April 8, 2023: Neither Time Nor Grief is a Flat Circle, Christina Olson
Neither Time Nor Grief is a Flat Circle
Christina Olson
The camellias are blooming in the rain,
red and pink, real-life Valentine’s Day
decorations. Their petals are not confetti
or streamers, their petals are decaying
organic matter that will fall and rot and feed
the ground. And whoever said that grief
was a flat circle was wrong, too; our friend
Andy is dead now, and my grief is not flat.
My grief is a sharp, hot thing that pokes me
in the spine whenever I am crabbily
unloading our dishwasher or I spend
another Saturday sleepwalking the internet.
Your one precious life, says my grief. Huh.
I tell my grief to get lost but it stays here
with me, wedges itself between my hip
and the arm of the couch, like a dog
that wants to be close but doesn’t really
understand physics. Like it is a dog, I push
my grief away and then I feel bad
and invite it back, pat the cushion
next to me, smell its wet breath.
It’s oppressive, this grief, yet
without it I feel terribly alone,
wandering through the pandemic.
The virus didn’t kill Andy—his heart
quit. He went into a coma and he died.
One day he was alive and now he’s not.
The camellias are wet in the rain, no one
told them about Andy. One day I’ll have
more dead friends than living ones
and people will think I’m lucky because
that means I’ll have lived a long time.
And that I had friends. I thought
that writing this poem might help,
but it didn’t. And so I tip this poem
into an envelope and I mail
it to you, reader. It’s yours now:
the grief, the dog, the shuddering
flowers. When you are lonely,
this poem falls out of the book
you’re not reading. You’re crying
now, or maybe it’s just the rain.
--
(Did you catch the Mary Oliver allusion?)
Other poems on COVID and on grief.
Today in:
2022: Pippi Longstocking, Sandra Simonds
2021: Waking After the Surgery, Leila Chatti
2020: Gutbucket, Kevin Young
2019: Insomnia, Linda Pastan
2018: How Many Nights, Galway Kinnell
2017: The Little Book of Hand Shadows, Deborah Digges
2016: Now I Pray, Kathy Engel
2015: Why I’m Here, Jacqueline Berger
2014: Snow, Aldo, Kate DiCamillo
2013: from The Escape, Philip Levine
2012: Thirst, Mary Oliver
2011: Getting Away with It, Jack Gilbert
2010: *turning, Annie Guthrie
2009: I Don’t Fear Death, Sandra Beasley
2008: The Dover Bitch, Anthony Hecht
2007: Death Comes To Me Again, A Girl, Dorianne Laux
2006: Up Jumped Spring, Al Young
2005: Old Women in Eliot Poems, David Wright
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O is for Obsessed
O is for obsessed
I think I might have been from the start
You were cute, you were hilarious,
You wiggled right into my heart
O is for obsessed
The problem was you were shy,
I wasn’t sure you liked me,
But I was sure I had to make you mine
O is for obsessed
I asked you on a date
The rest, as they say, is history
As I’m currently laying next to my soulmate.
-Nicole Smith,…
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Queering The Lines
What are these things we call lines?
These wretched things that sinisterly make their way between us
These things that claim to define, but mainly live to box us in,
Checking for progress
Then narrowing down the fields meant for playing.
Why do we draw them?
Call them into our bubbles
Then cry when bubbles pop?
Where even do they stop?
What the fuck do they do aside from blur or sharpen?
Reminding us of those defiant enough to cross them,
Or us...
Our boundaries and declarations carved in trees...
Or etched from window dust...
Or formed ,
It's not right that the majority are straight.
Or feathery, light, or white, or broken.
Paper thin, Paper thin,
As if manifested from air.
I love mine thick and punchy
Sometimes lingering overnight... and very curvy
Like wrapping tightly around corners and buildings
Like a concert, the box office, or the county.
It's scary to think they patrol pelvic crevices without care...
They even snatch back our temple and baby hair.
Just where do these things come from?
From fatigue?
From finishing?
From determination?
From the obtuse or acute?
From A, all the way across the C to B?
I mean, please...
What actually ARE these?
I ask because they're waiting
Quite literally...
And they're on every list
Bent and grossly misshapen.
I can't escape this.
