concocted glimpse

Hi nymph. I’m Po, a homophony nun. Nigh noon, in union mukluks, loop a pink pumpkin lollipop on yon inky moon [Io]. Ok?

An artistic pairing, book and song:

• Douglas Adams’ Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency
• “Soft Rains” by the 3Ds on The Poetry Album (adapted from the Sara Teasdale poem)

Roscivs and I just finished reading Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. It was euphoniously, euphoriously resonant. Roscivs read it to me during car rides, however few or far between. Driving becomes a more novel enterprise for our family every year. Finishing it took us a couple months of ice rink trips and one long drive to a cottage nestled near the rainforests in the Olympic Peninsula.

Something occurred to me in one of the last evenings, during a particular passage, and it seemed improbable to me that I had never really seen it before. Adams was—he had to have been, I was suddenly sure—an environmentalist. One with a radical, heartsick bent, daring anyone to find it even remotely funny. I felt the way one might feel when finally realizing that soy sauce and soy milk are made from the same bean. Of course! A retrospective blink at any single book of the Hitchhiker’s Guide series seems like enough to make it clear. All the Earth destruction!? The teeming life forms across the universe!? All the bizarre biospheres!? The complete non-eminence of humans!? All the pining for the fjords!?!?

Why does it sometimes take so long to recognize a kindred spirit?

Eraser

A docent leaned over and slipped me a pencil. With the undertones of a commanding confidant, he whispered “ink terrifies us.” I was scribbling on scraps of paper. Thoughts, jots; titles, tittles; thinking, inking. It seemed like a spot for scribblers, but the impermanence of pencil was preferred and proffered.

Our yester-week SAM visit had something to bring in each of our guests; “Mann und Maus” for one, Bierstadt’s “Puget Sound” for the other. They’re both rather cheeky pieces, even though the Bierstadt looks like it’s going for the majestic grandeur of the Hudson River School. But he painted his pseudo-Sound sight unseen. Pretty cheeky for a commissioned landscape painter! Ah, artifice.

I myself wanted to see the Edward Hopper exhibit; the 1920s girls, the time when public dining became something a woman could do without a man, when “Tables for Ladies” became a sign in café windows. “Chop Suey” was my favorite. The exhibit quoted a New York Times article from the era, saying that

The only force strong enough to break down social convention is economic necessity

which made me stop, and think, and write in ink. Enter docent.

I’m not complaining. The pencil request is fitting: A museum is the kind of art experience that likes to take the patron out of the picture, that operates on the fact that we will be rubbed out before the art expires. If you have comported yourself, no one should know you were there.

Tapestry

My friend Sandwich suggested the perfect celebration for after my final final last Wednesday—Seattle Poetry Slam. I’d never been and I loved it.

A guy called Open Michael did a great piece about a girl he saw in a coffeeshop. It wasn’t until here, where I dragged and dropped the Museum halls into the same file as the beatnik back room of Spitfire, that I noticed that this too was a ‘view of a girl in a restaurant’ piece, like Hopper’s “Automat”, but fabulous, lit up, noisy, adoring.

No quotes were captured in the non-filming of this event.

This is mayfly art. One time only a thousand times. Limitless but perishable. It isn’t meant to be bottled or framed or dusted. It’s poured—slosh!—right into your goblet as it’s created, and the shape of your cup forms and informs the performance. It’s the froth, the body, and the dregs. It’s the filling-up of your inkwell.

The point is the moment, not the replication. You had to be there.

There are bus reader riders, and there are bus writer riders. The busses even sponsor some writers: Poetry on Busses. The poems are posted inside the busses alongside two kids of ads: -vertisements and -monitions. Of the bus writer riders there are those who write while on the bus and those who write on the bus while on the bus. I have now seen an editoral and a poetic exposition on the bus omnibus. Exhibit 1: INFANTSIDE written in a blue Bic on a women’s reproductive health agency ad. Exhibit 2: A succint iamb proffered in bold Sharpie underneath this poem: HE DIED.

We’re going to move—not too far from where we are, just a leap down the lake, almost into the nitty gritty of the city. It will be a lot different than our last move. That involved moving roots. This one isn’t like a transplant. I’ve already settled into the soil here. It’ll be more like a good pruning.

