anna

annapest @ 2004-04-07T12:18:00

2004-04-07T16:19:01Z

And
a hand
dangles,
hanging by your
handles.

The earrings
I gave you
for your
forty-third birthday
are all.

I have
left.
--------------------------------
Angela asked me to write a poem for Drop in the Bucket, 'Handle' edition, so I did, very, very quickly.

[edited!]

And
a hand
dangles,
hanging by your
handles.

The earrings
I gave you
with
forty-three
birthday candles
are all.

I have
left.

annapest @ 2004-03-12T14:30:00

2004-03-12T19:31:58Z

an eater read head
then the redhead
ended, a red
head.

He ate the hand and ear.
dread the deed.

A theater needed,
and ran the act;

Dear death,
the end.

This is a present beau, as a result of a challenge issued. The challenge was to write a poem using only the words 'the, and, & red'. I did! Overall, it isn't too great, but I wanted to remember it anyway.

Couplet

2004-03-12T19:29:12Z

Couplet

1.
on the insides of shoelaces
which sing across the pavement

Walking is a consequence
of not driving!

insides of shoelaces drag in the wet
making the sole wet for days.

I could have squeegeed your car.
I would have,

but I have more important things
than being driven

by someone who is not the
pepper
of my ear.

2.
Even in the grocery store, the wet
follows me, leaving

puddles in my wake.

My thoughts:
This is really elementary and not that good. Bleh.

What Momma Told Me Over Pancake Batter.

2003-11-23T19:01:14Z

Dr. Pepper is an antidote
but for those who don't know that it isn't.
Drinking has been addiction,
one on the edges, your teeth
begging more of you.
We nibble cigarette filters
hoping to drown out calling.
Impossible.
I am victim, here.
Can't they hear, too?
Even screaming so loud
my ears are their own masters?

I won first place in a contest on go-gaia.com with this one. The restrictions were to write a poem, not repeating any words. I may go back and add some articles back in after the fact, but other than that, I think it's decent, for now.

My new favorite quotation.

2003-11-21T02:30:36Z

I am not fool enough to be an atheist, though I have
known enough of men's hypocrisy to make a
thousand simple women so. Whatever religion is in
itself, as practiced by mankind it has cause the evils
you say it was designed to cure. War, plague, and
famine has not destroyed so many of the human race
as this pretended piety has done, and with such
barbarous cruelty, as if the only way to honor
Heaven were to turn the present world into Hell.

-The London Merchant IV.ii.285-294, by George Lillo

altavista translation fun, from 'the'.

2003-08-26T03:10:51Z

it forms for the DTE and frequently integrality drinks us.
They are not them or them,
but you come a word,
stereotype an end, a consonante,
that you separate they with
you of all have, merda.

I take their phallisches T and
I learn like defending with him.

I can see my house here.

A new mark you and me placed
the antichi that the measured cousinses
evaluate this
and this
with inside my house,
that recently you took
for theirs with one.

They do not have zero.

At that time peace,
I think that you laugh
on the back part of my teeth
and I.

"How I Learned to Love My Mom"

2003-08-22T06:20:59Z

A voice tiptoes through my two lips
'Where is that whirring coming from?'
Sometimes I think it is the hamsters
that power the wheel that goes round
in my head. My mother placed it there
for me, so that I know what she's talking
about when she tells me about my mother.
'I think cybernetics are bogus,' I told her.
as she used her needle to sew up my head.
'You have no idea,' she said, as she licked her lips.

Found in The Practice of Poetry:

Rita Dove’s Ten-Minute Spill

Write a ten-line poem. The poem must include a proverb, adage, or familiar phrase (i.e., she’s a brick house, between the devil and the deep blue sea, or foot in the grave, a stitch in time saves nine, don’t count your chickens before they hatch, someday my prince will come, the whole nine yards, a needle in a haystack) that you have changed in some way, as well as five of the following words.

cliff, needle, voice, whir, blackberry, cloud, mother, lick

You have ten minutes. From poetryslamming

Experiment #3 - "sex"

2003-07-12T04:46:56Z

Choose a subject you would like to write "about." Then attempt to write a piece that absolutely avoids any relationship to that subject. Get someone to grade you.

Once, I went for a walk.
It was snowing.
I ate a pomegranate on the way
my fingers sticking together, freezing.
Lucky my jacket is waterproof
and shows no stain.

People on the sludge-covered streets
look at me funny.
My pomegranate is half-eaten
and I refuse to throw it away
because I like pomegranates
and they don't come cheap.

Experiment #2 - from Confessions of a Soccer Mom.

2003-07-11T06:39:06Z

Systematically eliminate the use of certain kinds of words or phrases from a piece of writing: eliminate all adjectives from a poem of your own, or take out all words beginning with 's' in Shakespeare's sonnets.

from a can
thing to caring
a can of crispy onions
and you yourself a

I wait for your call
and waiting
will be cold soon
Our

Not
did drugs in
or had in
is hard to as it is
with the old pull-out
afghans
which I bought from

kids ask for a snack.
I tang
a snack will ruin
too small to hold much.
has days
although it looks
in high-waisted front
If I do say so

I was born to a minivan
and wait for your in the door
clamoring to you what kids
can

I sip and am happy I
did not do
with my

I am happy planting that always
you pass as you walk up the
on the yard with the shin-high

You touch my arm
and ask what is to

This is
I am.

i am not slandering Ron Padgett

2003-07-11T03:38:58Z

Maybe
one day
in a far-off
magical land
on-the-sea, Maybe
i can be a poet
and maybe Ron
Padgett will know my
name and own a book
of mine, signed,
of course,
because i am so magnanimous
and kind to my fans
but behind their backs
i am a bitch goddess.

Maybe Ron Padgett
will sign a book for me
of his, even though
i don't know what books
of his are good, and
his status as a bitch goddess
is indeterminate.

Maybe i won't
spend the best years of my life
waiting tables at a greasy dive
waiting for tables at a greasy dive
because the only thing worse
than working there
is eating there
try the pate de foie gras,
mr. Padgett, it's exquisite here

Maybe if i go to
Manhattan occasionally
i'll see him there
or, rather, he'll see me
and, bitch goddess to
bitch goddess in that
magical land
on-the-sea Maybe
he'll sign a napkin
or a bra strap
or something more feral
but i know he's married
and i have a boyfriend
and i'll probably never call again
mostly because
i don't have a phone

but Maybe i'll hit on him
in a movie theater
and hope my mom
doesn't read this
because she thinks
"THE PILL"
is to help with womanlyissues
and it does
but it helps prevent
Ron Padgett's and my baby, too
if we were caught
in flagrente delicto
which might happen
unless i never become
a poet--
"The" poet,
how some men are
"The" man,
when they can't be
since Ron Padgett is so obviously
"The" man
but i'm not sure who
"The" poet
is yet

but Maybe
Ron Padgett knows
and if he ever deigns
to give me his [fucking]
autograph in the
magical land
on-the-sea then
Maybe I'll ask Ron
Padgett if he knows
and then i can stop
with Ron Padgett
and vie for some other
innocent soul's
help in becoming
"The" poet,
or just
"a" poet
and sometime
i'll sign my name to it
but not in the same
way Ron Padgett
would give me his auto
graph that dirty pig
i know he's married
because i read it in
a book on Joe Brainard
and i'm not writing
about Joe Brainard
although I like him more
because Joe Brainard's dead
and you can't get ahead dead
or even sign autographs