"I Don't Have to Explain My Art to You Warren..."

Waiting

2011-12-28T19:52:00.000-08:00

I’ve come home to molding fruit

cold air it’s because I’m rarely here

not to worry in a week or so

I’ll have a new home

empty rooms I’ll fill

with the remnants again of a life had

for 18 months and now this

the true break for some reason

this place feels like a holding port

the base of God’s hands

not purgatory where I’ve waited

like the poor with ear infections

in the ER waiting room

like me with an ear infection

in an ER waiting room

my name has been called

and the ear drum has already burst

I’ve let the liquid slide down my neck

again ill box up what I want

give away what I don’t.

My name has been called.

Letter to What Is or Will Be

2011-12-12T00:27:00.000-08:00

Dear bright future

tell me I’m standing in the middle of your heart

tearing up those poems I wrote

the last copies

on earth. Recite the number of teaspoons

of vodka in my veins. Help me breathe in

and out.

Stop him from saying the right things

from being honest

I need a fable

a landslide my own Jerry Lee Lewis

Let me be 16 and stupid again.

Let anything feel possible.

Jennifer Miller McIntyre

Cul-De-Sac

2011-09-03T02:44:00.001-07:00

I’m going to holler into the darkness

pray someone answers me back

for the road is dark and made

of uneven cobblestone. The needles press against my skin

the hobos glare children taunt I walk

alone dropping pieces of skin

dead mostly but I’m bleeding

tearing away at what can be seen

the epidermis is what causes trouble

dry and wet

cold and warm

sent out into the night.

I’m going to holler into the darkness

hope someone answers

everyone seems dead

or a million miles away.

Words go unanswered.

The SOS is kicked back into beach.

Sleep well into the darkness

I’ll be here washing and wishing

things weren’t stacked so tall

things weren’t falling apart

I gave away all of my thread

the needles are under my skin

a saw to check for my life

sifting and unable

to catch light.

Jennifer Taylor

When Looking at the Columbia River is Like Listening to God

2011-03-07T19:47:00.000-08:00

I thought of suffocation

I thought of sebaceous oil and dirt in pores

And how last night you said
I broke you

It was the most truthful
phrase you had said in years

one axiom I could
believe because

I myself had thought it true
for years

Felt the cracking
these clicks inside me

severed moments
where I no longer told myself

There, there now
But instead said

Ok, then
and felt the fissures

the truth packed down
the air kicked out

So, along I-84
as my eyes flitted with exhaustion
and my lungs asked for air

I thought of oil and dirt in pores

I thought of suffocation

The Goddess and Her Ram

2010-11-23T11:41:00.000-08:00

According to the stars
we only had a 50/50 chance of surviving
so I count it as a miracle
that we lasted this long. Perhaps the fire in you
could no longer stand
the dirty virgin of me and just set fire
to the whole thing
screaming just stay.

I took a cue from you
and lit a match, but sinking it
into soil never made a blaze. You attained
no bonfire in my perceived failure, only smoke.
Your coward of a wheat harvest mistress
is about small symbols of methodology
of waiting for the elements
to mate.

You lit your own match.
Your wild curled horns shone
in the light
and in your blue irises.
The shed of potting soils and tools
ignited as you vomited up kerosene to feed
the slow determined waves
your back rolling
the flames growing large
over the smolder between my legs
the matchbook
between my teeth.

When you had finished heaving
the sirens coming in the wake
I wanted to hover over the clover
and take the burn instead but
my toes hooked in the soil.
I walked steady
hand lying open the fence with a howl
never looking from a Southward
direction. I let the matchbook
fall where it may.

Jennifer Miller McIntyre

She Cannot Get

2010-11-13T23:55:00.000-08:00

She cannot get

this close to the fire.

She wants to wander the edge of your blade

and run it down her arm

like she did the scissors

when disowned by her sister.

In her mother’s bathroom

she cried, hoped to pass out

or submerge the edge.

But she couldn’t let the blood come

a mother

with a liturgical life long

job to be present for the multitude of cells
that turned into her child.

Her wrists are volleyballs for saints

walking tightropes of dirty needles in twine.

No one is going to love her

like her father does.

Paned windows cut through her in Paris–

saints in colored glass, Jesus’ crown of thorns.

Held against the chest of her faith when she looks forward

is the thought: no one wants to hear these things. How

she wants to depart but can’t. How she lives

and the way it blisters.

Don’t talk to her about your desire

the way you should have been

the things you should have said.

You are refuse

blowing in the breeze

on the Rue du Chevalier

that blew up her dress

and went on your merry way.

