Ex-Lover Countdown

Do you remember when we were in love?

by J.W. Baz

There is an old mayonnaise jar hiding under my bed,

every day I shove bad memories down its throat

like my own personal museum of things I can't

bring myself to forget yet.

It is brimming with words I wish I could force

back into my mouth, the taste of playground gravel,

the smell of police station coffee

that wedding

the ride from the hospital

the lens flare a gun barrel casts in the sun

dodgeballs (lots of dodgeballs)

and of course, romance gone the way of the goldfish

I like to keep ex-lovers toward the outisde

of the jar.  I watch them as they press their faces

against the glass and beat their tiny fists upon the wall.

Sometimes when I'm sure no one is looking,

I roll the jar inside my palm and play a game I like to call

Ex-Lover Countdown.

Number 10

If you didn't know better, you'd have thought I took out a personal ad:

Single white male, 21, relatively attractive, enjoys poetry; seeks female 

willing to treat him like shit within the confines of a terminal, largely

sexless relationship built on grain alcohol and guilt.

Number 9

I had to stop and ask myself: Is it a bad sign

when you visit her apartment for the first time

and there is a pregnancy test on the top of the trash?

Dear Number 8,

I went looking for your passport

Found another man's underwear

I hope your baby gets lupus.

Number 7 showed me that when I put her on a pedestal,

it was really easy for her to kick me in the face

Number 7(a)

When she said, "Remember when I slept with your best friend?"

I wish I had something more witty to say than,

I'm sorry you did what?

Number 6 had a problem with silence, so she talked

the way she smoked, end-to-end, rambling

for hours about absolutely nothing, stopping

only to light another cigarette.  When she ran

out of cigarettes he'd turn the stereo up or burst

into tears while we kissed.  it was here I learned

that I do not have a thing for crazy girls,

crazy girls have a thing for me.

Her stomach was as smooth as apple skin.

Just before dawn I would graze it with the back of my hand

and roll from her tiny bed.  I'd get dressed hastily in the dark,

desperate not to rouse her though I knew she was not sleeping

I wonder now what might have been if I had stayed

until the sun wedged its way past the drapes;

would we have found our silence then?

Just before I gave my virginity to the first 

available bidder, Number 5 put on a Rusted Root album.

We writhed together like two savage, suburban warriors

in the dense thicket of the school parking lot

I gather Number 4 mistook me for some sort of superhero,

the machine she employed to grind out this town, steal her

from a fire escape and fly away.

She had a habit of tossing her problems out the window

presuming I'd swoop down and catch them.  She soon had a pile

in the alley; the neighbors had begun to notice.

I must have been afraid of heights back then.

Number 3

[with a bullet]

I had a premonition about her once; I've been gun-shot

and I'm bleeding, crimson staining white sheets, spreading

the way afternoon sun soaks the bedroom.  She's trembling,

but accomplished.  She looks forward to missing me.

The end is nigh and I'm staring at the ceiling, counting

flecks of nicotine embroidered in the paint, the same crack

I gazed into when we pretended f*cking

was more than just a virus befalling us.

Number 2, I'm sorry.

Number 1, for a record 86 straight weeks,

is you, curator of this museum.

Do you remember when we were in love?

Does the thought of it still glare at you

from across the room, tapping its foot impatiently?

Do you remember kitchens at dawn, running

from exploding cabs, diving teeth-first into frost-bitten sheets

because the heat never worked?

We were some kind of adventure.

All of this has been for you.

I've seen under the marquee where we used to meet

on Saturdays; the same pink scarf knotted around your neck

same valances of midnight strewn about your face.

Still a quiet exuberance in the way you lean in,

arms and elbows, with a new lover

kissing like the war just ended.

I'm glad you found your sailor while I was lost

at sea, how appealing memory lane can be

when you never look down.

