Working is in progress

I cannot mail your check today.

I cannot have a date to play.

I cannot go where Grandma lives,

Or wash your SpongeBob SquarePants skivs.

I will not read your manuscript

Or listen to your hissy fit.

I'm leaving stale milk in the car.

I have to turn off NPR.

I cannot change the kitty litter,

Or waste the day away on Twitter,

Write that months-late thank you note,

Or figure out which way to vote.

Dishes pile up in the sink.

Honestly, my kids both stink.

Birds are nesting in my hair.

I know it seems like I don't care,

But I do. I promise. It's just, you see,

I have a book inside of me.

And though my heart is full of doubt,

I have to let the book come out.

When my head is full of words,

The other stuff is for the birds.

So I can't find your other clog.

I can't walk the neighbor's dog.

I can't lift and I can't jog,

And sadly, sadly,

I can't blog.

Her name was Lola...

... she was a Sinosauropteryx,
With colored feathers on her head
Stripes of black and white and red.

She would meringue
And feast on raw meat.
But while she watched the feathers grow
They were always just for show.

She'd stay up late at night,
Trying to take flight
While the T-Rexes and the raptors
All learned how to fight.

In the Cretaceous,
Cretaceous-era
The hottest thing til the Sahara
In the Cretaceous,
Cretaceous-era
Sharp claws and slashin' were the latest fashion
But feathers?
'head of her time.

Her name was Lola,
She was a Sinosauropteryx,
But that was 100 million years ago
Before the disco balls did glow.

Now it's a blingfest,
But not for Lola,
Still in her fossilized mud bed
Faded feathers on her head

She lays there all alone
And Idol never phones
In the age of rhinestones and sequins
She is left with bones.

In the Cretaceous,
Cretaceous-era
Sharp claws and slashin' were the latest fashion
But feathers?
Go take a look.
You're on the hook.
Write me this book.

Rage - Goddess, sing the rage

of Peleus' son Achilles,
murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,
hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls...

In which I remember not every book has to be a classic to be good.

Tink is a great reader. She can read anything she can get her hands on. And what does she pick?

Rainbow Magic Fairies.

It kills me. As I told a friend, every time she turns a page, a piece of my soul dies. But she's happy, and she's reading, and so, well, okay. I shut up.

And then yesterday she asked to go to the library. We returned the FIVE fairy books she got on Monday (because she had finished them by Monday night) and she got five more. I bit my tongue and tried to direct her towards some books whose strongest assets are not their glittery covers. Then she asked, "Where's nonfiction?"

I showed her the shelves (and gave her a mini-lesson in the Dewey Decimal System). She marched over to the books on Ancient Greece and began huffing, "Where is the ILIAD?"*

Bemused and marveling again at the power of a really good yarn to last for generations, I looked it up and we headed to section 883.

"These are all picture books," Tink complained. "I want the real Iliad."

"These are the real Iliad," I said. "It was written in Greek and people translate it. These are the real stories."

"The Iliad does not have pictures," she pointed out.

So we went upstairs to the adult poetry section and she took out this:

I decided that if I let her read Rainbow Fairy books without comment, I shouldn't say anything if she wants to try The Iliad.

"I'm going to read this," she announced.

"I believe it," I said.

"But sometimes I'm going to read these, like to relax," she said, holding up Evie the Mist Fairy.

Which is how it should be, I think.

We curled up on some cushions, Tink with her 683-page translation of The Iliad and me with The Friendship Ring: If You Only Knew, by Rachel Vail. Which is good too.


* They've been reading Trojan War stories in her reading group.

Zombie? Zombie!

What are you doing this weekend? Writing zombie poetry? Yes! The Bookshelf Muse is having a Zombie Haiku contest. I love this idea. Here's my entry:

My Zombie House at Dinner Time

What you want dinner?
Dunno. What you want dinner?
Delivery man!

Hello? Pizza House?
Send pizza. And pizza guy.
Ding dong. Nom nom. Burp.

That delicious, but
Me need little something sweet.
Neighbors for dessert?


Make sure to let me know if you enter, so I can see your offerings. And have a good weekend.

I don't need to blog...

... about how I feel about writing today, because Joan Bransfield Graham has already written a poem about it.

Oh, how sad I will be when 30 Poets/30 Days ends.

