The Largest Bird Ever To Fly

-------------------------Are we who we were once and then never again? - Jonathan Johnson


We agreed the condors were beautiful

You are who you are in the desert

Rocky cliffs and rubble

Hours of preening

A disaster of claws

There's a lot more to this

They're going to begin digging in our back yard

When they uncover the altar I'll be out

Walking the dogs

Our daughter will feign forgetfulness

Against my returning

You will leave

A jar of water on the edge of dawn

Passages North

It's here! Two copies in my mailbox! The 2010 Passages North has arrived! With works by:

Jennifer Lynn Alessi, Paul Scot August, John Azrak, Priscilla Becker, Shelley Berg, Monica Berlin, B.J. Best, Mary Biddinger, Malachi Black, Hadley Boyd, Jamie Brunton, Claudia Burbank, Kim Chinquee, Katie Cortese, Jim Daniels, Jordan Davis, Katrina Denza, Owen Duffy, Mary Beth Ferda, Gary Fincke, Naoko Fujimoto, Christine Garren, Laura Gibson, Aaron Gilbreath, Mariela Griffor, Becky Hagenston, Michael Hemery, Bob Hicok, Daniel John, Jonathan Johnson, Charmi Keranen, Hailey Leithauser, Tim Lockridge, Sara Maclay, Pamela McClure, Jane Mead, Travis Mossotti, Mark Neely, Randon Billings Noble, John Poch, Maia Rauschenberg, Nicholas Reading, James Schiffer, Austin Segrest, Hilary Selznick, Agnieszka Stachura, Jennifer K. Sweeney, Connie Voisine, Joseph P. Wood.

Guess what I'm doing tonight.

Fujimoto, Schomburg, Octopus & Watts

One thing leads to another. Last year I picked up Scary, No Scary by Zachary Schomburg. Good stuff. It's making the rounds among my writerly friends. I believe Naoko has it now. She's writing some intriguing poems. Check her out.

Schomburg himself is making the rounds. He'll be in Chicago on April 29th, after he stops by South Bend on April 28th. I'm sure it will be worth turning out for. For complete details and other locations, consult his blog, where you will find many interesting things, including:

Octopus Books, where you can plop down $56 and receive a two-year subscription to everything they publish 2009-2010. When I opened my mail box a couple of weeks ago I found a host of books, with C.D. Wright's 40 Watts on the top of the heap. I have an up and down relationship with Wright's work, but this chap is excellent. I now own No. 121 of 200 copies printed. Here's a taste, if you're curious:

Light Bulb Poem

at 4 o'clock I am at the door
with a bare hand of snow
laughing shamelessly
I undo my shirt
we'll pick up at the next chapter
my beloved are the words
of the rambler
if not the words the substance
the snow smeared across my front
warm to the touch
though we remain separated
as if by a chair
and I unwilling to read ahead

Poetry Marathon at Artpost

A few of the folks from IUSB, Nancy Botkin, Clayton Michaels, Jennie Stockdale, and yours truly, will be reading during the Poetry Marathon at Artpost.

Our group begins at six o'clock, if you'd like to check us out, 216 W. Madison Street, South Bend, IN.

Reflections In A Pool

You know where it started

Fiction engraving
The face of the moon

Small point

Her hands
------Against the height of it

The velocity of tadpoles

Tails down with purpose

Through the turnstile

Every one a mist-like scream

The blood grew feathers

He memorized the lost constellations

Hook, water, shaft, gargoyle

The orbital nature of weathervanes

St. Patrick Springs

I don't know if St. Patrick was sending good vibes my way, or what, but serendipity certainly fell at my feet today. Just as Max and Sylvia and I headed up the Bay Street hill, the park ranger came by on his tractor and unlocked the back gate to our county park. The three of us were the first ones to walk through it this year!

We felt honored. And lucky. For weeks now I've been hoping and imaging this very scene. I occasionally will go into the park in the winter through the front gate, but there is something savory and familiar about entering through the back way, like a secret. This was Sylvia's first time through. Max showed her how to wind her way right, then left, through the labyrinth fencing, and then -- free!

We startled some geese and found the snowdrops blooming. A kingfisher was diving the creek. The snakes were either still sleeping or St. Patrick had driven them all away. Either way, it was a pleasant morning. St. Pat, you're okay.

Dan Hicks

At the ripe old age of 50, Gene finally had his life-long dream fulfilled this weekend. Dan Hicks and The Hot Licks came to Dowagiac, Michigan and performed at The Wood Fire Grill. Hicks has been around forever, but he's fairly kitschy. He describes his music variously from folksy-jazz to Caucasian hip hop. I'm not sure how I would describe it, but it's been a part of my life for the almost 25 years Gene & I have been married. Not a week goes by that this song isn't sung in our house: How Can I Miss You When You Won't Go Away.

Gene's life-long wait was worth it. The 68-year-old Hicks and The Hot Licks put on a great show. The band and backup singers, The Lickettes, accomplished jazz singers in their own rights, are not the originals, but they're certainly tight. If they come around again, we'll make it a twice-in-a-lifetime experience.

The Nervous Filaments - A Review

David Dodd Lee’s fourth full-length collection of poetry, The Nervous Filaments, is a transcendent step into parallel sphere. Lee wastes no time in asserting his right to hold and examine the reader, the world, in fact, upside down, backwards, by the heels. When he says “I could see ambulance spelled/backwards” we know the emergent world isn’t in Lee’s rear view mirror, but he’s facing it head-on, all the while trying to make sense of the incoming messages, as frantically jumbled as they appear. In a gesture towards Günter Grass’s Tin Drum, “I could see the eels spilling/out of the horse’s head,” Lee prepares the reader for a view of the disturbingly tragic world of survival, the one in which we all traverse but often fail to see. He points out, however, “…here is your/story/coming from a different direction.” Indeed, we meet Lee at an unlikely intersection, but it is an intersection worth exploring as each poem reveals new vistas. “After all that’s your head in the window/looking out/through rain/through snow.” Certainly. Isn’t that why we’re here?

LOVELESS, THE GRAVEL

Here is your

story, in my

horizonless competence,

a nevertheless fine

kettle of

mockingbirds

I could see ambulance spelled

backwards

I could see the eels spilling

out of the horse’s head

a crawdad sits in a cold

pool importantly praying

(cumulus nimbus)

and here is your

story

coming from a different direction

a couple of shaved ideas

Red-Breasted Sapsucker

At Azalea Park in Brookings, Oregon

where we waited out the tsunami

before we went tide pooling.

This Is Not Indiana

Harris Beach State Park, Oregon

I've gone tide pooling.