modem madness

My intestines knash their teeth
when pages don't load
and tabs of work to complete line up with
grey circles turning in the corners, churning
coffee up my lower esophageal sphincter.
Pressing a reset button and unplugging a cable are not
satisfying solutions. So,
I slam the computer into my bag,
take a deep breath to un-knit the gut-teeth
stretch up
stand up
fill out the shape I now am
and walk out the door

breathing moving air that sends and spreads
the knashing teeth to the tips of my fingers
so I'm ready, when I get to the cafe
and open the computer
but now all I want to write
is a poem

The Next Elegant Step

Usually, all we get is a glimmer. A story we read or someone we briefly met. A curiosity. A meek voice inside, whispering. It's up to us to hammer out the rest.

                                       -Po Bronson, What Should I Do With My Life?

I’m at a crossroads in life. One of those times when you are stopped in your tracks and find yourself suddenly without direction. The road where you came from is not an option - that much you know for sure. There are plenty of side roads, and it’s possible that they could loop back to where you need to go, but they feel like escapes. Distractions. The trouble is that the road ahead - your only real way forward - has not been constructed yet.  There may be a few trampled weeds hinting at the shadow of a path, but for the most part, you’re on your own. If you want to get where you’re going, you’re going to have to build it from scratch. And that is a paralyzing thought.

I don’t believe we have to be one thing when we grow up, but that doesn’t make being thirty and directionless any easier. I didn’t go to school for medicine, or law, or engineering, which in many ways leaves me a lot of freedom. I’m not locked in - I could be a teacher one day, a food critic the next. I could open a yoga studio or learn the art of sportscasting or sell insurance. It’s not only the commitment that I’m afraid of, though. I’m afraid of wasting time. I’m afraid of choosing poorly. I’m afraid, above all, that I won’t find work that is meaningful, that is me, and that is making the world a better place.

I know I am asking a lot. I’ve always been a perfectionist. But I have this feeling that I’m on the cusp of something. I’m tired of taking the side roads and I want to forage ahead into the unknown. I want to do the thing that is the hardest to do. The trouble is, how do I do it when I don’t know what it is? In Po Bronson’s What Should I Do With My Life?, he observes that of the hundreds of people he interviewed, those who had succeeded in finding a calling often had nothing more than an unquenchable hunger to go on: "The call was muffled and vague at first. That blank urge is the call.” The trick is, you have to let that blank urge take you somewhere. Anywhere. You have to take what a friend of mine recently referred to as the Next Elegant Step.

All the self-help books on this topic - and trust me, I’ve read a lot of them - say the same thing: you need to stop reflecting and start acting. They argue, rather ironically, that it’s time to put down the books, stop taking personality tests and making lists and weighing pros and cons and imagining your ideal life - and time to jump out there and try something. It’s like dating: you’re not going to meet the perfect mate just by listing qualities you’re looking for on multi-colored sticky notes and rearranging them endlessly while holed-up in your apartment. You’ve got to take a leap of faith, swallow a heaping spoonful of vulnerability, and go meet real people in the real touch-taste-see-hear-smell world. Why is that so unbelievably scary?

I don’t know, but it is.

Today I was chatting with an acquaintance after church and happened to let it slip that I'm unhappy in my job, and ultimately, my field. She asked a question that I usually dread: "If you could do anything in the world, what would it be?" This time, I took a deep breath, put aside my embarrassment about lofty, unattainable dreams, and stumbled through an outline of what I like to call my Evil Plan - that glimmer of a maybe-sort-of-ill-formed-idea in the back of my mind. This girl that I barely knew did not even flinch. She listened, asked clarifying questions, and commented that the skills from my current job would really come in handy in the development of this next one. She didn't provide some magical lead, or offer me a million dollars in seed money, or help me understand my own desires any better, but somehow the conversation was part of a rite of passage for me.

Like the plot of a yet-unwritten novel, I have been afraid to spoil the ending by leaking any hint of my Evil Plan to anyone outside of my personal journal. But that has also allowed me to get away with ignoring it - with watching the months float by in silent paralysis. Now I am learning that speaking my dreams aloud - even when they are foggy and silly-seeming - gives them flesh. By letting people in on my secret, I allow them to do two things: I empower them to hold me accountable, and I give them the opportunity to help me. Neither of these is comfortable. They are, in many ways, the hardest thing.

