Week seven--all inclusive buffet of manliness

By my calculations--and please do correct me if I am mistaken--I left off going into week seven. If that is the case, this is me, catching up to week 12?
My god, what have I done?

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Freewrites [2]
Had some of these written down for a while now, and decided to use them here. Just because I haven't been posting properly doesn't mean I don't have poems to show for the time I spent away.

1st Freewrite:

David Mathis
Interogation lights

I've grown up in Carrollton my whole life next to Roosevelt
who had a great grandfather who was Native American.
He had a dog, named it blue and left it outside for the rest of its life
where a back porch used to hang invisible until we put it together.
We put it next to the garden,
next to fat red tomatoes who sat in silence beside habaneros,
between the crushed fall leaves which remind me of the hamster I crushed--peanut.
Shelled him with my own two hands, just three weeks old and not even ripe yet,
but I didn't know I had done it--not for years.

I would like to travel to India which catches my attention because of women's rights,
curry, markets with saris in all the colors of the desert--the heat, sand, the unfiltered sun
as unhealthy as a carton of cigarettes lighting barefoot children who smile at nothing because
they have nothing and when everyone has nothing, it takes nothing to smile. And I smile at them.

Hound dogs bother me when I sit alone at night, far away from India. I can think there because
the chimney sparrows come out at eight and they sound like sparrows and I can watch the sun
set through a mesh of trees, thrusting shadows of hops around me like a fence because
the forest brews beer and muscadine wine.
I know because I drank it some nights ago and it was good.


2nd Freewrite:

David Mathis
Public Observations pt.1

Sitting outside right now, and there is a girl who is determined to walk slowly in the rain.
Her arms are tucked like a bird diving to catch prey, but she looks miserable,
more like an umbrella closed tight and dripping.

There is a crippled girl with arm braces--hobbling--nobody is helping her. I don't have an umbrella.
I'm not even dry myself, but she's so slow and she is so wet, and I can see the cold in her,
coiling into her chest and wreathing her head in a mane of steam.

There is a man on crutches, and he has his hood up, but he is so slow, and the rain is coming to a stop.
It holds steadily in a soft hiss like a creek with a lisp.
He holds steadily too and slinks away to feel his way up stairs and over bridges.

Saw a guy on a wheelchair but he was going fast and he seemed unimpeded by the water.
He glid along like a boat silently and blinked out of my vision before I could look again.
Out of all the people in the rain, he alone moved through and out the other side unchanged. Unfettered.

I want to be crippled like him. Maybe then I could be just as free.


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Junkyard [4]

"I want you to want to pretend to want to swim."

"Make way for the big, bad, Beowulf!!"

"I am a negation of a negation."

"There are always things along a river that probably shouldn't still be there."

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Calisthenics [1]

Calisthenic based off changing Queenie's awesometastic poem:

David Mathis with help from Queenie:
Between bare curtains

Pinching green out of leaves is like crushing burs from pine cones, only less painful.
There were nights when I would stare through glass, my body superimposed--giant--
standing in a yard dimmer than midnight whiskey. My featureless face broken by bark,
by a collapsed bird feeder, or by lights from houses which bled into my body like a river into an ocean.
Those nights, so serene, framed by two plain curtains wide open and threadbare,
the glass was a part of my hand and my head as a line touching a plane.
Though I can't live those nights anymore, I can recall them.
You made them.


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Improv [1]

Riffing off other people's work has always been a bit difficult for me--I have no idea where to start, you know? This is THE reason I became so bad at updating. I would hit the improv, and sit staring at it for two or three days before finally giving up. Not giving up this time.

IMPROV based on the work of Galway Kinnell.

David Mathis and Galway Kinnell together at last:
Woodwind

What do they sing, the last birds of the night who tuck heads behind wings and close their eyes as the world closes its eyes, tangled like lovers in leaves and sticks, banking themselves across woods filled with frayed wings, brambles, the glint of moon on water, staring wild-eyed from the pit of an eye socket?

Silence.
The space that fills the air between cicada chirps and wind gusts blowing ashes through the gaps in the stars to pepper the moon with the anti-song wrapped around Earth in banners as wide as Sloth, Wrath, Greed, and Fear, barring entry to the heavens, crossed like a child's heart and just as frail.

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Peer Reviews [2]

++1st Review

Kyley:
Wheat Stalk

Church doors always open,
Swung wide at late hours of the night.
A man in a brown trench coat,
Pockets hidden inside overflowing
With loaves of wheat and grains.
A woman, hoarding children away,
Playing during a slumber party,
Gawking in awe of the bearded man.
He wants help, shelter, feet washed by Christ.
The woman directs him to a shelter,
Too far to walk, but she needs to rid him,
Like a fungus infection on the sole of your foot.
She can’t give him money like a harlot,
Or a ride to the shelter like a charitable taxi service,
for the safety of herself and the children,
She can’t even give him deli meats and cheeses
To adorn his tall loaf of white bread tucked in the coat.
So he tracks sewage into the church,
And leaves just the same,
Christ could not heal him at his haven.
There is no saintly presence beneath the steeple.
All that man was good for was making children glare,
 Wide eyed at the miraculous loaves of bread,
From a white young image of Christ,
And all wondered, “Where was the wine?”

-----------------------
What I liked: The whole damn thing. Especially the ending.
I liked the overall themes of the poem--you know, the big sweeping picture stuff. As far as that goes, I liked the direction that you went with it--disdain apparently at Christianity, a commentary on how ungiving people can be. More locally, I liked "where was the wine?" as an ending remark. "So he tracks sewage into the church, / and leaves just the same" was a good one too.

Improvements: "like a fungus on the sole of your foot" doesn't necessarily sound like it fits the tense or the style of the poem. All of a sudden, you talk about "you" and bring the reader in, and I think it works best as a narrative that the reader stays away from. other than that, I didn't get the ending as much. Are you comparing the homeless man to Jesus? I think that could have been a bit clearer there. Other than that, I would say going into the next draft, why not derail yourself just a bit harder? You don't do that a lot here. DERAIL LIKE YOU MEAN IT! PURPOSELY DRIVE THAT TRAIN OFF THE TRACKS AND INTO THE WATER!!!!
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++2nd Review

Samaria:
Untitled


I almost forgot the smell of new acoustic wood
after I started to order my lead pencils. My
scratched down strings needed a change.
One that sucked in summer semester hours
filled with why brains reject culture or why
culture absorbs brains. I don't enjoy the taste
 of culture lectures. It's not my genre.
I want the thick crunch of a girl's version
of "Eminence Front".
I want to smile above the waterline for chills.
I want to be the North Atlantic ice pick
that sank your sober ship.
Don't come to my party dead and still
or be killed for thrills.

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What I liked: I liked the "I want" part, but maybe only because I wrote a poem with a lot of that stuff in it too. "I want, I want, I want..." But regardless, I also liked the alliteration in "sucked in summer semester hours." "I want to smile above the waterline for chills" is an especially awesome part of the poem. I like the way you phrase things sometimes, and that is certainly an example of something totally awesome that you say here.

Improvements: Extend it. Yep, keep it going, and going. If you run out of something, just don't stop. This is nice, but it isn't super polished yet, so why not add on copious amounts of material and refine it back? Most of the drafts for my final portfolio are likely going to be huuge pieces that I've knocked into smaller pieces. My best piece of advice is to go, go, go. The way I do it is by making the biggest sentences I can, but everyone has their own way. Go for it. Just go crazy on this junk, and then look back and take all the boring stuff out. Sometimes you're too close to a work to do that. So distance yourself, hack it to pieces and build off of the good stuff. 

Freewrite--kick the blastin' blasticarium blasters with freewritin' freewriters.

Been so busy lately that I have just about had my hands tied, and all this making up work is killing my back, but I am going to keep at it. Must do that catching up thing. Just remember as you read this that I love you tenderly like nobody else could ever love you.

David the Mathis:
Her Husband Died in a Train Attack

Not that trains attack like a savage heart out in the wild, stalking prey, because they don't--not normally, and even when they do, you never can tell when they're going to. They show no warning signs such as painful arms, or a swelling of the leg. Train attacks don't fill a person with premonitions of death for a week before they strike, or coordinate with other trains to optimize the attack vectors. For that matter, trains are generally quite docile and carry people inside themselves at great personal risk to transport those people from one area to another similar area, usually from one point on a landmass to another point on the very same landmass. They share nothing but exits and yet they're connected by a stream of people who walk out of one exit, into another exit to be taken to another place, but always the same door--only it leads to a different place.

