Girl in Blacksburg [napowrimo 2013]

The poem at the end of the month.

This experiment didn’t work out every well. It didn’t help that I was sick for a good portion of the month, or that I can’t post to Tumblr from my BlackBerry. But at least I tried.

Here’s one last poem.

And Then Time

I still fetishize you
a little bit, against
my better judgment,
against the synthetic
wall of pharmaceuticals
I use to no longer feel.
You recall afternoons
of darling drunken
lawyers arrayed loud
on wooden chairs,
watching the five
o’clock news, ignoring
existence of wives
and lives and propriety.
The red state I lived
in is far past me now,
but your clean cut
smirk and aging
haircut throw me
back in time every
time, when all I wish
for is some future
time without you in it.

Seventh poem.

I drafted this poem during a course break in a seminar on an iPad that was connected to a digital projector, while waiting to give a presentation on an iPad app.

On Listening While Someone Who Avoids Me Speaks

Unbidden, I remembered instantly the class
he was teaching before he claimed to have
forgotten it—Technical Writing, Tuesday
and Thursday afternoons, in a second floor

lab that always had the shades drawn
for “security reasons.” Actually, they
were total bullshit reasons, but I was lucky
to even have a job with a half-finished

college edugation, so I picked up discarded
newspapers and pitched unwanted
printouts into the metal recycling bin
without complaint, without speaking.

I have a bachelor’s degree in cleaning
whiteboards while pretending to ignore
instructors speaking with their students.
I don’t speak to my former colleagues

at that job anymore, but sometimes I still
find myself straightening chairs out of habit.

Sixth poem.

No Reason for My Surprise

You never expect to see the man who allowed
the audience of one at his feet to partake
of his prized European chocolatier stash

eating a charred, sloppy hamburger at the bar
you walk by every day on the way to work, but
these things happen, the surprises of someone

else’s life you glimpse while you’re living your
own. He’s suave like a villian from a Michael Mann
film, all flash and cashmere, silk and seductive

eyes, mysterious fringe and moneyed accent. The allure
of his intellect assures he will never spend a cold
night alone. That world of linen closets and German

engineered commuter vehicles is so far from mine,
and yet I will always, surreptitiously, turn to look,
slip inside and out when his eminence desires.

Fifth poem.

I’ve been sick.

The Smoothing Quiet

An April snowstorm shocks the town
into compliance with winter’s last
request. I feel sick, take to bed,
tucked in by shadows cast by lights
from the parking lot. Change hits
me in unexpected paths, stretches
time into spaces between phlegm.
The sickly girl in me dislikes
being sent to bed, but the woman
of leisure I used to be revels
in furry black throws and slippery
nightgowns, dreams of pillow piles
and steam rooms. I think the cold
medication is causing me to have
feelings, and take other medication
to counteract it. Remember when
I ate crackers and popsicles? Those
days where I watched House Hunters
International and prayed for sleep?
They’re back, a tiny bit back, but not
enough to stay for good. I’ve grown
stronger. I’ve tried to get better.
I’ve sought out the quiet spaces
my desire brought me here to claim.
I’ve asked my body to be patient
while I revise it, smooth away
the rough curves and misshapen
edges, hoping to bloom anew
in the heat of summer’s end.

Fourth poem.

The Glamour

Attitude should never
be rewarded with money
or attention, I think,
but for you I make
unwarranted exception.
Your brashness slices
lesser minds open,
spreads my twisted
intellectual tastes
wide. Drowning in thousands
of seductive words,
your gift of wisdom.
Today I seek you out,
when before I resisted.

Third poem.

The You He Has Replaced

The physicality is all wrong but the look,
the height, the tone, all correct. It’s as if
someone created the Optimal Persona of you
to wild success. The perfect tracked life,
when yours derailed by 25, when yours soured
and rebuilt itself with specificity no mate
could hope to achieve. Meeting him reminds me
how glad I am to have left you, validates
my decision to step back into the world of books
and scholars and central air conditioned seminar
rooms. Across the street from where I live, a white
house with a white picket fence stands, surrounded
by wire fencing, chained and padlocked shut.

Second poem

A response to today’s NaPoWriMo prompt.

One Reason Never to Date a Poet

I told myself I was old enough to see
someone older. I am older now and I know
I was lying to myself, thinking I could be
responsible. Starting a relationship
with someone not of that place. Connecting
with an outsider who saw explotation
where we saw culture. Trying to get
away with not opening my eyes until after
the doors closed. Rejecting the notion
I wouldn’t cradle the memory in a tiny mental
box for years. Thinking that I would never write
about it. Even now I have gone far over
his natural word count. Somewhere in a store,
a man slices shipping containers with a knife.
Time dulls my knife. Twice he attempted to return
and twice I have reverted, resumed the future
role the past self never knew she would assume.

I keep all the selfs close. Sometimes you never know
when a memory will come in for a faulty landing.

First post and first poem.

I’ve decided to do NaPoWriMo again after taking a five year break. Hey, I was busy doing other stuff.

I’ll Think of a Title Later

Because thinking of a title
before writing is hard. Writing
is hard. Forcing myself
to write defeats the purpose
of writing. Writing should never
be a chore. Writing is desire
given concrete voice. Why
make it into work? Marx
wrote poetry to get girls,
I learned in a sociology
class I dropped last fall. He knew
enough about alienated labor
to articulate it in print. Now
I am surrounded by students
who carry around his red
textbook. I peek into offices
to see well-worn copies yellowing
on faculty bookshelves. Writing
is labor. I have been estranged
from it. Let’s try not to be. Let’s
give it a month.