Scenes from a Bike

An empty aquarium

sitting in the parking lot

of the muffler and brake shop

on the corner.

A biker, one leg of his jeans

rolled up, glides through traffic.

A dozen roses bloom

inside the plastic bag

sticking out of his backpack.

The sun sets over the city,

strikes both the hot dog

factory and the mirrored skyscrapers

the same,

sends out long shadows

across the road.

A Reason

Give me a reason to love you,

AT&T. Your price increases

won’t do.

Give me a reason to love you,

Hump Day. I can’t see the

weekend from here.

Give me a reason to love you,

pothole-riddled bike lanes. My

Schwinn needs tenderness.

Give me a reason to love you,

half grown-out bangs. I can’t

focus with you hanging around.

Oats and honey in, granola out.

A several-times-a-week routine,

a tasty way to freshen the air

in our apartment, dessert,

a reason to love the things that
make a life.

Do What You Do, Love What You Love : Camille Rankine

We interrupt your regularly scheduled poems to bring you a blog post about the beauty of doing something with no financial practicality. As the author states, we can't sell out, "because no one's buying." Beyond poetry, there's something to be said for doing something simply for the joy it brings. As someone currently not employed in my field (and each day wondering even more what my "field" really is), I can appreciate the author's point of view.


Do What You Do, Love What You Love : Camille Rankine : Harriet the Blog : The Poetry Foundation

At Twenty Five and Two-Thirds

At Twenty Five and Two-Thirds
after Amy Fleury

It seems I function more by habit than premeditated action,

not the kind worn by nuns,

formed by drug users, or broken by knuckle-crackers.

I keep on keepin’ on simply because inertia carries me through.

At crossroads common and fresh, a girl knows comfort

as sweatpants, white wine, tea, and books; routine

she finds as weekday contentment and productive

weekends, her mark of creativity.

But this is no tragedy of a boring regimen,

just the way days become weeks, months, and years.

Sometimes I step off my beaten path.

Sometimes I don’t care about plans and schedules.

I get ice cream on a Tuesday night,

eating like only a girl like me can.

---

Today's poem came about thanks to several coincidences. First, napowrimo's prompt for today is to rewrite a famous poem. I've done this before with songs, but never a straight poem. What poem to use? Well, poetryfoundation.org's poem of the day, "At Twenty Eight," by Amy Fleury seemed appropriate...with a minor number change.

What Do You Mean By "This"

He did it when he

said “We can’t

do this anymore.”

I realized sometimes

a cigar is really just a cigar,

and though he was

the one to apologize,

I was the one left

feeling ashamed

for the things we

never did.

This week’s gargleblaster question: Who Dunnit?

I'm Waiting

I’m waiting for the

weekend to feel Infinite

instead of a

quick, over in a sudden

flash, a house guest

gone before she has

any effect. I’ve been

wrong before, but I assumed

longer days would lead to

longer weekends. Be

it one hour or two, but

enough to notice. How

much difference can

a few hours make? That

much: a stupendous

amount. I mean, come

on. It’s April, which

is cruel, but never

so barbaric we went

crazy wishing it away.

---

Golden Shovel, a la Terrance Hayes, goes like this:

-Find a poem.

-Use each word in the poem as the last word in each line of a poem you write yourself.

It was napowrimo's prompt for yesterday, and I decided to try it out today. It's not easy, but I'd be game to try it again someday.

You can read Emily Dickinson's "The Infinite a sudden Guest" by reading the last word of each line.

Lent: Unplugged

This week is for unplugging. I'll still post on here, but no mindless Facebook browsing or hours of TV watching when I want to veg. Instead, it's books, journaling, and face-to-face interactions. This is a pretty simple concept, so I won't spend lots of time explaining.

Time spent online = time not spent doing real things or hanging out with real people.
Time spent online = time speeds up and before you know it, entire evenings have been spent marathon-watching Breaking Bad.
Time spent online = I write less, because researching, idea searching, and even reading are NOT writing.

I'm kicking off Lent: Unplugged with some Apartment Yoga at Becca's today. (Yes, it's exactly what it sounds like...yoga in an apartment.) Then I'll join Jesus and his family for brunch and his niece's art show.

Enjoy your week!

Unaccustomed Earth: a Poem

“Human nature will not flourish, any more than a

potato, if it be planted and replanted, for too long

a series of generations, in the same worn-out soil.

My children have had other birthplaces, and, so far

as their fortunes may be within my control, shall

strike their roots into unaccustomed earth.”

--Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Custom-House”

I transplanted my basil today:

moved it to a larger pot,

gave it room to stretch its roots.

Will it thrive in this unaccustomed earth?

And isn’t it the plant who’s

unaccustomed, not the earth?