Still though, on a day that was both sunny and windy, she heard the news from the radio before her family could call her, and the attack that she laughed about would later pester her into insomnia and wide-eyed she would stare at walls, she even still stares at walls with blackened eyes and a mind so withered that she says she can still remember the sound of steel as it bit the tunnel with ire to grind itself like a fourth of July sparkler, like a match, and struck itself flaming to kindle funeral pyres. She says she remembers the bodies, scattered like ashes over an ocean at sunset, gilded by the flame of a dying day. Maybe she does remember sitting in that seat and staring at the inside of a tunnel from behind a tiny window when the world ignited like the night sky with stars that arced themselves to form new constellations that she says are still etched into her vision which is why she can't drive. Or maybe she was never there and years of empathy have hurtled her mind through layers of time to arrive at the crash and her frail cortex never was meant to sustain such travel.

Or maybe, there was no train attack and she sits, crocheting her hours into loops and hooks until she crochets her memories of star-dappled tunnels and funeral pyres carried down rivers into net and catches herself like a spider catches a fly.

I think I need one more review after this to catch up?

Can't stop a review train from roaring down the tracks. Time to get some more reviews under my belt, and into your mind. I have things to say about stuff and you'll listen to me by God, or my name is Extremely Pete.
Windex
by: Diamond the Forde

And that was when I realized
that I really fucked up this time.
when the windex bottle beat
a blue stain into the Berber carpet
and I was left standing wide-mouthed
in an open-mouthed doorway.
That long hall never seemed so short.
That fuming man never seemed so tall
and that was when I realized that what I did
I never really remembered anyway.
How quickly did my mistakes,
or lack thereof,
transcend through the contents
of that plastic cleaning bottle?
When did it explode
onto the scene and leave a trail
of Oh-My-Gods or
You-Fucking-Bitch's that I was quite prepared for?
Did I ever really know how to duck
the verbal abrasions like I learned
how to dodge that bottle?
Or did the bottle dodge me?
Maybe if it had hit me
I would have become clean
and without streaks I could have glistened
into a transparent pane
on a rectangular plane.
Why couldn't I disappear?
Why couldn't the words hit me
and bounce off like birds?
They left smears, greasy trails
of You-Dirty-Little-Whores
and Get-The-Hell-Outta-My-Sight's.
and as I slammed my door shut
to FD&C Blue No. 1
daddy's little girl turned blue too
and with my eyes closed
I couldn't see the glass fragments
of my insides shatter anymore.
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What I liked: I don't think anyone's writing in this entire class has grown on me like yours has. This poem is fantastic in a lot of different ways. I'll start with "wide-mouthed in an open-mouthed doorway." I love that phrase and I love a lot of the little things too. "greasy trails/ of you-dirty-little-whores" ect. All those moments are wonderful. I like that you took our advice and wrote a poem about windex throwing. And I like how it turned out.

Improvements: "that fuming man" is a little problematic for me in the same way that Somaria's class critique poem bothered me when she talked about the woman and the man of the house boy. Something about the phrasing bothers me, and while that sounds vague the phrase "That fuming man" is also vague. At first, it seems like you dropped the bottle and only later is it clear that the bottle was thrown at you, so I would clarfiy that. I don't know what the glass fragments inside you are, but I feel like it could have been a cool dynamic had you been more clear on what they are.

All Together: I think this is a really strong piece. I would fix some of the vague places, touch up the end of the poem where it talks about the glass inside you, and make the beginning a bit more clear. After that, I don't see much wrong. Keep pumping out work like this, and you'll be a contender for the strongest writer in the class, easily.

MOAR REVIEW!

This is even moar review times...
THE REVIEWER PT2! RETURN OF THE REVIEWER!!
This time, Imma' take a look at QUEENIE!

SLEEPING IN CEMETERIES
The city is a cocoon spewing maggots
Light forces on eyes like rape
Hidden, Hiding, tiny plots of land
Dandelions blossom underneath Magnolia buds
No one can hug you like damp crab grass
No one can kiss you like marble tombs on cheeks

Ants marched in a single file line towards eyeball, towards
Clit, towards flesh
Nudging off everything that made you human,
And carry it on their back
Piece by piece.
Ambulance cries, dirt on skies,
Make camp in between thighs
Of deep fried chicken
Found in garbage cans.

Warmth is found in candle sticks
Soup in desperate dicks
Suffer under sticks,
Old milks Haggard chicks Cop-tricks
And Deer ticks.
They cry because you are gone and kiss
The tiny saliva bubbles on your lips.
Tired smiles, from me, because you are here,
Six feet under
They hucked a loogie on you.
But you told me I am pretty
And I need a place to stay.
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What I liked: I think you're one of the few people who can completely ignore tense and subject-verb agreement rules and still not bother me with it, so I give you props for having some inherent gift in that area. I like you because you just put shit down, and it doesn't matter if it hits the fan, or if it flies--you're just here to put language down in an interesting way, and I can completely get behind that. I love the second stanza. It rhymes, and it changes tense, and I love it. Love the move with making camp between thighs, but then you enjamb it with "of chicken" and it's completely unexpected. I love you for "nobody can kiss you like marble tombs on cheeks."

Improvements: I have no idea what the third stanza is--cool that you don't shy away from the word "dick" and as a matter of fact, I kind of think it's awesome how much cussing you put in your work--not because I like cussing (which I do), but because nobody else has been quite as verbose with their language. I think you should probably tone it back a bit since I think they're supposed to have earth-rippling effect. I also think that not everybody will be as alright with your tense changing as I am here, so I would lock down a tense. It's rather confusing as is.

All Together: Love the moves you make with little phrases, and I think the second stanza is the best out of the poem. While the rest isn't completely bad, I would consider taking the second stanza and saving it. Never know where it might fit into another poem somewhere. Write it down, tweak it, and use it again later. Cutting up drafts like they're someone esle's drapes and then using them to make a dress later is part of the joy of being a poet. Now, go fuck some shit up because you're the man!

REVIEW TIME! LOTS OF REVIEWS!

Time to catch myself up on some reviews. Ready for a reviewtastic revision of revitistical reprecussions?
Then read on. This one goes out to the incredibly beautiful Dawn.

A Trained Man's Discovery
By: Dawn Siddons

8:45 a.m. I'm blue printing an ensemble,
preparing to match my genetic offspring,
flattering my wife—Debora; a genus
in the rose family, I eye the pear
shape of her body, region throughout the world
and surrender to casualties.
Today my family will be frozen,
made into preserves as well as dried
and used in such things as memorabilia.
With strawberry whitened teeth,
we'll fold perfection like the bath linen
expected after laundry day, that washed
away the previous night of beer, football,
and unpleasant smells, compared to skunk
spray or sewage.
Us men husked like Durian, kinged forbidden
the whole experience, partied until
my allotted funds ran out at 11:13 p.m.
I returned home as told, and my wife
she smiled with no effort satisfaction.
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What I liked: I really did like the overall tone of the piece--the repeated use of the fruits, especially "Strawberry whitened teeth" was nice. I loved the use of whitened next to linen even though they weren't tied together, but instead worked off of each other nicely.

Improvements: What do you mean when you say your family will be frozen and made into preserves? I like that it goes on with the whole fruit thing, but I don't know why you would say that. And I don't know why you go on to surrender to casualties. That sounds like people will die. I don't know what the phrase "no effort satisfaction" means. I am a little bit lost at times throughout the work, I admit.

All together: Love the fruit. I really do, but I don't know how it ties in at the beginning. Give me a reason to have your family frozen. Are you killing them and putting them into cryogenic sleep? I want to know about that, I do. How are they preserves? Are you preserving them for later? Eating them? I'm starting to like this poem, but only if that's the case--that's not true though because I like your poem anyway. What is the metaphor about with the linens. I love the linens because you used "white" right before it, but tell me what it means, because I don't know. Final instruction: Keep kicking ass.

FREE THAT WRITING!!! FREE IT LIKE A FLOCK OF BUTTERFLIES!!

We talked the other day about poems from our childhood, so I think I will do this awesome blog-tastical petry extravaganza about some playground memores because what childhood experience will trump that?
Nothing. I answered the question for you because I can read your mind.

C:\My Documents\plaground_1996
by: David the Mathis

I pick up the stone, hovering over a mound of dirt--a suspect ant hill.
The stone is cold against my fingers, but only where the damp earth still clings to the underside;
a hole waits in the ground for the stone to return, but this isn't a puzzle piece.
The stone will not return to it--instead it craters the dirt in a new place, boiling ants over--
they spill onto the hot dirt, ready for anything except two shoes heavier than Osmium.

I imagine they must feel nothing, see nothing, know nothing because they are exoskeletons;
filled with instinct, they bite at immovable objects that are more than 100 times their own weight.
My two shoes pressed against the earth are covered in ants and ant pieces and with each jarring
thwack of shoe on hard-caked clay, I feel my shins burn as they throttle dust against the sky.
With each cloud of tissue-thin dirt, another body is borne into the heavens and I laugh.

Later, A grasshopper tumbles from the trees and lands itself on my shoulder and I take its wings,
tear them slowly from its body--first wing slides off smoothly like a greenstick fracture,
second wing catches, shucks the head with it and I drop an exoskeleton into the pine needles.
That day, I felt remorse for shedding an instinct of its exoskeleton and sat in silence on a stump.