And for me, that is proof enough that I have begun to take my next elegant step.

Solstice

Get up from your chair at the kitchen table,

pull on your boots, and step outside

into the crust of the snow

while there is still a little light left.

Stand still, and listen

to the sound of this briefest of gaps

between night and night.

The air is thinner today,

as at the peak of a bare mountain

where a lone hiker triangulates with the sun and the moon:

three points in cold space.

Do not think of days to come,

rolled out long and thin like dough, cluttered with shapes and voices.

Instead, face the waning light of this dense, unformed day,

where the shadows on the snow fall backwards

and only whiteness stretches out ahead.

Behind you: a thousand cups of coffee,

a thousand rings of the phone and impatient glances at the clock.

Behind you: that summer night on the porch, that thing she said,

that question, that aching sorrow.

In front of you: unbroken snow.

Do not cast your heart backwards.

Instead, think of this day, this hour,

this blink of light between sleeps.

This day is not a cloud or a block of marble:

there is no figure hidden within it.

Watch the long shadows fade into the snow,

love them, and let them go.

And when the light comes again,

think outwards in all directions,

like a stranded sailor guessing towards the shore.

All Souls' Day

There's something about a warm wind

The air full of leaves

Torn down from the trees, swept up from the ground

Unwilling to settle into rest

They sing like a Shakespearean chorus

Preludes in a minor key

Foretelling fates but leaving the stories themselves

Suspended: waiting to be acted

But also not quite written

And what looks like a gray November morning

Is stirring with the scent of not yet

If I Had a Window

Here's the most recent "finished" poem I've written. I think it was about a year ago. I think it had something to do with my attempts to figure out what landscape painting was supposed to be good for.

If I had a window I
Would sit and watch the cars go by
And roll along, and roll away
And roll into another day

The wall here is no good to me
When it's all there is to see
You know drywall's such a sorrowful sight
When it's all you see for day and night

Outside the door, out in the hall
There hangs a lamp, and that is all
A cold and silent corridor
With bare walls and a polished floor

But all I want to do today
Is watch the cars as they go away
I swear I'd need no other guide
If I could only look outside

The Little Things

Wrote this in 2011 but thought I would share because it's seasonally relevant...
***************

Earlier this week, I bought a bag of candy corn at the drug store and put it in a desk drawer at work.

Every morning, I forget that it is there.  Then, at some point a few hours into the day, I open the drawer looking for a highlighter or some white-out or stamps, and voila!  Someone has sent me a secret surprise!  Delighted, I grab a handful and shut the drawer.

A minute later, this time with no pretense of needing the white-out, I open the drawer and grab another handful of artificially colored, sugary goodness (which, by the way, claims to be “made with real honey!”).  Perhaps 45 seconds later, it happens again, this time unconsciously.  Open, shut, chew.  Open, shut, chew.  I am compelled - I can’t stop - MUST HAVE CANDY CORN!

Ten or fifteen minutes into this routine, I choke on a piece of candy corn that, in my manic haste to pump corn syrup and yellow #5 into my blood stream, goes down the wrong way.  I pause, take a few long sips of water, and breathe.  My body has saved itself from near-death by tiny triangular confection bullet.

In that instant, self control is restored.  The mind is back on top; all animal appetites are at least tentatively subdued.  I go on with my day.  The drawer stays closed, and all traces of yellow-orange-and-white striped thought vanish from my brain.

Embodiment

Sorry my first post is about gross bodily functions, but you have to start somewhere, right?

***********

Our bodies often speak to us, but we're not always very good at listening.

Today my body shouted. It wolf-whistled at close range and then exploded in a tantrum of frustration. It yelled, "STOP! SIT DOWN, SHUT THE F#$% UP AND LISTEN TO ME." And, as you might expect, I didn't have a choice.

First, it went for the jugular. I got a sore throat, and it hurt to talk and swallow and breathe. 

Then it took out the nerve center by delivering a pounding headache, which turned into a migraine. I fired back with a round of potent meds and the headache subsided. I had this under control.

But neurons still weren't firing like they should. My head was fuzzy, and I started to forget things, mess things up. I saved over an important document at work and couldn't recover it. While I was fumbling and disoriented, the next wave struck like a tsunami: massive head congestion. 

