My Turn

In response to this guy and this guy, I thought I'd give it a shot. It was hard and I'm not satisfied, but there are a few nice lines.

I Will Sing America, Too
April 13, 2009

Let me sing Her major chords:
the outstretched fingers of eager skyscrapers,
the lithe arms of Her forests.
I will sing the whir and buzz of industry
and the solitude of Her literature.
She is architects and gardeners,
inventors and creators,
technicians and dreamers.
My ears ring with the slow blues and
the jangle of jazz,
the raunchy rock and roll,
and the fierceness of rap –
American gifts to the soundscape of history.

Her song is endless and sweet,
endlessly sweet,
and I smell sugar as I sing,
as I sing America, too.

And let me sing in minor keys:
the slouching of Her youth
(and elders, too),
the bridges that sometimes fall
(and towers, too).
I will sing a song of sawblades
and mudslides,
a cacophony of concrete
and landfills,
where “superfund” sounds
like super-fun
and money can buy
happiness.
For a limited time.

Her song is endless and sad,
endlessly sad,
and I burn sugar as I sing,
as I sing America, too.

Let us sing this dissonant song,
let us sing it together.
Revel in Her complex harmonies,
Her syncopated rhythm,
Her distant, shifting beat.

Let us sing this endless song,
endlessly strong,
and sing sugar as we do,
as we sing America, too.

I Advise You Against Reading This ..

One Dozen Eggs
April 12, 2009

The resident eggspert
in egg-detection
felt eggstremely
perplexed.

Everywhere she
eggsplored,
she came up
empty.

The desk?
The beds?
The bookshelves
and treasure chests?
Rejection,
dejection,
and, without eggception,
a lack of detection.

Eggstraordinary, really.

Even though the weather
was eggstra terrible, she ventured
into the garden.
No eggs under veggies:
fledgling lettuce and peppers
left everything eggsposed,
eggcept eggs.
Even the deck was bereft.

When she was ready
to surrender,
head west,
and end up
an eggceptionally
depressed
eggspatriate,
eggziled forever
in the desolate desert,
she had an eggcellent idea:

Check the schedule.
Egg-detection was on
the next day’s agenda!

By Wrigely, Day 11

I Wonder, I Wonder, I Wonder
April 11, 2009

I wonder what it's like
to be a bird,
sailing high in the sky,
not speaking a word.

I wonder what it's like
to be a dog,
barking at airplanes
and gnawing on a log.

I wonder what it's like
to be a tree,
with branches so high
they reach the sky,
and leaves so
green, green, green.

By Wrigley, Day 7

My Life
April 7, 2009

My life is like
a picture book -
storied on paper,
happy and content,
magical and mysterious,
cute and lovely,
full of cats and kittens
and dogs and puppies.
That
is what
my life
is like.

By Wrigley, Day 5

My Neighbor
April 5, 2009

My neighbor is a canine
He is fluffy and big
As tall as a four year-old
Even wearing a wig

Day 10

let me be your instrument
April 10, 2009

lay your fingers
on my wrist
and thrum my tendons
like silver coiled
strings

lay your lips
to my ear
and fill me with fog:
leave me lost in
my own veins

let your heartbeat
be my drumbeat:
march me to the
precipice and
teach me to
sing.

That is not a typo ...

the story before
april 9, 2009

don’t know if i’ve told you this story before,
probably have:

it’s the one that begins in the jungle
with the succulent flowers,
the carnivorous flowers –
the ones that find you succulent –
it’s the story that begins in the
fragile spaces between the lion’s teeth.

you remember, right?

it’s the story told in greens so vivid
they’ll eat you alive from the inside out
and reds so sweet they sing four-part
harmony, the story told in tangerine
and lemon and fruits unnamable.
In the end, all the colors have pooled
into muddy puddles, and nothing
but black and white drips
from the jaws of the lion.

you know?

it’s the one where i was the hero and
you were the damsel in distress,
or maybe i was the hero in distress
and you the damsel who rescued me from
the crippling heights of my delusions.
you cradled my head in your arms,
lullabied me with A-weeema-weh
and the lion slept that night indeed.

i don’t know if i’ve told you this before,
probably have:

it’s the story about the fear
that is not my own, the courage
I held on loan, the love
we might have known. it is the
story before the story before
the story i’ve told you before,
unkempt and untamed, feline
and feral. it is the story that begins
in the jaws of the lion and
ends in the middle of a

Day 8

Christie didn't bring her camera to Wrig's most recent horseback riding lesson, so I had to do this:

mare and foal
april 8, 2009

cocoa and cinnamon,
up to the fetlocks
in mud.

side by side, she nestles
around him, a cove
curled against a storm.

she nips at his forelocks
and he shies, annoyed.
tail flicks once, twice.

heavy headed, stiff necked,
he scuffs his withers
against the paddock,

eying the horizon.