12/12/2010

Charlotte 2, or Another Poem from iWPS: Poem-a-day #346

The housekeeper at my hotel room door
is trying to tell me something.
She points to my unmade bed,
the freshly stacked towels,
says she is sorry the sheets
are still pulled back and rumpled.
I start to tell her it's okay, no problem,
de nada, when the Albanian poet
speaks up:
she's saying she didn't make your bed
because you left your pajamas on it,
and she won't touch your personal things.

And now, translation's grateful wake of smiles
passes through the room, and I tell
the housekeeper not to worry.
As the door closes, the Albanian rocks
her baby close, and explains
I speak immigrant.
I do, too. But I speak the kind
of a man with a foreign engineering degree
pacing Manhattan with the kind of hunger
it takes to feed a family.
It's true, sometimes, what they say
about our own kind.
Another Jew hired him, took a chance
on the greenhorn, saw him
through his night school master's degree.
The humble language of service,
of people's rumpled and unwashed selves,
is one I was never expected to learn;
my door, a threshold
of Babel.

12/11/2010

Charlotte 1, or Poem from iWPS

It's been a great two nights here in Charlotte. The poetry quality is high, and the competition has been full of surprises. I've gotten to spend time with many of my usual suspects, and some newer friends, who've come to the forefront in others' absences. And now, Poem-a-day #345:

Sometimes, I forget: many poets
don't know I can sing.
And the kids I teach don't know
that I struggle through the same
assignments I bring to their table.
And then Claire picks up her banjo
and begins to practice
on the edge of our beds,
filling the spaces between
the day's many, many words.
It is the most beautiful kind of
noise, this time of day.
I never believed my mother
when she told me she loved
to hear my piano mistakes
over and over again
from the next room.
Claire stops a lot,
and sometimes sighs
at herself like a swear word.
She apologizes for the mistakes,
and I think of my mother,
chopping onions in time to
halted Chopin preludes,
begging me to keep going
when the timer went off.

12/09/2010

Somewhere over Minnesota 1, or We Really Live in the Future

So, I write this from a plane, which makes it a little hard to tell where I am, because the clouds are in the way. In yet another moment brought to you by We Live In The Future, Now, I am on a plane, on the internet, for free. Seriously.

Anyway, I've been traveling again, which means it's time to blog! I flew down from Seattle to San Francisco on Sunday, and happily bounced around from D's new house (complete with three delightful, warm, welcoming housemates) to visiting beloved cousins J and A up at their house on the big hill in Santa Rosa.

My first night in the Bay area, I went to a small house show that seemed a lot like the Kibbutz's montly Coffeehouse - friends gathering to share artistic work and get feedback. One thing this show did differently was require artists to ask for exactly what kind of feedback they wanted. One person showed video clips of her new clowning act. Another did a monologue about her new one-woman show, still in the research phases. I read a few poems. We ate salmon and greens and tabouli, and talked about heady art things. I haven't had such an abstract conversation since college, I think, but I enjoyed it.

I did a small house show at J&A's place, which is uniquely suited for poetry house shows - it's really as much an art space as it is a house, thanks to A, who has spent the last couple of decades in paint, jewelry and sculpture. About five of their friends came over to nosh, drink, and hear from "J's young cousin, who's passing through town and reciting poems." I got to read a whole bunch from the Raizl/Rachel series, as well as some smaller work - less of the big slam stuff. They loved it. I loved it. Honestly, I love performing to people my parents' age. There's something about that generation - they're so unjaded about poetry, so completely unsullied by expectation. Or rather, their expectations are so incredibly low that I can be sure I'll surprise them in a good way.

Next up: Charlotte, NC, where I'll be volunteering at the Individual World Poetry Slam. Take advantage of the time change, loves - give me a call!

(this entry has been Posted From An Airplane. Seriously. Seriously.)