Childers Poetry Blog

2007-11-28T12:54:00.001-08:00

S Korea probes 'cell phone death'

Authorities in South Korea are investigating the death of a man amid reports he may have been killed by an exploding mobile phone battery.

Gil, this is your god calling. What
do you think you are doing? Where
have you been. There was that
thing with that girl you slept with
and I didn't hear from you
then that drunk phone call
when she left you for that
one-eyed doctor you
suspected that was to happen
anyway. Gil,
did you hear about the miner
down in shanghai
his cell phone blew up
and fried his
heart like robin's egg? Gil
i miss you. Its
hard to reach you when you're
hiding in the shaft.

2007-11-02T19:11:00.000-07:00

Tests end Texan goat-sucker stir

US scientists say an animal found in Texas is not the chupacabra - or goat-sucker - of American myth, but a coyote with a hair loss problem.

I am the ghost of the unknown soldier
the crocodile of christmas past
the oil baron with a heart
the compassionate conservative
the coathanger abortion of dreams.
Take me from here
this texas prarie
bury me in the science past.
My carcass sprouts the cure for cancer
my bones are WMDs. Do you remember
when you were in that Waco bar
and the waitress showed you a small kindness
her mom tattoo of truth? I am
the tall double. I am George Bush's sobriety,
I am the fountain of youth.

2007-10-23T04:30:00.000-07:00

The deputy mayor of the Indian capital Delhi has died a day after being attacked by a horde of wild monkeys.

SERIOUS HEAD INJURIES

It may look like we are
training larger, more
ferocious monkeys
to guard us from the hordes
of smaller monkeys. We know
what what we are doing,
Deputy Mayor; we know
what we did. Evolution
is an infestation too, Deputy
Mayor, an infestation in
your mind. We're reversing
the process, Deputy Mayor,
eliminating ourselves, one
by one, species by species,
ridding the world of thoughts
our heads are thinking--the
slowest suicide bombing
the world has ever seen.

2007-10-22T15:51:00.000-07:00

'Bin Laden call' to Iraq fighters

Have you ever seen a ghost
talk to a ghost? They do it
on the internet all the time
they do it with cell phones.
Do you remember in ghostbusters
when egon got all slimed?
Well at least he touched the ghost
at least he knew
what he was chasing
was real. I liked the part
about the gate keeper
and I liked the part about
the key master. Even
when I was a kid
I knew that was about screwing.
Well, this ghost is screwing us
and its your fault. He gives
your movie 2 thumbs
up your butt.

2007-10-19T05:50:00.001-07:00

Thais arrest paedophile suspect

"I'm Big inside of Thailand.
I'm huge on Cambodia."

2007-10-16T12:44:00.000-07:00

Global hunt for child-sex suspect

my face is a whirlpool
of pain
I thought you were allowed
to have sex with boys
in cambodia
I thought that's what
cambodia is for
I thought my head
was an eraser
I'd erase myself in boys

2007-10-06T09:49:00.000-07:00

iPod catches fire in pants

Another soundbite about Iran
another college speaker controversy
the white ninja yawned, napped,
and rose to look out over the fallowed
housing market
the blackwater river. A TSA employee with an
iPod caught his pants on fire. And it wasn't
because he played
"Sexual Healing" on the device
which reminds me,
I used to think maybe
sexual healing would help out the Shiites.
It's not
a story about what happened
it's about what could have been. Ninja
do you wet your mask
with tears? Yeah, ninja,
I wish we could float a moderate
electable candidate too. Ninja
I'm gonna vote for you.

2007-09-11T07:58:00.000-07:00

Under the Divider

Sen. Craig, I know
your soul is in
the stall next to my
soul. I hope, in
whatever airport
bathroom in heaven
they are in, that
their feet are
tapping out
the same language,
that they are
blocking the doors
with their luggage,
that in my soul's
outstretched hand,
your soul puts
its package.