Yeah, sorry about all the delays... double junkyard SLAAM DUNK!

Yeah, so it has been a few weeks since I updated. Because of this, I am going to double up on this junkyard.

[1]
"I took a virgin heifer nightriding for a bit."

[2]
"Someone had a grade-A lungfish decorate their house."

[3]
"What's good is to get these goats for the computer industry."

[4]
"These are big shoes to stick my ass in--ass shoes."

[5]
"You have never seen your face before."

[6]
"What does a mirror look like?"

[7]
"You can't have time if you never make time."

[8]
"Can I get a shot of Jesus over here?"

Calisthenics tyme.

I liked the idea of recursivity from class, so I'm going recursive on your face. Yes, your face specifically, and I apologize if it gets messy, but I'll be honest: it might get messy, which is why I'm using your face and not my own. I'll grab some phrases from pieces of things I've written in my Queen of Hearts chick journal, and recurse them until they die.

Tha' Phrases From Which I will Choose:

[1]
"Concomitant Marginalization of Women."

[2]
"Warmed troughs are like moored thought."

[3]
"Humming birds want to have a proboscis more than I want to be dead."

[4]
"Flocks of ibis on old tractors in cleared fields sliding into sawgrass"

[5]
"Horse pills for a non horse."

This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius. It is also time to make something. I've been making lots of poems lately, putting a lot of hard work into it, and I think I just want to take a few crazy phrases and rearrange them until they break. Just for fun, because this kind of exercise is right up my alley and the gods all know I need to rest.

By: David the Mathis: Queen of Hearts

Hummingbirds want to have a proboscis more than I want to be dead, and I want to be dead a lot less than I want hummingbirds to have proboscises, because the proboscis would make eating anything much like taking horse pills for non-horses, because most non-horses have smaller than horse-sized openings for taking pills and I can see where that would make me want to be dead. Dead like flocks of ibis on old tractors in cleared fields sliding into sawgrass because sawgrass sticks into the air like a proboscis, sucking all those hummingbirds down like horse pills, except sawgrass is a non-horse and the tractors warm troughs which are like moored thought, thoughtfully mooring the hummingbirds to tractors in cleared fields that slide into sawgrass of proboscis horsepills in flocks of dead hummingbirds who only wanted to have a proboscises and the concomitant marginalization of women. Women marginalize tractors concomitantly in the warm thoughts of a moored trough flanked with flocks of ibis on tractors in cleared fields sliding into dead sawgrass, sucked by hummingbird proboscises full of horsepills and horses and the bald ibis which is different from the ibis, which is different from the crested ibis which doesn't have a proboscis but wants to be dead more than a hummingbird wants to have a proboscis that sucks flocks of tractors warming troughs in a moored woman marginalized concomitantly with horse pills eaten by flocks of the non-horse ibis which differs from the bald ibis in many features, primarily in the area of the proboscis.
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P.S. I just typed the word "proboscis" so much that it neither looks or sounds like a word anymore, which is why I stopped.

Night of the Living Junkyard Part 5

Time to unload a shit ton of awesome on you peeps.

[1]
"I'm as hip as a hippo; I gots more thighs than Thighland!"

[2]
"The cumcry is the pledge of allegiance."

[3]
"Men can get raped. I don't care if they don't have a vagina."

[4]
"What is the thing to be possessed?"

Second Freewrite for, what week is it now? 5?

Way too many weeks. I covered a soccer game this weekend, and I hope it doesn't suck balls like an unskilled whore, but I suspect--and quite heavily at that--that it does, which is a shame, because I sure did enjoy the game. I like watching soccer, I just don't completely know the rules.

Anyway, I wrote a poem about eating Crayons, and you should check it out.

A Poem Written in Regards to Eating Crayons
by: David Mathis

I've never eaten crayons, but I imagine they taste just like hot glue after it isn't hot anymore, or
tile grout without the sand, or maybe even the plastic they use to make cheap children's toys.

I don't want to drink glue or eat Play-Dough, but I know a lot of people who have, and they never
died from it, so I guess I would recover from it.
Not like the day I first tried cream cheese, gagged, almost threw it up at the table, never
touched the stuff again. A piece of me died that day, and I'll never even get it back.

I don't especially know how cream cheese is made, but I assume it has something to do with
making a pact with Lucifer for Baal's milk and churning that into a thicker form full of wailing
and gnashing of teeth.

I think crabs should taste more like I imagine spiders must taste--like cellophane wrapped around fiberglass,
wrapped around packing peanuts, covered in butter. I would add a dash of Oregano, not because it needs it,
but because it looks nice on the plate, if not in the stomach.

I'm not ever going to put crayons in my mouth, never taste all the colors of the rainbow in solid form slide
down my throat like an over-thick rainbow cascading down the sides of a Sarlacc, chasing bounty hunters
in a quest to make all things more beautiful, like Unicorns prancing in fields with tattoos on their asses
so as to assert their individuality and not at all to fall in with a crowd called Care Bears who have their
tattoos on their stomach's in complete defiance to the style of the Yakuza who usually tattoo everything except
the stomach and do it the old fashioned ways with needles and hammers.
The have powers too, like spilling razzmatazz red all over shadow which is different from black, which
is different from fuzzy wuzzy, which is a different color than beaver, which is completely different from
the shade called brown because the Yakuza only tattoo in fuzzy wuzzy, razzamatazz, and shadow.

Post Title

Yeah, so I went to a hayride...
I feel like a hick. Except in a good way, because the experience was absolutely miserable, and for whatever reason, I think that makes it worth writing about. Yep. I am one sad dude.

IHOP: 3am
by: David Mathis

They say that Rick used to switch with his wife every year taking their son on the hayride,
except every time it was Rick's turn, he would say that he did it last year so that he never even
rode in the back of the truck full of kids with flashlights, running beams over tall trees like
the reflection of ocean waves on the underside of boats.

The problem with fire is that it always seems to warm only one side of a person at at time;
the other side is left out in the cold when roasting marshmallows and getting closer only makes
one side even hotter while the other side still freezes, but my God, when cardboard is thrown
on top of the pit, the flames stand proud for a few minutes before they crouch back down over their work
intimately and leave the fuel to glow with gilded edges and it all looks just like heaven will.

When the wind blows, the chicken houses conspire to light the bellows. They stream currents of rotting
pumpkin spice lattes into the swooning sun like a punch to the gut from a skilled boxer--
just as air leaves the lungs, the houses push product through shipping businesses and everyone,
yes everyone, gasps in horror but its already too late to ignore, except everyone ties and shuffles feet
and pretends like the sun is high overhead and the clouds are white puffy shapes that resemble puppies
or totem poles, or Oprah catching butterflies in the rain except its night and they stumble over someone
who is stargazing, tracing new constellations with a finger which is way, way too fat to only touch one star
at a time and therefore connects clusters of stars to make bundled up balloon formations tied together in
one giant knot called Luna who smiles with big teeth.

Later, piles of pancakes, fat with time lay in hibernation on a table under a spotlight and they're so
very delicious. Each and every one is special, just like a child, but they all taste the same.
The smear of headlights occasionally stutter by, broken by street signs.
Outside, it's just cold enough for the window to mist over,
laden and drooping like sleepy eyelids.

Today I protested, and it was awesome. This is improv. 4th week

I attended the Rocky Horror Picket Show. I believe I saw Dr. Davidson drive by. Hi, Dr. Davidson. Nice car you gots there. I waved at you, and I think you saw me. It was a completely awesome experience, and I was glad to see so many people supporting the cause. I was all fired up, and I am afraid I may not have any voice to work with soon.

Whatever the cause, griping is not going to be doing me any good here, so I will improv off of a poet. Time to GLOW! These imoprov posts are what kill me. I start to write them and then stare for hours instead of making progress, and eventually give up and leave. It causes a complete breakdown.

I am using Ellen Bryant Voigt and her poem "Winter Field" because it is so very strange and yet tells a story. I like taking parts, so I will take another part of this one. Not the whole thing.
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from: Winter Field
by: Ellen Bryant Voigt

[After they'd pierced a vein and fished me up,
 after they'd reeled me back they packed me under
 blanket on top of blanket, I trembled so.

 The summer field, sun-fed, mutable,
 has many tasks; the winter field
 becomes its adjective.
                                 For those long hours
 I was some other thing, and my body,
 which you have long loved well,
 did not love you.]
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I like this because of the interesting way that she never even says she fell in an ice lake, but the reader knows she fell in an ice lake and had to be pulled out and blanketed. She talks about herself like a fish to be caught. Then talks about being packed, also like a fish, which is confusing and strange, and then it moves into a description of winter as it pertains to summer, and has a strange line staggering, likely signifying that there is a change back to the other story. I love how she tells what she needs to tell.

Attempt to riff!!!

After they'd laid the dynamite and burst the rocks,
after they'd bored through thick stone they laid the track
steel on top of steel, they labored so.

