bakery outlets & watermelon snippet

So, these bits from old journals are a sketchy crew. I mean, some are interesting, others less so, most are unfinished. It's like looking through a rack of irregular clothing. Sometimes, initially, you can't determine what's wrong with a perfectly fine looking skirt, but its categorization leads you to peer suspiciously at it, to decide there must be something terribly the matter with it that you haven't discovered yet. Or, have you ever encountered those bakery thrift shops? Now, that's the weirdest. I used to drive past an Entenmann's Bakery Outlet all the time. I could never bring myself to go in. Why ... exactly ... are those coffee cakes ... here? - what's wrong with them??

What follows is not a poem. Though it may appear so in structure, I refuse to call it one because it's not compelling enough and I want to live in the possible fantasy that I am a better poet than what this demonstrates. It's been a thing over the years of posting. My mother especially wants me to put up more of my poetry, and I don't because I want to be sure that if I submit it somewhere I can say it is not previously published. So anything I think is worth anything won't show up here. Tricky, but I'm afraid what I'm offering is day-old cinnamon rolls.

There are a few of my pieces published online. You can find some here and here and here and here. They all seem to be about mommyhood. Though, honest, I write about other shit, too. I am currently playing with the idea of starting a website just for my clips, poetry and audio etc. A "professional" writer's page, so to speak. We'll see if I can construct it without breaking up laughing.

from July 8, 2009

Resonance

for Benjamin

the watermelon

has enveloped secrets

within its green striped case

how could it not?

overgrown zucchini

miniature submarine

we tap with our ear close

flick a painted nail toward

flesh that lay weeks

in the dirt all that time

in the sun, in the dark

and over and over,

umbilicus to the plaintive earth.

We thump it again

with the heel of our hand,

listening,

for what we honestly aren't clear,

but listening

as best we know how

through the din of our days.