Ode to Jan

the weather was warm, Jan
when you sailed your Grande Marquis
into port
you blustered in with turbulent
curls crowning your head
like barnacles

i switched to your channel
The Weather Channel, Jan
and rained gin into your tonic
as you docked at the rail
relinquishing your mackinaw to the wood
of the back of your chair

"Well he is such a hunk," you say
and Jan i agree with you
as you point to the weatherman
blowing in the wind on the screen
"I do love Jim," you say
the hands of your betrothed caressing the sun
sliding across the blue map

Jan I know that you are a liar, Jan
and i think about the weather in
your head. i shiver as i pass you
i pass you your pork
chop, well done

you say "I see my Jim at midnight"
and i say "Shit, Jan what?"
and you say not to worry about it
your eyes rolling whirlpools
lined in kohl, the shaky edges
of heavy clouds

you slur your words, Jan
like the crash of the tide
and you laugh alone at the screen
lips pulled back to reveal teeth
teeth like planks

a woman appears on your channel
huddled against the hurricane's gust
"She is my best friend," you say
"I sure do miss her."

ReThink Topeka

http://www.rethinktopeka.com/

A great event that is changing perceptions and promoting creativity.

I Salute You, Brother

Jim Carroll, if not my favorite poet, then surely the first whose work i ever truly felt a connection to, passed away on friday. when i was (even more of) a neophyte to the world of the poem, this daunting monolith of tradition looming above me, but determined to step into its shadow, i happened upon his collection Fear of Dreaming. it hit me. it hit me hard. it reached inside and touched me in a way that poetry hadn't yet, to that point.

if you haven't read any of carroll's poems, or even if you've only read the basketball diaries, for which he is best known, i definitely recommend you check him out.

a genius has passed from this plane, and the world is poorer for it.

Poem

by Jim Carroll

She was playing the french horn
Standing there at the door
As you walked into the place

You couldn't miss her
Not the way her lips tightened
And released

At her breaks
Such a sad glass she was
Drinking from, suspicious lips, the cut
Of the crystal
when raised

The dark end
Of a sullen spectrum.

And down in deep facets

Which lead her nightly to that drowning place.

And the ambitious candle
Snuffed
By their sensible spit
And her anxious breathing.

That was a flame too young to die

'The Visioning Process'

Crouched

in the cabinet where the magic is kept

with a spent magnet clenched
in one hand
and a bookbag full of contraband,

I bandage an old egg
I found in a ditch at the edge of town

to keep it from hatching too soon.

And I poke pinholes in it
to let it breathe
and through which to project images
on a thin screen,

an off-white sheet of muslin
that marries
my would-be success rates to the wall-paper.

but in the yellowy glow of egg-light
the graphs and animations
don't have quite the impact I would've liked,

and the space is too tight
behind these cramped cabinet doors
to really get a sense of it,

to make you understand at all.