tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-257276282024-03-06T20:46:40.963-08:00nothing to hold ontoLaura Gamachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08138808864733284833noreply@blogger.comBlogger601125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25727628.post-58933440300825958942012-02-20T08:48:00.000-08:002012-02-20T08:54:33.237-08:00Daily Crossword Puzzle Draft ResumptionYou realize your conversations adlib<br />what you'd never tell - drag races,<br />drug tracks, anything that lined you<br />forward, threw you one-on-one.<br />Oh sun oh noneborn sons I'll never meet.<br />Oh rearing dogs and peacocks down <br />my street. So long I've been at sea<br />beyond the scent of maleness<br />behind the bars the unloved maned<br />and all of them amusable<br />What is the truth, the clandestine<br />destinies beyond the grave?<br />What would I save or never shave<br />for you? What would you break<br />to gain continuance? <br />How would you breathe if I left?Laura Gamachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08138808864733284833noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25727628.post-72204568144846012722011-11-02T09:18:00.000-07:002011-11-02T09:42:50.904-07:00To walk, amble, stride, stand on the Pont Neuf<br />to stare into Seine sliding around the point<br />of the Ile de la Cite on an Autumn afternoon<br />to wander idly lanes in Les Marais, to chance<br />upon medieval edifice or Roman bath or both<br />and pay the fee to view the Lady and the Unicorn<br />in its darkened room ah where's the loom<br />that shuttled six tapestries and who had money<br />to hang them? Pre-Norman kings your heads<br />are double-sized rubble in garden wall to outlast<br />revolution's rabble who might have broken your<br />already severed heads to unrecognizable bits<br />though we do not recognize other than that you<br />exist together in the restored refrigeratorium<br />we drop into rabbit holes, wave our Navigo cards<br />over purple swirl eh voila we surface where<br />we don't know where we are but do not care.<br />L'Opera Garnier hurts my eyes - too marble<br />too chandeliered too high the grand foyer <br />too tiled the floors though a blacony glimpse <br />of the opera hall ceiling settles me - <br />Marc Chagall no folderall - Swan Lake<br />and Tour Eiffel. The urine reek not only<br />when I seek le toilette it permeates it all<br />we do not gasp nor hold our noses but stare<br />until we have to leave to breathe. Shuttle out<br />through gift shop with its luminous ballerinas<br />to plug in at home. Along the marble flank<br />"What's this?" a woman with a mouth of golden<br />teeth holds forth a ring we must have dropped<br />she insists - oh yes this bit is still alive<br />I open my coin purse that spills a one <br />and two cent coin that send her off, disgusted.Laura Gamachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08138808864733284833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25727628.post-22659340117206773402011-10-31T10:21:00.000-07:002011-10-31T10:57:42.496-07:00All Hallows EveBesides, the pumpkin's un-jack-o'lanterned<br />and the grog's unspiced. Nice to devour<br />a spider's leg brew or two. Have you a keg<br />of newt's tooth beer, or have I come here<br />misinformed? What looks like an eye I'll pop<br />from your forehead and eat. What do you<br />most wish to hide? Does your pride hurry<br />home with a smile or does it beat you<br />with a broom? What loom will you weave<br />your story on? Your ghoulish fate's revealed<br />there'll be no healing here and what's <br />begun will too soon end in corridors too-<br />bright with chlorox. Your wig's askew<br />and no one will ask you to the ball.<br />Venice sinks as we speak though every day<br />they play damp-booted and cellars non-<br />existant. In an instant the pageantry<br />is moot. What is more destitute than hope?