--I CAN'T DECIDE IF YOU HAVE EVERYTHING OR NOTHING


…I have a new story (“What the Seasons Mean to Me”) up at Pure Slush and two poems (“Loofa” and “Sharp and Serrated”) at The Rusty Nail.
All are also here under “Words In Print.”

…I wrote two stories on Sunday. One was very short, just over 200 words. The other was twice as long. I really like it-- "The Shape of Us." I might read it at AWP. It's pretty depressing, however. We'll see.

…Yesterday I wrote two more in the bathtub. Both involved physical violence but were very different. I think they were pretty good. I'm not sure why I wrote them. I guess I just don't understand how a man could batter a woman. It's unfathomable to me, and therefore fascinating subject matter.

…The other night I went to hear my brother in-law’s band. It was at a wine store. The place was packed. The wine, entertainment, and company were all excellent. Several times people asked me about my writing. Several times different people said, "Well how do you get paid for stories that are published online?" Everyone wanted to know about the money angle and it was as if I wasn't a legitimate writer unless I could produce a pay check or point to a physical book on a shelf with my name on it. They weren't being mean. It was just a natural reaction. And because so many people reacted the same way, I'm thinking that's a pretty common perception.
So I'm just dealing with it, not feeling sorry for myself, but wanting to share this with you.

…I’ve really been enjoying my new Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits cd’s. They’re both originals, certainly daring. When I listen to Waits I hear raw-throated honesty. I smell sweat, urine and whisky, and not in that order. I hear scraping bar stools, the chink of drinking glasses and the sloppy slither or barley and hops.
Hearing Cohen’s spoken word/rap-style song-working is a bit like hearing God tell you a story from a high-pitched cloud.

…AWP is eight days away. AWP is a big writer's conference, mainly indie presses and online sites. Over 10,000 people are attending. I went last year. It was fun and intimidating. I expect the same this year.
I'm a little nervous.

…Here are a few things I like to the start of a short work week:
"The great thing and the hard thing is to stick to things when you
have outlived the first interest, and not yet got the second, which
comes with a sort of mastery." Janet Erskine Stuart

"You know what luck is? Luck is believing you're lucky, that's all ..." Stanley Kowalski in "A Streetcar Named Desire"

"Words lead to deeds. They prepare the soul, make it ready, and move it to tenderness." Saint Teresa

"There's no end to the fears and terrors and anxieties that slip into a writer's head at any given moment." Nathan Englander

--THIS IS YOUR BIG DAY, SO YOU SHOULD PROBABLY SMILE A LOT


Be Well

I am running to you
in the rain
a deluge
blue frozen stain,
a scratched-off signature or promissory note of the pain
I have caused you,
irrevocable, yes,
no different than trampled on trust,
a violation of every promise I ever made.

Overnight now,
I feel like a villain
because the truth is
I am.

But you,
you should lift your head high
toward the sun.
It loves you so much.
It has its arms encircling your waist,
its fingers in your hair.
It is breathing bright light
across your cheeks at this very moment.

Be well, my loveliest.



Anymore

You are so busy trying to keep your teeth clean,
your skin unlined and your laundry creased.
I was sordid fruit with tentacles like groping calamari
and you were a satchel of Kant prose and hairspray.
What a fucking couple.
Thank God that’s come to an end.
Thank the Lord I never think of you
anymore.



The End

In the end,
in the earth
the dirt
we scrape for new beginnings,
nails broken
bones unburied
secrets
shame and raised specters of the hollow truths we once leaned on so forcefully.
I see your face wearing a sheen of sweat.
I wonder why you work so hard when all it leads to is
our destruction.

--I DIDN’T FORGET


…I hope you’re having a very special day. You deserve it.

…For Valentine’s Day, my son’s girlfriend came over to the house early. She covered the steps in rose pedals. She added arrows every few yards. She put more arrows and pedals in the hall until it came to my son’s room where she’d decorated the walls and ceilings with streamers.
When my son got home from school, he followed the path and found her sitting there holding a skateboard (my son’s a skater boy) with the word TOLO? on it.
Pretty darn cute, right?

