New York Times Crossword Puzzle Draft 8/26/08

Ahead of us the chorus of meows
echoes alleys, I make the Theda
face, you cross your eyes, not sad
nor sheik. We have trampled atria
like grapes our toes digging dunes
our tongues flaming. Ah, you cry,
but I don't know what you mean.
What we knew has turned to chant
and we're not the ones chanting.

---

Back and forth from Seattle to Chelan I wake and don't know where I am, though I am forever cleaning wherever I am. How many millions of women have lived like that? Comet whiff perpetually under their nails. Hillary Clinton gave the best possible get with the program and support Barack Obama speech last night. She was more directly powerful than I've heard her for awhile - the "I work harder than anyone, can't you see it? SEE IT SEE IT" stridency gone from her voice. I hate to use that word along with shrill and the grab bag of anti woman words. I don't think Barack's victory means we as a nation are more sexist than racist, though that may be true. It feels true, as Rosie O'Donnell's character said in "Sleepless in Seattle".

There are people I don't know in my Seattle house, and Jim and I are the only ones here in Chelan. A young man emerging from the silver Prius with his relatives in my carport asked me how it felt to rent out my house. I can't come down entirely on one or the other side of that bed. We have a new sink in the powder room, one that isn't in a giant box to smoosh the powder room user into feeling the room is tiny and cramped. The little pedestal sink is perky and cute and the rolls of toilet paper and the basket of shoe shine stuff now live in the pantry. The wall behind the sink, where the box was and where the little rectangular tiles were I pasted to the wall with silicon caulk, is freshly textured but unpainted, the oak floor unfinished where the box was, though I am not entirely sure it is unfinished. Jim is certain it is unfinished, "I'll tell you that much," he said. But I scrubbed the floor and it sure seemed the same color as the finished floor. Defer, defer, that is my non-confrontational fall back position. As is reaction rather than action. What do you want? What do you want? Jim's brother took out the old box/sink and put in the new sink over the last day and a half, as we drove back from Chelan, then as I cleaned the house readying it for the renters. This is the part of renting I like: we make decisions for the house we haven't made for the house for us. We say, "renters would like ..." and we do it. This is better than saying, "the people we sell the house to would like ..." since we go back home and enjoy what the renters have or have not liked because of course that sentence really told us what we would like, and it turns out we like what we thought we would, veiling it as what others would prefer so we don't feel selfish or like we're doing something frivolous replacing a brownish ugly sink in an ugly box we've hated since we moved in nine years ago for glaring example.

American lady of perpetual worry, Sara
Bernhardt on this Euro sea. I lean to the bar
come so far for windswept awe hand hold crag
precipitous enough to whip away illness echo
I cringe from your stranger-face, creepy
crepey neck, yearn to be spun enraptured
forty days to change a habit we have fourteen
Cyclades, Persephone, no more am I Penelope
for whoever you are, you're home. Eruption
disrupted saffron gatherers, Akrotiri, sea
filled caldera below snowy summit wall
to take your breath away. I throw my mind
at history my hubby my razer my dog that loves
to fetch oh fetch me white wash blue door
more and more to read to burrow, sleepy
forgetful remembering everything. Nervous
Nellie, I remember everything.

Plucking blackberries from stick bushes
before sun flames the hill across the lake
browse is best, the feint to find behind
prickled leaf sweet burst bee fat and
luscious, trick to plunk more into bucket
than you though August means to wander,
paw and breathe like sated bear
among the busy buzz and whir.

I'll get to the point soon enough, Tim,
so get your fingers off your Apple
Davy Crockett downed in Alamo
John Lennon offed in front of Ono
your eyes glazed like I'm a rerun
you naked but no marble David
all this as cunning as quicksand
not what we wanted when we arose
and though there's sun there's ursa,
dippers falling through star forests
you can't see through your stink eye
hair glint tribute to bleaching agents
I'm mean, you say, my tongue is acid
you one unsung hung sharpshooter
oh feet oh legs oh thighs of clay
finger flash across yon abacus
and all the world at bay. Say
what you must say, the gander
and the goose, and I will stare
my stare. We've passed our prime
and tit for tat for far too little time

We dreamed of Paris as we drove over the dam --
Eastern Washington August gold, "Jean, Jean,"
over the radio, her prime long ago and over,
ours too. Shadows move the round hills furled
then moving forward as cottonwoods stir
above the Wenatchee River entering Cashmere.

Sturdy red harvest bins line the roadway --
August and almost apple picking time --
these are filled with gnarled trunks, unbudded boughs --
behind them up their hill, lines of waist-high
grape vines fattening blood-purple clusters.
8/11/08 August Postcard Poetry Fest

I've signed up for another every-day poetry writing event. Offhand, in-the-moment, what-the-hay, let it fly, let 'er rip poems or poem-like utterances off into the mailbox to someone I've never met, one poem to one person each August day. Complicated for me by being out of town most of the month, far from mailboxes to send poem and a mailbox of my own to receive poems. I imagine a passel waits for me at the East Union Post Office in Seattle. A PASSEL!

