i'm no heroine

2005-12-14T14:24:00.000-08:00

I would love if everyone could post some of the stuff they read during our final meeting. I was extremely tired and not feeling well, so I really wanted to be elsewhere. But, after having sat and listened to everyone's pieces, I still felt like crap but I didn't want to leave. I've never taken a creative writing class with so many good writers. It's something to appreciate, and to miss when it is gone. So, if everyone has a minute, post your stuff.

Happy Break (I don't dare say Merry Christmas)

2005-12-01T22:26:00.000-08:00

I was just reading over some Rudyard Kipling, randomly enough, and found that Mahitabel Lee, the love of that poet cockroach is he object of desire in Kipling's poem "uhhh... something 'In Indian Ink'..." It got me really excited to see the connection. I am going to have to name something Mahitabel now. Just wanted to post that.

2005-11-21T15:30:00.000-08:00

New Poem:

First Day with Doctor Rapid Eye Movement

we begin with analogies.
Like: me being a fish who
eats the bruises off
other fish. And, Doctor
Rapid Eye Movement says
I should blink ten times
in three seconds to
get all that old stuff to
rise in its clumps, and
bitterness. Doctor Rapid
Eye Movement says I
remind him of concrete.
I blink to suck the
water back. This has
nothing to do with
letting the bird tremble
its wings like its got a
747 on its back and its
trying to squeeze its
awkward way through
the opening. I don’t feel
like getting drained. I can’t
taste anything. If I had a
stomach, I would eat
someone’s mistakes.
Give me your crumbled
sidewalks, and your
puked on shoes, and all
those gluttonous washcloths
that smell like you. Doctor
Rapid Eye Movement tells
me to blink five and a
half times. But, I’m
just going to open my
mouth. You can fill it up.
Fill it up like a boat full
of immigrants equipped
with paddles for that
beautiful, gelatinous
journey to God.

2005-11-20T18:04:00.000-08:00

My name is Trevor Fox. I believe in the soul. The cock. The pussy. The small of a woman's back. The hanging curveball. High fiber. Good scotch. That the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap. I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe there ought to be a Constitution Amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter. I believe in the sweet spot, soft-core pornography, opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas eve. And I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days...Goodnight.
Even Trevor's a poet. This makes me happy.

2005-11-18T17:07:00.000-08:00

I forgot to mention, the excerpt I am commenting on is written by Ken Norris. With that said, I continue...

I am so very bad at articulating myself. Perhaps this is why I write poetry. I am just saying, the poetry can't be found just by the reader. That's criminal. The poetry is in the writer - their intentions to be daring or smarmishly (new word) poetic. A visual artist can paint an entire canvas yellow and call it art. Upon its viewing in say, some ART museum, people are going to get pissed off, or they're going to agree. Right now, if I were to go home and paint something yellow, I'd do it because I think the color represents something painful, like looking at the sun too long. Maybe the whole idea of painting a canvas one color is to scare the shit out of people, like legalizing gay marriage. What next, right? How dare any of us strive from Monet, as someone just as equally impressive, but boring? How dare any of us redefine religion, love, marriage? How dare we call it poetry if audience(s) cannot relate to it, or say it so?

"Poems are word machines that are employed to make the poetical, the poetry, happen in the reader. Although there are certain tried and true strategies for invoking the poetical, there are a million different ways of making it happen."

This, in and of itself, sounds poetical and arrogant and wordy and I am just going to say: No. I don't think poems are "word machines." I think that's just stupid.

"...and there's a whole new artistic ballgame soon to be begun. The new Picasso will neutralize the old arguments, or render them irrelevant. That's what a Picasso does."

I think this is our que.

Insert "New Sentence" stuff here.

I've been ready for the new "artistic ballgame" for quite some time. I don't think the goal is to completely castrate old arguments. I think education needs to present these arguments to us - poetry is so last, like 18th century to our education system. All we're told is to come up with a hundred different, confusing ways of saying, "The sky is grey." All we're taught is poetry came from really smart men and absolutely insane women. We're taught to hate Shakespeare and love Robert Frost, just because he's Robert Frost. We're taught to stay in the box. Jeffrey McDaniel isn't a poet, he's, I don't know what he is. Maybe the new Picasso's of poetry will eradicate the curriculum; start over. Maybe we should start getting pieces of "The New Sentence" or snippets of present movements before college. I'd feel a little smarter.

