Palinode 30

Moan lord.   Show me your shoulders.

To die before you               (My)

(My) Combustible Body, lost in its climate;

The wind to blow the curtain off enough

To leave behind the next step towards productivity,

To follow.

So captive

how easy does circumstance bed you?

The rain has come lightly; it will not feed me fruits, plump, sweet.



This is

(My)

Tussle

To oust

Cloud, commotion,    AND MORE.

Palinode 29

I am here I am
Measuring time by the sun

Completeing the next step
Toward productivity

Rain, feed me, fruits plump sweet

Imagine (how) the free world copes

Radiant and alone, your feathers

you

imagine a morning

without anticipation

Palinode 28 pt2.

The arrangement

                         not imaginary



so much activity around


                                                 “crickets



                                                                               like you wouldn’t


                                                         believe”

Palinode 28

They are there are                not imaginary                not

an arrangement    /arraignment/      on a cover     or book before a court

“Ah, but the day shifts so remorselessly,” says Joanne

—stable or unstable—           can’t measure time by the sun

Footsteps


Footrest


Table, my Chair                What ____less____ is calling me back here?


          this typepad

arranged in a REAL way you look silly scratching for words

Lost to the               “Fix yourself,” they say,

                                                 “make it.”

Move Bruise

Topple blades of grass, grow however

                                                                        you please

Palinode 27

Project forward.          Face the         window and arrange the _______,

(though they are not arrange-able/ physical/ there)

facing the window,

(though they are the picture on the cover of a book. )

Say like/ Something like /_______ is not easy./

Put them here:


What occurs to me, I mean OCCURS to me is that there is not much to think about except missing, feeling uneasy, feeling almost watched, feeling the sun setting meaning less time for arranging and writing till it is dark and walls come out of nowhere. Mocking house, where time is slower, making signs to get my attention—to be a real house! I don’t want to be a wife,        made a wife of it

(anything it),                                    why must I explain?

More like IN IT, in it love of

things, love of things from afar--

Weak vine, will you grape forever? Sour? Should I sound the dinner bell to tell them? What is ready? I mean, “ready,” what is it? I’m not in it.

Palinode 26

Cascarones                    Confetti                        Eggs


I wore the roar till the red wore off & have stinked in my piles of it.
Fill it, a mud from which we grow out of, to body and to shape. Which self was it that I look back to in admiration? She feels in front of me to be an ex-lover—a
body I no longer know how I fit into then. Dancing orchard, the impossibility of identicals, I still cannot tell them apart.

Why do you putter

a glass away from them?                               Why are your systems so imperfect?

YOU I miss when I wash dishes.


YOU when nighttime comes and I am unknowable to myself. & you hesitating
you are something all together else lost in your ambivalence & you have a house
and it is yours and not leaving you but you it you leave it again and again, the
place you wanted you take away yourself, and I don’t know why you do it but I do
know enough of me to know you.

Constant unconscious ego-ess, quiet your eggs, there is no reason to shoo.

Place, come to me, let’s meet halfway somewhere if it’s easier. Place come to me.

YOU,

YOU be IN IT when it comes.

Hollow decorative egg, I try to hide in the beautiful shadow within.

Make me a wife of it.

She splinters and slowly, oh moon of it, moon, my moon, don’t you yearn for a caretaker?

Double visionary, put me in your pocket, find YOURself singular again and make
me your double, I need something to be a part of.

Showy male, why did I leave YOU behind?

Flash YOUr bright feathers again, inside YOUr silly egg, I will make it

You self, you must mutter it: I miss YOU when I wash dishes.

PLACE come to ME.         Make me an equation:       allow me to understand it.

Allow me IN IT.

Tear the nettles away.      Life again, come, I am half way to you.

Palinode 25

       (re-done   re done)

I miss you when I wash
dishes The palate ceramic
awaits the taste of foam The moon
beautiful using
the word makes it more
meaningful I am
haggling with what I am
afraid of Is this
a journal or a letter We are not (all)
IN IT
together but take me
I am here and my ears are open


I miss you when I wash
dishes My mind can
only open to
that Place
leave me I want to be
inside my complete
self We do all things
together even
when you don’t realize it and I
don’t too but being there
we are both there somehow
I feel it Too big to die
These many hands do so

Palinode 24

Brackish oyster, you’re on a half            shell, broken sun.

                            I am a fraud.           & say, all assemblage

                            DOES NOT MAKE              language--

Appendage, bleed colorfully.

I CAN SEE YOU ALL.

We’re all IN IT together.

ASSEMBLE

(Adult)

In the letter talk

Your appreciation of the house

Roof enough

And from your head you pulled the god of wisdom & war

(Baby)

Being remarkable

Your yellow jacket reasoning

(Mother)

                    Your tail, my head

(of)

off of an animal or

choose safe slaughter,

(Lamb)

pumpernickel surprise!

