Some damn text from Raja

So much deep
Ends up
On the red
Wheel bar
Ow!

Glaze Ed
With rain
What?
Er...

B side:
The white chick
Ends

Push Birth Seizure-edited

Before the seizure,
he sees a light around people
the way I did
when I leaned forward
to push him away from my body
twenty-two years ago. This time
it is he who leans forward,
remembering somewhere
deep in the impenetrable
darkness I can’t enter,
that he could break my back
with his strength, the hard weight
of his body, if he were to fall
fully onto me.

So we dance a kind of
birthing together:
push and lean, push and lean
until we are bound together,
this time without benefit
of life-sustaining cord. We fall
through the slow, patient air
that seems merciful, as though
it is a parable of love,
only with cold
instructions first.

I am a quick study: I cup my hands
under his head as
he bangs it against the flagstone
floor. My hands are bruised,
pummeled, but he would crack
his head otherwise so I don’t feel
any pain as I push-pull,
and wish I had strength
enough to slit open heaven’s
belly to bring him breath.

I don’t cry because I never
do with pain. No one can convince me
that pain and hell go together.
There is no pain in hell,
only measureless time
that you must bargain for.
Here, now, when his skin
is no longer blue,
and his eyes are lupine
silk, I pull him up and I hold him
and then there is heaven:
the beloved in my arms.

Now the air sings its
parables again and I remember,
there was never pain, never hell
only pearls that fell and were lost,
then found and saved.

SHIVERBUSH JONES

This life teases out of you an incongruous song
made of stair steps and questions and flipping of birds.
But the world sings you back to you in thousands of tongues.

The throwing of bowling balls and the spanking of gongs,
the tripping of triplets and the ripping of shirts--
they’re all just a part of your incomplete song.

Vibrations recycle before very long.
And even the thud of your feet in the dirt
the world will sing back to you in thousands of tongues.

The air that you squeeze out of overused lungs.
The cries and the barks and the purrs and the words.
It’s all just a part of your world-wooing song.

We are never alone so much as among.
Each gesture we make this planet records.
And this world sings you back to you in thousands of tongues.

Love itself is fine, as are lust and longing.
And there will come a happy answer from some exotic bird.
When you step outside and engender your songs,
the world sings you back to you in thousands of tongues.

JD Frey — April 15, 2010
JDIEGOFREY@GMAIL.COM

MY BLIND DATE WITH THE WOLFWOMAN

This room this glass this bed this wine,
this song of lives lived well and rested,
that look that passed between us when
I discovered you were hairy-chested.

The air was thick with lupine lust
a wave that quickly crested.
Dense fur sprang from your hands and bust
and from the snout that manifested.

Full moon through dusty keyhole white
across rare steaks we had requested
and how you fanged them with delight
while I stood back as you'd suggested.

I've thought of you only since that sharp night in bed.
Your lovemaking nip left me single-breasted.
A lunar month later, this scar throbs on my chest
and the thrill that it gives me still fills me with dread
now that the taste of my flesh has been tested.

JD Frey

Separate

From my window, Chicago is a clove of garlic
On an eggplant lake too deep to ford.
You chopped peppers, carrots,
Leaves Romaine, tomatoes on a cutting board.
You asked me to separate a yolk from its white
And I knew I could do it
Because keeping things separate
Gives me no trouble.
So I proved it to you,
Standing at the sink,
Sliding the sun from one half of the sky
To the other
While thin and ropy clouds
Oozed to earth.

Here, I hold it.
I have isolated this burning thing,
This bird‐to‐be,
What now, what will we
Do with it?
From a cabinet,
You pulled vinegar and olive oil
And lemon juice and honey,
And you told me to make dressing.
So I took a fork and popped the tender bird;
I whipped it into froth, and, further,
Poured it on the salad.

Let us share this humble meal –
We, fierce advocates of health.
Let us take these simple steps
To responsibly dine sensibly
To align ourselves so perfectly with earth,
Her crunchy bounty.
Let us raise a fork, a lettuce leaf,
Let us both agree on everything,
Specifically, that yellow yolk
That gives our meal its extra texture:
It really binds it all together.
Once it’s in, we can’t extract it
Can’t take back; we can’t unhatch it.

If asked again,
I might have rather kept it separate.

I didn’t say but might have said
Your healthy salad was a bore
My body craved but mind abhorred
Because I’d rather you just touch me
But we’re talking about salad, now,
We’re talking about making healthy choices
Which is separate from the voice in my head
Not yours but nevertheless course and rough
Saying “you’re not what he wants;
You’re not pretty enough.”
See? A clip, a snip, some rhetoric
And I’m a parsnip on your board
Chopped up in mixed metaphor.

Not so secretly,
Nor, in the end, separately,
I will head home hungry.
I, who am so fond of flying,
So fond of spying on the earth from my window in the sky,
Will shell Midwestern cities like peas –
Davenport, Moline, and Muscatine.
I’ll fight my way through this final leg,
Mourning my bird,
Eating your egg,
And Omaha and Council Bluffs
And Kearney where they searched my car
Will race like oil on a tongue,
Like dressing from a bottle poured,
Until at last, at length, I’ll land
Just two hours from Cheyenne
And two thousand miles from your cutting board.
We’ll retreat into our private bubbles
Because keeping things separate
Gives us no trouble.