"I am interested in poetics insofar as it informs technique – as it lays out a path of how to get to the poetical, as a practical methodology, using words."

The word machine, right? This is getting too hard for me. I can't articulate my thoughts anymore. Just when I think I get this guy, he loses me. This is like that incredibly funny piece in the newest West Wind Review by Gary Buslick (I don't know if I am spelling his name correctly) about how literary people have this really syrupy-institutionalized-my penis is bigger than yours language.

I talk in circles. They use big words. I'm just going to go write a poem.

Here's a couple from Ken Norris:

POETRY AS EDIFICATION

Reading her poetry
makes me think about shoes.

I don't usually
think about shoes.

LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE

Married like everybody else.
Divorced like everybody else.
Raising kids like everybody else.
Shopping at the mall like everybody else.
Watching tv like everybody else.
In debt like everybody else.

So wherein lies my individuality?
Well, in a car culture
I do walk everywhere,
and arise early
at six-thirty
to write poems like this one.

2005-11-18T16:43:00.000-08:00

When my creative writing students and I look at poems, I ask them to show me where the poetry is. You can't find the poetry in a poem. And that's because the poetry is in the reader. Poems are word machines that are employed to make the poetical, the poetry, happen in the reader. Although there are certain tried and true strategies for invoking the poetical, there are a million different ways of making it happen.

Although I love the Postmodern period, I am perfectly happy to say that it has pretty much ended. Or has already ended, as an historical moment. The 20th century is over, and there's a whole new artistic ballgame soon to be begun. The new Picasso will neutralize the old arguments, or render them irrelevant. That's what a Picasso does.

I find the philosophical wing of poetics pretty dull. But, then, I find philosophy pretty dull. The best philosophy is found in poetry, not in philosophy. Philosophy has meaningful air to breathe inside a poem. Outside of a poem, for me, it has very limited lung capacity.I am interested in poetics insofar as it informs technique – as it lays out a path of how to get to the poetical, as a practical methodology, using words.

"When my creative writing students and I look at poems, I ask them to show me where the poetry is. You can't find the poetry in a poem. And that's because the poetry is in the reader."

All right, I think I agree. When I was nine, my grandmother paid a lot of money to get a “poem” of mine published in a rip-off anthology. We both agreed that it was a “poem” in that it’s central theme was tragedy, and it rhymed, and a thesaurus, probably bigger than me at the time, substituted nine-year-old words for words that made me sound like the big-little girl in Salinger’s, “For Esme - With Love and Squalor.” Even in my first years of college, some of my writing professors would ask, “How does one recognize a poem?” We regurgitated things we’d learned from high school… “Well, it has rhythm,” “It contains concrete images,” “It tells a story,” “It’s emotional,” “It’s implemented in formats – like a Sonnet, or free-verse, “It rhymes,” “It’s poetic.” Poetry wasn’t, “I am really sad my grandpa died…” It had to be, “I/ am, if truth/ be told, wretch/ed, for /my grandfather /has /met his maker.”

For the most part, this is all crap. I do agree that if you find the “poetry” in a poem, it’s probably a really bad poem. The poetry can be in the reader, but not wholly. That would allow someone like my dad to read a poem of mine, finding only the words, “I wanted to take my shirt off for you/” and yelling at me for thinking (and writing) something so absurd, or finding that it doesn’t rhyme and thus, it must be a form of communism, taught by all my tree-hugging professors.

More later... this stupid library closes at five...

