Lesley Jenike's Blog, page 15

#18 (still missing one)"Andre Le Notre thought that by ga...

#18 (still missing one)

"Andre Le Notre thought that by gardening along the strictest principles of geometry, time would come apart in his hands. There goes private property."
-Cole Swensen

He's built a fence to course-correct. The cars
he loves to take apart and build again
flock inside. We hear him sawing down—
far reaching into evening—the dead arms
of oaks. His cars don't roost. Give him straight up,

no tree as subterfuge. And of course
the fence he made once the moon was up
and our mailman...

#17 (I'll try for an extra to make up for yesterday later...

#17 (I'll try for an extra to make up for yesterday later)

"He also said, 'I am the vine. I am the door.' Was he really a vine, a door?"

-Lady Jane Grey

In and of itself the wind is nothing—

an invisible hem through a lawn

rich with forsythia—always the first

to come. But whose hem? It's wracked with vine; it

catches in the sky-door's jamb. Then the sun.

In and of itself the wind is nothing—

First of all, there's THIS, mentioned on Harriet today, t...

First of all, there's THIS , mentioned on Harriet today, the poem that persuaded me to change the title of my ms.
Check back later today for #16.

#15 (and all I got)Rainy Season Looking Up from Underwate...

#15 (and all I got)

Rainy Season Looking Up from Underwater

Into my hand pools so much water, water logs
the skin: this is where she's been and when.
It's as if a zillion balls splat—the thrumming
whack of a driver down the fairway to hit
that big-faced woman on the drive-in screen
watching us in our cars bob like olives in her "V" of gin.

And now for something completely different. (#14)Cat in O...

And now for something completely different.

(#14)

Cat in Obsolete Shower Bath

In an apartment on the Westside of nobody
a fortuitous excuse for a cat
plunged his thin, naked body
under a showerhead.

How he came to be so dirty, I can't say
except a tom can dirt-accumulate
from prowling all day.
the blankety-blank streets of

Cheviot, Shrewsbury, Lengwood. Shrove Tuesday
was a drag. He dragged his carcass back home,
shrugged off his smoky fur,
twisted a wrist, let water

run and run and run. He's so sorry,...

#13 (things have taken an odd turn)A Black Widow Spider W...

#13 (things have taken an odd turn)

A Black Widow Spider Wraps Her Paralyzed Prey, a Harlequin Bug, in Silk

The city of my birth is wholly blossom:
Spring Grove Cemetery. Even the boy
dressed as a harlequin for his second

birthday, even he knows to sleep once
a silk robe slips around the body
of an eight o'clock sky, dishes put away.

The mother, alone and almost undressed,
unravels her sentences so their threads snap
and drop her tired baby to his nest

of damask. It's the story of a clown bug
trapped by ...

#12. Ugh. An Easter Idyll Among the cupboard, dini...

#12. Ugh.

An Easter Idyll

Among the cupboard, dining room table

still set for eight to ten, a ripple of

consternation. It starts here then slaps

its wave on Easter Island. There rebirth

is only nominal. I begin

again: among the china set, rug long-

piled and pilling, orange and blue, decked with girls

in pigtails jump-roping and among

gravy boats and bottles of wine, stacked

in green, brown-black rows, a ripple of

consternation: another kind of boat

is...

I can't do it today and I'm not even gonna cheat. Back to...

I can't do it today and I'm not even gonna cheat. Back to the regularly scheduled program tomorrow.
For now I'll just post my favorite pic. from last night's drag show in Cincinnati. By the way, I love the poems, fellow NaPoWriMo-ers. Keep it up, friends. Keep it up.

I didn't know that stinking conference could cause me suc...

I didn't know that stinking conference could cause me such anxiety, even away from it. Or maybe it's BECAUSE I'm away from it that it's causing me anxiety. I don't think my dad, when he contemplates the annual convention of cardiologists, feels the same way. Right?
Next year I have, have, have to have some good, useful reason for being there and apparently I need to figure it out soon because panel proposals are due next month. See? That damn conference makes me crazy, even ten or eleven...

#9 (And a bit of a cheat. This was written a few days ago...

#9 (And a bit of a cheat. This was written a few days ago.)

Molecules With Atoms of Life Rained Into the Sea

Curator of an art gallery's so hip she stuck

champagne flutes of seawater in a corner

to show guests, once upon a time into dirt

seas fell the way cocktails fall into mouths,

and Earth with its glass-like grip helped juice

the floating raspberry meant to represent

what in the initial bubbling crawled to land

the way she crawls to life mornings after

gossip, bad vibes...