The One Certain Thing

The dashboard countdown on my computer no longer reads "__ days until graduation" but "__ days since graduation." The weather this morning woke me up. Heavy rain, booming thunder, and grey skies. I don't feel sad or anything yet. My notorious to do list still exists thanks to the impending move to Oregon. But I am anxious because I don't know how I will feel when I'm a bit settled and the people that have created such a supportive, safe space for me will no longer be within arms reach. So it seemed appropriate that the weather wasn't wonderful.

One of my best friends left a couple hours ago. I drove behind her car on my way back to my dorm and watched the silhouette of her hand waving as I turned and the physical distance between us grew greater by the second. Then it was off to drop off a gift, pick up an air filter, and continue packing. But at some point I know I'll look at the ocean and realize that although we're both looking at oceans, mine is the Pacific and hers the Atlantic. And then the tears will come because I know she'll be thinking the same thing on the same night. But soon I'll stop, and so will she, consoled by the fact that we're no matter the miles, we're still together.

As I go through my room and decide what things go in which box, I know I'm going to find things that speak to me, like the things in this poem. Not that I consider this a death or even a loss, it's just change. But there will always be things that testify to a different time or place. And there is much comfort in that.

"The One Certain Thing" by Peter Cooley

A day will come I’ll watch you reading this.
I’ll look up from these words I’m writing now—
this line I’m standing on, I’ll be right here,
alive again. I’ll breathe on you this breath.
Touch this word now, that one. Warm, isn’t it?

You are the person come to clean my room;
you are whichever of my three children
opens the drawer here where this poem will go
in a few minutes when I’ve had my say.

These are the words from immortality.
No one stands between us now except Death:
I enter it entirely writing this.
I have to tell you I am not alone.
Watching you read, Eternity’s with me.
We like to watch you read. Read us again.

The Yellow Bowl

I can't wait until graduation when I can have a bit more time to put into literary endevors. As it is, most of the poems I've posted recently have been from the American Life in Poetry weekly newsletter. They're still good, but I'm hoping to post from a variety of other places (possibly even myself?) here in the near future.

Part of the intro from the newsletter said, "The great American poet William Carlos Williams taught us that if a poem can capture a moment in life, and bathe it in the light of the poet’s close attention, and make it feel fresh and new, that’s enough, that’s adequate, that’s good."

"The Yellow Bowl" by Rachel Contreni Flynn

If light pours like water
into the kitchen where I sway
with my tired children,

if the rug beneath us
is woven with tough flowers,
and the yellow bowl on the table

rests with the sweet heft
of fruit, the sun-warmed plums,
if my body curves over the babies,

and if I am singing,
then loneliness has lost its shape,
and this quiet is only quiet.

78 RPM

"78 RPM" by Jeff Daniel Marion

In the back of the junkhouse
stacked on a cardtable covered
by a ragged bedspread, they rest,
black platters whose music once
crackled, hissed with a static
like shuffling feet, fox trot or two-step,
the slow dance of the needle
riding its merry-go-round,
my mother’s head nestled
on my father’s shoulder as they
turned, lost in the sway of sounds,
summer nights and faraway
places, the syncopation of time
waltzing them to a world
they never dreamed, dance
of then to the dust of now.

The Voice of Slam

Last Thursday I performed my two most recent poems at the Meadowlark for the monthly poetry slam. There were only five of us competing, and I went head-to-head haiku style for second place (and lost). But my third-place position apparently has me in the running for a slam next month in which will be a qualifying competition between 12 poets for spots on a slam team.

I don't feel like my work is really all that great at this point. Both poems I've been really excited about, but when I performed them, I didn't feel they were all that great. Maybe I was too excited about them? Maybe it stems from my searching for my slam voice, something I'll hit on in a second. Either way, I'm looking forward to next month. My goal isn't to make the team. It's to produce three poems that I can perform and feel good about no matter what the judges rate them. I'm more motivated to write than to win.

So in the next month, I want to produce three poems: one that tells a story, one that's random/humorous, one that paints a visual or emotional picture. The length of my pieces so far have been rather short in comparison to most, so I'm going to work on expounding more than I do usually. I've aimed for conciseness for so long that it's hard to break out of that. I don't think it was a bad goal, it just can't limit me from detailing and creating a situation.

