Blues

by Elizabeth Alexander

I am lazy, the laziest
girl in the world. I sleep during
the day when I want to, 'til
my face is creased and swollen,
'til my lips are dry and hot. I
eat as I please: cookies and milk
after lunch, butter and sour cream
on my baked potato, foods that
slothful people eat, that turn
yellow and opaque beneath the skin.
Sometimes come dinnertime Sunday
I am still in my nightgown, the one
with the lace trim listing because
I have not mended it. Many days
I do not exercise, only
consider it, then rub my curdy
belly and lie down. Even
my poems are lazy. I use
syllabics instead of iambs,
prefer slant to the gong of full rhyme,
write briefly while others go
for pages. And yesterday,
for example, I did not work at all!
I got in my car and I drove
to factory outlet stores, purchased
stockings and panties and socks
with my father's money.

To think, in childhood I missed only
one day of school per year. I went
to ballet class four days a week
at four-forty-five and on
Saturdays, beginning always
with plie, ending with curtsy.
To think, I knew only industry,
the industry of my race
and of immigrants, the radio
tuned always to the station
that said, Line up your summer
job months in advance. Work hard
and do not shame your family,
who worked hard to give you what you have.
There is no sin but sloth. Burn
to a wick and keep moving.


I avoided sleep for years,
up at night replaying
evening news stories about
nearby jailbreaks, fat people
who ate fried chicken and woke up
dead. In sleep I am looking
for poems in the shape of open
V's of birds flying in formation,
or open arms saying, I forgive you, all.

online class irony?

i'm took an online class this past summer. it was an online course on teaching online courses. would that be considered irony? i suppose not.

irony

1. 1. The use of words to express something different from and often opposite to their literal meaning.
   2. An expression or utterance marked by a deliberate contrast between apparent and intended meaning.
   3. A literary style employing such contrasts for humorous or rhetorical effect.
2. 1. Incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs.
   2. An occurrence, result, or circumstance notable for such incongruity.

(I guess it's more "cosmic irony" -- something that appears "as if in mockery of the fitness or rightness of things")

Edna Staebler

"Don't try to become, simply search; open your eyes and your heart and your mind -- writing is feeling and observation. Observe. Be sensitive. Seek always truth, beauty and kindness and write about it. You become what you look for."

california poppies

solitary on long stems;
four fans neatly coiled
inside the pointed elf cap of the flower bud --
soon to be pushed off by expanding petals
leaving behind at the base
a pink ring.

entire hillsides along the coasts of california
were washed in reflected sunlight
from satin orange-gold blossoms
rising out of blue green carrot-like foliage,
causing russian mariners to exclaim
"This is the land of fire!"

the spanish called them:

copa de oro --
"cup of gold,"
harmonious with indian legend
that the gold in california comes
from fallen poppy petals.

and sometimes

dormidera --
"the drowsy one,"
when at dusk
petals fold in on themselves
and nearly disappear.

the day i married you
i held them nestled
in sweet alyssum;
dense clusters of tiny
snow-white flowers
cushioning each orange bloom.