They parallel, follow, and trace while fishing…
Invasively towing me… reeling me back in…
Their inky, sometimes wispy, and wiry grasp.
Clasping at bare arms, elbows, knees and, hands,
Eyelids especially, and exposed ankles with tans.
Their tendrils, ever visible on every clock.
They even dictate the patterns and weave of My socks!
Like seriously...
Who gave them this authority?!
To crawl down throats, giving food and oxygen to breathe
Or telling me how to get to G'ma's house,
And just how do they know her, anyway?!
All this up and down business has me ready to throw it and life
Down the pipes!
You know what, lines...?
Whether leading the fray or stray
To all of this, I pickup My jaw
Ley down and say...
Well played.
Fine even...
Divinely done.
Even the best laid plans
Started and ended with you.
Every single, or last 1.
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Bibliomancy (Frankenstein) Poetry
Personally don't like calling it a "bibliomancy" poem so I call it a Frankenstein poem (which is more fitting anyway). Basically what we did was pick out random books of our liking from the library and turn them into poems by doing like randomizers to tell the line and paragraph and page and stuff. I made a couple because they're really really fun to make. Here they are!:
1 (Vampire Smell)
In spite of the thick snow now covering every landmark,
The vampire holds the stake in the air.
“What about people?”
“What's that smell?”
That stupid guidance counselor isn’t gonna shut up about it,
I’m enough like her to understand.
(books used: FLCL, Go For It Nakamura, Howl’s Moving Castle, Toilet Bound Hanako-kun 4, Wayward Son, The Ickabog)
2 (Conversation)
“I’d be halfway to Porthaven in two strides!” she said as she emptied the pan of eggs.
“I don’t know, better ask Neil”
The dog-man sat down on Michael’s feet, staring tragically.
“Since he's an evil demon” one of the boys said, “he’ll lose his life”
Her eyes were on that white light,
The blackened name when we first set up the castle.
(Book used: Howl’s Moving Castle)
3 (Experiments)
“Good for you!
N.O. utilizes the right and left brain thought processes”
Like it’ll do him any good.
He quietly left the museum.
(Toilet Bound Hanako-kun 4 and FLCL)
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breaking
she treats me like a pet monkeygives enough of her palm to devour the Mazuri & the back of her hand when I won’t be obedientthere is nothing like alone crumbled flakes of miserable aches the grinding of teeth into rumbledouble dutch with livewireshurting me is a carnival gamemy feelings are mine to protect but she knows how to play me like a celloopening my heart like a shoe box taking everything…
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April: National Poetry Month
This year, I want to celebrate not just poetry but also the things poetry celebrates: creativity, beauty, words, honesty, exposure, vulnerability, and expression.
I've challenged myself to write and read at least one poem a day this month, but I'm also challenging myself to do other things: read more fiction, start writing fiction again, dance, draw, learn piano like I've been meaning to forever, and journal more. I'm so excited to launch on this journey into my own self-expression and creativity this month. It's exactly what I need in this season of my life.
So, Day 1:
- Wrote 2 poems
- Wrote 3k+ Outline of new story idea
- Journaled 3 pages
- Read from a collection of Emily Dickinson poetry
- Read a couple of chapters of The Poison Season by Mara Rutherford
- Listened to a mood playlist of Imagine Dragons songs that perfectly fit the vibes of the outline I wrote (especially "Demons," "Natural," "Smoke and Mirrors," "Believer," and "Dancing in the Dark")
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I still remember the humour and grace of a curator who turned it down and added "boy howdy is this dark". Glad it found a permanent home on FERAL. It’s called Prosperity Gospel, it’s about -
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In the Foothills
One day, I will tell my grandchildren
about my time here
about the two weeks spent in prayer
watching the clouds cascading over the mountains
about the coyotes and the deer
the water that poured over our hands and faces
tasting of metal and medicine
the laughter we shared into the night
I will tell them about how
we didn’t truly sleep
woken by cop light and nerves
woken from dreams by visions of mortality
woken by a wind that swept around us
like a current
turbulent and cold
I will tell them about the brilliant sunlight that
would wake us each day and about
the morning near the end
when I watched the sunrise
felt eyes on the back of my neck
turned and saw an owl
perched on a tree
how I stared into its eyes
and did not fear death
understanding that if
I should die here
it would be okay
because
I love the land so much
that I would die
a thousand deaths
to protect her
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Establishing Honesty with a God Can Really Knock You on Your Ass
I asked him why the gods expressed
their flowering through rape myths
He looked at me with one dark
eye and said, “I don’t know
how you want me
to answer this question.”
