‘Facebook Philosophy’ [response to Aaron Belz]

Every couple of months or so
a person that you do not remember
or connect to on any facet
of your present life
contacts you and talks to you and pretends
they know you or perhaps
they really do, yes, its more likely
that they do, but so much of your life
has disappeared behind a haze of
kush nights and tequila sunrises, that t
here is no hope of ever recovering who
they are or where they fit.

What parts of you are fading
with these many unknown adds?

On what our dad calls being “a girl in comfortable shoes”
[another response to Sister]

I am the bastard child of the second wave
And the hidden heart of the third,
I wish you would be too.

I stopped wearing bras when I realized
I couldn’t find an A without padding

I don’t have that problem anymore

On my first ever date we watched a movie
And I insisted on paying for the ice cream

I was the girl with all the boy friends
But never a boyfriend

Since then there have been six
But only one or two have mattered
Sorry

D.anica M.arie T.ayae [another response to Sister]

i’ll confess this to only you,
i have known her,

close your eyes to see the truth…

slender winter white nails rake romance against
cool coffee cream skin that flushes with the pulsing of the light
the world spins in checkers as questions
flush down the drain to nothing in her mind
white hot desires dance along the dark satin of subconscious
her body opens and sensual wet lotus flower leaves are
all there is, as tiny feet drip silk and fuck forever
panting gently on the floor with rainbow polished toes

everything is as beautiful as you care to dream it,

awake now or never
follow the shadows and carry all the colors of this moment with you
as you run into reality down the path of dancing dreams
into the merigold shack imagination world that is your soul


Our humanity is held in the sins we commit
And our divinity in those we choose not to

Pick and Choose Response #1: Jeffery McDaniel Endarkenment
A play off McDaniel’s “Heavy Breather Zoo” (10):

Hippie Zoo

Whatever happened to the hippie?
capitalist consumerism- Orange County, yuppy greed,
apathy, glass fences, substance control laws-
has rendered her free spirit obsolete. Who
will listen to her cause now? She is the floppy disk
of rebels. She tried leading a protest march
through Whittier College campus,
but only four people joined in,
which was a damn near heart breaking blow.

Should we go to Venice Beach or Berkley-
gather up the last few still out there, smoking
joints and painting banners in the wild,
before they go extinct, place them
in a special zoo, in eco-friendly cage systems, complete
with 2nd or 3rd hand furnishings- glass pipes, rally
signs, hemp blankets, Doors records and music
from “Hair,”- to recreate what their used to?

Perhaps a plaque that reads: Here
sits the hippie. She used to carry signs down
Pennsylvania Avenue and though flip-flops at
corrupt politicians and “The Man.”She lived for that
first rush of the crowd, the ground shaking cheer
that gave Nixon and congress headaches and her chills.

I. I don’t know why [response to Sister]

“Your people are really dark blue”
I don’t know why I lied and said this to you.

When you were only three,
An eight year old me
convinced you, you were an alien baby
that had been left on earth by its real family
and my mother had found you
in a porta-potty and kept you
since you were two

years old.

Your real family was on
Neptune of course never caring you were gone,
It was very funny till you
Cried, and our mother sighed
And I got grounded.

I guess I was just bored.

Somewhere-Celina

This is my response to the Pick and Choose book "Endarkenment" by Jeffrey McDaniel, who I find to be an incredible poet. This style stood out from the rest of the poems in the book, as the lines were very short and there wasn't much fantastic description. However, it was still an extremely powerful poem. My poetry tends to be jam-packed with adjectives with long descriptive lines that ease into my point, so for this exercise I attempted to emulate the concise power that came across in "Guidebook to Nowhere." It was difficult for me to write a poem in plain-speak without many descriptors but I learned the power of more direct, simple language and I really enjoyed the outcome.

Guidebook to Nowhere
by Jeffrey McDaniel

I wear a patch
over my right eye.
Not because
it’s damaged.
I’m saving the eye
for a rainy day,
saving it from
all this crap.
One day I’ll
go to the desert,
and I’ll switch
the patch to my
left eye. And
I’ll only look
at cacti, and
butterflies, and
jackrabbits, but
never in the mirror
and never at
the sky, and like
this I’ll train
myself to see
the difference
between what’s real
and manmade.


Somewhere

I wore a patch
over my right eye
to waste the left
and seal the truth
for one of those
tongue-dead days
when no more
can be said
of this world.
I went to the desert
to be in the company
of still, living things
still living the way
I thought things
should. What I found
with my right eye
was blindness
just the same.

Letter

Dear Tony,
I read your book, Sad Jazz: Sonnets. After reading this, I found that this book is my favorite collection of contemporary poetry. I appreciated that is was a conceptual book rather than the ordinary book of poetry where the poems don’t necessarily relate to each other, although their may be a theme. The few sessions I sat down to read the book came with great ease as the poems flowed from one to the next, giving me an image of who the protagonist and the antagonist (I guess I use these terms because I sympathize with the protagonist) are. No poem seemed out of place or thrown in carelessly. It was obviously well-thought out structurally,with the way in which is was divided into sections. And on a side not, I initially became interested in this book of poems because of the cover; it reminds me of a Matisse artwork.
Specific emotions were re-invented through the book, here are a few: Love, fear, self-esteem (or the lack of it), anger, rage, sadness, yearning, sexual, lust, impassion. I could almost feel all the intense emotions myself while I read the concentrated imagery and tonal rhythms from this book of poems. For example in Spider Women, you write …”and she goes down and can’t boot up, just lies/ in bed in her pajamas, staring up / at cobwebs in the corner, and can’t stop / her brain from spinning, spinning, spinning like / a spider given acid, a mad web.” I can see this image exactly as it is described, however, this is not just an image, this is an image through the eyes of someone who loves the person going through this deep depression/insanity. That, simply, makes the heart swell.
A few other poems that really jumped out at me, where I had to read it a few more times, and even out loud were: Insect Wings, Zombies, Things in the Mirror (The section, “Things in the Mirror” seemed to be my favorite), Screw The Beatles, Bad Drivers, The Ghost Limb, Barbeque, Heart Sushi (this title is my favorite!), Nathan Tells him (What Nathan says reminds me something my mom would tell me). I can honestly say, and this is a big deal for me because I can be very critical, I had no qualms with Sad Jazz: Sonnets. It was heart wrenching, hilarious, thoughtful, and built from experience.

Thank you for sharing!
Dorothy Tunnell

Response to McDaniel

A response to Origins by Jeffrey McDaniel

I'm from biking in the woods and warnings of prowlers
I'm from detached family values and sad limbs of family trees
I'm from mutt blood and hiding behind clothes racks
I'm from forced love and alcohol stained ceilings
I'm from stealing scenes in high school plays
I'm from uniforms and moonlit tag on golf courses
I'm from across the playground as the pretty girls learned about popular boys
I'm from lying to get out of babysitting and nomadic pupils
I'm from unwashed hair in good company and hands in mismatched pairs
I'm from not heeding warnings and empty shells
I'm from don't drive like your father because it's unsafe and don't interrupt like your mother because I can't stand it
I'm from men exploiting my sweetness to get a grab, a taste, a feel, of my nineteen year old sex
I'm from fuck you when my friends are around and why, why, why when I'm alone
I'm from talking behind my back and the spitting of it in my face from drama queens
I'm from nuzzled necks in cold wind
I'm from you're the reason I want to leave this family
I'm from exit plans that involve pills and cars and cliffs
I'm from you're not allowed to be a feminist until you stop letting shitty guys abuse you