pro tempore

eating summer

take in each day
one after another

break the calm
red and round

shed the fever sheets
it’s time to endure

may madness
long round months

until fall cramping
another, another

I used a word list Carolee put together from one of her poems. She didn’t know that it was supposed to be about food until after she’d chosen her piece, so there isn’t a direct food tie-in here… but there is an oblique one. And since I had a difficult word list to find a food poem from, I felt validated in cheating on my title. Those two wee words were not in her list. Ah, well.

Check out the other fabulous additions at the poco!!!

I didn’t work, didn’t work out, didn’t talk to everyone I should have.  I took it easy because tomorrow I have to be back at work and i really needed some rest.  Awful sore throat, plus aches and dizziness and hot and cold flashes.

Anyway, in my day of lounging-more-than-I-ought-to, there was some progress at the poco, and I ran across this article on style by Vonnegut.  Good stuff, that.  I’d recommend it to any type of writer… to any kind of person who wants to communicate anything, actually.

Please join Dana and me as we celebrate the virtual vows of Facebook matrimony. Check out our wedding/collaborative poetry site (click on our wedding portrait, above), and please join us for the ceremony on twitter (let me know if you don’t know where I am on twitter, or go to Dana’s site and follow her badge). The ceremony will be officiated by the lovely Deb of Stoney Moss.

Dana posted our wedding registry on the poco site, but I’ll reproduce it here… because I know we must seem like the women who have everything, and I know you will want to help us celebrate by buying us some cool stuffs for our new life together:

1 Anthony Bourdain

1 funnelcake stand (a no-brainer)

1 gryphon (Thanks, Deb!)

1 helium machine (so we can talk in silly voices)

1 hot air balloon

1 ice cream maker

1 karaoke machine

1 lighthouse

1 margarita machine

1 mechanical bull

1 moonwalk

1 potbelly pig

1 spiritual healer

1 submarine (so we can see whales up close)

1 UFO (so we can get to our summer home in a galaxy far, far away)

1 walker (for Dana since she is older than Blythe)

2 body pillows

2 Britney Spears (clothing optional)

2 candy wedding rings (we really need these) Got ‘em, babe.

2 personal jet packs

2 rubber duckies

2 sets of fake fingernails (which we need to get on quick before the ceremony begins)

2 sets of stilts

2 Slinkies

2 sock monkeys

4 flying trapeses (in case we have friends over)

20 finger puppets

20 toe puppets

a beer of the month subscription

a lifetime supply of Wonderbras (34B and 34C, please)

a magic school bus (Not the books or cartoons, but a real magic school bus. If you get us this you get an automatic invite to all our wild magic school bus parties.)

a personal trainer/personal masseuse

a plethora of feather boas

all-we-can-drink Slurpies

an 8-piece set of Pez dispensers

Banangrams

Canadian money (so we are poised to leave the country if needed)

fake IDs that say we both just turned 18 (w00t! Barely Legal!)

hair extensions

jitterbug lessons

lube (What? We need it.)

matching monogrammed bowling balls

nipple rings (obviously)

porn (just kidding, kinda)

waterless shampoo (for the days we feel like being hippies but still want our hair to look washed)

what the hell, some books of poetry (but only good ones)

This is the kind of wonderfulness that comes about when two poets poem together:

what happens at the altar stays at the altar

by Blythe and Dana

I press the flesh of my palm
into your inexplicably chubby face
while the hiccupy rent-a-priest
folds at his midsection like a closing book

and crashes to the ground with a
papery thud. Of course, the rice thingies,
bagged and bowed in a frenzy last night,
will soon be swallowed by all the unsuspecting attendants,

who are half-mad with hunger and heat.
But I digress. Which brings me to your dress:
When I agreed to the chartreuse bride
spied in my mail-order catalog,

I assumed you came with the filmy white dress
worn by lucky Barbies ’round the world
(and even some confused Kens).
So when they shipped you in coveralls,

and musty ones at that, I felt the
slippery eel of panic slither ’round my chest.
And my balls (I must be honest) maneuvered
their way into a chamber deep within my body

whose existence I was, until that moment,
entirely unaware of. But after the requisite
ten-hour charge your instruction manual mentioned,
relief flooded through and engorged me — like Mom’s

Thanksgiving dinner filling and warming my alimentary canal —
when your eyes fluttered open, your lips parted, and you
began to emit a whoooooooo sound not unlike dank air
winding through a French horn’s valve tube.

We locked eyes, you smiled a bit, and said,
whoooooooo, whoooooooo, whoooooooo,
which of course I interpreted as I. Love. You.
And I, dear, whoooooooo, whoooooooo, whoooooooo, you too.

.

