mush mush

According to Wikipedia:

Mushing also can be used to describe the kneading behavior of domestic cats when they are content or are preparing to settle for a nap.

Can you write a poem about mushing? Or the Paris Review?

VIRGINIA QUARTERLY REVIEW LOVES CLICHES

From here

"This was supposed to be a blog entry about how authors submit poetry to us covering clichéd topics that there’s just no way we’re going to print. But then I did the math, calculating the percentage of our submissions and published work that contain any of a dozen mainstays of poetic terminology, and found that precisely the opposite is true.

submitted published
water 19.9% 24.8%
death 14.1% 15.2%
blood 11.7% 13.8%
stone 11.1% 16.0%
bone 9.1% 7.8%
poetry 7.6% 10.3%
heart 7.5% 6.7%
fish 7.0% 5.3%
birth 5.5% 7.4%
darkness 3.9% 17.0%
rust 3.3% 2.5%
cat 2.3% 2.8%

As it turns out, our editor is all about those dreaded paeans to cats. The moral of the story is that talent transcends topic, I suppose; in the hands of a skilled poet, even stone/bone can be made a vital couplet again."

It's Interactive!

Snow Blowing with Dennis

Crack open our walk, Dennis.

Blow snow on Rainbow Fish

two doors down. The shack

of Chicken Chest or is it Dizzle Dazzle.

Careful Twinkle Star, protect your name, your ceramic

goose head poking through the snow.

Do our walk, please Dennis.

Preserve the harmless fractals, those florets of broccoli,

each the same and smaller than the last.

When Snowflake is in an unmanageable pile

her bulldozers and dump trucks will come

for some serious snow removal.

Dennis, tell them to hold their horses,

we need to work up to that. A little kissing

and making out might lead to foreplay,

but I’m not going all the way

until I know it’s right between us and will last forever.

A Poem

Ladies --
I ain't got a poem about a band, but I did write this here one about our old friend Coyote. Also, I think the bad should meet halfway, by which I mean oHIo.


COYOTE IS DEAD NEAR EXIT 202 IN OHIO.

A semi blows by, lifts the ginger hair of his tail to show
white fur closer to the skin. In a Kentucky Coffee
tree bending over the power lines perches a red-tailed hawk.
He keeps a solid watch. Somewhere near here waits his mate.
I want to see her. It’s Christmas Eve.
This morning, the hens greeted me at the barn door,
clucking and pecking along, checking my bootlaces
for grain dust, while our four goats
cried from their pen in the corner, climbing up the woven wire
gate, little beggars. It’s just past Full Peach Moon –
walking home on Christmas night,
I will see a shooting star. Mars and Orion
share a little patch of sky. I’ll reckon you won’t believe
what I’ve seen, though I see it more every day -- beauty lies
down in layers. I done saw it perched in the Osage Orange
over the gob pile on Captina Creek. Coyote is dead
and we all are next. Every evening I leave the goats
crying in the corner pen, the hens shuffling their knuckled toes
roost-ways into their coop. I’m glad I’m not the morning star,
living thirteen years in eight. I do recollect the snow.
I do stop along the interstate, not to bury Coyote, but to brush
my hand against his perfect, stretched out paw.

Who cares about our band?

I have been trying to get the members together for a practice
since last February, when it was decided over India Pale Ale that we should begin.
We were inspired by our collaboration on the tavern countertop,
by the way T-Bone could set up an almost click-track effect
by tapping the base of her hand on the tabletop,
by the way Possum managed the orchestral arrangements,
by T’s appearance in publications of note, which seemed to suggest
he could parlay this wordsmithery into some raw fuckin’ lyrics.
I would do whatever, play a little tambourine, a little kazoo,
keep things unexpected with the addition of marimba.
But despite that one practice in Leon’s basement,
and the sweet poster Leon made for our show that never materialized,
we never recorded any tracks, we slouched toward each other
with too little interest on that March practice evening,
and found that without beer our band was a failure.
Our imaginations had been too large pants
our shriveled voices and kazoos could not fill.

IF WE WERE A BAND

Ice storm? Anyone?

DIY Foot Washing

I never meant to hypnotize us
and not your little man Swerve inside
at the drive through strip club.
Me and the line of cars looking
like a fluffy white dog,
a delicious face, serious
enough to bring home.

Swerve is feeding us
apple seeds and hopes the cyanide
will kill us. Deep in his own voltage
he feels like an octopus
working with three hearts.

Swerve is paying off kids
in the village and bathing us in
the kitchen sink. He promises
burlap shirts for our territories,
bit parts in forgotten songs
about trains. The war is small and not
many people are dying; we're shooting
skin over our eyes in a statement of purpose,
but who can resist the 60 watt bulb
charging up our leg fluid.

DIY Foot Washing

I never meant to hypnotize us
and not your little man Swerve inside
at the drive through strip club.
Me and the line of cars looking
like a fluffy white dog,
my delicious face, serious
enough to bring home, pretty much
anywhere that could wait until later.

And even now, Swerve is feeding us
apple seeds and hopes the cyanide
will kill us, but as a film projectionist
he's always fucking up the ends,
beaming blue and blaming it
on the marijuana. Deep in his own voltage
he feels like an octopus
working with three hearts.

Swerve is paying off kids
in the village and bathing us in
the kitchen sink. He doesn't know us
until we're done and promises
burlap shirts for our territories,
bit parts in forgotten songs
about trains. The war is small and not
many people are dying, we're shooting
skin over our eyes in a statement of purpose,
but who can resist the 60 watt bulb
charging up our leg fluid.

The Unpacker

Happiness knocked me off the beet pile. In the heat
I unpacked what I could, despite the talk
outside my window, this place was haunted.

Happiness dumped me on a long distance phone call—
left me standing on an ant hill in Austin.
I would have been happier
with 65 mph winds back at Rock Creek
staked firmly in my North Face tent,
while Jen put in her contacts next door.

From where I sat, dry
in the ascetic assembly line, the rain hummed down
constantly, like a refrigerator, like I owned it.
Even with the tread of my running shoes analyzed,
Happiness could tell exactly how many feet
the muzzle-loader knocked me back.

The Unpacker

Happiness knocked me off the beet pile. In the heat
I unpacked what I could, despite the talk
outside my window, this place was haunted. It’s not really
about the garbage disposal anymore
or the outside entrance that I fell in love with,
they never let me down. Was someone here
to say “be careful” when I picked up the broken glass
and found the shower on? It felt like happiness
dumped me on a long distance phone call—
left me standing on an ant hill in Austin
while the bats got treated to a perfect sized home
under the bridge. I would have been happier
with 65 mph winds back at Rock Creek
staked firmly in my North Face tent,
while Jen put in her contacts next door. From where I sat, dry
in the ascetic assembly line, the rain hummed down
constantly, like a refrigerator, like I owned it
and expected it and couldn’t escape it. Even with the tread
of my running shoes analyzed, I could tell exactly how many feet
the muzzle-loader knocked me back. Happiness would say,
you’ll need more than just one shot to stop
these fascinating and intriguing beautiful machines
that built our houses and plugged us into
more than just a crush drizzling to extinction.