Daily Crossword Puzzle Poem Draft for 8/14 on 8/17 in the Wallowas


Skate quickly over the soft spots
calculate often but smell the calla
edge your lawn and dream Egypt
believe Bach and Bartok, the basics
beset you, your dreams are knives
that skid or cut downhill like skis.
Identify skinks, forget the martins.
I think you forgot to count that lap.
In Renaissance we were beset by boils
the best of times for you Leona
Send your barbs aloft gentle angler
into this bone-cold stream. Drag
another river for the man, the van,
but he is somewhere dry, renamed.
Do not underestimate your demise
for I am bossy and not your son
Oh hon the fan blades pull me nicer
pass the ice and disregard the datum
it's a one or zero, not a two
and you are who I've gained.
Energy pulses, the egrets emit
nothing extraordinary, the oriole
does not live here, you are Aries
bow and all. Drop your shawl and call
your extraterrestrial minions.
---

A little bit garbled and odd, the above, as am I. Yesterday we drove from Pullman to Lewiston, Idaho, then up and up and then he stopped the car. I thought, "a lookout, yes!" Such a good idea, and I brought out my camera. He unhooked his bicycle from the rack, and rode the winding road to the bottom. And now we're in a coffee shop in Joseph, Oregon.

Yesterday we hiked up from Wallowa Lake - I led, I'd been here a month before, up the Joseph Trail, except I didn't take the right turn, and we hiked up and up, and the suspension bridge over the west fork of the Wallowa River did not materialize no matter how I willed it. We'd been walking more than two hours when I asked backpackers coming down the trail if the bridge was just ahead. No it wasn't, no matter how many details I singled out to inquire about. I so wanted Jim to see that bridge. The backpackers said there was a great lookout over the river about 35 meters ahead, so we went, and took pictures. We were planning to get up early this morning to hike up to stand on that suspension bridge, but when we woke up it was 8:35.

Daily Crossword Puzzle Draft for 8/9/10


This cloud with a black belly is not a liar
nor is the mechanism of the T-bar.

We got our fan mail at the flea market
the summer we went off the radar.

The sight of blood or is it beetroot
threw my steering wonky at the go carts

The answer to what ails you is a miter box
a half wine barrel full of bearded iris.

The lake is calm and then it roils
which spoils us when we should have reeled

We've healed and well-heeled study rim
behavior in Antarctica

Oh Spartacus your skirt is short and noisy
you grin like someone who could split the atom

when all we need is money for these cans.

The sky is hazy as if I've only my lazy eye
to see it, though both eyes are open, if
not attentive. Twenty miles uplake
the Rainbow Bridge fire is still burning,
the wind has gently turned so smoke
filters down like vague longing, like
insufficient desire, not the ravages
of fire. Our friends watched a cougar
lap at the lake between their house
and their garage. They say this has
changed them. Who has it changed
them? They are cautious already. Will
the dog never again be allowed out?
The apricots are gone, and the grapes
inadequately ripe. Tomatoes plump
in half wine barrels on the sunny side.
I nip the tips from basil crowns
that long to go bitter and to seed.

Poem with One Syllable Words
(except for the title)

"Scram!" I scream.
I mean, "come here."
I mean, "I love you."
I mean, "help!"

I don't know who I am
so I Google the blanket octopus
that unfurls its Batman cape
and nods its ungainly head
another sci fi brainy alien

My daughter met manatees
at the boathouse in Miami,
they backfloated, drank
from the hose, slow-bodied,
drowsy-witted, the big one's
back striped by the blade
of a speed boat.

Two robins fight or court
I don't know them
A third flies in
below a cloud shaped
like a fish. The sky
is whitest behind the hill.
A fishing boat shifts
on the lake.
Mist moves away
from brightness.
Another bird produces
a tweet that repeats
that seems out of its control.
The robin stutter stops
across the points of light
that tip the grass blades
walks a step
two foot hops
stops. Drops beak, misses.

The breeze rises,
the sun a whole ball
separate from the hill.
The robin hunkers, dips its yellow beak,
misses again. I do that too.
Catch and release, yes, but
miss and release too.

Old Crossword Puzzle Poetry Draft from 7/9/10

What define us are our acts
sitting in the shade with ades
or driving home in Larks
we stare into the night - there's Ursa
while elsewhere there's a crash in Ulster
and someone's found a shard of gneiss
under the refrigerator. How acidic
your ade, how tryingly
you shake shaggy head, so much ado
and you not even Kafka.
Oh sweet, oh entres nous
I left my change on Elm
this life this lemon not a test
what's best? Who knows? Toy
with blocks or check your lists
we try, we die, we break our necks
ah love ah life how genial
to watch the snake uncoil
to try or not to cope
to run like hell like Adam.
A baby's grin my alibi
your wisdom dusty as sage
and no ink in my pens.

