~


Starlings
squeal with surprise:
your hair in braids!


~

~

more smoke than dragon,
your tattoo blurred by
Skype and time
At night I dream of inked talons
steel tips piercing as need.

~

~

How strange to see
the sunlight on my skin
and yet feel

nothing

like when you kiss me


~

~

Your shoes rasp
across the dim glimmer
of the deserted dancefloor
and I shiver like the curled ribbon
that tumbleweeds in your wake.
I'm pinned
by the moonlight steeling your eyes
until one of my barrettes slips
and a blade of black hair
skims my cheek.
Then there's the quiver at your jaw
the tremble of your fingertips
as you reach for me
like I'm part fairy tale
more mirage.


~

I may possibly perhaps adopt shadesong's tradition of Friday memeage. This morning I'm babysitting my printer as it churns out polisci articles anyway, so I've a few minutes to dabble. Join me?

Wearing: Green cardigan, gray long-sleeved t-shirt, jeans, chalk outline Vans, teal arm warmers; Roadhouse by BPAL, which mostly smells like dandelions now.

Reading: manuscripts for Dragons of the Corn; Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH; James and The Giant Peach; Drood

Writing: subbing a cinquain to Poetry in Public today, need to draft more poetry for my poem-a-day posts

Crafting: Valentines! Tweetie may have chosen the commercial route, but I make MY Valentines by hand, dammit!

Family Film Night: more Dinosaur Planet, then, after Tweetie's gone to bed, Los Sin Nombre

Weekend: Saturday: Dragons of the Corn meeting in Grinnell; Sunday: core collapse, or maybe meeting my buddy Erica


Report!

~


trampled snow:
echoes of epic battles
on the playground

~

~

more coffee rings
than dog ears
mar his book...

I sip my latte and revise:
epic love to tanka.

~

~


beach-colored socks
warm my February morning
A river gull winks


~

~


half-moon window
carves a new horizon--
fresh phase

~

The deadline for Iowa City's Poetry in Public project is this week, and I have no idea what to submit. I would like to sub something from my poem-a-day series. The poem must be fewer than 10 lines and suitable for public display. Last year I shared a cinquain about my bad gardening. Obviously fun(ny) is better than morose for this venue, mainstream better than genre...I don't see a lot of love poems...

Any suggestions?

~

newfangled cell phone
The first person I call is Mom
twenty years gone.

~

~

play date:
we watch my girl
push your boy on the swings
and I can't help thinking
they could have been ours,
siblings, not sweethearts.

~

~

Jinglebell wreath ripped
from the front door; I hereby rescind
winter's invitation.


~

~

Clean-up in Aisle 4


Hy-Vee sold myriad mustards,
so many that J became flustered.
He compared more brands
than his poor brain could stand
and it dripped from his ears like custard.


~

~

spring catalog
barefoot models cavort on grass
greener than my dreams

~

~

snowglobe fantasy
rooted here, we'll pretend nothing
lurks beneath the fluff


~

Well, this should be interesting. I just accidentally double-dosed on sertraline. I meant to take some Midol, but I was still half-asleep and on auto-pilot, and I repeated my bedtime ritual instead.

Well!

~

eagle highway--
staring out our sunroof
we cross the center line

~

~

two bored boys
one coloring book
Dora's new tats

~

The other night JJ and I watched Steamboy (2004, Japan, director's cut), an animated movie that I mostly enjoyed. I like when foes lay waste to one another and to a major city while arguing at the top of their lungs, Iliad-style, about the function of science in human society and the ethical obligations of scientists. I also liked the sole female main character (Scarlett), but her arc was so flat that she mostly functioned as comic relief. I would totally watch a sequel, intrigued by the end credits that show snapshots of Steamboy's future adventures (and Scarlett's possible growth as a kick-ass female protag).

It's kind of a no-brainer that werewolf lore lends itself to feminist fables, but most such movies I've seen (like Ginger Snaps, which I liked, too) have treaded the obvious path from puberty to menstruation to sexual empowerment. Wild Country (2005, UK/Scotland) skips that cliché and links lycanthropy and motherhood. The first 10 minutes are so well done and the teenage leads so surprisingly competent that I watched the remaining hour with little complaint. I see other reviewers have dissed the teens for being "blank slates" but, frankly, I was just relieved they weren't the uber-annoying stereotypes that American teen flicks churn out. The effects are atrocious--silly stuffed monster heads (held by the camera guy?) that should've stayed in the dark--and the running sequences are tedious, and the ending is abrupt and predictable, but there's worse ways to spend an hour. Here's the image from the opening credits that inspired my spanish moss poem the other day.

I'd avoided Antibodies (2005, Germany) because, frankly, the cover on Netflix wigged me out. I worried the movie would be too gruesome. It wasn't. Despite one main character being a serial killer and pedophile, despite the tortured animals. What it was—and this surprised me--was Christian propaganda. The sheriff of a rural town has been investigating the murder of a young girl for over a year, earning himself a fair amount of enmity and abuse from the locals. When city cops catch a serial killer, the rural sheriff goes to the big bad city to talk to the killer, Silence of the Lambs style, to find out if he killed the girl. The main actors are very good [fwiw, Wotan Wilke Mohring is also quite easy on the eyes; he was also in Valkyrie (which I haven't seen, because if it's Tom Cruise versus Hitler, I don't have anyone to root for) and Pandorum], the dialogue is pretty interesting, the mystery is sufficient, and then it all goes down the crapper. All the philosophizing about good and evil is for naught; the movie reinforces the usual dichotomies and relies upon the sappiest, most ridiculous ending I've ever seen. I'll give you a hint: God. And Bambi. Okay, that's two.

It's a good thing Mohring is cute. Here he is in Valkyrie.



What movies have you seen lately? Anything especially good or bad?