Jennifer Miller McIntyre

Hymn, "It Is Well With My Soul"

2010-09-13T15:11:00.001-07:00

"When peace, like a river, attendeth my way, When sorrows like sea billows roll; Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say, It is well, it is well, with my soul."

A Poem Too Good Not To Share

2010-06-22T08:39:00.000-07:00

PACKET
by Jamie Ross

A green light that comes
when you never saw it coming, never
heard it, felt it, but you knew it

like the woman in the sandlot
behind Abram's Grill
who's just lost her lenses,
on her hands and knees, her
hair cut short but seems as if
it's flowing, and the rush
on her throat like a rise
from birth, the music in the car

as the engine goes silent
while you fold down a seat
for the stashed beam lantern
with it's yellow plastic grip, six
Ray-O-Vacs, the
movement in the trees
beyond Lake Michigan. It's

a wave like that
when the wind gets lost
and the mail-boat from Racine, three
hours late, cracks into a tanker,
where the crew, like you, has
waited on the decks, in the hold
for two months out, to send

a message home—or to get a
certain scent, for just one instant,
of weeds, in the dirt, the both

of you groping.

Wall Project

2010-05-23T11:20:00.000-07:00

Records affixed to the wall with command poster strips.

Records: $.99 per record
Command adhesive: $1.84 per 8 pack.

= $7.64 plus taxes.

I am planning on adding two to four more records. I didn't realize how large the wall was!

Drinking Proximo

2010-04-26T15:39:00.000-07:00

I could tell you

what is waiting in the doorway

of concupiscence

but the answer is simple:

nothing.

My body is passing

away into the creak and fall

of pain--

the part where numbness sets in.

I can't feel alive.

The doorway is old

wood has been shaved off

paint peels in splinters

and the texture is rubbing away.

I placed a curtain of black over it today.

A shower of disgrace.

Partly Wired

2010-04-21T23:25:00.000-07:00

He didn't know if it was

red or white or yellow

that got the lights working again

that would put the flicker back into her face.

Twisting and stripping wire

so that the current can carry

through walls and into outlets

isn't his day job.

Isn't really

his job at all.

The radio dims in sound

the lights waver

and he jumps back.

Once bitten, twice shy.

Takes the time

to make sure his feet

are firmly planted-

left hand takes blue

right hand takes red

heels seized in boot sole

and go.

Cheryl Dumesnil Poem

2010-04-18T11:12:00.000-07:00

This is the poem I received in my email box today from poets.org. I love the meshing of a vulture and mitochondria.

Prayer for Sleep
by Cheryl Dumesnil

The chiropractor sent me home
with my left ankle taped, my neck
cracked, and instructions not to sleep

on my belly, so when it came time
for bed, I dropped a tequila shot,
laid back and closed my lids, entrails

exposed to vultures of bad dreams.
From the neighboring pillow,
my love whispered theories

of meditation, biofeedback, post-
traumatic stress, and prayer. When
she asked, "If a divine creator

made the universe, who made
the divine creator?" I mumbled,
"Are you trying to talk me to sleep?"

She smiled, then babbled
past midnight, contemplating out loud
the metaphysics of leaf production,

the wonder of molecules
that make up our bed, the web
of my cell structure connected

to hers, until I fell asleep,
imagining the mitochondria
of words, thinking, if god is

love, let me sleep to this sound of her voice.

"Like an Empty Restaurant Full of Perfume and Balloons."

2010-02-20T09:26:00.000-08:00

Rybicki Evening

Eating salmon with capers, herbed cream cheese

on toasted foccacia bread crested with red wine vinegar

marinated onions on a plate, rimmed in gold

water in a goblet, two forks, a napkin in the lap

then, to the bus station, to find a way back,

traversing the flat, black sea with someone learning to compose music

or so says the idiot’s guide in his hands or the man talking incessantly

about someone’s anger. Looking out the city is dark and wet for this evening

no longer smells like home

the rhythm of the city has changed–

it lassoed lights and smells it found in magazines

made a priority of miscellany or perhaps,

this mediocre nose and eyes have developed with the woman

layered under fleece and her father’s sweatshirt,

plodding along,

lost in a tidal wave of revelations and language

tireless when hunted.

Jennifer Miller McIntyre

A Surrealist Exercise

2010-02-15T23:34:00.000-08:00

Stage Left Bank

Seeing elephants made of clay

as you drive to teach youth

can never be a good sign

lights rise

men in distinguished hats rarely dance

Quick

moving boxes filled with spaghetti

curtains part

a woman sings a shrill note that goes from G to E

and back, no Bach, no concerto, just her sliding note

in the key of grass

Applause

Silence

A small dog timidly peeks out

a clay elephant in his mouth

forty-two teeth marks and a missing leg

A small boy runs in

thud of footfall

gives the dog a fedora to wear

placing it between the ears

then screaming one single note

the boy pogo jumps away

The play had never begun

Jennifer Miller McIntyre

Post-Workshop, Third Draft.