I hope you are well and writing and manufacturing vitamin D on the skin of your bare arms, miracle that you are. We talked books my neighbors on the long long lake and I the other night. She reads throwaway tomes thick with historical reference - I don't feel guilty, she says, when I'm learning something. She pushes the books towards me and I pretend to forget them at evening's end. I like her, and I like that she and her family - husband and their grown son, have spent two weeks lying about reading books. I went home and plucked one of the beach reads someone left here off the shelf. I am a bad snob and I want to scold the author and publisher over the phone, red pencil the pages, but I also want to loll here and let my eyes breeze through to the end.

Along Bluett Pass Highway we see elk not beef
though buffalo gather beside the "meat for sale"
sign where the road ribbons Swauk Prairie, air
sweet with ripening wheat. Car tows boat hull
to Lake Chelan, Entiat or Roosevelt, hefty
hitch, lurch into our lane, frisson of fear. Aria
from the back seat, another disappearing era
in the American west though summer hordes
mob overlooks and fist fruit leather at stands
as though they never saw it at Safeway. Oven
outside our air conditioned bubble, we're bent
on home and not farm houses gone wineries,
apple stumps along their margins, imported
French oak barrels beside their drives. As gas
dwindles, we strategize, agonize over refills,
huddle close upon our fate like lounging buffalo.

Sheffer Crossword Puzzle Poem Draft


How far we've come when we can char
our ribs on Wolf stoves' stainless with ado
outdoors with cedar wood from Taos.
But here it is again, our rain, my love,
the rhodies saved and we will nip
no kiwi vine today. Forward up an urge
we'll climb a dryer day. Silicon in tubes
we rubes aplay while out the window ivy
climbs clefted bark the cedar sighs
I dream through catalogs as if to buy
a Morris chair, pillowed bed, Sundance
dainty on a thong, oh me I play my part,
hooked wool rugs and Grecian urns
sugar plums to dance and fill the pie charts
it's damp I'm dumb I've put away the aloe
don rubber gloves, downstairs I scrub off
mold, afix new tiles, at ten I'll break for tea.

Sheffer Crossword 7/28, a Poem Draft

Scratch a mosquito bite, endure perpetual scab
like lion bears unhappy and pacing at the zoo
or mildew toughened and renewed through suds
for all you believe cannot come through by logo
what you swallow will return as Rorschach ink
vast and intertwined as aftermaths in Asia
and you redfaced your fisted pork chop
UHaul trailer stalled in Murfreesboro, gas cap
popped and gone however scoured the area
as we sit down and bow before our porridge
kingdom for a crescent wrench a dime a diva
pitch hum annunciation your wristwatch Zulus
believe in progress accomplish three times nil
flex will and flesh your solar plexus achy
pack portmanteau deplane in Lisbon, Portugal
itch for vinho verde lamprey sausage trout
follow what you yearn for earn your paunch
cry baby cry still leap dolphins after porpoise
so you slip you lift again and try another role
ancient churches crumbled to the apse
your lapses unrepented unexumed you fumed
so what, so why not curry what you need?

Bulletin from Holiday Inn Express on Bishop Way:

Who know Pullman was home to the National Lentil Festival?

To lay tile against your wall, smear adhesive
as though you never learned to color between
lines - who cares it cakes your arms and
countertops. You're a worker not fricking fop.
Keep motions loose and gymnastic, you're
not a spastic though you feel that, lunged
at the odd angle necessary to lay corners and
straighten gaps. Get the hang of this cuz soon
it's time to buy the float and learn to grout.

SEATTLE PUBLIC TOILETS GOING ON EBAY!

Today's SeattleScape blog provides the details. Minimum bid $89,000. As if you don't already have enough problems with prostitution and drug use over to the Honey Buckets. I think you can use the stainless appliance cleaner on the exterior. (Restoration Hardware has it.)

Meanwhile, at Totem Lake, flickers flagrantly rat a tat
while here I hear a Boeing jet, my Boeing blood, my
father there forty years, blonde mantel clock memento,
Mrs. Boeing's house on the way to Tolt Hill, snapping on
the tonneau cover to his red Triumph TR 3 outside Plant
Two, last one to leave Seattle please turn out the lights,
Christmas Party at the Coliseum, materiel. Rare, he
told them in Texas, threaten that steak with a match.
Two foot baby alligator gift cover story, Boeing News.
My father's proud grin, half my age, so very long ago.

