Ok, so I lied about the weight loss. It's just that every time I type "thirty-day" the words weight loss seem to want to come next. Must be this New Year's Resolution I'm ignoring. Here's a link to the Random Poetry Challenge, which has been answered by such poets as Pgrundy, Amanda Severn, Lita Sorensen (the whole idea is hers), Uninvited Writer. . . .   It's a lot of fun; challenging, yes, but I know I'm learning a lot. Here are the poems I managed to produce, in random order:

The color. I don't like teal -- don't like the word, or the color, or the smell of acrylic paint squishing out of the tube teal. At some point in my childhood, I must have been attacked by a teal. Or the color. Or the smell. Makes me think of a petrol blue. A blue polluted. Petrol blue acrylic clothing. Oh dear.

A teal ocean. That's #16 on the random poetry challenge list, and I randomly chose it. Tried to write about the duck instead, but the list was clear: a teal ocean. A beautiful ocean, polluted by TEAL. Teal-ified. The Amoco Cadiz came to mind, for some reason. Nope. Not getting anywhere, Plan B -- work backwards. And so, for today's poem, here's "Yokohama Harbor."

Japan without explanation can be tough

on the foreigner who rushes in, causing others

to lose face. The day I scared a girl off her moped

then tried to help her up – not knowing the distress

this action caused was worse than scattering

her groceries in the street, apples bouncing,

rolling, not to be picked up. I was pulled

away; told no, we do not do that, do not add

to her shame (what friggin’ shame? I wondered)

at being shocked sideways by a white face

at the curb. Extends to the tragedy of life

and the helplessness of the helpless. Television

gleaming bright waves of color and sound;

the voices washing over me, leaving no tidemark

of comprehension; I hear their tone, but not

the intent. The pictures are clear, colors

washing over the screen, men by the rail—

the sub gray, huge, and down in the teal ocean

the tiny broken fishing boat, arms and legs

and bobbing heads; and the impassive men

up on the surface, lined along the rail, witnessing,

watching. TV voices sounding somber, calm.

And the next day the photo in the paper,

same view. Same stillness. Gray water

broken by bobbing forms, drowning.

Rail manned by sub crew, watching.

We always had a coal fire in the grate when I was a kid, and it was my job to light the fire when I came home from school. Mum would have set it in the morning: all I had to do was get it going. I loved doing this. Then I'd sit right on the hearth and feel the glow on my cheek, watching castles and mountains and battlements in the burning coals. There was a water tank behind the fireplace when I was really small, that heated water for baths, etc. I don't know what we did in the summer time. I have a recollection of being set up on the draining board in the kitchen in my vest and shorts and being attacked by a washcloth, my father currying the dirt out of my tomboy limbs with a vigor worthy of a demented window cleaner.

When I came to the States I discovered the beauty of the woodfire. For starters, the fireplaces themselves tended to be different; wider and in some cases not as deep. But the principle of the wood fire is just the same, although it has always seemed more romantic, somehow; more campfire-y and less hurry-up-and-put-another-shovel-of-coal-on-and-close-the-back-door-before-we-all-freeze. Then there's the frontiersman satisfaction of chopping wood for the fire (or getting stuck in a cherry tree while trying to saw down one of the branches) that lets you feel you have worked hard for the privilege of sitting down before a roaring blaze. And writing a poem --

Start with the newspaper classifieds. No jobs

there today, anyway. Roll the pages tight and fold:

paper sticks. Good kindling. Lay them on the grate

and add a couple of crumpled pages that will draw in air.

Put the smallest wood sticks on top

and strike a light. Once the sticks are burning,

add the larger logs and relax. You are home.

Flames are the outward edges

of heat, and the gas they come from needs air.

Don’t smother them with wet coals unless

you want to bank the embers in and hold them,

smoldering, for later cracking open into life.

Hearth: the hub of the household;

we gather round the grate and watch the sparks

as winter thaws out of the hissing cherry wood

I cut down myself. Fragrant wood smoke. Like incense

for a ritual.

Some of the topics have me stumped, and this one was a subject I didn't think I'd be able to address -- makeovers -- since I've never had one and am not quite sure what they entail (something about sitting up on a high chair in a department store). But then I wrote the following, and it seems to fit. Well, I'm making it fit, whether it does really, or not.

Making it Fit

Mental stimulation improves brain function,

so try new “Lobezizzle” today – simply affix

the enclosed electropads on your temples

(a diagram is enclosed for your guidance)

and switch on for the number of seconds

indicated in the handy “Zizzle list”

(included) calculated by the number

of days you are depressed, multiplied

by the number of days you are stuck

in a monotonous job, trapped behind cubicle

walls, listening to inane chatter, bereft

of cognitive joy. Once applied, you will feel

rejuvenated, your mental processes will be sharper,

you will exude delight from every pore,

and your bankroll will expand from sheer wonder.

Added feature! You can also take the Lobezizzle

with you (batteries not included) and apply

while you shop or exercise at the gym.