Janus May Have Two Faces, But March Is Two Faced

While the rest of the academic world is on spring break this week, (or so it seems), having left teaching this year, I am spending the week working in a community club (I work in a school based club), shepherding small children from paper mache to soccer, with various activities in between.  I do this 8:30-5:30, and I come home and sleep for an hour or two immediately afterwards.  Maybe I should go back to teaching.

I have a surplus of pictures I have never got around to posting, so now I can do a cool weather/warm weather side-by-side outfit picture!  How serendipitous!  Oddly, I realize I wore this dress the first time to go to lunch in the Arboretum with my dad and step-mom, and then to shop in the Arboretum with my step-mom and step-sisters a few weeks later.  Another case of strange happenstance!?  Perhaps I just like the dress, or think my step-mom likes it, (I rarely repeat outfits).  This week, being a fill-in on other sites as opposed to a director on my own, all of my shirts say "STAFF" on the back.  Stylin'.  Except not.

Dress: Buffalo Exchange in Dallas
Jeans: Citizens
Sandals: Target
Belt: Little Rock boutique
Cardigan: Gap
Gold pendant necklace: Francesca's
Green pendant necklace: Boutique in Malaga, Spain
Ring: swag bag score from Etsy Austin and the Fashion Brunch

After taking last Wednesday off sick (my last antibiotic pill is tomorrow - horrah!) I took off Friday for the Fashion Brunch.  I took a few photos I will be sharing soon, so I'll make this picture of the ring I got in the swag bag (goodie bags for grown-ups?  yes please!) as my teaser picture.  I love it!  Somehow I accidentally made it home with a bag that I didn't originally have, and it's missing a few of the things other people got, so I must have swapped bags with someone who'd already picked through theirs, and this makes me super sad-face, as the cameo necklace and obi belt are some of the things I came home lacking.  But, I do love this ring, and Etsy, and Austin.  Just not the allergies.  So, still a win.

Now in between blowing my nose every ten minutes, being exhausted, and working a lot but somehow never having any money,  (seriously should consider teaching again), I don't know if I'll get to enjoy much of SXSW this year.  Triple sad-face.

Speaking of not having money and previously mentioned non-outfit-repeating, I'm imposing a shopping ban on myself, even if thrifting is cheap.  Cheap adds up.  I also vow to live off spaghetti.

Further, I'm making it a priority to read more print material and less google blog reader, as I often use it as a substitute for the cable TV I don't have, (I can not tell you how much I miss Spongebob marathons). 

Speaking of little kids and shopping, I want to share this Dallas Clayton poem from his website, (I took one liberty in correcting a spelling error, sorry, they're/their/there mix-ups get under my skin):

WHO MAKES THESE THINGS WE BUY

When I was too young to dress myself
my mom used to let me pick out my accessories
from the nature store at the mall
that sold crystals and magnetic rocks
and pins that looked like actual black widow spiders.

My favorite thing then was bolo ties,
the kind that fancy colonels from the civil war had,
with the two strings draped like a folded shoe lace.

I had five or six of these
each with different animals or rocks
where the tie knotted around my neck.

I don’t know what my fixation was.
I didn’t grow up in the southwest
and I had never seen any of these ties
in actual rotation on cooler role models
who might have inspired me.

I guess I just liked the idea of being
able to wear a poisonous bug
as if that was the coolest possible
function an article of clothing could have.

My best bolo tie
had a baby scorpion
claws drawn as if on the attack
encased in a bubble of hard plastic
and frozen for all time.

I wonder if that scorpion’s family
ever thought about where their child went off to.
Probably in their wildest dreams
they wouldn’t have guessed
“hung around the neck of an uneven-toothed
nine year old, dressed up for Christmas photos
and proud as the day is long.”

