Taihu Stones

The Lan Su Yuan classical Chinese garden in Portland features stones from Lake Tai in China.

They sent all the way to China
for stones with holes in them?
But it's not the stones that matter--
it's the holes.
Each one a cup brimming with China,
each one a window on the Middle Kingdom.
They say walls have ears:
perhaps stones have eyes. Perhaps they watch us
with water-worn patience.

Oregon rain drips over the Taihu stones.
They cry for their lost home.

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12:15

quarter past midnight
clock hands at ninety degrees
thermometer too

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Plein Air

Portland area poets, take note: The Columbia Center for the Arts is sponsoring the 5th annual Plein Air Writing Exhibition.

What's that?

An incentive to go out and visit scenic locales in the incomparable Columbia Gorge, write about it, maybe get published.

Go ye forth and admire!

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More fun with numbers

Since I last posted about my hit counter on May 18th, the top 10 lineup has changed some.

Top three: unchanged at: main page; "Umbrella Manifesto"; "AI poetics".

"Literal and figurative poetry" has beat out "Painted Sky" for the #4 spot, and "Simile and Metaphor:Greens and Blues" is moving up fast.

In spots #7 and #8, "Buddha Hand"; "Lollipop Girls", followed by two newcomers to the top 10, "Shihuangdi's Tomb"; "Plasma Arc Incineration". Former top 10s "Was it flarf?" and "Lacemaker God" have fallen below 10.

These changes are entirely due to the fact that "Literal and figurative poetry", "Simile and Metaphor:Greens and Blues", "Buddha Hand", "Lollipop Girls", "Shihuangdi's Tomb", and "Plasma Arc Incineration" continue to accumulate search engine hits, while the others listed have not, or have picked up only a few.

I noted earlier that if you Google "buddha hand", that poem comes up on the front page, which I still think is weird. The same turns out to be true for "plasma arc incineration" (someone commented that that was not a technically correct term, but it seems to be in common enough use that I don't have any reservations about it). I wonder what people think when they're looking for technical specs and come up with that instead?

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Closing Hour

3 Word Wednesday: Darkness. Patronize. Weaken.

patrons leave the bar
darkness weakening to dawn
like ink in water

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Green Skin

Reworked the previous into a sonnet. All my friends swear I'm a reptile.

Photosynthesis can make you drunk
in summer heat and sunlight, just as if
you were saguaro, tall and leafless trunk
all tilting-tipsy on aperitifs
of carbohydrate. Sugar-high: the curse
of C4 metabolic pathways, sweet
intoxication. Fire in reverse,
producing fuel and absorbing heat!

The mercury has overflowed the glass
like syrup-sap that drips from cactus limbs
while bees are humming nectar-loving hymns.
O scorching summer, all too soon to pass
but bless me as you bless the cactus skin,
free energy for all we lizard kin.

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Photosynthesis

in very strong sunlight
can make you drunk--
tipsy, anyway
feels like a sugar high.

My sap is thickening with
carbohydrate bounty
and if you cut me I'll bleed
maple syrup on the sidewalk.

Hide in the shade if you must
turn up the AC and drink
ice water-- I'm storing up
photon energy for winter.

102 degrees. Life is good
for weeds and the lizard kin.

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Photo in Sepia

This is a monochrome memory
This is a blast from the past
Blurred by the passing of history
Faded by moving too fast.

This is a photo in sepia
This is the friends that we were
This is our once-private area
Hidden by tombstone and fir.

Tell me the cost of remembering
Tell me the price is too high
Under the trees that stand quivering
Over the grave where we lie.

image courtesy of Doug Shaver via Read Write Poem

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PV=nRT

If there were one law that I could revoke
this ain't it. Pressure-cooker tyranny
on hapless gas must finally provoke
eruption: particles will seek a free
path, mean or not. But infinite compression,
populace compacted into mass
as dense as neutron stars, curtailed expression—
tyrants dream of bringing this to pass.

The globe is heating up; the pressure rises,
information moves electric-fast
to puncture silence, rip away disguises,
softening borders hardened by the past.
Economies have fallen into shreds
while steam builds up inside of people's heads.

--for Cafe Writing

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Stillwater King

Bubbles rise under the watchful
gaze of the Stillwater King.
My treasure is lost now: my chestful
of bubbles that rise under watchful
eyes that could make a man thoughtful
if he were not drowning. A ring
of bubbles is caught by the watchful
gaze of the Stillwater King.

Made by merging an Apophysis fractal with an original image by Oktaviani Marvikasari.

