Rejected (and Fairly Depressing) Poem of the Week!

CLEAN




When I shattered the kitchen window with the ax
That morning, it was after I’d been up all night
Drinking soda and whiskey, smoking on the couch
In this rented house, in this rented life, waiting
For the promised Easter sunrise that never came.

Everything had gone dead cold and gray as a trout
Since the day I came. I would not be the milk maid,
Sun dancer, earth mother, serene sower of wheat,
Meeting the morning, drinking the sun through my skin,
Tanned and wholesome as a granola commercial.

I had breathed in too much of the wrong stuff too long.
I couldn’t clear my lungs this time; cough out the sick.
I wanted your hard, clean work, your staccato dance
Each day until sundown with the things of the earth,
Nothing between your hands and the dark musky dirt;

Your pass to the mysteries of roots and tubers,
All those foreign and comforting things of the earth.
You were my detox and my rich replenishment.
Did I tell you I sat all day in those mountains
Coughing brown clouds out of my lungs as the trees sang

My name? Their pure green caused earthquakes behind my eyes.
And for a whole moment, I felt loved endlessly,
Impersonally and with everything there is.
But the land couldn’t save me the way it saved you,
You’re it’s son. You were born to it. You and this land:

Mother and child; an alchemy of giving.
“It’s not that way” you’d say patiently. “It’s just work.”
I want just work, too. I want to feel on my palms
The steady thwack of the hoe hitting the cool ground,
The solemn blessing of the bullfrogs as I sow,

The gathering of round cool fruits from vine and tree,
Gratitude when the rain arcs, free and elegant
Spilling like silver over the dust of the fields.
But I wasn’t rooted here. I was free-standing,
Born without place, as aimless as a paper bird.

Some glass fell out, limp and dirty onto the porch
Most of it still stuck to the window frame like ice
Or clung to the yellowing lace of the curtains
As you flew down the stairs, buttoning up your jeans,
Wild-eyed, hunting for the mad ax murderer.

You found me pounding out the glass with my raw fists,
The burn of pain soothing my neurons like sugar.
I was flying, a symphony of blood and screams
Having the time of my false life, the urban girl
Alone in the country, gone feral as a wolf.

You anointed my hands under cold tap water
And wrapped them up tight in the blue daisy dishtowels.
You said, “You’re leaving me for good this time, aren’t you?”
The truth of your question lashed through the whiskey mist
and the ache of the cuts. I slumped like a cloth doll,

Hot and helpless with grief, pressing my sweaty head
Against your tranquil chest. “I’ll come back in the Fall.”
But in an hour I passed out on the Greyhound
Heading into sick air and my slow sweet poisons,
My heart dirty and blank, as blown as that window.


Kristen McHenry


Don't forget to send your rejected poems to Rejectus Infinitus!

Truth or Lies? You Be the Judge

The brilliant Dana Guthrie-Martin recently post this exercise on Read Write Poem:

• To write an essay that is incredibly convincing even if it’s a lie
• To find, through the essay, the undercurrent of truth that resides inside our lies
• To excavate our strangest truths and document them so successfully they seem like they simply must be lies

I was really surprised at what emerged when I sat down to write; it was fascinating to observe how language both disguised the truth and yet amplified it in ways that brought intense clarity to my memories. I recently had a conversation with Dana about language, language poetry, all the ways in which language is inadequate, yet can be circumvented to tell larger truths. I've been thinking a lot about it since. The conversation was sparked from my frustration with trying to plow through a book of poems by John Ashbery, and I admit I still have some resistance to them, as much as I believe in the plasticity of language. I am going to blog further about that later, but for now here are my two essays:

Essay 1: Snail Confidential

When I was child, I knew how to speak in tongues, but no one noticed. I was terrified of losing control of my gift and exploding during Mass, my jaw opening against my will; spewing forth a frantic, fiery rush of God. How horribly embarrassing; how furious my mom would be. On Sundays, I made up stomach aches, and huddled alone on the porch, speaking in tongues to a small glass snail that was filled with my grandmother’s perfume. He understood everything; in fact, he knew so much about me that eventually, he had to be destroyed. I was heartbroken as I stomped on him with my dirty Keds. I buried the musty-sweet glass underneath the porch, and the next day, when I went to check on his remains, a bright pink lady slipper grew from his grave.