2010-02-03T16:45:00.000-08:00

Kingdom Come

She wants to be your apocalypse

the one who reins down the worth of you

and judges breath. She wants to be the force

that makes you unable to say no.

All you ever wanted was a yes.

She wants to be the one to forage you in her arms until

the horsemen bow their heads and raise their swords

letting their horns blow their last.

She will drop her wings on your threshold and still ascend.

All you ever wanted was a yes.

The mess of severance will be devastating, but you saw it

coming on the edges of cameras

that caught too much joy

fraud committed with eyes screaming death.

The stark contrast between worship and apathy

became a schism with no hope to bear.

All you ever wanted was a yes.

Wandering along the back of her neck

you witness what was supposed to be.

You both pushed and pulled

dancing as you desecrated each other.

But in the end,

there was no apocalypse.

It was the human condition

marked only by sinful behavior.

Treat her as diphtheria

to your penicillin. Mend her.

Only then will you both be

precise and defined.

All you ever wanted was a yes.

Jennifer Miller McIntyre

Sang à Vendre

2010-01-22T08:20:00.000-08:00

The dog could come in bleeding from a piece of glass
or pressure-cooked marinara sauce
could explode.

Marionettes could wave the communist flag.

A double-decker bus could go by
in London or eyes could sweep over
Matisse's 1911 studio.
its grandfather clock without hands.

Ladybugs could lay their eggs
on the tulips making up Mickey's
smile at the entrance to Disneyland.

The water at Normandy couldn't be documented in color.

The nurse could hold up the placenta
in the blue
plastic bin.

A railway car could go by
tagged by a blood.

And Clara Bow's lips
could have pressed
against the camera lens
as she wore
the matching boxing gloves.

J. Miller McIntyre

Practicing Peace

2009-12-27T22:53:00.000-08:00

"Every day brings a choice: to practice stress or to practice peace."

Joan Z. Borysenko

For this, I looked up a tube map...

2009-12-15T13:05:00.000-08:00

Bank of America

The parking lot

smelled like London

when I was looking for bookshops alone

around Leicester Square

where there were racks of silk scarves

folded neat with bright pinks and greens and gold

two for fifteen pounds.

I touched them, watching the shopkeepers

not sure if I would give in

and buy one or two.

They were nice but

with the exchange rate

they were twice that in American dollars.

So instead, I took a wrong turn into Chinatown

smelling the cooking onions and

bok choy in vegetable oil. I cut through a shop

and went back out. Later, I found a copy

of Naked Lunch that I paid too much for.

Have I Mentioned?

2009-11-19T09:46:00.000-08:00

In the fast food restaurant

out of the corner of my eye

sat a man, scruffily bearded

like you

with a baby carrier

and a woman, eating lunch together,

not unlike we were

just across the aisle.

The man had on a baseball cap

and would gaze into the car seat every few minutes

so much so

that he woke the baby up.

I know he did it on purpose

so he could hold the child

feed him

and tell him in an unhurried tone

that he was there.

As he lifted the child from the carrier

my attention turned toward the child’s toes

clothed in terry blue pajama feet

reminding me

of so long ago, our

now tall and brilliant son

kicking to the beat

of waking.

Professors of Other MFA Students Rock.

2009-10-29T09:20:00.000-07:00

This poem was shared with me by my fellow EWU MFA-er Laura Ender. You can read it by clicking here. Enjoy!

I Tell Form to Kiss My Butt Tonight

2009-10-25T23:38:00.000-07:00

Dropped Soup

Pulling the eggshell around the face
Thinking this is what Dali would do
Tear into something that breaks
And making it do what you want it too

Pressing parts that are broken back in place
When you don’t even care where they go,
Closing in when all is needed is the way out

Egg beater, egg whites
Meringue, yolk
Custard, melt the cream down
Find tough strings forming, toughen
Tight
Together.

Drop the pan.
Loud.

-J. McIntyre

Crazy Hummus Poem

2009-10-22T16:47:00.000-07:00

Discussion in workshop on Tuesday on how to write about the physicallities of love lead to me giving myself a challenge. This is the result. (Insert Law and Order sound here)

Opening/Sealed

I fear I will turn into this hummus and his

hands will sink into my garbanzo bean skin

and stay too long.

Then, I won’t request them anymore.