…Getting new music always makes me happy. I’m very happy.
Yesterday these things came in the mail: Dr. Dog (so good), Passion Pit, Local Natives, Deer Tick, Chairlift, Tom Waits (“Closing Time” oh boy), The Men, and new Leonard Cohen.

…Yesterday I also got the new Rolling Stone in the mail. The thing was as thin as a letter opener--A whooping 76 pages, but nine more than the previous month. By contrast, this month’s Vanity Fair is 3392 pages and Harper’s Bazaar weighs in at 436 pages.
Poor Rolling Stone. It’s probably got a year left. You could say it’s because young people don’t read magazines, but on the other hand, doesn’t Rolling Stone have some sort of responsibility to stay relevant? Paul McCartney is on the cover. Does any 16 or 18 year old even care about the new “Standards” album McCartney is coming out with? Couldn’t they re-invent themselves as a lifestyle magazine, including fashion and, yes, maybe even some gossip? What’s new in books, tech, gadgets? It’s just a little sad and frustrating for me, a music-lover and fan of the magazine.

…Seattle is where Starbucks began. They’re trying/testing some new things here at half a dozen local shops, serving wine and beer. I think that’s a grand idea.
In Lake Tahoe, California they have the world’s one and only ski-in/ski-out Starbucks where you slide up to the drive-in window on your skis. Now that’s being inventive, as well as customer-friendly.

…Apparently when you Google “Mitt Romney” you’ll find this definition working its way up search engines-- “Romney: To defecate in terror.”
Yikes.

…My butt is sore. So are my knees.
I went for a seven miler on a new trail this morning. There was this girl/gal/woman/lady a ways in front of me, going at a good pace. I decided to catch her. Bad idea. I almost had a coronary. The only way I managed to finally pass her was that she stopped to adjust her equipment.
So, yeah, my butt and knees are sore.

…I like these things for a special Friday:

"Wherever you are, and whatever you do, be in love." Rumi
"Sometimes it's better not to know." Stephen Elliott
• "But is it such a bad thing to live like this for just a little while? Just for a few months of one's life, is it so awful to...nap in a garden, in a patch of sunlight, in the middle of the day, right next to your favorite fountain? And then to do it again the next day?” Elizabeth Gilbert
"There is only one success - to be able to spend your life in your own
way." Christopher Darlington Morley

“Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without words
and never stops at all." Emily Dickinson

--DID YOU CALL? YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT A MESSAGE


"If I am a token, I'll be a token to be reckoned with." Carolee Schneemann

"Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world." George Bernard Shaw

"A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet." Orson Wells

“I cannot promise very much.
I give you the images I know.
Lie still with me and watch.
We laugh and we touch.
I promise you love. Time will not take that away.”
Anne Sexton

"It's never too late to have a happy childhood." Anita Stackhouse

--TELL ME ABOUT THE HAPPIEST DAY YOU CAN REMEMBER

…Happy Valentine’s Day, Lovers and those searching for love…

…“It ought to make us feel ashamed when we talk like we know what we're talking about when we talk about love.” --Raymond Carver

He thought of all the times just one or two words— “please” or “you’re pretty”—would have changed everything, and how he could never say them when he needed to.
We only get pieces of love, she thought. Sometimes that’s the best we can do. --Rebecca Barry, author of “Later, At the Bar”

Crying adds something. Crying is you, plus tears and love. –John Green, author of “An Abundance of Katherines”

Love is the difficult realization that something other than oneself is real. --Dorothy Murdoch

A happy marriage is a long conversation that always seems too short. --Andre Maurois

The first duty of love is to listen. -- Paul Tillich

The influence of each human life on this earth is a kind of immortality. – John Quincy Adams

Love is a fog that burns with the first daylight of reality. –Bukowski

You can spend the night beside her, and you know that she's half crazy, but that's why you wanna be there – Leonard Cohen

When you choose to forgive someone, you choose to love them.
So many believe that it is the love that grows but it is the knowing that grows, and love simply expands to contain it.
To force my will on you is exactly what love does not do. – The Shack

Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are…Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in my pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky and want, more than all the world, your return. – Mary Jean Iron

--WE SLEEP LIKE ANIMALS, WE PLAY PRETEND

…I have a new story, “Ask and You Shall Receive” written with Meg Tuite and a couple of other writers up at Used Furniture and here under “Words in Print.”

