Hi. Today is my birthday and I’m watching a pigeon prance around on the chimney on top of the building next door. The chimney is her stage. It’s a pigeon theater. The chimney is round. It is made of metal. She performs an abstract monologue in purr and coo. She has white tail feathers and sports a gray overcoat also in feather. (Pigeons all wear feather ensembles.) Now she preens. Now she pirouettes with her delicate pinkish, faintly striped feet. She touches the tip of her tail feathers to the stage. Now she arcs around the edges. The back of her head is a feather mullet of purple-tinged iridescence. Beneath her wings-white splotches- a feathery petticoat. Now she gazes into the distance beyond the lake playing the role of an eagle in this play. She jerks her head in staccato because she is also playing the role of a woodpecker in this play. She’s double-cast. But isn’t everything?
Other birthday news: If you’ve known me for awhile you know I’ve had very long or semi- longish hair for a long, long time. In fact, many years ago, I even hung my hair on a clothesline for a performance called “Dewberries and Mulberries.
But, really, beginning early this year, I’d been thinking, I’ve had enough of all this hair. And then the other day, I just knew it was time and so I had it cut on Friday and I’m glad about it. It’s possible I’m getting better at letting go.
Also, my new poem Red Glaze is in the latest issue of Cagibi. Red Glaze is a poem about ageism and using the imagination as a tool of resistance .
Share Red Glaze and share it on your social media!
Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who stopped by my reading last Sunday, including the wonderful Kelly Anchors who joined me on stage for a few poems and of course Undercover books. I also tried out one of my new measuring tape poems.
The project is exactly what it sounds like, a limited number of poems by me written on measuring tapes.
All the Way Out- 10 feet
Will you ever take me all the way out as far far far as far as I can go? All my inches, all my feet all the way out and out until the furthest regions of me. I want to be emptied of myself. I want to stretch and stretch and stretch. I want to bathe my numbers in light and later in moonlight. Read my numbers in and out of order. They are my story.
Here a few more poems which will go on measuring tapes-
What Will you Measure?
What will you do with me? What will you measure? Will you measure something as big as time? Will you measure your floor to see if that cool green couch you saw at Goodwill will fit? If it looks like it will fit, will you get it? Will someone hold the other end of me when you measure? Who? Also, just wondering- Do you have a cat or another type of pet? And would you mind calling me a measurer instead of a measuring tape? Tape doesn’t sit well with me. I don’t want to be sticky. I don’t want to be masking, scotch, electrical, or duct- If you want, at least once, I suggest you take me out of my plastic apartment. You can use me to measure the longing in your kiss and the length of your grief.
Square Dog with Inner Poetry Snail on a Leash -
I am a leash latched on to a metal dog. I live inside the dog. I am the poetry inside the dog. I am the snail inside the dog. I am the labyrinth inside the dog. Pull me out, so I can pull the dog. I want to show the dog everything. The dog has been waiting forever. We’re ready. Let’s go,
Thanks for reading!
Coming Up- I’ll be back at Labyrinth this coming Saturday 7/25 for the State of the Cabaret curated by Diane Hamm. 8pm. 3658 N. Pulaski.
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