What I'm having the most difficulty with is finding my performance voice. After I read my first poem, I asked my friend, Tonya, how it went. "You sounded a little angry," she said. I tried to adjust for the second, but it still came out too forceful. Last night we were talking more about this, and she said that I'm probably trying too hard to mimic other poets and how they perform.

Slam, from how I see it so far, revolves a lot around emphasizing rhythm. You aren't just reading, you're performing. It's like acting, except there are no props or backdrop. All you have to paint that picture are your voice and words. It boils down to finding the voice that represents me as a person, that reflects the tone in which I wrote the poem, and that sounds convincing and dynamic as you typically find in the slam style.

So here's to more writing and practicing in hopes of three strong end results by April 8!

Rulers of the World

This sunrise must be why some people
sacrifice late-night fast food runs
and midnight sitcom reruns.
This refreshing feeling that makes you feel
you can take on the world in a breath.
Knowing you're more responsible than mother nature
who is slowly rubbing her eyes and rolling her colors out of bed.

But I also know why some people don't think
about sleep until all the others are waking.
It's their time to rule the world. No interruptions.
They'll call it "studying," "cramming," "term-paper bullshitting"
when really they're in a room with their best friend
laughing uncontrollably, stuffing themselves with caffeine and junk food,
taking pictures with a webcam.

So it doesn't matter if at 4 a.m.
you're waking up or going to sleep.
Either you were just infinitely powerful
or are about to be.

You'll Make for a Perfect Rainy Weekend

One morning I'll wake up and you'll be beside me:
snoring, hair a mess, sprawled on my side of the bed, hogging the covers.
I'll rub my eyes and glance at the clock...
then realize it's the weekend
and neither of us has anywhere to be.
Pulling back some blankets
I'll wrap my arm around your chest,
interlace my leg with yours,
and sleep for another hour.

Finally getting up, I'll look out the window
and watch raindrops slipping down the glass
as I turn on the coffeemaker
and pull two black mugs from the dishwasher.
More cream in yours, more sugar in mine
(though walking back to wake you
I'll forget which is which).

Selfishly I'll gently shake you out of sleep,
you'll squint your eyes at me
and curl up with your head in my lap.
The coffee will get cold
but we'll be plenty warm without it.

On Finding a Turtle Shell in Daniel Boone National Forest

Really, who can't relate to this?

"On Finding a Turtle Shell in Daniel Boone National Forest" by Jeff Worley

This one got tired
of lugging his fortress
wherever he went,
was done with duck and cover
at every explosion
through rustling leaves
of fox and dog and skunk.
Said au revoir to the ritual
of pulling himself together. . .

I imagine him waiting
for the cover of darkness
to let down his hinged drawbridge.
He wanted, after so many
protracted years of caution,
to dance naked and nimble
as a flame under the moon—
even if dancing just once
was all that the teeth
of the forest would allow.

Goodness Precedes Greatness

Don't underestimate what I'm about to say. The following editorial by Jon Foreman of Switchfoot is one of the most powerful things I've read. I want to write like this. More than that, I want to live it.


"Goodness Precedes Greatness: A Call For New Heroes In Troubled Times" by Jon Foreman

Iwrite songs for a living, which is to say that writing songs helps me to live. The song becomes a place where melody and tempo can cover some truly volatile topics. God, women, politics, sex, hatred, disillusionment- a song or a story can be a deeper vessel and more forgiving than most conversations. Poetry can get under the skin without your permission, and music can offer perspective or hope that might have been hidden before. And so the song becomes a vehicle to cover some serious ground.

These days I have a hard time writing a song that feels bright or hopeful. The unemployment rate is edging up even further and spending is down. Foreclosures are way up and stocks are down. Our headlines are full of war, natural disaster, and corruption. So I go looking for songs of hope and stories that remind me of the incredible privilege of living another day. I suppose I'm looking for a hero of sorts. Someone who rises above the situation and does something incredible.