I couldn't breathe, everything was heavy, snot everywhere. You could hear me losing the battle every time I tried to speak. I grasped for office tissues, whose sandpapery consistency left me looking like Rudolph after three blows. Every part of my face seemed swollen - nose, eyes, temples...

Oh, and a zit the size of Mt. Fuji had erupted at the corner of my mouth.

I grossed everyone out at an interdepartmental meeting with all the loud, juicy nose blowing. The guy on speaker phone was singing silent praise that he, at least, was insulated from the vast plumes of germs that filled the air with every uncontrollable sneeze. 

Yes, the sneezing. Perhaps it was exacerbated by the poorly-constructed tissues, but the episodes had reached beyond the powers of any antihistamine to contain. Each sneeze was bigger and more mucus-laden than the last. Like some nightmarish negative feedback loop, one led to the next led to the next and I grew rather awed at the ability of my body to produce mucus at such a rate.

As I drained tissue boxes and traded phone calls about the interview I was supposed to be conducting, I had one of those unmistakable twinges of twisting, halting pain in my lower abdomen. But I wrote the cramp off as sneeze-induced. The interview was cancelled. I went to the bathroom to relieve my bladder of the pressure from a liter's worth of tea only to confirm that yes, I was indeed bleeding. 

It felt like my body was one big hemorrhage. With an email titled "Going home for the greater good," I left the office. As I sat on the train, I prayed that the parents who'd taken their children for a midday outing would forgive me for contaminating everything around me. I'd stuffed my pockets with tissues, but it wasn't enough to make it home. As I stepped off the train, I was possessed by a demon sneeze that shot forth violently and was caught only by my bare hands. I'd been slimed, Ghost Busters style.

I curled my disease-infested hands into ecto-fists and walked out into the glaring sunshine. In the fresh light, I noticed that there was a long snot stream down the front of my skirt, and another on my jacket. I was reminded of a man I saw on the subway once who had a twelve inch booger hanging from his nose and made no effort to remove it. He was not in a good place that day, and today I was not much better off. At a certain point, there is nothing left to do but surrender control.

I entered my quarantine, changed clothes, made soup, hit the couch. I am listening, dear body. I hear you loud and clear, and I'm not fighting anymore. Now what was it you were trying to tell me?

FOUND in Porter Thursday night

Also!  Kathy is going to this reading and event tomorrow night, and Gavin and I plan to join her and her friends there.  Megan may have read this book at the COOP- ? opinions?  https://www.facebook.com/events/158742047659761/

Poetry at the Cantab 9/25

Hey y'all.  Megan's going as a spectator to the poetry open mic at the Cantab tomorrow night.  You should maybe consider going too.  :-)

Joy to the City

The city felt clear and beautiful
on my ride home tonight.

Each building, boat, and bridge- lit up- was striking tonight
each breath lifting my rib cage, hopes, like a bucket handle

Note:
lifted spirits probably due to the combined effects of:
crisp temperature,
atmospheric conditions (beauty),
report writing and lesson planning accomplished,
compliments from supervisor,
caffeine,
blood flow from my churning feet to my head,
estrogen levels restored, moon waning,
newly-installed Ferris wheel lined with blue lights by an office building,
hulking T Rex guarding the planetarium,
notes of a capella wafting from the Science Museum,
scattered sounds of soft-pitch softball, vibrant youth,
signs for young vibrant candidates on voting day, ready and wishing
to freshen hope in the city
lungfuls of pizza from cornershops and Dominos alike, the promise of front-yard tomatoes,
the finger-feel of black velour ears before opening the door
Megan in eye makeup and a cute skirt - joy to you baby
smooth taste of Roxbury Puddingstone ice cream, chocolate chunks, cookie dough - and joy to me too
tonight  tonight  
tonight

To Each Their Own

Hey everyone.  Was talking to Cara recently and mentioned posting something new on here.  This is an old one--wrote it several years ago, but I've been largely unable to write poetry since then.  Hope you like it.

