Timewaster alert!!

Sorry, but Aaron asked me if I read any web comics. The answer, regrettably, is yes. Just one.

http://www.qwantz.com/index.php

Dinosaurs, discussing the meaning of life. Ohh, yeah.

I Do Too Much (A Sestina)

Posted a link to a great collection of Sestinas a little while back. Thought I might as well write one.  Wrote two. Here's one. Before you read it, you might want to check the rules of Sestina form, so you catch what's actually going on. Next one tomorrow-ish. Needs a once-over.

Sestina: I Do Too Much

These days I dream only of sleep

While I am trapped, awake, at work

It’s not that I despise my job

But that I work until I drop.

Obsession’s not the same as love:

I need to learn to say “no.”

It doesn’t matter what you know;

It only matters where you sleep

At night, who gives you all their love.

We might still make this whole thing work.

What kills is not the life-long drop:

It’s the landing that does the job.

Assume that teaching is my job:

We can assume that part of my job is teaching. “No

Child left behind,” save those that drop

Off the wagon, preferring sleep

To learning. You know best what works

To get you what you most love,

I suppose. But what if they love

Their ignorance? Is it my job

To kick their asses, make them work?

And if I, lazy, accept “no”

As an answer, will I still sleep

As our standardized test scores drop?

In my nightmares I watch things drop.

It is not duty dressed as love

That haunts me when I fail to sleep,

But the nagging sense that this job

Is hopeless; that there can be no

End to the damned and draining work

Required. What might drive them to work?

As our standard of living drops

Will our ambition rise? It’s no

Reflection on school. Those who love

To learn, will. For the rest, those jobs

Where boredom lulls them sweet to sleep.

I cannot sleep. There is work to do.

No tears. Not one drop. Let’s face it:

I love this stupid job.

the last word on television

What a great piece of spoken word!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmh_8TWjtsM&feature=player_embedded

Sonnets, Too!

There are a lot of shoddily written explanations of sonnet form lurking in the dank corners of the internet.

This, however, is not one of them:

http://web.bvu.edu/faculty/drake/sonnets.htm

The wikipedia entry, on the other hand, although thorough, is a bit over the top with the big list of variant forms. The KISS rule might just apply here.

Sestinas

The rules of the form are bizarre, but the results are often compelling.

There's a sort of obsessive-compulsiveness to the Sestina, with it's continual recycling of just a few key words.

It's a shuffling and reshuffling of a very small deck.
It is madness.
It is precision.
It is angels dancing on the head of a pin.
Everybody should write at least one sestina at some point in their life. You might as well start now!

Here's a great spot for samples and inspirations:

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/sestinas/

Check 'em out. There's a world of weird beauty hiding here.

McSweeney's is also possibly the biggest time-wasting site on the net for those with a literary inclination. Don't say you haven't been warned!

~tps

me / not me

Me / not me

Feeling vain.

Typed my name

Into youtube just to see

If I was famous yet.

813 results.

Was disappointed to find

I had succumbed to depression

At the age of 17.

Had lost traction in my car

Puffing clouds of grey smoke,

Stink of rubber.

Apparently I no longer have

That twin turbo GN.

Probably for the best, really.

Am a hero to a small town

chamber of commerce

For the puzzling act of

bringing the goods back,

unmelted.

Play the guitar,

But not my guitar,

Not my music.

Not my hair, either.

Was pleased to learn I

once sang a duet

With Sarah Jessica Parker

So sweet I made the audience

Shed a tear or two.

even finished medical school

And launched a crusade to beat cancer

Once and for all.

Didn’t mention anywhere

That I was still

writing poems.

Oh well.