The laden breadbasket, sun-filled, perfect,
feeds many mouths; the wooden planks
become its proxy.
                         For those harsh days
They were some other thing, and their bodies,
which had always served them well,
were lain to rest.

Well... that's that... I have a piece of a riffy poem fragment now!

Someone else's work... PEER REVIEWZORZ! 4th week H4Xorz

did you like that totally 1337 title there? I rather liked it. Time to get mah review awn!

First up, a review for Chris and his untitled work:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Untitled No.1

By: Chris Lyons

I love you much, my most darling dear.
In my arsenal of words, there's only one that is clear--
baby, you're a whore, nothing less and nothing more.
Slowly you escaped from the back of my mind,
but sober and grave grow merry with time.

Your trinkets of love were like packets of salt,
and no matter what you said, it was always my fault.
Your hands were settlers, and my heart was your peddler.
My hands are stained, and my heart's in a grime,
but ev'ry rose will grow merry with time.

You haunt my dreams like a loose angel in guise,
but your halo's aloof, and you're a lord to the flies.
Baby doll, you hide it all behind your horns and shawl.
A few years from now, you will come to my mind,
but there's never a rose that grows fairer with time.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

What I liked: I don't know why precisely, but I liked the Middle English style he applies to the work. It seems so blatantly old school, and he fuckin' rhymes too! shit! He sticks with with all that rhyme and old school abbreviation of letters to cut syllables out of multisyllabic words like surgeon. I like how it starts out sounding like a sappy love poem, and slaps the reader in the face with the word "whore" which I thought was much more effective than my use of "fuck" right out of the gate in my own poem. His way allows the reader to settle into the poem first. I think it is interesting to note that every stanza ends with the word "time" and with Chris, I can only assume this was absolutely on purpose. Also, I love any reference to the Lord of the Flies. Great book, and a great item to reference any day.

Improvements: I also think that the dated approach while intriguing is something a person should take care with. I think that it works in a lot of ways, but in some ways, locking into a poetic style as stiff as Chris has imposed on himself can lead to problems--the second stanza, third line seems to be less effective than the rest of the poem. The forced form and rhyme causes him to make a jump that doesn't make as much sense to me. 

All together: I like that Chris took a huge leap both with the style and the words in Untitled No.1, and I applaud him for it. I would simply caution him. In the future, I would say that this is a tremendous undertaking, forging a dated poem and trying to make it accessible to people now. I think it was very bold, very gutsy, and I enjoyed it for the most part. Some places, like the final stanza, line 2, did strange thing with the language like describing an Angel's halo as "aloof" which may or may not be the right word, and makes it a little shaky in my opinion, but overall I have to say it was a good experience.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

POEM NUMBER 2!!!

Failed Escape Artist

By: Kyley

Boughs wrap cold arms around me,
Abrasive against my bare skin.
I secrete blood from the adorned thorns,
Which I wear like the crown of Christ.
Howl
I spot the vertebra of an estranged beast,
The caliber of a ripened brute ready to pounce.
Sedimentary I stand, shallow breathing
The sniper eyes spot me, amber glazed.
Howl
Confined by the air, I’m vulnerable.
I run like ink down a piece of parchment.
Where is the freedom I crave?
Everything is priced as I bleed

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What I liked: "I run like ink down a piece of parchment" was an awesome line, and I liked it from the moment I saw it--wonderful piece of description. The poem seems like a narrative--a short one--that follows perhaps a wild animal being hunted by a man. However, it may not be a man who is doing the hunting. I did like the closing line "Everything is priced as I bleed" though, so I would say that you do some great things with the language.

Improvements: There are a lot of power words in here: Abrasive, Blood, Thorns, Howl, Brute, Vulnerable, Bleed, ect. I would say to back off so many hard words and go for softer in places. Ease up on how blatant you are about the peril. I like the title of the poem, but I don't get how "Howl" ties the pieces together and I was confused as to what was going on at times. It seems to be a narrative poem that slips into vague depictions enough that I have a general idea that something is hunted and it dies, but I am not sure how.

All together: There are moments in this poem where the poetry is wonderful and imaginative--there are places here where you make great leaps in progressing towards a great piece, but I believe it is held back by a bulky mechanic in the word "howl" and a vague quality that becomes more confusing than it is mysterious. Go more specific without being too specific, and you can forge this poem into something fantastic.  

Junkyard for week 4

I like to think I have interesting things in my junkyard. This week I have:

[1] - "I AM DR. FIST! EVERYTHING CAN BE CURED WITH BLUNT FORCE TRAUMA!"

[2] - "I am the most convincing undrunk drunk."

[3] - "All female orgasms are clitoral."

[4] - "Nobody looked up not once the day Angel Vargas learned to fly and dropped from the sky like a sugar donut just like a falling star, and exploded down to earth without even an 'Oh.'"

Was a bit under the weather... still feel sick, but I'm back now. Free write, week 4

Sorry about falling behind. I was a bit under the weather for a bit as the title of this post implies and I fell way behind in this class and some of my other classes as well. As it stands, I am just happy I got my poem in for critique. Beat it with a stick until it is bloody for me, guys. In the mean time, I'll subject you to a free write.

I Went to This Talk About Sex
By: David the Mathis

The lights are dim, and there are little note cards,
they're being passed around and people are
writing questions on them about sex
and sexuality, and
condoms.

You don't catch HPV off toilet seats or towels;
primarily, it is sexually transmitted, and this means
men are carriers, so
shouldn't we be protecting both parties? 


Everyone seems in-tune with what is being said.
The panel is arranged, ready, poised.
The questions keep coming by,
written like 8th grade research note cards:
Brief.

Sexual orientation isn't about body parts,
it's about how we love and it's mostly innate-- 
the emotional component of being gay is huge. Besides,
parenting is parenting and gays love their kids 
the same as any other parents.

Everyone is waiting and holding their breath for
offensive material or controversial material,
like gay marriage or homoerotic tendencies, or
rape.

Everything around us says we need bigger boobs,
need to show more cleavage--not all women throw
themselves out for sex and not all guys are
insensitive pricks; if someone tells you you're an idiot
or a slut, or you're for having sex, you'll believe it eventually.


The crowd cheers as answers are delivered,
born like raindrops from clouds to sprinkle
the dusty crops because they need to be told
that guys can be raped just like women, that women should
call themselves "women" and not something lesser, such as
"girls."

Someone told her she wasn't worth it.

It's that time again--Junkyard time. Week 3

This week's Junkyard is brought to you by my Queen of Hearts notebook:

[1] "Your mom told me to tell your sister that Peru is a planet."

[2] "It's the shaky leg. It's just like the stanky leg, but grandmas do it."

[3] "Foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."

[4] "I could shit my way out of a hostage situation."

Freewrite again. Week 3, more, more, more

I just read "The House on Mango Street."
Sad book. Sad, sad, sad book. Made me cry almost. The language was breathtakingly beautiful throughout. I don't even know what I am typing, or why, or for what cause. I just feel like I need to write something, and this is what it will be. I am going to just write a poem. No pre-notes, no outside sources, nothing. I just want to write, and you can listen if you feel like you need to, or you don't have to.

It is like the echo of something soft against a cold wall
By: David Mathis

I don't always feel like when I sit in a chair, I should be attentive--I've fallen asleep in many a chair, tipped back, cowl over the eyes, or not--lamp blaring, headphones over my ears with music streaming into my head at odd angles; I would say mostly the obtusely angled music gets through to tamp my dreams when I am asleep, tamping them into soft earthen mounds like the kind that the Native Americans used to bury their dead in. I like to think that I don't need sleep, like I've somehow transcended normal human behavior and that I could stand for days in the same spot, like a tree--they always cast the same exact shadows every day, in the same pattern, their elongated forms wrapping around like the hands of a clock, and you could probably even tell time by them if you were so inclined; the problem with telling time by a tree is that it is a lost art, and nobody even wants to take the time to read a tree like a clock anymore. Mostly, these days, people make trees into clocks in a different way.
I went to the petrified forest once. It was the same day that I visited the painted desert, may have been the same day that I went to the grand canyon, saw Earth's largest battle scar which was carved an inch at a time by a tiny river down at the bottom of the gash--if it were dammed, it is probable that the entire ordeal would never have happened, and people from all over the world would have simply never come to the spot with the dam and I wouldn't be staring into the biggest gash on the face of the Earth. Interesting when you imagine things without rivers. I imagine things without rivers sometimes, wonder how Egypt would fare, how the water would taste if it was all salt, and if perhaps people would drink salt water, or if those rare lakes without rivers would be the best source of water, if humans would have adapted to higher salt intake, and if the concept of evolution even really matters at all in the first place--if it does, I might want to know if it would apply to drinking salt water, and if it wouldn't, I would ask it what good it does. Evolution that is. I imagine it doesn't matter in the end.

FREEDOM!!!!!! Freewrite time. This is the third ever. Not sure what week...

