Trigger

Everything is a choice.
Wake up, or stay in bed.
Assume, or research.
Write a poem,
or eat a pickle spear.

I don’t have to write.
My life is not rigged,
prescribed by some
invisible hand
with a supervisory scrawl.

There’s responsibility,
sure, if people care.
Which I have done
a little research on,
and they do. A few.

Buckle down
and all that.
Sure.

Today I’m content
with a pickle spear.

Tomorrow, the reward
might be letterpress alphabets,
water poured into glasses,
(a vision that exceeds meaning)
or the accusation
that I have no method.

My method is choice.
I have one. I use that.

Mistaken Constellations

Today, the world is measured
in gum splats on the sidewalk.
Expectorated gum is the mistaken
and overlooked punctuation
of the population.

I once thought there was a story
to be written between each spot,
that This Could Be Art,
but the idea was little more
than a dog wearing a sweater.

Still, I love the city. Today, a man cuts
into stale bread with scissors,
and pigeons purl
at his feet, rainy greys,
oily violets. The sky
is a rowboat of blue,
and under it, a division
of architecture.

At night, the stars
mimic the gum
underfoot,
and a friend’s orange hat
bobs on the waves
of people ahead of me,
a buoy that directs
this way, this way.

January 27th, Rain and 54 Degrees*

Hey look, it's raining
again
the nerve of air
to be so moist and warm!

Oh how we love
the animal seasons --
those whose leadership
is through a blind barrage
no matter what the day.

We love to talk about weather
like the news,
as if we're not just readers
but the whole editorial operation
who set to print
the headlined story.

* I planted a garden of spring bulbs in November. This morning, two of the daffodil bulbs were pushed up and green. That's all the news that's fit to print.

Schedule

Narrow tendrils ascend from chimneys,
grackles cobble rooftops. The driven
wrap a custodial scarf around their necks,
warm their cars, push ahead
to the day’s interchange. Paychecks ahead.
The rest roll into the languid language
of coffee, cereal rained into bowls.
Later, the nozzle widens to the bounty
of morning television, social media.
Or a book opens, and the day is wanton
with words, gunfired, molten.

January Light*

pierced through
the slats of a barn

leveled, risen,
an I-beam

blue debates gold
on a morning walk

try again, electric snow!

shocktwinkle of success,
the underfoot promise

robes of a goddess, impossible
and mysterious shadows cast
against the side of a bank

cold duct of sky,
a gleam of fish eye

pearl jigs, jukes,
suspends in horsehair clouds

the first month,
a programmable dot
winks on the horizon line

forever.
--

* It's out of fashion to write about light. The collective reader has spoken - no one wants to read a poet's musings on motes of dust in sunlight, the quality of light slipping through the transom, or cat fur suspended in a moonbeam. Workshoppy MFA trends stink. When light strikes me, I will write about it.

Jennifer Whatever

You get tired of writing about yourself,
so you turn to explosives. It's a hobby. Fire,
better than being forgotten. Flames uncap their peaks,
you whirl them around your waist, take a stab
at swallowing them. Perfume your hair red.
Color your lips galaxy.

All your friends are supernovas, rockstars,
or they eat vegetables only and are immortal.

Everything is as separate as freckles.
Sulk on the mousehide chair, write at the desk,
breathe in the miasma of sulphur
from the mineshaft under your feet.

One day you will light your last sparkler,
toss it into the lake. Waves of goodbye,
or hello, again. Hello.

Strikeout: Clearing the Headspace

Ok, hooray. The Editor has arrived. He's wearing his top hat and cane, and he climbs my ribcage. Tip tap with the cane on each bone. He likes to poke my innards, and takes special delight in my lungs. A couple of good jabs and the wind is knocked out of me.

Today is the 10th, and I'm just getting around to feeling like the new year has begun. Pure poo.

Pens lean in a cup, books rest straight-backed on the desk, and my mind clear enough to think about making a list. Whoop de doo. Who cares about your lists?

Sheesh, you're tough. Today I crush your hat, and bend your cane. You can live in my spleen for awhile. Snuggle a kidney.

It's the new year, and I'm just getting around to feeling productive. I cleaned my workspace, and a clean workspace means a clean mind. It will last under a week.

Is it a resolution if you just want to get better at everything you do? That's what I strive for this year, and to enjoy the learning process.

All of my piles of paper are arranged into color-coded folders on my desk now:

Creative Writing Residencies
Hospice Memoirs
Virtual School Bus and Arts In Your Space programs
Burlesque
In-Service workshops
Gaslight Theatre
Poetry workshops
Hooping
Central Casting & Casting Networks
Paper Kite Press & Paper Kite Books

This year, improvement everywhere. Little steps. I start a poetry residency with 8th graders tomorrow. The end of January is a hoop workshop. February is the start of a creativity workshop with friends that I hope will push up the confidence level. March is burlesque. The summer is memoir. Mingled throughout are performances, listening, writing, being. I'm happy to be alive, to learn, to love. Grateful for the chance to improve at anything at all.

