Dear Overcoat,

In you I become an old man,

a raven, someone’s

uncertain doom; in you I could carry

the Prince of November’s

one dozen pockets, home

to a pebble, a pen

and a knife,

you stretch me

taller,

you catch the wind,

you are a plowed field

for the first snow to fall,

you the fashion

I’d been

wanting

to hide myself within,

oh overcoat,

realm

of moths and mantle

of fog, the means

to mask my unsculpted

body—I found you in

a secondhand store,

I lost you

in a pile of coats

at a stranger’s

party, or did you melt

into some midnight

closet, where unexplained

breezes

or unseen hands

swing you

on a stern

and clanging

metal hanger?

Dear Family Chronicle of a Flock of Pigeons,

There are so few pigeon

heroes, or dastards,

and also, I think,

so few affairs, since

each and every character

mates

for life—the history

of pigeons

is a chronicle

without wars—sure, a falcon

grabs a sacrifice now

and again,

but on the whole this

is the tale of how you rose,

a chorus on

a January morning,

wings nearly

white against a bank

of darker cloud, and I

read that chapter,

thankful to see

the fog of my breath

while I waited

on the train, nearly

able in that moment

to love my lifetime the way

a flock of pigeons loves

to be silver in a flash

of sky, dark

then silver.

After the poetry reading

It was an hour before dusk, very hot, and the light of early evening was made especially beautiful but the intensity of the readers he'd heard just minutes before. Ravenswood Avenue, that bland alley of light manufacturing, took on the mantle of temporary beauty.

Dear Dented Box of Cupcakes,

 

Dear Dented Box of Cupcakes,

All the toddlers weep at your disarray, preschoolers  
point out 

the ruin of your frostings, powdered sugar

pools 

like blue sand in your corners, and your devil’s food 
bundles, your Mini-Cooper carloads of lard 
are smeared, smashed,

among the fallen. 

Let this be the worst thing to happen today, 
a slip and an oops, 

some momentary grieving. Let this be 

the worst thing 

some of these witnesses will ever know. But of course 
that’s impossible. There shall be loss 
upon truckload of loss. Someone will die.

Someone will fall 

in love with somebody else. Might as well, 
I tell the children, (as I push them

aside) might as well try

for a smidge of icing.

The Spider Poetry/Prose Challenge

Why should this blog be all about me?  Why can't it be about you, and spiders, too? Please submit up to three poems or short (500 words or less) blocks of prose containing the spider as image, myth, or word by July 3. During the August I'll share the best submissions. The works submitted do not have to be "about" spiders, or in any particular form or format, but should contain at least one word or phrase that connotes arachnids: web, spider, weave, etc. This is your chance to be viewed by the veritable dozens of "Lives of the Spiders" readers. If the call for work takes on extra zing and fizz, we can think about an anthology, of the e-book or print format.  But let's just start with spiders, and writing. Ready, set, write.  (Or send, if you have that one spiderwork poised and ready in a file or drawer)  robmc1002@gmail.com

 From Spiders (c. 1941):



     Spiders keep on growing and molting until they are full-grown. One of the pictures on page 22 shows a trap-door spider that has just molted. In time the female spiders find mates and lay eggs. The story then begins all over again.
     

Tuesday Funk, with Rhinos, and Spiders Oh My

I read at the Tuesday Funk reading series in May.  And this was captured via modern technology and now its on the internets and such.

You May Run Into Gertrude Stein on the Bustled Streets of New York City

I was in NYC for BookExpo, the big annual bookselling conference.  Walking to a dinner that was going to be paid for by the publishers, and understand that if you are a bookseller at BEA pretty much all your food and drink will be paid by publishers, I ran across this lovely sculpture of Miss Gertrude Stein, looking both solid and also cloud-like, in a Buddha kind of way. It was such a pleasure to see her. Among all the flash, and promotions, and publicity machines grinding their tired gears, it's good to be reminded that part of of the industry is rooted in a love of words, and how they an be coaxed to play and be new.  The dinner, by the way, was lovely, and I like writer Lauren Myracle even more than I did before.

A SOUND

Elephant beaten with candy and little pops and chews all bolts and reckless reckless rats, this is this.



DINING

Dining is west.


CELERY

Celery tastes taste where in curled lashes and little bits and mostly in remains.



(Three of my favorite sections of Tender Buttons, first published in 1914.)