Remember the guy who threw himself on top of the passenger who had suffered a seizure in the New York Subway? As the train was approaching he jumps down onto the tracks and risks his life to save the life of a complete stranger whose convulsions had thrown him into the path of an oncoming train. Incredible. Have you seen Team Hoyt, the dad who pushes his disabled son through all the marathons? They've even done the Iron Man competitions together as father and son, which makes me tear up. Or the story of Mother Teresa, a woman who gave her life to the less fortunate day after day after day. These are the stories that I want to sing about. These are stories of hope.

Such sacrifice, such patience and such goodness is rare and rightly called heroic. But these are not the heroes of our times. Wesley Autrey is not a household name and neither is Team Hoyt. If you want to know the heroes of our society, follow the money, look at the posters on the wall. We pay them seven digit salaries, we put their songs on our playlists, and follow them on Twitter. These are the heroes we emulate.

Let's face it. Mother Teresa doesn't look that good in a negligee. And Team Hoyt won't sell beer commercials to the networks. But when the ball players and the supermodels end up in rehab, we end up asking esoteric questions about what makes a hero. In the movies the good looking actor who gets the girl is easy to point to. But after he gets the girl, then the house, and then a few kids and then a divorce and then another girl. Then what? After all of the special effects are gone, we're left with an aging mortal who looks a bit awkward on the talk shows. Perhaps we've set our goals too low. Or perhaps we've got it backwards.

I would like to suggest that the best parts of our human nature can be seen in sacrifice or surrender. A mother sacrificing her time for her child, a teacher devoting her afternoons to help students off-the-clock. These are truly our most incredible moments as a species: moments of unmerited kindness. Goodness. Virtue. Nobility. Grace. Morality. These are the truly remarkable moments. Perhaps our current economic climate of debt needs a fresh perspective on worth and value. Maybe our monetary crisis indicates a broader loss of perspective.

We live in the land of plenty, the land of milk and honey, where the lottery of birth has given us the advantage of education, of wealth, and of opportunity. Ammon Hennessy puts it this way, "You came into the world armed to the teeth with... the weapons of privilege." A trip south of the border can be an incredible reminder. We are living in the land of entitlement, one of the wealthiest nations in the history of mankind. And yet, money cannot buy us the true wealth of happiness, or peace, or of a deeper form of a meaningful life.

Perhaps the current climate of uncertainty would be the appropriate time to ask the question: what are we aiming for? Our technological achievements as a species are impressive. Our cities, our advancements in flight and our iPhones are all fairly remarkable. But there is nothing heroic about my cell phone. There is nothing sacrificial about it. Where is the song that's worth singing? What is our measure of success? Renown psychiatrist Viktor E. Frankl says that "success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as a byproduct of one's surrender to a person other than oneself."

Maybe the fix is not the money. Maybe two and a half hours in a theatre isn't enough time for a hero to be born. Maybe it takes a lifetime- a lifetime like John M. Perkins. John Perkins is a man who devoted his life to those around him in simple and profound ways. He was quick to forgive, quick to utilize resources to help those in need. He has been a tireless civil rights worker who has endured beatings, harassments, and even prison for what he believes. With the help of his wife, Vera Mae, and a few others, he founded a health center, leadership development program, thrift store, low-income housing development and training center in his hometown of Mendenhall, Mississippi. His is a story of reconciliation, of forgiveness, of patience. He endured the suffering, holding on to a cause greater than himself.

John Perkins has is a song I want to sing. A song of a great man, the story of a legend. How do you replicate this goodness? Do you monetize it? Do you subsidize it? No. It's bigger than Washington, it's bigger than Wall Street. And it looks better than Hollywood. His is the story of a hero, a song of hope. His is a story that reminds me of a goodness beneath the system. Though Perkins was a devout Christian, he was quick to point out that this goodness is bigger than stale religion. Mr. Perkins once said that "many congregations do nothing but outsource justice." John Perkins said it right- you can't outsource justice. You can't farm out goodness to someone else. Your life is yours alone. Those decisions are yours to make.

