--THAT’S HOW IT ALWAYS IS; THERE’S ONE MORE PEANUT BUTTER LEFT

…Today was a good day.

It started off with two rejections, but then I got three poems excepted.  As you know, it’s been a while since anyone’s taken my poems.

I got asked to do a podcast question and answer session which will take place December 9^th.

And I had these pieces up:

https://eunoiareview.wordpress.com/2015/11/21/terrorism-right-here-at-home/

https://eunoiareview.wordpress.com/2015/11/20/shadowboxer/

https://eunoiareview.wordpress.com/2015/11/20/fire-eater/

Plus I wrote more poems.  (I always like the newest poems I’ve written better than the ones that came before):

  

Silence Is A Yes

Today I apprentice in a tunnel so dark

I can only feel the rats

Scurry across my feet

You told me silence is a yes

But I didn’t believe you

In Paris we counted blue cars

And pigeons liked your perfume

Your mother hated me

But she still called

To give me the news

So I apprentice in a sink hole

So quiet I can hear the tree roots whisper

“He must have really loved her.”

Baby I Missed You

You’ve been gone a while

So likely we’ll have sex tonight

Lots of extra body fluids spilled

Some good old fashioned bed shaking

It’s always the same after you’ve been away—

Your need for a naked toy

But all I really want is

Your mouth in my ear

Saying Baby I missed you

Just you not your body

Every Single Piece

I am giving away pieces of myself outside

A bus terminal when an old woman

Asks, Do you know how dangerous that is?

The birds peck out my eyes for free

A cabbie collects my baguette legs like a

Parisian baker on the run

No one wants my ears—too big!

A homeless man dips my fingers in a jar of hot mustard

Before nibbling on the knuckles

Last to go is—you guessed it—

My heart

Black as night

Blood pooling in your palms

Homewrecker

You were the snag

In my marriage

A wind gust taking down trees

A gaping hole in an already sinking boat

The walls had ears

Our friends and families

Lined up their blades biases

But nothing is seamless

Even eagles struggle in storms

A sleeping otter might let go of its mate’s paw

Tomorrow might rule out the sun entirely

Or hand you a new set of keys

In between the hot stones of indecision

You were the only thread to cling to

But the unraveling was all mine

Quiet Monsters

There is split in your lip that wasn’t there before

And you are trying to hide

Inside a bathrobe with the collar turned up

When breakfast wasn’t made I knew

It’s always the same signs

The nervous finger tap-tap-taping

The same far off staring

Maybe you’re thinking about regrets

Or when you were a little girl feeling happy for once

He’s a quiet monster

With knuckles that are always shiny and unmarked

When he comes to the table I look at the

Black and white wedding photo of you two

A couple of kids smiling, beaming really

You’ve been a good mother but I need a woman

Who can show me strength

Show me how to fall into the right arms

Or else fight back

Now you flinch

When Dad flicks the newspaper open

The cat has long ago left

And tonight, after school,

I’ll have done the same

--SOMETIMES IT’S SAFER WHEN THERE’S NO WAY OUT

…I have this poem, “Hydrophobia,” up at Eunoia Review today:

https://eunoiareview.wordpress.com/2015/11/19/hydrophobia/

…I’m back from Denver.  What a fun time with Robert Vaughan, Meg Tuite, Kathy Fish, Nancy Stohlman, Leah Rogin-Roper, Levi Noe, Katharyn Grant, Roseanna Frechette and many others.

I read better than I normally do.  Five pieces.  I had most of them memorized as they were quite short.

There was a lot of laughter and drinking and a bit of food here and there.  Sleep was dicey.  Over all it was an outstanding trip and I missed the power outage here at home, so there’s that.

…Here are some things I like on a Thursday:

  

-“I look at each experience talking to someone as a whole new world.”

-“Fear can be useful.”

-“Sometimes curiosity is akin to excitement.  Sometimes it’s just having an investigative mind.”

-“Maybe curiosity killed the cat, but the lack of curiosity will kill us.” – Patti Smith

-“To love is to buy mockery at the expense of moaning.” Shakespeare

 -"Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them." David Hume

-"Memory is a fist to the eye." The David Tomas Martinez

-"Optimism is essential to achievement and it is also the foundation of courage and true progress." Nicholas Murray Butler

-"I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning."  J.B. Priestley

-"You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late." Ralph Waldo Emerson

-"The more people have studied different methods of bringing up children the more they have come to the conclusion that what good mothers and fathers instinctively feel like doing for their babies is best after all." Benjamin Spock

-"Humor is an affirmation of dignity, a declaration of man's superiority to all that befalls him." Romain Gary

--IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN PERFECT

…So tragic and unspeakable and confounding what happened in Paris yesterday.

A friend posted this on his Facebook page and I couldn’t agree more:

“He who contemplates the depths of Paris is seized with vertigo. Nothing is more fantastic. Nothing is more tragic. Nothing is more sublime.”  Victor Hugo

…I’m going to Denver tomorrow through Wednesday for a reading Tuesday where I’ll be with some of my best writer friends.  Oh, and it’s supposed to snow 32 inches Tuesday.  No lie.  Either way, it’ll be a blast, I’m sure.