The earth must be accustomed

to all sorts of roots,

struck for generations in soil both

fresh and worn-out.

Unaccustomed Earth: a Book Review

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Some people think Jhumpa Lahiri can only write one thing. I say, lady, if you know what works, keep on keeping on. And besides, aren't we all just writing the same story over and over again? Reading Lahiri's latest work was cathartic for me. Yes, the stories all feature Bengali Americans, ivy league schools, and generation/culture clashes, but more than that, they feature human interaction and emotion. They feature realistic dialogue and down-to-earth characters woven into otherworldly writing.

Lahiri knows what she does well, and she lets that work to her advantage. She is a short story expert: each one in this collection is technically sound, a wonderful little package of prose. While she herself may not have struck her "roots into unaccustomed earth," content-wise, I'm willing to forgive her. I read the entire collection gleefully, each story still entertained me, and I came away from this book a better person than when I began reading.


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Fleur de Lis, or Buried

There used to be a fleur di lis

made of metal--brass, maybe, or iron--

embedded in the crosswalk

of a street near where I work.

I saw it on my way to the grocery store,

would pause to consider its significance:

when it showed up,

who put it there.

Today, on my way to get milk and bread,

I searched for my landmark.

It wasn’t there--or it was,

but covered by asphalt.

A fatality of winter, deemed

less important than its location in a

recently-formed pothole.

I can find no metaphor for this,

except: maybe our most interesting

parts are concealed and only

we know about them,

or damn, if this hasn’t been a rough

winter for everything.

TCB (House Manager Anthem)

A tribute to "Takin' Care of Business," by Bachman-Turner Overdrive, re-imagined as a House Manager anthem. Also, a sign that I might have a future as Weird Al's songwriter and/or a commercial jingle writer? This isn't the first time I've commandeered a song to turn it into a poem.

TCB (House Manager Anthem)

I get up in the morning,

from the doorbell’s ringing,

leave at 7:45 in the rain.

There’s lightning up above,

cars are speeding and they’re revving;

pedestrians go running to the train.

We left pretty late,

got to school after eight,

that’s what happens when you don’t plan ahead.

I try not to get annoyed,

because at least I am employed,

but once I’m up I can’t go back to bed.

And I’m

taking care of households (on weekdays)

taking care of teenagers (yeah, it pays)

taking care of laundry (it’s not mine)

taking care of business, getting overtime.

It’s not very fancy,

being someone’s nanny,

but I still write and it pays the bills.

Got my trusty laptop,

I’ll get this written, chop chop,

then go back to dusting off windowsills.

People think it’s all fun,

just a-gettin it done,

I tell them that it does have its perks.

There’s the food and laidback dress code,

the independent work load,

but nannying still does have its quirks.

I’m always

taking care of dinner (healthy meals)

taking care of errands (I use my boss’s wheels)

taking care of groceries (pantry stocked)

taking care of business and working til I drop.

Landmarks

Without a word, she dropped
to the ground.

It was one thing to capture

photos from the sidewalk,

but the best angles

were from above.

The neighborhood totems

weren’t hard to find,

like wooden carvings

on a wooden tree,

they stuck out

from their origins.

They marked the places

she spent her day

like pushpins in a map,

souvenirs of errands ran.

She documented them;

they became hers.

Poetry Month: Acting the Fool

It makes sense for April Fool's Day to kick off National Poetry Month. Poets are truth-seekers and truth-speakers, and as such, face criticism from a world content to ignore uncomfortable truths. Even simpler, one would have to be a fool to attempt writing a poem a day for 30 days.

Luckily, there is strength in numbers. I started following a number of poets on Twitter who will be taking part in the madness, plus there's the community at NaPoWriMo (a thing which I only discovered this year, even though I've technically been participating since 2011 and it's been around since 2003). I'm also following Harriet, the blog over at the Poetry Foundation (where I will also seek out poems by published poets).

The various writing challenges and prompts that I've done before will, for this month, be poetry prompts. My remaining simple living/Lent observances will become opportunity for reflection poems. Easter, Earth Day, Arbor Day, Tax Day: poem fodder. In the past I've let the poems come to me (which more often meant they didn't come to me, and I was left to throw something together at the end of the day). This year, I'm chasing the poems, grabbing them by their slippery tails, and throwing them onto the page. Or screen, as it were.

I'll be acting the fool for poetry for all of cruel, cruel April. Please, join me. Read some poetry, listen to some poetry, dare I say write some poetry? You'll be in good company.

Deflection

You asked why

I pointed out constellations

like they were my grandchildren,

you, the stranger sitting next to me

at their dance recital.

I filled our silences with their stories.

Distracted you from realizing:

you were the stranger sitting next to me.

It's a new challenge from the folks at yeah write!

Each week we have 42 words to answer a question--in April, my responses will come in poem form.

