Revelations

A stronger wind reveals the shape of things,
as leaves peel back from blackened twigs, or hair
displays our curving skulls. A kite’s frayed strings
uncoil like asps, then snap. The lawn chair’s wings
emerge when it takes flight. The skirt betrays
the thighs while mortar cracks in walls once square.
Deep-footed oaks tug at the ground and craze
the hunching concrete walk. A draft surveys
the floorboards like a tomcat. Snow falls up
and drifts the sky. Every straight thing bends
to greet the ground. Although our faces cup
the wind in hollows, skin can’t comprehend
the jut of bones, the way the cyclone’s maw
can find the sharp spear heart inside the straw.

… you strain your back picking up the kitty litter.

Ow.

I’ve finally returned to doing book reviews on Epinions, something I love to do when the spirit moves.

Today’s review is of the semi-cozy mystery Death by the Glass, by Nadia Gordon. We’re not talking brilliant literature, but dammit, sometimes you just want to read a mystery.

I get my literature from poetry, rarely from novels written after 1900. I wonder why that is. Ow. I need to stop wondering. I think I hurt myself.

… and I am a material girl.

With thanks to Rik and RJ for the link, I find I am a Materialist. Whatta shocker.

You scored as Materialist. Materialism stresses the essence of fundamental particles. Everything that exists is purely physical matter and there is no special force that holds life together. You believe that anything can be explained by breaking it up into its pieces. i.e. the big picture can be understood by its smaller elements. Materialist 88% Existentialist 75% Postmodernist 56% Modernist 31% Cultural Creative 13% Romanticist 13% Idealist 0% Fundamentalist 0% What is Your World View? (updated) created with QuizFarm.com

After all, you can’t keep a good man, or a bad woman, down.

Later today, Steve and I are going to go talk to the Social Security people. That’ll put the cream in my coffee, I tells ya.

2006, what did I ever do to you?

Now Steve is losing his health insurance, or paying another $330/month for it.

If I lost my coverage, that’d be no big deal. But when the walking wounded lose it, damn. Just damn.

And my hands are cold.

Damn.

Ugly died today at 6:10 p.m.

My uncle died earlier this week.

I haven’t cried yet for either of them. I think my heart is frozen.

If you read a poem or a novel written from the first person perspective, are you reading as if that person is writing, or as if that person is living and you’re looking through their eyes?

In other words, if a first person narrator says that she can’t read, would that throw you?

1. A poem that was “complete” without rewriting,

2. An imitation of another poet or writer that ended up good,

3. A dizain, villanelle, or sestina,

4. Anything posted or published anonymously,

5. A poem that you would never tweak or polish or revise again.

1. I’ve had a few poems that came to being nearly complete, but nothing that has ever been completely complete. I always change something.

2. Nope. I’ve tried to copy or imitate or emulate and I always sound even worse than usual.

3. Yes, yes, and yes, but only the dizains should be saved from summary execution. The others were not goodski.

4. Yes, but if I say more than I’m not so anonymous now, am I?

5. Finally, I can say “yes” to this. I still feel the urge, but I think I’ve convinced myself that rewriting the old stuff is cowpatty polishing, only less rewarding.

How about you? Links are great if you want to share ’em.

… and now you can. Because you can donate the use of your name to a novel! Woo!

I’m lazy, you see, and bad at coming up with names.

Want to live in infamy? Send me your name, the kind of character you’d like to be, and (optional) the way you’d like to be described. None of these things has to be true, of course, and I reserve the right not to use the name if it’s Just Too Weird.

Email me or comment below or send up smoke signals.