Her life fit into one suitcase cinched with a strap
every word, though from her parka pocket one verb
looked about to fall. Let's call her Paula. Her limp
was legendary, and the boys knew she had no idea
about her power, the devastating down of her ear,
hair about to tumble, jumbled amber locks and pins,
her sweet breath warm and gentle as camomile tea.
Now we're post millenial we can view much on screens
but she has gone, tra la, one more digested morsel.
You needn't live in Citges to wake up and taste paella.
Ah Mahalia, girl with gumption, gospel queen, like
you she travelled and believed as yes we do in magic.

If only we had taken the "can do" drive of NASA
and applied it to our planet. What if we had felt
desire for cello suites or educating parakeets?
What if we had yearned to return pepper scent
to carnations and would not let the no nose rose
be sold? If we weren't so adaptable, inured to all
they say we ought but do not love, who could we
have become? Give glory to the green thumb,
praise cooking scents from private residences,
bring bards to roads and farmers to the dells.
Dare to prattle about Yeats and memorize him.
Dawdle, pause, perambulate. Never multi-task.
Easier not to do than unknot what's been done.

July 3 Crossword Puzzle Poem Draft

White caps churn down lake. They don't tire
like I do fiddling with nothing at my desk
How would it feel to flash so momentarily
in the fading sun - remember Star Trek,
the episode where the crew pities the girl
whose species lives only ten years, like my
dog, who lived for twelve, my brother with
a life expectancy of eighteen who hurray
lived to twenty one. I cannot follow a single
white cap, each lifts and disappears. As
we do, my love, as we do.

7/1/08 New York Times Crossword Puzzle Poem Draft
(It's Tuesday, I can do the Tuesday puzzle)

The harrow is fancier than the plow,
using spikes or spring teeth to turn
soil. Simple implements don't cease
their toil as we tilt crystal goblets to
paint rainbows across the decking.
Blisters are the province of the doer.
As greens twine forks, are we callous
or indifferent? Do we enjoy the dado
trim, arty swag lights, lavender hand
cream in the restroom? Unease
undoes satisfaction in our bellies.

Sheffer Crossword Puzzle Poem Draft 6/30/08

Cogito ergo sum was not the first idea
that I thought I had because someone
else wrote it in a book. A polished peg
pounded into another hole in my real
piecemeal *honk* deal. Let me mewl
and you'll lose another hour. From ova
we get aardvarks and us. The alga
doesn't need to love another to divide.
Cleverly, the egg ejects a single peep
as you breakfast with your paramour.
From rock, shock and water we sprang
ta da, I digress, have you been burned?
Today we'll lose another hope to fog.
Good god, you think I'm paranoid --
How can you grip a girder in a daze?
We all fall down, our secrets outed --
weep and pull the china down for tea.
I read the book of life or did I skim?
Don't grind millet for your parakeet.
So many things to do that I do not
want to do not want to do. Id itself
parrots me for we are parallel
as endless lines or ground to meal.
If I had a hammer I'd challenge Thor
in a greasy downtown garage. Are
there any more non sequitors to
set upon this tray? While she sups
he sops up wine stains with a pad,
She says, think before you speak.

I'm organizing a bookshelf: "The Homeowner and Mold" -
Botany? Kitchen remodeling? The simplest task perplexes
me. "Cinderella, Cinderella," my mother used to say. Noah
only had two of everything. Plants were never mentioned.

!

Having sprained a tendon, he says, "Make me a cocktail!"
In the poem, I know how to do this, Mrs. Boston, into
muddling mint leaves and decanting spirits into a crystal
carafe. I bath olives in vermouth, pimentoes in the seed-
less caves, withoug smudging my magenta acrylic nails.

!!

All About Eve vs. Three Faces of Eve

!!!

When I was a child I couldn't sit like a tailor,
knelt on my sleeping feet in Camp Fire Girls,
twirled my hair into knots, ripped off my nails
and slid the parings between my teeth. Years
later, one poked out through my upper gums.

!!!!

Sheffer Warmup 6/26


The editors tell you, send us your best
work, roundhouse punchy riffs. Bags
line their hallways, nearly audible baa
as gofers pass, out the door for aloe,
anything not to slit another envelope
sifted with dry powder, s'more ague,
another ardent poem who cannot act.
Well-heeled wannabes try Barcelona,
Roma, Prague. You watch bumblebees
in three hues suck lavender nectar.
Impetuous flitters, they ignore your
patient attention. One ducks in and out
from mauve foxglove, Bartholomew
Cubbins in miniature. Are you two?
You've booked passage on a freighter
but it's too late to discover yourself
exotic in a far port. Another girl with
glamorous ambitions who will not do
the work. The Kerala produce counter
stocks basil, carrots, bunched cilantro.
Its fragrance clings to fingers, lines
your pores. You want to be remade
but you don't know into what. Poems
bleat oddly from beside your chair.