To each your own, and may you find
Another road has grown in and
You've lost the one that went behind you
Out of sight it goes

But on you go, again you find
Some thing you know, some reason why
And on ahead, to ease your mind
Oh, far away you go

And then perhaps someday you find
There's something that's escaped your mind
And you need a friend to calm you down
To pick you up and bring you round
But all you have are roads to walk
Where no one talks, no
No one makes a sound

So find yourself some friendly face
A stranger in some lonely place
Where no one'd want to know your name
Or talk to you, or play your games
And why would they?
What could you say?
You know they're not the same

But on they go, again they find
The things they know, their reasons why
That pull their ships and ease their minds
You know they do just fine

And so

To each their own, and may they find
Another road has grown in and
They've lost the one that went behind them
Maybe then they'll know

And then they find they reach the end
And you know that no one listens then
When broken they return again
But don't ask them then--what could you gain?
Or why would you?
What could they do?
You know they're not the same

And so on you go, to each your own
The roads you know, the milestones
That mark the progress that you've grown
And towards what end you go

And so you go
And as you know
And as you seek and as you sow

And so you reep
And so you find
And as you live and so you die

And by the sword
And every word
To each your own and may you find

one last time...

Ok, as per Cara's request, here is the once-again-updated version of my paper world poem. I am considering reading it at the poetry slam...will let you know how it goes if I do!

**********

I have recently come to realize that I am living in 

a paper world,

a delicate shoebox diorama

that I have carefully constructed out of tiny strips

cut from the pages of storybooks and novels

and other people’s poems.

Painstakingly I have trimmed and clipped and curled them

into familiar objects, arranged them

within their three cardboard walls

as a child arranges and rearranges a dollhouse.

I have cut out crisp silhouettes for companions,

detailed their arms and eyes and hair

with a sharp pencil,

painted their bracelets and neckties

in rich colors with a tiny brush.

I have dyed the background of my box

a brilliant life-green like trees

and a wild blue like the ocean.

I know this paper world of mine.

I have traced over every corner,

every curve of it with my fingers

a thousand times.

But this is a world that must be kept out of the wind,

away from the fire.

(Paper lovers beware.)

It is a world once removed from its own beating heart,

a flat white story full of words and wisdoms,

signifying nothing,

and I do not want to live here anymore.

I want the world of heavy winds and sharp coral and open seas,

or better yet,

I want the world of leaping flames and flying sparks,

where words burn away to reveal

a truer story.

But as you can see, I am still a prisoner

here in this paper cell, and the paper warden guards her ring of keys

as I guard my stories and my metaphors,

each one thickening the wall between us by another hair’s breadth.

I speak to you now through this flat sheet of paper

only because it is all I have,

but enough words.

You are my only visitor today,

and I have only one question for you:

do you have a match?

Tree Poem

HEY GUYS! I wrote something! So exciting. Once a year, I'm in VT and have almost 3 whole days to write, and so I do. Last year I wrote this poem. And hated it. So I left it alone, didn't look at it, and this year I thought, oh yeah, that poem. Didn't look at it again, but rewrote it.
So, this is it. Fire away.

 My First Friend in Brookline

 Dapple-barked giant on a quiet side-street,
 all greens and browns, cool to the touch,
 smooth, but alive as my own frantic heart.
 She doesn’t cry out to me, just whispers—
 the shhhhhhhh of wind above rooftops in her brittle leaves. 

Before the bus stop, before the sidewalks,
 before brownstones, before gas lights. Before
 they built the synagogue or (maybe) even filled in the swamp—
you might say she’s been here a long time, but
 I know she, like me, comes from somewhere far away.

 Her gnarled root-knees bully back the sidewalk,
 buckling pavement with their slow strength.
 I stand on her lap, when I think no one is watching,
 and lean against her, my face, my damp cheek staining--
 Her leaves whisper shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, like a mother in the dark.
 I imagine her sap pulling me up from broad trunk
 to huge limbs, to branches still touched by sunset, out
 to tiny twigs too high to see, to leaves that drink in the city,
 turning what’s foul back to sweet.

 Maybe I can learn the trick.

 I bring her my panic, trembling with car horns, dust,
 dog shit, worries of money and work and the wary stares 
of toddlers when I wander alone by the park. 
Plastered in advertising, tangled in trash, drug-addict hands
 grasping at my ankles, I drag myself to her side. I look up, begging.

