Better words than mine

"I learned how to live, how to be in the world and of the world, and not just to stand aside and watch.  And I will never, never again run away from life, or from love, either."  (Audrey Hepburn, Sabrina, 1954)

Toronto

I remember stopping, tipsy,
scraping together our last Canadian currency
at the hot dog vendor
when we both ate meat
and it was easy not to think about origins or consequences.

Buying socks in Little Italy,
to fix the hot blister on my heel
from the vintage Frye boots I wore
when we walked across that metropolis.

I remember spending $120 on whiskey at the show
and buying beers for the minors behind us
in exchange for whistling lessons.


I remember wanting you so badly
there, in the dark
and you snoring loudly
when my desire failed to disturb you.

And how small my universe was then
at the intersection of King and Spadina
in that flash-frozen city.

Tea

Long drive on the Michigan plains

Tea and music and a new hand in mine

Passing the car cemetery --

hundreds of rusty skeletons

visible among the barren

January trees

dusted with snow. 

I drank Darjeeling

so you could have your choice.

You picked 

the moon

and

the stars 

and

the sun.

Cosmos

brewed and poured out

Held to our lips

Greedy somehow. 

Winslow Homer

12/28

It is so sad and grey,

the way you can't tell 

the sea from the sky

on a Prout's Neck evening.

And one moment the white you see is

a soft cloud and the next

it's an explosive wave.

And its so hard looking at art with you.

And we just can't agree

on the meaning of a painting

because you try to crack the code

and I know that the whole point

is the sharp first moment that you

feel the twinge --

That dagger to the spleen

sting in the tearducts.

The kind of feeling that 

makes you run to the docent

and ask for a pen. 

back in action

after a long winter hiatus (a very productive hiatus, i might add)
i am back to Business.

Exciting news:
*new poetry workshop twice a week which should help me generate lots of material for Business and for my looming thesis project
* AWP creative writer's conference in Chicago Feb 11-14, the head of the creative writing department invited me and offered me a free registration
* exciting visiting authors for the winter: Margot Singer and Olena Kalytiak Davis
The graduate students are always invited to send their work to visiting authors ahead of time and then have a conference with the writer once they are on campus. This time Kevin (my boss in literary events) has offered me the opportunity to send some of my work. So I will have a conference with Olena Kalytiak Davis when she visits in February.

Enough prose.