separate ways

I would like you
if you were different.
Don’t go changing
to try and please me,
but I would like you
quite a bit more
if you were a little
smarter and a lot
prettier than you
currently are. And I bet
you would like me
just a tad dumber
and a whole lot
less honest than I am,
but the thing is,
I’m not—and neither
are you, which means
we should either
go our separate ways
or work to separate
ourselves from what
we want to be different
about one another so
that then it would be
just us, gazing empty
eyed at each other,
stripped of any sense
of ownership, like
two unrented Chevys
in the Alamo lot.

make lemonade

If you make lemonade
does that automatically imply
that you have experienced
disappointments and failures
in life and handled them well.
I want to know if it does.
I would like to make lemonade
but don’t want to send
the wrong message. My life
has been really nice so far.
No one in my immediate
family has died or faced
grave illness. I have not
experienced financial hardship
or any sort of emotional trauma.
Yet I would like to make
lemonade—make it & drink it
as an expression of happiness.
By making lemonade I want
to show people that I have
an easygoing & carefree nature.

how to lock a door

I don’t know how to lock a door!
Do I tape a clump of hair on it!
Do I wrap a braid around it!
How am I supposed to lock a door!

A ha, this is what a pick is for!
Guys used to go around with picks
sticking up from their hair!
Cool guys! Picks are for locks!

I wish I were a picador!
I would wear a white hat
and lance many bulls!
Bulls with foamy hides!

poetry scene

the get born boys

papal paypal

I’d like to buy indulgences online.
Is there a way to do that?

losers weepers

.
POINT

The tension between
damned-if-you-do-
damned-if-you-don’t
pessimism and once-
saved-always-saved
optimism can be resolved
in finders-keepers-
losers-weepers realism,
the basic premise
of which is as follows:

A person who finds
a thing that has been lost
by another person
finds also the right
of ownership to that thing.
Therefore the finding
person is referred to
as the “keeping” person,
and the losing person,
it is said, “weeps.”

The underlying assumption
of finders-keepers-
losers-weepers
realism is that a thing
and the right to its
ownership are intrin-
sically connected.

The benefit of such
an approach is that
the concept of ownership
is greatly simplified.
There is no need
for law or enforcement
beyond the application
of one simple principle.
Participants in a society
guided by finders-keepers-
losers-weepers realism
are neither damned
nor saved—or at least
such considerations
are rendered superfluous.

For such people, reality
is merely a matter
of things and, by virtue
of brute possession,
ownership of those things.

.
COUNTERPOINT

Finders-keepers-
losers-weepers
realism depends on
somewhat less than hardy
losers. This philosophy
depends on losers who cast
about, frailly—perhaps
half dressed, upon a divan?—
in any case, weeping
at having lost both a thing
and its title instead of
appealing to reason
to reclaim the lost
thing according to their
rights. Losers must
stand up for their lost
things, not go about
making fools of themselves
by crying and having their
mascara all running down
upon their shirt collars!

.

this morning

I went to Jesus’ room
to wake him for church
but he was already up.
I could hear the shower
running—steam was
pouring out from under
the bathroom door.

education

What is a tree?
It is a cloud
of sticks and leaves.

What is a cloud?
Long pale roots
of vaporous air.

What is hair?
It is shadows
thrown by fire.

And what is fire?
A tree that grows
from the seed
of your kiss.

eight kates!

.
Observable Readings presents
EIGHT KATES!
April 3, 2008 - 8PM

Kate Colby, Cate Marvin, Katie Ford, Kate Greenstreet, Katie Peterson, Kate Pringle, Kate Schapira, and Katy Lederer will fly to St. Louis and read together on one unprecedented occasion!!

Okay, so it’s not entirely unprecedented. You may remember the Ten Jens…
http://poetryfoundation.org/dispatches/dispatches.reading.html?id=179545

The Five Aarons…
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/features/feature.onpoets.html?id=177758

and maybe even the Three Stephanies. But who knew there were so many Kate poets?

*At the Bottleworks in Maplewood* *FREE!*

For directions and more info: http://observable.org

* * * * * * *

Kate Colby is author of Unbecoming Behavior (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2007) and Fruitlands (Litmus Press, 2006). Recent work can be found in Bay Poetics, New American Writing and Vanitas. She lives in Providence.

Cate Marvin’s first book, World’s Tallest Disaster (Sarabande, 2001), was awarded the Kathryn A. Morton Prize by Robert Pinksy. She is co-editor with Michael Dumanis of Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century (Sarabande, January 2006). Her poems have appeared in The Paris Review, Poetry, Slate, and elsewhere.

