Sunday, September 25, 2011

Accepted Rejected

 
Jimmy Page
Well, so, uhm, I'm published, I think, and also not.
My entries into the Rattle Poetry Contest were all rejected, but something I sent to Unadorned Press was accepted for publication.  I took the Rattle rejection rather hard.  I had lots of support (and one guy at work who said, "What, do you think you are that good?"  To which I got to reply simply, "Yes.") from you all here and in FBlandia and my local writer's group.  One person in my group had been a reader for a small press.  He told me that it was easy to discard the stuff that was poor, but among the good works the decision process of what made the cut was more arbitrary.  Often times pieces he would champion wouldn't make it.
The Unadorned Press situation is cloudy.  I had sent them two poems and was informed of acceptance by being tagged in a photo on Facebook.  No email message,  no indication of which poems were accepted.  I have a feeling that this is a very small press, maybe just one guy in New Hampshire who, if I send him $5, will send me what looks like a plastic file folder for a term paper with my work and about ten other poets.

So, the question remains:  What do I want?
And that is where I am right now.  I was reminded by my writer's group that I do have an audience, I have readers already.  And for that I am grateful.  What would being published or not being published change about that?  I still feel this sort of desire to be acknowledged and given a stamp of approval by some unknown "them."  Meh. 
And, why the picture of Jimmy Page?
It's a fairly arbitrary addition to this post, but when I was trolling around the interweb, I came across this picture on someone's page of "Things I Like" or some such, and I thought,  "Yeah, I like that, too."  So,  just a random picture of Jimmy Page reading someone's horoscope in a random world.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

in that bed with Dena

There where you stir the sugar insufferable,
incessant, you stir it.  Hard crystals dissolve,
handfuls of blazing white go milky and soft,
hot blue lips lovingly kiss and sing radiantly under
your copper.   Your ping hammered kettle turns solid
to liquid.  Melting chains form as you work
the Rosary {Sotto Voce} Queen of Heaven
The Mysteries                            Joy & Pain        
                        slowly added,
washing down gems, precious blessings
And the turmoil slows, bubbles slack and link,
dragging like school-less summer days, shoe-less
in hot amber.  Sticking all the little tics,
once thrown high as branches,     hair whips
               rain sheets and lung-lust cries,     
                        click clipped as
                   errant bugs and bees.

You are on the fault line.           Plates are shifting.
Under the sweet bunch grass, a Vireo gray and small,
secretive you whistle          then listen.
The colors change        The desert painted
               Tongues of flame
    waver in your wild white eyes:

                    You hold
                        Waiting waiting
                  suspended

                   Pinching the grain
                       The salt
                   The pink rose
                       Essential
                   The tiny blade
                       The straw
              The stone
                               You drop