National Poetry Writing Month starts tomorrow

Check out NaPoWriMo (google it silly).

Prepare yourself.

We begin tomorrow.

Location:S Greene St,Baltimore,United States

Feeling So Many Places

Living so many places

Breathing air so many places

A few more moments of breathing right here

A strategy for miles

A strategy for opening up every nerve and every pore to everything, eventually

Millions and millions of organs and places and things

Millions and millions of air and stars and even pebbles

Grass, angles, cars, lines, windows, and more windows

Grace applied to each day

Engineering as opposed to math or science

You have room for many things across many days

If you remember the feeding schedule

There will always be stars over your shoulder, wherever you go

Location:Melvin Dr,Baltimore,United States

There's No Gardening Here

There's no gardening going on

This is what I see matched with this is what I remember

Breathy and hush and growing and gone

Sunlight and timezones vs. timelines and better

Is as is does rhymes with is as is was, but it's not meaning much

Mulch, matter, migration patterns

Hiccups, chin ups, lakes rimmed with algae like craters rimmed with rime

Ruins, ruined, roux, rouge, rendered to a rendered mass

Christmas is always coming the question is what will you do with it

When this and so many questions don't matter anymore

Xoxo,
Jamie

Location:Carmalt Rd,Hamden,United States

Why Does This Happen?

Said the sheep dog to the moon

And again

Said the crab rangoon to the last man on Earth

The place where Time had a father rather than being one

The place where there is no space between a mechanical hum and feline content

Where temperatures are constant and everything fears change

Today (?) I heard someone say there was only one number and the number was one

And a while ago I heard about the one photon that was all the photons you thought you knew

Sad, unchanging photon -- you are the closest to becoming something when we bind you with magnets and odd chemicals but you are still not changing

Stop dreaming of speed Lost Wanderer

Stop dreaming of time slumbering Professor

The thing is, everyone can save you now. And everyone will.

Location:Melvin Dr,Baltimore,United States

I Watch Things and I Learn From Them

You want to leave it there, don't you?

Hearts race. Trees that are not real. Sunsets are local.

Did you wake up to find yourself worshipping efficiency?

I didn't.

I was worried about a letter

She was worried about a dress

We had a lot on our minds that Spring

I just reached a different part of me, maybe you heard it

Maybe you've heard me crack my neck

Or sleep with my eyes open

Likely you have your own oddities

Some you parade for effect, others you keep to yourself

Webbed feet?

All the better to swim you with

Location:Portland St,Baltimore,United States

I'm Not Here (1)

You tool through old truth on lockdown.

Rock, rotor, rot.
Runt, roll, roughing.

Pool, polo, picky, but boring.

But growl.
But puck.
But roofing.

Prowl today, row lightly.

You truck, you don't.
You cuff, you won't.

Proof up.

Location:E Fort Ave,Baltimore,United States

Site Unseen (You)

A Songify mess of Megan McShea's "Sight Unseen" from her new book A Mountain City of Toad Splendor now available from Publishing Genius.

My daughter did most of the camera work, except when she was busy owning Centipede. I'm responsible for the shoddy editing.

Megan, I love you book.

Everybody else, you'll love it, too. Here's a great review over at the City Paper if you need that kinda convincing.

This is my first post typed on a keyboard in a long time.

Or I'm Not

The wind comes out, or it won't

The sky reminds you of all the books you've loaned

Something about a Ferris wheel and around into the stars

+++

I wish I had different things in me

Is height a talent?

+++

Flush that isn't a hand and isn't fullness more generally

The heat that isn't law enforcement

Layers that aren't sediment or otherwise geographic

A fan that goes around as well

+++

Things are clean and then they're not

Location:Melvin Dr,Baltimore,United States

Limits that Serve Functions

Because just plain "Limits" was too much title for the tank tonight so I had to scuff it up

The limit of limits were on my mind

The limit's limit

"Kismet" is one of those words I don't use

+++

Cats on laps

French comfort food when it is cold and rainy

+++

Blank blank done blank search blank blank blank rules and regulations blank blank about blank blank blank privacy blank

Location:Penn St,Baltimore,United States

no more

ace eases ice oars use. some rime rims cases. more rims are rowan. more suave cease. more saw. see so. saw in summer. no sows. mice mix no nix reunions. sea more sea. never saves ever. raises moreover over rice. i won ice. i won wan ease. i win use. river me wise. river me worn.

---

I woke up wondering if the letter i was allowed in the prisoner's constraint (a style of lipogram where you don't use any letters that have ascenders or descenders). Sometimes I wake up like that.

Apparently it is, but t isn't. I guess you could be writing the i without the dot on top -- like people used to do on titles or covers or what have you.

I couldn't find any definitive word on punctuation, so I played it safe and went without commas. That's particularly tough for me.