<br />All that glitters is not a thing a ghoul <br />can hold. The empty chair,the hair <br />that lenghtens, nails, teeth, ears <br />and nose that grow grotesque and<br />pendulous. Oh crones, envelope us in<br />wax lips and dollop our throats with<br />sugar blood. A candy kiss in a paper bag,<br />a pumpkin's sunken smile. Ah mold<br />is black art too, and potions not all<br />that set in motion spells that crackle<br />upwards in the night. Sweets tribes ring<br />our bell who smell of nougat. They wear <br />ills they do not feel - a bloody wound <br />half-peeled from shiny face,vampire-fangs, <br />lipsticked mark by reddened lips, black goo <br />for absent tooth, witches' brew of licorice <br />and lungwort, fort of fern fronds down<br />the trail. Life entails too few performances-<br />shout and carry on, we're too soon gone -<br />what beauty lies where there be dragons?<br />Drink your flagons, pull snot-tied seeds <br />from pumpkins before they sink<br />another season you may not share. Care<br />that those who follow are already here.<br />Why should they climb to your spider-webbed<br />lair when the caramel apples melt down here?<br />They walk forward with lanterns, we founder<br />in marshmallow goo, heads whirled <br />like sugar on a paper cone. There's<br />a home inside the darkest wood. The finger<br />gnawed to bone chills us for a coin,and<br />grisly goblins leap and lear - our neighbors<br />gotten up and if you won't be taken in<br />or played the fool then lie down here<br />and let the hatchet snatch the squash<br />from off your neck, oh Ichabod no horse<br />to ride where Sasquatch claims mountains<br />tangled with ghostly lore, rivers swim <br />with corpses and our beaches slap with icy<br />fingers to rip away your scream and bury <br />you in sand. Not wit to say we cannot<br />stand like Ozymandias, visage vast <br />as rock can make it - look on my works <br />ye mighty - but they never will, <br />so drink this beetle-beer and scuttle out <br />like one who's died. I'll YES paste a pearl<br />beneath my eye. Was that a wolf? We be<br />ruthless as babies all hallow's eve.Laura Gamachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08138808864733284833noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25727628.post-5084633533158240692011-10-13T09:21:00.000-07:002011-10-13T09:34:32.960-07:00New York Times Daily Crossword Poem DraftPounding corn for masa on the mesa<br />we watched sun rise, set, the staple<br />crop in the diorama at your expo.<br /><br />We women want rhythm and no terror<br />to speak and not be branded hag<br />ah men, we say, you and what army.<br /><br />the wildest of us joined the orders<br />faced their fill of stones and styx<br />it takes no balls to follow leaders<br /><br />Readers, what ever, the ova<br />wins no matter the make of your car<br />or how Maya worshipped jaguar<br /><br />cenote under full moon, an early<br />riffle, dart into your heart<br />easiest to fall apart.Laura Gamachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08138808864733284833noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25727628.post-13026946560908436072011-10-05T10:12:00.000-07:002011-10-05T10:23:33.321-07:00New York Times Crossword Poem DraftIs all fair foul or fowl my brother in my<br />father's basement that comes with troll<br />who stole whose sanity for I've a code<br />to break and trails I'd rather take<br />than these. Photos on a stick no Bond girl<br />dreamed and I've a job to do so help me<br />sooth my father's woe and so to work<br />I oughta for blood etceteras to water.<br /><br />--<br /><br />you're maple leaves and I'm the raker<br />you're the target, I'm the dartLaura Gamachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08138808864733284833noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25727628.post-74082310043655713152011-10-04T14:02:00.000-07:002011-10-04T14:12:21.647-07:00New York Times Crossword Poem DraftAwe and alleluia tucked away, the alcove's<br />dark and safe. Who now will wield crop<br />on each? To reach with wit and sting<br />oh anything can make me cry, and why<br />this ugly leaving, calendars damp<br />with grieving, and noone I can call<br />no matter how you whipped me rageful<br />I miss your laugh at my expense, at<br />yours, and dad can hardly move without <br />your chiding. We abide and toss and turn. <br />It's weird to yearn for you who wound <br />yourself so close I hardly breathed.Laura Gamachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08138808864733284833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25727628.post-31971935948361041312011-10-03T11:53:00.002-07:002011-10-03T12:08:08.759-07:00New York Times Crossword Puzzle Poetry Draft<br /><br /><br />A new week dawns, we're out of Q-tips<br />the crosswalk yawns with apes.