Gold Stars

Remember them? Gummy backed and glimmering, they rested in small boxes the teacher kept in the top middle drawer of her desk. They waited for you to do something good, better, or best. If you were lucky enough to have a box of them of your own for crafts at home, you knew the delicious rustling sound they made as you shuffled them in the box with your fingertips. The sound of success. Books read at the library, a constellation on the summer reading chart for the community to see. Shake the box by your ear. Hear it? The sound of self worth.

Solstice

Tonight's presentation is darkness,
uncountable stars under clouds,
squinting at the Christmas tree lights,
boxing on television.

Memory is a little bit of a conspiracy
between your head and your heart.

Days diary into years,
years edit themselves
into a box with photographs.

This is the shortest day
of the year, the longest night.

There's the Julian calendar,
but you have to wait four centuries
to gain those three days from
the surplus of eleven minute bundles.

Chances are, you won't make it that long.

The person who says, "Too many years"
"Too many daisies" or "Too many stars"
hasn't made mayonnaise from scratch,
read a poem that made her cry or scream,
or stacked the perfect pile of firewood.

It is a cloak, all right.
You feel it. The darkness.
Then in the morning,
nothing but precise light.

Such Witty Party Talk

At a party recently I heard a man bemoan the fact that he's tired of answering the same insipid questions people ask about his profession. "How did you get to be an actor?" He said he didn't have the energy to answer the question anymore. His witty friends offered up some potential glib replies: "Just say you were inspired by a dream Dali had." Imagine everyone tossing their heads back and laughing (proudly, because they all got the Dali reference), drinks in hand, the sparkling holiday decor winking in the windows as if in on the joke.

Ok, it didn't exactly happen that way. I haven't been invited to any parties recently. But something I ran across this week made me think about this attitude. It's out there, and I'm going to call it out as High-Falutin' Snobbery in the Arts.

I think people who ask "How do you make a living in the arts?" do so because they have an unrealized dream. Some might just find it amusing and they are curious, but most genuinely want to know how to make it work. Maybe they've had a comfortable job most of their lives and dreamed about being a novelist. Maybe their life circumstances put them in a position where they had to hold down a job sealing envelopes from home, but they've always loved to sing.

When someone asks me "How did you become a poet?" I always pause. Well, I usually gape like a fool, struggle with some words (wow, she MUST be a poet!), and then gurgle out a reply. I'm happy to answer the question, but it is a tough one to answer. I talk about where I grew up, how I grew up, and the word games we played as kids. Being alone in the woods meant tinkering around with sticks, turning my closet into a little writing room, jumping into cold streams, picking huckleberries, inspecting salamanders, plenty of thinking, long walks, and making up plays and performing them. This, plus the people who mentored and inspired me along the way led up to my love of language and my desire to write. I had a childhood of creativity that led me into an adulthood of the same sense of curiosity about the world. I realize I am lucky. Not everyone gets that.

Geez, it's a tough question to answer, but such a great question to be asked. It's an honor, even if it's a struggle every time to explain how huckleberry picking made me want to write poetry. I'm not even sure that's the correct answer, and isn't that just like a life in poetry? No answers, only more questions.

When the fan mail starts arriving from my Poetry/Hooping/Nose and Ear Wiggling/Musical Typewriter Theatrical Extravaganza (ha ha ha!), I'll answer that too, and won't complain about being weary of it. Ever. I'll be grateful, and humbled that anyone cared to inquire at all.

Holiday Strap On

We're wondering when the borough truck will make its slow crawl up Main Street to adorn the streetlights with the same tatty candy canes and dusty wreaths they've used for half a century. It's way past Halloween. In previous years, the O, O, O's and upside down J's were up right after the trick-or-treaters stopped ringing our doorbells. Maybe it's all this rain. Who wants to stand in a cherry picker and strap on holiday decor in this drear? Oh dear.

Choose Your Own Adventure

Yesterday morning I sat on the sofa with my phone and checked my email. Projectnotices had an unpaid role for me, the Writer's Almanac served up the poem of the day, Dollhouse Bettie wanted to sell me a thirty dollar thong. Nothing spoke to me. However, a whisper of a desire to take a walk overcame my spirit, and I answered the message. The blue sky smiled behind the sheer curtains of the living room windows. I put on a pair of boots, announced to a still snoozing husband that I'd be taking a walk, and off I marched out the door.

From the sidewalk in front of our home, a wanderer has three choices: go to the left, go to the right, or head straight back and up the driveway of an abandoned church property.

