Update

This submission has been accepted!  See details under the Forthcoming tab.  One for one.  :)

Submission (eek!)

It's been well over a year since I submitted anything for publication, and much longer since anything has been accepted.

I'm hopeful but fragile. Poems become friends and their rejection stings.

Here's an excerpt from "On The Interstate"


Life happens in flashes.
I write it down on Post It notes.
Bugs splatter to their deaths on the windshield.
He asks me
“When we die, why the earth doesn’t die with us?”


Eleven more lines follow. It's a short but sweet one. If it's never accepted for publication you can read the rest in My Little Book of Poetry (publication date somewhere between now and my death).

Valium

First published in The Battered Suitcase, Spring 2011, Volume 3, Issue 4

they all need something
now
desperately
pieces of me

resolve.

I can do this for love
(with coffee, Prozac and wine)

beautiful faces
give me glow
passion
(resentment)

pure hearts
give me love
life
(guilt and shame)

breathe.

I can do this for love
(with coffee, Prozac and wine)

oh shut up
so you’re better than me
so you don’t yell
(or scream sometimes)
so you do it
without coffee, Prozac and wine

fine.

I’ll keep mine
my coffee
my prozac
my wine

sigh.

and she thought I was joking
(but I wasn’t joking)
when I told her
I’d have her valium
just
you know
only
if she wasn’t going to use it

Conversation With a 5 Year-Old

First published in Ramshackle Review in December 2010

What’s that?

That’s mama’s belly button.

What’s wrong with it?

Nothing.

Why does it look like that?

Well, after mamas have babies…
Um, like when a balloon loses its air…
Or, uh…

Mama, did the doctor pull us out your belly button?

(smile) No.

How did we get out?

(think, think, think)

How did we get in?

(think, think, think)

Why-aren’t-we-in-any-of-the-pictures-from-when-you-and-daddy-got-married?

(think, think, think)
(silence)
(think some more)

(intense impatience)
Where did we come from?!?!

(think, think, think)

There’s an egg, some sperm and love…
(do over)
The wings of a dove…
(do over)
You were in the stardust, love – a twinkle in my eye.*

(pause)

Mama, if-god-created-all-people-and-god-is-Jesus-what-about-all-the-people-who-came-before-Jesus?

Sweetheart, mommy is falling asleep. Let’s talk about god in the morning.

WHY?!

Because we already talked about my belly button.

(furrowed brow, quizzical expression)
(pause)
(smooth, trusting eyes and smile)
K. ‘Night, mama.

Goodnight.
Sweet dreams.
I love you.

(kiss)

*Consider seriously before using this one. My boys all think they were in my eye before they were in my uterus.

Regarding the Piece I Didn’t Write on the Blank Pages at the Back of The National Audubon Society’s Guide to North American Birds

First published in the online poetry journal Borderline (Volume 1, Issue 2, 2010)

push, write
so much static-

Third aisle of the supermarket iPod lost its juice.
Kept the buds in my ears.
Couldn’t handle full-on reality.
Passed an old woman with like
ten packages of Depends in her cart
looking weary and smelling of urine.

Five minutes earlier-

Sitting in the minivan waiting for the iPod to charge.
Staring at the strip mall across the street:
Happy Wok, Happy Nails, Happy Prostitute?
Found my favorite pen and some blank pages at the back of
The National Audubon Society’s Guide to North American Birds.

push, write
static-

Grocery list wouldn’t shut up.
Words stumbled and froze.
Stupid lines refused to dance.
Could’ve been so profound, you know;
a piece about the irony of me in my minivan watching her work her corner.
Instead those precious pages were molested with:
Bread
Tampons
TP
Cat food
Peanut Butter
Baby food
Etcetera
Blah
Blah
Blah

static, stasis-

Ninety minutes later-

Reading headlines about Oprah’s final season.
Toying with the idea of a piece about futility of resisting predestined assaults on my youth-
("Wearing My iPod, I Can Still Smell My Future").
Eavesdropping on the phone conversation of a woman in the next line over.
Buds out.
Full-on reality-

“I’m getting my floors cleaned today”

WTF?!?
Really?
This is what I joined the world for?
Floors?!?

Strong urge to punch paper Oprah in the face.
(sigh)
Buds in.
Reality altered.

Ten minutes later-

Pushing the cart to the minivan.
Unloading words.
Resolving to write that piece when I get home.
The one about the Happy Prostitute? and me.
First I'll I sanitize my hands.
Then I'll put the groceries away and the iPod on the charger.
Hell, maybe I'll make an appointment to get my floors cleaned...

static, stasis
push, write
push, write
push
write-