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, she says. (What else, after all, can a sycamore say?)
 And what more could I hope to learn than calm, patience, transformation?
When the rain falls on her whorled bark the browns deepen, the greens pop.

paper/fire

[This is much revised from the previous version I posted]

I speak to you now from my paper world,

this delicate shoebox diorama

that I have carefully constructed out of tiny strips

cut from the pages of storybooks

and other people’s poems.

Painstakingly I have trimmed and clipped and curled them

into familiar objects, arranged them

within these three cardboard walls

as a child arranges and rearranges a dollhouse.

I have cut out crisp silhouettes for companions,

lovingly detailed their arms and eyes and hair

with a sharp pencil,

painted their bracelets and neckties

in rich colors with a tiny brush.

I have dyed the background of my box

a brilliant life-green like trees

and a wild blue like the ocean.

This is a world that must be kept out of the wind,

away from the fire.

(Paper lovers beware.)

It is a world once removed from its own beating heart,

a flat white story, full of words and wisdoms,

signifying nothing.

I know this world.

I have traced over every corner,

every curve of it with my fingers

a thousand times.

But it is not the world I want.

I want the flame world,

I want the world of hot coals and heavy winds and open seas.

I speak to you now through these flat sheets of paper

only because

they are all I have.

A match, a match, my kingdom for a match.

note to myself

Listen carefully.

You do not remember this, but believe me when I tell you that

yesterday at dawn

you saw God from the riverbank.

God was stranded over the water,

a great expanse of billowing light

caught between cross-winds,

and God was calling to you for help.

God’s cry,

a song of desperate longing,

cut into the morning calm.

Your heart,

a solitary fist,

uncurled its shaking fingers.

Then your heart ballooned outward in all directions,

its edges passing beyond the very borders of your skin

and across the water.

It slipped through iron fences, enveloped everything in sight.

It gathered up the dogs on their leashes,

the solemn runners,

the commuters, lonely and desperate in their cars.

It loved them all for their limbs and eyelashes,

their mass and mystery.

And then the edges of your heart slid into nothingness,

and God, set free, rushed over the river and into the streets,

spilling brightness into all the crevices and cracks.

Do not scoff, I beg of you.

You must pull on your sneakers, now,

and run to the river again.

There is room in your heart for much more.

Kneel down at the river and fill it up.

Watering Places

Here are your waters and your watering place

Drink and be whole again beyond confusion
-Directive

I.

“Go on, sure… see if the old tin cup’s still there—“

Awaiting no further permission, we cousins dash down the path,

balance across the beam of the concrete holding back the little reservoir,

bend uphill and race to the river (a stream really),

scamper across moss-slick stones

to the thin locust, wrinkled so prematurely it was-- is-- ageless.

The tree hid our treasure- the tin cup

I imagined to be like Benny’s of the Boxcar Children

tied by a string to the limb by our late grandmother

within reach of the continuously refreshed pools

free of collected pollen or building muck

water clear through to stones and only a few leaves.

Here, we were allowed to drink from the ground

Here, we knew the source of the stream

Here, my father had ‘always drunk this water without a problem’

so we would too.

And always, it was delicious.

So sweet, so cold

I’d feel I should ask for forgiveness.

II.

“Grab the other empty glass jars.  Let’s go—“

(Alone in 7-mile cabin in the middle of the woods,

even after working outdoors all day, sometimes

one of the other of us would have the urge to get outside again

for a different physical contact than setting up poles or nets or watching the sun rise.

I might lie on a log across the stream, he would often stride up the hillside

and on this night, the cloudless moon beckoned, and he remembered

the spring he had seen

on the topo map. )

He set off with glass jars and no flashlight, not checking to see if I was behind him

And I strode quickly through the already-wet tall grass to catch up

We hopped across the stream, then scrambled up to the dirt road

Our shoes suddenly harsh on the gravel

I followed his sometimes-veering, sometimes pausing, direction,

sensed without a dowsing rod but with memory of maps

until he bent over a puddle in the grass

Not a bubble, but a seep, still—

The water was clear with a film of mud at the bottom and grass thick along the side

Without pause, he lay on his belly and put his face in the pool. Lapped up the water.

I didn’t want to get all wet.  But then, I couldn’t resist

stretching along the damp grass to douse my face in that pool

and drink.

