The Tattooed Poets Project: Caroline Goodwin

Today's poem was submitted by Caroline Goodwin.

Entitled "In Summer Plumage," this poem was published in Mantis (Stanford University, June 2007):

IN SUMMER PLUMAGE

Black oystercatcher. Black-necked

stilt. A patch of gnats

lifts off at my feet. Mudflat. Rot

and salt. The great egret

doubled on the water. Stick legs

bending. Approaching, my husband

in a silver canoe. Dragonflies,

kinked reeds. Something about vows.

Wreathing my head, the split light.

When I place one hand in the water,

striders collect at my wrist. Tattoo

of the eagle, the braided

leather string. Killdeer will feign

a broken wing to distract

from the nest. Golden plover. Common

snipe. Old lover who cut off all

his hair and mailed it. Shiny

as bottleflies. Kept in my desk.

And whose ring is this? Whose

feather, whose expanse of skin?

Be sure to head over to Tattoosday to see Caroline's tattoo here.

Caroline Goodwin moved to the San Francisco Bay Area from Sitka, Alaska in 1999 to attend Stanford as a Wallace Stegner Fellow. She teaches poetry and nonfiction writing workshops at California College of the Arts and, with Hugh and Mary Behm-Steinberg of Berkeley, is the publisher of MaCaHu poetry chapbook press.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Joseph Millar

Today's poem is from tattooed poet is Joseph Millar:

LABOR DAY

Even the bosses are sleeping late
in the dusty light of September.

The parking lot’s empty and no one cares.
No one unloads a ladder, steps on the gas

or starts up the big machines in the shop,
sanding and grinding, cutting and binding.

No one lays a flat bead of flux over a metal seam
or lowers the steel forks from a tailgate.

Shadows gather inside the sleeve
of the empty thermos beside the sink.

The bells have gone still by the channel buoy,
the wind lies down in the west,

the tuna boats rest on their tie-up lines
rocking a little, this way and that.

Labor Day was previously published in The Normal School and will appear in Joseph's third collection.

Be sure to head over to Tattoosday and see Joseph's tattoo here.

JOSEPH MILLAR is the author of Fortune, from Eastern Washington University Press.


His first collection, Overtime (2001) was finalist for the Oregon Book Award and the Robert H. Winner Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America. Millar grew up in Pennsylvania, attended Johns Hopkins University and spent 25 years in the San Francisco Bay area, working at a variety of jobs, from telephone repairman to commercial fisherman. His poems have appeared in numerous magazines including The Southern Review, TriQuarterly Review, Prairie Schooner, Shenandoah, DoubleTake, New Letters, Ploughshares, Manoa, and River Styx. His work has won fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts in Poetry, Montalvo Center for the Arts, Oregon Literary Arts and a 2008 Pushcart Prize in Poetry. In 1997 he gave up his job as a telephone installation foreman. He now lives in Raleigh, NC and teaches at Pacific University’s Low Residency MFA Program in Oregon and yearly at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, CA. Pulitzer Prize winner Yusef Komunyakaa has said, “There's a tenderness at the core of Fortune, where the commonplace becomes atypical and fantastical, and each poem possesses a voice that summons and reveals. Joseph Millar is a poet we can believe.” His third collection of poems will be published in fall of 2011 by Carnegie Mellon Press.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Erica Rivera

Today's poem comes to us from Minneapolis, from Erica Rivera:

UNTITLED FOR L

I.

His couch swallowed your stuff.

That’s how this all started.

The trinkets:

a sacral chakra rock

a grungy penny

once relied upon for luck are gone

They must have served their purpose

because they led you here

to the bear lair

where the furnace whispers

as your breath harmonizes

with his heart

beat

Just before he fell asleep

he stroked his hairy chest

and teased

“You stole my chi.”

Now sounds

estrogen will not allow you to make

thrum through the room

and his scent is so intoxicating

you’d happily bury your face

in his armpits

(as unromantic though it may seem)

Your body is tender

and sticky and sour

concerns you should have discussed

as responsible adults hover

but…

hmm...

that delicious trickle

like a sexy serum you carry inside

is worth the risk of almost anything

II.

You leave.

Reluctantly?