2005-11-18T14:46:00.000-08:00

Deep Thoughts For Those Who Take Life Too Seriously:

1. Save the whales. Collect the whole set.
2. A day without sunshine is like..........night.
3. On the other hand, you have different fingers.
4. 42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.
5. 99 percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name.
6. Remember, half the people you know are below average.
7. He who laughs last thinks slowest.
8. Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.
9. The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese in the trap.
10. Support bacteria. They're the only culture some people have.
11. A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
12. Change is inevitable, except from vending machines.
13. If you think nobody cares, try missing a couple of payments.
14. How many of you believe in psycho-kinesis? Raise my hand.
15. OK, so what's the speed of dark?
16. When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.
17. Hard work pays off in the future. Laziness pays off now.
18. Every one has a photographic memory. Some just don't have film.
19. How much deeper would the ocean be without sponges?
20. Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
21. What happens if you get scared half to death twice?
22. "I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder."
23. Why do psychics have to ask you for your name?
24. Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what happened.
25. Just remember - if the world didn't suck, we would all fall off.
26. Light travels faster than sound. That is why some people appear bright......... until you hear them speak.
27. Life isn't like a box of chocolates.... it's more like a jar of jalapenos. What you do today, might burn your ass tomorrow.

Hung over and ready to talk poetics now...

2005-11-17T16:15:00.000-08:00

This will contain lots of contradictions, and will probably make no sense:

I thought high school was the dumbest place on earth, that is why I never went. Then my high school counslor (who wanted to talk about my sexlife like all the time) sent me off to Portland Community College - tuition and books paid for, in hopes that I would attend, and possibly graduate.

Well, I thought college was the coolest place on earth. I attended classes - all writing and English, got good grades, and graduated early. I had amazing professors - Alison Apotheker and George Staley, who are, in my opinion, fabulous writers (but, you'll probably find some of their work in poetry/fiction magazines and journals that aren't so new age, and might one day be found in The New Yorker). Now, this comment could really offend both Alison and George, or it could really toot their horns. I don't know. Regardless of where their work "fits in" or doesn't concerns me little. Their work still stabs me in the stomach, and lovingly treats the wound after.

George was a big fan of William Stafford and Sharon Olds. It angers me to think that because their poetry "fits" The New Yorker/Poets and Writers agenda, it's considered safe or overly poetic or written for the sake of getting published. In high school, the poetry we were asked to read sucked so bad, I’m glad I had the sense to look beyond it. I do not consider Maya Angelou a great poet. Maya Angelou makes me want to carve my eyeballs out with pencils and then sleep for thirty hours. Oh, how I do not want Stafford and Olds to do this to you! How I do not want them to fall into the category of sucks-so-bad! George brought in a tape of Stafford reading his poem, “With Kit, Age 7, At The Beach” and it did something to me, I don’t know what, but it felt good. And then, Sharon Olds’ sort of high-pitched lethargic voice read, “The Pope’s Penis” and something about her father before he got throat cancer. She made me want to cry.

Ok, so Stafford’s, “The Darkness Around Us is Deep” and Olds’, “The Dead and The Living” can be nauseating, along with their other works. Like Billy Collins, I can’t read more than three poems without yawning. But, I promise you, they have written poems that are capable of haunting you forever. And ok, Stephen Dobyns may get boring, but I remember falling in love with him the same way I fell for Philip Levine (“What Work Is”) and the weirder, more alternative, more new age Jeffrey McDaniel.

And hey, I like Poets and Writers. But I also like things conceived by Manic D Press and Van Gogh’s Ear and journals that embrace the-coloring-outside-the-lines- kind of poetry. I am eternally grateful for those poets who have started movements that allow me to write about all those fucked up things in my head. I am glad I get to write blasphemous things, political things, things that make you uncomfortable and confused, and things that make you laugh, or pissed off, and so forth. I don’t know where I’m going with this…

I hate Elizabeth Bishop. Was she in The New Yorker?
I don’t understand Ron Silliman, but I do think he’s probably a genius.

This “New Sentence” stuff makes me feel really, really, really, really fucking stupid. I read the whole thing before class, tried to digest it, tried to think of something I could comment on in class, but nothing. That Fibonacci crap is just crap to me. The word “syllogism” reminds me of Prakash Chenjeri and the logic course I had to take from him last year. Don’t ask me what it means. All I can say is that I love Prakash and everyone should take a class from him. I dabbled in Fibonacci in a high school Math class, and I remember asking my father for help with the homework, and I think my dad threw the book against the wall and complained to the school, and don’t ask me to remember ANYTHING from high school or Math, because I failed horribly in both.