Depending on when the blog says this posts is the main determinant in what week this falls under. I am going to try to get more freewrites this upcoming week. Regardless, we did this cool exercise about writing an angry passage in class today/yesterday depending on how long you've been awake, and I found that I was able to write something that I actually rather like. This is what I rather like, extended and merged with an idle writing I found in my QUEEN OF HEARTS journal.

Ballpark Sheep
By: David Mathis--Queen of Hearts

Crunch your mind cage with a cudgel--dash the meat
Across dirt-caked stone. Harsh, like hail on linens.

And this is my life--more unique than the life and times of Andy Dick,
Stouter than Guiness--too much in fact, and drunk while flickering street lights blink past.
Down those roads that in the night look sinister, but in the day look inviting,
Like the time I got carjacked somewhere on King Street.
Like the time you and I fucked in a parking lot but nobody saw us and the air was cold
when we left the car.

But then I get home.
Trashed floor, trashed desk.
papers everywhere.

My dog robs chairs of their virginity with her rotting teeth.
A statistician seized her insides a bit ago with too many numbers to crunch,
too many boxes to check--canine overrun with flitting numbers.
She died and was born again in the left ventricle of Mandelbrot's loins.

It's luscious like the plastic lips of a hula girl or,
Abhorrent in the way that bathing in a pool of contraceptive will permutate flesh or,
fleeting like a crocodile bite, assuming the fourth postulate of geometry applies and the month is January or,
Stout like Guiness crunching a bone cage with carjacked teeth rotting out of a dog's head.

Stop twisting so that this letter opener can properly perforate your neck.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yeah, so... this was a bit different for you. And perhaps for me too. I liked it though. Felt nice to just write language and shit. The only strange place for me was using the word "Fuck" in a poem, which is something I never do. I sometimes put it in dialogue, and as much as I swear outside of writing, I don't put it in my writing a whole lot. I just thought it fit here. Needed a good, short, harsh word. Such as FUCK.

LIZARDS ARE THINGS I LIKE TO LICK! peer review 2-2

Final submission for the week unless I toss in another freewrite somewhere. If I do, that'll be awesometastic and a halfstic. See how I forced a rhyme there? This week's pt. 2 will feature Spencer who I think is totally killin' it now that he posts a bit more. Check this sweet shit that he riffs from Meitner.
2046
by: Spencer Lovvorn

Don't mistake this for mania:
pulling towers down.

An animal
weakened with poison
injected precisely. The adder
could lie flat, still waiting
sluggishly, like compromise,
like discord. Just floating into
the natural.
Don't move
an adder. Creep
as heavily as you can before
you disappoint
or relent.

Employ me a path. Employ me
a frame
             of company in the nest
while generations design us
along unquestionable scenes.

Remember:
subtle output
lumps over time.
The shock sustains frenzy
as if it's predictable.
Your voice will flourish.
My voice will flourish.

---------------------------------------------------------

What I liked: The language obviously. I like the part with the adder--assuming he is referencing a snake--"Don't move / an adder." Is both humorous and it comes from "Don't waste a movement" and I think Spencer's revision is actually better than the original; in the context of this poem, the stanza is all about an adder. I also like "waiting / sluggishly, like compromise" And I think I like that for a different reason: it just sounds so damn nice. Flows off my tongue, and makes sense in some vital way. It's as if the poem is oddly cryptic while at the same time, imparting some universal wisdom. Love the contrast in that. Very subtle.

Improvements: The first stanza doesn't seem to really have as much to do with the rest of the poem, and it loses me. Pulling towers down is not especially manic I don't think, but I suppose I could be wrong. It just doesn't seem to jive with the rest of the tune is all. The final stanza sounds like it is just a bunch of cool words thrown together--something I am also guilty of. It sounds cool, yes, but I don't know what it means--though that could perhaps be the point. Never was sure why Meitner did that strange thing with the lines in the third stanza, and I'm still not sure it really does anything here--maybe you could make it important? I mean, it forces a really harsh enjambment on the reader, and I don't know why. I want enjambment to mean something to me. I want enjambment to slap me in the face, or punch me out or something--this enjambs like a lamb named Sam, but why? If you're going to trip up my flow, do it for a reason. Gimme' a one-two punch, brah. 

All together: Fantastic poem--lots of wonderful language, a great example of when Calisthenics go properly--not like one of the attempts I made below this post and then had to do more to it. It fits--for the most part--flows well, and has some wonderful absurdness that I really enjoy in a poem, but it could be strengthened with a more focused first stanza, a redo of the fourth stanza with its hodgepodge of words, and making that enjambment count--use it to tie the first stanza with the last. Make that enjambment carry the third stanza into a segue into the final stanza. That's what I would like to see. Keep up the ass kicking.

I LIKE TO LICK THE LIZARDS--Peer review 2-1

This week I am totally doing a peer review thing. I mean, I did last week too, but I am also doing it this week. I am actually doing it twice this week, just like last week. I'm just awesome like that. I have decided to review someone's post who NOBODY has reviewed so far: Jami's Calisthenics piece. So, like always, here is the piece for your viewing pleasure:

‘Dyslexia at it’s finest’

By: Jami Lynn

Cloning the skin on the skeleton
and the cat-like brown around the dilation
of the square bright light reflected in dyslexia.
Reversed IUAM engraved wooden hazardous waste disposal,
Close friends to the Reversed OROBLRAM box, laced with cyanide and rat poison
that is reached for at least three to four times in an hour, but the flame
between the two is violently forced out every time they touch.
Reversed switch, the indoor wind has stopped blowing and the sun has been flipped off, while
Metallic glitter stands still in lime green fishnet only revealing silhouettes to the neighbors.
Reversed new freckle kissing the nose subtly on the wrong side,
Or is it the right?
It is still a perfect vision through the glaze of dust
That has long been forgotten to be wiped down with blue liquid.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What I liked: Definitely the words spelled backwards. I did enjoy that quite a bit--it was a nice device, playing off of the idea that the entire poem happens within a mirror. I liked, yet again, the play with the idea of the mirror with "Reversed new freckle kissing the nose subtly on the wrong side, / or is it the right?" It was, in my opinion, a well-constructed pun. It seems to reinforce the mirror idea. Liked the idea with the light switch and the indoor wind.

Improvements: The words are both helpful, and encumbering in some ways--if you were to put a bit more emphasis on the mirror early in the poem, you wouldn't have to put "reversed" in front of the words; instead the reader would know that it was a the image from the mirror. I would like to see you put a bit more investment into the mirror idea if it is going to drive the poem the way it does. In that regard, at the end, you talk about the mirror being wiped with the "blue liquid" but I think that over complicates things a bit. No need to be cryptic about window cleaner. Just say window cleaner, or say that the dust should be wiped off or cleaned off. One last thing is about the light switch/indoor wind. I know I made the suggestion above about not having to put "reversed" into the poem, but you seem to have made it a baseline which also includes the lightswitch--it's cool if you want to keep it, but I would still put more mirror emphasis. I think it would only strengthen the piece As for the glittering fishnets, I assume those are maybe blinds, but I am not actually entirely sure. Seems a little too cryptic for the reader to grasp. I also have no idea what the first part of the poem means. The language is baffling. 

All Together: You have a lot of good base material to springboard a strong poem off of--playing with the environment inside a mirror as backwards from the real world--some puns and some nice use of the English language peppered throughout. I think it would be nice to see a bit more emphasis on that mirror world though, because it currently takes a strange background seat and the reader has to infer what is going on. On the other hand though, I didn't realize how subtly awesome the poem was--you never really come right out and say that the event is in a mirror. The only time you really acknowledge that is at the end with the window cleaner. And with that last statement, you could take it either way--more emphasis on the mirror, or make the reader infer. However, whichever you decided to do, I still think that the beginning of the poem throws the reader off and I didn't get my bearings again until the reversed words. Great job so far--I know I gave some conflicting answers, but ultimately you are the one who knows what direction you want to take this. I just tried to give a few ways to go in different ways.

Calisthenics and you! Week 2's absurdities.

I looked through the book to find an example of how to write--ENGAGING THE ABSURD!
So, that is what I will do. I have searched through my big bag of stuff I've written in the past so I can pull something from there. I have decided to pick a piece of prose, and turn it into poetry, but also make it absurd.

I selected a story I wrote about a dude hunting zombies after a zombie apocalypse. I wrote it a few years ago, so naturally, I think it already needs work. I've always wanted to write a zombie apocalypse poem, so, this should be cool. I'll even give it the original title--my titles have never made sense.

I Don't like it When You Push that Button, Dude
by: David Mathis

A man sits at his kitchen table--lights low, walls full of static--eating a bowl of cereal.
Clock strikes 2:45, moon glares into the window, tapping an impatient foot.
Next to the eating man, a sliding glass door opens, permitting a zombie to limp in feebly.
The man tips his bowler cap to the twisted flesh husk, which sits down at the table as well.