VOX POPULOTOMATUS

VOX POPULOTOMATUS


When I think of what this town has become
it inevitably tears me a new one.
What used to be forests of dogwood and plum—
when I think about what this town has become—
is now painted squares that spell e unibus plurum.
(Makes me wish for a taco-sized aspirin to chew on.)

When I think about what this town has become,
it inevitably tears me a new one.

JD Frey – September 9, 2009

Hikes, Hailstorms

Almost the end of June and we (me, my husband & son, Aaron) watched a wicked lightning storm last night from our front porch. Every piece of sky was changing from twilight shades of white to impenetrable black, minute by minute, and simultaneously ripped by jagged yellow electric needle-thin lines. We huddled together in awe and were startled by silly things like a poor, lost poodle who scurried up our stairs and trembled next to my ankles. Her white fox-like face emerged from the torrents of rain like a strange animal spirit and we scooped her up and kept her warm and dry in the house until the storm had passed. Aaron gathered up pieces of the inevitable hailstones like he was a boy again and placed them in the freezer side-by-side and there they sat like stoic, crooked marbles. I mourned the fact that the hail was probably decimating the tender columbines and pink wild roses, but I can't be so greedy. I have had a long spring season of them and when I searched for them today, they were still there, as sturdy as ever. In fact, poppies had sprung up around them. It was as if the chilly hail and heavy rain had unearthed them all from lazy sleep.

On Sunday, we hiked up in the park to Cub Lake. A swift five miles. Color everywhere and delightful showings like fat coyotes and marmots, mallards and one cornflower-blue bird perched on a post. Golden banner dominated the wildflowers until of course we reached the lake and then the long, wavy stems of the giant yellow pond lilies hypnotized us, the lake so clear and a dreamy green. The lilies floated independent from their pads, light spirits all.

Graceland

Last leaves linger on black fingered trees
lacing the crackled blue sky.
The waiting has begun.
Miss Thalia and her sisters,
at the beer since morning,
laze about languorously, expect
nothing.
Grampa, who helped
his own poppa plant those naked maples,
paints emptied shells for the future,
while mother fusses with her quilts again,
still. Everything so still.

Old Carl (way up there on the right, through the branches)
looks up from his fields,
listens as silence accumulates.

Only Aglaia the younger and her beau are unaware—
lost they are in a moment
of each other, entwined, they grow together.
Her mother only smiles.

There are other towns, other skies
across the mountains,
where the river Cephissus flows,
the dogs begin to howl
and crows rise on the wind.
Ceres’ harvest is done,
night approaches.
It is time
to bring the quilts inside
and dance a slow tango
making the beds.

Stoke warm fire beneath
the eternal soup, blood
red with beets, smoke-savory
herbs nearly burned in butter,
scrap-full stock
hissing silently in
fragrant welcome.

They’ll be back,
the children and the animals,
birds will sing again.
Tonight we have some
of Grampa’s old plum wine
and stories of ancient days
to keep us company.
History’s in the wind.

The dance of Euphrosyne,
off-stage, left, makes
Aphrodite smile, invites
another spring.

BLIND DATE WITH THE WOLFWOMAN

This room this glass this bed this wine,

this song of lives lived well and rested,

that look that passed between us when

I discovered you were hairy-chested.

The air was thick with lupine lust

a wave that quickly crested.

Dense fur sprang from your hands and bust

and from the snout that manifested.

Full moon through dusty keyhole white

across rare steaks we had requested

and how you fanged them with delight

while I stood back as you'd suggested.

I've thought of you only since that sharp night in bed.

Your lovemaking nip left me single-breasted.

A lunar month later, this scar throbs on my chest

and the thrill that it gives me still fills me with dread

now that the taste of my flesh has been tested.

J Diego Frey

Footsteps

Ms. Buddha’s coming
her silent rampage
of forgiveness and
tearful smiles contemplate
cookies and sin
not attending to
black crow that tears
space with pierced voice
meadowlark announces
just here and right now
I am the body hyperspace
unvoiced words reach for
you for your terminal
and your fingers and eyes
coffee revs my heart
to sing reach grasp hope
love songs to the impossible
world lit from
a universe on fire
cold and immense
inside a singular point
not dark but without
light as feathers

Poetry Is Like...

Anyone want to match the poet with the statement of poetics?

POETRY IS...

"...a partially descended testicle, embarassment, anticipation and life, all in one crouched form."

"...a big scratchy silver table and then and then jeni read and there was pizza and then JD said stuff and I got to stay up late and when I got in bed I tied the red balloon to the bed post."

"...that deja vu where I'm holding a pen but it's really a wishbone, and all I have to do is decide which verse of the world to write down, which stanza of the mind to salvage."

"...clouds of locusts licking the wind until it turns blue, the sand frozen in sea mist."

"...Lydia at four, when all things are not only possible but probable - and prime numbers have nothing and everything to do...with everything else - when stars are henry in eyes of hazel and words and phrases of cheekbones and grins and chuckles."