Who knew you could write whole books about sentences? Who knew the Fibonacci sequence would creep up on you in WR441? I don’t know what flarfism, or googlism is … I don’t know how to recognize the Fibonacci sequences in a poem … I don’t know what else I got out of “The New Sentence” other than: You’re really stupid, Ashley, go take an Excedrin.

I love this class, though. The evolution of my poetry, starting from those Alison and George classes to Jonah here at SOU to Kasey, is amazing. I’ve explored the things in my head I was afraid to ever let out. It’s like therapy.

Just don’t show my parents. They worry enough about me.

2005-11-09T20:52:00.000-08:00

Poem to be read next class. The first psalm always seems to bug me. I like the second one a lot better.

Ashley Paulman

First Psalm

Let there be a Santa Clause as fat as Marlon Brando so that children may hug him and experience the circumference of his love.

Let there be natural silence and pot belly pigs and pumpkins for Rebecca who is without a father.

Let there be sex that feels like good sun burns, and tastes like real grapes.

Let there be a stepfather for Julian and a husband for my sister, as without these things Julian may never go pro or date girls, and Tia would surely turn into Aunt Linda whose only interests are legumes and Indians.

Let there be bras that fit women breasts.

Let God share his toothpaste so that our mouths may be pure.

Let God shovel snow in December, or vacuum theatres, or have a period, or make soccer balls with his toes, or shave his legs, or fix sinks with weak water pressure, or attempt suicide because someone broke his fingers, and his nose, and his heart, and chipped his teeth, and told him that he wasn’t a people-person after all.

Let there be a day where Oprah turns water into wine, and each audience member may lift a glass from under their seat and become drunk.

Let there be wireless internet in Heaven and beautiful libraries in every home.

Let us not want our pictures taken, or join the other angels for bonfires, or have all those harmless conversations about favorite colors and proudest moments.

Alas, let there be solitude.

Let there be museums full of history that isn’t bloody and heartbreaking. Let us be filled with the sun and satisfaction of days gone by.

Let us hide behind the pleasure of it all and not be accused of dissention.

Let there be mercy for Jesus loving republicans who say HOORAH to kicking sand-digging, oriental, un-American ass.

Let me be struck down for suggesting this. Rather, let them bleed from their eyes.

Let us strip the varicose veins of our political beliefs and serve them up to the birds as an end, as an offering.

Let the birds build nests out of our blubbering righteousness and find warmth within.

Let us behold the stoning of Nick – the big pretender, the sexist, the infidel who thinks it’s stupid to write poetry and put Bibles in drawers and drink two beers when you can drink 24 and get a tattoo in the middle of your back ‘cuz he already did that and say “I love you” because that’s just for people who need a car to drive once in a while, a heavy coat for winter, and easy pussy.

Let us behold the uncircumcised penis of Nick in his battered nakedness.

Let us demand from him the urine-balloon trick; he shall be grateful we asked, and pleased to perform.

Let us amputate the wounded entertainer’s cock and serve it up to God as an offering.

Let us behold this transaction amongst a feast, so that our tongues may be covered in juneberries and cream.

Let there be worm holes in the earth so that God may stick his fingers in when he is bored.

Let there be bowls of beefsteak and cherry tomatoes in Heaven. Let the angels redden their robes with these juices.

Let there be wounds that do not weep, or harden.

Let there be saber tooth tigers, wooly mammoths, and elephants who still have their ivory.

Let there be warm rain, like wet days in Hawaii.

Let us bathe in these ancestral tears and take naps in their wistful dampness.

Second Psalm

For I pray that there is an Almighty to bless the baby scorpion I will have to kill.

For I pray that there is an Almighty to bless Tessa, the garage cat who cleans her paws before she enters the house.

For I pray that John, who is only my neighbor, will hold his wife at night and spoon soup into her mouth when her liver gets mad.

For I pray that Mila will forgive me for drinking her codeine-phenergen cough syrup.

For I pray that Mila will forgive me for dodging snakes and bulldogs and early morning joggers on the ride to the hospital.

For I pray that there will be a day my father finds merit in tears and collects them in pails.