His fingers will find the errors

the misplaced crumbs

an unmixed ingredient that adheres to his hand

and doesn’t wash away with the first

rinse.

I do not make a good paste for hands to

go within, even if only made

of five simple components–

the lemon juice will always sting.

-J. McIntyre

No Parking Meter

2009-10-18T07:27:00.000-07:00

Metered Degree

Don’t fall away waves
the ones that make sense
by declaring the right thing to do.
No one wants to hear voices of
what will never work.
That this is a dream.
A failure.
A bad calling.

Waking up to tires flailing is
never what the tire dealer’s daughter
wants to hear.

There is no lull in a collar here.
No predicted, consistent temperament.
Only wavering certainty and misunderstood
consonants.

Free Form vs. The Sonnet

2009-10-13T12:30:00.000-07:00

The poem started as free form poetry:

Fine Arts Building

We spent a semester inside your walls

Watching them crumble as you heard us talk

Of Emerson, Ginsberg, Neruda and Earley

When you were used to Picasso, Rembrandt and fumes

Of paints and clay, worn and dried, fresh and cut

With nothing but humbled pride.

We made eggs in your eye stirring them till

Complete and filling to our mouths that wrapped around the

Words we learned to spout to each other.

To spend our last morning with you.

This is our forever, this is our hello

And it was our goodbye.

-J. McIntyre

Then, I transformed it into Italian sonnet form:

Fine Arts Building

We spent a semester inside your walls

When you were used to Picasso and Hume

and cut with nothing but humbled fumes.

Watching them crumble as you heard our calls

Of Emerson, Ginsberg, Neruda and Walls

Of paints and clay, worn and dried perfume. We

made eggs in your eye stirring them, gooey.

They bloomed, complete and filling to our mouths

which called around the words we learned to spout

wildly. This is our forever, this is

our hello and it was our goodbye.

To spend our last morning with other doubt,

while learning to live here without dismiss.

We will go forward, breathe and standby.

-J. McIntyre

Watching and making this evolution was not easy, nor exactly fun at certain times. But, poetry, I love ya. This is a good dance we have going. I let you lead this time.

Sandra Cisneros: Poem 0

2009-10-11T13:07:00.000-07:00

Full Moon & You're Not Here

Useless moon,
Too beautiful to waste.
But you, my Cinderella,
have the midnight curfew,
a son waiting to be picked up from his den meeting,
and the fractured marriage weighing on your head
like a crown of thorns.

Oh my beauty,
it’s not polite
to keep me waiting.
To send me reeling in a spiral
and then to say good night.

I smoke a cigar,
play a tango,
gulp my gin and tonic.

Goddamn you.

Full moon and you’re not here.
I take off the silk slip,
the silver bangels.

You’re in love with my mind.

But, sometimes, sweetheart,
a woman needs a man
who loves her ass

Sandra Cisneros: Poem 1

2009-10-11T13:02:00.000-07:00

"My Friend Turns Beautiful Before My Eyes"

Sir Walter Raleigh,
dimity and damask,
rococo and arabesque,
batiste and challis,
handkerchief and crumpled glove.

Love, I don't know
how you suddenly grew lovely,
why I never noticed last
summer, nor the summers before
when the hard sun died
anything before it bloomed.

My seasonal lovers have come and gone.
And you were there, friend,
cold as porcelain,
mute as the milk moon.
I was afraid of you then.

Did you notice
I never hovered
in the cab of your pickup
when we good-byed,
when the pecan trees
rustled and shushed.

A pink lantern burning
patient on my porch.
Nipped kiss. Screen door
slammed. I danced
barefoot with the cat

when I was alone.
Glass of wine,
candle, my brush
across my hair a hundred
times. And now,

here you are.
Little asterisk, little
How-I-wonder-what-you-are
upon my linen.

Incest! Error!
My head split in two--
half of me preening its feathers,
the other watching from
a stool and sneering--
Fool!

Sandra Cisneros: Poem 2

2009-10-11T13:00:00.001-07:00

I Don't Like Being in Love

Not like this. Not tonight,
a white stone. When you're 36
and seething like sixteen
next to the telephone,
and you don't know where.
And worse -- with whom?

I don't care for this fruit. This
Mexican love hidden in the boot.
This knotted braid. Birthcord buried
beneath the knuckle of the heart.

Cat at the window scratching at
the windswept moon
scurrying along, scurrying along.
Trees rattling. Screen
doors banging raspy.

Brain a whorl of swirling
fish. Oh, not like this.
Not this.