On the walk of shame you spy

a woman with a holy scarf

hurtling snowballs

at her boyfriend

Fog spreads across the cityscape

like a lace veil waiting to be lifted

and a pair of hoodlum teens

slogging by in saggy jeans

marvel at the balmy quality of the air tonight

It’s March, they say

The world wants to melt along with you

revealing spring, damp and pregnant with promise

You are the only thing that moves

on the road at this hour

the only one running away

from warmth on purpose

Still…

everything is bright and beautiful

and alive on the drive

despite the empty streets

you’re speeding all the same

writing at the red lights

fingers flipping through the stack of sticky notes

and when the lines won’t be contained

you know you’re a goner

III.

You undress at home.

Alone.

And notice you’re holding

his sock hostage

by mistake

A note to self is made:

Do not launder

as eventually you’ll shower

and the traces of him on your skin

will be erased

keep at least

this one piece

of evidence

just in case…

Silence descends and

the place his fist rested on your chest

as he surrendered to incessant sleep twitches

aches in his absence

And it’s then you realize what you missed

in all those agonizing months of waiting

was not sex per se

What you ached for was laughter

the kind of giggling that rattles your ribcage

and leaves you breathless and blushing

you can do everything solo

except incite that level of silliness

in yourself

What you hungered for

was his insistent grip on your neck

fingers in forbidden places

hands so hot they thawed the knots

your (overrated) independence earned

IV.

A man who didn’t want you

once declared,

“You are demanding fire.”

He swore a fearless suitor would arrive

in time and stay

despite the writing cyclone

What if this is him

and instead

you

are the one

afraid of flames?

V.

There’s a song that goes,

“Someday someone’s

gonna ask you

a question

you should say yes to”

You would have liked to author that

because this is not a poem

(you don’t know how to write those anymore)

but a tired attempt at making sense

of that which has no words.

Erica Rivera is the author of Insatiable: A Young Mother’s Struggle with Anorexia (Berkley, 2009). She is the former first-place winner of the Powderhorn Writer’s Festival and her poetry has appeared in Moon Journal, The Mirage, and Writer’s Journal. She blogs at http://www.maneaterbook.com/blog.htm.

Head on over to BillyBlog to see one of Erica's tattoos here.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Christine Hamm

Today's poem comes to us from here in New York City, from Christine Hamm.

Teen Angel

That year, everyone had your same name,
but spelled it with an "S". Black beauties

in baggies at the bottom of your purse.
A 28-year-old boyfriend. Your whispers

that my bangs made me look retarded.
I watched you break the mirror in your

locker with your hands, then stare at
the tiny blood like it was something

new. Drunk in the backseat of my car
on the way to a party. A handful of aspirin.

Some kind of song, that summer, with your
name over and over. I never knew how to

look at you, quite, one eye fixed just
a finger's breadth to the left of the other.

Christine is a PhD candidate in English Literature, teaches at CUNY in New York City, and was runner-up to the Queens Poet Laureate. Her second book of poetry, Saints & Cannibals, is coming out this spring. For more about her, go to her blog here.

To see Christine's tattoo, head over to Tattoosday here.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Mark Nickels

Today's poem is from Mark Nickels.

It appears in his book Cicada, published in 2000 by Rattapallax Press. Mark adds that "it seems as if the poem and the tattoo (click here to see the tattoo on Tattoosday) come from the same source, but whether the poem or the tattoo came first, I couldn't say anymore".

This Kindled by Gaude Virgo Salutata, A Motet by John Dunstable c.1400

Slow spreading English music, as though
we watched a pale drawing off of the night
from delicate fields, and heard a haunt
of griffins in a fog close by the house.
How one of the griffins, without fire, has wrought,
by a concentration of time, a face in gnarled elm wood
with a spell hidden in his hands: to warp, to whorl the wood,
to make water freeze and thaw and unvisibly fade,
to make fire ash, to make fire even without fire,
and carve an eddy in the air that turns his maneuver
into a major wind: kissing the barn wood high up,
over filling the air over the ocean,
causing a wrinkle in the salt drift, engendering thunder.
How a griffin loves with his hands the way
we walk without shoes after winter,
painfully, for the first time in a year.
But after all this is spoken of, it is the tenderness
I haven't stolen for this poem: the griffins
droning after the rain, touching the wood
to make a face in the bole of a tree, another hybrid,
one being fallen into someone else.

