broken

When I was awarded the fellowship the deal

I made with myself was to get to the office

at Purchase at least one day a week. Well,

this week stuff intervened and I never got

there and that feels pretty bad. Not that I didn't

work on my projects. I did. And I don't have

to go to that office to do the work, to write.

In fact, it's a schlep. But it's a good schlep.

And I want to schlep there. I'd like to schlep

more than one day a week, but there's

work and family and now the leaves-- oh those leaves.

Which are nearly gone, thank goodness. Except

for the damn oak. Its leaves hang on till

December. Anyway, there's always this coming

week. And by hook or crook, I will spend time

in that office. I will be a good fellow!

PS...happy halloween...don't you love this photo.

From the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia.

Afghan Women's Writing Project

One of the great things about the interwebs

is being able to do things like co-edit an online

journal with a writer in Scotland as I did last

year with Anna Dickie and qarrtsiluni.

Next month I'll be mentoring women who live

in Afghanistan via the Afghan Women's Writing Project.

The photos above are of the new office the women

now can use in Kabul.

The women will write and I will read and offer

feedback and eventually their work may be published

at the online magazine started by writer Masha Hamilton.

It's completely run by volunteers and the aim is to give women

the power and the place to write and "have a voice in the world

despite a deteriorating security situation."

Check out the website.

I think I'll be learning a thing or two or three in November.

where

All week I was trying to get to the office

where my poems are tacked to the wall, waiting,

burning. I barely made it there Friday morning

for two short hours, what with the yadayadayada

that fills up a week.

The poems waited and waited, like hungry kids

what's for dinner/where's my shirt/get out

they were whiny and I don't blame them, stuck

on a strange wall alone all week with no one

looking after them. But I got there and looked

and fiddled and wrote and looked and they burn

and that's good.

Whale Sound

Nic Sebastian has undertaken a pretty wonderful

endeavor -- to read other people's poems and post

the readings at Whale Sound. It's lovely to hear

my poem in her voice.

The poem, Sometimes a bone, is re-imagined as she reads

it. And there are lots of other poems over at Whale Sound.

Go there and listen.

whoosh

It is more difficult to fix on the map the routes of the swallows, who cut the air over the roofs, dropping long invisible parabolas with their still wings, darting to gulp a mosquito, spiraling upward, grazing a pinnacle, dominating from every point of their airy paths all the points of the city.

Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

Don't try this

at home

IT'S DECORATIVE GOURD SEASON, MOTHERFUCKERS

By Colin Nissan

I don't know about you, but I can't wait to get my hands on some fucking gourds and arrange them in a horn-shaped basket on my dining room table. That shit is going to look so seasonal. I'm about to head up to the attic right now to find that wicker fucker, dust it off, and jam it with an insanely ornate assortment of shellacked vegetables. When my guests come over it's gonna be like, BLAMMO! Check out my shellacked decorative vegetables, assholes. Guess what season it is—fucking fall. There's a nip in the air and my house is full of mutant fucking squash.

lightning

LIBRA

Usually you specialize in having a light touch.

You'd rather nudge than push. Nimble harmony

is more interesting to you than brute force.

You prefer your influence on people

to be appreciated, not begrudgingly respected.

And I certainly don't want you to forsake

any of those inclinations. But I would love

to see you add a dash of aggressiveness

and a pinch of vehemence to your repertoire

in the coming week. I'd be thrilled if you raised

your voice a bit and gesticulated more vigorously

and projected your confidence with an elevated

intensity. According to my reading of the astrological

omens, your refined approach will benefit from a dose of subliminal thunder.

Sunday

I spent part of the late afternoon thumb-tacking

my manuscript onto the walls of the Writer Center

office I'm now inhabiting. I like looking at the poems

from this perspective, not always on a screen or page.

I've been living with this manuscript for almost two

years and am struggling to understand its hodge-podgeness.

I think if I can look at it like a curator looking at an array

of work by one artist I can see/understand in a new way.

This afternoon I looked and looked and that was good.

No great revelations. The poems will stay up for awhile.

I want to keep looking at them.

on certain days