Essay 2: Dangerous


When I was a child, my mother collapsed on Christmas Eve and refused to get out of bed. Her eyes were red and wet and she rolled her back to me when I asked her what was wrong. There was a bad storm. Power lines were down. My dad put on his earflap hat and we went out for a walk in the lightening. Electric wires lay everywhere in the slushy snow, and blue light snaked through the gaps where they’d broken. Every few yards, my father lifted me over the jumping tongues of sparks: “Here Kristy, up and over, here Kristy, up and over.” We walked for a long time, in the damp, bruised twilight. When we came home, I wrapped up my brother’s red dump truck and offered it to my mother as a gift.

Which one is true, and which one is false?

Submit!

....Some rejected poems to my new site, Rejectus Infinitus! I figure I shouldn't be the only who gets to blog about my rejections--join the fun! I eagerly await your submissions!

Got Nothin'? And Rejected Poem of the Week: Too Many Buddhas

When is it okay to just put the pen down and walk away?

I'm continuing to work on my series of poems about Las Vegas. So far I have two in the series completed, and was really hoping to get a good start on the next one on my day off yesterday. But instead I sat around listlessly, etching out a few flaccid lines here and there before giving up and telling myself that I just "had nothing."

"Having nothing" is the bane of my poetic existence. It's a feeling I experience sometimes when I sit to down to write--no matter what, my mind is just an arid blank. I can't grab onto anything, I have no sense of what I'm trying to do or why, nothing excites or interests me, and the more I try to push it, the more demoralized I become. It feels pretty much the same as when I try to get through a workout on an empty stomach...my body just gives up on me, and I leave the gym feeling shaky and defeated. On "have nothing" writing days, I usually just sigh, mutter, "I got nothin'," and pop in a video game for a few hours. Sometimes mindlessly mowing down criminals/Nazis/ undead Orcs creates enough of a meditative calm in my brainwaves that I can actually snap back into action afterwards--and sometimes it doesn't.

Meanwhile, I've been working on an article (bare with me, this does tie in) for my monthly Read Write Poem column about obscure poets. This month I'm writing about a kick-ass 12th-century Indian poet/mystic/early feminist named Akka Mahadevi. Her spirituality is not Buddhism, exactly, but speaks to the tenants of Eastern spiritual thought--emptying the mind, releasing, accepting, letting go--all of those things that most of us are pretty bad at. Akka's entire life revolved around seeking full union with the Divine--enlightenment. Many of her poems speak of the pain of duality, and the suffering her own mind causes her:

My mind is unhappy
It cannot become empty,
forgetting duality.

I've been thinking a lot about the concept of "empty mind" and the process of writing poetry. There are times when I sit down to write and I am almost paralyzed by the opposite of "got nothin'"--I have so many passions and ideas crowding for attention and vying to get themselves down on paper that it's almost physically painful to have to focus on one or two at time. I'm full to bursting; impatient, a little frenzied. Then there are times like yesterday, when I sloth around in a great mokey cloud of blahdom, and writing even one sentence feels exhausting. But neither of these are really states of being that I would categorize at "empty mind", since both are attached to something in their own way.

What I long for is the discipline to let go, and write effectively both when I'm exploding, and when I'm spent. To find some way to move forward with the task, more often than not with peace and joyfulness; without judgement. Natalie Goldberg's "Writing Down the Bones" technique is the most helpful thing I've found so far, but it doesn't work for me every single time. I feel guilty when I just give up, when nothing is coming--but maybe that's okay. Maybe it's okay not to force it, or, maybe there is something in between "forcing it" and "vomiting uncontrollably all over the page." I don't know the answer--but if you do, please tell me.

Meanwhile, while we're on all things meditative and Buddhist-y, here is another piece for "Rejected Poem of the Week"--although this one is not actually an officially rejected poem yet, since I haven't sent it out anywhere because I think it's a little too long to be loved. Enjoy!