Mark Nickels lives in New York City. His book Cicada was published by Rattapallax Press in 2000. He has won the Milton Dorfman Prize (1996), the Ann Stafford Prize from USC (2002) and been a finalist and semi-finalist at Lyric Recovery Festival (Carnegie Hall). He is a 2006 New York State Arts Foundation Fellow in fiction, and two poems ("Shells" and "The Twentieth Century" from his 2o00 collection were recently selected for inclusion in the on-line archive of the Poetry Foundation (aka Poetry).

Thanks to Mark for his contribution to the Tattooed Poets Project!

The Tattooed Poets Project: Nikoletta Nousiopoulos

Today's poem is from Nikoletta Nousiopoulos:

the dream he won’t get out of

white walls are free wings


blank open me’s
there is no voice but heart-fires

                  or the way he sounded before I heard myself speak

shocked surged in daydream
                                                        that “other world”

where I tread words, sometimes
to trip out of dream is to fall and skin
                        the knees

Nikoletta Nousiopoulos holds a MFA in Poetry from New England College. Her poems have appeared in elimae, South Jersey Underground, 2River, and Harpur Palate. She was a 2010 finalist for the Philbrick Poetry Award, and was a winner of the 2009 Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize. Her first book all the dead goats was released in 2010 from Little Red Tree Publishing.

Please head over to Tattoosday to see one of Ms. Nousiopoulos's tattoos here.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Adam Deutsch

Our second installment of this year's Tattooed Poets Project also appeared last year on the site (here).

Adam chose to share this poem, which appeared over on No Tell Motel:

Percolator Ode

I know I’m rough while I sleep but first
thing, don’t I always awaken to you?
When can’t I see myself in any part
of your bodily shine? Call me crazy.
Call me addicted, a lack of grace
in the dark kitchen where my hands
are auto-mechanical in intention to take you
apart and put you back together, fresh
grind and the cleanest cold water,
turn you on with no switch, just a plug
and leave you for a few minutes to pout
and simmer. A love, happy happy love
handle curve I return to, tightly hold. Lift
into a hot little dance. Wild pursuits and mad
ecstatic escapes just for me, and nothing at all
like some ancient Grecian counterpart. No
moments are trapped, silently remaining etched
on your skin. You’re constant reflection
of the world that surrounds us now. Right Now,
proof of our obligation to evolve, surrender
all impression and memory, fully conscious and back-
casting the light of our Being who engirds, total.
You’re the urn I empty in morning, container
I want to rest in. This is my last will:
burn my entire body slowly slow
to a crisp carbonic brick, tap my big
charred toe so I’m crumbled into bits
to be ground. Put me through the grinder.
I’ll fit in your filter, saturate your half-full drink,
asleep and stainlessly filtered within you.
You: always here. Always morning.

Please check out Adam's Emersonian tattoo over on Tattoosday here.

Adam Deutsch was born on Long Island, New York and has his M.A. from Hofstra University (2005) and M.F.A. from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2008). He's been on the editorial staff of a number of presses and journals, including Ninth Letter and Barn Owl Review. He presently works in higher education all over San Diego, and is the editor of Cooper Dillon Books.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Theresa Senato Edwards

We're launching the 2nd annual BillyBlog-Tattoosday National Poetry Month project with the following poem by Theresa Edwards:

Holly Rose

~

My eyes listen to the tattoo artist

a dance of curls beneath a winter hat

he wears inside his tattoo parlor.

The Joker tattoo on his inner right arm,

ear lobes half moons of studs.

All of a sudden, my ears

the snap of sterile vanilla gloves,

buzzing resonance of metal in air

as he tests his machine then quietly

applies the pattern for my third tattoo.

Cigarette smoke lightly shades

the air, maneuvers down my throat.

I'm not ready for the pain that

begins the outline on my stomach,

left of my belly button.

A sharp, blackened ripping of my body

made by covered hands that guide

the tool's cut, then wipe my blood into the past.

The stale room presses deep, sucking color from my face

as sound carves symbols of my parents.

I have nothing to hold onto,

his lean legs straddle the chair's

side; I imagine them against me

as I try to clutch leather before my husband's

thick, strong body takes its place in my mind.