Books kill spiders
quick and painless. Many
are making kamikazi
missions and at 6am I
will be meditating and trying
not to
imagine them.

Then: When IS the lunar eclipse? How come I never KNOW these things?


      And when the sun rises?                        Will I sleep in this chair?

(infinite)

(offering)

(hovering )

(take me up.)

Palinode 23

You muscles are suddenly not there. There is nothing to make your body protected from its body-ness, its bold sex.

Bold bone

You know how to act like a human in the bathroom

Too public

The world rankles-narks&nettles/ makes bitter /worsens
Or does it it-s-rapture-of-the-deep

around you all assemblage make-s-language                         maybe


On submission tracks, leaking to

every location, not scrupulous, not trying to carve a particular path

Into the baby’s breath many of the worlds already used will reinvent
themselves, I have been one of them. Why are you so
silent, self?

Hellos too. Much of the same things we say we do when we won’t do them, but that’s just the way people are at it, at the arched fabric, your wedding, your promenade.

Palinode 22.5

we do speak too much                    too much hello

muffled air                     vents

WANT to pick up stuff walk out WANT to be outside hating outside

DAY SIX SAY

:

Take us apart.  Us from our bodies.  Us, our bodies.


I try not to {pause} you people.


Your muscles are suddenly there.


where the place is /or/ where the place is

I don’t care, we are coeval & endure the same seam.

Those are the corners and those are
the chairs that go in the corners I don’t
wait for them I am bored by them why
are there so many why do they flock like stupid birds

You think You know what You look like

Then tell me

Or god

Please flood it all again

Tell them what I see ahead:

We are only buying

It is all we do

We are making munching sounds

Coins in pockets--

Buy it, be it yours trade it like an ivory horn, sound it, your silly oliphant.

We are happy over here.

it is

happening, coming back, just wait. watch a movie or something.

Palinode 21

Animals

      the way

          we don’t speak

and anyway

my sense of god and good morning are the same

/good morning I am across the street at the café/

notes on poem: page five:

CLEAN & JERK
CLEAN & JERK

Lift the bar
A bird can’t do that
and
he will sing not say
CLEAN & JERK
CLEAN & JERK

They
are taking apart the personalities (of all the people) I see every day (on the street)
and
I know that this is not what happens or should happen anywhere (in the world)

If I were making music now, not this poem, I’d say:

We are in service for the speaking

world of

“Clean-limbed”

and

“Human”

I won’t confess anything
but

the radiance I feel when saying

“the

colony is collapsing”

I feel guilty for it,

sure

/not to tell is better /

give me absolute give me still

make the applause sound like a flock of wings of many of the same animal
moving up in the air, a sound I cannot make

the chair is waiting

reading

Reading some of the palinodes today...

Sunday, May 6th, 4pm sharp!
Robin's Bookstore

108 S. 13th St., Philadelphia

Jocelyn Saidenberg
Frank Sherlock
Hailey Higdon
Will Esposito

Palinode 20

                        I ask the pardoner

To pardon the times I locked

The keys in the car—so far

My intentions are to keep

Newness alert and happening

Sometimes I lose track of time

I am not as

grounded as

I think I

        \Move lightly like hedging\

        \your\

        \your dollar now\

I want to growl at the homeless

        /what can I do against it/ \bees are disappearing\


am I am an animal

and

after leaving I saw birds claw on concrete and they move sideways like I move

get drunk and can’t hear the phone ringing

there are so many watering holes we

peck at speaking men

clean crumbs without regret

and hear the others talking

        /birds claw on concrete/ they move sideways like I move/

        /aren’t we the same animal/

to sum it up

                /say/

we locked the keys in the car
we peck the lock like little finches.

Palinode 19

To make sense is not the descent of the artistic.

I try to be as grounded as I can.


The concrete the
               newly refurbished sidewalk
you can talk
               about the
great Delaware river           or you can the

you see the trash bags floating

               but you cannot get a good egg roll in                      this

and the water quality in Pennsylvania is apparently          superb

but no animal can make it here
               I just wanted a canary, but am afraid I’ll
forget to feed it or abandon it, leaving
               for a vacation and only realizing
it was left after the leaving

“we”
don’t have the patience
          to move aside           lightly

“we” stomp our feet           to
          make room for the other lessons

how does one          clean anything
          without feeling a
sense of regret about it         chase away the bed of hot springs make room
          for the ammonia water

cold&clean.

What clean thing would
          just pile up sounds and call them
something? I can feel myself doing it already—
I can hear myself                     speaking.

Palinode 18

We move the deer aside

Make room for the

Fodder.