I am the system. You are the system. We, the system of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, choose goodness. Yes, the system is flawed. Yes, the church is flawed. Yes, Wall Street and Hollywood Boulevard are all fatally flawed. Yes, there will always be those who take the easy way out. But that ain't your game. Your choice is yours alone. Goodness precedes greatness. Maybe the mother will always have more power than the atomic bomb. Maybe under the skin there is a song of hope and meaning waiting to break free. Or maybe not. It's our story. You and I decide with our actions. It can be as small as simple courtesy. Or get involved in your hometown. Find out what thelocal food bank looks like. Look up the local Habitat for Humanity. What is the world you want? You choose it with every breath.

In our current climate of fear and debt I am reminded of what I hold most valuable in this life: the human souls closest to me. We need each other. Human beings will always be the most valuable natural resource on the planet. The human story is still unfolding. We are telling it as we speak. The human song is still weaving its way towards a chorus, through the suffering, through the fear. We need each other. We need heroes. Let your life be a beautiful song. We need hope. Tell a good story with the way you live. What is the world you want?

(Original link)

How I Write, or Manage Not To

Got some news. I've been published!



6S is a blog that challenges writers to see what they can write in six sentences. They announced a contest in January for writers to send in six sentences defining love. The idea rolled around in my head for weeks, and I didn't think of something until the day of the deadline. So late at night, I wrote my paragraph and sent it in, not sure if it would be accepted since it was an hour or so past the deadline.

Well I made it in! Now, there are two sides to this news. The positives are that it's always a good thing to be published, and when the video scrolls through the list of authors, my name happens to be second out of 60+ authors. That may not mean anything, but it still makes me happy. But the negatives are that I'm pretty sure anyone who submitted was published. I'm pretty sure 6S does this in hopes that those included will purchase the book, helping to fund their operation. All that would be fine—if I were happy with my submission. I'm not. It's a good idea, but wasn't executed well. The sentences don't flow so it's choppy, and I think it's a little cliche.

I'm going to show it to a few writing friends whose opinions I trust. Maybe if it isn't too horrible I'll post it later.

The same week, the 6S network e-mailed this short piece of advise to subscribers, and I'm trying to focus on learning lessons from even the bad writing that does happen and not letting it discourage me.


"How I Write, or Manage Not To" by Kate Cone

There is a story about Hemingway: a reporter asks him, "If it hurts so much to write, why do you do it?" Hemingway: "Because it hurts more not to."

I am working on establishing and maintaining a daily writing "practice," like my daily meditation practice. It took me decades to finally get the latter, so why not segue from meditation into writing? I am trying, and it's getting easier the more I do it. Julia Cameron, creator of The Artists' Way, says to give yourself permission to write badly, just write. That helps. When I sit down to write now, I acknowledge that it may be crap, but I have to start somewhere. And speaking of crap, Anne Lamott in her inspiring and gut-bustingly funny book about writing Bird by Bird, espouses writing "the shitty first draft." Crappy and shitty. I think I can DO that.

With the passing of J.D. Salinger, I continue to think, "It's now or never." Or, "If not now, when?" When Dr. Seuss died in the nineties, I was in a writer's group. I said to my friend, "Why bother. Fame and money don't make you immune from death. We'll all die eventually." But that brings me back to what Hemingway said. Whether we are famous or not, bestselling authors or authors who just squeak by financially, "it hurts more not to." Writing is a calling, and if I honor that by writing those detective novels I've been working on for twenty years, I'll be happier, crappy or not.

Now... who dunnit?

KATE CONE is a writer, cook, mom and Buddhist. This piece was originally posted in The 6S Social Network on January 28, 2010.

Tooth Painter

As a person who has had an unheard amount of uncomfortable dental work done, this gives me a bit of perspective. If the patient in this poem is an open gallery when she smiles, then I am the New York Met! Speaking of which, I start an eight-month Invisalign program in a week or two. It's a clear retainer that I wear constantly. They give me new trays every couple of weeks that over time realign my teeth. It's not going to be enjoyable, but I'm going to focus on the computer-generated demo I saw. The end result will be worth it all.

