Tuesday, July 31, 2007

My Pregnant Friend

My pregnant friend believes she should go first in line. My pregnant friend believes that hair dye will hurt her baby. My pregnant friend is sad about her roots. My pregnant friend has inexplicable pains that last only ten minutes. Nonetheless, My pregnant friend can't go out that night. My pregnant friend wonders why she is not gaining weight. My pregnant friend likes to talk about her morning sickness: the duration, the color, the quality. My pregnant friend can't get her nails done. My pregnant friend cries alone in taxis. My pregnant friend needs more time outdoors. My pregnant friend suffers from new allergies. My pregnant friend has a hard time picking out baby clothes. My pregnant friend doesn't appreciate gifts from strangers. My pregnant friend is thinking of leaving her husband. My pregnant friend doesn't. My pregnant friend holds my hand sometimes, and pats me on the head. My pregnant friend can't decide between the light green and the light yellow cribs with big metal wheels. My pregnant friend doesn't actually like children. My pregnant friend is sorry for me, but she's sure it will work itself out, eventually.


------

And... my poem, if you would like to know about the movie just got nominated for the "Best of the Web" by Blue Fifth Review. This is, like, waaay better than a Pushcart Prize nomination. At least to me.

Sunday, July 29, 2007

A Review!

Children Having Trouble with Meat got reviewed at Montserrat Review!

I was told it was going to happen, but I wasn't sure when. I can't stop smiling. Mary Morris called me "a master of metaphor."

Saturday, July 28, 2007

What the Insects are Dreaming of


The caterpillar is dreaming of his methadone counselor:
see how his legs twitch as he pictures their argument.

The pill beetle is dreaming of a forest of pill beetles,
all sizes, in the carpet of a hotel room.

The roach is dreaming of an argument with his wife.

The daddy-long legs is dreaming about when he tripped
on the front lawn in high school. As he sleeps, he covers his
face with his legs, trying to hide again.

The spider is dreaming that a gallery in Chelsea
agreed to show his paintings, the earlier, abstract ones.
He is smiling so hard he wakes himself up.

The stink beetle is dreaming of sinking into
a rose. He struggles for purchase with his
tiny hooked feet, but slides further and further
into the pink muck.

The flea is dreaming of cooked vegetables,
specifically, baked potatoes with garlic butter.
With his eyes closed, he claws slowly at his chin
to wipe off the grease.

The praying mantis is dreaming of her last husband,
how he took their daughter to the park and threw
her into the air, again and again. Make me fly,
Make me fly,
she had whispered, frantic with joy.

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Here's the poem I almost died delivering last night at PVC:


Superman: A Murder

They wait a long time: the fifty women he saved, now growing old, still single, still wearing low-heeled rubber shoes and blouses with bows at the neck. They still only let down their hair at night, when they are in front of their lonely mirrors, they still leave their bedroom windows open just in case.

Eventually, their fingers get tired of the innocent sewing, the braiding and unbraiding, the window latch that always catches and bites. They get tired of waiting. The modest off-white blouses are the first to go – end up in landfills, in beach flotsam, in someone else’s umbrella. The shoes are abandoned in a park, in a movie theater, in the condiment isle at the supermarket. Their hair is cut short – bleached and bobbed and sprayed, stiff and sharp.

They start to leave messages for one another – blared from the megaphone of a circling truck, taped to telephone poles. They meet on roofs, in broom closets, on top of traffic lights. They start to plan. They sew a net, big enough, strong enough, and all of it, dazzling, spring-green kryptonite.

Sunday, July 22, 2007

The Waiting Room
"The waiting room
was full of grown-up people"
Elizabeth Bishop


outside, my mother
is waiting with my brother
I know him, erratic, unsteady,
high-pitched: he is flinging
the simple plastic toys into
the air, my mother is trying
not to scream, she speaks in
a loud whisper

my brother is running
to the wall, running back
the other mothers
pull their children
onto their laps
the receptionist smiles as if
her ears are hurting

inside, the doctor is doing
something I wish he wouldn't
without gloves, without a nurse
he smiles as if he has found
a five dollar bill in an empty
pocket

after this, I will go home
and keep quiet while my brother
pounds a hole in the kitchen
wall with his head

Saturday, July 21, 2007

I bought the Harry Potter last night at Midnight. I was second in line.

ducks

(PLEASE TO NOT THROW THE VEGETABLES)

Friday, July 20, 2007

Reading Next Week

I'm performing at Poetry vs. Comedy next week: 8PM at the Bowery Poetry Club.
It's usually a complete blast, much more funny stuff than serious stuff. I'm reading some new poems -- never before seen by human eyes (unless you consider my eyes, but I'm only half-human).

JULY 25TH LINEUP

EMCEE: Carolyn Castiglia -- so funny you could just die (and might)

COMEDIANS
Liz Miele -- Profiled as a comedienne by the New Yorker
Greg Walloch -- been on all sorts TV shows with Ben Stiller
Sven Wechsler -- performed all over NYC, also on TV

POETS
Christine Hamm -- published some poetry
Livia Scott (as Anthony Moscowitz)-- has been on Late Night With Conan O'Brien
Kathleen Warnock -- award-winning playwright

MUSICAL GUESTS: Manson Family Singers

What They Say About PVC:

"tonight it is ok to laugh at the poets... At the Poetry Vs. Comedy Variety Show poets rage against comedians in a battle of wits."
-- Gothamist.com

"another celebratory night of the hottest talents on the downtown comedy scene."
-- TheTicker.com

____________________

Hope you can make it!

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Vistaprint tells me I'm special! I get everything for free! So I keep making more and more products.

This one is the back of my new business card, and on a big postcard with a poem on the other side.



There's also a headless version.