<br />A passing car, a lofted glob<br />oh autumn rain, ah puddle jump<br />it's new, the raincoat isn't rote.<br /><br />A note: my uncle's 92 no end<br />approaching. His belly's open<br />suctioned by a pump, his<br />daughter home to help. Removed<br />the hanging fly strips from his view.<br />Oh purple purple eggplant in<br />my arms, the plums and pears<br />and peaches bend the trees as we<br />load another box and pick, eye<br />watermelon, cleave beets from soil<br />and carrots from the silt<br />what lilt this action gives my eye.<br />We say good bye, head east, auto<br />full of dinner and dessert.Laura Gamachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08138808864733284833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25727628.post-23361715807329538322011-09-28T05:58:00.000-07:002011-09-28T06:10:34.189-07:00Staring out the window as trees and wind play Martha Graham<br />Sauntering the neighborhood as plums fall from a neighbor's tree<br />and what does it matter if I begin every line with a gerund?<br /><br />Families, they f*$( you up. you know the poet, and the Granta issue<br />Why poetry? These comfort me. <br /><br />Too much time with family<br />they look like me and we have history <br />and pathology in common<br /><br />My Mom is gone and my rhythm is jangled <br />no matter how terribly we danced together<br /><br />School year beginning I arise and soon<br />will go now into classrooms<br />my friend says she feels privileged<br />to work in this system she opposes<br /><br />and I admire those who meta-think<br />and those whose arithmetical mode<br />is to add themselves to the equation<br />and I want to go on a vacationLaura Gamachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08138808864733284833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25727628.post-6617070187155685192011-09-27T08:41:00.000-07:002011-09-27T09:03:05.631-07:00New York Times Crossword Poem Draft<br /><br />Once saw-toothed tigers saw to<br />the vermin, and camp<br />meant dogs around an aura, lath<br />met plaster, last night, last year, I mean<br />before the grafted apple and oboe,<br />before the plow, Euro never<br />met yen, the trilobyte, and a cobra<br />rose without a basket, no one asked it<br />but we share the ride<br />with oh who knows but all is faster<br />than despair - I cling to the spar<br />and far off land fades, a sprinter<br />from a burning building, present past<br />and I didn't ask, and now it's ash<br />as I will be though I want to burn.<br />I'm out of tune, you hold the hymnal<br />I cannot hear, you're not aloof<br />is anything indelible? Erase<br />what trace we leave, our fallen sash<br />another chistled stone.<br />Don't leave me alone, I need oomph<br />for every tibia and ulna<br />There's ahead to love not just a sled<br />ride down and out but grace<br />before the years-off grave.Laura Gamachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08138808864733284833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25727628.post-90232676224662099662011-09-10T17:49:00.001-07:002011-09-10T17:54:24.043-07:00View of Mt. Rainier from Paradise<br />wild flowers in spring bloom - September -<br />lupines and crimson paint brush -<br />purple! magenta! the upper slopes<br />puff painted green below the hem<br />of white snow, glaciers stark <br />and stippled with crevasses beneath<br />a sky painted crisply blue. Summer's<br />new pearly everlasting and a marmot<br />chewing placid as the neighbor's cow<br />if the neighbor had a cow.Laura Gamachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08138808864733284833noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25727628.post-88612505200954026552011-08-30T11:12:00.000-07:002011-08-30T12:13:42.656-07:00in her last days my mother croaked
<br />she rasped a phonecall was disaster
<br />she'd been ill so long, she'd lost her sight,
<br />she could not hold a pen to write,
<br />and then, good night, she could not speak.