2007-08-19T21:57:00.000-07:00

Utah disappeared.
Karl Malone refers to Karl Malone
as Karl Malone. The fault line of his
self must have shifted. The wives are
crying for their husband.
Polytragedy. lol. Coal minor's
daughters, be mine. I got mine,
Harold Miner. Be my baby, Baby Jordan.
Have you ever had an Asian minor?
A mine is a terrible thing to waste.
BTW, they're dead.

bone rank

2007-08-19T21:30:00.000-07:00

WHO LET THE DOGS OUT

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, Michael Vick.
Did you ever see that movie, Michael Vick?
The one where the dog gets rabies
and attacks a family in a car, Michael Vick?
It wasn't rabies, Michael Vick.
Have you ever stood beneath the trees,
Michael Vick? Cho had a hammer.
Where were you, Michael Vick? Were you
hunting with a dog, Michael Vick? Were you
quiet, Michael Vick. Shhh...fall asleep,
Michael Vick. Hit me in the end zone, Michael Vick.
You'll never be a voice in SHREK, Michael Vick.
Kujo called...he wants his sequel back.

2007-08-18T23:54:00.000-07:00

dear posh,

Ive flown too close to the sun
I am the gallexy
my tan is the wholeness
that holds you like
a grapefruit in
havana
your rape victum haircut
bends
there was this time I played in italy
and this little
korean man jumped on the field and
we walked thourgh the tunnel
there hand in hand

luv,
becks

2007-06-17T11:04:00.000-07:00

US drag car race death toll rises

The car reportedly fish-tailed and then spun into the crowd

Three more people have died after an accident at a drag car race in the US, bringing the death toll to seven.

I've set my tires afire
in the rally in the ally
down in the moonshine valley
where the tanktops ride
in ragtops
and theinfield RVs
squawk with CBs
and ABC motorsports
broadcasts Fords
on the wideworld of sports.
Teenagers love popcorn
cokes, exhaust
on cars painted so purple
they can only explode
never rust.
Sometimes the car bucks
like a bull
in Pamplona. Sometimes
the kids don't come home.

2007-05-30T19:08:00.000-07:00

Fox New's John Gibson the "Uglyist Man In America"?

The environmentalists are at it again in Alaska. You all know about how we can't get a gazillion barrels of oil out of the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge — ANWR — and now the anti-oil crowd is demanding the rest of Alaska be off limits to oil exploration, too.

This is a line from an AP story today about western Alaska, one of the few places in the world we don't have to send troops to protect an oil supply. The AP story says: "Conservationists hope an eventual listing of the yellow-billed loon will curb petroleum development in the 23-million acre reserve that covers much of Alaska's western North Slope."

That's 400,000-square-miles of Alaska they want off limits to oil over the yellow-billed loon.

Let me introduce you to the yellow-billed loon. There are 16,000 of them in the world, and about 5,000 nest in the area where oil exploration would be allowed. Let's remember the enviros and their liberal enablers are always saying we're fighting for oil in Iraq. Now let's just say they're right for a moment. That means the enviros value 5,000 yellow-billed loons more than a like number of American soldiers.

2007-05-23T17:37:00.000-07:00

Television Evangelist Falwell Dies at 73

Founder of the Moral Majority Rev. Jerry Falwell Dies at 73, Liberty University Executive Says

There is a voice out there
a pixalized fiasco
a wave of beauty the lord
can not define. Mr. Falwell
what side of hell did you land
in? Are the soldiers happy
you are there with them now?
Sure,
this body is a dark art.
Sure,
this sentiment can contain
the heartbeatten rhyme. Why
must you haunt us and why must
these children appear as pilgrims
with your name upon
their lips. It's discraceful
they will never kiss the
the quivering loins of a lover.
She too is our savior. I miss her
and they miss her
like heaven they miss her
the way we miss unkown beauty,
unknown justice.

2007-05-03T20:55:00.000-07:00

New Iraqi school had bombs built in

Do you remember when we were
under the bamboo
and you kept saying,
everywhere everywhere
as though you were the noise
of the stalks and their whatever?
I never thought
words could become like that to us.
What was it
was it anything?