For I pray that my brain will start accommodating knowledge, such as how to balance a check book, how to repair boots, and how to play “Smelly Cat” on my scissor-stabbed guitar for Rebecca.

For I pray Lisa, repentant mother, will sleep through the night after my kicking gravel and yelling her son’s name on the east side of her property.

For I pray that my dry disease will melt together in the night so that by morning I may lift it from my body as a sheet.

For I pray that my freezer will stay ever plentiful with little bags of espresso beans and that I may continue to wreck my body with Marie Calendar’s and forkfuls of radiation.

For I pray that I may return to La Grande and not think of shrimp soup, or drink cranberry juice with vodka, or get drunk and cry on 12th street because that is where we lived, or get stuck in Wal-Mart with that fascist who busted my nose, or eat Safeway Chinese food, or spend a night there and dream about beating you with a chair until you vomit, or see Mark because his cheeriness pisses me off.

For I pray that Julian speaks tomorrow, and walks the next day, and discovers art at his level everyday, and sits still on my lap some days, and calls his grandfather in Florida when he is old enough, and understands that love is hard, and that he should never throw sharp things at his elders, even nail clippers.

For I pray that our pets who have passed have entered heaven, even Ira the Jewish hamster.

For I pray that Wells Fargo and U.S. Bank and Ashland Community Hospital will not send me to collections.

For I pray that Nick will spend his birthday alone and will have no candles to blow out.

For I pray that Nick will be shot in Iraq. Forgive me.

For I pray that when I die I will not fly into God’s mouth, for I am petrified of heights.

For I pray that God will let me have my books and tweezers and all my Ani albums and will allow me one latte a day even though I have been terrible.

2005-11-08T17:37:00.000-08:00

Because I did so in another class, Jeffrey McDaniel and Ellyn Maybe will not appear in my list of ten poets to explore in this class. But, I urge all of you to explore them on your own. They're funny and powerful and political and fucked up and sad and weird and I think you will like them - at least parts of them.

Here are some samples ...

Jeffrey McDaniel

The Quiet World

In an effort to get people to look
into each other's eyes more,
and also to appease the mutes,
the government has decided
to allot each person exactly a hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.

When the phone rings, I put it to my ear
without saying hello. In the restaurant
I point at chicken noodle soup.
I am adjusting well to the new way.
Late at night, I call my long distance lover,
proudly say I only used fifty-nine today.
I saved the rest for you.
When she doesn't respond,
I know she's used up all her words,
so I slowly whisper I love you
thirty-two and a third times.
After that, we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe.

'Daddy' Warbucks

In Memoriam

What's missing is the eyeballs
in each of us, but it doesn't matter
because you've got the bucks, the bucks, the bucks.You let me touch them, fondle the green faces
lick at their numbers and it lets you be
my 'Daddy! ' 'Daddy! ' and though I fought all alone
with molesters and crooks, I knew your money
would save me, your courage, your 'I've had
considerable experience as a soldier...fighting to win millions for myself, it's true.
But I did win, ' and me praying for 'our men out there'
just made it okay to be an orphan whose blood was no one's, whose curls were hung up on a wire machine and electrified, while you built and unbuilt intrigues called nations, and did in the bad ones, always, always, and always came at my perils, the black Christs of childhood, always came when my heart stood naked in the street
and they threw apples at it or twelve-day-old-dead-fish.
'Daddy! ' 'Daddy, ' we all won that war, when you sang me the money songs
Annie, Annie you sang
and I knew you drove a pure gold car
and put diamonds in you coke
for the crunchy sound, the adorable sound
and the moon too was in your portfolio, as well as the ocean with its sleepy dead.
And I was always brave, wasn't I? I never bled? I never saw a man expose himself.
No. No.
I never saw a drunkard in his blubber.
I never let lightning go in one car and out the other.
And all the men out there were never to come.
Never, like a deluge, to swim over my breasts
and lay their lamps in my insides.
No. No.
Just me and my 'Daddy'and his tempestuous bucks
rolling in them like corn flakes
and only the bad ones died.
But I died yesterday, 'Daddy, ' I died, swallowing the Nazi-Jap animal
and it won't get out
it keeps knocking at my eyes, my big orphan eyes, kicking! Until eyeballs pop out
and even my dog puts up his four feet
and lets goof his military secret
with his big red tongue
flying up and down
like yours should have
as we board our velvet train.