Too Many Buddhas (Upon Visiting the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco)


You can't imagine where
they all came from, and how there could be
so many, but there are: arms extended like traffic cops, halting
or offering, you can't tell which, squatting, balanced
on one foot, or in repose; pretending
to be dead. These aren't the blithe
Buddhas of Chinese restaurants, the kind

who sit pooled in little penny dishes, with paper
leas draped around their squat, plasticine necks. These are,
in fact, far more stern than you'd prefer—not
Buddhas you would just flop down
next to heavily, and settle in for a juicy session
of pouring your misery
into the compassionate vessels

of their stone and copper palms--
you get the uncomfortable
sense that these particular Buddhas
would not react kindly to self-indulgence
but the more unhappy you sense that they would
be about it, the more compulsive your need to spill,
and it is like guts, green and steaming, things

you're viscerally ashamed of. You think maybe you should go
out , and re-enter the room with a facade, a persona
of calm, an expression like you really are
open to what they have to teach you, like you long
to hear their take on emptiness. But you don't want to listen, you want
to talk. Look, you want to say. You're very kind, but nonetheless
don't bother with me; I can't take in love.
But you're alone, is the thing. Alone, alone, among all the stone. There truly is nothing

here, you're not even sure suddenly if the Buddhas
themselves are here; it all becomes a question.
In fact, you've begun to suspect that it's a trick.
You get angry. You leave through the nearest
exit and march into the murky sun, all the while keeping your rank,
sweaty grasp on your contempt for their moon faces, their callous
offerings—being, in fact, exactly like you're certain

they would serenely
advise you not to be. Maybe later you get a tattoo
of the White Tara on your calf (to disguise the existential
truth about the open expression on your face), buy a reusable
cloth tote bearing the likeness of Siddhartha.
(is truly nothing essentially worthless?)
tack up a chakra poster; and join
the simplicity movement (all the while maintaining
a rather more stern persona of calm).


--Kristen McHenry

The Delinquent Blogger, and Rejected Poem of the Week!

I know, I have been horribly remiss in keeping this blog updated the last month or so. I have posted a few entries here and there, but for various reasons, I've taken those posts down, either because I thought they were too mopy, or I was getting ready to send some of the work that was put up out for publication. Also, I have been metamorphosing into 40, and growing scales and snaggle teeth takes a lot of energy! Also, I went to Vegas, (another first!) and I got some mild bug on the plane that has made me just want to sleep for the past week straight.
All that, and I am trying desperately to keep up with my own self-imposed poem writing schedule. I'm two weeks behind because I have been struggling mightily with a poem about about a deformed snake. I think it's almost done, though.

So, this post will be a hodgepodge of stuff, but I should be back on a regular posting schedule soon. I know, I know. You can all breathe easier now.

Part of my ennui the last few days is that I found out some really sad news about blogger and writer Mac Tonnies, whose blog, "Posthuman Blues" has been my inspiration for the last six or seven months as I've gotten interested in writing poetry with a more speculative/sci-fi bent. He had a fascinating perspective on the UFO phenomenon, he was a fearless, open-minded thinker, who wrote with keen intelligence and imagination about the potential of human consciousness, and was deeply respected among his peers. Mac died suddenly last week at the age of 34. I don't know if the official cause of death has been announced yet, but it seems that he suffered from an arrythmia which had been causing symptoms several days before he died. Bruce Duensing has written a fine tribute to Mac on his blog "Intangible Materiality", which you can read here: "The Death of Mac Tonnies". I will really miss visiting Mac's blog every day and drawing inspiration from his quirky view of the world. Also, although I don't count myself as anywhere near Mac's league as a writer or a thinker, (I mean, I don't even know how the toaster works), I felt a certain cyber-space kinship with him that was comforting. He thought about the same things that I think about, but couldn't articulate as well. It was nice to know I wasn't the only one of us "out there". Goodbye, Mac! I hope that the afterlife, if there is one, brings you even greater mysteries to muse upon.

(And everyone, please--men and women alike. If you have heart symptoms, just take the risk of feeling silly, and go to the doctor. That's nothing to mess with. Trust me, I know of what I speak; for telling people of such things is my job; it's what I do for a living).