World's Easist Vegetarian Pot Pie Recipe

On Saturdays I am lazy, and on Sunday I am productive.  I feel as though getting up early for church and then coming home ready to get busy with cleaning, writing, etc., makes all the difference in the world.  I even cooked lunch for Lennon and me today after getting home, in what Lennon calls my "little house on the prairie look."  He better not be dissing on Laura Ingalls Wilder.  I attribute my love of poetry to her, ever since I found this snippet in her book These Happy Golden Years:

In the starlight, in the starlight
At the daylight's dewy close
When the nightingale is singing
His last love song to the rose

In the calm, clear light of summer
When the breezes softly play
From the glitter of our dwelling
We will gently steal away

Where the silvery waters murmur
By the margin of the sea
In the starlight, in the starlight
We will wander gay and free

(J.E. Catpenter)

I wrote those lines in a pocket sized green notebook I carried around with me in the third grade, after finding the segment in the Harker Heights Elementary library's copy of the book.  Being a pack rat, I still have the notebook.

So safe to say, I don't mind embodying the look:

Dress: Chili Pepper from Beyond Cotton

Tank top under: Old Navy

Cardigan: Target

Belt: no clue!  from Elle boutique

Boots: Steve Madden, on clearance right now

Necklace: birthday present, origins Etsy

Keeping up with the Little House theme, I made a vegetarian pot pie when we got home from church.  It is the world's easiest recipe:

Ingredients:

• Frozen pie crust
• 1 can 98% fat free cream of mushroom soup
• 1 can Veg-All
• A handful of shredded cheddar cheese
• Vegetarian chicken strips
  
• Salt & Pepper to taste

Directions:

1) In a bowl, mix soup, Veg-All, cheese, salt, pepper, and "chicken" strips snapped into smaller pieces

2) Fill pie crust.  If you would like, put a top on it with a second pie crust.  I left it open.

3) Sprinkle a little cheese on top

4) Fold over edges of the crust.

5) Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes.

Voila!  So easy, and much healthier than Marie Callendar's. 

I got posted!

On Contrariwise! I love this website. Normally when people ask me what my tattoo says, and I explain it, they look at me like I'm weird. And while this may be true about me, it's not because of the tattoo(s).

Let It Roll

by Prescience

One day left to memorize my poem before Friday. The organizers told us there would be 400 people in attendance. I may exhibit a public projectile vomiting in place of a poem. For the sake of the first row, I hope not. Fear of a jinx aside, it seems that once I memorized the initial draft of the poem, remembering the changes and edits I've made has been relatively easy. Adding logical transitions between each stanza also made it easier from the original draft. Luckily I have people in my life willing to listen to me recite the stupid thing over and over and over and over and... etc. till I get it right.

Oddly, the most difficult part has/will be trying to accept that it's ok to take up space with my body and make large gestures with the intention of holding people's attention. My usual tendency is to try a successful disappearing act into the nearest wall. Thus, the question I get seems to be: "so, why slam?" I don't know. When I see other people slam and do it well, I get anxious and annoyed that I have to stay seated, and I want to pretend I don't have horrible stage fright and participate. And, hopefully, be as good as they are. Patience and practice.

I really, really want these:

Moving Up

Despite arranging for movers who have a four hour minimum for payment, Michael and I spent the evening packing boxes with books and dishes to deliver to the carriage house. Michael is very methodical and measured every piece of furniture and the wall space between windows, then drew a diagram of each room to plot out where everything will go. I would never do this. I don't even know how to use a ruler. I love that he is the opposite of me in this way.

April is National Poetry Month, and I've noticed that on facebook, many people are writing a poem a day and posting them in their notes. I haven't had two seconds to sit down, until now, but I'd like to share in the NPM spirit, so here is a poem I started writing after moving my mom's things out of my parent's old house in Texas.

this is called: unloading your clothes at the goodwill.

I handed your shirts in stacks,

the slight warmth of your body
still clinging to pilled fleece and fibers.
we cleaned your closet out in one fatal blow –
ordaining the racks of a thrift store with
designer jackets and heels,
cracked leather running shoes,
your black pants with the strawberry print.
It feels like I'm stealing from you,
giving your clothes to the poor.
Creating space between each of dad's polos,
an entire bar devoted to hangers.
I look for you in your bedroom behind the door,
speak to the wire mouths of empty hangers,
the carpeted floor where your bare feet
stood to pick out a shirt every day.
They only tell me you
don't live here anymore.