McDaniel is the author of 3 books of poetry: The Splinter Factory, The Forgiveness Parade, and Alibi School.

* * *
Ellyn Maybe

Not Yet

My Allen Watts tapes are rewound.
So are my Michael Ventura tapes and Helen Caldicott too.
I wrap my ears and heart around Pacifica for nourishment
I’m thinking of painting my car yellow and turning it into a bus.
I defend mother earth.
I’ll arm wrestle for father sky.
I boycott lots and lots of stuff.
I giggled at a crystal in the window of a new age bookstore.
I play a guitar made of tofu.
I sang happy birthday to a river.
I gave my teeth goddess names.
I visualized wisdom.
Did you hug an organic farm today?
Has your guru asked you for your charge card yet?
I changed all the currency to pictures of floods, pictures of war,
drawings of overdoses, people with their backs turned.
Money ought to reflect the society it has bought.
I took to the road stood in front of the Pentagon and askedtrick or trick or trick or trick
For Halloween I saw how people sank as they dunk for survival
New apples in the garden of toxic waste.
I changed the national anthem to
My Country ‘Tis of Thy People You’re Dying by Buffy St. Marie
I painted a shadow around the White House.
I saw leaders fall into quicksand of their ego.
I saw followers breakdown/then rise with the taste of their own strength
I saw people give the peace sign and then use those two fingers as aguillotine to cut up hope in an embracing heart.
I saw hip
I saw trendy
I saw Emperor’s New Clothes on all the racks
I saw hypocrisy
I heard people call ignorance a treat as they said to me
you trick us you scare us you’re a witch please shut up.
I said every day is halloween.
And they said you’re fat you don’t know you are nothing
you are nothing
You are nothing but a crazy woman
You rant and tangent.
And I said what do you see?
And it was as if the earth quit breathing to see what
all it’s children would mumble.
And the telephones that dialed evangelists
And the telephones that dialed 976-
And the telephones that dialed dianetics
fell to a collective snug fit on the receiver
And people with homes ran outside and the homeless looked paranoid
and then facing each other saw the differences vanish.
And people said this is something!
The paintbrushes we use may be different
the thickness of paint may be different
how far back we stand to see a painting may be different
but each empty canvas has remarkably similar space
It’s in knowing humans and flowers dance together like lovers
as do birds and gazelles. The businessman said "my peace of mind cannot be traded for
green sand paper with bloody presidential mindsets on it.
No more.
Business as usual is unusual, unnatural, and unwise."
People shivered and used their alarm clocks to not be afraid of time.
And people said "come on let’s go"
Nobody asked where
they all just intuitively split to Washington
goosebumps of fear scarring the doorpaint peeling
And the people said "let’s kill the bastards"And someone said "that takes us one step closer to being them"
Let’s just stare as out comes those skinless robots running
to the weapon store for one last shot of testosterone.
And the people were split.The nonviolent and the almost nonviolent
weren’t on speaking terms
but someone said
We can’t kill the dead.
And we can’t bring back the dead.
Someone said that’s right
Another one said right on
Someone looked confused
Someone sang The People United Will Never Be Defeated
Someone drummed and sang the American Indian Movement song
Someone sang Mary Had A Little Lamb
Someone sang We Shall Overcome
Someone sang And The Times They Are A Changin’
Someone said how long do you think this will last?
I said it will last as long as it lasts.

I will post more from her later. She is the author of "The Cowardice of Amnesia" and "Walking Barefoot in the Glassblowers Museum" and others...

Check out Manic D Press's website.

Ok, bye.

2005-11-02T19:19:00.000-08:00

Wrote this last night, thinking about Wallace Stevens and reading Sexton...