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My yard in summer

It's the last week of July and the days are starting to shorten perceptibly. Meanwhile the temperatures are climbing into the triple digits. The peony stems look healthy, green and plump, but the foliage is a little scorched. Queen Anne's lace is blooming, white umbels like platters nodding at waist height: the geraniums are even taller, but drying out already. Last year I was still deadheading them in December.

After this week there'll be patches of brown and rust and yellow in all the bigleaf maples along I-5. It's a kind of false autumn, a response to heat damage rather than shortening days; an accurate enough harbinger to make me sad.

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Urban Warfare

The air smells of burning tires
because the swings from the playground
have been thrown on the barricades.

The surly cadres cared nothing for
any trespass against the sanctity
of a space devoted to child's-play

and their crafty-eyed leader supposed
the neighborhood would be cowed—
he didn't expect outraged PTA mothers

and Eagle Scout fathers brandishing
the rakes and pruning shears with which
long ago, they volunteered to care for

the school grounds. No-one ever
unvolunteered them.

--for Cafe Writing and Weekend Wordsmith
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Where in the World

here
Shafts of light like spider-legs
approach through morning fog,
gathering dew from the grass.

there
Noon stands astride the world
a brazen colossus, red-hot fire
dripping from his hands.

there
Crescent moon, a scoop of sky
flavored peach and lavender
melting to turquoise silk.

everywhere
Chandeliers of planets swing
like vari-colored lamps in
gravitational brackets.

everywhere
Life runs over like softened wax
from aromatic candles, shaped by
currents and unrepeatable chance.

nowhere
is empty

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Scraps

I never saw them actually worn:
hollow shells of rigid silk brocade
high-necked, with the diagonal buttons at the left shoulder
intricately printed with cranes, bamboo and old-style ideographs.

The old women wore slacks and short-sleeved blouses
occasional pantsuits, very rarely
skirts or dresses. It's less trouble, they said,
I'm too old for fancy clothes.

They passed the dresses to their daughters and granddaughters
but we could never fit our larger frames
inside these shells.

We cut them down to make vests,
repurposed the fabrics for quilts and fancy pillows.
We cut them up for scraps.
We destroyed the shapes which we could never fit

which our grandmothers discarded after
dodging bombs and crossing oceans, learning a foreign language,
giving up their children to the care of a strange land--

I inherit scraps of silk brocade
and unearned freedom.

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High Standards

3 Word Wednesday: Cradle. Perfection. Snare.

snared by perfection
she rocks a porcelain doll
in a toy cradle

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Rodinia

She trailed her fraying skirts through Mirovian waters,
kicking up the new shallow seas and stirring life
but barren herself with hard ultraviolet
and supercontinental glaciation.
That was before
the beginning of the long drift that separated
daughter-continents and split the ocean so that
he held one hemisphere in each arm—
before she died, dismembered and reassembled
under a new name, Pannotia.
By then,
she understood nakedness. She wore icy armor
and a delicate fur of algae and lichens.
It wasn't enough. Pannotia had to die as well.
Short-lived for a supercontinent, she was quartered
after only sixty million years.
Successor Pangaea
came with everything we expect: proto-mammals,
vast fern forests whose remains still seam
her children's flesh with black. For she too died,
fragments spinning dizzily about the globe, driving
mountains up past the very atmosphere.
Rodinia's
ancient bones, restored to primeval nudity
kiss hard vacuum in unfiltered sunlight.

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Glass Blocks

glass blocks created in Apophysis; photo courtesy of Chelsea Turner
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Portland area readers...

you should be following this blog: Reading Local: Portland

And Portland area writers, you should consider what use you can make of it.

I understand there's a Seattle cousin, Reading Local: Seattle, but haven't checked it out.

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can your barista do this?

fractal generated in Apophysis; coffee cup courtesy of ilco
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Country Rides

3 Word Wednesday: Drip. Hypnotic. Sulk.

hypnotic dripping
of water from sulky wheels
horse trots steadily

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An Afternoon at the House of Captain Faulk

The seance ends. The medium is slumped
upon the divan's sky-blue velvet, lost
and looking dazed. Worldly news has trumped
the attendees' attentions. Smoke of sauced
tobacco loiters round the room, from flaming
charcoal braziers (breathing out monoxide).
Fickle hearts—but there's no use in blaming
them for running off to wait at dockside:

their father, by acuity and stealth
slipped the blockade, defeating the embargo
bringing in a ton of precious cargo,
furs and amber to restore his wealth.
The outlook's sanguine for the Misses Faulk
who've lost all interest in spirit talk.