--

Well trusty rusty that and on and on
we hanker more - what more lovely
than time and air in both my lungs?
And thus begun I wander willy nilly
cross this lit up screen - oh peanut, oh bean,
when you were green and all this world
our cloister - shucks kids, its so soon over
what more matterful than that my
days are full of you and sun beats down
and Mars grows daily closer.

Poem begun with a line by Emily Dickinson


Bring me the sunset in a cup
sunrise in a red lacquer bowl.
Bring me another day in which
to loll and listen, dig in the garden,
pluck apricots heated by sun,
bend forward to suck juice -
another namaste.
Bring me the clear August night
under a new moon, Milky Way
to wander past the Pleides and Mars.
Soon enough it's Autumn
the sky that wakes me deluded by fog.

Daily Crossword Puzzle Poem Draft for Thursday, July 8


He says the thoughts don't count, it's acts
that move the planet. I sip lemonade
as the sun gets out of the way for Ursa.
We've waxed ridiculous as we've sat
in lawn chairs or the sand. Entre nous
we've taxed each other tryingly
vying for right or the shinier toy.
Ah, girl and boy - (thank Kafka
for the cockroach). We dis-ease the elm
in flinging at each other - Errol
Sheik and sheik, nobody cowers
here. We butt heads like wrynecks.
Let's turn to thoughts, they're most congenial
and even if menial, beautifully uncoil
or roil inside so I appear to cope.
There's hope for us malingerers
I don't know exactly where. Oh Adam,
were you here and what's your alibi?
We stalk the sky where there's no sage
or any hope in clouds. Raise pens
and praise our luck - our words are sonic
and a tonic more trusty than a tsar.

Daily Crossword Puzzle Poem Draft for July 7. 2010


Did the Romans think in italic?
Did the shah?
Italians on the sea of blu,
and you all glorious and linear.
In Triest where we were held up
in the fantasy - not the eeriest -
I was so anxious
I couldn't even aim.
What's to gain except the pot?
why not serve the suava
or rot? If I was Kim
and you were Gunga Din
would we still wind up in Joliet?
Crepuscular or trepid
The hirsute eat more iron
Her suits required irons
Their curtains were chinz not iron
and me without Yvonne.
Walk on.

--

The Beetle saga continues, with a probable happy ending.
I started it, uh, didn't start it two mornings ago.
My hypothesis - it was parked on too steep an incline
and couldn't get fuel. Jim called our mechanic and lo,
the mechanic thought the same. Jim parked it on the flat
and no action. We left it to the alchemy of time and
played with our weekend guests. This morning Jim
came inside and said, "Guess what?" He had taken
the front of the car in his two hands, shaken it vigorously
and then the car - STARTED! I've just driven over
the pass, uneventfully, and am now going to drop it
at our mechanic's for diagnostic testing and the various
voodoo the computerized hoo hah puts the car through.
Right now I'm having coffee in the horrifying too-muchness
of the Bellevue Whole Foods. Jim's in a meeting
and I don't want to sit in the car all alone as darkness falls
out there in car fixing land.

AHHH, to go home and rip open the envelopes from
the held mail and clean the house and then head south
and east and east and east to Summer Fishtrap!

Life is more than slaps and jabs
do not waste your time - taste
marigolds - set your barbecue to char
oh the oriole, the oracle, the oreo!
There's nothing you that's usual!
Cha cha, tango and the hora!
Cicadian is a nicer rhythm than the Roth
We've packed false noses, do not act
amazed we've parted seven seas
and named the thousand islets
would you've preferred to hunker
in the molded chair? Sing O'Hare
and Logan, do not persist naive
your life will end do not pretend that's nada
Depress me not and do not do the dirty
solo. Bar your doors to Kirby men and Avon
what do you crave on? It won't make you ill.
is you is or is you aint them doers?
waves waste shores there're more to trek.
There's more than cling to clemency.
Your flaming wang's decree.
Ah me, ah you, what else?
We've swatted, spat and sat
enough - shipboard now, avast!
strip all your gears and sprockets
Meadowlarks to you we're merely
crystal in the geode.
Your grayly beard won't make you Lear.
Oh bore me not, we've tossed our ores
for naught why not be otters?

Allen Braden, who teaches in Tacoma, on Verse Daily yesterday.
The sound and the sense
ahhhhh.

