At Chocktoot's Black Buffalo Coffee Shop in Chiloquin
where it's all four seasons at once, as somebody here said.
It's currently sunny with snow swiveling down idly.
Poetry ruled the community center yesterday afternoon
where we filled the big room with words from the anthology.
This morning's before first period assembly featured
three anthology poets followed by a performance by
the jazz choir from Umpqua Community College in
Roseburg. One of the singers has a double bass voice.
WOW! One of them tap danced. Their closing number,
by Todo, may be titled "I Bless the Rains Down in Africa."
I'm off to paste corrections into the anthology - the down-
side of blind judging the work. After a morning of cutting
and pasting I'll spend 7th period with the creative
writing class. Here's a belated Crosswords poem:


Daily Crossword Puzzle Poem Draft from an unknown date, puzzle discovered (archeologically) in my purse just now:

All of us on this bus dress like Abba
we've learned the lessons taught by lava
have witnessed V's by pelican and goose
have faced orals though never Urals.
Urinal deligates too delicate to efface
all life creates, more Juliet than Romeo
given as we are to all that's lacy,
Kevin Spacey and the mystic BLT.

--

Okay then, love to all, and to all may
April snows bring runny nose
as another person said just now.

Working on a blog post for another blog, not my own.
Working with kids in a small rural high school - first day back since fall.
Working or hoping to work on making dinner for myself.
Done working on making kid poems big on 11 x 17 paper.
I may have mucked them up - I trusted the copier's auto setting to align the page pleasingly. The poems begin low on the page which is bothering me.
Never doing enough or enough right to feel I'm doing enough or enough right.
Names in the book were attributed wrong on a few poems.
I have bought more full page labels to remedy on each of the 150 copies these errors
than I will use in years. Will the stick-um fatigue? I am fatigued.
Clouds have returned after a warm, clear-sky weekend featuring the din of returning water birds and me walking the wetlands trail.
Sorry for neglecting this blog - I've been in and out of planes, trains, and automobiles without getting to room with Steve Martin or have the car catch hilariously on fire.
I was not stuck in Europe beneath an ash cloud, but I heard stories.
I'm at the Fred Meyer where there is wi-fi. There is no wi-fi where I live.
There is a warm bed, the hilarious novel THE ANTHOLOGIST by Nicholson Baker nearby. If you are a poet, it is funny. If you are me it is funny. Will anybody else titter into their William Blake motif flannel sheets? I bet somebody somewhere manufactures William Blake motif flannel sheets.

Because I am flying oh momentarily to Denver for the AWP Conference and haven't yet packed, and because where my tooth with its giant into my lower jawbone root is throbbing its time for me to post a daily crossword puzzle poetry draft. Duh.

DAILY CROSSWORD POETRY DRAFT 4/7/10 For My Dad's 86th Birthday

If I'd remembered this was your birthday I'd a
baked a cake or knitted you a scarf and cap
if I'd a known to knit. The little I was
reluctant to learn, so let me reframe:
happy day to you and sorry for all I did not
do. I own my failures, thankfully not adrenal,
and hold you dear as crayons like magenta.
You taught me how to read a map, to tap
the rocker arm to see if it would move, but
we've been cowards, never made a sort of
stand and time for that has gone like Picts.
I've wondered what's inside your shelly egg.
A party! to make you cringe like backslapping
so here's to you, Dad, and here's a tissue,
a potted rose, a happy birthday gesture:
cue the Triumphs, 240 Z's and helicopters
to flame the candles. Are you ready? Get set!