2007-04-28T08:47:00.000-07:00

Mouse brain simulated on computer

The remainder of this section explains how to create these files. Recommended DDK and Build Combinations.

Even you would not come back alive.

We might labour far upstream and yet miss it in the fog.

We must call for him. We know very little of Saint Rihndell's inner motivation, but we do know his repair business has existed for at least forty years.

He was always coming in and sitting down in the back of the room for about a half an hour.

Started out as a stash on Memory Lane, chips in his head and people paid to hide data there.

We may want to try to get a newer copy of the code from Netscape before shipping Vertigo.

This instruction converts 32 and 64 bit operand to an 80 bit extended precision value before pushing the value onto the floating point stack.

The dining-room was filling with unpleasant blue smoke.

We know what put English gold in his pocket. We live in a nine-storeyed block of flats.

2007-04-22T09:05:00.000-07:00

Blue Angels jet crashes during air show, killing aviator

The white ninja sleeps on his back.
He appears as lightening from space.
In photographs, he's the moon. In film:
the shadow of a dog or a horse
or a squirrel devouring a gold ring
which you perceive as a nut. He invented
the internet, the skate key, legos,
windshield wipers, the space elevator,
Kevlar, and the roundhouse.
The white ninja sneezes radiation, his blood
is an h-bomb.
The white ninja is a series of tubes
inside of tubes. His brain is an electromagnet
his penis a sonogram
he can see inside of you with it. His eyes are
a mask of bamboo breezing on the hillside
a whisper of wind releasing
the flood of eastern tears. His hands are the
sky holding 10 blue jets. When he throws
one to the ground he is not angry
only worried. The white ninja has no worries
his perspiration is a perfect religion.
The white ninja never sweats.

2007-04-20T10:14:00.000-07:00

Nina Wang, formerly Hong Kong's richest woman, has left her fortune to her feng shui adviser, her lawyer says.

Headline poem #1

Wang's riches 'for feng shui man'

2007-04-19T21:09:00.000-07:00

Once Upon a Time in the West

Bollywood stars are set for marriage
and there are 2 for 1
dances all day till 8
@ the Yellow Rose
and most
of the time I feel like Jason Robards
that harmonica playing somewhere
waiting for the man to enter
blazing 2 guns. I was watching
Star Wars at Bar Flys
with the sound off
the white titles flipping “Plug him into
the hyperdrive.” I don’t fear
being a failure
I just don’t want to be mediocre
I need to know when to give up
and I’m afraid of the guy
blazing the 2 guns.

2007-04-07T07:25:00.000-07:00

China issues new rules on organs

China has issued new regulations governing human organ transplants, state media has reported.

Are you kidding me,
I need a new kidney.
I don't care from where it came
from a yellow brother or an african babe.
I don't have time to adopt a chinese girl
and harvest one of hers:
my blood is killing me now!
I need me some organ kung-pow!

2007-04-05T20:26:00.000-07:00

I'm going in a new direction with my poems. I'm going to be more associative and ellipitical. I've noticed a lot of young poets are writing this way, and I want to try it for myself, share in the zeitgeist. Below is my first attempt.

In the Office of the 17th Flr

Goofy orbs go riding out
as the roaches speed the bottle--

a dune in the diaper,
pillboxes adding modular

approaches to the collateral.
The mouth

as health regimen.

2007-03-30T10:30:00.000-07:00

Britain and Iran raise the stakes

Britain and Iran have raised the diplomatic and propaganda temperature in the battle over the 15 captured British sailors and marines.

Row, Row, Row Your Navel Vessel

“Rowing is a skillful, if tedious, practice that takes perfection but also directs the vessel.” —Wikipedia

Row, row, row your navel vessel
Gently into international waters,
Merrily, merrily, merrily,
Until Iran seizes it in the name of Al Fater,
And Blair demands “gimme back my man”
Or the shit will hit the proverbial fan—
Merrily, merrily, merrily,
We’re going to bomb Iran.

