak. In the arms of my love, I’m gloriously broken, and you’re a nap to Fremont and back. In my favorite bakeries and places to hike I’m Nebraska, and you’re sprout palm welcome. In invitation, in difference, in membership, in suffering, I’m mother, diamonds, life, and you’re home. In this studio, part monster, I’m petite fours made into a city, and you’re silver curls like a crown. In wabi sabi dance party, I’m golden lush shrouded jewel, and you’re black lava blue water brown. In the most expensive, beautiful, confuzzled place on the planet, I’m $6 Great American, and you’re the same…. In a particular spot I’m ears like cabbage leav...

First—the claims made Second—the grounds on which it is recommended Third—it does not come asunder Fourth—it has been analyzed by Eminent Scientists Fifth—its VALUABLE PROPERTIES never become impaired Sixth— it is recommended by Eminent Physicians and Scientific Men Seventh—its use cannot be detected Eighth— it may be desired Ninth— hundreds of dollars uselessly expended may be saved Tenth— it is safe, simple, cleanly and never injures Eleventh— it may be applied WITH EQUALLY GOOD RESULTS Twelfth—by its use impurities vanish Thirteenth—it is harmless, costs little and saves money Fourteenth—ever vouchsafed to womankind, famous ladies use it from Jones, Edgar R. “1887 Print Advertisement for Madame Rowley’s Toilet Mask or Face Glove.” Those Were the Good Old Days; a Happy Look at American Advertising, 1880-1930 . New York: Simon and Schuster, 1959. 41. Print. *** I am participating in Poetry Month Scouts, hosted by the Found Poetry Review. So this month: lots...

Said the dealer to the truckers, “Our rigs run on diesel. The trucks sold by others won’t pull ten tons, but these’ll.”

Flashback! Lately I've been pulling out older poems that never saw much light of day, but that I'm fond of. This poem circa 2009 is—okay, check out this concept: it's a movie review in rhymed couplets by the fictitious poet Maurnold X. Thurbin, a creation of The Filthy Critic . Many years ago—back in the 20th century—I wrote video reviews as Gooden Worsted in an alcove off of Filthy's site, which site garnered attention by making it into Rolling Stone and garnering nods from author Stephen King.  Filthy's angle is that he uses a lot of profanity while delivering very incisive reviews that actually have a lot of integrity. Gooden's angle was that every film rated between nine and ten stars, and all pans were backhanded. Maurnold's angle was to be the rhymed couplets thing. This is the only prototype I wrote. I'd say you should go watch Bedtime Stories so you know what's going on in the review... but don't.    Maurno...

A Lithuanian Proverb When your drop a glass of wine in Lithuania or bump a porcelain knickknack, shattering it, they say Kamatka lapotcha, coka pooya schmoo. No. I don’t remember the actual phrase at all, but the meaning is to the effect that the earth— reality—shifted around you, and you didn’t notice so naturally, you didn’t keep up; and it’s not wholly your fault that the teapot or peanut dish didn’t align with you and only exists in shards now. You and the world knock like misaligned gears. The machine will right itself somehow—or explode, destroying everything and leaving nothing— Kidding! Things hardly ever fly hysterically apart that way. You might fall against an aquarium, killing ten red fish, then slip on one and bang noggins with the magistrate you were trying to petition. A different saying applies in that case to the effect that earth has shaken you like a sled dog shakes knots into its harness, whi...

Going back into the oldish files for some poems that were lost in the pile. Here at least they'll breathe once more.  This poem came from a time when I'd nearly given up on poetry for the first time in 20+ years. With my daughter at 3 years old, and my career as a copywriter picking up speed, I was losing track of why I pursued the ephemeral art at all. But thanks to meeting Poetic Asides , I found a respark and have continued with the practice unabated ever since. 30 years now! This poem is about us humans. "Mired Divine" Such mucky bubbles we all are with monkey grace and dirt and arm, tied into our tangled blankets needful as massage — and thankless — under the airships of our dreams bursting through Moissanite ceilings, dropping our soiled gabardine we spoiled in rain and gasoline … We’re puddles rainbowed with feeling waking as angels, but screaming, inventing stores of penny pranks, rumbling ohms and ums and flatu...

Today I swapped in naturally for needlessly because why should any dramatic action be judged causeless if it's still worth mentioning? Or why should it be judged at all when even a shrug puts something into the mood? I want these words to roam like mountain goats in Death Valley, to be their own reasons with curled horns. And when in illness, age or avalanche they fall, I want to know their bones bleach sharp and clear, in the canyon nobody visits, in the blazing air. What?! Yup.

Lipogram day! Lipo- in this case means lacking or leaving though the spelling is the same as lipo- meaning fat . It's fascinating how the prefix in liposuction works two ways at once! Lipograms are writings in which one more more letters of the alphabet are consciously omitted. This morning I began to recast "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" as a lipogram series. My warm up was omitting the letter B , an uncommon  letter, but significant as it begins boat and but . The B lipogram: Row, row, row your raft gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily Life: it is a dream. Leaving out W was also pretty easy as it only appears in row and down . But replaying row is a little tricky. As an ancient monosyllable, it doesn't have many monosyllabic synonyms. Using paddle destroys the meters. I fell back on a somewhat uncommon verb: Punt, punt, punt your boat gently on the stream... The rest is the same. M is also uncommon, but has a big impact here...