I’m sparkling with excitment about being closer to downtown. I’m making a list of all the marvelous things I’ll be able to do all the time now. So far it’s looking a lot like this:

1. Pike Place
2. Pike Place
3. Pike Place

Moving—even just a prune move—is a really tricky thing for me, emotionally. It seems to bring out a titanic clash of many of the most volcanic traits. I spent this morning making a mix CD [yeah, an actual disc—nostalgically retro] to transition into the new house. I found this idea on a woman’s blog when I was reading tips on relocating, back two years ago. I’ll play it while I clean [always our first nesting ritual] and settle in. I’d forgotten about it. This morning Roscivs reminded me.

Some songs remind me of other of my abodes, like a thread weaving back through the living spaces of my life. Some are ancient staples, some newer favorites, making it future-present centered. Some of the songs remind me of things I want to keep in mind while I move. Some remind me of the person I’m moving with. When I get flighty, it’s infinitely comforting to know he’s with me wherever I go. From myself I hear I’m Like a Bird 0:55; from him, Ruth 1:16; cummings.

here is the deepest secret nobody knows / (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud /and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows / higher than soul can hope or mind can hide) / and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

Sometimes we hold hands at night. Usually, we sleep like silver cutlery on black velvet: spooning, forking. Matching. Touching. But sometimes, I wake up and we’ve rolled almost apart, but his hand is holding onto mine. The roof evaporates, the walls fall down; the bed is a dais of firm clouds, and the first thing he asks me up there in the sky when I fall back asleep is if I’d like to go on a walk with him.

We’re one goose-step closer to the police state we’ve been safely, carefully, safely, inhumanely, safely building since, oh, I don’t know just when. Maybe sometime in September 2001? March 2002 would also be a safe guess.

So, the FBI got this hare-brained idea:

Bay Area FBI agents wanting to find Iranian secret agents data-mined grocery store records in 2005 and 2006, hoping that tahini purchases would lead them to domestic terrorists

My parents probably purchase half of the tahini in the state of Utah. Good thing they’re not down by the Bay.

I’ll take the necessary precautions next time I’m visiting the area. I’ll carry cash for all suspicious items I might need to buy; liquids, nail clippers, other lethal weapons. I’ll only eat at In-N-Out, that bastion of all-American food. It might not keep me out of the hospital, but it will keep me out of Guantanamo. I’m up next for skewering as it is.

Down by the Bay, where the watermelons grow / Out to Safeway I dare not go / For if I do, Big Brother will say / You’re really really awful if you eat falafel / Down by the Bay

Autumn couldn’t wait for the Equinox; he crept into my bed last night to cuddle with me. I warmed up my chilly toes on his long-johned shins and smushed my cold nose against his ruddy cheeks. He doesn’t mind that. He just wants to wrap me up and snuggle. He wore his warm earthy-brown coat to work for the first time this morning. Autumn always brings back how I fell in love with him.

In September, we will find / that we’re alike in heart and mind / We shall ourselves together bind

Found you once, Found you twice, Your words and ways do me entice.

- Lovely Rita

It’s time to shop for something cozy. Whenever I buy clothes, they have to pass a test of sumptuous comfort, even if they’re not for me. When we got my niece this shirt in London, I carefully felt inside to make sure the seams weren’t scratchy. The last thing I wanted was for her to hate the shirt and know it came from me, and I’d become Auntie Gave-Me-A-Scratchy-Shirt, a fate worse than broccoli death. Either it wasn’t scratchy or she doesn’t pay much heed to those kinds of things, unlike me, which is why, when I am not running around naked, I will only wear silk, the occasional cashmere, or thrice-combed Egyptian cotton.

It’s also time for the heat to come back on. In our attempt to bind our environmental footprint, we haven’t used gas since leaving for London on April Fool’s Day. The gas company turned off our gas last month for meter maintenance. In a follow up phone call today, they asked us to pay for three months of gas we never used. Grrrr. We got that ironed out, but we still have no gas. Brrrr.

orange

under the heat my body flags
the popsicle my tongue enshrouds
A sunflower, freshly cut and bruised
in my hair as I embark
I look for more, and finding none, pout.
It was not worth this blister, I suppose.

~*~

When L was here, we wrote these poems. I believe that poetic constraints beget poetic beauty. These were our parameters: 6 lines or less. Each of us wrote on one of a complementary pair of colors. One of us started first, and then gave the other the last word in each line, and their poem had to rhyme line for line with its complement. I love the effect.

~*~

yellow

I will paint the house anew
And the chair squeaks when I sit
But, my hair is curly
And I love new bowls
It is enough.

~*~

purple

Shards of broken heart poison the brew
bubbling amethysts and dragon spit
simmer in dull pulse; slowly, surely
reducing palpitating pain and filling holes

Every skin I don, I slough.