unexpected absence

I thought I would have been blogging more, this first week of unemployment. But alas, I spent much of the first three days of this week fixing my internet access. First the cable modem died. Then the router. It was Wednesday afternoon before everything was functioning correctly again. And I just haven't bothered to write anything since then.

Until now, that is.

And what am I going to write? I don't really know. I am inclined to include today's "Poem-A-Day" from Poets.org (did you know that April is National Poetry Month?). I actually started writing a poem on the 1st, thinking I might try to write one every day. It's been a long time since I've written any poetry, and so the stasis has slowed my attempt. That, and a bunch of errands and chores that have commandeered the week.

Here's what I'll do for now. Include today's poem and dust off an old favorite. I'll find some sort of graphic to include in this entry. And then I'll call it a post for now. Maybe I'll work some more on my own poem during the day and come back later to share the results.

Poem-A-Day for April 6, 2007

Bent Orbit
by Elaine Equi

I wind my way across a black donut hole
and space that clunks.
Once I saw on a stage,
as if at the bottom of a mineshaft,
the precise footwork
of some mechanical ballet.
It was like looking into the brain
of a cuckoo clock and it carried
some part of me away forever.
No one knows when they first see a thing,
how long its after image will last.
Proust could stare at the symptom of a face
for years, while Frank O'Hara, like anyone with a job,
was always looking at his watch.
My favorite way of remembering is to forget.
Please start the record of the sea over again.
Call up a shadow below the pendulum of a gull's wing.
In a city of eight million sundials, nobody has any idea
how long a minute really is.

And now, to dig into the archives.

A Supermarket in California
by Allen Ginsberg

What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.

In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!

What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes! -- and you, Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?

I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys.

I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel?

I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you, and followed in my imagination by the store detective.

We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier.

Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does your beard point tonight?

(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel absurd.)

Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely.

Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?

Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe?

I'm also changing up my typical post ending. In addition to the song currently playing, I will now include the book I'm reading, and maybe something else unique to my work-free life.

Song: "Faith" by Elmer Bernstein
Book: "Doing Nothing" by Tom Lutz
Other: Played "Promenade" and "Gnomus" from Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" on the piano