-- Sandra Cisneros

Sandras Cisneros: Poem 3

2009-10-11T12:57:00.001-07:00

Night Madness Poem

There's a poem in my head
like too many cups of coffee.
A pea under twenty eiderdowns.
A sadness in my heart like stone.
A telephone. And always my
Night madness that outs like bats
across this Texas sky.

I'm the crazy lady they warned you about.
The she of rumor talked about -
and worse, who talks.

It's no secret.
I'm here. Under a circle of light.
The light always on, resisting a glass,
an easy cigar. The kind

who reels the twilight sky.
Swoop circling.
I'm witch woman high
on tobacco and holy water.

I'm a woman delighted with her disasters.
They give me something to do.
A profession of sorts.
Keeps me industrious
And of some servicable use.

In dreams the origami of the brain
Opens like a fist, a pomegranate,
an expensive geometry.

Not true.
I haven't a clue
Why I'm rumpled tonight.

Choose your weapon.
Mine--the telephone, my tongue.
Both black as a gun.

I have the magic of words,
the power to charm and kill at will.
To kill myself or to aim haphazardly.
And kill you.

Forgetting Why

2009-10-10T18:05:00.000-07:00

Smell her eyelashes
and forget where the minute went
tossing legs that close tightly
over and over
pushing away the wandering pain
of numbness.

Confusion wrapped in
overreaction or
slow revelation
that hurts so sharp
that wandering toward it
feels like seppuku.

Kill her
quickly so that she
gets what she deserves–
awkward facial expressions
without time to
say goodbye, show remorse
or relinquish her last day of mediocre sins.

Things I learned from Tutoring...

2009-09-28T20:04:00.000-07:00

This is an excerpt from the notes I am using to help my student understand her reading homework:

"Sexual intercourse is the richest encounter possible, and out of this encounter a new being is created. The creative encounter is similar to sexual intercourse in its encounter, partial withdrawal pattern. The two opposites become united as in the creative encounter. It is this continuous experience of encounter and re-encounter that is significant in terms of creativity. The process is what is important. It brings change to both the subjective and the objective poles. The particular forms resulting from the creative process are symbol and myth, which reveal the relationship between conscious and unconscious experience."

Yeowsa...lol.

"Slowly, So Slowly, Slowly"

2009-09-11T18:32:00.000-07:00

Trident

Don’t call me woman

Unless you say I am

Your woman

In only the best way possible

That I am yours

Because you

Understand and

Respect me.

Don’t wait for me to make up my mind

When I have asked you three times

For your opinion

I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t

Want it.

Is it a contradiction

To want a man

Who is a man?

Who knows how to take care

And let me take the lead

As well?

Passing back and forth

Awaiting the other’s response

In a timely manner

Passing back and forth

Finding the clench in the eyes.

I don’t want to go forth

When the past is so close

Sitting in the dents of my shoes

Like the deterring bubble gum that it is.

Don’t call me woman

Unless you want me to be

Your woman

And you mean it

In the best way

You can.

J. McIntyre

An Observed Sidewalk Kiss

2009-08-25T20:07:00.000-07:00

Dance on Pavement

They were only going for a drive

or to the store

but he grabbed her with a ferocity

that seemed rough

but was instead a wanting so strong

that he needed to reach out

and take her

in his arms and kiss her neck in the middle of

the sidewalk

working up to her lips as

they both smiled.

As they went to their respective sides of the truck

(she drove)

He said:

Oh, I have chocolate on my shirt.

J. McIntyre

When Time Shifts Quickly...

2009-08-18T15:32:00.000-07:00

Veracity

She walks upstairs

and finds her friend

in his Japanese hotel room.

Her things are strewn everywhere

and she is 24 hours late for her plane.

Dresses and shoes

books and pages

run into her hands (push, push) and back out

with nowhere to go.

Now, she is in California

more of her things strewn around.

They will not fit back into the bags she has brought

even though she has bought nothing

aside from coffee and food.

24 hours late again.

Her belongings multiply in cities.

She gets lonely and these objects become bigger than she is.

They soak up disappointment and fear

lust and confusion

like spilt milk on an end table.

Back in Japan, she can only get the news in English.

Wanting to hear anything besides her (static, static) mother tongue

she walks back down the stairs, finds the dining room

and sits down with him

as he gets up to leave.

J. McIntyre

New Jon Sands Poem

2009-08-18T15:17:00.000-07:00

The Fishermen
for J.V. C.H. A.F. E.H. E.M.

Sometimes you dance slow
with your best friend,
while a woman you love
differently than you love Etta James

sings At Last into a karaoke machine
like she wrote it in the bathroom.
Sometimes every person you know is drunk enough
it becomes a new definition for sober.