<br />we'd made amends had become friends
<br />like all we love it had to end
<br />I'm not philosophical like George Harrison
<br />amen.Laura Gamachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08138808864733284833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25727628.post-44743079491121201832011-07-19T09:20:00.000-07:002011-07-19T09:31:30.221-07:00On the road many a which way<br />proof of too long gone<br />I left my notebook<br />in the Wallowas.<br /><br />Fishtrap folk found it<br />it's coming home<br />who knows who read what<br />probably nobody<br />boy do I feel exposed.<br /><br />Gray day east of the Cascades<br />I'm more blue than gray<br />not ready not ready<br />to do what I should do.<br /><br />Let's all run and play<br />lie in the sun and not care<br />our skin is folding pleats<br />in face and neck <br />let's throw ourselves<br />into the lake and not care<br />it's so cold too cold<br /><br />Let's not only be me<br />let's be a tribe<br />like my little brother<br />and his "mans" <br />when he was four<br />before what came<br />I won't name<br /><br />the ravens cry their raucous cry<br />they fly at each other and lash beaks<br />they'll devil the bald eagle<br />until he drops the fish<br />if he catches a fish<br />don't you wish the world<br />was more benign<br />that when your friend says<br />"I'm fine" you believed her.Laura Gamachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08138808864733284833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25727628.post-7636952160614277292011-07-07T09:10:00.000-07:002011-07-07T10:35:16.197-07:00I wrote this morning <em>en plein air</em> <br />my pen a whimsical cudgel<br />walloping my malaise calmly<br />as mayonnaise. The lesson<br />we never learn or I don't<br />is to get up and go again<br />all is forgiven in doing<br />all done is done and sun<br />wags no accusatory digit<br />I go low in disbelief until -<br />relief - I lift my pen again.Laura Gamachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08138808864733284833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25727628.post-39398106863957830872011-07-03T11:00:00.000-07:002011-07-03T11:14:53.861-07:00New York Times Crossword Poetry Draft<br /><br /><br />oh blinkin bladder oh latte<br />Lizst me Bach in g clef<br />squirt me a dash of PAM<br />thunder me not your Eliot<br />swami swim my past Irani<br />I bet it all on number seven<br />oh heaven oh Hook my Smee<br />we sing we suffer apnea<br />we see the shooting star<br />that ran the sky, the gamuts<br />of lives in crusty relics<br />the Ottos, oliphants and Omars.<br />ask not but genuflect for oil<br />run we now the bulls in tutus<br />the real McCoy Fibber Magee<br />McPhee monkeys masked in panic<br />oh manic mayonnaise oh maize<br />amazing Incas, you nod tsk tsk<br />we backward bend the blarney stone<br />go home to lives less large<br />no Haydn on the barge, ink<br />fodder, a rabbit's foot<br />in boots more agile<br />but fragile as Ionic<br />columns underground your zit<br />ginormous as your earlobes<br />and no respite from trash.Laura Gamachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08138808864733284833noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25727628.post-53551510269428231312011-07-01T10:29:00.001-07:002011-07-01T10:48:38.067-07:00today I may get a loaner car<br />my knight may fly over the pass<br />swoop me into the passenger seat<br />and whoosh me back to Chelan<br />or I may drive in a loaner.<br />Meanwhile my yellow car<br />sits waiting for a new hose<br />a $250 hose because of biodiesel<br />says the guy who acts as go between<br />between me and the mechanic.<br />the guy who when I kept questioning - <br />this seemed overly coincidental <br />that the hose goes just after<br />they don't top off fluids<br />when my oil was changed<br />oh! and at the top of the pass<br />with nowhere to turn off<br />and a red light yelling<br />that I must stop<br />so that I illegally called<br />the service department<br />and engaged the very young man<br />who answered in a dialog<br />that included the question<br />"Did you guys give me a wall job?"<br />and then, "Can you go check<br />with the tech?" and then<br />a little unladylike speech<br />when the reststop had pit toilets<br />and no water. Though I had<br />a quart because of modern<br />hydration needs - a red no-peta<br />nalgene. Is it peta? <br />Yesterday morning the go-between<br />asked if I ever put biofuels<br />in my car. Yes. <br />He said they have<br />solvent properties. Yes. <br />He said biofuel got on the water hose<br />and over the years softened it<br />until it popped a hole. Hmm.