New York Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Poem Draft for 6/30/10

To wit to woo to be or not to be a twit
to glide across a stage a sage like Glover
We shun the drums and toss away your boa
Twine spells to rout the noxious weeds and Reno
rose is a rose is a rose no matter you rename
and fame was what we didn't want - remember?
Alas the cherries bloat - if only it were dry
what can we try, sky closed as shuttered inn
and bins loom empty dark while some
retreat to godthrown fears, that's ceded,
oh my penly dears, my lambchops.
The cloudy sky has turned us navy
and you, oh nothing I would take in lieu
for any Boolean cerulean indigo hue.
amethyst in the geode, and you my ore
my heaven duck my light-bearing eleven.

As the Barge pushes up lake under an overcast sky, here are some word pair definitions:

elegy: a sad poem, especially for soomeone who has died. from Greek elegos
eulogy: a speech or piece of writing that praises someone highly. To eulogize or eulogise is to praise highly. from Greek eulogia, praise (we know Greek logos means word)

propensity: tendency to behave in a certain way. From Latin propensus "inclined"
tendency: 1. an inclination to behave in a particular way. 2. a group within a larger political party or movement

Huh. (All definitions from Oxford Dictionary of Current English. The book.)


Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle Poem Draft for Tuesday June 29, 2010

Malvolio in his tights the world's a stage for olio
refresh your caches full - croxetti and fine cocoa
You adore all words, they bathed you sore in utero
List birds and rivers. Say amethyst, say Cree
Your tongue has territory too how vast an area
an aria to every book nonsense to lit
Issa, Chaucer, epic poetry or saga
write a raga to the shores of Iwo Jima
eulogize your rat faced dog, it's all okay
pen words to and with what you adore
What else? What more? Oh words you are the cat's meow
the mother lode the goose's golden egg the priceless ore
for you have aged more well than Stephen Rea
if out damned spot all greed and screed we'd oust
what better flow than this unless it's tidal
for truth winds through its mobius strip but atom
split from wit and wonder yeast will rise.

Am I a poet? A writer? A reader?
A dawdler and doodler
Weed identifier and ripper-outer
water watcher
lie about
sucked into the freecell vortex
there's gotta be something about a something cortex
I'm reading aloud WHITE TIGER
and silently I'm reading THE LACUNA
each is about a boy
and I get the boys confabulated
imagining the Mexican/American boy
swimming past the lotus eating water buffalo
or the Indian boy mixing frescoe plaster
for Diego Rivera
a double helix of coming of age stories
coming apart

I don't have the pulse
don't feel the zeitgeist of my age
am not any sort of genius
I so hoped I would be some sort of genius
could read the work of genius
ride it like a wave
feel the pulse of its purpose
like my own
I thought it was my own
parrot, mimic,
oh I can fling the epithets
punish myself daily
refuse me pleasures
for all my shortcomings
if you ask me to do something
I will do that something
no matter what it costs me
if I ask it
I spit on the task
sit around with protest signs
half painted
the great are better to themselves
they believe in their work anyway
even if they don't love themselves
they believe in their work
they do their work
I lose my work
file it in the drawer of lost things
or let it blow away down the road
sunder it between my teeth
am loathe to love it
unless someone publishes it
if a poem has seen print
has my name on it
I might deign to read it again
muttering

New synthetic oil in the beetle, renters in the house, and I'm on the road at a Days Inn. Why do they serve hard boiled eggs with no peels on? Who peels them? How?

Here's the New York Times Crossword Puzzle Poem Draft from yesterday's NY Times Puzzle


As fifth grade Shakespeareans raise epees to scrap
for valor and better lines, our minds turn to Albee
for gloomy betterment, Tom Eliot for his cat,
and Abba's Waterloo. brought PeeWee to the Alamo
and screamed our long vowel e's no need to boom
with "oo's" like men for we are of the gentler hue.
You said "I do" where windsurfers trust the wind
to up them high not flop them to the rocks below
you know I'd rather hop than drop like tatted lace
that place where it's all simple you say as ABC
well maybe but as you run at your fate rapidly
I think vapidly of all that topples from its zenith
though I know you mean this, in love since recess
you'll always be my unicorn launching not alone
Marriage vows are hexes launched against vexed
arguments the human in humility our ability
to believe the apex is the curve our graphs have cast
our loves will thrive like waving wheat in acres
you curse the vapors I'll whip the slave
division of labor, a saber if you' stayed
while Roberta spins the flax and stirs our soup
we droop beneath the pomp the stomp of self
What else?

I put conventional oil in my VW TDI beetle
so now I have to drain it before I can drive anywhere
which is a teeny problem since I'm at Lake Chelan
and it is 4am.

Breathing until I can call someone and work this out.
I've read various TDI forum remarks
what else to do with eyes like headlights
and the brain half on?

Up up up in the parking area my beetle sits
with bad oil in its belly. Saturating its surfaces
all the places that 10w30 oil will mess with because of its
wrong viscosity, its conventionality a liability.

