Tuesday, October 26, 2010
32 word poem for dornkess
Mist, rain, bleak skies
her color was eclipsed by the chlorophyll fade out
by waste products and glucose—
foliage so fly.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Here at the Gateway
the place which could be a wicked
problem, because it is difficult
to say who will be a dentist
and who might take care of you
in your old age. You know you're there
when the sound of the dishwasher at night
is soothing. When the construction worker waves
you on, it is okay to breathe for the rest
of the day. This is the place in the body
where you most easily feel
the spider web. Where the 'B'
written there could be for this breath
and bloodmobile and Buddhism,
another Delivery service
inside us. But everyone knows you
shouldn't leave the spelling up to the incandescent
goose who would never think
about throwing a horse overboard
in the middle of the ocean. That's where I am.
Make the banana bread if only
to get respite from the fruit flies. If you feel
only half of the time, think of what you could do
with the rest of the time. My new neighbors
organize their Chamois and tire black
which requires a lot of swearing. We are hoping
the arborvitae will soak that up. It's impossible
to count the grasshoppers as they pass--
to get enough sleep is suffering. Now
that we have a real microwave, I can make
my way through the dark kitchen
by the light of the digital clock--
here at the Gateway, I've got hay bales
under my skin, the trolley car
that was once a restaurant, is just like
Arkansas, which is just like
Illinois and Iowa, but nothing like
waking up in Pittsburgh where the way
to your heart is a little bit brighter.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
It's Like The Nothing Never Was
to imagine anyone mulching or leaves
already falling from the trees in your yard.
One minute there are so many tomatoes
the peppers find it hard to keep
up. It's the asparagus
that doesn't bother with the end
of summer. If all else fails
belly dancing will keep us
looking like we're forty. Is this
the doorway to self-deception
or a doorway to new possibilities?
While we wait for death, heavy petting
on the Pentacrest between the rainbow
splashes of the fountain and the happy
stars on the grass will do. Some day
I think I'd like to own horses just like
I'd like to own an alcohol problem. Glamorous,
but without the acumen of a business
man expanding his temporal boundaries
to alleviate stress. That's one option.
This year the cicadas came
out four years early but your plane
was late. Winter is never
late, and the shore goes on without you.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
On the occasion of my late paper
I should probably budget my time
and sit it down to a meeting with consensus
building on the agenda. As Straus suggests,
we could define our roles and identify
other participants like dinner, two-year olds,
the Press Citizen coming to interview my husband,
and the green heart of the Randstad.
Then there’s the game of shoving-
everything-into-closets-and-drawers.
The game can come to the negotiation
and maybe strengthen its BATNA with a little joint
fact-finding venture with the unopened mail.
They could work together creating value
as they go along taking up space.
But this space is really time if you think
about it. Personality tests also take
up time, but is it up to you or time?
Time likes personality tests. True
or False? Time likes poems.
True or false? Poems like time but not so much
as they have to exist in time rather than
out of time. Right now,
it would be mutually beneficial for time to agree,
as walking out is not an option.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
VOTED most likely provide excellent protection from zombies.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Zoned

Our streetscapes display our obsolescence
empty parking lots like punched out teeth, in our city
library an Ivy league architect tells us we’ve betrayed our bustle.
He is not talking about the death of the corset industry, he is talking about
the way we have split our waterfront from our downtown with a thick and tender highway.
This architect breaks my heart
with his architect’s glasses and his white hair
with his passion and his broad intellect and his readiness to prostelytize
about the fatness of our nation. Let us blame it on urban design for cars! Let us blame
no one but ourselves. In the library we a joined by a mayor and developers
a former economic development director and urban proponents who parked
their saabs on the streets of this city hungry for their commerce. Nothing but saabs for new urbanists!
I alone am heartened by the architect's trolley promotion, I alone have a space in my heart
for those abandoned tracks lying beside the cobblestones, nestled like steel arms under the pavement.
I alone have trouble growing passionate about zoning re-writes, though I know they matter. I want only to fetch the nearest jackhammer so I might liberate our nation from the tyranny of car transportation.
I can’t find a soul in the place who will join me.