-IS THIS WORKING FOR YOU?

…There’s a hairpin turn about a mile from my house called “Devil’s Elbow” because so many people have wiped out on it, including my son, who totaled his car a few months ago going around it at 30+ miles per hour when the maximum speed is 15 MPH.

He, or the curve in the road, inspired this story that was published yesterday at Orion headless:

http://orionheadless.com/devils-elbow/

…Tomorrow I’m attending The Pacific Northwest Writer’s Conference in Seattle.  I wish I was a little more excited about it, but I’m hoping my lack of enthusiasm will dissipate and it’ll be one of those things that ends up being way better that one thinks.

My only goals are making connections, meetings some people, re-engaging with a friend I met there last year, and hopefully, hopefully, finally finding an agent.

…I wrote the poem below a long time ago.  It’s never found a home and I’ve posted it here before.  I don’t know why I like it so much, but I do:

This Is Not a Love Poem

You are in Switzerland noshing patchwork cheese,

buying wristwatches with Andre or Gary.

The sun is gentle and restrained on your faces.

A breeze kicks up enough that your hair flounces around your cheek

while seeding the air

with the honeysuckle notes of your perfume,

and at this moment

on our very planet

there could not be a more lovely creature

than you.

Over here

there’s no yellow brick road

so  I’m heading off to where

the trails are paved with razors pointed topside,

sticking up jaggedly,

a billion blades

of glinting metal teeth.

To get where I need to go

requires more than faith and

means taking a blood bath.

You should be so thrilled.

Perhaps you can toss confetti across your gazpacho

or shoot up the next guy to slip you the finger.

Mind you, this is not a love poem.

Mind yourself

and mine those men with their ceramic smiles

and candy cane eyes,

their Dudley Do-Right jaws as reliable as oxbows.

Take them in the crux of your kiss,

your armpit

or crotch

for all I care.

Crush them like scrawny spiders or

choke them with a designer garrote,

but leave me out of it,

I’m busy.

When I brushed my teeth this morning

they bled inky black, liquid licorice.

I tried gargling with salt water but that did nothing to stem the flow,

the blow as it were,

so the doctor has fitted me with this muzzle thing

and now the only way I’m able to convey how much I hate you

is to type it

like I’m doing right now.