…I just got the print anthology, “Love Notes” in the mail. I have three poems in it—“Teenage Summer,” “If I Were A Poet” and “Aladdin.”
Here they are:

Teenage Summer


The good thief watches while
we soak in a night-blackened sea of shimmering oil,
water that makes us weightless
even as you kick and paddle.
We’ll be old soon enough.
Now the stars urge us to write songs or
yodel so that our laughter rifles through the sky.
The waves rock us like babies.
They slurp across our slick skins
and beckon us to kiss,
kiss deep and long
as lovers do.



If I Were A Poet

If I were a poet I would
say things better,
string sentences across a window with a thick font
so you’d see me in a new light,
see how serious I was,
how tender I could be with this sheer
and fragile love of ours.

If I were a poet I would reshape syllables and sonnets into
a song sewn specifically about the sound of your breathing when the stars
hang up on a night wire to watch
like so many bejeweled birds.

If I were a poet it might make me a better lover,
less insecure and needy.
I might be able to shake this sense that you are in the closet right now,
looking for something to wear
while filling a suitcase for your escape.



Aladdin

There was something once,
a small shimmering thing
that sat between us
that was us
burgeoning
beckoning bigger than either of us knew,
but now it rests in a dim closet
no thicker than a dime
no different than Aladdin’s lamp
waiting patiently for fingers
to bring it to life.

If you could move your heart
a little to the left
I would slip in behind you,
spooning,
rubbing just gently enough
to let you know how much
I care.

--THIS FEELS A LOT LIKE BEING IN THE MOUTH OF A LION


…I have some new things:
-“Heard it in a Love Song” at CL Bledsoe’s “Murder My Darlings.”
-“Impressionable” at Marco Polo
-“Corkscrew” at The Camel Saloon
-All three are also here under “Words in Print.”

…My keyboard is sticking.
The “delete” key is.
The “back space” key is.
The “1” key is.
Maybe it’s trying to tell me something.

…I got Jim Valvis’s poetry collection, “How to Say Goodbye,” in the mail yesterday. I’m glad I did.
It’s a hardy book, consisting of 190 plus pages, which is quite generous for poetry books.
Jim’s work is unpretentious, sage, visceral and often poignant, with an urgent narrative arc that makes the reader rush to each piece’s conclusion before then heading back to the beginning a second helping.
If you enjoy poetry that not only makes sense but leaves a burn mark on both your heart and head, then you’ll love this one.
Jim’s on Facebook and, I’m sure, would be happy to give you buying information.

…This is true.
I read an article a few years back about a guy who was so despondent upon his breakup with a girl that he decided to sell his life on EBay.
MY LIFE FOR SALE – WILL TAKE BEST OFFER
By “life” he didn’t mean people would have the right to murder him or that he would kill himself.
What he meant was his possessions.
He sold them all in one package deal.
He sold everything—his clothes, shoes, bicycle, books, DVD collection, board games, photo albums, yearbooks. He sold his pet hamster, Pete. He sold two birds names Salt and Pepper. He sold his black book with phone numbers of girls he had dated. He even talked to his manager and arranged for whoever bought his LIFE to be able to replace him at the work station.
In the end, this guy’s entire LIFE sold for $3,217.53.

Here are a few things that I really like for a Friday:

“If dance is largely about being still and music largely about the silence between notes, then writing is largely about what’s implied rather than what’s stated. There are some things that can be said better with fewer words than with more. Yes?” Howie Good


"I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be
honorable, to be compassionate. It is, after all, to matter: to
count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you
lived at all." Leo C. Rosten

"If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more
to patient attention than to any other talent." Issac Newton

"Books are where I go when I want to be reminded of the mystery and magic of our shared language." Anthony Doerr

"Life is not so much invented as composed." Peter Pereiara