This week's question: What's so amazing that keeps us stargazing?

Recipe Poetry

How do we say goodbye to Nutrition Month and hello to Poetry Month? With some rhyming recipes, of course. Unfortunately, the only example I could find of an actual recipe for food that rhymes was on this Wikipedia page. There are also a couple here, in this article about "food laureates" (aka, How Do I Get That Job?). If you Google "rhyming recipe," most of what you find will be for "Friendship" or "A Happy Family" or some other non-food item. Apparently, though, rhyming recipes used to be all the rage for housewives who had lots to remember. Good thing we have Pinterest now!

My last foodie endeavor was a bbq chicken, bacon, and pineapple pizza last night. While that may not sound "nutritious," let me just remind you that chicken and bacon = protein, pineapple = vitamins C, B-6, and A, and barbecue sauce = happy endorphins. I consider pretty much anything made at home from scratch to be good for you, in a body/mind/soul kind of way. I controlled all the ingredients, spent quality time preparing a meal with my boyfriend, and we enjoyed the fruits of our labor together. Also, just look at that thing. Wowza.

If food doesn't inspire you to write poetry, I don't know what would.

Order Up

"Do you want cilantro?"

I bent down into the fridge

to pull out toppings.

"Sure."

You kept at your tasks:

chop veggies,

shred cheese,

slice bacon.

I paced around the kitchen,

going from one odd job

to the next

like a short order chef trying to keep up

with the lunchtime rush.

When our shift finished,

we ate in the living room,

leaving the dishes for later.

Be the Good You Want to See

It's crazy to think we had a Simple Living Challenge every week during MercyWorks. The weeks go by so quickly and I barely have a handle on the challenge before it switches. Last week was a little easier. Be nice to myself: eat right (already do that), get enough sleep (not a problem), and exercise (I can manage that for a week). This week, we're turning that goodwill outward and doing something nice for someone else.

So far, my random acts of kindness have been geared towards spring cleaning--both at home and at work. My roommates were/are on spring break (along with M), so I've had a lot of time to myself to sweep, dust, wash, and organize. Other things I can do: smile, say thank you, share, help--all just to be nice, not because I'm expecting anything in return. This week is about doing what Jesus would do.

This week is also the end of the month. Soon we'll switch gears from nutrition to poetry--more on that tomorrow. For today, let's be grateful for the sunshine and pay our gratitude forward. I for one have a sun-filled porch and a stack of books calling my name.

Chocolat

Chocolat by Joanne Harris
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a strange book to read during Lent. Written from the perspective of Vianne Rocher, chocolatier and single mother, and Pere Reynaud, priest of the small French town where Vianne recently set up shop, Chocolat is a story of temptation and pleasure set against restriction and temperance.

I enjoyed reading this along with the timeline of the story--when the cold wind sweeps through Lansquenet, Chicago's cold winds were blowing as well. I have my own Lenten vows to think about, and even though they didn't include giving up chocolate, there were times when just the description of the candies, drinks, and indulgences in Vianne's shop were too rich for me.

Yes, the church-vs-pagan thing was a bit overplayed, and while I think Vianne and Pere would contrast each other nicely in person (or in a movie), in ink, Pere is much duller than Vianne. I found myself skimming his chapters to get back to Vianne's point of view. I thought Vianne's daughter, Anouk, was adorable, and the many customers to Vianne's shop (most of whom are also parish members) ranged from charming to conniving.

Again, the gypsy storyline played out better in the movie, but I liked how the book tied things up at the end. I like my chocolate sweet, but not too sweet. Altogether, this was a "treat" book, a nice escape to my own bookshelf while I wait for the weather to improve so I can visit the library again.


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Spring Flex

Here we are, week three of Lent. We survived St. Patrick's Day/Purim, we're nearing the end of March/Nutrition Month, and warm weather is slowly becoming the norm rather than a blue moon occurrence. What's that, you say? It snowed last night? Oh. Okay, so warm weather is still a little spotty around these parts. Doesn't matter--the calendar says SPRING, so spring it is.

With spring comes outdoor activities, spring cleaning, and more seasonal food options. Now is the time to think about your body--is it beach ready, summer ready, day-to-day activity ready? This week, let's be kind to our bodies. More than just forgiving ourselves, let's feed ourselves and keep ourselves fit. If you've been following along, you know that I'm eating well this month (whole instead of processed foods, mostly). Now I want to add another element to my well-being: exercise.

Hold the phone, did I just write that?? Me, the one who won't join a gym out of principal, the one who complains when she has to exert more energy than it takes to get from her bedroom to the kitchen, that person now wants to exercise? Yes. BUT: only in the sense that I want to be active. I want to take advantage of the increased daylight and decreased snow cover. I'm not going to introduce a strict exercise regimen to my life because I know that's not sustainable for me. What is sustainable is biking to work, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, and allowing my boyfriend to drag me along to his gym so I can join him for a workout here and there.