A friend of mine reminded of the the Choose Your Own Adventure series the other day. She said she would read each of the choices to ensure her adventure lasted the longest and kept her reading. No one wants to get from the first page to the last page in two steps, right? I stood on the sidewalk and considered my options with her childhood theory in mind. I chose the path that rose behind me -- a river of black asphalt.

The air was lively as it pushed branches of tender birches, and drew its thready windfingers through my hair. As I rounded the corner by the old church, two cars made their way along the road, their passengers ready for church. I reconsidered my outfit of plaid pants and leopard print gloves, and then the insecurity floated away with the exhaust fumes of their cars.

I like to keep my head up when it's breezy. The wind jostles even fading leaves awake. I walked past the 1970's split level that has been for sale for the past ten years (there used to be a baby grand piano visible through the bay window), beyond the row of hedges that fence the house with an in-ground pool. The sky stayed the stillest of blues. A few leaves rattled on the branches. Half of a double-wide home wore the faux green garland of Christmas on its windows, the other half anticipated Thanksgiving with handmade paper turkeys.

I walked the woods of the suburbs -- gumdrop and crew cut hedges, flea-combed lawns, SUVs parked squarely under the carport. Choose your own limited adventure.

I stopped by a birch tree in front of a house with wooden pilgrims stabbed into drying flowerbeds. The wind tickled the remaining leaves and turned them into delicate chimes. In the suburbs, the tree is someone else's property. In the woods, it would be mine to close my eyes and listen to freely and without worry. I closed my eyes for a few musical moments and it sang to me from the its forest of symphonies. I didn't need permission from the tree's owner. It freely gave. Near the end of my walk, another tree released its leaves onto the road, while the wind tumbled them across the asphalt. Their canto rose and fell in reds and yellows toward me, and I caught every note, hungry to keep the pages turning.

What I Learned from Directing

1. You will read the play many times and you will see/hear something new every single time you read it.

You know the play really well at the first read-through if you've done due diligence. This allows you to go into that first read-through with confidence. Take the time during the read-through to discuss the story afterward. Ask basic questions, then talk it out. There's nothing wrong with table work mid-rehearsal schedule, either. Returning to the book can be very helpful and throw up new insights. I was consistently surprised throughout the process about what fresh thoughts/ideas appeared during rehearsals and even in performances.

2. Not everyone is going to like you, agree with your vision, or your process for directing. This is ok.

You can't please everyone, and shouldn't. If you worry about this, you will fail. You have a responsibility as a director to stage a play well, and you have the authority to make it happen. Not everyone is going to agree with how you do it, or with all of your decisions. Allow for grexing. It's not about you anyway, it's about serving the play and serving the playwright, the audience, and the actors. You don't need to be everyone's friend. What a relief. On the flipside, don't be a jerk, either. Just because you're the director doesn't mean you get to swell with power and be all, well, jerksome.

3. Casting is important.

Holy smokes is this important. It is fine to hold extra auditions and callbacks. Get it right. Ask questions, do a little research on those who audition. Has he or she played roles like this before? If not, what interests them in the role and the play? Take your time and get it right. There is no decision you will make that is more important than this one.

4. Directing is a lot like teaching.

Every actor has a different style, a unique process toward finding their character, understanding the story of the play, learning blocking. Some respond well to written notes, some work better with spoken notes. Some need extra encouragement. Some need to move as they say their lines in order to learn them. Work with their different learning styles. This is not extra work for you. It's a bonus, really. I gave notes two ways. After rehearsals actors were handed notes that were written on index cards, and I also spoke directly to the actors. Visual and auditory.

5. Rehearsals need structure and discipline.

This is like teaching, too. An unruly class leads to little getting accomplished and a frustrated teacher. Begin on time and end on time. Don't allow people to be habitually late. It's a waste of time and is disrespectful. I began rehearsals with warm-ups. It's asking a lot for someone in community theatre (an unpaid position) to show up at 7 p.m. after a long day at work and expect them to just "get into character" and be ready to go. We started with physical warm ups, then vocal, added more movement, and then we began what was on the rehearsal schedule. Don't keep working when actors are tired, and end rehearsals happily.

6. Be kind to your Stage Manager. Praise her often. Be kind to the Technical Director. Praise him often. Include the crew.

Your SM is there for you during rehearsals, she answers questions about props from actors, takes phone calls about rehearsal schedules, she deciphers your written notes to actors, makes sure that everything is in the proper place during later rehearsals and performances. She will know the text of the play like you do, and will keep track of your blocking choices. My SM was like an angel, and I hope I reminded her enough of how helpful and wonderful she was. My TD helped me to overcome my fear of ladders, orchestrated the crew in the construction of the set, and turned the house into a home. I did my best to include the crew in the creative process, and asked their advice on things where they had the knowledge base I lack.