A zombie sits in a tree until a firefighter comes to rescue it--the zombie's arm is snapped off in the process.
Clock strikes 2:40, moon stares into a graveyard full of headstones with faded epitaphs:
Zora, Born 2424, Tactile as the buttons on a coat. 
The Zombie sees a window caught in the light of a lamp. Seems inviting.

The zombie eats cocoa pebbles with a slurping noise and the man snores even when awake.
Clock strikes 2:50, moon is getting tired of staring. Goes on break. The night darkens.
The zombie and the man slowly crunch cereal between teeth--some rotting.
Moon comes back, and the zombie and the man slip into bed.

The man pulls a blanket tight over himself and the zombie.
Clock strikes 3:00. The man pulls the covers tighter.
The zombie can't move, the covers are so tight.
Zombie flattens into the bed. Day breaks.

Sign Analysis--second attempt

Apparently I went waaay too specific last time in my efforts, so I'll tone it back this time. Remember, and learn from my mistakes--we're just lookin' at cool shit we see in pro work. So, I am going to tell you all about "SMILE! IT'S SCHOOL PICTURE TIME!" by Erica Meitner because she is soooooooo awesome. I can't read her enough. I just drink in the words and it's wonderful.

-- I like that the first stanza has nothing to do with the second stanza. It is a wonderful example of juggling.
-- I like that the final stanza goes back to the first stanza and makes the center stanza a kind of segue which puts the narrative in an understandable box.
-- enjambment from the end of the first stanza into the second. It hops stanzas, forces the first one to have a connection with the second. Almost like the reader wouldn't have known it had something to do with each other otherwise.
-- first part is very sexual
-- They learn about the body from a plastic skeleton--emphasis on the fact that it is not at all alive

Well, this is what I gots! Maybe there are more...

Junkyardigans! Better than the backyardigans!

I like to think that I can find cool, strange language... let's put it to the test! JUNKYARD! GO! ALL IN ONE SHOT!!!

[1]
"If a lion / had you in its jaws, I would attack it, if the ropes / binding your soul are your own wrists, I will cut them."
Sharon Olds, THE PROMISE

I never get tired of reading this one. Such amazing language. if you don't agree, I don't really know what to say to you.

[2]
"I thought of men and women who sell their blood for / a drink of sleep in a doorway..."
Susan Mitchell, A STORY

[3]
"How do you hone your chops?"
Random guy at Dragoncon

I have no idea if that even makes sense or not, but a guy who was trying to get into voice acting asked the voice acting panel how someone might hone his or her chops, which struck me as an odd question to ask.

[4]
"You're giving me that look like 'David, I want you to stick ice up my butt.'"
me, me, me

I was in the hotel after the first night in Dragoncon when my girlfriend called and was asking about the trip. My friend went off to go get ice, and came back claiming to have a buttload of ice. I ended up joking about the buttload of ice that my girlfriend told me to guess what kind of look she was giving me. The above quote was my response.

Riffin' and raffin' all night and all day--in this week, the week of week 2

I am thinking that this whole riffing off other more talented authors may eventually help. Keeping that in mind, I feel like I need to riff off of the amazing language I find in THE PROMISE by Sharon Olds; if you haven't gotten around to reading it yet--I have, thanks to Queenie--then you should. Since this is probably going to be long enough as it is, I will just tell you what part I plan to pluck. Ah, alliteration, I love you. Especially when you happen on accident. I have a boner for alliteration, as you may soon learn.

[1]
Think how we have floated together
eye to eye, nipple to nipple,
sex to sex, the halves of a creature
drifting up to the lip of matter
and over it—you know me from the bright, blood-
flecked delivery room, if a lion
had you in its jaws I would attack it, if the ropes binding your soul are your own wrists, I will cut them.

I don't know how you get any fucking better than this language--ironically, considering the profanity. It makes my insides roil in ecstasy, it does. I want to take it to bed with me and make babies. I would totally have this poem's babies. But, it's time to pull from this--we talked about verbs in class today. Wonder if I can do better? I'll cut out all the verbs and replace them, assuming they aren't linking verbs or important or something like that:

[2]

Think how we have throttled together

eye to eye, nipple to nipple,

sex to sex, the halves of a creature

tumbling up to the lip of matter

and over it--you see me from the bright, blood-

flecked delivery room, if a lion

had you in its jaws I would lick it, if the ropes binding your soul are your own wrists, I will preforate them.

That's wonderful, yeah? What have I added to this piece? Nothing. Nope, nothing at all. All I have done is just replace already strongly placed verbs. Well, that sucks, huh? No worries, I can fix this. Let's do something fun--all nouns must die. I'm just trying it. may keep a couple.

[3]

Think how we have throttled together

to, to, to tumbling up and over--see from the

flecked if had in would lick binding preforate.

I like this a lot more. See how crazy this is getting? CRAZY IS DELICIOUS!!! I am going to stick some of my own words into it now. Needs more building:

[4]

Think how we've throttled together

to skies laced with wings, to shores harboring tourists, to mountains spattered with whitewash

tumbling up and over--see from the flecked handle a glint of flashbulb. If I had a tongue, I would

lick the bindings, preforate an arm with a tooth, drink the dribble of rain sliding down a windshield. 

And NOW it is all mine. I am content. Mission complete.

Freeballin' and freewritin' and freefallin', this is the 2nd week, kids

That's right--second journal week. How disheartening does it feel to think that this is only the second week for these journals? How much of the semester has NOT gone by? Well, to cut to the chase--in a round about way--I went to Dragoncon this weekend, which was a fantastic experience that I would recommend to anyone. I wrote some things down that I heard there, and some ideas I had--just random pieces of poetry that came to mind, and I think my goal here is to piece some of those together to make a better poem. The basis for this poem is that I was talking to my friend and sister, when I heard what I thought was the phrase "Owls in Wonderland," which made me think immediately of ways to write about Owls in Wonderland, and so I have a bit of a list poem here. Hope you love it to pieces. Speaking of loving things to pieces, I am going to try to bring some Listener into this one. Great band by the way, Listener.

Owls in Wonderland
by: David Mathis

Swim in twisting currents, hell-bent by a white moon.
Are scavengers and they will eat a child.
Grope endlessly in the light with mottled tongues to reclaim dull consonants.
Shed lightly when agitated. The feathers are used to grow owl trees.
Never notice background noise until it is too late.
Eat their weight in krill--except when they are too busy eating crows.
Never sleep with an alarm clock and even when they do, they don't hit the snooze button.
Will never talk to strangers.
Have odd dressing habits. They can be found in fashion shows.


P.S. I love the word "Consonants" and am trying to be sparing in its use. I got the idea when I wrote this poem while trying to write a love poem--love poems are so damn sappy. Stay away from them.

Spiral
by: David Mathis

Churn, flipping flat edges to grind consonants together until flaring they crumble to powdery embers;
Those embers will feed starving villages for months on end until their mouths, full of ashes, clog.
The dull sun lists, grey rays slanting weakly over a razor edged horizon and a new day
reluctantly forces swollen eyes to focus.

Spiral.

P.P.S. consonants is such a cool word. Like.. capitulation, cacophony, chiaroscuro, caramel, parallelogram, lilting, lycanthrope, cystectomy (no idea what kind of surgery that even is), incessant, cycle, casserole, croissant, cybertron, Coriolis, and a host of other amazing words that I just think sound the coolest. Especially words that either self-alliterate, or that have both harsh and soft sounds, like Casserole. LISTEN TO HOW SOUNDS FIT TOGETHER!!!

P.P.P.S. I go on too long. this is getting excessive. language isn't all about making sense--sometimes, it is about how words sound when put together.

EDIT: I did not change it with pieces from Listener! YOU LET ME FORGET!!! I will do it next time. I promise.

Sign Analysis for the first week.

I have selected Electric Girls to analytize this week, mostly because Meitner's work is so damn poignant. Such wonderful language I exert here. At any rate, I love her work because it is so incredibly genius--it strikes daggers into one's heart while at the same time, seems to say something deeply morbid about life. Sweeping generalizations aside, I'll pick this all apart. 

Line 1-- Translucent letters could mean a number of things, but in the context of the poem, I feel like it is probably trying to say that the letters don't really matter.

Lines 4/5-- The ad is an interesting piece, and seems to be part of a unique part of the poem--the two line span that encompasses the ad. It suggests that if it is not an ad for summer, then it is a message from the deities. it refers to the empty letters above, so obviously it might be from the deities because the words are written in the sky. Imagine if the Wicked Witch happened to be a goddess. 

Lines 6-8 -- obviously the goddesses are references to goddesses, but, why those two? Mithra might make sense, because the writing in the sky--sky+Sun, ect. However, Hathor is a bit more problematic. Perhaps supplication to a goddess to look over women which would foreshadow the events to come--where there isn't necessarily anyone watching over women--raises the question: is it feminist in nature? The poem that is.