2007-03-29T17:49:00.000-07:00

Senate backs Iraq withdrawal date

US troops in Iraq: Coming home soon?

The US Senate has passed a bill calling for all US combat troops to leave Iraq within a year, defying a veto threat.

Iraqus Interuptus

also known as withdrawal or the pull out method, is a method of de-occupation in which, during armed occupation, the Americans are removed from Iraq prior to stabilization, primarily to avoid introducing peace into the region. Coitus interruptus may also more generally refer to any extraction of the army prior to ejaculation during intercourse. This method has been widely used for at least 2,000 years and was used by an estimated 38 million nations worldwide in 1991. Iraqus interruptus often results in pregnancy and civil war.

2007-03-17T12:00:00.000-07:00

From the Journals of Star Trek the Next Generation's Wesley Crusher

I had to wait outside the holodeck
for like 3 hours waiting for
the captain to finish pretending
he's sherlock holmes. I finally got
in there and was
banging the 6 tited alien chick
in my harem program
when Jordi La Forge barged in.
He was all like
what the f--- are you doing
and I said, what does it look
like I'm doing
and he said, you can' t do
that in here. And i said
what, are you going to tell my mom.
he didn't say anything
so I swiped his glasses from him
and loaded my nascar racetrack
program.

2007-03-06T12:24:00.000-08:00

White House official Libby guilty

Lewis Libby outside court in Washington
Lewis "Scooter" Libby was a key figure in the White House
A former key White House official, Lewis Libby, has been found guilty of obstruction of justice and perjury.

Red Rover (a poem)

Red Rover, Red Rover, send Scooter over

to Federal pound-you-in-the-ass-prison.

2007-02-20T18:30:00.000-08:00

Britney, your head.

Hair is our enemy.
The axis of evil? Hair, hair,
and hair. It tried to
take over our vaginas,
Britney, but you defeated it.
It tried to take over
our heads, Britney, but you
prevailed. I wonder if
it isn't growing on your babies.
I wonder if you wonder.
I wonder if you look at Lindsay,
at Paris, and are horrified.
Their colonized heads.
They are mere husks. We
are mere husks, the hair crawling
from body to body as it
outgrows us. Go back to that
salon, Britney. The hair
won't be there, scattered on the
floor. It got hungry.

2007-02-08T14:57:00.000-08:00

Entertainment: Anna Nicole Smith dies

The Playboys are crying
their blank pages like
busted teeth
a negative whiteness
like the albino black
an octogenarian millionaire
an airbrushed tattoo
a bang-bang photo of loss.
Anna Nichole, we cry out for your
ponderous life, Danielynne
cries for your ponderous bosom.
Our pages cry out
People and US and Enquirer
cry out in glee,
"TrimSpa, Baby!"

2007-01-10T04:17:00.000-08:00

Gerald Rudolph Ford (born Leslie Lynch King, Jr., July 14, 1913 – December 26, 2006

Pardon me, Leslie,
America's first and
only king--not a vote
was cast. You dabbed
a wounded country
with injustice. It
is still infected (CNN
has ratings-induced amnesia).
But unlike other monarchies,
America doesn't believe
in Divine Rights.
Hopefully someone will
resign or get impeached
from heaven. As for me,
I'll be dodging it.
But I'm not worried,
you'll let us all in
--me, Squeaky, Ms. Moore
--eventually.

2007-01-05T08:22:00.000-08:00

Soul 'Godfather' James Brown dies

"Godfather of Soul" James Brown was being treated for "severe pneumonia" in an Atlanta hospital when he died.

It's a man's man's man's man's world.

