the INLAID EAR

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.

LIFE = FULL In all this, I have been 8 weeks between publishers, falling away from Zoetic and into Norfolk. The deal feels totally right. More to come, meanwhile, the fullness of life calls: telling for the biggest audience I've faced since my stand-up comedy days — and this one was much kinder, pitching a mini-grant to the Richmond Arts & Culture Council, and very much professional work.

I was two months without a publisher while I asked and asked this game universe to come to this earnest, hopeful boy with a new smear of butter. And I said, I see I won't be famous; still I'd like to have the volume, somehow to have my book complete, though the destiny of poems is humble. And I asked and asked the harvest field for a maze of sudan grass stalks trodden— the moment you say, I haven't really been lost, as you step out of the obstacle, beyond the game you play with yourself: and there's the book come down off the shelf.  *** Mid-August I found out the publisher who was going to release my book didn't want to release it the way I wanted it. I suggested half a dozen ways to make the agreement work, but none suited the publisher; and anyway, their digital infrastructure--the pillar of their fledgling press--was not yet ready. We parted ways. As disappointed as I might be while still having food on the table, a loving family, a secure ho...

         —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 ...