"...being dropped onto a charred prairie looking for love like hunger, like water, like a camel whose hump has hollowed out, and then poetry is the mirage of coming home."

Fields Marked By An Asterisk Are Required

An absolution of indifference, perched top-heavy
atop the sunken confines of a styrofoam cup.

Speak or not, breathe or not, parry the words
on the page with keen discernment, or not.

*What do you use to carry the anvil of
choice, and its furthering implications?

The flimsy whim fabric of choosing, woven.
The wind that moves breathlessly

through fall fields full of dusk and miracle
light. Sawdust leaves that collapse, cranky,

red-faced, nap blanket, dreaming in prose.

freewrite

the wind does not need the grass to answer

any more than it needs me
to love the accidental sound
it makes by passing an open window
or its amphibian skirmish across the mouth
of a hollow glass jar

it does not need me balancing
its dry winter beheading of trees
with its lesser signs, the second sources:
little creature bones scattered among the bayonette
still so elegant
and then while I sleep
wind disappears
abeyance so complete
I beg it back
even its vapid form better
than nothing

-Barbara S.

Garvin Mesa

The wind does not require the grass
to answer, but the question is always there
and gone, then back again, persistent,
ruffling blades like hair with an open palm,
posing queries of the daybreak
while the skylark tries to echo him,
asking us awake into the morning.

In the darkness of dawn in the valley
the coal train sings and everyone
listens and responds in kind:
the cicadas lost in tall forests of grass,
thrumming like starting motos;
the cows lowing in nearby fields
wet with cool dew; the odd rooster
at his post, shrill steward of the sun—
every throat as open as an unanswered
question, every sound as full
of asking as the wind.

Emily's Love

The wind does not require the grass,
He has loftier goals,
destinations unknown,
an ocean of air confronts
always itself, wrapped
around the world
with no expiration date
sipping up moisture along the way,
waters fields and junkyards, clouds
perception then suddenly clears
to reveal itself behind the mirror
where mountains accumulate,
stars gain energy and the life
of creation is still as the wind
never is, even on still sunlit afternoons
when birdsong stops, butterflies
close their wings, the gray stripped cat
stares uncomprehending
a mote without motion, silence rules
and this chapter’s done.
The gentlest breeze turns the page,
the grass moves, though She does not
require the wind.

some of us

MEANWHILE THE MONKEYS

Meanwhile the monkeys

Dropping

into our garden

like commandoes

Threaten

us

with memories of the time

we showed

up without pants

They pound

on the tabletops

until

banana cream pie is produced

Monkey see Mountain Dew

Screeches worse

than Niebelungen

Toaster, cat, bowls

and bottles

in a frozen

arc

of juggled

They come right at us,

teeth bared

like dobermans

Monkey say we people around

Laughing

at my minivan

Amazed by my bad

gas mileage

and this need

to carry around

more than one

good ant-collecting stick

They will

not even look

at the collection of clever bumper stickers

JD Frey -- August 12, 2008

PBR night in review: monkeys, rainstorms, yellow jackets and charles wright

 
Charles Wright, from Scar Tissue
 "Our lives, it seems, are a memory
                                               we had once in another place.
Or are they its metaphor?
The trees, if trees they are, seem the same,
                                               and the creeks do.
The sunlight blurts its lucidity in the same way,
And the clouds, if clouds they really are,
                                               still follow us,
One after one, as they did in the old sky, in the old place."

A sampling of Charles Wright poetry from the Poetry Foundation.
Mark Strand and Chuck Wright reading at the Library of Congress.

TOP FIVE Monkey titles this week:
All's Quiet on the Western Monkey
For Whom the Monkey Tolls
Honey, I Shrunk the Monkey
Monkeybusters
20,000 Leagues Under the Monkey

The Dogs Ate My Biscuits

Just a while ago now the monkeys
ate all the porridge so we’ll have to go
to storage to find something funky
to eat. In the eternal meantime
the monkeys are all frisky,
and leaving them alone
is bound to be risky, but I suspect
it’ll all turn out fine
as long as we don’t bother to much
about the monkeys, just focus
on our own internal flunkies,
try to gain satori
before your mother finds out.
In the morning I’ll slip away
ever so quickly
before the sun does its tricks
and the monkeys come out
to play.

peanut butter orange blossom cookies

Wanted to post this recipe for an unbelievably divine cookie - peanut butter orange blossom! I am in love-love-love with this blog, 101cookbooks.com, and have been looking for an excuse to imitate an orange blossom cookie I tried at the Pearl Street Farmer's Market nearly three years ago, so when this recipe popped up a few weeks ago, I dove right in. For a while, I thought that "orange blossom" was some magical spice I couldn't get my hands on, but after some digging I found that people generally just add some zest and juice to their recipe.

Here's the recipe for Heidi's Peanut Butter Cookies - to "Orange Blossom" em up, I just added the zest and half the juice of an orange in the last step (these are vegan and easily made gluten-free too, if needed). On the right, photo of the cookies enjoyed at the PBR session at Ginny's.