This is a man's world, this is a man's world
But it wouldn't be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl

You see, man made the cars to take us over the road
Man made the trains to carry heavy loads
Man made electric light to take us out of the dark
Man made the boat for the water, like Noah made the ark

This is a man's, a man's, a man's world
But it wouldn't be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl

Man thinks about a little baby girls and a baby boys
Man makes then happy 'cause man makes them toys
And after man has made everything, everything he can
You know that man makes money to buy from other man

This is a man's world
But it wouldn't be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl

He's lost in the wilderness
He's lost in bitterness

2006-12-30T08:10:00.000-08:00

Saddam Hussein executed in Iraq

The former Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, has been hanged in northern Baghdad for crimes against humanity.

Justice, in the name of the people,
has carried out the death against Saddam,
facing fate like an immigrant in this land,
frightened and terrified
the book like a broken promise in his hands.
Peer on, White Ninja, his body wrapped
in a shroud. Unhooded, oh ninja.
Where were the cameras when he dropped?
Were the rest of his charges dropped?
Was justice swift so Baghdad streets
can rise from the darkness,
a nightmare dreamt by insurgents
not this blathering figurehead
ugly, impotent, abandoned.

2006-12-21T11:03:00.000-08:00

Britney, your vagina.

The umbrella of its
blondeness protects us.
Makes us a different
country. Desertless.
There is no wilderness
inside Paris’ ride; we
are with your babies.
We are behind every
camera you see. We
are not at war. We know
where we are. Lostness
has been lost—we
are where the panties
used to be.

2006-11-14T08:38:00.000-08:00

Spederline tape for sale:

The News of the World story also alleges that the real reason that Britney suddenly decided to divorce him was because she caught Kevin cheating on her

In a fog/haze he arrises
past dawn, his dawgs around
the VIP room, the big screen on
why the hell did Brittney
leave him? The thrill may be gone
and 'Y'all Ain't Ready'
has totally bombed
so he needs to be the daddy.
Whether slutburned
or pre-nupburned
isn't he still K-fed?
His fans love him
when Britt is with Jared.
At least the tape's worth 26 million.

2006-11-08T16:05:00.000-08:00

Rumsfeld replaced after poll loss

It's difficult in times like these
to write a happy poem
for how can we, the framers of history,
catalyze this joy with an image?
The Capitol bustles with movers in the halls,
but surely still, in an office somewhere
there is a fat man putting himself
into an intern. When the cars explode in Baghdad
surely there is chocolate for the soldiers
to offer the children. Don,
you admit there are
known knowns, and known unkowns
and unknown unkowns, but where the fuck
are you hiding Osama Bin Laden.

2006-11-05T09:25:00.000-08:00

Saddam sentenced to death:
a sonnet

I am the president of Iraq.
I am above you and your father.
I am the president of Iraq.
What about the innocents killed in Bagdad?
I am the president of Iraq.
Long live the nation.
I am the president of Iraq.
Down with the traitors.
I am the president of Iraq.
Down with the invaders.
I am the president of Iraq.
To hell with your articles and clauses.
God is with me!
Hit yourself on the head with that gavel!

2006-11-04T08:30:00.000-08:00

Powerful pastor's drug purchases shocks evangelicals

STATEMENT OF FAITH
adapted from http://www.tedhaggard.com/

Holy Bible: Left in my car when I go to the house of the prostitute.

Trinity: One preacher, one prostitute, crystal meth.

Jesus Christ: One preacher, 13 men. Where's the meth?

Virgin Birth: Sex with another man, no pregency.

Redemption: The preacher was created good and upright, the prostitute bent over.

Regeneration: For anyone to know man love, meth is essential.

Salvation: Meth is a gift from God, not a result of our good works or of any human effort.

Sanctification: Sanctification is the ongoing process of yielding to a prostitute.

Repentance: Repentance is the commitment to turn away from sin in every area of our lives, but sometimes, you just gotta get stoned and screw a dude.

