[Quick, he said. Quickly.]

Quick, he said. Quickly. As if I could wake any faster. My body pressed to the sheets. The burden of my body lifted as I woke. Come on, man. But I couldn’t tell who or why, only started from the cot, my boots already at then on my feet.

I started to follow him but he had already gone. I ran my crazy ass after him to where the dark burned out the door, and wished I hadn’t took it.

Git: I heard a holler. That’s when the mortar took the sides of their faces, their eyes and mouths round as gook—the warning like a shot, but not. Like the deafness before the shot, the look in the eye of the one who’s seen what’s coming: a blast, a burning ball. Like looking at the sun, that colorful darkness after, eyes tight as fists. All I could see was nothing and the wind putting smoke up against the walls of our hootch.

What’s going on? But I knew. Had already scrambled for foxhole. Had already prayed and forgotten the prayer. Guys?

I had been told stories about soldiers getting home and finding their families had moved on. They’d walked into their neighborhood bars and been spit on by hippie kids taken over the place. The smoke, the light coming off the fire. How could I answer it? I said I wouldn’t cry. I said I’d be the first to run into it, the first to count the bodies, pull them out—but I didn’t say anything. I didn’t promise.

Think of the dream, I clenched my jaw. Think of it, think of it. But the dead were bleeding their final words into someone else’s dirt. I could hear everything.

I palmed my ears, Think of the dream. Think of it: —but the sound of my own blood loud in my hands, the rapid fire beyond them—I forget, but it was bad. I cried out, no longer worried I’d be found out: I gripped at the sandbags, imagined sinking my teeth in. Remembered filling them. Ace and Scotty. Remembered passing a joint hours ago, before they laughed into their places as I slept, the safe one.

Outside, the crackling raged and I still hadn’t cried. Think of the dream, Mike. And I finally remembered it, the rooms I’d left, waking back into country:

My boy slept inside his mother. His mother slept inside our bed, the one she bought with her soldier’s money. It wasn’t a good dream, but good enough. The fires were beginning to burn out, the last shots fired from a greater distance. Hush. Remember the dream. I’ll be home soon, and you can kiss your hero. I spit the grit from my mouth and ran my tongue along my teeth.

Interrobanger (again)

W.O.P. (WithOut Pimps)

My friend Greg directed this video, and I find it pretty hilarious. WooHoo.

Pennies for Poetry

If you have any cents, prove it! Seriously though, Poets.org is a great resource, and worth funding!

Two poems found today...

"Women Don't Riot" by Ana Castillo
"Oh, atlas" by Joshua Beckman

I also posted the following to the forums at Poets.org:

A Tendency to Disappoint?

I’m curious who else in this crowd finds himself (or herself) disappointed by their favorite contemporary poets. I for one am saddened when poets that I have long loved begin to be (or seem to be) at that point in their careers when they seem to merely churn out work.

Perhaps it’s ego. Perhaps I’ve just grown as a writer and the specific poets I was once consistently wowed by were never quite as ambitious as I had once perceived. Or, perhaps more likely: do poets begin to trust their audience too much? If a poet’s work is well-received, does the poet as soon become a caricature of himself, believing he has found his voice (or at least the voice that serves him in a certain capacity).

Perhaps this is unfair. I mean, poets can’t afford to experiment continually. Or can they?

Everyone in this forum has probably read or written, heard or said the truism: poets “don’t make money.” But it isn’t true. Most don’t make money. Few make very much money. But there is a market (however small) for good poetry, and many award-winners can make quite a comfortable living.

That, I believe, is why our favorite poets, at some point in their careers, seem to be writing on autopilot. I can't help but wish the poets I've spent my education looking up to, emulating, reading for encouragement, would do something more ambitious than release yet another book of poems like the last. Where are the ambitious collections they wrote in their youth? Where are the more-ambitious projects one would expect to see as culminations of certain scholarly careers?

Perhaps I'm alone in this thought, but many (though thankfully not all), seem all too comfortable being the poets they established themselves to be, and little more.

Penny Lane

My friends Veronica and Janelle got this cute little thing that is allegedly a dog. I have my doubts, but it's the cutest things since Paisley. Introducing Penny Lane or Laney. As long as she doesn't become a Band-Aid, we're fine.

Poems soon. Seriously.

I love Nick (& so should you).

Take a look at Nick's latest.... click here!

Also, Stephanie has the Cutest photo up on October in April. And in case you're curious, I don't like "Cute" nearly as much as one would think (considering it's the closest thing to attractive I am).

Sigh.

TWO of the alleged sonnets**(to prove I'm not imagining them)

(SCENE: Late afternoon. A third interior: a table attached to the wall, a television and a couch. The television is on, but neither of the players seem to be watching. THE POET writes in a black journal. THE LOVER types on a laptop.)

I’m sorry for the way I make you feel
even in poems about love. You should be shown
happiness for a while as I read them. Still,

(THE LOVER looks up.)

I pull the tender meat from tendered bone,
turn the TV down so you can’t hear the anchor
above me. I only want your full attention.
But what you find is not sweet: a kiss, some thanks, or
even sex, coming up from that sweeter page.

(THE LOVER makes room for THE POET beside him on the couch.)

                                                  No mention,
of love in these love poems—or if so, only the noun
left abstract for the neighbors to dismantle.
A poem is less a gesture than what is found
in one—if I revise you out, replace this candle
with some headlights, it’s so they’ll believe the story:
I found you in a gesture: a mapping of this city.

(A kiss.)

(SCENE: THE LOVER’s bedroom in Florida. THE COUPLE lies together below the sheets. THE POET has his one arm under THE LOVER’s pillow and another around THE LOVER’s chest.)

There was no expectation in your hold.
But me, I’m only human: I have needs:
I had to ask. Remember how you told
me you would never want kids? Until your body
was the size of the bed and the bed was the size of the room.
And you could easily fill it alone. So I left;

(THE POET stays put.)

you barely noticed what lay beside your dream
wasn’t me, but the hollow after a minor theft.

(THE POET quietly slides his arm out from under THE LOVER’s head, rolls over and hugs a pillow. THE LOVER wakes and speaks, his eyes still closed.)

Do we have to talk about this now? You’re right,
we should both be sleeping. Waiting for a world
to form is useless. No sense in starting a fight
that has no answer—nor a question. Boy or girl,
our future has no name, no shape, no seed.
I cry, alone, until I fall asleep.

(THE POET whistles softly and a bird from high up on the rig, among the lights, comes down to preen on the headboard. It sings a small song.)

Sonnets everywhere I look...

So the sonnet sequence I'm working on has taken over my life. It's twelve pages long and growing... And sadly, they'd be hilariously ridiculous to transcribe into code.

So if I don't post for a while, you know why. The sonnets have taken over -- in other words, if you've been sitting by your computer waiting for a new post, clicking refresh every other second, now's a good time to get up and go to the bathroom. Perhaps take a short nap.

Heavy-Handed Gossip

Each day we’re shown the world
And shown each day what can be done
To it. Someone thought it would be funny
To build a machine out of some of the poisons,
To use it once before throwing it away.
So now there are industries devoted
To that one man’s laughter,
And there’s almost no choice but to behave
In the eyes of its mechanism, even though
It too will be tossed upon the pile.
A world should be an altar to life—and is.
But who knows what becomes of it
When its altar is a lost cause. I mean,
What if there was no wall, and the pair
Simply left, ashamed, began filling their arms
With new ways to return, when all along
They could. Without the aid of science.