November 2, 2005

I am happy today with life, all its dish towels.
I washed all the dish towels.
I folded the bright Martha ones and put them in the drawer next to the sink.
I folded the old dollar stores ones and placed them in the cemetery for rags
under the sink. For accidents. Messes not limited to the kitchen.
When the Torani syrup leaked in the night,
I opened the cupboard,
I opened the fold of a degenerate dish towel,
and with it, I rubbed out the stick on the counter.
Rubbed out all the chauvinists of the world.
Rubbed out all the feces and piss stains from well-intentioned house pets.
Rubbed out all the diapers in the landfills.
Rubbed out all the knuckle and penis warts.
Rubbed out all the physical health classes in elementary school.
Rubbed out all the food stuck in your braces.

So this is happiness,
my little white-gloved mother.

2005-11-02T19:17:00.000-08:00

Ashley Paulman

God Is Everywhere

God is in the soil.
God is in shit.
God is in toilet water, and we cannot flush Him away.
God is in our hands. Looking at my fingers
and your fingers
and all fingers, I think of holiness.
God is in candles.
God is in cigarettes.
God is in cancer.
God is in the gazelle and in the antelope.
God is in my panties. He’s there for a reason.
God is in our blood. Our hearts pump God.
God is in sex offenders.
God is in my bedroom.
Yes, God sees me naked. And He likes it.
God is in floppy discs and zip drives.
He is in Buddha, though Buddha does not feel guilt.
He is in winter coats.
He is definitely in fur. And elk heads mounted on walls.
God is in really old people. Really old people speak God’s language
and greet us at Wal-Mart
and crochet doilies
and decorate living rooms with elephants
and die in hurricanes.
God is in air conditioners. God blows all over the place
and makes us cold when we are not.
God is in war.
God is in terrorism.
God is hanging out on your roof.
God is in chains and whips.
God is in Thank You cards.
God is in turkeys.
God is in trees. Shame on us for slaughtering so many trees.
God is in DVD players and Discmans.
God is in chalk. God is in coughs.
When one coughs around chalk
and makes little white explosions,
that is God saying, “Hello. I am here.”
God is in your anger. When you punch your boyfriend
for being a Jesus-loving infidel, God is there.
God is in the pain you feel in your knuckles.
God is in your pimples.
God is in your morning breath.
God is in sexually transmitted diseases.
God is in MSG.
God is in sidewalks. We walk all over God.
God is in the lottery.
God is in quotas and data entry forms and W2s.
God is in nail polish.
God is in my entertainment center.
God is in diapers.
God is in our private parts. He is there for a reason.
God is in Venetian blinds.
God is in 12 grams of fat and 220 calories.
God is in carbohydrates. We should never cut carbohydrates out of our diet.
God is in X-Rays.
God is in 38 CC’s of DMSO.
God is in your bladder.
God is in sickness. When you are ill, God wants you to get better.
God is in your thyroid.
God is in college-ruled paper.
God is in the ozone layer.
God is in plastic and never decomposes.
God is in Eugene, Oregon and in Boston, Massachusetts at the same time.
God is in menstruation. God stains a lot of good jeans.
God is in coyotes. God ate my cat Athena.
God is in bioengineered ingredients.
God is in microwaves.
God is in the meat isle at the grocery store.
God is in ATM machines.
God is in nail parings.
God is in Jennifer Seeker on NewsWatch 12.
God is everywhere. God is everything. God is words.
God says, “I’m here and I’m queer and I’m proud.”
God says, “If I could have one wish, it would be for world peace.”
God says, “Five times four is twenty and twenty times two is forty.”
God says, “Get a hybrid car and buy light bulbs with the Energy Star.”
God says, “I want an extra hot double mocha with sugarless vanilla syrup, no foam, no whip, and an extra shot on top.”
God says, “I have a hard time keeping my dick in my pants.”
God says, “I am afraid of dying.”
God doesn’t have to say anything.
God is silent.
God bleeds from our ears.
God writes perfect thesis statements.
God’s movements are poems.
God is the president.
God is the professor.
God is the True Table.
God is Jennifer Lopez and Fidel Castro.
God is cheese. Goat cheese. Munster cheese. Baby Swiss. Colby Jack. But mostly American.
God is an eagle.
God is a machine gun.
God is hydrogen peroxide.
God is heroin.
God is diabetes.
God is a bulldog.
God is the prettiest smell in the world: lemongrass and detergent and unscented lotion and the way it mixes with our pheromones. Clean cats. Hot coffee. Exhaust. Garlic.
God is multiple personality disorder.
God is oil.
God is the word FUCK.
God won’t leave us alone.
God won’t leave me alone.
God is in my bed, in my sleep, and in my dreams.
God takes showers with me.
God is in my cereal, and my glass of water, and in my coffee, and in my mirror, and in my car, and in my radio, and in my cell phone, and in my homework, and in all my pens and pencils and paper and erasers and lipstick and my pockets and my glasses and
I think God should leave me alone.
I want God to get the fuck out of my bed.
I want God to get the fuck out of my shower.
I want to handcuff God to the staircase in my basement wearing only a diaper,
and I want to feed him only ice chips and make him listen to Nelly’s “It’s Getting Hot in Here” over and over and over again
and then I want to ask him about FEMA
and Panda Bears
and Female Genital Mutilation
and Inersticial Cystitis
and Jessica Lunsford
and Vietnam
and carbon dioxide emissions
and manifest destiny
and democracy in the Middle East
and obesity
and all the ice in the world
and Karl Rove
and the cost of gas
and the location of casinos
and airport security
and the female orgasm.