<br />Coincidental, don't you think?<br />He said if I was going to be distrustful <br />I could go elsewhere. But really, <br />I said, doesn't it seem <br />the least bit odd?<br />My friend says he'd <br />never have said that to a man.<br />As a relationship driven woman <br />being told I was being distrustful set <br />off my anti-confrontation bells<br />so they still have the car and <br />I will pay for the $250 hose<br />and the how ever many $$<br />it will take to unhook<br />the flaccid one <br />and strap on<br />the new rubber. <br />Yippee Kai Yay<br />as Bruce Willis would say.<br />Peace Out.Laura Gamachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08138808864733284833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25727628.post-76534187279758361922011-06-30T17:38:00.000-07:002011-06-30T17:55:08.485-07:00I visit my two friends' suburban book store - good to talk books: Let the Great World Spin, Little Bee. They're staying open, buying fewer books, selling fewer books. I asked about Bonnie Jo Campbell's new book - it isn't out yet, but I'm sure I'll love it - having read the great article in the latests Poets & Writers. The author had a photo of Annie Oakley up on her wall for inspiration. Learned to shoot as part of her book research. The book is set on the river, and might be called On the River. Or something like. I wanted to be Annie Oakley, except I was afraid of guns and horses and couldn't really walk that well. The Wild West Shows were gone.<br /><br />I bought STATE OF WONDER by Ann Patchett. I hope I like it. I've read lots of things lately I have around the house with bookmarks in them. Books I left listlessly. <br /><br />I sent in an essay yesterday - overnighted it since the deadline for RECEIPT not POSTMARK was today. I spent two hours revising in Kinkos before the 4:30 FED EX pickup. I made the pickup. Rereading the essay today I see I buried my first paragraph mid-essay. Perhaps they'll be charmed by the intentional (HA) oddity of that. Perhaps a punch will have been packed. I spent a lot of money to send it, mostly because I wanted to honor my promise to myself that I would send an essay this year. I have little illusion that the piece will win. BUT I SENT IT.<br /><br />I wait now for my friend to meet me for dinner. I am driving my daughter's car, knee deep in food wrappers and starbucks frappucino cans.Laura Gamachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08138808864733284833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25727628.post-28952421559706955102011-06-17T11:13:00.000-07:002011-06-17T11:38:45.469-07:00imperative: write anything so that last post doesn't <br />impose itself on me everytime I pull up internet.<br /><br />Pull up in front of internet?<br />on my ebon steed with the flaring nostrils...<br />in my Morris Minor? (which is still FOR SALE)<br /><br />Pulling out of town once the yellow car<br />gets a new front strut, oil change, <br />headlights that glow even when you don't <br />leap from the vehicle and whack them<br />again and again with both fists.<br /><br />Technology Development of the Day:<br />I have broken the adaptor that supposedly allows the tiny new-fangled SIM card to plug into my computer so I can download the photos that are too large to send to anyone - except for a few of them for reasons I do not understand. Perhaps the phone is whimsical. It is not a smart phone. Everyone else in my family can go on the internet on the go, can check email and e-cetera. I campaigned to get internet access for my not-smart-phone. For $10 a month, I can see some whirling and an ATT homepage inviting me to go to an ATT preselected site. I can get email only if I pay another $5 a month. Probably if I wanted to do something outlandish such as looking at or posting to my blog I could pay another $5 a month. I'm going to pay the additional $5 a month for a month. If it is still ridiculous (also with text so small that bottle bottom glasses may be required) I will disconnect and continue as a phone user who uses her phone as a phone. An acquaintance, the same one who commented about my new haircut that it made me look, "like an older lesbian," made fun of my phone yesterday. He doesn't understand why his marriages don't last. (not simultaneous ones.)