[Side effects include disorientation, memory

loss, confusion, periods of short-term memory

dysfunction, inability to read, concentrate, type,

sign your name, cold symptoms, nausea, flu-like

symptoms, inability to remember the name

of Hamlet’s father, shame, feelings of violation,

loss, emotional distress, embarrassment,

inability to remember recent acquaintances,

and adult ADD.]

Renaissance Graffiti

I saw your reflection,

the window-diamonds

against the real outside

the outside in green

while in here, my forehead cool against the pane

against the tightness behind my eyes

I knew you were there, watching me

unable to speak

cut aside

the inside patterned just as neatly as this scratch

against the glass – these scratches

this is hell

knowing comfort is as far as soul would feel on the shore

of the wide world, like Keats, alone

red scratches tied together with bodice lace

like a fool wench inside a dress

who has no ticket to the wide world

but is queen of all that she surveys

I would rather bite into a vein

with this tiny little dagger,

this scratcher-of-windows

odd how a diamond can cut glass

but not my flesh

A Glowing Review: (Or, if I ever wrote a novel, this would be the review)

What this novel needs is a new beginning,

middle, and end; the narrator is speaking at us

through his worsted cravat like an earl

done in marble, left for a century

under a mat and then thawed too quickly

in the microwave of busy prose bouncing

at us over the pages. I would like to know

where the author thinks the setting might be;

it is unclear to the rest of us. And as for period,

I blench, period. The awkward dresses “fustling”

in the rooms above a butcher’s shop? What art

does not cook too long, it renders bloody

on the bone, half done. Such as is this novel.

The shattered has more surface

area for connection to other wounded shapes;

more space to conform to – mergers

are easier to negotiate, bumping bruised egos

together, so they fit snug and warm,

ceasing to flap in ungainly vulnerability

to the wind, to the night; Poe knew

the attraction of the incomplete;

how it made landmarks for us to cling to;

how we can grasp at open wounds

as if they were rocks, handholds

for tossing flotsam. So it is, around the

delight of the ringing globe we call earth,

our circle complete around the sun,

we silently garner succor from the ragged,

begging sustenance from each other’s

desolation; composing our laments

for each other’s comfort, whole, at last.

I’m glad they put these benches here, aren’t you?

Makes waiting for the bus so much easier.

That’s the man as was mugged last week.

I saw that same coat on sale; different color, though.

Where is the bus when you need it, eh?

I’m going to get one of those mobile phones.

Do you know, his sister is on crack.

That’s the bus for up Malone way. Doesn’t stop here.

Would you look at that? Tattoos everywhere.

His mother must despair of him, mustn’t she?

Three taxis in a row and no bus yet.

Bought some fish, did yeh? I like a bit of fish.

Here! There’s room here; I’ll just scoot over.

No, that’s not my bus; mine’s the 28.

Is that snow? Wish they’d put a bit of a shelter up.

Never snows here – and now look! Snowflakes

the size of stamps! Oh, you just missed the 17 –

won’t be another for half an hour.

No, mine’s the 28. You off, then? Bye bye, then.

Yes, it’s great now they’ve put the benches here, isn’t it?

I've always been a fan of García Lorca, so today's poem came from a memory of Romance sonámbulo (which opens "verde, que te quiero verde") -- the green in the poem being the dark Iberian olive green luster of someone's skin (that I've never really been able to imagine; maybe that's why the poem has stuck with me for so long) (and may be, incidentally, the real reason I'd like to see Antonio Banderas in the flesh?) combined with some ideas about art. Anyway, back to the point: the first (ok, technically second, but let's not count that fiasco of Macbeth in elementary school) (in which the girl who played Lady M was the only girl in the class to have gotten her period yet -- we were such literal little beggars)-- the first role I ever got was in a play by García Lorca, La casa de Bernarda Alba. I remember thinking that the play onstage was a sort of encapsulated reality and that the true fiction only happened when we made our exits, not our entrances -- something about what happened onstage being fixed and invariable (except for when the native speakers forgot their lines and ad libbed, leaving me aghast -- how the hell was I supposed to respond? It was probably just as well, actually, that no one in the audience was listening), and what happens off being subject to the vagaries of chance. Anyway, long story short, the only way I can respond to abstract art is to imagine it being the reality, beyond whose borders we reside in some sort of shadowy limbo. So here's red, abstract.

cada vez que te veo,

pienso en sombras terciopeladas

donde no vive más

que la oscuridad de habitaciones

vacías. Si entro aquí

en la sala del museo

por casualidad,

siempre me extraño

de la calidad vital

de tus rojos, Cuadro;

casi oigo los susurros callados de mucho más –

un mundo entero

detrás de tu portada austera,

con formas y siluetas

de una raza desconocida,

perdida por alguna razón

y ahora solamente una leyenda. Sí, a mí

me corresponde mirar a hurtadillas

para ver entre tus rojos

y conocer tu coraje.