2006-10-22T16:23:00.000-07:00

The Day Habeas Corpus Died

the law a tranquilizer
dulling beautiful liberty
made fat
by the senators who call to her
who fist her cash
like rimjobs
the constitution lays
catlike in the isle
raped and loose
like an asshole that's
been fucked for years
by a brutal lover
priveledged enough
to sponge himself
on her pages

2006-10-17T07:19:00.000-07:00

Two metro trains collide in Rome
One person was killed and about 110 were injured when two metro trains collided during the morning rush hour in Rome, officials say.

If a metro
leaves the station
Piazza Vittorio
Emanuel II
traveling 5 m/s
toward a metro
loading passengers
1 a second
until 300 are inside
how many will die
when the trains collide?

2006-10-13T17:33:00.000-07:00

Manhattan Plane Crash Kills Yankee Pitcher

In a bullpen of the Yankees

This large object falling from the sky;
For Joe Torre, another black eye.

2006-10-10T06:53:00.000-07:00

China urges UN action on N Korea
"The nuclear test... marks a historic event... It will contribute to defending peace and stability"

We planted you, dark ark,
a nimbus which blooms in the ground.
Do you know how they listen?
Their white fingers sift
the soil like army ants
across oceans, across history.
What will they say when you flower
in darkness, a light no one sees? You're our
debutante, matured in mystery,
clothed in white, a haloed crown
set to your head. Your cuckold brother
will rise in ceremonial suits,
and his rivals will bear swords
quaking in fear to herald your birth.

2006-10-08T08:48:00.000-07:00

Pete Rose Offers His Picks for the Post Season on National Television

He scuttles the night with moans
"Oh Baseball! Oh Baseball."
Waking, he reaches for the phone.
Into the speed dial he says,
"Oh Baseball. Oh Baseball."
He showers, remebers the locker room
and the kamakazi fever,
cursing the Yankees.
He gets a cab outside the hotel.
He's wearing a Reds polo.
No one seems to see him.
In the television studio
the cameras are on
he has memorized his picks.
The Twins. The Padres.
He believed in WMDs.
If he were a betting man
he would have bet things
had turned out better.

2006-10-04T15:55:00.000-07:00

Foley scandal could damage GOP in election

The Island of Joshua, A Mark Foley Dreamscape

On the Island of Joshua
there is a sad man
with a cell phone.
He punches the keys
with his enormous thumbs.
He sits on a government
that doesn't run.
and sometimes he rubs his thumbs.
He's filled with billions.
Billions and billions.
He sits on a fat wallet.
On the island of Josh
the page boys live
among the Foley
like monkeys live among
the trees.

2006-10-02T12:02:00.000-07:00

"Come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord." (II Corinthians 6:17)

There is a white house, and there is
a stove. There are many desks
and writing on the blackboard. The world
is set against us. The world is set
and we against it. There is a window
next to the stove
and a carriage in the window. The horse
lays back its ears
and then shivers. If there is a heaven
heaven must have a door. If hell,
hell must have a hole.
We are set against the world.
When the door opens
the door of hell opens fire.
So does the gunman.

2006-09-21T06:18:00.000-07:00

To Bangkok

Oh, sword of the white ninja
where have you gone?
I've been un-manned by the Thai concubine:
unbeckonned, she arrives
at my door at night
bringing her paid blockade.
I am limp with coup. My coup...
Believing in a deserved rest
a "sun outage" blocks the satalite.
She turns off the Television,
she slickens my streets with tanks.
The room falls quiet.
White ninja, your sword.
She is loaded with ping pong
balls.

2006-09-19T09:56:00.000-07:00

I've been noticing that a lot of poets out there are writing poems that are a part of a larger series. So I thought I'd give it a try. Here's a follow up to my Iraq poem. I was thinking I could write one for every wore-torn country or every country with a fascist regime that will probably become wore-torn. But this time I will not rhyme. Ooops. I did it again (like Britney Spears).

Dear Iran,

I will bear the cell phone of a non-
wore-torn country and debate you on
it. Since George Bush won't. Mahmoud,
I'm talking to you. Just what kind of dude
do you think you are, with your beard
and your nukes? Can you not hear
the tears of future-dead children?
Can you cure their cancer? Since when
do you treat the U. S. of A. like some weak
country? I'm like Hulk Hogan, and you...the Iron Sheik.