"Tooth Painter" by Lucille Lang Day

He was tall, lean, serious
about his profession,
said it disturbed him
to see mismatched teeth.
Squinting, he asked me
to turn toward the light
as he held an unglazed crown
by my upper incisors.
With a small brush he applied
yellow, gray, pink, violet
and green from a palette of glazes,
then fired it at sixteen hundred
degrees. We went outside
to check the final color,
and he was pleased. Today
the dentist put it in my mouth,
and no one could ever guess
my secret: there’s no one quite
like me, and I can prove it
by the unique shade of
the ivory sculptures attached
to bony sockets in my jaw.
A gallery opens when I smile.
Even the forgery gleams.

Advice to Young Writers

Dedicated to Hannah:

No matter where you end up, no matter what degree is after your name, no matter what job you land. I know that you will always be the epitome of this poem, forever discovering little details that change how the rest of us see life that make it fresh and beautiful in a way we would have never seen.

"Advice to Young Writers" by Ron Padgett

One of the things I've repeated to writing
students is that they should write when they don't
feel like writing, just sit down and start,
and when it doesn't go very well, to press on then,
to get to that one thing you'd otherwise
never find. What I forgot to mention was
that this is just a writing technique, that
you could also be out mowing the lawn, where,
if you bring your mind to it, you'll also eventually
come to something unexpected ("The robin he
hunts and pecks"), or watching the FARM NEWS
on which a large man is referring to the "Greater
Massachussetts area." It's alright, students, not
to write. Do whatever you want. As long as you find
that unexpected something, or even if you don't.

Dive

It's long, but trust me. So worth it. Best thing I've read in a long time. Thanks Hannah!

"Dive" by Andrea Gibson

i often repeat myself
and the second time's a lie
i love you
i love you
see what i mean i don't
...and i do
and i'm not talking about a girl i might be kissing on
i'm talking about this world i'm blissing on
and hating
at the exact same time
see life---doesn't rhyme
it's bullets...and wind chimes
it's lynchings...and birthday parties
it's the rope that ties the noose
and the rope that hangs the backyard swing
it's a boy about to take his life
and with the knife to his wrist
he's thinking of only two things
his father's fist
and his mother's kiss
and he can't stop crying
it's wanting tonight to speak


the most honest poem i've ever spoken in my life
not knowing if that poem should bring you closer
to living or dying
drowning of flying
cause life doesn't rhyme
last night i prayed myself to sleep
woke this morning
to find god's obituary scrolled in tears on my sheets
then walked outside to hear my neighbor
erasing ten thousand years of hard labor
with a single note of his violin
and the sound of the traffic rang like a hymn
as the holiest leaf of autumn fell from a plastic tree limb
beautiful ---and ugly
like right now
i'm needing nothing more than for you to hug me
and if you do
i'm gonna scream like a caged bird
see...life doesn't rhyme
sometimes love is a vulgar word
sometimes hate calls itself peace on the nightly news
i've heard saints preaching truths
that would have burned me at the stake
i've heard poets tellin lies that made me believe in heaven
sometimes i imagine hitler at seven years old
a paint brush in his hand at school
thinkin what color should i paint my soul
sometimes i remember myself
with track marks on my tongue
from shooting up convictions
that would have hung innocent men from trees
have you ever seen a mother falling to her knees
the day her son dies in a war she voted for
can you imagine how many gay teen-age lives were saved
the day matthew shepherd died
could there have been anything louder
than the noise inside his father's head
when he begged the jury
please don't take the lives of the men
who turned my son's skull to powder
and i know nothing would make my family prouder
than giving up everything i believe in
still nothing keeps me believing
like the sound of my mother breathing
life doesn't rhyme
it's tasting your rapist's breath
on the neck of a woman who loves you more
than anyone has loved you before
then feeling holy as jesus
beneath the hands of a one night stand
who's calling somebody else's name
it's you never feelin more greedy
than when you're handing out dollars to the needy
it's my not eating meat for the last seven years
then seeing the kindest eyes i've ever seen in my life
on the face of a man with a branding iron in his hand
and a beat down baby calf wailing at his feet
it's choking on your beliefs
it's your worst sin saving your fucking life
it's the devil's knife carving holes into you soul
so angels will have a place to make their way inside
life doesn't rhyme
still life is poetry --- not math
all the world's a stage
but the stage is a meditation mat
you tilt your head back
you breathe
when your heart is broken you plant seeds in the cracks
and you pray for rain
and you teach your sons and daughters
there are sharks in the water
but the only way to survive
is to breathe deep
and dive

