posted by Reen |link| ...talkety...0 comments
posted by Reen |link| ...talkety...0 comments
posted by Reen |link| ...talkety...0 comments
posted by Reen |link| ...talkety...0 comments
The Admiral's House Has Wide Picture Windows
Roomed in the gorgeous house: sons as a waste of space.
Dad had those boys too late, self-important cocks akimbo
Always trying to nail the commodore's daughter, finally
Sent to private military schools after getting off scot-free
On dad's rank one-two-three many times, while base security
seethed. But what do you want? Them in the gorgeous house
and us in the concrete block homes, them with the beauty
queen moms and the wide picture windows that look out
on the sea, them with their Filipino houseboys attending
dad's three stars, it's too much and even the little girls
playing outside enlisted quarters can see it, squinting
into the heat and crash of a sunset with squadcars: those boys
won't amount to a pinch.
posted by Reen |link| ...talkety...0 comments
posted by Reen |link| ...talkety...0 comments
posted by Reen |link| ...talkety...0 comments
posted by Reen |link| ...talkety...0 comments
The Recruiting Videos for the Japanese Navy Have Song-and-Dance Numbers
Big neon signs light up Tokyo. Wide-eyed cartoons
where everyone has fabulous hair. Commercials and game
shows that are nearly a war. The song-and-dance routine
on the foc'sle. The Japanese have got all that. We've got
Yosemite Sam painted on the wardroom wall. And the tomcats
On our decks go home to wives with mall bangs and
100-pound rottweilers, or to the sports bar out by the beach,
Next to Morale, Welfare & Rec, gleaming like a disco ball
In the coded beam of the lighthouse. But I don't think
They're dancing. Or singing. They ship out tomorrow and
well, someone's gotta be Japanese, yeah, but someone's
gotta fly the planes, too, and someone's gotta leave
these flyboys alone -- they're just playing pool and
the soundtrack from Top Gun, over and over again.
posted by Reen |link| ...talkety...0 comments
Scholars have decided that you probably don't exist at all, and are just a composite character based on several minor figures from the writings of George Sand.
Looks like I'm not going to be able to make it up to Boston for the poetry massacre. I opened up my wallet and metaphorical moths and gnats flew out. Sniff. Oh well.
I seriously have written like forty poems in the last two weeks. Ay de mi! And I need to send out submissions this week. Argh.
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Writing poems in Spanish is also interesting, because my vocabulary has decreased exponentially over the last three year or so of my not speaking any Spanish at all. So my poems have a weird limitation to them. The only thing I have to watch out for is their Lorca-ization. References to gypsies, horses, oranges, and guns must be painstakingly excised. Once they invade, it is very hard to get them out.
I'm writing navy base poems at an amazing clip. Mostly this is because we have writing training today at work, which means it's just me, my legal pad, and 10,000 pounds of mind-crushing boredom. Therefore, I delve into my navy base childhood to keep my head from imploding. All around me are people nodding and looking interested in the presentation. How? Why? I know not, and must soon return for another three hours of writing training. Ye gods.
posted by Reen |link| ...talkety...0 comments
posted by Reen |link| ...talkety...0 comments
Tried a couple of different solutions to address the problem of black ink from the covers for Calamity rubbing off on your fingers and then on the pages of the chapbook while you read it. An artist's shellac did nada, so each cover will have a piece of acetate over it, allowing you to read the book without becoming an inky mess.
I will probably run a final edit of the two Calamity chapbooks in the next couple of weeks. Meantime, I'm also simultaneously working on three other chapbooks and a bunch of random poems.
Poem fatigue will probably set in soon. But this surfeit of energy and work is a lot better than writer's block.
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