from The Handmade Castle
Section 1. (instead of breaking their hands, one after the other, while someone tries to reach for the phone)
Tonight you make up a father, an ordinary, sad one, smarter than anyone realizes, who reads the history of the Quarter Horse over and over again, making pencil marks in the margins, who drives his 80's Toyota slower now, since his left eye got so bad; tonight it is this father who calls you, this father whose smoke-stained voice you hear by the window as pink light leaks from the satellite dishes cupped like ears towards the grimy sky, this father who sounds distracted, who pauses until you say hello again and this father who coughs twice as he tells you about the plane crashing, about the girl he can't remove from the wall.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Saints & Cannibals is back on sale! Sorry for the SNAFU
First Draft
How to Make a Person-Bomb
after Gloria Fuertes
Start in the backseat.
Add shoes with laces that trail.
And a broken knuckle.
A ring that keeps sliding off,
bracelets that catch on the furniture.
A stick of butter.
A stick of butter.
A cup of hot, black pepper.
Put it in the crosswalk.
Put it in the doorway
of the boarded up hotel.
Send it swinging in an empty schoolyard.
Give it a book with no pages, give
it a chair with a broken leg.
Show it how to teach a dog
to heel, then give it a talking dog
who says nothing but bark, bark.
First Draft
How to Make a Person-Bomb
after Gloria Fuertes
Start in the backseat.
Add shoes with laces that trail.
And a broken knuckle.
A ring that keeps sliding off,
bracelets that catch on the furniture.
A stick of butter.
A stick of butter.
A cup of hot, black pepper.
Put it in the crosswalk.
Put it in the doorway
of the boarded up hotel.
Send it swinging in an empty schoolyard.
Give it a book with no pages, give
it a chair with a broken leg.
Show it how to teach a dog
to heel, then give it a talking dog
who says nothing but bark, bark.
Wednesday, July 07, 2010
Are You Going to Eat This?
after Lynn Emmanuel
Start with a dog. This dog. This dog wanting out
of this dream. Then I see my eyes, blinded by windows, a bobby
with a talking gun, more butter and more, smearing the box,
the bureau.
Stuffing her mouth, a servant, still. We tell the dream. We tell
the maids and waitresses, we don their black aprons.
I want to ask the stove, the glaring succotash, the hated
cot. Light, even
light is a dreary guest. I see that first.
_________________
This draft was written as part of my first assignment for my first packet at NEC -- an imitation poem. This poem is an imitation of Lynn Emmanuel's "Dream in Which I Meet Myself". The title and last sentence of the poem are taken directly from Lynn's piece.
after Lynn Emmanuel
Start with a dog. This dog. This dog wanting out
of this dream. Then I see my eyes, blinded by windows, a bobby
with a talking gun, more butter and more, smearing the box,
the bureau.
Stuffing her mouth, a servant, still. We tell the dream. We tell
the maids and waitresses, we don their black aprons.
I want to ask the stove, the glaring succotash, the hated
cot. Light, even
light is a dreary guest. I see that first.
_________________
This draft was written as part of my first assignment for my first packet at NEC -- an imitation poem. This poem is an imitation of Lynn Emmanuel's "Dream in Which I Meet Myself". The title and last sentence of the poem are taken directly from Lynn's piece.
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