Thursday, October 24, 2013

Reading for The Mom Egg Review

                             Please join us for

                            Mass Mayhem!

                          Mom Egg Review

            Reading at Červená Barva Press Studio

                 Saturday, November 2 at 1:30 PM
             The Center For The Arts At The Armory
                           Basement Room B8
                          191 Highland Avenue
                             Somerville, MA

                             Featured readers:
                                Carol   Berg
                               Louise Berliner
                               DebbieBlicher
                                 Fay Chiang
                               Lori Desrosiers
                              Kathy   Handley
                               Jennifer Jean
                           Danielle Jones-Pruett
                            Dorian Kotsiopoulos
                                Aparna Mani
                                Tara    Masih
                              Colleen Michaels
                               Jaqui   Morton
                             January G. O'Neill
                               Eve     Packer
                                Kyle    Potvin
                               Denise Provost
                               Laura   Rodley
                            Rosie   Rosensweig
                                Nancy Vona
                            mc Marjorie Tesser

Friday, October 11, 2013

To Take In

Image of the Day:  Geese straggling together like tails of kites fluttering in the October sky.

I finally have an afternoon where I can just veg--no deadlines or meetings or nothing.  Just time to sit and read and think.  Possibly poeming, but we'll see about that.  The poems come, taper off, and leave.  I've been rejected a gazillion times it seems lately, but I've still got a few more out there and a few poems that I haven't even gotten in any kind of submission order, which is actually a good thing. 

The fall weather has been gorgeous and the birds are changing--as noted above, the geese are practicing their flying formations and the juncos have come back (and I have an old poem here about that) and the woodpeckers are changing their thudding sounds.  Time to hang the suet and to take in the hummingbird feeder. 

My schedule has changed too in that I'm working longer hours now at my tutoring gig. And things have gotten much more busy there as well--so little down time to write.  The only writing time it seems I can squeeze in is sitting in stopped traffic or endless traffic lights and dig out my notebook and scratch around for some images.  I tell myself it's practice nonetheless.  But I do need some new poetry books.  I have been reading some journals--The Journal and Crab Orchard Review, but my subscriptions seem to have run out and I haven't had the time or money to renew.  Hopefully, that'll change soon. 



Battering Robin Syndrome
       

He has split his beak on my view.
He has left his selfprint, almost art.
My window is torturing him.
My hubcaps incense him.

The robin wants my spring yard
to himself. Each reflection's
a rival and must be fought full force.
Each reflection is harder than his skull.

He slides down, hobbles, tries again.
What business do I have holding mirrors
to nature? It revolts. It suicides.
My love of flat, clear and shining surfaces,

flatter, clearer, shinier than lakes,
than anything in nature, is unnatural.
And if nature held mirrors to me,
showed me someone I thought would steal

my truelove, or showed me how I'm doing,
what would I do, would I learn,
or beat my head against her skull,
or try to smash myself against the news?



Copyright © 2013 Tina Kelley All rights reserved
from Precise
Word Poetry

 

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Ambling Alone

Image of the Day:  Fat raccoon furtively checking behind it as it ambles alone along the road in the dark. 

Dreams:  I'm dying and wandering around outside and the light is so bright but I'm waiting for my vision to fail.  I tell him not to put me in the coffin until my eyes close.  Feelings inside the me in the dream of something totally un-understandable approaching.  Something darker and larger than I can image.  I wake up.

I know what my mind is doing there in that dream, trying to process certain experiences, but I wish it wouldn't do it quite so vividly, if you know what I mean.  On my way to work, I noticed wires across the road and a box on the railing which said it was Traffic Data Collecting.  How the brain is one big data collecting box with coiling wires/tentacles, searching out information all over the place. 

Poetry News:  Rejections.  Writing a poem a day using Diane Lockward's The Crafty Poet.  I'm getting together some questions for an interview with Diane that I'm very excited about.  Waiting on submissions.


Consciousness

A massive shadow of hubris
crashes through a universe of thorns

having no feathers but smooth skin
and wingflaps of nearly transparent

lugubrious membrane
there's lightning by firing of eyes

thunder by flapping of wings
cowboys leaving a trail of moonshine

fire at the heart of it
while the legend disappears

rumors persist of a big dead bird
nailed to a barn with a mighty span unfurled

and several men posed under it for scale


Jane Miller

Thunderbird
Copper Canyon Press


Memorize More!

 Image of the Day: Birds in my backyard, scrambling in the rain for seed.  Happy Holidays! I have a poem here at One Art, Hiking Cadillac Mo...