There is a bar on the west side of Brooklyn
the fishermen call home,
(or they used to, when Brooklyn had fishermen)
like a siren carrying them back to their whiskey.

Sometimes there is tonight, and we are six people.
If we made footsteps that never disappeared,
can you imagine the lines we would have carved out to get here?
There are people who have called us their homes.

Tonight, there is family in the oxygen.
Sometimes, two people is its own person.
It has a lifespan, it gets hungry, it too, can lie underneath its sheets
and wonder how it can still feel alone—

Sometimes it is more.
There is a phone booth in the bar that seats one,
as six of us scramble inside,
we crawl up the walls until even our drinks fit,

and our bodies are rediscovering what it is to be possible.
It is one night when the clocks on a bar in Brooklyn
begin to spill backwards, then stop.
The bartender—still as a stalagmite,

and the perfect pour stays perfect.
The couple at the corner table held like
popsicle sticks in a freezer—
the ovvvvvvvv from I lovvve you suspended in the air

like a vibrating chandelier.
And we, with our slow dances
we with our songs
we with our smiles—
which on any other day are the downswing on a jump rope.

We are the last to go.
We are the last to go.
We are the last to go.

Empyrean Benefit Show!

2009-08-15T23:49:00.000-07:00

(Photo by Jon Iraundegi)

To help raise the 20,000 needed for the new sprinklers at The Empyrean Coffeehouse [link] there is going to be a "Burning Down the House" two day benefit extravaganza.

Get stoked, get ready to boogie and open your wallets and purses! There are going to be cool "Burning Down the House" T-shirts available for purchase as well! There is a $7 suggested donation for the show.

Here is the line up...
............................

Friday..

5:15-5:45 3 Years Later..

6-6:30 Hillary Susz..

6:45-7:15 Le Train Train Quotidien..

7:30-8:00 Mon Cherie'..

8:15-8:45 The Camero’s ..

9:00-9:30 Imperial ....Sparks......

9:45-10:15 Gas Masq ..

10:30-11 Free Times Synthetic..

.. ..

Saturday..

2:15-2:45 Natural Selection..

3:00-3:30 If I Had..

3:45-4:15 Green Light Go..

4:30-4:45 The Infernal Ukulele Trio..

5:00-5:30 The Sassmatrons..

6:00-6:30 Crimson Resolve..

6:45-7:15 Executive Smack..

7:30-8:00 Bodhi Drip..

8:15-8:45 Level Zero..

9:00-9:30 MY O.D...

9:45-10:15 A. P. Victory..

10:30-11:00 ....Small.. ..Town.... Nation..

If We Listened to Mother Nature...

2009-08-13T11:57:00.000-07:00

Mimicking Momaday

Water, I gave you dirt

expecting only clean skin in return

We ate berries and corn

together in silence

Two old souls

contemplating earth

Not so different, you and I

78% water is a good capacity for someone

Like me (fallible, fallible) to have

Leaps and bounds free us both

(down, down) at each others’ feet

Piecing together molecules to make your clothes

We fought hard for rivers

with our bare hands

Stood together in front of God

Or as they say Buddha Jehovah Allah

The sedition is not the only thing that matters

But it was never too much for us to ask

Of this earth that carries our skin

takes it back and forth and then

around again to all places we go

To the rooms where shadows quake

To the heart of kicked-off shoes

Forgotten till morning comes

You and I, Water, would

never abandon these pieces

that we have made whole

moving the familiar

and continued breathing

of lungs

Friends and Friends

2009-08-09T21:42:00.000-07:00

"Friends find their essential unity in their profound and exhilarating belief in the pervasive presence of God and in the continuing responsibility of each person and worshiping group to seek the leading of the Spirit in all things."

-New England Yearly Meeting 1985
Society of Friends (Quakers)

This quote is flexible. The "profound and exhilarating belief in the pervasive presence of God" can be interpreted as a joining together under the ideas of care, sharing and love (now I sould like I am naming Care Bears!). Friends are to be there for one another and support each others ideas, pursuits and be honest when it has to be said. I might be over thinking this but the quote struck me and asked to be shared.

When Christopher Howell Says Write...

2009-08-04T23:42:00.000-07:00

...a four stanza poem where each stanza starts with "The moon" and has more than 3 stressed syllables and no more than 5 stressed syllables, you do it. This is my attempt.

I Was His Fiddle

The moon kissed me and followed me home.

Untraditional lovers met.

I didn’t want to be rude.

The moon ate all of my cereal,

burped and sat on the couch.

He was at home.

The moon led me astray

to the bedroom of my own.

No door ever held so hard.