I went to Vegas! It was...interesting. After now having a bit of time to recover and process the experience of non-stop stimulus, I've been inspired to write a series of poems about it. One of the things I remember most about the trip was watching the sun set of over the Nevada desert from the plane. Several days after we came home, I awoke from a deep dream of that desert. The land was in my spirit, and when I woke up, I felt a terrible, sad, heart-deep longing for it. I can't tell you how puzzling I find this. I love living in coastal areas, and have a horror of being landlocked. I love the rain, and the trees, and the lushness of Seattle. I don't like sun, and there is something deeply frightening to me about the desert, although I'm not sure what it is. But I can't deny that in the dream, the land and I were connected, soul to soul, and since then, I have wanted to go back to Nevada, but not to Las Vegas, although in a strange way, I found it to be a deeply spiritual place. Just to the desert. Which I hate and am scared of. Maybe because it's so open, maybe because there is no shelter there, maybe because I seem to need rain like a vitamin...I don't know. But it's tugging at me. And it's tied up in these poems that are tugging at me; poems about dreams, desires, and fate and the turning of a hand, the turning of a wheel. So, I'm going to walk into the mystery and see where it takes me.

I hope that you're keeping up with Read Write Poem! They have fabulous new stuff posted up there all of the time, and Dana, who must have somehow cloned herself, continues to facilitate excellent content.

Oh, and not to forget the long-overdue Rejected Poem of the Week! Since I've been traveling a lot the last few months (and how I do long to travel more, and more), I thought I'd put up my poem, "Travel". It's light verse, but you wouldn't know it, since it's been summarily rejected from four different magazines so far that publish that sort of thing. Well, who needs them, when you have yerself your very own blog? Enjoy!

TRAVEL

All my life, I’ve roamed from nation to nation
Audaciously backpacked through foreign terrain
Wandered from continent to lush, savage plain.
That’s all quite true—in my imagination.

I’ve clung fast and firm to familiar, kind home,
Content to dream of Belarus and Sonjhang
And imagine teeming street life in Nah Trang,
While bathing by candles in lavender foam.

You see, I suspect that I’d turn out to be
Someone who likes the idea of travel
But when faced with actual travel, unravel
And I loathe to admit that sad fault of me!

I couldn’t face my cool, blasé, hipster friends
Grown bored with countries I can’t even pronounce,
My raw xenophobia theirs to denounce;
A cumbersome weakness no kinship transcends.

How I envy the jetlagged, urbane and free!
True travelers, dropping obscure country names
Kayaking expertly down the blue Thames
And blogging on art from cafes in Ceri.

Bulgaria, London, Phuket, Saint-Sauvant
Are lively and lovely, and so is Dubai;
All perfect as is in my dreamy mind’s eye--
So send me a postcard, and have a great jaunt!


--Kristen McHenry

It's My Blog and I'll Whine about Non-Poetry Related Topics if I Want To

We interrupt our regularly scheduled poetry blogging to bring you the fascinating tale of my latest mundane diagnosis!

I went back to my naturopath today, all a-twitter because I thought I was on the cusp of being diagnosed with a big, scary, thyroid-related autoimmune disease. (My hormones have been running amok for the last year, and it's only gotten worse). As it turns out, it may not be a thyroid problem after all, however, the tests showed that I do have a ton of vitamin deficiencies, so inevitably, she wanted to twist the whole situation around into a discussion about my diet. I mumbled that I ate pretty okay, I guess, most of the time, and but she wasn't haven't any of it.

"What did you eat yesterday?" she demanded.

"Umm...."

"What did you eat for breakfast?"

"Well, um. Some leftover fried rice. And a glazed donut."

"And lunch?"

"The thing is, is that lunch wasn't really typical yesterday..."

"What did you eat for lunch?"

"Dill pickles and some pretzels dipped in cheese sauce."

"And dinner?"

"Some of my husband's onion rings, a beer, and some bacon at Zak's. Oh, yeah, then gummy bears."

Come on, people, it was the weekend, okay?

Anyway, the upshot of it is, in addition to a magical tincture that has to be specially concocted for me at Bastyr by a team of highly skilled herbalists, and some super-charged vitamins, I am now supposed to eat almost entirely "whole foods."

I know, I know. I get it. Please note that nothing, and I mean nothing is more eye-crossingly, fist-gnawingly dull to me than discussions of the health benefits of "whole foods", so please, just don't say it.