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— Basil, time (non linear) from escapril prompts day six
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Kicking off NATIONAL POETRY MONTH & SEXUAL ASSAULT AWARENESS MONTH strong! #StayInAndWrite with us! 3-5pm CDT I'll be facilitating a trauma-informed writing workshop for survivors! The workshop will be in English but all welcome from all time zones! Zoom link in @survivingthemic Instagram bio 💯 Surviving the Mic: Virtually Together is a twice monthly online space dedicated to the perspectives, experiences and artistic expressions of survivors of sexual harm. FIRST & THIRD Thursdays from 3-5pm CST It can be difficult to feel as we have permission to discuss the impact of sexual violence or to even know what resources are still available to survivors during the COVID-19 pandemic, physical distancing that's become necessary in order to protect all of us, and uprisings against violence towards Black people. However, survivors know that the impact of sexual harm knows no limits and may be more deeply felt as people practice physical distancing. Therapeutic practices and other self-care practices may have been disrupted or have become inaccessible. Follow on IG @survivingthemic and @themojdeh (facilitator) and our friends-in-the fight @socialpracticelabs (mutual aid project) #SurvivingSocialDistance #SurvivingTheMic #TraumaInformed #WritingWorkshop #PoetryWorkshop #SpeakTruth #DomesticViolence #SexualViolence #GenderBasedViolence #SAAM #sexualassault #sexualassaultawarenessmonth #napomo #nationalpoetrymonth #mojdehstoakley #sextrafficking #mmiw #SurvivorsStories #blackpoetsspeakout #blm #poetsofinstagram #poetsofig #writersofinstagram #childhoodsexualabuse #childhoodabuse #writingtogether #quaruntine #writingchallenge #womenwriters https://www.instagram.com/p/CNHyQ0QhVCn/?igshid=w5v6u7274f4g
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April 24, 2023: Lit, Andrea Cohen
Lit
Andrea Cohen
Everyone can’t
be a lamplighter.
Someone must
be the lamp,
and someone
must, in bereaved
rooms sit,
unfathoming what
it is to be lit.
--
Today in:
2022: Meditations in an Emergency, Cameron Awkward-Rich
2021: How the Trees on Summer Nights Turn into a Dark River, Barbara Crooker
2020: Ash, Tracy K. Smith
2019: Under Stars, Dorianne Laux
2018: Afterlife, Natalie Eilbert
2017: There Are Birds Here, Jamaal May
2016: Poetry, Richard Kenney
2015: Dreaming at the Ballet, Jack Gilbert
2014: Vocation, Sandra Beasley
2013: Near the Race Track, Brigit Pegeen Kelly
2012: from Ask Him, Raymond Carver
2011: Sweet Star Chisel, Dearest Flaming Crumbs in Your Beard Lord, John Rybicki
2010: Rain Travel, W.S. Merwin
2009: Goodnight, Li-Young Lee
2008: Bearhug, Michael Ondaatje
2007: Meditation at Lagunitas, Robert Hass
2006: Autumn, Rainer Maria Rilke
2005: On Turning Ten, Billy Collins
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N is for Naricissist
N is for narcissist
You should win an award for being the best
Making others feel insignificant
Causing unimaginable emotional distress
N is for narcissist
You could do no wrong
Everything was her fault
You made her feel weak, pretending to be strong
N is for narcissist
I hear you mellowed as you aged
I give 0 fucks about your redemption arc
Every thought of you still fills me…
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Lets see how many poems I end up writing this month
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April Poetry Month
Poem #1
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finding the path
along a slim road the signsare hard to decipher from a distancethere is a path to something betterbut the steering wheel plays like a slide pianoyou swerve, veer toward the shoulder,in a consistent course correction
how to do the right thingat the right time to remain safe
there are detours and construction zonesstop signs and the railroad crossinglooms heavy with dangerif you are ever stopped…
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