small confessions & pebbles of regret

jenna, our wonderful rubicon press editor, sent a note last night to tell alex stolis and me that our chapbook small confessions & pebbles of regret is now available! yay! it's taken a while longer than planned, but it's actually better this way, because otherwise it would have been out at the same time as my secret meanings.

you can find (and buy) the collection at rubicon press, or you can wait and get a signed copy (possibly even signed by both alex and me) from either one of us. i'll let you know when i/we have some copies. watch this space.

here are two poems from the chapbook - the first one by alex and the second by me:

Dear J_______

I want to forget you ever loved me, forget that time can stop the bleeding
and it's possible to walk again after my legs have been broken.

Let's go back to the city where we met—I'll wait in the restaurant
where you watched me make a fool of myself with that dark Rapunzel.

If it were possible to fly and watch stars waver in place, teeter on the brink
then topple down a mountain—I wouldn't want to change my name again

and again. I should know how this works—there are only so many miracles
to go around and mine have been pawed over by too many greedy hands

and now I find I have nothing. I think about waking up godless and hung-over,
waiting for ocean waves to collapse on the beach, hoping for someone

to fish me out of the sea. We are supposed to believe that death is bold—
a loud noise from behind, the roar of a train, the sharp crack of a gun

and beginnings are never sudden movements, they're soft and unobtrusive.
Last chances are smoky bar rooms overflowing with harsh consequences,

consequences that will cut you off at the knees and leave you blind.
I rearrange the faces of lost friends and lovers

until all that's left is a punch-drunk Sisyphus, stranded on a hill—
disenchanted and ordinary.


Ever yours,

L_______

* * *

Dear L_______,

Unlearning to love you is like sucking back sand through the narrow
waist of an hourglass. I already have a desert in my throat, a desert

crossed and recrossed by words that have begun to shape my mouth:
never; again; your name. Sometimes a question slips from underneath

my tongue: Did we let it die too quickly? But we both know that death
is not bold. Death grabs what he can get, strangles his victims from

the shadows between streetlights. He chooses wisely—never anything
that will put up a fight. The end was like the beginning—a moment

we missed, the way you'd miss a landmark from the window of a train
that moves too fast, eyes aimed too high, too low until you realise

you've already gone past, and you slam down the window, crane your
neck and hear the air rush in to push all words of loss and longing

up your windpipe. There is no going back, not to a morning of soft
sunshine on unfamiliar skinscapes, not to the city where we met;

it no longer exists. Its roads have moulted, the pines shed needles
like flakes of dry skin. Everything we touched, has been touched

a thousand times since. Rapunzel's hair has fallen, again and again,
like a rope, like a ladder; the streets to her tower echo with laments.


J_______


oh and the cover photo is my dad's. :)


song of the day: iieee by tori amos.

it's official!

remember this? the collaboration project alex stolis invited me to do with him late last year? the chapbook of "letters"? remember that we sent it out to rubicon press in january? a month ago we heard that we had made it to the final round. and last night ... well, last night we heard that jenna and yvonne have decided to publish the chapbook in the fall! this is what jenna had to say:

After going through your collection several times with Yvonne, we have decided that we would very much like to publish your chapbook this fall. We found the poems you and Alex have written to be incredibly rich in imagery, texture and emotion -- an outstanding collection!

we are sooo, soooooo thrilled! and i am glad alex asked me to write that collection with him in the first place, and that i said yes. :)

so - small confessions and pebbles of regret will be out some time in october if all goes as planned - a kind of twin to my other chapbook. *g*

and thanks to everyone who was there during the process, and helped inspire me, and supported me in some way - the ITWS crowd, mainly. and to teresa for looking the manuscript over!


here are poems 5 (alex) and 6 (me):

8358 Sunset Boulevard
West Hollywood, California 90069

July 25, 19__


Dear J_______,

You told me you have dreams of Italy, bright-winged birds
and Byzantine churches. We made love in a bell tower and tasted
redemption—there were yellow hills, uneven fields, there was a sun
that created a halo above the clouds.

Now you say no to silence—believe only blues and reds will fill the void,
the void left when the last remnants of your first vision disappeared.
You say you don't want to hear the sound of water as it rushes down
the throat of First Avenue—

say you no longer care for words strung together, so carefully,
by boys who misunderstand the meaning of a wink.
You would rather comment on the beauty of stars, wait for them to fall
asleep, then leave by the backdoor without saying a word.

I was in a dream once—walking down Sunset Boulevard, a wine bottle
in my hand—there didn't seem to be an end in sight though I could see
the beginning very clearly. You were there too— Venetian-blonde hair
drying in the wind—the geometry of your face in contrast to an oblong moon.


Yours,

L_______

* * * * *

Gellertgasse 42
1100 Vienna

August 23, 19__


Dear L_______,

Yesterday the sun rose at 6.24. I carried its heat within me all day;
it triggered a longing for the sea that did not subside until I licked
salt off my thumbs, someone else's collarbone. I felt like a cradle,
a wave, a riptide in the night. You were the one I wanted to drown.
After sunset, nothing remained of the moon, the only thing that
could have plugged my well of dreams. This is what I saw—

I was bedded on pillows of kindling—throat zipped up, dry between
my legs. My tongue flicked out to spark a flame, set fire to neatly
stacked rows of corned pork, corned beef in cans with bevelled
edges. I watched it raging across the sacred rooms of childhood,
fuelled by bedtime stories, teddy bear fuzz. The attic went last,
with its nibble of mice, skeleton dolls dangling from sooty rafters.

I woke up kneeling, prayer on my parched lips. Frantic fingers
counted out colours like a wish list, all of them shades of red or
blue, all of them wearing a stranger's tired face. A siren wailed
an answer to my call. Hysterical shadows slithered down half-
closed curtains, pooled at my feet. I bit down hard on cold metal,
on glass; I sharpened blades. The noose tightened around my neck.


J_______


song of the day: happy by jenny lewis with the watson twins.