Lines 7-9 -- More evidence for feminism with guys left simply duct taped in lover's lane. interesting, the use of the word "bound" because generally that comes with "gagged" but she doesn't give us "gagged," because it is men. Men tend not to be bound and gagged nearly as much as women do. Also, the boyfriends are left intact. Generally meaning that something is whole--so the boys are unaffected by the entire ordeal. I am beginning to see more feminism.

Lines 10-13 -- Honestly, I don't have much here...

Lines 14-18 -- Anonymity is the main theme here in this stanza. The girls are raped, and then become worthless after that. The act of the rape is what makes them worth less--removes their names as well as their dignity because their names have already been spread all across America. 

Lines 19-24 -- This part is sudden. I am not entirely sure what to do with it. Women suddenly become empowered in an old society where women were more undervalued than they are today--or perhaps this is meant to make the reader ask if women really are valued more now. 

Lines 25-28 -- Emphasis on the word "Peasant" and her authenticity had to be established. 

Lines 29-32 --Remarks about a testament to the peasant's strength, but discredits her ability as an electric girl. Strips the power and leaves her simply strong--still not the normal trait of a woman.

Lines 33-34 -- Equates the woman to the writing in the sky and therefore the girls. Nothing lasts forever. Everything is temporary. There is nothing that matters.

Peer review--Now bigger, better, and in a part 2 format!

Today, Dee totally came up to me and asked if I could give her poem a review, which is always a wonderful question to ask me: I love reviewing work from other people, and I am always happy to review something. I actually had skimmed her blog before, but hadn't settled down and really dug into any of it before, but her first impulse about New Orleans is quite fantastic, and I would highly suggest you check her out. I'll put the poem down here for you to see:

Home

By: Dee Dugar

The city where Grandma splashes spices 

In her vessel. 3 tablespoons of flour and oil, 1/2 pound smoked

Sausage, sliced to fit, 1 pound boneless chicken thighs

Cut in bite-size pieces, and 2 cups of frozen cut okra,

The creation is almost finished.

Poured in a plastic wrap the soup

Flows like a flush,

Until the white grain is added.

Yum!

The city where the different cultures had intercourse,

 Birthing a child later named jazz.

Where on every corner instruments told a story,

A story we second lined to, to celebrate death, marriage,

And birth.

The city that’s stuck in a bowl with oceans crowded around for miles,

Until the water embraced it

Cleansing the sins away, creating a new beginning,

This is my city, the city I call home.

------------------------------------------------------------------

What I liked: The recipe for one. I thought the recipe added a lot of interest to the beginning of the poem--both because you bring in a grandma figure, and because you refer to the recipe as a "creation," before you equate it to a flush. Of course, the flush makes the entire ordeal sound utterly disgusting, but it is followed up by "Yum!" which did throw me off at first. I usually don't put exclamations in my poems, or in my writing, and I have always thought that it really must serve a purpose when used. As for this, it could work as a kind of backlash against the recipe, which sets up questions about the rest of the poem: is it all an illusion to the city, or are you trying to juggle two pieces?

Improvements: I am not sure I like how many fragments there are--I understand this is poetry, and you are allowed to play around with language a lot more freely than with prose, but I just don't think the fragments do anything for me. The opening line is a fragment, and then the first line of the second stanza mirrors that with another fragment. I am not saying that it has to be a complete sentence but, as a reader, I feel like it could be better if those were formed into complete thoughts. In the second stanza, you mirror yourself in a different way: you use the phrase "a story" back-to-back, and it is obviously done on purpose. I think in a way, the same phrase back-to-back idea is a little bit on the cliche side. I know it is supposed to have a bit of a dramatic effect, but I just don't know that it works in the poem right now. Another thing is that right after that, you say "A story we second lined to, to celebrate death, marriage, / and birth." but, I don't know what that even means. It seems like a sentence fragment that maybe you mistyped and it was supposed to say something else. As it stands, I get lost there.

All Around: I like it--especially the beginning. I think the idea to mix the recipe with the beginning of a poem was nice, but from the flush on, it all seems to kind of go down a level or two--which could have been intentional. If I was going to say anything to that effect, it is that you could capitalize on the flush being an image of descent, and then focusing the rest of the poem into a downward spiral. However, there is a sentence I don't know what to do with, and places where the fragments become a bit much in terms of the inner workings of the poem itself. I would suggest looking at everything past the first stanza, stepping back, asking what you want to do with the piece, and then fleshing it out some more. Maybe by doing the downward spiral idea that I suggested, or perhaps by giving a bit more poetic background about New Orleans--filling it with the color of the city. I've been to New Orleans--after the floods--and I've never encountered a city as unique as that place. You've lived there. Show us how you see it. For me, it was a wonderful sensory experience--sights, colors, sounds I'd never heard, a unique city that felt at once ancient and new. Pack all of it into a poem when you talk about home--especially one that's been destroyed. Don't hold back. 

Improv theatre. Let's rip off another better poet I like today. Week 1.

Still not entirely sure I am totally comfortable with just ganking someone's work since academic honesty has been drilled in my head ever since I went to SCAD, but let's give this a crack. I was reading the list of poets we will need to know, and a poem caught my attention--Robin Redbreast by Stanley kunitz. I was having a fangirl moment for the whole poem, so, I had to steal part of it. What better part than the first line? Prepare to IMPROV!!!

WARNING: this is a lengthy post. Ignore it if you want to.

This is the block that I have decided to steal specifically:
-------------------------------

It was the dingiest bird

you ever saw, all the color

washed from him, as if

he had been standing in the rain,

friendless and stiff and cold,

since Eden went wrong. 

--------------------------------
I am very interested in colors as they pertain to a poem, and how they are important in the poem itself, so I stole this very first line that I liked. So, now it is time to get something else going from this. maybe not the whole thing though--maybe just a line or two, and I'll mix it with some of my own. I'll take this line:
[All the color washed from him as if he had been standing in the rain, Friendless.]

First, I've compressed it into one line to see if that's an alright transformation. I like it well enough, but I think I'll apply my slap-chop and make this into a salad:
[Friendless, he had been standing in the rain, all the color washed from him]

I actually like that above line a bit better for my own style, so I'll use that as the line I start from. It now actually sounds like an alright starting line, and I've gone from the idea of being colorless that the poem sets up to the color of rain, which always seems to either be grey, or maybe blue. I like that color scheme--I write entirely too much about the sea, and it always ends up with a green or blue tint in my mind--If I make absolutely no sense, pay me no mind at this point. I am just typing as I think, which can be a very dangerous tactic. Literally I am improving as I go. Time to riff this thing to death:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Spring up as a Typhoon in Heat
By: David Mathis
with help from: Stanley Kunitz

Friendless, he had been standing in the rain, all the color washed from him.
Streets, paled to grey under a relentless horde of callous raindrops,
Steamed indignantly. With each crashing wave, fueled by internal combustion,
He felt more and more like a wet newspaper, water-streaked and running.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is what I have for a first stanza, but I don't like it at all. So, I have to smash it, because smashing things is the greatest way to reform them. First, I have decided that I don't at all like the end of the second line, and it feels like some sort of horribly thought-out enjambment. For that matter, I am not sure I like the image of the wave, and I really was just grabbing for straws by the time I hit newspaper, because I was much too focused on getting that color I wanted. Even though the original idea was to emphasize the color, I will step off, and crack open my Queen of Hearts girl's diary which I have bought to write down my thoughts, and steal some random ideas out of that:

I am a huge Regina Spektor fangirl, and I recently came across somebody asserting that the Russian part of "Appres Moi" is actually a poem, and one of the lines is supposedly:
[While the slush in thunder / is burning in the great darkness of Spring]

I can't even describe how much I love the phrase "while the slush in thunder is burning in the great darkness of Spring." Furthermore, it seems applicable to add this phrase to something about rain. I just need the thunder, and also to reduce the things I hate about this poem so far. If I could, I would like to steal from two sources. A quick search has netted me a poet by the name of  Boris Pasternak--the man supposedly responsible for that new piece of poetry--and I find I love just about the whole poem. Seems to have been translated from Russian, which confirms the report. Now, if that is actually what she sings, cool. If not, I still love it. A different piece from that same poem has now also grabbed me:
[Beneath--the Earth is black in puddles]

This also gives me a frame to work within. However, I have a contradiction: the first line is talking about colorlessness, and the next two lines are talking about darkness. Black isn't colorless, unless I find a way to twist the language to make that happen--a feat I may as well attempt:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Twice now, I've Lost a Child
By: David Mathis
With help from: Stanley Kunitz and Boris Pasternak

[Friendless, he had been standing in the rain, all the color washed from him]
as he glared silently into a roaring storm cloud which leaked its grime-encrusted
underbelly all over the street. [Beneath that storm cloud, the Earth was black
in puddles], blotched with corrosion--a budding season taped over by
reruns of trashy soap operas.