--words courtesy of Read Write Poem
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What I Hear

owl courtesy of Marja Flick-Buijs; fractal created in Apophysis
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Recipe for a Homunculus

A pinch of cornstarch, splash of lemon juice
as if for stubborn sauces that won't thicken:
stir and let ingredients reduce.
Hermetic subtle processes will quicken
base materiél to emanate
its soul, a substance held both rare and noble.
Dinner can go hang. You contemplate
the swirling simmer of the Primum Mobile--

oops! You've scorched the mixture. Scrub the pot.
Today you won't produce homunculi
so next time, take more care and keep an eye
on temperature control. And if this lot
has failed in yield, it's not a total loss:
it gives a little body to your sauce.

--for Read Write Poem

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Miscellaneous notes

Should probably mention that I sent off the manuscript of my novella, Killing Time, to F&SF yesterday. Expecting a response by mid-September or so.

Also over the holiday weekend, I put together a manuscript of poems and submitted it to Tupelo Press for their open reading period. I've gotten a number of free books (they only charged postage) from Tupelo over the last few months, and I think I got a pretty good idea of the kind of poetry they like to publish. So we'll see.

Recap of April's submissions: I got poems into Barefoot Muse, The Lyric, also Raintown Review and The Road Not Taken, both still forthcoming. Haven't heard from Eclectic Muse, Windfall or Tiferet. Got rejected from a whole slew of other journals, most of which were long shots. After I hear from Tupelo one way or the other, it'll be time to put together another stack of submissions.

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Crusades

3 Word Wednesday: Gloom. Kneel. Transparent.

crusader banners
shed gloom over kneeling ghosts
transparent victims

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After the Fourth

nation's eyes open
smoke-reddened and underslept
from watching fireworks

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October

is a flamethrower,
kindling leaves, then shriveling them to ash.
October is a woman straining
her spine to see if she can still reach her toes.
October ends in quiet rains.

Not a good month for beginnings:
fold for storage, pickle and jam,
count over blessings.

--for Poefusion

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Wolf's Tooth

O I have put my hand on the wolf's tooth
hidden among green parasols and whorled towers
of purple and white. O scorpion bedded upon agates,
stonefish at the gate of a jewelled coral castle.
Venom at the heart of the gaudiest blooms,
poppy blowing sleep into the sultry air.

Now the howls of the black dog pull the edge
of evening over the city like a velvet painting
of Elvis in a suit of lights. Now three-legged cats
with angular bodies stalk the top of the fence.
Gull and crow negotiate meticulous division
of a dead squirrel. A sacrifice is exacted.

The wolf licks my blood from his lips and grins.
I use his tongue to warn the cats away.
Spangled velvet shadows full of poison glide
before us and toss their heads like giant bulls
scenting the arena. Diamond scales glitter
at my bitten wrists, streetlamp bracelets.

Have you seen me?

Look again where the oak roots have lifted
the sidewalks away from the blind earth. Worms
flee the drought into deep soil. If there is
brightness there it may be the sun glinting on
the teeth of my companion.

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Undertaker (illo)

The following poem was left at Miss Rumphius' acrostic prompt by Jane Yolen. I've taken the liberty of illustrating it with a slightly macabre fractal.

Undertaker

Victim look up.
Under a low and
Lowering sky, the undertaker comes
To carry your particulars
Up to a bleak, black heaven.
Read the set of wings, cruel beak, hooded eyes. This is no
Easing into eternity but a short, sharp shock.



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Violinist

violin courtesy of LastClick; bow courtesy of Rainer Schmidt
figure produced with Apophysis
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Readings in July

I'm giving two readings this month:

July 15 at the Lloyd Center Barnes & Noble
7-8 PM, with two other readers

July 21 at the Rockwood branch of the Multnomah County Library, 17917 SE Stark
7-8 PM, with Dale of mole

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I've done a bad thing

I've started to play with Apophysis.


metal boxes

fish bones
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Geography of Memory

From the North Pole all directions
are south. From the tip of the gnomon
all directions are past and downward
so you step up, into empty air,
the halls of thunder, the glass floor of sky
paved with cirrostratus tiles.

There are no landmarks here. Navigate by
pigeon auspices. The compass spins on an axle
of childhood desires and fancied slights
pointing Dream by Dream-Need
across the geography of memory
and into the unexplorable future

where rivers you can't step into
flow over stones you can't refute.

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Azan

At first light the call comes:
Leave your beds and pray.
Lilting across the roofs
At first light, the call comes.
House windows light
Up as the faithful rise.

At first light the call comes.
Kneeling and prostrate
Hear how they murmur:
"Beloved, be with us
Allah, grant that we may
Remember you always."

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Bing!

3 Word Wednesday: Collapse. Sweet. Yearn.

yearning for cherries
sweet flesh collapsing into
purple-staining juice

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