I brush my teeth in horizontal

Patterns

To try to remind them

How to do it

To run or gallop—

            [Luckily the naked noise doesn’t follow
            it keeps its distance
            I don’t let it get in everything
            like your pubic hair got in my soup]

There

Must

Be

A

Million

Asian

Students

At

The

University

Of

Pennsylvania

And

Apparently

The bees have disappeared

Horded the honey—

Honey I’m sorry,

I mentioned your pubic hair

In public,

I cannot hear myself speak.

Eat your dinner.

Yours truly was asked to clean the apartment

Alright:

I     see     a      potential     pile.

              [Is this a form of cleaning?]

Straw

And

Sternum

Make

Nice

Sound

Piles

Why

Don’t

They

Make

More

Sense?

How things work...

I just wanted to lift the veil on a few of the secrets behind all the mysteries that seem to happen here, in blogland, neighboring your reality. Well, the chapbook was not just miraculously formed by my Epson Stylus C88. I'm sorry to burst anyone's bubble about that. If it makes you feel any better, I believed in Santa until a VERY late age. That being said, I would like to just send out a thanks to the DIY Publishing Blog run by Shanna Compton. It basically provides all the info you need to publish a chapbook or zine, or whatever it is you publish, without waiting around for someone else to do it. It's a fun process, and worth investigating, if you are poet or not.

Secondly, the Palinodes have been coming more slowly as I'm trying to also post poems on a new project blog The Ping Project.


This is more of a collaborative blog, with Nikki Roszko, a poet, coworker, and friend, who is interested in investigating the relationships between internet spaces--looking to cross reference the work of other bloggers, with one's own poetry, these poems rise out of communications and, for me, word banks, provided by other bloggers. It's worth checking out the blog, and if you're a poet, perhaps you can join in the ping-ing.

More poetry soon, and better.

Palinode 17

To decide between the bees
Settling into supper
Still quiet
Picks a different cup

Bees scatter and sense—

        I start to undress the noise, but it follows

Still
sounds too loud

the winded population is
a stomachache
a pot-roast most people dress down

I didn’t want to pile up my clothes
the same,
I say,

anti-

anti-

anti

and I became a pumping steamship

        --green lakes flat as hard wood this would be quieter--

and I became a pocket purse and waited to get full

No buildup of brandished waves
No sloppy liquid lake splashing out of the sink

I can recant the messy afternoon—

Quiet the quieters hushing me

It’s not the humming bees that bother

I have forgiven them

When will the winded, the noisy, hush up its--

              -renowned
    -surround.

ready made

as in, many of the copies of the book are al'ready made, if you'd like to order one. please let me know if you encounter any problems with the paypal system. this is my first time using it.

chapbook news

Friends,

This is a just a note to blogland to let everyone know that I'm still here, working. The 17th palinode is back and forth from the butcher's block, but will be completed soon. Also, the printing of The Palinode Project: Book One is happening today. Finally. I will be binding the books today and tomorrow and hope to have the appropriate links up on the blog soon, if would like to order a copy.

It's off to the print shop now. Check back for updates later this week.

hailey

Palinode 16 (book two)

There is too much sound;

Much sounds like

Commonplace phrasing, and the whining

I do when I don’t get my way.

I left it, angry, not really “at” anymore.

People talk too directly.

How things have escalated,

Arisen of little brandishes—

I have moved my hand dramatically to show you I am raising the bar.

Last night I dreamt of my grandmother

But you were there too

It was—I only remember—the feeling of being under—
                     the feeling of doing for,
                     following instructions,
                     following our routine—

It is safe when you fill both sinks with water, one for washing, one for rinsing.

In comparison to our sink, I think this one makes more sense—
ours stainless and undivided, a common place for a pile-up.

I left it for a pileup. Not angry at, just me in my winter clothes:

I have
two shirts,
two socks,
two hats, for my
two torsos,
two feet—
you get the idea.

There was no secret language, nothing I didn’t understand.

You didn’t brandish the dishes, you stood there and washed them.

I was not looking for symbols, not misunderstanding.

I tossed the mail up the stairs,

Went to the café and signed a petition I didn’t read.

I know, it doesn’t make sense, but it made me feel better—
Not looking at it—
      language, etc
Not trying to read it
      and still
signing on to support some fellow and
his ideas about cleaning up the waterfront or something about
cleaning up the city.

Palinode Project: Book One

I will be posting more poems soon, but in the meantime, chew on this:

I will be releasing a chapbook of the first 15 palinodes. It will be a small release, only about 150 copies and selling for $3 each. I know, I know, it's hard to put a price on something you can get for free on the internet, but there are a few differences. Nicole Donnelly has done lovely cover art for the chapbook and will hopefully continue to work with me more. Also, the chapbook will include a few sparse edits to the original work, making me not cringe as much when I look back on the earlier palinodes. Finally, the books will be hand sewn! Yes, by my very hand! While I'm at work! I'll post more info once the book is all printed and sewn. Keep it real.

hailey

Palinode 15

This is reality reality is

                quotidian

We grow horizontal.
I am sick of it.