<br /><br />On the docket for today:<br />(checked off already) Push Q's tricycle around the neighborhood while Q steers "go right!" and she does! "go left!' "Straighten her out!" She likes to repeat, "Straighten her out!" She also likes when I recite my poems to her. "I like that sponge poem," she said yesterday about a poem I'd said to her the day before. We like to say nonsense rhymes together, including "baby, caby, daby, waby, saby." She's a new big sister. This has its drawbacks. Baby R is two weeks old today. Q hasn't asked that she be put back in the womb as her mommy did when her younger sister was two weeks old, but this is on her mind, I think.<br />(checked off already) Went to VW dealer and made appointment yellow car<br />(yet to do): get mail forwarded to Chelan. There's a check in the mail from a person who's renting in August, so gotta go to the house and check mail daily 'til that comes, THEN put on mail forwarding. Mail forwarding takes 7 days to actually forward.Laura Gamachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08138808864733284833noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25727628.post-70069396728454466712011-05-24T11:50:00.000-07:002011-05-24T11:57:39.840-07:00Suck marrow<br />from what's been given - <br />it is never enough.<br />Scream when<br />platitudes pelt you<br />with <br />soggy righteousness.<br />Love is given<br />on paper plates<br />like store-bought cake.<br /><br /><br />---<br />Putting together poetry books for 3rd and 4th grade classes. I'm excited about searching out embroidery floss and an awl (or a nail from a hardware store, and a flat rock.) The kids will lace their books together tomorrow. We revise today! Some kids say "I don't want anything in the book." I ask again, "I'm alright," a boy says, as though I offered a second helping of green beans. I say everyone will get a copy. "I don't want one," says one girl. Three kids in middle school turned away their copies of our book. "I'm stupid," says the 4th grade boy who asked the earth to teach him the cleverness of the jaguar with its camoflage. He used the word "camoflage." He comes up with five more poetry lines, with me taking dictation. I am determined the book will have work from every child, not only the girls. The boys resist, but the teacher and the aide sit one on one, encouraging, taking dictation, like me. Each 4th grader turns in at least one poem. Some are excited about them. Maybe even proud.Laura Gamachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08138808864733284833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25727628.post-84579257457544749812011-05-23T07:47:00.000-07:002011-05-23T08:11:21.363-07:00New York Times Crossword Poem DraftCloud white sky, drive north, latte<br />in the cup holder, something in G clef<br />on the radio. Dial sticky. No Pam.<br />Commentator speaks in French or Irani.<br />The views inspire awe and apnea,<br />too light for brights or shooting star.<br />How far? NPR has run its gamut - <br />I listen again - a piece about a relic<br />the one that makes my hips ache - oil<br />and the Al- whatnots and Omars.<br />Twirl the dial as though it were tutu-<br />Sylvia Pogolli, a spot that shows me how -<br />red car on my tail, I flail and panic.<br />Antics? Let them age like stone<br />let sun warm to my foot sole<br />give me time with book and ink<br />and time to profer agile<br />pronunciations - Corinthian, Ionic -<br />Doric - I am not being metaphoric<br />the litter at the rest stop tops<br />the ancient tourist drive thru cedar<br />with the roof to keep out rot - <br />my aching eyes and earlobes<br />trash cans haloed with trash.Laura Gamachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08138808864733284833noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25727628.post-78824735096271759872011-05-18T15:33:00.000-07:002011-05-18T15:49:33.117-07:00Lock Down DrillThe third graders are choosing crayons from the teacher's cache, and passing the beaver-chewed yellow willow stick that looks like a canoe when a woman's stern voice over the intercom says, "We are code red. Teachers, lock down your classrooms." The teacher instructs the children to sit against the wall of drawers, and locks the class door. I tug at the window blind, which doesn't descend past 2/3 closed. A string hangs loose above my head. The teacher