Wake me up before you go go

There was absolutely no inspiring, appropriate, odd news this week. I was intrigued for a bit by the mysterious flash and boom over Virginia. But on Monday, they revealed it was a Russian space rocket.* And then on Tuesday, they said it was a meteor after all. I was kind of hoping Wednesday, there'd be further corrections along the lines of "scientists report the mysterious flash and boom was not, in fact, a meteor or a rocket, but..." and then say something absurd. In any case, my new rap name is "The Mysterious Flash and Boom."

And then, last night, just in the nick of time,** the Thursday News of the Absurd Will Someone Please Write This Book Inspirational Moment (TNoftheAWSPWTBIM) was saved: we got a message on the answering machine from one of Tink's friends.

"Hi, it's Belinda***," she said. "I am calling to ask if Tinkerbell could remember please to come to my house and gently wake me when she's on her way to fairyland tonight. I repeat, can Tinkerbell please come gently wake me so I can go to fairyland? Thank you."

I asked Tink, who answered. "It's because I turned her into a fairy and now I'm training her."

"Huh," I said, wondering how long it will be before I get a call from this kid's parents asking me why she sits outside the front door with a suitcase full of glitter every night.

And then I realized two things:

1. How is Tink convincing other kids she's a fairy and then dragging them into the fantasy with her any different than what I do as a writer?

2. This is a book, but it's not Tink's book; it's Belinda's. I want an early middle grade growing up story where the little girl meets a friend who convinces her they are both fairies. I want elaborate descriptions of fairyland and fun playing. I want other characters who may or may not be trolls and other fantastic creatures disguised as humans. And I want it totally ambiguous whether the fairy girl is really a fairy, really imaginative, or downright bonkers. The story is Belinda trying to figure it out and learning that, in many ways, it doesn't matter.

Who will write me this book?

And, to quote my favorite poet on the topic:

If you see a faery ring
In a field of grass,
Very lightly step around,
Tip-toe as you pass,
Last night faeries frolicked there
And they're sleeping somewhere near.
If you see a tiny faery,
Lying fast asleep
Shut your eyes
And run away,
Do not stay to peek!
Do not tell
Or you'll break a faery spell.

~ William Shakespeare ~


* This is a sign of the times, I think, that something in US air space can turn out to be "just" a Russian space rocket.
** What IS a nick of time? Anyone know the origin?
*** Not her real name.

Shall I compare thee

to a summer's day?
Thou are more crunchy, and more full of mint.

It's National Poetry Month. Now, I'm no poet (obviously obviously and very obviously). But it's impossible not to love poetry when you like words, emotion, and metaphor as much as I do. So to celebrate, I have big plans. BIG plans. HUGE plans that took MONTHS to pull together.

Chomp chomp. I ate your brethren all away,
And though I meant to buy some more I di'nt.

Okay, I have no plans. But Gregory K. Pincus does. Go to GottaBook, where he will share a previously-unpublished poem by someone fabulous every day. Here's the announcement.

Sometimes too hot the toaster oven shines
And often in it pizza's cheese is burnt;
Oh, every pear from fresh sometimes declines,
And grapes can only last so long I've learnt.

For my part, I wrote chapters 4 and 5 and 6 and 7 and even some of the very end this week...

But thy plasticky chocolate shall not fade
Nor lose the cookie goodness that's within;

Which does not explain entirely why this rip-off ode to Thin Mints stinks so much.

Nor shall Tink touch you after she has played,
For who knows where those dirty hands have been?

Oh well. I promise better celebrations later.

So long you'll rest in your exalted space,
Til Easter comes, and cream eggs take your place.

Friday bit

Yeah, just one bit. But it's a good one.

I got nothing today, people. But poet, friend, and Rock Sugar Beet* girl Jill Corcoran is bringing the verse over at her blog, Jill Corcoran Books. She's posted original poetry all week. I was going to pick my favorite, but it's...all of them. So be sure to scroll down. Seriously, go. Now.

And I will see you Monday for a brilliant installment of No, Seriously. Just Try It...

* In case you have forgotten, the Rock Sugar Beets are the fabulously talented and supportive fellow writers I wrote about here. And if you haven't already, you should check all them out too.

Hiding in the Basement on a Snowy Afternoon

with apologies to Robert Frost

Whose boots these are I think I know.
His socks are in the basement, though,
So I am searching for them here
Beneath the house, where fungi grow.

My toddler son must think it queer
When Mama says, “Be right back dear,”
I hear him struggle to unzip
The moment that I disappear.

He rips off hat and gloves and coat,
Unties the scarf from round his throat,
He throws his sweater on the heap
And dumps out all my diaper tote.

The cellar’s lovely, dark and deep.
But I have snotty drip to sweep,
A naked boy to catch and keep,
And hours to go before I sleep.

