Valentine gift - A brighton heart- blue top, yellow bottom

I got a box
size of a palm
shape of a heart
full of candy
jelly bean
pretzel dipped in M&M
from a friend

The Ghirardelli in pink
costs more than usual
A friend says ' that explains
the markdown the next day'

At safeway, a few days later
down to 20% cost, I walk
home with

hearts thin filled with
Elmer chocolate
hearts thick filled with
Too good gourmet chocolate cookies
A heart sheet with a heart
for a heart topped
on a container
with fortune chocolate cookies

*********
Fortune cookie

Poems that go beyond whats said

In Jane Shore's collection That Said -

In 'Willow', by pitting herself against the tree and against the well wishers of the tree, she has two narratives going on. One of her wish of fate for it and the other of the rest of the family.

In 'Priorities' - with the explanation of the setting of the apartment, the poet invites both the readers familiar with and unfamiliar with the environment into the poem. This is a beginning which encompasses all readers into the 'written for you' club.

My father's shoe trees. By story there's a reference to Cinderella's story without its mention, assuming that its a story known to all. Then this poem is meant for everyone.

American girl Addy

In 'Tender acre' , 'Then bands of bargello stitched the skin' are used to describe the snake. This one word does the magic for the poem. A poet is for correct naming of things.

Lobels
Mikveh
Kewpie

The poet manages to not polarise the readers into one slot. If she gets readers with experiences similar to her interested in her poem by familiarity, she draws in the rest with curiosity. If she gets certain readers to root for her feelings of dislike, she leaves the rest unguilty by providing them another dias for their point opposite to her feelings.

Paper collection

In a hostel
we kids collected
unused papers
towards the
final exams
from each
notebook

To bind
them
for next year's
rough book

I hadnt figured
where I would
get them bound

I started my
stack
All was fair
barter
snacks for papers

My rivals
complained
to the sister

In front of
all the kids
she asked me
how I got my
papers

I hadnt done
anything wrong

I got hit
and I peed

When the stack becomes big
the book gets unweildy

************************
Ted Kooser in The poetry Home Repair Manual suggests that for each poem we shuld hav atleast one imaginary reader. For this one, I dont know who th reader is, but I know who the reader is not - a person with no hostel experience.
And I raised my hand in return

Books I would like to read

Up
Bird Sense
The Man who planted trees
Life everlasting

Books I am a bit curious about:
Lots of candles, plenty of cake
When women were birds

Author/Writing lovers: Add it to your library

What to look for in winter

The prose goes on about many people. Author Candia Williams writes `It is hard to know where to start with Rosa since it is a story of extreme compensation for absences.'
For the reader: Who is Rosa? A schoolmate.
For the author: Every acquaintance in her life is an attempt to understand them.
Her description style of people which toelines along `greedy obsessive recall of trivial' is the author's way of recalling all that has ensued now that she has gone blind. If you like description, of architecture or people, the author has hinged the book on it and supported it very well and still trying to put it all in words- of a fort, after few lines, she asks - `how to describe it?', an ongoing attempt.
We have to see if by `picking up lost bits and pieces of my(her) scattered life to try to make something whole by putting it all together, my own flotsam and jetsam' , if she can find a frame for her life. With the `precise naming of things' she wants to see if she can will her sight back.
The author is always wary of letting us know that she is speaking from her Edinburgh times and acknowledges that things could be different now.
In the first half of the book, everyone she meets is under scrutiny. In the later part, she confines it to her family. She tries to understand her father. Her ex husbands and their current benign families. I felt like a good reader when I read the lines: `phase one, the first bit of memoir, to toughen up and prepare for deeper digging; phase two, this bit to, to do that deeper digging, in order perhaps to see more..' that I got the book like she meant it while writing.
If you think that the author is unsure with her frequent questions like`How does one write about marriage?' ,she does start and end with a quick summary of what that or the next chapter is about. The book has a story quality to it.
For the author her writing /art is a fallback. In her words - `I had discovered a great pleasure of the painful side of life: its relief, or exacerbation, by literature'.
On the borderline of neither blind nor well sighted, the author writes of how her blindness changes her lifestyle and how she enjoys and generates literature. As she is trying to bring everything to name she accedes that `It is this feeling of docking cleanly that grows more elusive with blindness'.
When I picked this book, I had to overlook her alcohol addiction part of life in light of the heavy leaning towards writing in the book. Even of the alcohol addiction and getting out of it, the author has written in an exploratory way, like a natural history of an alcoholic.
I have to mention that the book is rife with many new words, so look forward to some dictionary time.
Some lines I liked:
We are polite but so far havent offered tea.
Lonely for them.
"`Do you know how to make a fishing net?' The answer is that you find a lot of holes and tie them together. `
I could say that this is the metaphor that works for the whole book.

