An Excuse of Sorts

I know you hate that
I'm always late - three words of
defense: the red line.

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I was hit by a flurry of haiku last night, I'm hoping it serves as a happy portent. They'll be shared in due time.

If you're anywhere near DC tonight there are two poetry events that you should Definitely attend.

First is "the lowercase" put on by the Capitol Letters Writing Center featuring my dear friend and quality word-wrangler Julia S. At the Big Bear Cafe at 1st and R NW.

Second is Sparkle at Busboys and Poets on 5th and K where the talented Gowri K and Sarah L will be featured.

Both of these events are open mics, so feel free to bring something to share.

Enough.

Breathless

Arms and hearts and beats
and bars and cabs and tabs and -
everything just spins.

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So. I've been in a training course all week and with a little extra time on my hands I've been making some elision poems. They're the perfect way to not exactly look like you aren't working or paying attention. These poems are the literary equivalent of sewing earbuds into the lining of your hoodie. They'll never know you're multitasking. And, they're a lot of fun and look pretty awesome. Lacking a scanner I've had to pull the article I used from website of the Washington Post Magazine (I used their Summer Reading installment, which worked beautifully), paste the correct column into word and go through double strikethroughing and red-bolding. Over all these poems tend to look better when they're nothing but typeface and a sharpie, but you should get the idea at least. This is kind of like chipping away the excess marble to reveal the masterpeice underneath - elide, delete, cross out, blacken, etc any and all words that you don't want to have looking back at you, attempt to form a new, original and unrelated thought out of the raw material given and you have a poem that, Athena-like, springs fully formed from the mind of another. An author who is now entirely unaware that you've defiled her work. yikes. Any red punctuation has been added to try and guide the thoughts through the page.

friends since high school, and although I hadn't known her mother, and the majority of the time we'd spent together was in groups -- at theater events or diorama parties -- I felt the heaviness of the event like a stone in my stomach. When it was my turn in line, we hugged. I said the usual things, and the next person was ready to step in, but I held onto Lori's hands. for a second longer

"I'm available," I told her. I tried to weight my words "Call me if you want company. I'm just more available than usual, and I'm in an especially good place to sit. with pain."

She called the next day. In a wavery, post-funeral voice, she laughed a little and asked if I was okay. I asked her the same thing. We both said no. She knew the broad strokes about what had been going on with me, and later she said she'd been concerned when we talked at the funeral, and it had been a relief for a second to step out of her own life and think about someone else's. Likewise. We made a plan to meet at her apartment that Thursday, and for the next year and more, we met once. a week, every week, while she coped with that major grief and I dealt with a different kind.

Then, it was not symbolic. It was just two people who found they could be helpful to each other due to mutual care and unusual timing. There were no ritual involved. If anyone had offered to do some kind of quick healing "closure" ceremony with me, I would have thrown a fit. Because a symbol is supposed to be a shortcut, a way of valuing and noting in brief what is happening anyway, in depth. But with that marriage, it seemed that the symbols had taken the place of the depth. The kite, the drainpipe, the moths, the flies. Signs taking the place of living.

With Lori, we just sat together on the floor in her apartment in Silver Lake, eating take-out Indian food with glasses of wine, sitting with each other, talking or quiet, watching bad TV or not, with some crying, some laughing, some outrage, some shame, disbelief, pain, depression, realization, the forging of new closeness in the wake of two kinds of losses. The long route.

***

Aimee Bender is the author of "The Girl in the Flammable Skirt," "An Invisible Sign of My Own" and "Willful Creatures." She lives in Los Angeles. She can be reached at 20071@washpost.com.

^ just in case you want to read the original, which is quite good^

Enough.

Sunday Morning Everywhere

Silent, cheered, we walked
through traffics' heady mix of
sound of smell of life.

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The unthinkable, friends, has occurred.

I woke up one morning early this month and realized that I was somewhat, slightly, just really only ever so much in love with DC.

It might just be the mild July that has breezed through but this place doesn't seem to grate me the way it once did. It doesn't set my teeth on edge each time I take to it's streets. I'm actually enjoying myself a great deal.

In other exciting news I am hopefully dining with a fine friend and fellow poet Sarah (you might care to check out her recent post, it has an Exquisite Corpse we went through together) this weekend at the Good Stuff Eatery on Capitol Hill - assuming we can get a table. This establishment is notable as it was set up by Spike from Top Chef Season 4. Check out their menu, then come down here and eat some food.

Enough.

Wisdom

A quick flash of light
From Pallas helm soon swallowed
in cobwebbed street lamps.


