Costume Decision

I'm having my annual Halloween party and this year's theme is Pimp & Ho (last year's was 80s-inspired). I have many, many costume decisions to make. I could either go as a true ho or more along the lines of the naughty schoolgirl type (i.e., "she looks like a ho!). My question is this: which one should I lean towards more? I want to have the best costume, as Halloween is my absolute favorite holiday. I'll take any suggestions!

Thank you, Elizabeth, for Virgin Marys

My friend Elizabeth & I keep riffing off of each other's poems. I recently read her foray into prose poetry and in that poem, she makes mention of Virgin Marys. This reminded me of my Catholic upbringing, and I just had to write:

Communion


The week before, mother made ritual

of our house: blue virgin marys stood at the end
of bookshelves, the buffet table, my father’s nightstand.

She covered my head in tea towels that smelled
of flour, lemon oil, and placed flattened bread
onto my tongue. This is my body, she recited.

When she looked away, I touched my teeth
to that clean flesh, felt for the bones,
a sliver of skin and sinew.

At night, we prayed the rosary
until I fell asleep. Once, a dream:

Mother rose from a river, held open
her wounded hands, said,

this is what you’ve done.

I woke to the usual silence: clock tick,
hum of the refrigerator, the cat’s belled collar.

My father’s footfalls in the hallway were heavy-
limbed, tired. I listened as he turned on a radio,
to the pipes keening for us in the bathroom.

I called for my mother’s subtle
pink smell, her clean face.

Tomorrow, she whispered
at my cheek, is your first communion.

She tucked the beads under my pillow, lit
a votive at the Virgin’s feet on my dresser.

In the guest room, my mother
turned off a lamp and knelt beside the bed.

It was a child’s prayer: bless this house.

No gas, crazy city: write poems

Alfred Eisenstaedt Holding His VJ Day Negative With Two Hands, 1945


At first, their faces: the sailor’s nose
pressed into her neck, her cigarette mouth.

It was after the clouds had burst,
the burning towns. The rain stuttered

onto his cap and I thought of the distance
between a body and its shadow flashed

onto a wall, the stink of skin. That after-
noon, the sailor found everything

beautiful: women pulled from sidewalks,
from baby carriages, their factory rivets.

I must’ve stood there for hours, camera
slung over my shoulder, watching men leave

their bar stools, their victory newspapers.
Then, he saw her: white dress, white

stockings, red cross breast. Now, there is
only a negative: visage suddenly

dark, the city a ghost of bodies. Years, he will
not remember her lips, her downy cheek.

There will be nights of charred tongues,
blackened teeth. He will speak of flying,

the red-bombed sun. He will say there were
children, a camera-bulb blaze, a ticker-tape sky.


To the Dirt, Never Ask for an Ocean:
Dark Sky, White Sands New Mexico, 1956

after Ernest Haas

There is a city under a hood of ash.
The desert peels back to the black
sky and the only horizon is sand.
The earth is the loom of dusk. Evening:
a brush with memory. Jog the stars,
the rising dunes. Pray to the gray river-
bed for its lack of river. Kneel in this
white-swept wasteland, press your cheek
to the dirt. Never ask for an ocean.
Believe in the sunless city, this pastoral grit.

Skirting Rita

The hurricane passed about 150 miles to the east of us, so we are OK. My husband & I watched a few of the squalls roll in about 2AM last night. We got some strong gusts and light rain, but that was about it. This morning, we woke to blinking clocks (power outage), downed limbs, and stronger gusts and heavier rain. Luckily, the storm skirted us and we didn't receive really any damage to speak of. We still have water and power and my husband is even going to work today. Now, we have to unpack things and put them away, which will be a tast in itself.

My parents and sisters all live on the coast, however, and have not been back to their homes. My brother in law, who works for the city of Baytown (just east of Houston) said that there was a fire at the water plant and now there isn't any water in that city (where my family lives). They are also without electricity.