I read on the news of natural disasters.
I do not believe they CAN happen.

I had a dream my uncle died in a fishing accident. I think it was the salmon that ate him, I can’t be sure. Someone brought his body to us, and we continued our work day, my family, as we should, working as if it wasn’t there—stiff with rigor mortis, his mouth, almost smiling, baring his teeth, sitting with us during a family staff meeting.

What is safer—

Laundry spinning with soap
I see white when I look through the glass front of the washer

I have tried not to leave angry
I am angry that people are not

unveiled to
one
another

And all the lines of the subway map in Japan—colorful and confusing,
I think they are unrecognizable signs, language,
rails on tracks I can follow,
but can’t tell you,
     where they are going—
Likewise, I cannot tell if that is my blue tee shirt or if that is a pillowcase.

What are we supposed to talk about?
We don’t have anything in common.

I would like to read the characters of this language.
I would like to know if they are symbols,
if I should look for patterns,
or if they are a jumble of strokes—the smallest units, like phonemes, indicators that you are traveling
on the red line, though it
is curvy and swings east before ending west, you can feel sure
that it will not derail, it will not
take you too far out of the way to end up where-ever it is you want to be.

Palinode 14

If a train can derail, unfetter itself, and run elsewhere,
The cluster of it, as feathers, if the whole plumage were to
Explode like a chemical fire in Kentucky, like a copy machine
That works for itself—
If these change course, multiply, fluff up—reddish orange like a chicken back and
Black like smoke,
I can, at least, be sure:
The children are vertical—not leaning away to leave us—
Last night they stayed beside us;
The walls are upright, loyal, not leaving

    as I understood before

    -How we need more children, like baby chickens
    -How we should be sure they are

    comfortable, amused, watching,

not growing
-or-
tuckered out.

Palinode 13

Last night our walls walked away from us.
Believe it, it’s not
an academic thing it—
it just happened
I de-
signed it—
I think
I was
screaming
about the children—how many we have,
how they are problems.

Palinode 12

Your design here:

We are not in a city.
We are not in a row home.

Ours stands alone.
Ours stands alone in a prairie.

Though you imagine the grain swaying--
Though you imagine the walls swaying--
It is only
The grain,
The wind,


      our    walls    stay         put

• mine
    there    windows     in

• &
    are    doorway     the

• his
    four    changing    drawer

• I
    there    fixed        in

• mean
    more    carpet    the
      by      to          cabinet
      the      wood

I design the sky clear.
I invite them in.

“Open the back door and call in the children,” you say.

The sky, nothing is boisterous.

“Baby,” I think, “we don’t have any yet.”

Palinode 11

Admitting the house is not
ours, but that it is watching us,

and we are well aware the sky is boisterous.

Uneven wind

     -Between buildings
     -Between the cracks in the walls
the way small pieces of it,
     blow like a flock
  rest
  then
I claim the righteous
snowflakes and tell them,
assuredly, they are not invited in my house.

They still come. I still let them.

The walls do not leave me.
Like wind, but cold:
  -Bricks with no putty
  -All the tiny creatures that invade that house.

Palinode 10

That
-that you fluff your pillow
-that you open your mouth
If
-if I go to work
-if I stay in the area
You can tell
-I am at work
-I am distracted
-I am a restless ceiling fan
-I am doing the same thing, another time
That
-that the house caught on fire last month
-that it is not the first time
If
-if I can only concentrate on things
-if I stay in the area
-if you remember, will you remind me?

You understand I barter tentatively.
You understand I steal only the deaf night, his banal words.

That the
-the house is our house
-the house will not leave me
-the house has watched me walk to work, as far as he can see

As far as
-the avenue, probably only to the mid-six-hundred block
-the restaurant across the street where I eat pancakes

As far as
you are concerned:
-that you open your mouth to yawn like a hamster
-that you sleep with your head hard in the pillow

That
-it is slowly moving
-it is almost unnoticeable
-it is so much calmer than I am.

Palinode 9:

This poem is addressed
            to you,
Despite things.

It is winter
   now and
today I am
married
to the idea.

I tried to imagine it & it came to me:

      -You are not here, not talking to me.

      -You are at work.

You are
(plus)
at work.

Again:

I wake up &
& it is raining.

In one hour, you will leave the house.
In one hour, I will leave the house.
In one
hour
the house
will leave
me, leave with me--
you are not inside,
not talking, I imagine
you are still
in your spot on
the bed:

      -You flatten your pillow.
      -You sleep with an open mouth.

I am sleepy and you tell me to lie down--
-that you will tuck me in--
-that to listen to me while I’m asleep--
-that married to the idea:
      I will be not waking
      Not rising, as Lisa says, “like science.”