Journal scan, July 2004

Half the Day at Work, Divided by Salary Divided by Hour Equals...

Today I spent twelve straight hours in my classroom. I arrived at school at 7:45AM, (chasing the bell, as usual), and left at 7:45PM, after the creative writing club meeting ended. The fact that the kids stay after school, (which ends at 3:30), that long just to read their poetry and listen to the poetry of their classmates, is amazing. Whenever I think I don't like my job, (usually at either 5:45AM when my alarm goes off, or Sunday night when I want to stay up late, or when there's a discipline issue in the room), I remind myself of how much fun working on poetry with the kids is, and sticking out the tough parts is made easier. That still doesn't negate beingcompletely exhausted after such a long day. Running in the evening gives me more energy, but there was not time for that today.

If I wasn't fascinated by "A Very Duggar Wedding," I'd be asleep right now. No kissing until the wedding day!? I remember events in my life based on who I was kissing at the time. Learning to drive? Chris. Quitting Naval ROTC? Dave. Etc. That means my life from the first one on is broken up into about forty segments. Good classification system. I suppose marriage will merit a new system, sadly. Or not sadly, actually. I'm learning simple is preferable, most of the time. ....As are qualifiers after every statement.

Michael and I move into our new, *two story* place on Saturday. I have not started packing yet. Procrastination leads to increased productivity when it really counts.

Trying to jump-start a high school poetry league in Central Arkansas, as well as work on becoming a writer with any sort of credibility in a world full of writers with impressive verse resumes, makes me feel about like this:

from unknown flickr account - need a credit!

Resolve

For tomorrow's slam at Community Bakery:

I also resolve to not compete with the same poems twice. ESPECIALLY not consecutively. I have two new pieces - and they may not be too terribly awesome, but I have worked hard on them. And I can't tell my students that hard work is a good system of measurement without applying it to myself. But with poetry, it's literally hard work, blood (paper cuts), and tears (self explanatory). Oh, and an absence of stage fright... work in progress. I also resolve to ignore the numbers or else I'll revert to childhood and reject future poetic endeavors because I didn't do "good enough." That in itself is no good, obviously.

Michael and I decided not to go to Cool Shoes tonight, (first time I've ever missed), in light of rest, refraining from spending money, and - for me, at least - time to work on poems. I love writing when I feel as though I can't NOT write. But if I could be in Atlanta right now with Joanie & Julia, I would - so come on Air Tran, fly to Little Rock! Digression.

In light of my fears of being sub-par and worthy of ridicule (although I know, by default as a human, I am), I shall repeat this to myself all day tomorrow:

"the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best."

- Henry Van Dyke

Poem in Progress

This is the efforts of today's vacation. Although, nothing is ever finished till you're dead. I read another new(ish) poem at The Poet's Loft tonight. Even though it was only an open mic, there were - at the most - fifteen people in the room, and I was standing behind a podium, my knees still shook. Weening myself off propanolol may take longer than I had hoped. Luckily, I have plenty for Saturday's slam, so no shake-n-bake here. Memorization is another story.

I have decided
I don’t like things with definitive beginnings and endings.
Final destinations and points of embarkment
Should be as difficult to distinguish
As finding the edge of a globe.
Clocks should become antiquated and rust
While calendar pages should track only dust.
And I should never be able to measure a heartache
From the moment he told me it wasn’t love till today.

But the days close like books on my ability to say that
After the end,
When I deleted his number even though he said
we could still be friends,
I weighed the value of each event spent together
and decided none are worth the rent
They pay to occupy space in my memory.
One an entrance clattering open like doors in a storm
And then the exit orchestrated like twenty cellos playing the wrong chord.
I have been jarred from my seat and shaken –
It wasn’t my heart he had taken
but the fluidity of my days.