Needles press just below my ribs,

form a new genus on skin:

holly vine entwines thorn-stem of rose.

Vine and stem fuse in remembrance:

holly for December (my father's birthday month),

rose for June (my mother's).

Their inked tribute lost momentarily

in my obsession: younger man, artist's

art on me.

~

I go back for color;

go back for him,

This time lidocaine two hours before

helps numb the needle's entry.

His winter hat with “FUCK YOU”

on the back. Clean, blue gloves

pour ink in tiny, sterile plastic.

I follow his blue eyes, his grey

chin hairs I stroke in my mind.

Came in three hours ago,

turned the heat on for you, he says.

I'm hot, flushed below my inked flower,

near my husband's touch

the night before.

I laugh, green-needle drone cutting,

shading, skin beneath skin

until the lidocaine wears off.

He asks if it hurts.

Excruciating, I think.

This is it for me. I say.

Last time in this place.

He rattles my dark fantasy,

loudly snaps the latex off his hands,

says, Maybe I'll see ya

not for a tattoo.

My husband's trust along my thighs,

his goodness in every

colored cut below my heart.

Holly Rose: my parents love,

my own reminder of loyalty I'll wear

with chance of only fading.

I listen

but leave the noise behind.

"Holly Rose" was first published here at Seven CirclePress, and is reprinted with Ms. Edwards blessing.

Theresa Senato Edwards’ poetry is forthcoming in Boxcar Poetry Review's second print anthology and in Blue Earth Review's spring 2010 print issue. She has a poem forthcoming online in Pirene's Fountain, and other poems can be found online at Autumn Sky Poetry, Stirring, Press 1, Seven CirclePress, decomP, AdmitTwo, Chronogram, and elsewhere. She tutors writing at Marist College and is founder/editor/publisher/blogger of Holly Rose Review.

Check out Theresa's Holly Rose tattoo over at Tattoosday, here.

National Poetry Month, 2010

As I've said before, April may be "the cruelest month," but it's also National Poetry Month. Over the last three years, BillyBlog flourishes in April.

In 2007, I posted a "Poetry in Motion" poster for each of April's thirty days. In some cases, more than one per day.

In 2008, I posted thirty favorite poems from thirty separate poets to honor the month.

Last year, as BillyBlog meandered into an "occasional post" blog, and its spin-off, Tattoosday, skyrocketed in popularity. So last year, we launched the Tattooed Poets Project, which was an amazing experience for me, and, I hope, for our readers as well.

This year, I was going to put all content exclusively over at Tattoosday. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I like the dichotomy of the two blogs. BillyBlog affords Tattoosday readers the chance to explore poetry. If someone is interested in the poem over there, they'll come here.

So, for the second April in a row, we will post thirty poems by thirty different poets (maybe more).

Each one of the poems posted in April will have been contributed by a tattooed poet. The verse may not be needle-and-ink-related, but the writer initially came to this section of the blogosphere to share their body art on Tattoosday.

I am hoping this double-barreled blog venture will be successful. I had some assistance from Stacey Harwood over at the Best American Poetry blog, who helped sound the clarion call for volunteers. This year, also, our first contributor Theresa Edwards, was also a great referrer of poets. In addition, dozens of other poets referred me to those among them who were inked. Facebook proved to be an excellent networking tool as I reached out to poets across America and invited them to participate. I thank, in advance, everyone who contributed and all those who merely pointed me in the right direction.

Enjoy!

BillyBlog Plays 52-Card Pick-Up: Arrrr! It's the Ace o' Hearts, My Mateys!

I found this pirate-themed card on 92nd Street, between 3rd and 4th Avenues, in Brooklyn, on Saturday, March 27, 2010:


The following cards have been found previously:

The Two of Spades (August 17, 2010)

The Ten of Diamonds (July 2, 2009 - found June 1, 2009)

The Five of Spades (June 18, 2009)

The Eight of Spades (January 6, 2009)

The Eight of Diamonds (December 5, 2008)

The Two of Hearts and the Queen of Spades (November 1, 2008)

The King of Spades (October 26, 2008)

The Ace of Spades (September 22, 2008)

The Jack of Diamonds (September 18, 2008)

The Six of Hearts, Queen of Hearts, and Eight of Clubs (August 10, 2008)

The Six of Clubs (July 21, 2008)

The Seven of Hearts and The King of Diamonds (April 24, 2008)

The Three of Clubs (March 29, 2008)

The King of Hearts
and the Three of Spades (February 28 and March 25, 2008)

The Ace of Diamonds (July 7, 2008)

The Jack of Hearts and Five of Hearts (July 19, 2008)

View the whole set here.