Katie Ford is the author of Deposition and Colosseum (Graywolf Press, 2002 and 2008), as well as a chapbook, Storm (Marick Press, 2007). Her work has appeared in The American Poetry Review, Poets & Writers, Partisan Review, Seneca Review, and Ploughshares. She is Poetry Editor of New Orleans Review and currently teaches at Franklin & Marshall College.

Kate Greenstreet is the author of case sensitive (Ahsahta Press, 2006) and Learning the Language (Etherdome Press, 2005). Visit her online at kickingwind.com.

Katie Peterson is the author of This One Tree, published by New Issues. Beginning in the Fall of 2007, she will be the Robert Aird Professor of Humanities and Poet in Residence at Deep Springs College. She was born in California.

Kate Pringle has one chapbook: Temper and Felicity are Lovers, out on TAXT. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Fourteen Hills, 42opus, Alice Blue, Denver Quarterly, Dusie, foursquare, & more.

Kate Schapira lives and writes in Providence, where she organizes the Publicly Complex reading series, and teaches throughout Rhode Island. Her chapbook, Phoenix Memory, is available from horse less press.

Katy Lederer is the author of Winter Sex (Verse Press, 2002) and The Heaven-Sent Leaf (BOA Editions, forthcoming 2008), as well as the memoir Poker Face: A Girlhood Among Gamblers (Crown, 2003).

the were-doe

I have a friend
who turns into a doe
when the moon is full.

It is weird.

godzilla

Kissing you makes me feel like Godzilla!
I warned her. Oh wow, she responded.
That makes me so happy and warm inside.
Maybe you’re being sarcastic, but it’s true!

I said. She said, I was being sarcastic,
but is there a time today I can see you?
I want to use my lips to turn you
into a scaly monster, she warned me.

I want you to be all teeth like saw blades
and flames shooting out of your snout.
And I said, wait a second, not a dragon:
Godzilla. Fire comes out of his mouth.

She was quiet for awhile. I can’t believe
you’re correcting me when we’re both
being funny, she said. She was quiet again,
then added, I want you to be human.

2005 is an important year for alec baldwin

Even getting him in for an interview
These days is like meeting W. for coffee:
Unless you’re a hotshot African ambassador
It just ain’t happenin’, no how, no way.

Ten years ago he named his daughter Ireland.
Fifteen years ago he fell for Kim Basinger.
Five years ago they broke up.
Thirty years ago his sister Jane was born.

Ten years from now…? In 2005 his star
Is still rising, mysteriously,
Like an Applebee’s balloon over Santa Fe.
He is a confident, slightly scary man.

(published in LIT)

billy baldwin

So Billy Baldwin was on my flight back from California today, and we talked for about ten minutes. Our kids are approximately the same ages, and we’re both contemplating moving to L.A., and we’re both interested in improv/comedy, so we had some things to talk about. He told me he’d enjoyed performing in The Moth and that they were going to do something similar in L.A. and that I should look into it. He actually said that I should have my people contact his agent about it. I KNOW!

I also told him that I’d written a poem about his brother Alec, and i asked him to tell Alec about it. I wrote him a note so that he wouldn’t forget:

   Dear Mr. Baldwin,

   The Bird Hoverer (2007)
   by Aaron Belz

   contains the poem
   “2005 Is an Important Year
   for Alec Baldwin” (p.47)

   it is something of a paean—

   would you mind telling
   your brother about it,
   perhaps?

   Gratefully,
      the author
      http://belz.net

Anyway, he promised he’d look up the poem and tell Alec about it.

Ahh, California.

pioneers at the foot of the rockies

“Bit of an impass” says one—
hardy farm gentleman, six horses
pulling all his possessions.

“Maybe we head north a while,”
says another. And just as he says
it, a fierce wind descends upon

them, and their hats sail away
into the twilight. “Lost our hats,”
says one, patiently. “Believe

you may be right about heading
north a while,” he adds, scratching
his forehead and chewing a bit

of leather, patiently. “Believe
you’re right,” he says, more quietly,
scanning the horizon to the north

and just as he gets back on his horse,
another fierce wind comes down
upon the two gentlemen and blows

away their families and wagons,
so now it is just them sitting
on their horses at the foot

of the Rockies. Says the other, “I
think we’re alone now.” Says the one,
eyes smiling, “There doesn’t seem

to be anyone around.” They sing,
“I think we’re alone now! The beating
of our hearts is the only sound!!’

So they chop up their horses for
kindling and build a fire, and that’s
where they settle—and that, children,

is how the City of Denver got its start.