To help celebrate our wedding, Dana and I ask that you 1) come party it up on twitter with us, now and forevermore, 2) leave us a comment here about our collaborative piece, 3) get us something off our registry (simply comment here or on Dana’s blog letting us know what you’ve purchased for us), but preferably, all of the above. Easy as 1, 2, 3!

Also, if you’re interested in seeing how this whole thing progressed, check out the comments section on this post, where Dana and I wrote the poem.

*I originally wrote “Martial Bliss” here, but that is not the case.

Dearest Dana,

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways… I love thee with the speed and click and hum of my PC…

This is how it all started (on a blog), and so it seems appropriate that we tie the knot here on the web, incorporating as many applications as possible. I remember the day (back in 2006) when I acted on the strong but sublimated desire to write poetry by googling something along the lines of “help hopeless beginners become poets.” And I found a poetry site that seemed all about that—it was welcoming to poets at all stages of development, it was inspiring, and it was led by this super-cool chick with an awesome blog.

I fell for your writing first. It was (and is) fresh. It was honest and alive and different. It made me want to write. It made me need to read; I would get thirsty for your work when there wasn’t something new posted. I was hooked. I read and re-read everything you’d written on your blog. I e-stalked you, but without being too creepy about it.

Something magical happened around that time: I began writing poetry. The things I had inside that had always felt like poems began to surface, and because of the work you had done (on that site and on the subsequent ones) I had a place to share it.

Things between us really got exciting when you started talking about collaborative poetry, and (I believe this is how it happened) asked for volunteers to co-po with you, and I jumped on the opportunity. The things we’ve written together are some of my favorites, and the process of writing together always changes me, opens me up to new ideas, gets me excited about writing.

I’ve learned through all this how spectacular you are as a person. You get big ideas and you follow through on them. You are smart as a whip and fun as a firecracker. You make me laugh until I pee my pants, and then you tease me about it later. You are also vulnerable and kind and somehow still strong as steel. It all comes out in your writing—whether it’s poems, nonfiction, or blog babble. You’ve articulated things that have helped me understand poetry, love, suffering, grief, relationships, and life better than ever before. (Poetry is prayer. Poetry is bread. Poetry is better made between two friends than all alone.)

In the middle of me being in awe of you is the fact that you were the first person to ever call me a poet. You, the one I watched and learned from, called me a poet. And it’s not just that you validated that part of myself before I even realized how much I wanted it. You have been a listening ear when I needed it. You are always up for an adventure. You are just as goofy and fun as you are deep and introspective. My internal life is 1,000x richer, having known you.

So come on, babe, let’s make some poetry!

Love & limericks,

Mrs. Blythe Funnelcake

p.s. How did I write this whole letter, and not mention you are a total fox? You are smart, lovely, wonderful, brilliant, funny, *and* hot. I’m sorry for getting caught up in all that deep, interpersonal, emotional stuff, and making it sound like this is just icing on the cake… because we both know we threw out the cake a long time ago, and this is icing within all the other icing. Scrumdiddlyumptious.

Yep, I’m getting married.  On Monday. Make that tomorrow.  Apparently Dana can’t wait to get her hands on me.  She even made us a web site! For me, for our wedding!  (And for our collaborative poetry, which will outlast the weeks of facebook matrimonial bliss.)  I have been wooed.  I am swooning.

I would sit and chat some more, but there are, like, a billion things to do to get ready for tomorrow: pedicure, bows to tie, souvenir gifts to make by hand for all of our wonderful guests…

I was going to do Confession Tuesday a day late today (synopsis: I am a procrastinator, a braggart, and a hypocrite, not necessarily in that order), but I wound up napping and writing a wedding poem with Dana instead.  Such is life.

Also, heads up on the new RWP prompt by Carolee for next week… get set to write some hot ‘n’ nasty stuff!  (Wait, I’m not saying it right.  Read her post instead.)

Collaborative poetry stimulates the pleasure region of my brain.

Continue reading ‘read write poem #8: shufflewords (currently untitled, of course)’

downtown summer storms

rapturous clouds shouting
above Travis Street
the sky drunk on water
suddenly unfolds

rain splatters down
vertical strikes on
gritty pavement

street lights flicker
over huddled umbrellas
of bank tellers and city shoppers
banging against each other

into the twilight we stumble
umbrellas wet with drowsiness
over cement splashed
in liquid sky

we yawn with no awe
the sky drunk on water
embraces the city into night

the clouds lower themselves
rooftops tickle their bellies
the streets clear and

open and let the torrents
sweep over them
wash them clean

Continue reading ‘read write poem #7: collaborative revision’

But still did something poetry-related.  I contributed to this chain poem over at Read Write Poem.  They guaranteed that this counts as a napowrimo/naporewrimo activity, and they’re the experts, so… whew. :)

There’s a lot going on, and if I get some of my laundry done, I’ll tell you about it.

Go poetry, my friends!