…Here are some things I like for the weekend, and I hope yours is stellar:

“I wonder what chairs think about all day—‘Oh, here comes another asshole’.” Robin Williams

 “I love to discover the potential in people who aren’t thought to have any.” Oliver Sacks

“Doing what you love is always worth doing.” Barrett Baber

“I am not young enough to know everything.” Oscar Wilde

“She fell in love with her doctor's stethoscope, the way it listened to her heart.” Russell Edson

“Until the lion learns how to write, every story will glorify the hunter.” African Proverb

“This, above all else; to thine own self, be true.” Shakespeare

--WHAT ABOUT THIS?

                                                               Grace

The kid in line looks broken, bent at the hip like a less than mark, as if he’s missing ribs on that side. He walks with a looping gait, ratchety, and kicks a stanchion so that it whirls before bouncing off the wall of glass and hitting me in the knee.

He doesn’t look up. He finds his wallet and buys his movie ticket just like anyone.

In grade school I wore Army Surplus clothes. I kept my bangs so long they’d curl at the ends, any way to hide myself, to camouflage the rash of angry acne craters.

The only one who talked to me had a body like this boy, but her chest was set up high, a stack of too many hard back books, swallowing her neck until it seemed she was nothing more than head and ribs and bird legs.

She never said it, but she loved me.

When the new kid moved to our town he didn’t know any better. He wore puka shells and polo-shirts and cologne that smelled like forests. He took me as a friend before the others could warn him, and then they quickly fell in line, too, acquiescing, because that’s how staying popular works.

A week into summer, she moved away, proof to me of God’s existence, his mercy and his grace.

--I’LL GO WITH YOU                                                               

Veteran

His brother took him to a pool hall,

bought him tequila and beer chasers,

farted out loud and

commented over the texture and vibrato of each. 

His brother laughed at anything—

 his own jokes,

the old geezer with a chin stuck inside his mug,

the skipping juke box saying, “You give love a bad naye-naye-naye-naye.”

This place had the classic arcade games—Pac Man and Space Invaders.  

Around 2:00 am

Stucky threw them the keys and said to close up,

 as if it was something he’d done a lot of times before.

He studied the homemade tattoos on his brother’s forearms. 

Everything was short, choppy and to the point,

 no word or ink mark wasting time on being clever: 

Nam

R.I.P.

JayDed

Old Glory Hole

The little gray bug men

marched across the screen in neat rows.

His brother shot them down with his finger beating the sweaty red button. 

He killed as many as he could. 

He seemed happy.

--YOU’VE GOT TO KEEP ONE EYE OPEN THE FARTHER YOU GO

…I finally got this story, “She Was A Mountain The Could Not Be Moved” published after a long time of trying.  It’s one I like quite a bit and is loosely based on my own grandmother:

https://randomsamplereview.wordpress.com/2015/11/01/she-was-a-mountain-that-could-not-be-moved/

…It’s so dark outside my windows right now and not even 2:00 in the afternoon.  Made me think of this song by Dylan, one of my favorites, which is saying something, believe me:

Not Dark Yet

Shadows are falling and I been here all day
It's too hot to sleep and time is running away
Feel like my soul has turned into steel
I've still got the scars that the sun didn't let me heal

There's not even room enough to be anywhere
It's not dark yet, but it's getting there
Well my sense of humanity is going down the drain
Behind every beautiful thing, there's been some kind of pain

She wrote me a letter and she wrote it so kind
She put down in writin' what was in her mind

I just don't see why I should even care
It's not dark yet, but it's getting there

Well I been to London and I been to gay Paree
I followed the river and I got to the sea
I've been down to the bottom of a whirlpool of lies
I ain't lookin' for nothin' in anyone's eyes

Sometimes my burden is more than I can bear
It's not dark yet, but it's getting there

I was born here and I'll die here, against my will
I know it looks like I'm movin' but I'm standin' still

Every nerve in my body is so naked and numb
I can't even remember what it was I came here to get away from
Don't even hear the murmur of a prayer
It's not dark yet, but it's getting there

--SOMETIMES YOU DON’T HAVE A CHOICE

…I’m getting a jump on Monday and Monday doesn’t even know it.  How about you?  How was your weekend?  I hope it was fantastic.

…Here are some things I like to start a new week:

-“There is no friend as loyal as a book.” Ernest Hemingway

-“I look at each experience talking to someone as a whole new world.”

-“Fear can be useful.”

-“Sometimes curiosity is akin to excitement.  Sometimes it’s just having an investigative mind.”

-“Maybe curiosity killed the cat, but the lack of curiosity will kill us.” -Patti Smith

-“To love is to buy mockery at the expense of moaning.” -Shakespeare

-“Nothing is impossible.  The word itself says, ‘I’m possible’.” -Audrey Hepburn

-"Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them." -David Hume

-"Memory is a fist to the eye." -The David Tomas Martinez

-"Optimism is essential to achievement and it is also the foundation of courage and true progress." -Nicholas Murray Butler

-"I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning."  J.B. Priestley

-"You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late." Ralph Waldo Emerson

-"The more people have studied different methods of bringing up children the more they have come to the conclusion that what good mothers and fathers instinctively feel like doing for their babies is best after all."  Benjamin Spock

-"If passion drives, let reason hold the reins." Benjamin Franklin

-"The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook." William James