A Sentence a Day

I’m trying out a new thing in 2011. I’m going to write at least one sentence a day on this turtle. I know, I know...it sounds a bit Facebook status-y, but here I can be all artistic and stuff and not have my more literal friends comment “???” directly underneath.

I thought of this a couple of weeks ago but decided to wait until the New Year, because (1) I’m somewhat compulsive that way, and (2) this is a bit of a personal experiment for me. I’ve been thinking a lot about habits lately and I thought starting on January 1 would allow me to track how long I do this and if I am able to truly establish it as a habit.

So...gauntlet thrown down to self! Let’s see if I manage a sentence on Saturday.

This Year's Favorite

Sci-fi Girl, Vol. 2

Her arms too filled with concessions

she fails to reach for the lifeline

—Damned slippery resuscitations!—

but finds consolation in her juggling:

when marble is cheap we die for linoleum,

we put our faith in cork,

we carry our idols in our pockets.

She shuffles polite lies and

redistributes her ideals

and reminds herself to

put lotion on her elbows.

Somewhere in her inside jacket pocket,

—near to her heart—

is a pocket knife

scratched by derisiveness,

chipped by disappointment,

and honed by a large sense of patience.

She wishes she could hold it in her hand

just at that moment

and feel the weight of it.

After all, absence makes the lines go skew.

Sci-fi Girl, Vol. 1

Sci-fi girl in a world of Neanderthals

admits to being hampered,

if only slightly, by fluctuations

in the space/time continuum.

Still, it’s the technology that counts!

16 gigs of music to their chink-chink

of hammer on stone, on wood,

on water (for reasons inexplicable),

and on thickly-browed skull bone.

So what if she’s swamp adjacent?

She comforts herself by opening

and closing the arms

of her Swiss army knife:

finely-honed edge,

digitally-scaled plane,

corkscrew...

Home is where your hinged

mechanism is oiled, isn’t it?

Rope

making rope

a triangular compromise

a no red so go blue

not a no go

a gone too soon

and so many days

to turn again

to twine tomorrow

and then

and thereafter

again and another

time gone round

turned out

for the practical considerations

of rope

Early Morning Thieves

Early morning thieves steal forth from Lockerbie

enticed by rumored mermaids to the east.

Their quiet passage briefly noted in the air

by the former lighthouse keeper,

too old to have anyone to warn.

His morning mug full of the squall

and tempests of yesteryear,

his heart stowing away in the knapsack

of the shortest roustabout.

He gathered no respect from his fellows

for his arm, nor for his steady countenance,

but for the unlikely sweetness of his singing voice.

The second eldest had even been known to note

the sway of his true love’s hips at the sound

of the demur one’s refashioned canticle.

Her heart, though, cannot be deterred

from its original path by some wayward beat.

She weeps into her laundry and sincerely

decries mermaids, merchants, and mercurial moods.

The leader of the expedition is unburdened

by such distractions. His knees bend only

for treasures, his eyes glint only

for the gleam of jewels and doubloons.

He is a veritable thieve, whilst the others

are at best humble connivers.

He cares not for lighthouse keepers,

lonely songs, or lovers, or even

lost mermaids, only the plunder

that might be had from such endeavors.

So the morning moves into day.

badges

teaching little girls

to weave nooses

eat bugs

and carve totems

for future negotiation survival

gotcha right here in my pocket

my little survival list

for hurricanes

cold fronts

nonstandard-sized galoshes

and ill-timed invasions

(seriously? June?)

three fingers to the gods

“I will not capitulate

I will not perpetuate,

I will not allow less

than glossy-manual

goodness.”

please-thank you

badges

Five Reasons Not to Chase Bears

1. They lose all respect for you

2. (a) You are slower than the bear and, therefore, essentially chasing bear scat

(b) You are the same speed as the bear and, therefore, must commence with bear wrestling

(c) You are faster than the bear and, therefore, bored and the bear petulant

3. Such practices often necessitate the changing of scented products, including but not exclusive to: shampoo, perfume, lotion, and cocktails

4. They are carrion eaters

5. They rarely share

What's the Big Deal?

Doormats of the world and me

forming a quiet unassuming army,

go ahead, wipe your feet,

we’d hate for things to get muddy.

The Last Time

the last time I saw you

was like hooked fish on a sleeping line

a brief thrash in the exhaustion

of the ever present end

and the farther away the days between get

it wasn’t meant to go well

it was just meant to get

the denouement of act III

le entrevue of the next character

doomed forever to the shadow of your timing

lost forever in the oceans of schools

not only not got but certainly not get

not you in the thrash

not you in the unexpected loss

not you in the quiet need to lie

that this certainly couldn’t be

the last time I saw you

Would you like fries with that?

Wearable names,

wash-and-go personalities,

disposable mores

in a drive-thru world,

I’ll take life #5, plain and dry,

fluffed and folded,

branded anew.

Geography

her legs are at a rock concert, but the top of her is at the opera
her stomach’s stuck in the fall of New York
her eyes are swimming countless hours of a childhood summer
her ears are aboard the U.S.S. Dallas
her spine’s just arrived at Whispering Oaks
the back of her head is laying bricks
while her toes taunt evolution
and her left thumb makes a break for it
her first two chakras are lost in the woods making their way to grandma’s
her tongue is busy making pot pies
while her teeth collect dust in a box in Russia (Stalin never being able to believe for sure)
and part of her heart, yes, is in San Francisco

Passage

more

or less we’re bound

to roll down the river

to skate the ice flows

cracking up

our antics unimpressive

but enjoyable

nonetheless

not the less

for the scraped knees

and the bee stings

the hesitations if you will

and determinations

you must see

we must do

whether for or against

the to and fro

the sinister lip

and the rough-hewn jaw

the tears inexplicable

the monologue cliché

still

we must collude once more

our dizzying collisions

appropriate if dire

we must celebrate

we must chance despair

Classifieds

Well-polished nonstandard-sized gilt thumbtack
seeks similarly shiny furniture polish
for good times and conversation,
late-summer solstice rain dances need not apply.

Post-December sun warriors seek employment
with crisply laced herringbone corsets
for mutually beneficial hierarchal repartee
on a contractual basis.

Disavowed potentate desperate to move
reprobate Hottentots of erstwhile trysts
with dames of repute. No offer too low.
Delivery unavailable.

Three-hundred thousand boxed lunches
offered as silent protest to personages
of noisy redistribution. Each comes individually
decorated by chipboard wielding clip artists.

Noisy-headed Swiss-cheese maker
in search of like-minded waltz composer
for collaboration in construing an
effectively convincing dénouement.

The Sacred Umbrella

Each finger stings, cracked by the pushing and pulling
of quills shaken free from Rothschild’s porcupine
in the crisply verdant world to the south of south.
In and out, dying red the laces of spun perle cotton,
grown in the desert heat for fortitude against doubt,
binding eight panels of silk from the inhabitants of
the emperor’s private white mulberry trees gathered
from his tea by his long-fingered sly-smiled geishas.
The erstwhile queen, herself, donates her passé
farthingale stays as ribs for the canopy.
Gently attached by notched baleen, discovered by
Yankee whalers lost in the vagaries of time,
to the shaft, hand-carved from the eminent posts
of ash trees blown asunder by unseasonable tsunamis.
Waxed for the elements using the personal hives
of the blind Swiss scientist Francois Huber,
lacquered for the laity with the whispered secrets of the Orient,
blessed as beautiful by the Voodoo priest and his golden Christ
and the asylum escapees bobbing their heads
yes, yes, yes, not since big blue-skyed Nut herself, yes

So is borne, the sacred umbrella.