The moon left me in quilts

sewn by my daughters.

Only darkness came through the doorway.

J.McIntyre

Old School is New School.

2009-07-26T21:31:00.000-07:00

This is my current house phone.

In a time when most people are ditching their landline phones in favor of all cell service, I go to Target, see the crazy amount of money they are asking for cordless phone batteries ($14.99 PER HANDSET!) and instead spend $5.99 on this beauty. I am also currently scouring eBay for an old Desk phone (preferrably in black, blue or green).

In addition to this phone conundrum, I have to find a new cell phone plan before Halloween and it is proving expensive and difficult. I am not good with all of the "21st century" stuff.

July 24th, 2009.

2009-07-24T11:28:00.000-07:00

Wake.

Cereal.

Coffee.

Bike to Whitworth Presbyterian.

Stop at library to return books.

Bike Home.

Check email.

Talk to boss on the phone..

Drive to work.

Work.

More Coffee.

Drive home.

Bike back to Whitworth Presbyterian.

Bike back home.

Mow Lawn.

Shower.

Dishes.

Start a load of laundry.

Make dinner.

Read Middlesex.

Watch "I Could Never Be Your Woman."

Change Laundry.

Poetry Trajectory

2009-07-23T09:54:00.000-07:00

Unplugged

Passion

for passion.

Fire.

Eat fire.

The long lasting drops of agave

will sustain nothing without

a body.

A body full of

radiators

and HEPA filters

magic and dirt.

Empty cavern

tossed with

leaves of gray and green.

The old and new making

hunger.

The last time is

always the last time

until the next time

comes along.

J. McIntyre

Adventures in Painting Walls.

2009-07-21T14:04:00.000-07:00

My husband has decided that we need to paint the living room. Mind you, I never said I wanted to paint the living room, but humored him and we picked out a color together at Lowe's. It was too light. It can barely be seen in the photos below.

A few weeks later, his mom is here and he picks out another color WITHOUT ME and buys ...albeit a smaller sample jar...it is a sample jar of misogyny, nonetheless.

My husband then waits a few days then decides to put his color on the walls. I come into look.

I look up at the wet and drying spots on my walls.

"You know what that looks like right?" I say.

He smirks likes he is afraid of what is coming.

"Mustard. Baby. DIAPER BUTT." I say.

"Uhh.." says my husband.

"Yeah it looks like someone took a fresh, well-fed babies' diaper and wiped it on my walls!"

Needless to say, the "I told you so" and a "That's what you get for not asking your WIFE" were thrown around along with some very sarcastic laughter on both our parts.

So now, this is the current state of my living room walls...

...Help me!

Words From Rabindranath Tagore.

2009-07-19T23:38:00.000-07:00

"Give me the strength lightly to bear my joys and sorrows.

Give me the strength to make my love fruitful in service.

Give me the strength never to disown the poor or bend my knees before insolent might.

Give me the strength to raise my mind high above daily trifles.

And give me the strength to surrender my strength to thy will with love."

Rabindranath Tagore

Parenting in the Neighborhood

2009-07-13T22:04:00.001-07:00

My Son Andrew (above) is eight. I could not ask for a better child.

"When we choose to be parents, we accept another human being as part of ourselves,and a large part of our emotional selves will stay with that person as long as we live. From that time on,there will be another person on this earth whose orbit around us will affect us as surely as the moon affects the tides,and affect us in some ways more deeply than anyone else can.Our children are extensions of ourselves"~ Mr.Rogers

John Hick, Help Me Now...

2009-07-11T22:15:00.000-07:00

Alligator Watching

Time is

the weight

in our clothes.

Quentin heard it's clicks

in every simple motion

made

and had to run from

the watchshop.

One year

is too much

to bear

on the mind

so much can crumble

and fade.

One never wanted

to hit so hard

to bring pain

for once

upon

a smug

adult face.

To raise a toast

or a child

is a privilige

not a law.

Take one

Take two

take everyone

to the place Peter Pan

dreamed of.

Find that Neverland

sprinkle paprika

on their hands

and place them

just so

against sanded stone.

J. McIntyre

Best Spokane Local Music Venue in Trouble

2009-07-10T12:40:00.000-07:00

(Photo from thebackkitchen.blogspot.com)

The Empyrean is a place I thought I would NEVER see in Spokane. I mean...EVER. I thought that places like this were only found in bigger, better and cooler cities like Seattle, Portland or Austin. But then I went to The Empyrean and was blown away.

They serve coffee and beer? Check.

They have a cool venue space? Check.

They have cool bands to fill said space. Check.

All ages shows? Check.