I suppose I'm willing to try it if it helps me feel better, but....I sort of don't know how to cook, for one thing. Tonight, full of resolve, I marched off to the store and came back, my arms full of dry beans, Quinoa, and brown rice, and I really have no idea what to do with any of it other than boil it. Also in the mix was a bottle of sesame oil, a lemon, and some elephant garlic, because I had vague notions of making my own salad dressing. I bought some fish, too, since I'm supposed to chill on the "animal protein." Of course, the ubiquitous tofu was mentioned, but I can't handle even the thought of it. I don't know how this new foray into eating outside the microwaved meal in a box is going to work, but I'm none to pleased at the prospect of giving up my beloved Lean Cuisines. And just when they came out with their new line of "Spa Specials"! Oh--I didn't even tell you the worse part--I can't have any more salt! Hence, the no packaged foods, since they are all drenched in sodium, she claims. I'm not a big sugar fiend, but take away my salt, and I get hysterical.

Ugh. I just hope this heals me up, because it's going to three months of supplement-gobbling, tincture-guzzling, carrot-munching joylessness. Huzzah.

Remember Project Verse?

That contest I was in way back in the dog days of summer? It went away for a long time, and now, voila! It's back! Final poems are from the last two poets standing--the uber-talented Emily Van Duyne and Kathi Morrison-Taylor! Go check out the poems, lavish praise (or critique) upon the two of them--they worked really hard!--and enjoy the fruits of their labor. This is some truly excellent work!

http://dustinbrookshire.wordpress.com/project-verse/

Rejected Poem of the Week #2!

I just got back from a long weekend running all up and down San Francisco with Mr. Typist, so I'm beat as heck, but not too tired to post (drum roll please), Number Two in the series "Rejected Poem of the Week"! Normally, I don't go into long-winded explanations about my work (other things, absolutely!--just not my poetry), but this one bears a little explaining.

Being a life-long oracle junkie, I love psychics and fortune-tellers, divination and Tarot, palmistry, all things quaint, smarmy, and willing to take my money in exchange for making me feel better about some perceived, worrisome facet of my future. Much of the time, I feel a bit helpless against the tides of fate, as though my actions will have no control or bearing over the outcome, so if someone can assure me that it's all going to be okay, I'm enamored of them instantly and will give them cash at the drop of a crystal pendant. In fact, when we were out at the Musee Mecanique on the wharf last night--this amazing vintage arcade, complete with penny arcade machines dating as far back as the late 1800's--the first thing I did with all of the quarters Mr. Typist poured into my hand was go to each and every "fortune telling" box and collect my little card. I love watching the mechanical grandma gypsies jerk around in their boxes, looking at carefully at the cards, the pale, wooden finger landing definitively on my fate, and then the swoosh of the card in the little brass holder. I pick out the ones I like and keep them with me for luck. (They didn't help with Moon Trekker or the Indiana Jones pinball game, but I have hope).

This poem was written after a visit to psychic about two years ago. She did what she called a "rose reading". She envisioned people's spirits as roses, and then told them what she saw. She held my hands for a minute or two, then informed me that my rose was being strangled by a metal grate that was laid down over the top of it. My rose couldn't get out! It was suffocating. She said I should go home and envision the grate lifting and the rose blooming forth. Instead, I went home, fretted about this for quite some time over a glass or two of Chardonnay, then I got to wondering what it would be like if the rose and the grate actually fused together. Seeing as they had been together so long, I wasn't sure that it was right to separate them. Maybe they nourished each other. Maybe they were part of each other after all this time. Then I wrote the poem.

So, enjoy, and don't worry! Grandma Typist sees all good things in your future....

BLOOM

Through this wild season of flowers, I’ve dreamt
Each wasted night of the same strangled rose,
Its limp half-moon petals trembling skyward
Weak as a tongue against the unending weight
Of a steel grate that smothers its garish bloom.

The grate shields its bars against the burn of soles
With the petals' skin. The rose coils itself
Around the steel slats, nourished and fortified
By the dank metal leached to its fibrous veins.
They serve each other. But still the rose reaches

Seeking its shy way through, asking for nothing.
Rose of Hope, ardent bloom, and stoic and striving.
And I, always the rescuer, lift the bars.
The rose gives and shatters like a porous bone,
And blows away on the gritty air. The grate

Is a broken artifact on the pavement,
And I have damaged everything again.
I wake, clenching my fist in my sweaty fist,
Terrified of my most certain vanishing;
The swift unraveling in store should I dare

To push out this sour, knotted bud of shame
Wound into my throat, my heart, my flimsy womb.
Blind and furled child, we serve each other:
You keep me safe in this narcotic darkness,
And I feed you my essence, my only light.