Sonnet #116: Ode to the Mighty Thor

In which I confess to The Mighty Thor, who loves me anyway. There should be a line in there about spending all my time blogging, but Shakespeare failed to anticipate the need for that in our time.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it dirty laundry finds,
Or when it notes dustbusters filled with goo.
Oh, no! It is an ever-fixèd mark*
That looks on tantrums and is never shaken;
Through waist-high grass it mows well after dark,
Though at 5:30,** both the kids awaken.
Our diapers, pipes, and shingles all have leaks,
Which in inspector’s searches did not rise;
The boxes will be closed and packed for weeks,
But bear with me, e’en as I do revise.
I swore I’d work, but must confess, my One:
I never writ, nor errands did I run.

* Not unlike the ever-fixèd mark shoes make on walls when hucked them in frustration
** That’s a.m., people.

Dancing by the Light of the Moon

In which I butcher Edward Lear's lovely work.

Captain Destructo's note from day care this afternoon mentioned that he was "even more busy than usual" today. Tinkerbell, meanwhile, has had more sugar in the last two days than in her whole life so far, I think. The two of them giggled for ten minutes at dinner over something only they understood; I thought he'd be older than one before they had private jokes! In any case, insisting on a joint bath was probably my first mistake...

The Captain Destructo and Tinkerbell

Captain Destructo went to sea
In a beautiful bathtub boat,
He took some buckets, and plenty of duckies,
And a worn out purple goat.
Mom rubbed him down with a bar of Dove,
While he ate a plastic car,
“Oh Destructo! Destructo, my love,
What a beautiful baby you are,
You are,
You are,
What a beautiful baby you are!”

Baby said to the Mom, “More more wa-duh!
Want Sissy!” (he pointed at Tink)
So Mom called Sissy to come to the bath
“Leave the toothpaste in the sink!”
They played and played, till Destructo said,
“Duck duck duck go potty!”
Tink was first to decipher those words:
“Mom! Into the bath he peed,
He peed,
He peed!
Gross! Into the bath he peed!”

The Baby face planted in the water,
While Tink jumped out with howls.
One hand saved the son; one grabbed the daughter.
But which box holds the towels?!
“No, don’t drink that! Get off the cat!”
Mom shooed them from the room.
Baby banged his head. Now they’re on the bed,
Dancing naked by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon,
Dancing naked by the light of the moon.


In other news, I am already one day late for Elise's Banned Book Challenge. I promise to catch up tomorrow.

Ode to Steve from AT&T

In (vaguely-rhyming, poorly metered) verse, because I was inspired by Eeyore Walt Whitman.

Oh, Steve!
I can't believe
You braved the spidery crawl space to bring me the internet.

Oh, Steve!
This poem I weave
In honor of your visit last week and aftermath. Schminternet.

Oh, Steve!
There on your sleeve
It said, "U-Verse: the fastest around."

But, oh, Steve!
I can't conceive
There's a slower freakin' internet service in town.

Steve! My windows they pile-up
While each...page...loads...onto...my...screen
Steve! It's slower than dial-up!
I have...trouble...remaining...serene.

I checked my connections, I checked my AirPort,
Called customer service and filed a report
On hold for an hour and got the retort
It's wires loose, somewhere, or maybe a short.

They say you'll come back and you'll fix it for me
But oh, in the meantime, oh Steve, can't you see?
I'm seeking a man who can hook me up fast,
Not someone whose broadband is stuck in the past.
My patience is waning! My love might not last!
I'm dreaming of cheating on you with Comcast!

So, Steve,
You see I grieve
My heart fills with pain and with sorrow.

And Steve,
Before you leave
I just want to say

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This Is Just To Say

After much careful thought, I have decided to swap Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass for Light in August in this week's 15 Classics in 15 Weeks project. The main reason is that I can’t find my copy of Light in August I am curious to discover Whitman’s take on some of the issues tackled by Hawthorne, his contemporary. Also, my Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition of Leaves of Grass is absolutely gorgeous and has been calling me since June. Have no fear, I shall tackle Light in August next week. It will still be August, after all.

In the meantime, I stand amazed at the magnificence of Leaves of Grass, and have been inspired to offer my own addition to the world of poetry:

For Tinkerbell, with apologies to William Carlos Williams

This Is Just To Say

I have eaten
the Oreos
that you hid in
the Tupperware drawer

and which
you were probably saving
for your lunch.

Forgive me
they were delicious
so chocolatey
and my revisions so hard.