Sorry. I couldn't help but rhyme. It's just in me.

2006-09-14T14:58:00.000-07:00

I couldn't figure out how to spell pussy in that last poem, like pus comes out of the boils, not pu$$y like cat or the bang-bang, but like ejaculates from the skin.

2006-09-14T14:14:00.000-07:00

Did you know Iraq didn't have cell phones? Well, they didn't and they still don't. Out of all the things the United States can do you'd think they could get Cingular or Verizon there. But they can't. Recently I have been worried about the growing violence in Iraq. I know we are there as a nation in order to free and protect these people, but sometimes I wonder if we aren't doing more harm than good. Many news stories have come out in the last few days about how the United States in Iraq has made life in the Middle East worse. How is that possible, you may ask, how can life there be any worse.

Dear Iraq,

I will bear the sword of the white ninja
to regect all who have sinned against you (Saddam!)
and slash the hypocracites in their pus-y boiles
as the sectarian violence rolls and roils
neighbors and foreign governments covet your oil
and force you into the refugees toil.
Who will come to aid you when you are alone
crying greivious cries into inoperable cell phones?
I will come to you like Billy Baldwin in the night
bringing blazing Democracy to make your country right.

2006-09-12T14:15:00.000-07:00

Seagulls in the Light

On the beach, a box of light
Where a few seagulls stand
And peck for scraps.
They flap
Their wings if a passerby
Comes to close
Or a stiff breeze blows
Their feathers.

I throw them a piece
Of my sandwich,
Which they scuffle with each other over.

I turn to you.
How many times have we,
Like the seagulls,
Scuffled over scraps of that coveted bread
We feel we can’t live without
Only to realize,
In the calm that follows the storm,
That what we were fighting over was little,
And that we have wings
And can fly
together

Or fall?

2006-09-12T11:57:00.000-07:00

To MFA or Not, That is My Question

I know many of you have mfa degrees, and many people tell me this is the only to get published or get a job. I'm thinking about applying, but to where? Here's my list so far:

Iowa (because Robert Lowell and WD Snodgrass went there)
NYU (Galway Kinnel & Sharon Olds are great poets, so they must be awesome teachers)
Columbia
Ohio
Boston U (I love Seamus Heaney)

I'm thinking two NYC schools because I love the New York School.

Any suggestions?

2006-09-12T07:16:00.000-07:00

This is a poem I wrote when I was at a summer workshop a few years ago. I was listening to this woman's story of how she was abused. Everyone in the workshop was really worried about her well being and we spent a good hour learning all about her life.

Thought maybe I could write a poem like her. This is what I came up with. I showed it to a friend and they thought I was the subject of the poem, but I am not. This is for that woman.

I didn’t want him touching my Rabbit

The reckoning aftermath
You feel like the moment itself
It is real, harrowing, and unbearable
Isolation
It could have started at twelve
Some sort of confrontation

Things die along the way
As they must
This is different
A rotting child
We all have to forgive our parents
You know what you did
Keep telling the story
Or kill yourself

2006-09-12T07:11:00.000-07:00

Every time I read a new book by a gay poet I start to think that maybe I would get more exposure if I were gay. Last night I was reading Richard Silken's Crush. It is a really good book. Very intense and it deals with issues of homosexuality, love, abuse, sex. I highly reccomend it.

But after I put the book down, I started thinking of all the gay poets that publish and what their books are like. It often feels like gay poets get to have a different standard than straight poets. Like, if I were to pick up a book of poems that are page after page of straight sex poems, I'd probably be turned off by all the sex. But with gay poets, its totally okay to write poems about sex and romantic love. It seems to help if the romantic love is with an abusive person or somebody dying of AIDS. There are plenty of poems about poets loving people dying of cancer, but they just don't seem to pack the same wallop as a dying-of-AIDS poem.