Ah for Castrol to meet the VW 505.01 standard!
My kingdom for that Castrol 5w40 TXT 505.01
and the ability to go back to sleep.

Yesterday in 8th grade, we wrote over the top rhymed "My Poems". We began with a freewrite: What power does a poem have? Can it change the world?

Here's what I wrote:
Freewrite:
No cynics or critics, please. Open yourself to poetry and prose. Have you reckoned a thousand acres much? Yourself much? (Uncle Walt!!) Can writing calm? Can you change your mood through what you write or read? Is it an escape to let the pen move on paper, or a deepened connection? The iPhone, Twitter, GPS cannot answer the ageless questions - who am I why am I here what do I fear? We don't need answers as much as we need to ask. I need to ask. Digging in the dirt, pulling weeds, reading Nicholson Baker, looking at a beautiful or not beautiful piece of art - places to start. If I'm muddled in all my have to do's, writing can let me slow down and see my options and obligations one by one. Writing is not a test, it is a chance to connect with the brain down your long arm. The poem is quiet but loud as dynamite inside your skull. It can be. I have to be present to present such a poem. How do you handle a white-hot truth without gloves? What do we risk? Why else are we here? Shouldn't we play with matches? Oh, matches - my fist and your face, my dog and a linen napkin, the Ice Capades of grief. How long will it take to make sense? Sense makes bombs and breaks treaties, is selfish, works overlong at jobs we hate. What we need is the released beauty of well-chosen words. Words set up a vibration in your skull that won't let you listen to the should's but will let you watch the kiwi slide upwards towards light and our neighbors' window, let you bounce to the beat from the passing car.


MY POEM


My poem will croon at midnight, noon,
now and soon, earned its own moon.
You’ll find it if you hum a tune.

My poem searches high and low, its touch and go
can never slow. It’s wider than a movie show.
You screen its green, it has meaning but is never mean.

Meet me there where life can be not seem
talented as Julian Bream, a baseball team,
where raptors blur and hillsides gleam.

My poem has fledged. It honors pledges
doesn’t cower on ledges. it flutes its edges
like a pie – it never wants to die. Its nickname’s try.

My poem’s abloom with May and June.
it’s a bassoon, baboon, a constant tune,
come visit soon.

***

My poem lives inside confession
in an expression, it’s resistant to depression
has no possessions or aggression.

My poem lives in a valise, needs no police
is dense as fleece, provides release.
I fold it, it opens without a crease.

In the valley of its deepest hope
you’re not a dope, there’s time to cope,
the answer’s never nope, climb up its rope.

Within the shadow of its leaves
my poem believes, is strong as trees,
loud as bees, it weakens knees.

If you enter you own, you’re not a renter,
plunge into its fragrant center.

***

My poem’s beyond horizon’s blue
its song is true as cockatoos
its shoes are new and so are you.

There’s room inside for you to hide
or glide beside its mountainside
out here where there’s no postage due
it comes to you, a caribou, a curlicue.

My poem is a fancy dresser, tongue depressor
truth expresser. The Iliad was its predecessor.
Yes sir, it’s a word obsesser. Does that make it lesser?
When I’m within I’m no second guesser.

To find it, wear your roller skates
glide within its gates, you’re never late.
It won’t make you wait or hesitate.
My poem invites you to participate.


***

Daily Crossword Puzzle Poem Draft for 5/13/10


For all she has not finished, she owes
a happy debt to yonder hot tub
ablutions and lotions at the spa
a pumice stone, a loofa made from lava
She picks at fava beans, calls to anyone
for java - to Neil or Eloise or Hal.
(she drives them up the wall.)
and they're the ones who splat
She misses them all, so so
but blames them for her diarrhea.
Ah my dears she is a gem
no cookie for O Henry.
Thus was the way she were -
a sherry glass and a baked Alaskan
for all the percodan she ate.
But wait - forgive her each snafu.
She never has to navigate through scree
and oh to have her ruffled feathers
in any weathers, missy,
though crotchety, we sidle
to her elbow, never give her any lip
our grievances have long been telexed
as we telescope this ode
and set forward at a healthy trot.
Oh rot, another stylus for this slab
all this as said-before as adage
(not to rub you the wrong way)
We've been of use since the Aeneid
and catch them all in hot tubs or in rye.

***

bye.

“Only connect,” E. M. Forster wrote. As writers in the classroom, we encourage our students to connect the world they see with their inner world.. How can we connect with them to foster their willingness to wander around with us into subject matter where there is no right answer? How do we help them access that inner world their mp3’s and texting thumbs hold more or less successfully at bay? ...

See the WITS Blog for the rest of this piece.