brings what she has, a poster, a large box holding a board game, to block more of that window. We join the line of children sitting silently, though some whisper. The teacher says, "you must be totally silent. There is an intruder in the building. We don't want him or her to know we are here." I was in a lockdown drill at an elementary school a few years ago. The kids were far squirrelier than these, I think to myself. I don't know if that's really accurate. I was thinking many things to distract myself from thinking this might be real. I was nervous about how open that window view was. If anyone were outside on that side wishing us ill, that person could aim easily through that huge opening. A girl sat one side of me, a boy on the other. Twenty-five minutes later, when the woman over the intercom informed us the red alert was over, the boy offered his hand to help me up. The teacher told us this had been a drill. She answered questions from the kids. One girl offered, "an intruder can be your father." Time for P.E.; I left the building.<br /><br />---<br /><br />Maybe a child <br />falls flat<br />skins a knee<br />that awful bump<br />the silent moment<br />the wailing<br />a fall is an abandonment<br />a surrender<br />a loss of innocence<br />as the scab hardens<br />and falls<br />will always<br />have beenLaura Gamachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08138808864733284833noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25727628.post-23599427088398943262011-05-17T15:03:00.000-07:002011-05-17T15:42:29.770-07:00In the left rear rectangular basin<br />of this segmented school lunch tray<br />sits an orange, green and yellow<br />jumble slipped from serving spoon,<br />a humble geometry demonstration:<br />spherical dented peas, carrot cubes,<br />green beans clipped into one-inch<br />lengths, corn kernal purses. As <br />a child, I spent hours at the table <br />from dinner to bed for refusing <br />to ingest ancestors of the specimens<br />I almost do not eat today, but for<br />the fourth grade boy beside me, <br />pushing peas around his tray.<br />---<br /><br />The sun has come back from vacation or the sanatorium, to lighten this afternoon, my mood, the pink-purple-green hair of the woman at the crosswalk - her hair like the popcycle man's rocket bar.<br /><br />Having published the poetry book for the junior high kids I now bring in models for poems of identity. I've lost the conviction these poems should be shared willy nilly - thrown on Community Center walls and into collections, these kids are so vulnerable to reprisals and physical attack. Many of them write about physical attack. They trust me, and I am tired of feeding their real pain into the fundraising machine that keeps me coming into classrooms. Thursday I saw again the power kids find in writing what they know, they've gone through, and this is real. I told them these poems were between them and the page, to stay within the walls of the room, to, if they wanted, be shared with me, their teacher, but nowhere else unless they chose. <br /><br />They do not read them aloud to each other. <br />Each is a sovereign nation. <br /><br />One girl turned her desk to the wall to write today, hunched close to the file cabinet, shielded then by cabinet and wall, faced away from classmates either working or wiling away the hour cutting eye holes, one boy, from his paper, to make a mask, pretending, one girl, to be a horse and galloping from one end of the room to the other. Two writing resistors began poems in which they claimed to be selling drugs to the teachers. "Make it worse!" I said. Each wrote a complete poem. The poems were wicked-funny. One of them boys wrote "This is a lie" in the middle of his poem, then upped the stakes of evil activity, and the other ratted the mythic drug sellers out at the end: "If you want to find them, they're in room ###." A few weeks ago two teachers failed an in-school drug test. Each teacher in the school was led from her or his classrooms in view of the students by two folks from security. The two teachers were fired. <br /><br />I had advised the kids to follow the pattern of the model poems, including student work, to write "in third person." Two kids sitting together couldn't get started. When I said, "make it about you, even if you lie, but tell it as 'she/he did this..." not "I did this." They told me nobody ever had explained third person before. That's possible. Or their self-protective armor kept them from listening at the moment this fact was revealed. What these kids need is not curriculum but connection. Is that a buzz phrase? I also know kids who can't write, can't read are expert at distraction, at derailing the process that will lead to the reveal.Laura Gamachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08138808864733284833noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25727628.post-38732577693616668702011-05-11T08:13:00.000-07:002011-05-11T08:18:14.268-07:00Boy do I miss napowrimo - I'm so obedient<br />I need permission to write poems.