III.

“Oh!  Look up!  There are stars- up above”

the clouds have cleared

so I can see the trail to guide my friends

the ones who urge me always to look up, look out, and see

I lead them to the river

tell tales of tin cups

and drinking from the ground 

Now the cup lost its hold on the string

and a sturdy log bridge crosses the stream

but the water still pools

between moss covered rocks

and my friend dips her tin bottle

and drinks – delicious

we smile knowingly

straight from the source

(Note: Ok, this was rushed at the end since the silly buzzer was sounding.  I need to go back to it- but ideas for the end would be particularly useful!)

Rain Walkers

At stoplights,

I watch people walk in the rain

from behind furrows of water running down the windshield

that are swept away by the wipers,

 revealing through momentarily clear glass

forms in liquid motion

faces like wet petals, or the undersides of leaves tossed up before a storm

faces washed out so that this time,  the forms reveal the individuals.

A slight figure huddles herself

wrapping up , tucking in a birdlike chin

One line of a man shields with his black overcoat

firmly drawn across his chest

A hopping boy tries to outrun the raindrops

And place his feet outside the puddles

and last to cross the intersection, a woman with no umbrella and no hood,

who refuses to be rushed by rain, by waiting cars, by flashing lights or crosswalk chirps.

she strides, hands swinging free, face turned up—

she almost drinks the rain

and radiates that  rain, the cleanser and creator

I vow to not wrap, duck, shield, or run, but

stride, face drinking the skies, like this last woman- whom I can’t take my eyes off

as the light turns green

diorama

Ok, here goes!

I would appreciate any thoughts/reactions/comments/suggestions regarding this poem that I've been working on for a while. I have a sense of what I'm trying to communicate in it, but I suspect that it is not coming through. It feels unwieldy, and I'm getting a little frustrated. Also I keep changing my mind as to whether or not I want it to involve any rhyming words.

Thank you!

*******************

I think I may be living out my days and dramas

in a paper world, a diorama

housed inside the three cardboard walls of an old shoebox.

I have carefully constructed the stage and scenery out of tiny strips

cut from the pages of books and poems, and tips

from fortune cookies,

phrases to live by, and stories to give my

jumbled thoughts a shape that has some meaning.

I have trimmed and clipped and glued and curled

a series of familiar objects, a familiar world,

arranged them painstakingly

as a child arranges and rearranges a dollhouse.

Don’t worry about me here,

for although I have only

some glue and scissors, I am not lonely.

I have cut out crisp silhouettes for companions,

shaped them with care,

lovingly penciled in their arms and eyes and hair

I have painted their bracelets and neckties

in rich colors with a tiny brush.

I have dyed the background of my box

a brilliant life-green like mountain trees

and a yearning blue like the open seas,

and on the floor I have placed beach-pebbles and shells,

carefully selected,

that I once collected

during a trip to the sea when I was ten.

I think the air was wilder then.

This is a world that must be kept out of the wind,

away from the fire.

(Handle with care.

Paper lovers beware.)

I know this world I have built for myself,

I have traced over every corner, every curve of it

with my fingers a thousand times.

Does it matter that I do not remember what salt water smells like?

Please don’t leave yet, I want to ask you something.

Forgive me if I do not recognize you.

We may have met, but it is likely that I

handed you a paper mask to hold over your face,

cast you as a character in one of my three-act plays.

I speak to you now through these flat paper words because

they are all I have, but I ask you,

if you are you going back outside now,

please,

take me with you,

give me your hand.

Introduction & Planning

On y va!  

Here's the idea: we each post something - a piece of a story, a poem, a brainstorm, an essay, a review, a photograph- once a month.  Then we get to read each other's writing and leave comments on each others' posts.   Not a big commitment, but hopefully a little momentum.

If you can, join us in person for writing time and discussion time.  We can meet over dinner at our house sometimes, or we can meet out and about, say at Copley.  I'm thinking the first Wednesday of each month from 7:30-9pm.  That would make the first meetup on August 1st.  Let's start posting and commenting before that!

I've been meaning to create a writing group for a while.  I like having external accountability to be productive, and I like the chance to connect with people at this level that skips the superficialities. 


Comment with any ideas for the format and writing times.  We're open!  I just wanted to get a ball rolling.