jrlewis's blog

Stories of evolution-

I confused the biological term chiasma,

Feminine noun in life science, for

The literary term chiasmus.

Masculine according to Latin grammar,

Crossing over to

Evolution of stories.

I love riding, tending, and talking to tiger lily

She is a tender lily and a tiger tender

I am riding and tending and being ridden I

I ride Lily and I tend to love Lily

My lily loves me and lily loves the tiger

My tending to the tiger is riding the tiger

She talks to Lily, the tiger talks and I

I love tending to Lily, to love the tiger

Loving my Lily, Tiger Lily, the Tiger loves me?

“We’re pleased to tell you that you have been accepted for coursework in Poetry,”

Wrote the fates. 

This is my thread to worship, workshop, and workship

Because writers are sailors too. 

Words are a way

Away.

Eyass

A suffocating chick,

Weighing sixty cents in nickels,

Breaks shell into the yellow sea, Iowa

City is an island, grounding for the tree

Supporting the nest

Supporting me. 

And you professor,

Are you parent or predator?

Its stories all the way down. 

I love the material nature of books.

Books will make you stronger, if you let them, in brain and body.  Anyone who has walked four miles with the Norton Anthology of Poetry, a paperback novel, and a macbook in their bag can attest to this truth.

I have a history of violence with books, the first casualty was my high school guidance counselor who made the mistake of questioning my sexual orientation.  Instead of answering, I threw my chemistry textbook at her head.  I will also throw books at people bent on preventing me from reading.  It takes less time to cross a room and retrieve a book than it does to explain to a man, my preference for words over his package.  A woman with a book is not waiting for a man to rescue her from loneliness.  In my experience, a book is a better companion than most men.  Or women for that matter. 

I say books, not novels or poetry, because fiction or science it is always a story.  Bring me your organic textbook and I will read you a brilliant collection of short stories.  Every chemical reaction is a drama.  The reagents are characters and the products are their descendents.  Every scientist is telling their own story, whether or not they have the insight to admit it. 

Please

Let me tell you a story.

I didn’t know what to wear to meet you.

You,

Dressed in your memoirs.

The writing hard as steel shod hooves

Of course paper shows softness, throat and fat too

It gaps.

But,

I’m naked.

Only a line for cleavage,

Paper white shirt, and non-descript jeans,

Trying to cover myself with a poem

What does the ideal reader wear?

With buttered popcorn

See heat melting windshield ice

Winter Nantucket

Like knives he sharpens

- his wool clad toes, too far

from crackling fire

“There wasn’t a lot happening in Hagerstown, Maryland, you have to remember that,” I told my sister, Willow.  “It’s a glorified transportation hub, the junction of two major highways and an airport.  Throw in a little Civil War history, an outlet mall, and you have it.  A town too quiet for a coffee shop.”

“Why would you go to such a place?” she asked.

“We wanted somewhere halfway between West Virginia and here.  I wanted to go to Baltimore.  He didn’t.  He found out that the local Super 8 had a suite with a hot tub and was sold on it.  The room was very expensive so we agreed to make it our Christmas and birthday presents to each other.  I felt simultaneously relieved and mature, “ I explained.  “There wasn’t any trouble until the third day, New Years Eve.  We had exhausted the town; there was nothing left but civil war history and gentlemen’s clubs…”

“I’ve never been so desperate that I went to a strip club!” my sister exclaimed.  That surprised me coming from a lesbian surfer with a degree in mycology from Humbolt State.  Willow is the adventurous sibling, not me.

I wrote

Kill zebra here.

Was it hunters? Or natural causes?

Your metaphor, my notes

Aren’t all zoo animals strippers?

Bodies for pleasure?

Our absurd stripes

A binary.

I miss my bookmark

Dog-earring pages is a bad habit.

But I haven’t finished the poem,

Yet

Happy Valentine’s Day!

How I wish I were an artichoke!  This wise vegetable protects its heart with layer after layer of leaves and hair.  It is not the vulnerable rose, just waiting to be be-headed.  A red rose is the Romeo and Juliet of plants, rapid happiness. 

In order to appreciate an artichoke, one must invest time.  Peeling away each leaf and savoring its butter coated fibers is a pleasure all its own.  I like to eat my artichokes in front of the fireplace, as a popcorn alternative.  The journey and the destination are a joy. 

But third base is the choke.  It is oral sex; tongue out of place and eyes tearing.  Is there anything beyond this epic failure of social graces?  Who makes it to the heart of the vegetable?  Where is the interpenetration of throat and heart?

Who might eat me?