What we in Houston are concerned with is this: 2.7 million people evacuated the city. Hundreds of people, maybe thousands, ran out of gas, water, money and had to rely on national guard tanker trucks to refuel them on the side of the highway. Elederly people died from the record 101 degree weather (people had to turn off their car air conditioners to conserve gasoline) and pets died in their carriers. Some people turned their animals loose on the side of the road because they didn't think they would make it. My friend Sarah, her husband, and their 3 kids spent 20 hours on the freeway and didn't even make it out of the city and had to turn around and go home. The kids had to use the bathroom in the car. My friend Luke spent about 40 hours on the highway trying to make it to the Hill Country, which would normally take about 2 hours or so. The situation out there was dire. My husband stood on our driveway and watched the traffic jams on HWY 6, which was a designated evacuation route from Brazoria County (near the coast). We wanted to help these people, give them gas, but we didn't have any either. The entire city of Houston was without gas and most places are still either closed or without gas.

What we are thinking of is that say next year, a Cat 5 hurricane does make landfall in Freeport-Galveston and we are right in the strike zone of 150+ mph winds. No one, or very few, will leave. I think I would even be hesistant to leave until the last minute, because as of one day before the storm, Rita was still a Cat 5 headed right for us, but of course, turned suddenly to the northeast and landed on the Texas-LA border. We have a house to put back together (pictures, paperwork, furniture) and have spent a bit of money on supplies. We are so thankful that we are alright, but the situation is really frustrating.

Another note: my little sister Sam is still missing. She, like so many people, headed east into LA when Rita was still predicted to hit Houston-Galveston. She went to Eunice, LA, which is just a bit from Lake Charles and we have not heard from her since Thursday. Rita hit that area and Eunice and Lake Charles were on the "dirty" side. We hope she is all right. I will keep you posted.

Sheltered In Place

As you may know, my husband and I live in Houston. We live 70 mi from the coast. My family lives on the coast and has already evacuated to higher ground. We were planning to evacuate, but that plan fell through for various reasons. We have plenty of provisions (food, water, batteries, flashlights, etc.)and have made what preparations we can. Because of the extreme highway gridlock (which happens when you have to evacuate an area with 6 million people)and the insane gas shortage (we drove a 2 hour radius and can't find any gas), we can't leave now. The storm, as of 9:58 AM today, is 100 mi. offshore and is expected to land (which mean the eye will come ashore) around 5AM Sat. My husband and I went outside this morning and could see the thin outerband moving in. It's weird: there is a nice, light wind, blue skies. But we know what looms. We hope the storm doesn't shift back to us, but you never know exactly where a hurricane will land. We expect (according to current reports) to have in our area: 75-90 mph winds, heavy rain, and power outages. Good news, though--we're on the "weak" side of the storm, so we won't have the catastrophic effects. I'll post after the storm.

5 Day Hurricane Countdown

and I write this:


After the fall of all of this


The red sun runs over the picket of trees, drowns
into dusk. The walls listen to this falling of ours—
fingers stray from teacups, the flicked orange leaf.
Leave the earth beneath your shoe on the porch,
and the wasps asleep in their nest above the lamppost.
The moss unwinds from our branches, empty bird nests.
The paint continues to chip long into winter,
and our houses wind backwards: clapboard finish,
an original varnish. After the fall of all of this
(last year’s wild harvest, the bayou that ran wild
across our floors), we continue to grow towards
the ground. We imagine ourselves bottom-heavy,
toe-rooted, limbs dragging the soil. When the hour
turns dark sooner than expected, remember to plant
your bulbs. Expect a longer sleep, a slow steam rising
from the street. The air, too will quiet down on this flat
land, settle into its frozen pockets, its waning light.

I typed in "writer" & this is what I got:

In a Past Life...

You Were: An Obese Fortune Teller. Where You Lived: Mongolia. How You Died: Killed in Battle.

Who Were You In a Past Life?

The Lovely Blurbs

Thanks to Ron Mohring & Sarah Gajkowski-Hill for these lovely blurbs for my forthcoming chapbook, Light Under Skin (Finishing Line Press, 2006):

In Light Under Skin, Amanda Auchter explores combustible landscapes—both internal and external—and brings us to the keen and tenuous boundaries between safety and danger, love and fear, nurture and abandonment, where to misstep could bring disaster. The triumph of this young poet’s work is the sure-footed care with which she insists upon seeing: an unflinching eye, yes, but tempered by a worldly tenderness that I greatly admire. I trust these poems completely, and I celebrate this book’s arrival with pure delight.