And here's the scorecard with the latest addition:

Hearts: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q, K, Ace
Diamonds: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q, K, Ace
Clubs: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q, K, Ace
Spades: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q, K, Ace

BillyBlog Plays 52-Card Pick-Up: Five of Clubs in the Snow

It's been a while, but I spotted some cards this past Wednesday on 92nd Street, between 5th and 4th Avenues, in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn:



That's the coldest card I've ever posted!

The following cards have been found previously:

The Two of Spades (August 17, 2009)

The Ten of Diamonds (July 2, 2009 - found June 1, 2009)

The Five of Spades (June 18, 2009)

The Eight of Spades (January 6, 2009)

The Eight of Diamonds (December 5, 2008)

The Two of Hearts and the Queen of Spades (November 1, 2008)

The King of Spades (October 26, 2008)

The Ace of Spades (September 22, 2008)

The Jack of Diamonds (September 18, 2008)

The Six of Hearts, Queen of Hearts, and Eight of Clubs (August 10, 2008)

The Six of Clubs (July 21, 2008)

The Seven of Hearts and The King of Diamonds (April 24, 2008)

The Three of Clubs (March 29, 2008)

The King of Hearts
and the Three of Spades (February 28 and March 25, 2008)

The Ace of Diamonds (July 7, 2008)

The Jack of Hearts and Five of Hearts (July 19, 2008)

View the whole set here.

And here's the scorecard with the latest addition:

Hearts: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q, K, Ace
Diamonds: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q, K, Ace
Clubs: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q, K, Ace
Spades: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q, K, Ace

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn: 2010 Snow Day, Redux, Down Goes Frazier!

So check out this sequence of events:

Earlier tonight, I posted this photo of my favorite tree, snow-laden, here.

This was the photo:


That was from the front stoop.

A little after 10:00 PM, I took this eerie shot from the living-room window:


Five minutes later, Melanie looked out the window and gave a yell. This is what provoked the reaction:


That's a big branch down across 92nd Street.


We watched as the first car approached...


And the NYFD was right behind....and they got right to work...






Except now this huge branch is blocking the driveway...


But the cavalry arrives with a chainsaw...


Leaving behind a pile of kindling.....


I just hope my tree doesn't lose any more limbs overnight!

Great job NYFD! Thanks!!

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn: 2010 Snow Day Edition (Chapter 12)

This is my favorite, lovely tree across the street:


This is our old friend, the tree, in previous Billyblog posts here and here.

Train of Thought: Nicholas Black Elk

"Now that I can see it all as from a lonely hilltop, I know it was the story of a mighty vision given to a man too weak to use it; of a holy tree that should have flourished in a people's heart with flowers and singing birds, and now is withered; and of a people's dream that died in bloody snow."

--Nicholas Black Elk (1863-1950) on the Battle at Wounded Knee

Not Poetry in Motion, but a new Train of Thought

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

--Robert Frost (1874-1963), "Dust of Snow"

First spotted on the D Train, January 7, 2010

Civilization by Marco Brambilla

One of my co-workers sent this to me back in June. Well worth a peek, these many months later.

The description on YouTube reads: "Civilization, a video mural created for the new Standard hotel in New York City, depicts a journey from hell to heaven interpreted through modern film language using computer-enhanced found footage..."

Enjoy!

Divorce by Billy Collins

I am just finishing Ballistics by Billy Collins.

Toward the end of the book is this gem of a poem:

Divorce

Once, two spoons in bed,
now tined forks

across a granite table
and the knives they have hired.

Cool Stuff People Send Me: Public Performance Art

I'm a sap, I admit it. This is a wonderful video:



Thank to my Aunt Lee for sending this my way!

Arthur Schopenhauer's Train of Thought

The latest in the New York City MTA "Train of Thought" series:

"Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits
of the world"

--Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), "Studies in Pessimism"

First spotted by BillyBlog on the R train, 9/9/09

--
Sent from my mobile device