Instead prance with the cats

I heard two cats
A kitten like voice
another menacing

I moved the blinds
to reveal a regular
on the ground
another black cat
on the parapet wall.

The kitten voice
from who I expected
to have the menacing
voice

Their tirade
an exchange of sounds
Both were bent on their
hind legs and up on
their front

slowly they relaxed
their voices calming
and their bodies
hunkering down on
all fours

*********
Title from Theodore Rothke in his book 'On poetry & Craft'

What to look for in winter

Ghirlandaio Tobias
Toff
A Dance to the music of time
A Flat iron for a farthing
The sword in stone
Dunbar
The tao of sketching
Predella
Finial
Acroterion
Cuisenaire
pawky
The Lay of the last minstrel
epilimnion
Myxomatosis
Ruddigore
The heat of the day
one hundred details
Rokeby Venus
The school of love
Art for children
Thurifer
Point counter point
Harl
Seven pillars of wisdom
woad
Galope
The Quest for Corvo
Ronald Firbank
What maisie knew
ruby parure
The soul of the eye
The Israelites gathering Manna
Bargello
Termagant
Ved Mehta
Stephen Kuusisto
Holman hunt
The crofter and the laird
Loderi
Indumentum
Fuchsia
Escallonia
Pimpinellifolia
Pianola
Philadelphus
James Kelman
couthie
Against nature
Hortensia
Cymbidium
quailed
Manchineel
Hollywood Babylon
Balletomane
Bakst
Ormolu
Leger

Patterns

At the threshold of
Indian households
you found floral
patterns laid out
in thin white
lines of a powder.

Now they use chalk pieces
colourful
Earlier they added colours
to the powder for
auspicious occasions
like Sankranti.

Enter a new gadget
A platic tube with
perforations by purpose
Fill it with the powder and roll
it on the floor
for the pattern you desire
and for however long you wish to
encompass your veranda

Like a lullaby
for a baby that repeats
till the baby sleeps

*********************
'My mother in law had threaded jasmine and marigold ropes and set in shaken chalk auspicious designs all around the preimeter of the house' What to look for in winter

What is an apple?

My mother wonders
if I remember putting
the question myself
and answering as a child
'It is round and red'.

My nephew as a child
had a face of an
apple

Stains

of baby's poop at the pediatrecian
milk let in on the dress
multivitamin drops overflowing from
the baby's mouth onto mom

Hate Cauldron

Mourning becomes Electra

An out and out tragedy of helplessness of characters having to part from their apple of the eye. The death is in them from that moment. They are ready to put their whole life into hating the souls responsible for shattering their dream.

The span of time for which the portrayal of the characters is done makes it easy on reader's imagination, making it sequential and even the slight movements conspicuous.

5/5

More baby

Her 3 big center
eyelashes coupled
from the above and
below

Her hands never stay
in the swaddle
Her left hand is
on her face like
in the ultrasound

Baby

When asleep she makes
a noise that
she has had enough
When nursing she opens
her eyes to confirm
that its ok with mom
she also looks around
shyly if anyone
is watching her.