The Pain of Change

No words can convey how much I needed to hear this:

"All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another." — Anatole France (French Poet)

Soon after, I ran into this poem excerpt. Though it wasn't written by me, it is for you from me, dear friends. You to whom I am extremely close and you whom, from a distance, I see hurting everyday.

from "Saint Francis and the Sow" - Galway Kinnell

The bud
Stands for all things,
Even for those things that don’t flower,
For everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
Though sometimes it is necessary
To reteach a thing its loveliness,
To put a hand on the brow
Of the flower,
And retell it in words and in touch,
It is lovely
Until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing.

It's tough, and sometimes the pain is immeasurable. But be brave and hope.

(Source)

Turned Around

First set is my favorite. The message was sent to Frank Warren of PostSecret, which he forwarded to the PS community:

May God bless you with discomfort
At easy answers, half-truths and superficial relationships
So that you may live deep within your heart

May God bless you with anger
At injustice, oppression and exploitation of people
So that you may work for justice, freedom and peace

May God bless you with tears
To shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger and war
So that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and
To turn their pain into joy

May God bless you with foolishness
To believe that you can make a difference in the world
So that you can do what others claim cannot be done
To bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor

This is the Real Tao

I found this poem years ago and came across it in a Word file while searching for something to read for open mic:

“This is the Real Tao” by Bob Engel

Anyone unwilling to settle for ready-made philosophy
must learn to stitch together something suitable
from the scraps life hands us--
and so:
if the bolts aren't rusty
and the wood doesn't split
and the plastic bags provided contain all the right parts,
then I
must balance
that with the times when
I go to the hardware store twice
and return twice
with the wrong bracket, the too-long bolt.

When I hit the nail on the head,
I recall the day it was my thumb
and account the sweet thunk of steel biting wood
to comfort my old injury
and do this without dimming the pleasure of today,
a day when things go unaccountably right.

The Way of Love

I'm struggling with religion. I feel like I'm fine spiritually, but I've had a hard time finding much positive in church or vespers anymore. Much of it seems like a show, my ears pick up nothing but clichés I've heard for years, and I see so much more hatred and judgement than love and understanding. But beyond all these (and a few more), maybe it's me. I'm fully willing to admit that. So because religion only presents as a negative at the moment, and I have quite enough negative in my life, I'm putting it on hold for now.

When I was home for Thanksgiving, my mom asked me to say something before the meal from a devotional or the Bible or whatever. Hesitant, I accepted. And avoiding clichés being a main concern, I pulled out my parent's The Message Bible. Not sure what would be appropriate, I flipped to 1 Corinthians 13. If church was in line more with this chapter, I might be in a pew across the block right now. This is what I read for Thanksgiving:

1 Corinthians 13 — The Way of Love

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

When I was an infant at my mother's breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.

We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

Everybody

One of the most important techniques poetry has taught me is the power of conciseness. And if there's any poem that shows that off, it's this one. I was blown away.

"Everybody" by Marie Sheppard

I stood at a bus corner
one afternoon, waiting
for the #2. An old
guy stood waiting too.
I stared at him. He
caught my stare, grinned,
gap-toothed. Will you
sign my coat? he said.
Held out a pen. He wore
a dirty canvas coat that
had signatures all over
it, hundreds, maybe
thousands.
             I’m trying
to get everybody, he
said.
             I signed. On a
little space on a pocket.
Sometimes I remember:
I am one of everybody.

Stairs

Seated in sweat pants and old shoes
looking up the wooden, ratty staircase
from a spot on a jagged concrete slab,
I wonder if anyone is inside the apartment,
listening as the wind occasionally stirs the chimes.

It'd feel more homeless if it wasn't for a dorm room,
storing more things than one person should own.
But is it really that different
when I walk the stairs to sixth floor
knowing that no one is expecting me at the top?