Transformations #8: All the Days

#8: all the days (him as much as her)

with no reason to be here

there is no reason to go

anywhere else, either.

unaware you are wounded,

you will recover over years

as the bark of a tree

re/covers the wound

of a twisted band of wire

carelessly attached by a child

one summer—

patiently accumulating

layers of grey sorrow

until one day

without warning

the trunk will split.

by then, you will not even remember

her name, let alone

why she left.

you will be astonished—

genuinely mystified—

to find the gleaming wire

still wrapped tight

around your broken heart.

transformations #7: prestidigitation (pay no mind)

#7: prestidigitation (pay no mind)

ignore my hand. it is empty—

a gesture without content,

an idiot flower i flourish

to distract (you) from my thieving eyes.

ignore my hand. it is empty.

your two (of hearts) transformed:

already a dove

already a flag

already a seed

buried winter-deep and dreaming

in the white and changeful

heart of an apple

you will buy at a market

years from now, long after

you have forgotten i

ever played this trick at all.

ignore my words. they are empty.

i am reading the braille of your lips right now.

Transformations #6: origami (bird/flower)

#6: origami (bird/flower)

to begin

is to acknowledge the flat

blank canvas always

of morning.

to proceed

is to give myself

once more into your

hands.

fold me lovingly

in upon myself

crease upon crease

by the nail of your thumb

i become:

cranes and apple blossoms

peace and maybe love

perfect useless—ornamental

and unfailingly:

broken

at each point you

have touched.

Transformations #5: fossil (find a home)

#5: fossil (find a home)

when you died

you became

a map of yourself—an idea:

how to build

the past.

patient water

replaced your sullen bones

with geology.

slow million time crept in,

replaced your fog-breathing

lungs

with a plaque

on the wall

of the much-loved museum

of good ideas

dead and gone.

we all should be so lucky.

we all should be so loved.

Transformations #4: gold/silver (spider alchemy)

#4: gold/silver (spider alchemy)

our hands make only

mirrors of the world.

the threads we golden spin

each morning fade

slow to silver

reveal us hiding

claw-like, chitinous

starving at the center of our dreams,

laying traps of slender wire

to catch a shifting wind.

Transformations #3: Radionuclide

#3: radionuclide (no new star)

born of (stardeath) love

glowing hopeful apples

in the secret earth

you (and I) give away (we

give away)

half our (starbirth) lives devoted:

light the city with our smiles.

realize the bones

beneath notional skin.

tear down the spiral stairs.

our children are (starlight)

not shadow selves

it's different every time:

the light goes through us

changes not who we are

but who we can become

half our lives wasted

away (starshape) smiles:

gold transmutes 

to flat pale lead.

Transformations #2: Pupate

pupate (born into)

as a wing is to an arm

blessed with sky

as hand to fin

a million millions older than.

swim this ocean

of words and gestures

hide below the hive

and change

skin a thin grey blanket

around the world

to keep our blood unmingled

each heart pupates

rearranges. (you)

slough off dead cells.

become.

scrape your fingernails

across this membrane:

emerge into the world

bloody-eyed and smiling.

Music Nights

Practiced with the trio tonight, plus one. Wonderful guest on acoustic bass. Everything changed. The songs came out different--different tempos, different accents, different feels. We played the same song eight times in a row, and it grew every time, improved every time, followed a different arc every time. This is life. There is no map that leads us from our beginnings to our ends, only this desire to travel in the company of good people a while.

This is as it should be. Music, when you give yourself to it completely, is a way to find yourself, your heart, in a dark and echoing room. It is a way to find the hearts of the other musicians too, and maybe even an audience every now and then. Music exists only in the space between the people involved; so when a new musician enters the space, everything should change. And if everything changes for the better, you've found a friend, there in the dark, playing music and looking for you, too.

Tonight we found a friend. And we found each other again, too. And all that's just the way it's supposed to work.

Transformations Project

Jenny gave us the idea. Tanis put the idea on a stage and asked for words. So I obliged. I'll be posting a poem a day for the next 8 days, exploring the theme of Transformations. Enjoy!

Transformations #1: Lycanthrope

a hand slides away

from the unblinking eye of the moon:

your bones betray you. again.

this is not. a sure. thing.

you are a tooth:

loose and bleeding

in the open mouth of the night.

leaves rot on the stairs.

blank memory

is no sure sign

you have not been here before.

moon slides away

from your hands; your bones

slide away from.

the moon slides away.

unfold. you cease to be

the paper crane, become

the empty page again--

back where you started,

blank. moonfaced.

the creases of your skin

are a map.

you cannot read it.