[The Slush in thunder is burning in the great darkness of Spring]
like phosphorus ignited and splashed in ragged chisel lines down
icy mountain tops. All the while, the rain dribbles down walls,
collecting in basins to form puddles. They simply reflect the ebon sky like malformed eyes,
staring straight into the underbelly of a storm--unmoving, undeterred, unfaltering.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

I am much happier with this version of the poem. It is a bit darker, and it has a lot of sections from other poems, but I think that this is a start. And with this, I will stop torturing you. get on with your life and go read someone else's blog.

Check you around.

P.S. I've only lost one child--not two.

Kaptain Kalisthenics! Calisthenics for the first week--AND BEYOND!

I am assuming this is what counts for some good old fashioned Calisthenics when I decide to write about the smell of peanut butter. We were in class when this assignment happened to me, and I found myself in a tough spot--I suppose I've never written a poem dedicated to a single smell, and I was a bit confused at first. I don't honestly know what drew me to the smell of peanut butter, but I found that I busted out a couple lines on peanut butter. I ended up actually building on each one progressively until I ended up with some strange preschool smell which I didn't really want to go any further with--mostly because urine and playdough were bound to happen next, and I didn't want the earthy, warm smell of peanut butter to remind me of urine. Here are the many variations for you--I'll not make you guess the ridiculousness that I jotted down for peanut butter:

PEANUT BUTTER FROM VARIOUS NOSES
an amalgamation by: David Mathis and his many noses

Smells appealing in the way a surge protector does--solid. Stout like the Earth.
Smells of clods of dirt, moist, but processed into something better--Earth meat.
Scented vaguely like a lion napping in a canyon of obsidian--it slopes gently against the nose.
Precisely the smell of sandwiches served to small mouths and uncoordinated fingers, groping.
It's like cinder blocks whitewashed, overlooking tiny tables which feature fractured goldfish with apple juice.

Review time--week 1 and part 1 and this is all about Queenie!

This part of the review is brought to you by the letter Q. As in Queenie. I read over her shorter piece earlier in the week and I liked it well enough--especially after the explanation, but I chose this one to review because it was longer and had more substance to review. The piece is:


CARNIVAL MENU
By: Queenie

          I smell the death of poetry
through a boil-infested nose of a snickering witch with
eyes teetering up and down salivating sockets.
    A rainbow bubbling. Swirling. Mixed with feathered tar.
Carousels decorated with decapitating rotting babies
in their white baptismal dresses.
    White dogs whimpering by the pink curtains,
    Emaciated brains bathing atop ivory plates ,
    Crooked tarnished forks laughed with rusted knives,
    Wrinkled warts embraced by asian wives.

A poetic abracadabra lit up candles without wax.

    Lisping leprechauns clad with left over fairy wings
Whistling songs from the catholic’s last pages.

          Fiddled frogs and processed possums
          Giggling down debutante’s bosoms.

Breakfast is served.


Review time:

What I liked: I enjoyed the imagery that you've laid out with all the different pieces of the carnival and with the witch. It was interesting the way you kept referencing Christianity and then contrasting that with the grotesque. There was some interesting page breaks and line spacings going on throughout the poem, and that did add a bit of visual variety to your work. It all seems very concerned with white verses corruption, almost a pure against vile.

Improvements: Much like a lot of my work, it's a bit heavy in the description--almost to the point of being overbearing. I often have to go back through and tone back a lot of my work because of how much sensory detail I cram into the damn things. It can be good, or it can be bad, and in this case, I would suggest toning it back, perhaps trying to be a little more subtle in the descriptions. As it stands, it seems to be more interested in shock value than anything else, and while the odd spacings and line breaks do add a lot of visual diversity, I am not sure it really works to strengthen the work.

All together: You're heavy in the description throughout the piece, which creates an interesting texture--one that evokes something wholly disgusting and wretched--but at times, it seems over done. I would suggest toning it back a bit, maybe working on hard enjambment over stand-alone lines if you are wanting to jar the reader. It has wonderful moments of contrast which could all be potentially more powerful. You continuously focus on white objects and Christianity and then layer that with frighteningly horrible imagery. while the images are certainly stark and hard-formed in my mind, I think not completely giving it to the reader will allow two things--expanding the poem, and making the reader form the images in his or her own mind, which can often be just as powerful--if not more powerful--than being handed an image. I think if you work this poem a bit harder, it could really pop.

Finishing out the Junkyard for Week 1

BLA-AAM! FUCKIN' BLAM! I can't even begin to know where to start--this week has been so damn frantic already, but I have some cool Junkyard quotes for you kiddos. Here goes:

[3] "This is my Marry Poppins bag--I pull dead bodies out of it."
  --Professor McFarland
     This was probably the best thing I heard all day, and certainly goes at the top of professor quotes for the week. I hope she doesn't honestly have any dead bodies in there...

[4] "Her boobs were just about the only thing keeping her from being stiffed, ironically."
  --Me
     I have said nicer things about people before, but it was in reference to one of the other servers at pizza hut.


This should do cool shit like flesh out all [4] Junkyardicals for the week--tune in next week for more funz!

Junkyard time--time to shine

Junkyard is my one downfall. I can't ever seem to gather enough ridiculous phrases, but here's what I've got for you today:

[1] "The world is small because it rains everywhere at once."
-- I was reading through my girlfriend's old creative writing notebook, when she found and pointed out a piece she really liked from class. It was pretty nice, but when I was finished reading it, my eyes immediately jumped to the top of the page, where the phrase "The world is small because it rains everywhere at once" was written without reference to anything else that I could discern. I went absolutely crazy over that one phrase, and I think it irritated her that I couldn't find the same appreciation for the story she really liked, but I am a sucker for phrases like that. It immediately struck me.

[2] "You're nothing but a whorecrux!"
-- I ran into a friend of mine from last semester recently, and we had much to talk about. We somehow got on the subject of Harry Potter, and it didn't take long to turn one of the central plot points in the series into a dirty--and nerdy--insult. I found myself yelling this on the second floor of the Humanities building, and it stuck with me.

This is all that comes to mind for now, but since I get four posts for this, I'll keep you posted.

Crankin' out that obligatory first post--you'll thank me later

Welcome to mah blog--not that you need a welcome mat, or an introduction; this is not some sort of nice go-to place when you feel low and need a pick-me-up, nor is it a particularly public forum. Instead, this will be a page splayed with my thoughts, and you are welcome to pick out the pertinent pieces and look over them with awe and wonder while you discard the chunks of chaff. I don't pretend to be well-read enough to stand up to the most learned scholars, and the gods all know that I could use some measure of help in all of my writing, but I hope to refine my technique over the course of the semester.

I'll generally explain what I put here, so if you choose to skip the first part, then that is of course your choice. If you want background, read it. If you don't care what I have to say about my work, draw your own conclusions and skip all the wordy nonsense before hand. It is of course, your choice. So that I don't completely waste time, I'll splash a non-introductory, more pertinent block of text for you to peruse--with my obligatory pre-poem explanation.

I was sitting down in the UCC the other day, and I was hit with a sudden and unwanted wave of nostalgia in the form of my remembering an old girlfriend. It just so happened I was sitting with my current girlfriend, which made things really awful because I absolutely zoned out so hard that she had to ask what was wrong. It was harder, I found, to explain what exactly was wrong, because I didn't know. I suddenly had a thought: long ago, I sat two floors down in the "Wolves Den" as they call it--I had only just bought two pairs of shoes. I was wearing one, and my girlfriend was proud that I bought two different pairs. She had her laptop out, and one of her friends passed by. We talked, and I don't remember what happened after that. The entire exchange was so insubstantial, but I remember just that piece of it without knowing why or how. I just sat, thinking about it, and I am not entirely sure it was even relevant. But, when I decided to write a poem for this free-write, the memory sprang to mind again. Hope you enjoy this. If you don't, tell me why. If you DO, hell, you can still tell me why. I like that too.

Blackened Talapia Over a bed of Braised Carrots Celery


I always feel like time doesn't just end at the junction of seconds;
instead, it flickers endlessly both backwards and forwards
and at the most inconvenient times, it plucks the chords tied to my senses
in the most painful way possible. I stand among a crowd
and I see--right in front of me--windows, full of trees.
Get this, though: my mind overrides this image--the people flitting around
like motes of dust, wriggling tails while their gills pop open and closed
--with an image, three floors down. I am sitting at a bar stool, new shoes on my feet
and a woman is seated next to me who once held me close until I slept as a baby on her bosom.
And now, I stand--swollen with a sharp stab of something hot and white growing in my fists,
balled, quivering--staring out a window.
Sometimes leaves fall from trees and turn brown with age;
they crunch underfoot like cockroaches, but come spring, those leaves are back
and they seem just as green as the year before. I have the benefit of knowing:
those green leaves will raise a cacophony and I can remember the husk of shoes
that have been stripped soleless, entombing younger feet as they churn
useless old leaves to chalk that smear ugly lines across the sidewalk.