It is the place my little brother has for music and poetry that I never had at his young age of 17 and I want it to stay.

This wonderful Spokane gem is in danger of closing due to new Spokane regulations. They need a $20,000 sprinkler system installed. Whitworth alum Kyle Pflug has posted a great summary of info and details here. Please read and get involved if you can.

I know I have many uber cool peeps moving to town to join me at EWU to earn our MFA's in Creative Writing. This venue will be the place we will hold the readings for Writers in the Community, it is the home of the Spokane Poetry Slam and is the place we will want to get together to hang out, relax and write to our hearts content.

I am all in to help. Are you?

Jon Sands Awesomeness

2009-07-05T20:48:00.000-07:00

This is Jon Sands.
He is awesome.

As is this pic of him with the characters from 
Where the Wild Things Are.

(Photo by Jon Sands)

His poetry and videos of him performing his poetry can be found here, here and here.
Google him if you need more.
I know you will.

p.s. In other slightly related news, a Where the Wild Things Are movie is in the works with Dave Eggers and Spike Jones at the helm (if you haven't already heard) and the recently released movie Away We Go was written (in part) by Dave Eggers as well.

I don't know if being way into Eggers and what he and his fellow Hysterical Realists are about ruins my street cred or not, but then,
I don't think I had any to begin with.

A person likes what they like...
and if you don't like something...
then you don't.

The Long-Legged House

2009-07-05T10:51:00.000-07:00

"We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives, so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption that what is good for the world will be good for us. . .We must recover the sense of the majesty of the creation and the ability to be worshipful in its presence. For it is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world that our species will be able to remain in it." --Wendell Berry, The Long-Legged House

Thrifting!

2009-06-29T21:46:00.000-07:00

This is my niece Nikole. She is staying with us for a month. Today, my brother C.J., my son Andrew, Nikole and I went thrifting. We had some great finds! Andrew found an old Stratego board game and some great books. Nikole and I did the whole dressing room thing and found these wonderful dresses. We then decided we needed to have an outdoor fashion show/photo shoot. Of course. ;)

Andrew gave her a rose off of one of my bushes to pose with. What a sweetie.

More of the white "going to church with Granny" dress.

I love this photo...even with the blurring...or because of it.

My little Washington Hippie.

The Black glitter dress.

Such a cutie. She looks so Audrey Hepburn-esque in this one.

"Let Me Be...Alice With You"

2009-06-28T22:04:00.000-07:00

"Every so often, we catch a glimpse of ourselves."

- Paula Goldman

I found a tape of my old band The Honeybuckets in our garage. It was a lot of fun to review what I had created with two other people and managed to put down on tape...yes...tape. My brother now records his musically creations with Audacity and posts them on his various MySpace band sites.

I got the most joy out of seeing the poetry that was made inside the songs and the distance I have come from those words strung together and how close I am to them still in the ways of secretive honesty, soul baring and slightly over the top undertones.

Frugal Adventures: Pita Pizza

2009-06-27T00:13:00.000-07:00

Homemade food can be fast food...yes!

Pita Pocket Pizza

Ingredients:

Forgotten pita pocket halves (out of the freezer)
Left over spaghetti Sauce
Shredded cheese purchased in bulk from Costco (I hate grating cheese)
Salt, pepper, dried basil (Andrew feels the need for dried basil on his pizza)
Fresh basil from the garden (this was my topping)
Bacon bits (also from Costco to carnivore-up Lucas' pizza)

I split the pita halves into two pieces and then overlapped them to make the round "pizza" shape. Added sauce, toppings and cheese then broiled at 500 for 4 minutes.

I really wish I had taken a picture of these pizzas. My son kept clamoring for more.

Here is a photo renditioning of said pita pizzas from instructables.com

I was also impressed that this makeshift dinner used up freezer and fridge leftovers, was altered deliciously by one of my two basil plants AND was a hit with my son and 5 year old niece.

I Cannot Control Everything...

2009-06-25T21:05:00.000-07:00

...only myself.

"A beauty calls to us, a wholeness that we know exists."

- Jack Kornfield

Pourquoi sommes-nous si stupides ?

2009-06-19T20:04:00.000-07:00

Automobile Dismantle

Shattered glass

Torn metal

This has happened before

To me.

A deer

Thought it was

a good time to cross

195.

It was wrong.

I love my country

Has been said so many times

And I do.

Please don’t forget

My thankfulness

My sorrow

It is all I have.

Children should have all the rights

Given to adults

To protect them

Keep them as righteous

As we adults are.

They know better what to do with it.

Toy cars

Barbie dolls

Candy

And pleasureable exuberance.