This is the first response to the "best birthday gift ever" (in quotes, because the gift I got in the fourth grade from my parents will always be the actual best ever -- the brain is different at that age). And I want to say sorry it took so long to get started, but I realize that's a part of me missing the whole point of the gift.

The gift was a collection of writing assignments from many many friends... A year's worth, but I'll go through it at whatever pace -- especially with National Poetry Writing Month nearby.

The funny thing about my prisoner's constraint is that it's meant to be heard not read on the page. So maybe I mean it to be heard in your head. I'll songify it later mayhaps.

Oh. Good morning (or evening or afternoon).

Location:S Greene St,Baltimore,United States

The Idea is the Machine

I'll rotate that image when I get around to that

Extreme mettle, thorns, etc.

Sol Lewitt is the machine that makes engines

The idea is the machine that makes machines

The music is the machine that makes daylight

If you have a shovel, you have a tunnel

You have a tube and then you have two tubes

And you have a dollar, you have a ticket to toxic

Let's start over with a good look at the sky or an ocean if you have one

It's isn't support, it's structure

Pitch, crystal, solid, sound, rotation, daylight again, opened outward, leaps, leftovers, lowest, amperes

Against efficiency
Against efficiency
Against efficiency
Djibouti!

The stars or out

Location:Penn St,Baltimore,United States

#Latergram

Some things are destined to make more sense than others

When do you learn that context is everything?

This question is similar to another I wondered recently, when will a museum stop saying it is "Contemporary" and start saying it is a 21st Century Art Museum?

My daughter will never think "how 21st century" sounds like you are talking about the future

Boundaries are rarely lines, but that's a tired thought, too

When I'm done being sick ill have not-tired thoughts or perspectives or something to mix in

And it'll make both the writing and the reading worthwhile

I swear

Until then, I'm going to go back to reading this paranormal romance I don't even like that much

Because I finished that Scientology book

Man

I wish my digestion was working

Location:Portland St,Baltimore,United States

Consume Accomplish

Accomplish
Accomplish
Accomplish

Next

Breathe in

Breathe out

Accomplish, accomplice, compliance, contrivance

Reach
Jump
Reach

Level two, outboard motor, reflexive reliance, memorization

Reach, reach, reach

React, the speed of sound, fluid systems, the speed of light

Full stop

The speed of light

Temporary housing, extemporaneous speaking, strenuous activities, restraint upon restraint

Accomplish next
Accomplish higher

Level eight, the bell ringing, shedding everything you won't need, water soon

Water

Location:S Greene St,Baltimore,United States

That's What I Saw First

We were in love and escaped to Spain

We continued to pay our taxes

Because that's how we were

Through complicated relays, so our location would remain safe

A secret

We were different

I had all these ideas and you had all these ideas

When I think of you now, I think of your shoulders and maybe you looking back

I remember cool, clear water by the glassful after the sun

I remember the ocean

I don't remember how it ended or I don't let myself

We had new names, distances travelled, hidden ailments

There were things to be done

When you make a path, you make it to be walked

When you make a road, there is much more making

When you write a letter, it says, I forgive you

You'll have a better hand next time

When I see you next, I pray I'm taller

Location:Vermont Ave NW,Washington D.C.,United States

Cat-to-Cat, to-Cat, to-Cat

The first movie I ever saw was shown in a cafeteria. I sat in a folding chair and was three or four. The movie was "Close Encounters"

The second movie I ever saw was shown in a cafeteria. I sat in a folding chair. I was four. The movie was "Star Wars"

I don't remember the third.

I remember seeing "The Fox and the Hound" in a theater in Virginia.

I remember seeing a lot of movies, but I see fewer movies these days.

+++

To-cat
Toucan
Two cameras
To chimeras your life is limited

More bacteria than man or something like that

President
Precedent
Pressing dental surgeries

Extraction
Extra affiliation
Passport?

Porta-potty
Ports to shore too surely

Knot after knot after landing after 9pm

We end it here

We fire

Location:N Belnord Ave,Baltimore,United States

Shifts Labor Execution Gondola Peculiar

Don't plus start

Perspectival adjectives

Adolescent something-or-other

Grand cramping

To end the age of age-old endings

Sense and water and the Black Knight

Forever evening vs. perpetual darkness

Splice and split and parse and combine all the things you mean

You could mean

The things that come together to mean you

Not another in line

All kinds of specific

And it all stops here

Location:Melvin Dr,Baltimore,United States

It Is Now March

I was mugged just a few blocks from here

About 15 years ago

I'd been working late, and I had something like the flu coming on

Afterward, I hailed a cab

I told him I had to stop by an ATM so I could get money to pay the fare

And pick up my prescription

And he should wait for me

A lot from there

Location:N St NW,Washington D.C.,United States

What a Minute

Not enough

Not enough

Daytime goes by

Chimes sound

Resonance is what it is

Location:Phelps Pl NW,Washington D.C.,United States