And the rose one is going to be a magnet.

(I have a big report due on Bishop -- that's why I'm procrastinatin'.)

Monday, July 16, 2007

Finally, a poem. (That sounded a little emo, I think.)

In The Airplane

It’s like waiting to be born,
waiting for the deep hook of the air
to come pierce our chests,
fling us up into the mechanical sky
with its constant dull ding
and shades that open and close,
close and open, like the blink
of a great sleepy eye.

I’m not sure I want to sit so close
to you, stranger, but you’re showing me
me photos of the flood in your backyard,
the Big Wheel and basketball sunk in the mud,
and your stiff blond hair pokes my shoulder
as if to say, pay attention.

They’re de-icing our wings with pink froth
while you tell me about the Iranian boys
you hosted, how they read so silently
in their borrowed rooms, their perfect
dark little hands always hidden --

your soft voice the drone of an angel,
once she has given up and gone to earth.

Yes, Virginia, Shakespeare really does hate your emo poems


I went to the Queer Blogger Weenie Roast yesterday, and met so many nice people! I swear, everyone was so pleasant and talkative, it was like I left NYC for a moment. Here's a pic of me borrowed from Curly,


and a pic of me and Cheryl B. just to show how incredibly glam she is at all times, even in 90 degree sweltering heat with dripping cuties everywhere and barbeque wafting this way and that.

Photo from Curly McDimple. Again. In this photo, I'm the 70 year old with the blonde wig.


So, Bird on a Wire (sorry for not using anyone's real name -- I can remember NOTHING but maybe finally getting my cheeseburger after nearly dying of hunger -- everything else is a little flicker) made a list of all the bloggers who were there yesterday, and I personally spoke to Curly McDimple (who made me afraid for my feet), Chris Hampton (whose name is way too much like mine -- she might be my funnier doppelganger), Zebah (who was really funny and is a cheerleader -- those girls really are ALWAYS perfect) and then Zaedryn (who I've seen read a few times at PVC and always brings the audience to tears of joy, and breathlessness, etc -- kinda the opposite of the audience's reaction to me, where everyone gets a little sick and uneasy [not another poem about beastly cannibals, stop!]).

Anyway. It was great. (Linking's hard work, yo! I think I need a diet sprite now. Usually I just post to myself.)

Like this: come to my next reading at PVC! Bowery Poetry Club, 8PM next Wednesday, the 25th! It'll be rad! I'll be reading stuff that has never before been seen by human eyes: cause we know my eyes are only half-human. Also, I'll be quick so we can get to the funny people after me!

Thursday, July 12, 2007

I haven't been writing all that much, because I'm been drawing and designing stuff. I put together an oversized postcard with a poem on the back -- I'm going to sell it at readings and maybe on etsy for a few bucks. It has the poem, A Tender Age, on the back.



And here's a small magnet I also made:




Which one do you like better? And what do you think is a good price for the magnets? 50 cents each?

Saturday, July 07, 2007

New narrative poem. Can't get away from them these days. T-shirt didn't win -- in fact it scored a 1.6 overall and got kicked out of the running early. Bastards. But they get about 1000 submissions a day, so it didn't have a great chance.

but Thanks for Voting! Those of you lovely yous who did.


The Building

the walls are so thin
it trembles sometimes
when there’s loud celebrations
or when heavy trucks pass by

there are some moments
when my thumb has just clicked off
a fan, when the refrigerator pauses
in its inward, autistic mumbling,
the TV’s mute,

and the sky’s full of the absence of jets,
just air, pure invisible darting atoms
of carbon, sulfur, nitrogen,
oxygen and the tiny bits

of ourselves
we leave when we move,
the transparent cells and scents
we shed as we part the world
in front of us

and during those moments
I can hear all the women in my building,
all the women whose names I don’t know,
the one two doors down whose head
barely reaches my chin, face pocked
like a sign used for target practice

the one with magnificent dyed red hair
and massive solid thighs, the one
who’s so young and pretty she needs
to wear dark glasses every time she goes outside,

the one who never stops smiling and still
gets high every night, even though she
just had her first baby and the woman I’ve never
seen who lives right next door

at moments like these I can hear her
talking on the phone, as clearly as if
she’s in my kitchen, opening a bag
of potato chips, searching my roach-stained
cupboards (there’s the whine of the big hinge,
the snap of the close) for a good onion dip

and she’s laughing as she talks, probably
picking up a half-drunk mug of green tea
here off the nightstand in her own bedroom,
setting it down there on a bookcase,
opening up her closet to see what
skirts tomorrow has in store for her,

and sometimes I stand very close
to the ragged, shedding wall, wishing
I could hear her better, even though
I know she’s speaking
in another tongue
------------------

Is this confusing? Can you tell I switch from imagining her inside my kitchen to imagining her inside her own bedroom? Is the list of women too confusing? Am I confused? Confused I am?

Thursday, July 05, 2007

Please vote for my tshirt!

Here's the link:

sandwich vs. poem - Threadless, Best T-shirts Ever

Yes, you have to register but it's quick. Please vote! I'm getting creamed!

Also, if I win, they will sell my shirt for considerably less than at my cafepress shop, so everyone's a winner. 'Specially me, since I get money if I win and then I can continue to feed my cats.

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

New painting!

Here it is, slightly digitally enhanced. I made it today! Start to finish. I think I'm going to sell it on Etsy.

Monday, July 02, 2007

Ward C

the underwater dining hall
the color of disturbed clouds

chainlink fence mom waves
goodbye on the other side

a tired red-haired woman
lids like creamy boiled eggs
thumbs something under my tongue

all the windows are skewed sometimes
they fall off and shatter
my daughter had red hair like mine
we cut it after it caught
in the chain of the swing