Hell House

As I folded laundry, I started listening to the "This American Life" podcast from Oct. 25, "Devil on My Shoulder." In the first act of the show, the filmmaker of the documentary "Hell House" talks about what he saw while filming. 

As he began to describe it, I remembered hearing about it. The specific one he's discussing is in Cedar Hill, Tex., although the church has sold hundreds of "start-up kits"to churches in every state and even secular organizations. Here is how the Hell House is described on the film's website:

"Inside the Hell House, tour guides dressed as demons take visitors from room to room to view depictions of school massacres, date rape, AIDS-related deaths, fatal drunk driving crashes, and botched abortions. Hell Houses have now spread to hundreds of churches worldwide. With full access to the behind-the-scenes action, HELL HOUSE follows the process from the first script meeting until the last of the 10,000 visitors passes through the Hell House doors. The movie gives a verite window into the whole process of creating this over-the-top sermon, while showing an intimate portrait of the people who fervently believe its message."

I'm tempted to watch this film. But as the podcast progressed, angry tears welled up and my lip began to quiver. I couldn't even click to watch the trailer. How is it possible that there are people who actually would go through with this, much less in the name of a God of "love"?

From the episode, I tasted only a small slice of what "Hell House" documents. The filmmaker narrating how the rooms looked, clips from the Columbine and AIDS scene, audio from the faux Oscars ceremony at the end of the season where they give out awards like "Best Abortion Girl" and "Best Rape Victim." And also, Hell House is this particular church's largest event of the year. 

Beyond appalling. After just this small exposure, I could not believe my ears. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be able to handle any more.

Flying at Night

Last night, I finished "Flying at Night" by Ted Kooser, his poems from 1965-1985. I feel in love with Kooser two summers ago when I picked up "Delights and Shadows" in the local section at Barnes. Last semester I researched him for a paper and our paths have crossed several times. He teaches at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln, and I plan to see if I could take a class from him or a poetry class in general.

So here are my favorite selections from "Flying at Night." Hope you enjoy them!

The Leaky Faucet

All through the night, the leaky faucet
searches the stillness of the house
with its radar blip: who is awake?
Who lies out there as full of worry
as a pan in the sink? Cheer up,
cheer up, the little faucet calls,
someone will help you through your life.


The Grandfather Cap

Sometimes I think that as he aged,
this cap, with the stain in its brim
like a range of dark mountains,
became the horizon to him.
He never felt right with it off.

Boarding House

The blind man draws his curtains for the night
and goes to bed, leaving a burning light

above the bathroom mirror. Through the wall,
he hears the deaf man walking down the hall

in his squeaky shoes to see if there's a light
under the blind man's door, and all is right.

The Goldfish Floats to the Top of His Life

The goldfish floats to the top of his life
and turns over, a shaving from somebody's hobby.
So it is that men die at the whims of great companies,
their neckties pulling them speechless into machines,
their wives finding them slumped in the shower,
their hearts blown open like boiler doors.
In the night, again and again these men float
to the tops of their dreams to drift back
to their desks in the morning. If you ask them,
they all would prefer to have died in their sleep.

At Midnight

Somewhere in the night,
a dog is barking,
starlight like beads of dew
along his tight chain.
No one is there
beyond the dark garden,
nothing to bark at
except, perhaps, the thoughts
of some old man
sending his memories
out for a midnight walk,
a rich cape
woven of many loves
swept recklessly
about his shoulders.

At Nightfall

In feathers the color of dusk, a swallow,
up under the shadowy eaves of the barn,
weaves now, with skillful beak and chitter,
one bright white feather into her nest
to guide her flight home in the darkness.
It has taken a hundred thousand years
for a bird to learn this one trick with a feather,
a simple thing. And the world is alive
with such innocent progress. But to what
safe place shall any of us return
in the smoky nightfall,
when we in our madness have put the torch
to the hope in ever nest and feather?

The Sigh

You lie in your bed and sigh,
and the springs deep in the mattress
sing out with the same low note,
mocking your sadness. It's hard—
not the mattress, but life.
Life is hard. All along
you thought you could trust in
your own bed, your own sorrow.
You thought you were sleeping alone.