7. Say yes or no. Avoid maybe.

You have a vision. Stick to it. Actors do not want to hear, "Well, maybe this will change." Or a "Maybe ..." from the director when they ask a question about whether or not what they are doing looks right. It either does, or doesn't, is or isn't. Shit or get off the pot, as my father used to say.

8. Praise actors early and often, and listen to them.

Rather than saying "Your entrance was good at the beginning of the scene, but you need to be a little slower." Say, "Your entrance was good at the beginning of the scene, and it really looks terrific when you move slower." In very early rehearsals I gave little direction and just watched and took notes. Most of what came naturally to them worked. As they got comfortable with their characters and their lines were learned, there was lots of room for them to play and improvise. Some of it worked magically and I said so. Some of it didn't, and we tweaked. When an actor says "This blocking doesn't feel right," I listened and asked questions like "What do you think will work better?" Often they knew what worked. If not, we worked on it together. I know this isn't how every director works. Theatre is a collaborative process. I don't have all the answers.

9. Don't apologize when you don't have to.

Sure, admit when you're wrong, but when you're not, don't apologize. The older I get, the less I appreciate self-deprecating, sort-of-humorous apologizing. It rots confidence in yourself, and in everyone around you. Everyone makes mistakes. Learn from your mistakes, laugh them off when appropriate, and move on.

10. Challenges are learning experiences.

Has something not quite worked out the way you thought it would? Good. What can you make from the pieces? What did you learn? My biggest challenge was the first tech rehearsal. I had no idea how much cacophony would happen the night the lighting and sound technicians arrived. More instruments in the symphony!

11. You can't control everything, and you shouldn't.

Sometimes the most incredible moments are the ones that aren't orchestrated. In the end, when you're sitting in the dark in the back of the house, and the audience is completely engaged in the story, you have zero control over what happens. It's up to the actors and the crew. If you've done your job, it's beautiful.

Pocketwock

There's a pocket of unspoken wants
at the corner of Loud and Quick.
Traffic accidents accrue
in a rich metallic grin.

No passerby dares to thrust a hand
inside it without its helpmeet coat.
No one offers to launder.
Is this humor, some nutty bulb,
or is it a completed transaction?

The pocket is silent, foolish pouch,
a discard ballooning in the wind.
--
Oooh, I typed this on the Royal this morning. The delicious tick, tack of the keys!

One Tree

I'm thinking about joy today,
and how it attaches itself
like a soap bubble
to a blade of grass
or something as dirtied
and weathered as a fence post.

This reminds me
of milkweed pods,
their little canoe prisons
that release such fluff
and nonsense into the air
you just have to giggle.

The seeds are a shower of laughter
for the dark, purpled woods.

They may stick and root.
They may fall on deaf dirt.

Two Trees

The light drips
unsupervised
into dusk. Then,
winter.

It's obvious
that day sips
from the tankard
of night. Leaves
blush, wind staggers
drunk across the field,
through your hair.

--
Happy St. Michaelmas. Count your animals.

Three Trees (in the breezy breeze blew)

And did I mention the door
smashed against the porch,
the screen left dangling
like an exposed nerve?
There was one outlet.
I unplugged the bubbler
in the fishtank to switch
on the coffeepot.
The landlord was a sticky
and turbulent man,
an inventor of emergencies.

And there was the thick
lead paint, third floor,
layered cake carpeting
apartment. Bad romantic
choices. Vodka my father
left after a visit.
A miniature piano
that smelled of old oak.

That was a time ago.

Before that, the woods.
A childhood of craft.
Huckleberry excess,
thimbles of violets,
a canoe to float
like a dash on the lake.
The chop of an ax,
learning to stack logs
between two trees.

Four Trees (Cuatro árboles)

for European Day of Languages

Amanecia --
en la flor azul,
la canta abejita.

Daybreak --
in the blue flower,
a bee sings.

--

Una hoja de oro
flota
en el aire blanco --
capturado en una cuchilla de telaraña.

A gold leaf
floats
in the white air -
captured in a blade of spider web.

--

Tristeza --
asesinado por una mariposa.

Sadness --
cut down by a butterfly.

--

Setas,
que los paraguas de la pasión!
Mantequilla. Sí.

Mushrooms,
you umbrellas of passion!
Butter. Yes.

Five Trees

Do not deviate:
pencil in the folder,
glue dotted on the edge
of the paper. Don't smear.
Remove the patch and watch
the water stream, then tender
grass, an apron of green.
Collect it all in a basket,
dandelion seeds, mud,
the strong, the weary,
the careless hazards of the day.
Do not deviate: they are yours.

Six Trees

Bricks eddy into a chimney,
a few domino a garden wall.
Everyday grit. Tetris.
One is beached in the center of the road:
it causes every car to slow, veer.
So alone, it commands respect
in its solitude,
has built its own house.