Now, I like my fits and starts to blend smoothly and seamlessly
Into the next occurrence,
Like the edges of sheets overlapped in the laundry,
One long unfolding of days without birthdays,
Christenings, funerals or break ups,
Or any disturbance that corrupts with the abruptness of the unexpected.
I want one kiss to last until the next and
To not divide life into eras.
I do not want a fossil record of characters to collect and categorize.
I’d fail the test that required me to memorize
Where each face fits in.

If there were no endings,
there would be no date on a calendar
By which I can measure the length of his leaving.
When the screen door slammed behind him
And broke summer in half,
I heard the months of the calendar laugh at my attempts to
Divide the year into seasons,
To supply his absence with a reason.

Today, I will mark it on my calendar for something amazing to happen,
For a firework to hang stranded and suspended above my roof.
I’ll tether it to a string and present it as proof
That things don’t have to fade or end.
Linear time is a concept philosophy can’t defend.

I have classified my existence by landmarks,
Phases I label by the names of people I loved,
Our meetings and partings are commemorated like holidays.
But today I resolve to denounce anything that
Detracts from the sanctity of now.
Forever trails behind this second
Like a parent straitening a bicycle,
It grips the seat and promises to “not let go.”
I pedal the minute forward and keep eternity in tow.

I’m turning a new corner
Where anniversaries don’t exist.
There is only what is and always was.
Thus, if I love you now you may assume that
I always have and always will.
I will swallow eternity like a pill and
Insure that if I loved you before, then I do, still.
I refuse the exorbitant cost of an ending,
To watch something that soared descending.

Without a then or a now,
I already know all of the people I will ever meet.
Shaking hands will become a mere formality and
I shall refuse to accept absolutes as acceptable rationality.

I crumple the table of contents of life,
Erase the index and chronology,
And bend the time line into a revolving circle.
The only death I accept is that of definitives.
I close their door,
And welcome the infinite.

Creating an Internet Presence

It's amazing how long some things take. Or perhaps I'm just slow... always a possibility.

Over the course of the past couple months, I've been learning about the organizaiton Poets in the Street, as the two founders and C.E.O.'s will be moving in June to Chicago. It has taken me an hour to create a facebook "fan" page for this non-profit, and the page is simply fill in the blank. Clearly, I will need help in setting up a .org web address.

Working with the slam team I founded with two of my friends at the high school where I work has been the highlight of my year, and now working with the P.I.T.S. organization only makes it better. If only I could convince all of the administration to become fans, I would be set.

The fruits of my labor: Facebook "fan" page

Existant publicity: Myspace profile page

Sweating... in mulitple meanings

I just returned from my first (and last?) kickboxing class. This was not the kickboxing class I attended in high school. That one was led by an aerobics instructor, included lots of synchronized movement and was full of women who seemed too skinny to be working out that hard. It was a great work out - don't get me wrong - but I'm not an aerobics kind of girl. This class had about 5 women and the rest were big, burly men who wore real boxing shorts. I have not been this sweaty in a VERY long time. I want to believe I can commit to going at least twice a week, but when I signed up for Sunday yoga classes, I ran out of steam after the third week. I would REALLY like to build up the determination to go regularly, as I've been feeling uncomfortable with my body and dreading wearing a two piece. Perhaps this is bad, but I feel like buying a one piece is admitting defeat - it's saying I'm resolving that working out is no longer part of my life so I'm going to take measures to adapt.

In other sweating news, I'm supposed to close on my house on Thursday. There has been lots of issues with repairs of the foundation and the electrical work, so I simply reduced my offer, and haven't heard back yet. I also discovered, to my extreme chagrin, that my bank only accepts 3% of the closing costs from the seller's party, which is going to put me at least $1000 in the hole right off the top.

In double sweating news - I'm trying to work up the courage to compete in a poetry slam in May. I have no expectations to win, but I'd love to be active in the slam rather than simply an observer/supporter. I've brought two different slam poets into my classroom and my kids have loved them. I keep telling my kids to be courageous in both their writing and their sharing, so perhaps I could try taking my own advice.