December Poems

Poem for Joni:


“We are waiting for a visitor.”

There is a white table
in an alley
with 2 chairs
a single wine glass
(filled with rain)
on top
(She has whispered
secrets of the universe,
infused those H2Os,
that water is
pretty potent--watch out)

The wind takes out his
pocket watch
blows it open/shut/contemplates...

Is it the season
for reasonable things?

Rain and wind wait
for their dinner guest.
The table is set.
And whispers are afoot.

For Tracie:

It must be 5 o'clock.
She dries the last dishes
delicately places them
in their individual slots
on the Value Village
drying rack they call home.

Today is the day,
she thinks,
today is the day
it will all start to make sense.
I will slowly make my way out of the labyrinth
because I can follow
this long ball of yarn that I
have carefully unraveled.

Today I will read Plath,
she is my sister.
But I will travel back
in time and save her
from herself, pull her
head out of the oven
and say ,"These are your children,
they need you.
Please stay."
And she will listen.

Today I won't dot "i's" or
cross "t's"
on purpose.

She pauses.
Brews a pot of tea
in a well-loved teapot.
Pours.
Lets the steam
caress her face.
Peers down into the cup.
Wonders if the leaves will show her a map to the stars.

For Reina:

November skies
make me think of
flying turkeys,
decomposing jack o'lanterns

(make me miss your smile)
the russet-toned leaves
parachute down
crunch like paper beneath my feet

we were young, once,
you know.

and sometimes life wooshes by
terribly fast
and I feel like a crumpled autumn leaf
but I know
that if you found me
in a big pile of oranges, golds and crimsons:

you would pick me out from all the rest
and press me between the pages
of Neruda or Dickinson
and I would live happily ever after
inside those poems.

what does a boom mike do?

So Max and I tried to film the first episode of Getting Woodzy today and it was a rather epic fail--we realized that neither one of us really knew how the camera worked...and although it was fun to drag my bamboo chairs from Good Cheer from my porch into a wooded area near my apartment, it would have been more fun if we were later able to view and edit footage on a computer. Just saying.

Well, I bought a replacement charger on ebay--that was my contribution.

Would really like the opportunity to take some film classes--maybe find out what would be a good first camera for an aspiring filmmaker to purchase. And also find out what a boom mike does. But I'm never NEVER EVER going to get a Mac. I'm a pc and have no idea how to edit a film...hahahaha.

But we do have a rough outline and gumption. Huzzah

It's been a while...

So, it's been a while since I've posted, but I'm going to try to make this more of a daily or every other day kind of practice.

Am super psyched to play oboe in the pit for Oliver. Also English Horn. I played through the score last night and it felt so satisfying to get my fingers wiggling again. I bought a brand-new medium-hard reed from Joe's Island Music and it played beautifully. When I play the oboe, the rest of the world goes away. There's just me and the music. Amazing.

My friend Max and I are planning on doing a parody of Between Two Ferns called On Two Bamboo Chairs. I will interview local community theatre actors. Think it will be pretty sweet!

Am currently working on directing a staged reading of scenes from To Kill a Mockingbird for a Sno-Isle Libraries Foundation Board benefit on October 16. Jimmy Scullin is playing Atticus and Sophia Larsen-Wickman is playing Scout. Fabulous rehearsals so far.

That's all for now!

Concertina

The Baker from Into the Woods
is practicing parallel parking
in front of the rug store
(in a car marked "student driver")
I follow behind Little Read and the Witch
(from the jr. version)
and in we go.
Beautiful beads, tantalizing tapastries
and a few varied intruments--
I pause by a concertina,
but upon looking at the price tag
I breeze on by.
Making the rounds of the store
I find myself pulled back
to the concertina--
the owner tells me to touch it,
try it out.
The leather straps are too big
for my hands but I put
my small mitts through
and it sings. Italian concertina
made in Russia, bought in Uzbekistan--
now named Adolpho,
and she is mine.

Bowling in Jumpers--a poem for Reina

I didn't like the production of As You Like It.
It was mediocre.
The wrestler was played by an overweight
actress sporting spandex and a horrible hick accent.
I think she had alligator makeup on as well.

But after, we went bowling in jumpers.
Reina and I had gone to a Goodwill in La Crosse
and picked out two coduroy beauties
with printed cotton turtlenecks to go underneath.
Our ensembles were both ten dollars or less.

You cannot answer the why of bowling in jumpers.

It is and was spontaniety, glee, originality and
and ache for childhood all wrapped into one
beautiful night in southwestern Wisconsin.

a baby

suspends

her crying

for a

moment

to acknowledge

one of

her purple

socks has

fallen off.

then she

resumes:

a primal

wail

stemming

from a

need to

be held.

and for a moment,

i am useful,

though far from

maternal.

monologue from a piece yet to be written

So, when Ann Druyan was falling in love with Carl Sagan, I mean the Carl Sagan, she went to a laboratory and recorded her brainwaves and heartbeat. And that data was turned into sound. And that sound was part of the data that was put on the Voyager Golden Record by Carl Sagan and shot out into space, that reads "the sounds of earth." Isn't that out there, even for Carl Sagan? To me, falling in love is one of the most unscientific things in human life. You can have "a feeling in your bones" or your gut, a lump in your throat, your heart can melt or be fluttering like a hummingbird outside your ribcage and the culminations of all these sensations is generally thought of as "chemistry" between two people. But what causes it? I mean, what really makes two people fall in love. Or, perhaps more importantly, what makes one person fall in love while the object of their affections wants no part of it? Sounds like an unbalanced formula to me. Anyway, Carl Sagan launches this golden record out into space, and it's intended for aliens or future humans to discover. And possibly try attempt communication with us. There are 55 languages, sounds of earth like elephants, trains, and laughter, music from around the world. And finally, Ann Druyan's brainwaves. The physiology of love. I can just picture the aliens listening to those brainwaves and scratching their heads? "What is this?" they'll say. And then set to work decoding, quantifying one of the greatest mysteries of human existence.