Practicing Peace

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

Joan Z. Borysenko

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

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?

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.

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

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

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

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

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.