<br />---<br /><br />This poem speaks with sober voice to cast away <br />desolation. It splays open to admit your stare.<br />Salted with truth and kindness, it travels<br />deserts and savannas, fields alive with maize.<br />My amazement shapes it, stirs its broth. It<br />echoes back-up from sorrow's canyon. When life<br />divides into ever smaller fractions, it gazes<br />like the ponchoed birder to chart our future.<br /><br />---<br /><br />and now for a two hour drive to teach two classes.Laura Gamachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08138808864733284833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25727628.post-57434949387769646412011-04-30T13:01:00.000-07:002011-04-30T13:20:10.242-07:00NAPOWRIMO DAY THIRTYMnemosyne stands over the silver drawer<br />with a blank look - spoon, knife, and what<br />is this? "Aphasia," she chants, for words <br />slip away, but others can't doubt her wit. <br /><br />When the girls were young, Erato would<br />mess about in the produce aisle. "Euterpe!"<br />she'd cry, but nobody doubted her then.<br />Nine girls! Zeus away with somebody new.Laura Gamachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08138808864733284833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25727628.post-65690591614364388292011-04-29T16:22:00.000-07:002011-04-29T16:45:24.988-07:00NAPOWRIMO DAY TWENTY NINEThe owner of the Castries cafe<br />looked like Derek Walcott, and<br />underwater the coral looked<br />like brains and the fish swam<br />around my body, every one<br />missing me by the same precise<br />distance. I stuck my hand<br />forward, trying to trick them,<br />but their sonar blips moved<br />faster, as though I wore an<br />aura. In the little town up<br />the hill we went to a jump up<br />and danced through the back<br />entrances of outdoor bars,<br />but not up the stairs where<br />we were invited but our taxi<br />driver shook his head no.<br />A boy said he would always<br />take care of me, though I<br />pointed at my wedding ring<br />and at my husband bobbing<br />nearby. He cradled his heart<br />when we danced away, heads<br />ahum with rum and steel drums.<br />As Mary put beads in my hair<br />on the hotel beach her sons<br />outbragged each other - how<br />to hypnotize a chicken, how<br />to survive without a coat<br />when it's cold - 70 degrees.<br />We were on vacation, they<br />walked out the entry of<br />their cinderblock house <br />near the Pitons. At the market<br />I bought a batik shirt with<br />crooked sewn buttons. The van<br />stopped for sand crabs, we<br />drank more rum and watched<br />wind surfers plow the bay.Laura Gamachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08138808864733284833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25727628.post-62898332689396041612011-04-28T16:55:00.000-07:002011-04-28T16:59:12.702-07:00NAPOWRIMO DAY TWENTY EIGHTOn Trying to Match the Clapping<br />Rhythm of the Nubian song<br />"Nagrishad" (as recorded<br />by Hamza El Din) in a 6th Grade<br />Classroom Where No One's Nubian<br /><br /><br />You clap out six eight-beat measures<br />using this pattern of x's.<br />Tar and riq have separate rhythms.<br />You do not clap every measure.<br />You'll lose the beat if not your feet<br />as you try. My European<br /><br />ears! American rock! Even<br />Bach would have trouble. Paul Simon<br />loves polyrhythms - African<br />beats. I cannot sustain Bartok<br />or even Dave Brubeck's "Take Five."<br />I am at home in 4/4 time.<br /><br />The kids invented notation -<br />all 48 beats in one line,<br />shouted "ha" for unclapped spaces.<br />We all said, "I can't hear!" or "I<br />got lost!" foreign to this music<br />no matter how loudly it played.Laura Gamachehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08138808864733284833noreply@blogger.com0