“Do You Have Any Advice For Those of Us Just Starting Out?" Ron Koertge

Give up sitting dutifully at your desk. Leave
your house or apartment. Go out into the world.

It's all right to carry a notebook but a cheap
one is best, with pages the color of weak tea
and on the front a kitten or a space ship.

Avoid any enclosed space where more than
three people are wearing turtlenecks. Beware
any snow-covered chalet with deer tracks
across the muffled tennis courts.

Not surprisingly, libraries are a good place to write.
And the perfect place in a library is near an aisle
where a child a year or two old is playing as his
mother browses the ranks of the dead.

Often he will pull books from the bottom shelf.
The title, the author's name, the brooding photo
on the flap mean nothing. Red book on black, gray
book on brown, he builds a tower. And the higher
it gets, the wider he grins.

You who asked for advice, listen: When the tower
falls, be like that child. Laugh so loud everybody
in the world frowns and says, "Shhhh."

Then start again.

Vertigo by Anne Stevens

Mind led body

to the edge of the precipice.

They stared in desire

at the naked abyss.

If you love me, said mind,

take that step into silence.

If you love me, said body,

turn and exist.

A group of girls from Minnesota or black mascara by Maureen Owen

Not trees trace so just kids we hung slim buckets of chokecherries from our wrists in neighboring galaxies Giant Star Factories take control composed of cold hydrogen gas and dust 7,000 light years from earth slender-toed geckos step onto the moon On the road between 2 baptisms and a shower they rang to say shallow water the mouths drop open not where you stand but how long you can stand standing there in constant hypothesis the trees are passersby mercurial damp light flat orange moon velvet navy-blue sky fire berries from here we see the beautifully attired drive tough Ford pickups the oncoming organizing principle brushed out the dancers take turns leaping over the bonfire into Qué pasa USA? haircuts in London are really pretty backward London—you are definitely not going to have a manicure there! in LA toes must match the hands or else just don’t leave the house in NY it’s more brunette Outside a refrigerator floats in the blackness shiny amid sharp stars & the turtle who holds up the world holds up the world

Ode by Arthur O’Shaughnessy [1844-1881]

We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems

With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world’s great cities.
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion art empire’s glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song’s measure
Can trample in empire down.

We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth.
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o’erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world’s worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.

A man who transforms you into poetry

When you find a man
Who transforms
Every part of you
Into poetry,
Who makes each one of your hairs
Into a poem,
When you find a man,
Capable,
As I am
Of bathing and adorning you
With poetry,
I will beg you
To follow him without hesitation,
It is not important
That you belong to me or him
But that you belong to poetry.

~Nizar Kabbani

i like my body

i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite a new thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which I will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh...And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill
of under me you quite so new

by e.e. cummings from Complete Poems 1904-1962

December 26th, 1974 6:45AM by Nia Francisco

Canyon de Chelly my love
the massiveness of you stretched
across our bed

Slowly smoke rises
snow slowly falling
and the smell of meat cooking
makes you a hungry entity for love
motion

the musky odor smells like deer meat

Canyon de Chelly come on
don't flirt with black birds
or become a memorial for tourist

You have a life giving river in your hands
because you are unchanging
unyielding
to temporary moments

Because you are unchanging
I love you honey canyon
the leaves change color but you remain
and you know too many other women
to be actually lonely lonely

your beer smelling breath
makes you sexy Canyon de Chelly

and you say BEER is your business

So?
I still want all of you

Continue of Where

So on March 3rd I totaled my car. Rear ended by an uninsured motorist (of course). Then my car hit the SUV in front of me. Shortly thereafter my car ended up in the next adjacent lane (left side) and was struck in the front yet again.

My car is, was, a two door Pontiac Sunfire Coup. There isn't much left of it. Both air bags deployed. Salvageable parts were few.

My right ankle fractured in two places requiring the placement of two titanium screws. My family has taken to calling me the bionic women. I haven't walked in a month and will not walk for another two. My primary mode of transportation is a knee scooter,

Did I have uninsured motorist insurance? No. At the time of the accident I was having trouble paying for the liability insurance. Anything not required by the law was out of my means. Since the vehicle that hit my vehicle initially did not have even liability insurance, I am now struggling financially even more than before.

Between the tow of my vehicle from the accident site to the day we were able to release the car, the cost out of pocket was almost $400. The day after the accident I was seen in a walk in clinic, which required x-rays, crutches, an aircast, etc. After that I took the bus home to my family (two states away) to have surgery in a familiar hospital. There I had more x-rays, surgery, etc. Since then I have seen the surgeon once more to be casted. I had more x-rays before the cast was placed. In two weeks I will have more x-rays and be fitted with a walking cast. I still will not be able to walk for several more weeks.

Luckily I do have health insurance. The cost of my medical bills after insurance will be out of pocket. Also, as I am a dog walker and can not walk, I cannot work. I haven't worked for the last month and will probably not work again until July. While I am recovering, I am still car less and my bills are piling up.

Where have I been, Where am I?

‘Carnal apple, Woman filled, burning moon,’

Carnal apple, Woman filled, burning moon,
dark smell of seaweed, crush of mud and light,
what secret knowledge is clasped between your pillars?
What primal night does Man touch with his senses?
Ay, Love is a journey through waters and stars,
through suffocating air, sharp tempests of grain:
Love is a war of lightning,
and two bodies ruined by a single sweetness.
Kiss by kiss I cover your tiny infinity,
your margins, your rivers, your diminutive villages,
and a genital fire, transformed by delight,
slips through the narrow channels of blood
to precipitate a nocturnal carnation,
to be, and be nothing but light in the dark.

Pablo Neruda

If

If freckles were lovely, and day was night,

And measles were nice and a lie warn't a lie,

Life would be delight,--

But things couldn't go right

For in such a sad plight

I wouldn't be I.

If earth was heaven and now was hence,

And past was present, and false was true,

There might be some sense

But I'd be in suspense

For on such a pretense

You wouldn't be you.

If fear was plucky, and globes were square,

And dirt was cleanly and tears were glee

Things would seem fair,--

Yet they'd all despair,

For if here was there

We wouldn't be we.

e.e. cummings