I've been looking for a new metric although an old one would do as well. Anything to explain how the decisions I've made to arrive here can be married to those I need to make to move forward (or, more literally, East). This new measuring tool will need to twist, bend and pull me through the next few weeks; wringing sweat, bringing tears.

The Pacific Northwest is where I belong. I know that, I can feel that strongly - but I'm wondering if I came back too soon. I can only hope that I haven't ruined my chance at staying here someday.

The past two years have been a monument to exploration and failure. Perhaps it's time to indulge in something a little less experimental and a little more likely to succeed.

~~~~~~

"I've been one poor correspondent and I've been too too hard to find. But it doesn't mean you ain't been on my mind."


Enough.

Crisp, sad

with a small step out
she realised that the cold
would always be there.

There are a few things to share today.

One is this fantastic interview with Billy Collins. This interview manages to cover most of the things you would ever want to ask a former poet laureate.

It also gives us this qoute:

"The reason I said that poets don't need to develop is tied up with the idea of the persona. While I don't much like the expression "finding your voice, " my sense is that the important breakthrough moment for a poet is when he or she has developed a kind of character through which he or she can speak with ease. This character -- or persona -- resembles the poet in many ways but is clearly a refinement of the actual person. Your persona is your better. And what marks that discovery of a character is the conviction on the poet's part -- and subsequently, we would hope, on readers' parts -- that this character is different from all other poetic characters, at least in some small way."

This is, without question, why I love Craig Finn and why The Hold Steady has managed to ruin Music for me. Other genres, past works, are still open for discussion and widely appreciated and beloved. But new Rock and Roll - new gritty, bar band, booze fueled, aggression laden intelligent rock... this seems to be it. What else is there? Show it to me and I promise to believe, whole heartedly in the revolution. Until then, I worship at the altar of Craig Finn,

and I will forever

Stay Positive.

In Italy we have a saying...


It doesn't matter
how many dragons you slay,
who gets the princess?

(Directly inspired by this weeks Top Chef)
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So, Michael Chrichton died. Which is really quite sad as he has added an enormous amount to our cultural landscape (Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park, Congo, Sphere, ER, etc). In honor of him I've spent the last week going through some of his stuff. Re-reading Prey, watching The Great Train Robbery, I even watched an episode or two from the first season of ER.


Some responses:


ER is not, and never will be, one of my favorite shows. Congrats on getting George Clooney in the mix but your main contender, your forever peer, Law & Order is forever superior. In all of it's incarnations.


Prey is a magnificently paced book. I finished it in three sittings and kind of wanted another three sittings worth. Crichton has always been a voice of reason in the face of unchecked expansion of technology. From the very start of his career, he's been concerned with our technology interrupting the natural course of things. Basically, he didn't want us to screw it up. Admirable.


The Great Train Robbery was one of my favorite books when I was younger and is a pretty fantastic movie. Donald Sutherland and Sean Connery reveling in a caper filled film? Perfect.


So there, a fifteen second retrospective of how Mr. Crichton has wormed his way into my life, all for the better.


Enough.

Most People Are Djs

hold steady ybor city. you're 

up to your neck in sweat and 

wet confetti. if 

you want to get a little bit heady. 

it's gonna have

to get a little bit heavy. 

we're jamming jetskis into the jetty now. 

with some guy who looks like rocco sefredi. 

andi've heard he's been dead once already.

it's going down 

right now

in lowertown. 

they're skipping off the good ship u s s s 

sexuality. 

searching for the merchant with

the five minute delivery. 

they're slipping soft rock into

the setlist now. they got some new guy

that looks just like phil lynott. 

we're stumbling

but i think we're still in it. 

it's a big world girl and 

i can't understand it. we're 

tiny white specks on a bright blue planet.

i was a teenage ice machine. 

i kept it cool in coolers. i drank until i dreamed. 

when i dreamed i always dreamed about the scene. 

all these kids look like little lambs 

looking up at me.

i was a twin cities trash bin. 

i did everything they'd give me. i'd 

jam it in my system. she

had me cornered in the kitchen. i

said i'll do anything but listen 

to some weird talking chick who 

just can't understand 

that we're hot soft spots 

on a hard rock planet.

baby take off your beret. 

everyone's a critic and most people are djs.

working backwards from 

the doctor to the drugs. from 

the packie to the taxi to the cabbie 

to the club. 

a thousand kids 

will fall in love in 

all the clubs 

tonight. a thousand other kids 

will end up gushing blood 

tonight. two thousand kids 

wont get too much sleep 

tonight. two thousand kids 

they still feel pretty sweet

tonight. 

i still feel pretty sweet.