Rose of Want, bloom of pitch, empty and most whole,
We cannot be separated no matter
The season’s lateness, nor the laser’s keenness.
I encircle you, obediently shut:
You hold the gaudy explosion of me in.

Rejected Poem of the Week: A Brand-New Series!

Each week, I'm going to post a poem that has been rejected multiple times by various literary magazines. I'm posting mine own for now, but if you have one you would like to me to share on my blog, send it my way! If it's been rejected at least five times, I'll post it!

This week's poem: Jellyfish Dreams. Enjoy!


Jellyfish Dreams


The morning news heralds the grand announcement:
scientists discovered the secret of bioluminescence--
the protein that makes jellyfish glow hot green in the deep.
But it's the sound that enchants me,
this bioluminescence.

What a poem in the witless day! The word itself a force--
a verdant burst of fire to ignite the dampened edge
of my exiled imagination; a wild-card word.
All day I work, but daydream
of phosphorescent hearts.

That night the jellyfish shimmy into my living room,
an ardent, wordless troop of Aequorea victoria.
Undulating an introduction, they begin the show:
a liquid dance, flop-headed
and surprisingly graceless

all heart and impulse, free expression and footloose improv
untethered by notions of choreography or craft.
By the end they're grandstanding, flaunting their stuff, lighting up
their proud bell-domes with neon shades
as gaudy as Christmas:

Violet, azure, lime, tangerine, amber, maroon.
They stand upright, tense on their wobbly streamers, then fall
and bubble up in gurgles.
They're happy to just to be together dancing.

For the grand finale, they open their clear fluted domes
and show me the hues of their joy, blinking in unison.
Troop Aequorea victoria takes a wiggly bow
and disperses, but their lights
weave lines on my eyes all night.

In the morning I awake and glitter to the bathroom,
don a sparkly turquoise scarf and slick on scarlet lipstick.
Today I'm transparent--all my buried happiness shows.
It's a day for new colors and dancing.
It's a day to light up the center.

--Kristen McHenry

Health Care Solutions

A Questionnaire for Determining Those Deserving of Care:

Please answer yes or no to the following questions:

Do you smoke?
Do you have poor eyesight?
Do you suffer quietly from a sort of vague, chronic, low-grade sadness?
Does your fleshly mass exceed the bounds of societal acceptability?
Do you stubbornly refuse to bring children into this world?
Do you have too many children?
Are you lazy?
Are you freckled?
Are you foreclosed-on?
Was your cancer caused by your poor mental outlook?
Do you consume processed foods containing high fructose corn syrup?
Do you wake up at night terrified, staring into a nameless void?
Do you avoid flossing?
Have you ever eaten Cheetos in lieu of lunch?
Are you a pessimist?
Do you nap in the daytime?
Have you ever had a lapse of faith, no matter how momentary?
Are you a drinker?
An addict?
Godless?
Schizophrenic?
Do you often crave oily, fatty foods?
Did you at any point accept less-than-ideal work?
Have you allowed your self-esteem to suffer?
Have you found yourself unable to forgive?
Have you ever wondered what you're really doing here?
Do you have brittle skin and nails?
Do you stretch improperly while warming up?
Do you often find yourself anxious without reason?
Do you sometimes find it hard to pee?
Have you ever made an uninformed choice?

Are you a compulsive:

E-mail checker?
Nail-biter?
Stranger-fucker?
Lip-chewer?
Self-cutter?
Scratch-card buyer?
Liar?


Have you ever been:

Fatigued?
Socially awkward?
In debt?
Down in the dumps?
Humiliatingly in love with someone who couldn't or wouldn't love you back?
Haunted by self-doubt?
Afflicted with flatulence?
Caught speeding?
Jealous of those more fortunate?
Unable to find the correct paperwork?
Lonely beyond imagining?
Overdressed?
Mired in the throes of self-pity?
Avoidant?
Addicted to your own shame?

If you have answered “yes” to two or more of the above questions,
we regret to inform that you have been deemed
unworthy, due to the misfortune
that you have quite obviously brought down upon yourself
with your reckless disregard
for all that is clean, organic, virtuous,
locally-grown, spiritually evolved,
emotionally controlled, and
mentally hygienic.
We wish you the best
in your continued search for quality care.


--Kristen McHenry