I'm sure this is only a partial list of poets who deal with these issues, but these are the ones I can think of off the top of my head:
Walt Whitman
Shakespeare
Emily Dickenson
WH Auden
Murial Rukeyser (SP???)
Molly Peacock
Henri Cole
Mark Doty
Richard Silken
Spencer Reece
DA Powell

It may also help to be a little insane.

2006-09-11T20:51:00.000-07:00

You may want to click on the links I put up on the right.

The first is the Academy of American poets which features tons of poems and great poets. Many of the living Academy poets win a lot of the big prizes. Its always been my secret dream to win the Yale Younger for my first book.

I have poety daily, which I check religiously everyday. They have some great poems from the countries best poets and journals. It's really helped me discover great poems.

Last I have Ron Silman's blog. I don't know much about him but he is supposed to be like the uberblogger of the poetry blogsphere. At least that is what Wikipedia told me when I was doing some internet research on poetry blogs.

Looking back over the posts from today, I think I am going to like this blogging thing. I probably won't always post as much as today, but I'll try to be as regular as possible.

2006-09-11T16:30:00.000-07:00

I finally discovered the poem that to me, perfectly gets at that dark place I felt in my chest on that fateful day. The poem is by the great Mexican poet, Fredrico Garcia Lorca, who in my opinion is right up there with the greatest poets of all time: Whitman, Hass, Olds, Marvin, Siken and Jackson (Major).

Dawn
—a translation of Fredrico Garcia Lorca

Dawn in New York bears
two columns of ash
and a tornado of black pigeons
dappling the water with their throats slit.

Dawn in New York morns
on the escalators of air
which lead out to a red ocean
where seagulls and wreaths of garlic drift.

Dawn descends with no lips to kiss it,
because today no morning or promise is possible.
Only on occasion, the exquisite singing of coins
that splash in the cups of the blind, which remind us
we were children.

The quick on the streets know not to dream:
for them, no new Eden, no love deleafing;
they seek a new hieroglyph in the sky, primed to choke
any sport devoid of genius and the sweat which knows no profit.

Light is drowned in steel, endless alarms,
and the terror of technology: rootless, dispeopled, unable to shadow.
And dazed there, staggering like ghostwalkers— the insomniacs,
as if narrowly emerging from an apocalypse.

And below is my humble response to the beautiful words of Garcia Lorca. My attempt is not to try to write a great poem like Lorca (because let’s face it, that’s impossible!!), but to write more like we write today, while still using some of that Surrealism that made Lorca’s poem so memorable:

Dawn 2
—after Garcia Lorca

Lorca, you couldn’t imagine
what those planes looked like
(if they even had planes back in your day)
flying into those two silver towers
like metal birds flying into metal trees.
Words cannot describe these things.

2006-09-11T15:36:00.000-07:00

Thinking about writing a september 11th poem, i find it really hard to think of a way to capture the image of the planes hitting the towers. Maybe one will come to me.

I am also reminded of Cate Marvin's book World's Tallest Disaster. It came out before the disaster of September 11th, but that title always makes me think of the towers falling down. That's a really good book. If you don't know who Cate Marvin is, she edited an excellent new anthology of contemporary younger poets called Legitimate Dangers. I would have liked to have been in it, but I don't have a book out yet. I always feel I'm behind the curve on those things anyway. If only I can get my manuscript in front of the right judge.

2006-09-11T15:33:00.000-07:00

I thought that I would write a September 11th poem to commemorate today. I haven't had time to do it yet, so I decided to post this old poem from when I went to visit NYC a few years ago.

THE SUN

Big

Yellow

as the Sun

brighter than Times Square

making plants

happy

and grow good

weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

come shine

on me
real good

My First Blog Post!

2006-09-11T14:40:00.000-07:00

Hi everybody!

This is my first blog posting! Having gotten very little exposure in the print world, I have decided to post my poems and ideas here on my blog! I hope you like my poems! I just can't get enough of words!

Gil Childers