2005-10-31T11:54:00.000-08:00

I was peeing in a stall somewhere in the school and started to read what others had written on the doors. There was a quote from Kurt Vonnegut. It went something like,

"The universe is a really big thing, perhaps the biggest." I don't remember the last time I peed and laughed at the same time. It was fun.

I "completed" my "God Is Everywhere" poem a couple of nights ago. I will post it here tomorrow. I am having trouble ending it. Seriously, take God as a subject and you can go on and on and on. I mean there are so many nasty, weird things that pop into mind every time the word "God" is mentioned; so many poems to write. Right now I am working on "Gazelle" and "Vejay Buck." Vejay was my Methodist mentor during confirmation. My grandmother forced me into it when I was thirteen and ever since I have thanked God for Buddha.

My friend and I watched a little Jesus TV the other night. I don't have cable and I have fried my memory, so I think this show's on channel 23. Anyway, what inspiration for poetry! This was during the evening and there was a Teen Bible study going on. The topic was profanity. I almost died when the mentor lady equated profane language with murder. "Every sin is the same in God's eyes."

Fuck
Shit
Ass
Damn
Pussy
Bitch
Oh my God

2005-10-26T14:18:00.000-07:00

I just spent over an hour writing a poem on this stupid fucking blog, and I went to publish it and it said: Error, we are having engineering difficulty blah blah blah.

I am never writing a poem on this site again.

I am so pissed off right now I could cry. I'm so fucking pissssssssssed. Fuck writing poems on computers.

2005-10-24T16:30:00.000-07:00

It has taken me forever to post here. Why don't I start off with what really pisses me off:

1. It really pisses me off that my dad didn't evacuate for Wilma. Since he's a fucking idiot with an unconquerable ego, he's godknowswhere, and his cell phone is all fucked up, and I'm guessing that his beachfront condo is torn to shit and he's somewhere swimming off a hangover, and I'm sure someone will want to help him, but he'll just tell them to fuck off and keep swimming, and when he finally gets a chance to call me I'm going to tell him to be very worried, because the day that fucker turns 70 I'm sticking him in a home, where he won't be able to get drunk and chase tornadoes, or run up the tallest mountain with his camera to "watch the lighning go," or be the only stupidasshole in his entire complex to say "I ain't leavin'. Those weather people don't know what they're talkin' about..." Maybe I should write a poem about this.

2. It really pisses me off that I can't write shit at the moment and that I thought I wrote this really cool poem the other night, but woke up at like 4 in the morning to reassess the thing and without saving an original copy, I butchered the hell out of it and thought for the moment that it was better, but now having looked at it again, it really sucks.

3. I think that's all. I am working on a poem right now that is using a lot of my anger, which is a good thing. It's called, "My Ex-boyfriend Called To Get His Futon Back." So, my rage is turning into a poem and the asshole didn't get his futon back. I think that's a fair trade.

"A Gringo Like Me" makes me want to pee my pants it's so funny. I love Jennifer Knox.