Ron Mohring
author of Survivable World and The David Museum


In a world where ordinary situations and objects take on almost mythical proportions: a pair of scissors, a sewing needle, a father's boots--anything can become a vehicle for Auchter's far-reaching and fantastic language. A particular delight is found at the end of her poems in her signature perfectly constructed mini-stanza: a tightly-wound conclusion bringing both closure and whetting the reader's appetite for more.

Sarah Gajkowski-Hill
author of Distracted and Other Poems


and, of course, Dzvinia Orlowsky's blurb, mentioned earlier.

New Poem from Weekend Events

Something About Scars


One branch scraped over the archway
of your mother’s porch, almost an arm

out of joint with the rest of its body.
I mentioned something about scars,

the peeling of bark to near-white
flesh, the avoidance of shadow

on those raw seams. You slid the back
of my red dress down past my bra strap,

brushed bone and skin, unfastened
the safety pin in your hand.

You were sealing me up inside my clothes—
gathered the fabric and hooked the pin

through dress and bra. This closeness
was a language we had not yet learned

to speak: the hot wind filled our mouths,
our fingers full of midnight air.

I listened to this quiet: the glance
of your breath against my neck, how

when you stuck the pin clear through
to my skin, I said nothing.

My body opened itself inside
your palms in a way I never could.

The night too bloomed bright as blood.

The phrase

"look in the dictionary" has now been replaced by: "search google." Case in point (you have to do this):

Step one: type in failure at google.
Step two: hit search
Step three: find the first hit (big shocker)

So, the schoolyard "look in the dictionary next to failure and there will be a picture of you" is now "type your name into google and you're the first hit."


---------------------------------------
Thanks again to Francois.

Which poet are you?

You are Sharon Olds, master of the everyday,
explorer of the female body and family.


Which 20th Century Poet Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

The 2005 PLR Awards issue is out.

Cover image for my chapbook 

New Poem

Winchester Mystery House
as told by Sarah Winchester


Tomorrow, a carpenter will hammer into walls,
build stairs that lead to ceilings, a room
behind a photograph. Inside: straight-

backed chairs, my feathered hat, your rifle.
I know all one hundred and sixty rooms,
the garden out back, your bullets.

In my sleep, you are alive, hurry home
to our lighted windows, the child at
my hip, her red mouth sucking her fist.

Our old kitchen smells of lemons, gun-
powder, lilacs in a vase. You aren’t sick,
yet, haven’t drowned inside your body,

lung-rattled or sweat. I haven’t begun
to tell someone to build a room, and another,
and another. Your body hasn’t become

a suggestion: neck-sigh, pillow-print, eye-
lid touch. There are no doors joined to windows,
a blind chimney, double-back hallways.

I haven’t thought of my own death: old fish
lines, newspaper clippings, lock of baby hair.
Tonight, the moon thins in the brush outside

my widow’s walk and I slide my fingers inside
its shadow. Hang your face in the lip of the mirror,
pull a book from a shelf. Footprint rain, mud-

cake rugs, open scars. I know how much easier
at a darker hour I filled a safe with thirteen bent nails,
cleared a doorknob of your face, and the sound

of a gun shot rising from my splintered palms.

Please Help

This needs no explaining: The Red Cross. According to the US Census Clock, there are 297,050,793 people living in the U.S. If we all donated $5, we could raise $1,485,253,965, or over a billion dollars for those of you who hate to count commas. Make a difference. Don't buy Starbucks for the rest of the week, that new pair of shoes, that mascara because it comes with a gift with purchase. Give someone a meal, a bottle of water.

Good Reads

poetry books I ordered from Powell's today:

Twenty-Seven Props for a Production of Eine Lebenszeit
by Timothy Donnelly
Interior with Suddeny Joy by Brenda Shaughnessy
Big Back Yard by Michael Teig

---------------

It's CNN, MSNBC 24/7 for me right now and I have sadness and a headache. I'm glad my friend Chris is OK and moving to Chicago to live with Kristin. It's amazing how we all met at the Bucknell Seminar just this June and spent only 3 weeks together and now we're phoning each other with concern, sharing our astonishment, and offering our homes to each other. I just wish that certain members of the government were so charitable and accomodating.