frowned upon

not much to report these days: sleeping, eating (maybe too much), working (too, too much for too, too little money), reading (or the semblance of such? lost my portrait of the artist as a young man as i was finishing it... cursed book!). i'm thisclose to applying to the creative writing graduate program at the university of iowa. university of middleofnowheresville, more like, but i'll be damned if they don't have the best mfa program for poetry/creative writing. so... maybe a second tryst in cornfields usa will right me? first time around was havoc on my dainty, poor soul, but this time i'm stronger, meaner, and wiser (or am i?). so.... in the works. now i just need to revise 10-12 poems and get them to a stage where i feel proud releasing them to the 'world' or just the admissions office... which 10? i feel the urge to write utterly new ones, but know that's an impulse i need to resist. or else i'll send premature babies halfway formed instead of fully mature, able to stand on their own two or ten or however many feet poems might metaphorically have. i'm actually excited about this prospect for a change! these days excitement is like an endangered species in my flora and fauna of emotions. um. yeah, that part didn't really make sense and it's a good thing i'm not going to send crap like that out to the university of iowa...

why is it that the vast majority of female writers only write from the female perspective? or, rather, why can male writers "convincingly" capture the female in fiction, like preserving the delicate body of a butterfly between two sheets of glass, and female writers not manage to pin down the male vis a vis the same literary form? is that indicative of the male and female gender roles in the larger framework of life? why are women writers marginalized and thought only to be good at portraying a limited number of characters: the woman in love, the woman who has unrequited love, the woman waiting for love, the woman who is not complete, or happy, without a man.

of course we write best at what we know, and as women, we know ourselves. still i despair over the limited sphere of influence we have, in real life, and even, somehow, in fiction (where all rules are perverted and turned inside out, upside down). can't we escape our bodies, our laid out accepted roles for once? i want to feel the freedom of being a man - not being tied down, or rooted. the enormity of being burdenless.

i will write myself as a man, reform my identity in the realm of fiction. i do not want to BE a man physically, but i want to be perceived as a man, if that makes sense. i want to be powerful and important.

i will erase all traces of my feminity (or the conspicuous parts) and swagger like the man i wasn't born to be in my story. it will be tough, but i will try to do it to prove that it is possible. this is my next project.

i said this recently: the life i lead is not my own. it was only a few hours afterwards that i realized the absolute truth of it.
i feel overtaken by some powerful, all-consuming, malevolent force. the ether, gone awry, and steeped into my skin, bones, blood.
i finished a biography of my favorite suicide queen: sylvia plath. it has reinforced my desire to write, write, write, and also verified the screwed up truth: that many women are attracted to bad men/assholes. i would say in my defense that this is a recent development for me to have succumbed to, and also that men are extremely duplicitous creatures. they can throw sheep's clothing over their wolfish limbs in a snap. their honey coated mouths hide decayed, festering teeth full of malignancies.
i am very much into my anti-male mode. i have known only a handful of good men in my life: my father (who does qualify as an asshole in other ways, but better not to go into them now), my grandfather (who died when i was 7 or so), my first boyfriend, my last boyfriend, and two guy friends. the rest, as far as i am concerned, need to be shown the path to extinction. now. preferably.

i have avoided writing in my blog for some time now because i am partly afraid of what may spill out. see, i have been plagued with a number of assholes in the past few months, and i am infuriated to the point where i am no longer myself. i consider myself a peaceful, calm person, but once i have that righteous anger sparked in me, there's no controlling it. it burns like a holy roman candle gone crazy, sputtering, choking, sprinting.

i get this all the time: you're an amazing girl, but...

what does that mean, amazing? amazingly naive, i suppose. amazingly easy to walk all over and throw out like yesterday's trash.

i am fucking amazing. no ifs ands or buts about it. at times i lack confidence and this makes me more susceptible to the sometimes-asshole. the sometimes-asshole can be nice and sweet in a given moment if he sniffs out some kind of immediate gratification and will sweet talk his way into bed. deceit will only get you so far, and if it comes around to bite you on the ass later, "gentle"men, i will not be sympathetic. oh no. i will laugh so hard i will crack a few ribs (the pain is worth it). or, more likely, i will feel a smug sense of satisfaction. karma may not be immediate, but i do believe we all get what we deserve in the end.

i am too trusting, too desirous of the belief that people are inherently good. at the same time, i am tragically jaded and cynical. this dichotomy results in a potent mix that often has devastatingly predictable results. still, very devastating indeed.

long nails of rain slice
the sky captured in my eye
into dizzying portions
no speck is still

juice is sluiced through
heavy bottomed clouds
squeezed into explosion
fine shards shatter on streets

wet dogs shrink sheepishly
in size and demeanor
tails dragging behind them
like a wedge of history

when it rains
those fields of poppies
fold down soft petals
over green stems
and i curl into sleep
forgetting the rhythm
that drives everything
for just a little while
when the rain takes over

simple, tongue in cheek musings......... in poem form.........

i write my best when
describing sleep or horses
i've no personal relationship
with either, well, except
sleep and i make each other's
acquaintance every night
but during the day
we are complete strangers
i'd rather shake hands with
a dead rodent
than marry a live one
which is what most people
turn out to be
under those shades and scales
of sprightly springy skin
i suppose i am quite sibilant
where it counts
and especially where it doesn't
speaking of counting,
has anyone ever counted out loud
to a number beyond five hundred?
how do we know anything beyond
what we want to count towards
exists?
in our misshapen little spheres of influence
i am not i am not i am

before lunchtime poem. it is banal, but in a fun way. perhaps.

strong smells of cooked food
rice, some kind of generic meat,
hot peppers, and carrots
crash into my salivating mouth

the hunger spreads from nose
to lips to teeth
to tongue to brain
to stomach
like a fast-moving disease
all my nerves white-hot

acuity sets in
and i'm off to lunch.