Just like fad diets, fad workout routines don't help in the long run. My fitness goal isn't a specific weight or dress size; it's not 22" arms or washboard abs. I only want to be healthy. Energetic. Fit enough to keep up with my life, to be comfortable in my skin, to know I can rely on my body to do what it needs to do.

Divergent: The Movie

It's strange to think that just over a year ago, I was skimming through Divergent, wondering if it would become the next big dystopian trilogy of our time and if my boyfriend or I would somehow end up in the movie version, set and filmed in Chicago. Jesus would later be cast as an extra, setting up a summer full of early morning calls and late night wraps. Last night, we saw the final product along with a theater full of the other extras.

I'm sure our theater companions will affect my review. Much like a funny movie is made funnier when you watch with a group of friends, watching a movie while the people around you cheer for things like the opening credits, the first wide shot of your city (overgrown with marshy plant life), the first time a group of people appears on screen, or cheeky one-liners just makes it seem all the more monumental. Spotting your boyfriend in several scenes (even if you only recognize him because of his mustache) probably helps up the enjoyment factor as well.

The thing is, I think I would have liked this movie no matter where or with whom I watched it. That's saying a lot for a series I haven't been generous towards, but I genuinely enjoyed Divergent. I laughed, I cried, I held my breath, and I got angry. The soundtrack amped up the drama while the visuals showed me what Chicago could look like in a distant future. I'll be honest, I was doubtful that Shailene Woodley could pull off a dauntless Tris, but she proved to be even better than the original book's weak and whiny portrayal of a "tough" girl--the Tris I grew to hate while reading the series, I clapped and cheered out loud for in the theater. I'm gonna go ahead and jump on her bandwagon now.

Besides Woodley, Divergent features plenty of solid actors. Her co-star and romantic interest, Theo James (as Four), was manly without being overbearing. Their chemistry was apparent from their very first meeting. What felt like unnatural attraction and awkward PDA in the book translated to a simmering tension and meaningful hand grazes in the movie. This story has so much emotion at its core, and thanks to the actors, I finally experienced that on the big screen.

My biggest issue with the book was how whiny the main characters were, and how I could never tell anyone apart because they all sounded the same when they talked: boring, flat, full of crappy jokes. The screenwriters and actors of Divergent did what Veronica Roth couldn't/didn't do. They brought her story to life with honest (and entertaining) dialogue, distinct personalities, and a badass attitude well-suited to their post-war faction-survival lives. I didn't care so much that the story was at times implausible, the characters carried this film for me.

March. Music. Madness.

Happy Spring, and Happy Madness! My bracket is locked in and already upset, and I'm back to riding my bike to work semi-regularly, so it feels like the season is changing. With leftover piles of icy snow and freezing precipitation in the forecast, though, I need a little help to get all the way out of winter. That's where music comes in. Here are several of my recent go-tos when I need a pick me up (and coincidentally, the soundtrack to my room rearranging tonight--a new season calls for a new bed placement!):

Ingrid Michaelson - Girls Chase Boys

This song is fun, plain and simple. If the video looks familiar, you may have seen this already. It may have its roots in breakup music, but boiled down it's a song about being human. "All the broken hearts in the world still beat/Let's not make this harder than it has to be." Yes. Let's not do that. Let's sing and dance instead.


Pharrell - Happy

Like Ingrid's song, this one is light, whimsical, and one heck of a fun song to sing along to. Out of all the songs on constant replay on the radio right now, this is the only one that makes me keep the station where it's at. The video is joyful and I could see myself dancing around like that. It's also the perfect song for an International Day of Happiness.

Lady Gaga - Gypsy
Look at how much fun Lady Gaga has while performing this song! And look at how much fun her audience is having as well! I think we all see the theme emerging here: good, clean fun. I may not want to be alone forever, but I can be tonight...when I've got this tune to rotate my bed to.

Coldplay - Mylo Xyloto (entire album)

In my recent Coldplay re-discovery, I've started listening to Coldplay's albums straight through when I'm chilling at home. Mylo Xyloto especially lends itself well to this, as the full album tells a story about two people, Mylo and Xyloto. While some songs are sadder than others, overall the vibe this album gives off is positive.


Justin Timberlake - Not a Bad Thing
This song. It just gets me, and I like to keep it on repeat. I don't think I'll get sick of it anytime soon, especially considering I haven't gotten sick of the guy who this song makes me think of, the one who I swore to my roommates I wouldn't date, until five months later, when we started dating. Three years later, we share a phone bill and a crush on Mr. Timberlake himself.