Weekly Poetry Post

The Art of Raining

“The art of raining…has now been lost.”
-Pablo Neruda, Memoirs


I walked blindly into her hands,
the sea somewhere behind me,
asking why.

What fire, wind, and rain
has chosen to leave standing
and the ferocity of the vanished’s

returning, often in conversations silenced
over vast tablefuls of food and friends,
that moment all consent to mass introspection,

often too in bullet casings, polished silver,
lodged in the lung of endless answer-waiting,
when extraction could shut down the whole system.

Once we spoke the unspeakable, but no longer.
Is this the belief she whispers to my sleep, as if from Isla Negra?
That somehow tears are wine if we admit our weeping?

The sky over the sea, blindly eyeing my back,
storms and calms and wonders
why our countless words for rain.

To it there is one, synonymous with love,
and one for love, synonymous with why,
and one for why, synonymous with rain.

-published by Silenced Press

Weekly Poety Post

Confessional Hymns

Bless us, fertile new morning.

Bless the barrage of tangerine light
streaming through the thawing pines.
Bless the slight wisps penetrating within
these bedroom windows,
balancing upon her forehead.

To whoever misses the conch’s hermetic ocean voice
grinding and honking down the avenues,
bless those ears pressed to concrete
who know history never fully unfurls.

Bless the gathering hummingbirds
who resuscitate night’s lost shadows,
swarming into a single crab
splayed across our bedroom wall,
legs furiously kicking the air.

Bless the beasts conquered and belly up,
accepting without pretense the slaughter and their breath.
Bless all the things each sea coughs up.
Bless their ignorance, their well-lit tree within.
Bless the bountiful cold waves
sleep polishes our wounds,
our nightly flight taken with Icarus
and our awaking moments before the sea opens its mouth.

Bless the moment between waking and understanding,
when such purity of new morning blinds us
to what the night undid.



-previously published by Flint Hills Review and Stirring

Poetry Broadsides and Samples

I've posted a few self-designed poetry broadsides to my site: www.TheArtOfRaining.com. I'm not a designer, by any means, but let me know what you think. I'll also begin weekly postings of samples of my poems on the site, starting this weekend!

The 2010 Write to Publish Flash Fiction Contest

Deadline: May 7, 2010

Guidelines:
Please submit one flash fiction piece of fewer than five hundred words. There is no specific theme, but we are not seeking genre-specific work (i.e. romance, western, sci-fi). Work can be previously published if you let us know where. All submissions should be sent as an attachment to events@ooliganpress.pdx.edu, with a note about your interest in the Write to Publish conference and an optional brief bio in the email body. Please include “Flash Fiction Contest” in the subject line.

First Prize: 1) workshop of your choice on Day 1 of conference, 2) two passes to Open House Day, and 3) a copy of You Have Time for This, Ooligan’s book of flash fiction.
Second Prize: 1) two passes to Open House Day and 2) a copy of You Have Time for This.
Third Prize: 1) one pass to Open House Day and 2) a copy of You Have Time for This.
ü All three winning stories will be displayed on the Ooligan Press website.

Write to Publish:
May 22 and 23, 2010
Organized by Ooligan Press, Write to Publish aims to demystify the publishing process for writers. Write to Publish is different from other writing conferences in that we do not focus on the craft of writing, but rather on the process of getting published via lectures, workshops, and industry professionals available to answer your questions. Speakers at this years conference include Chuck Palahniuk and Ursula K. Le Guin.

For more info, please visit ooligan.pdx.edu.

Pacific Northwest Writers Assocation

I just joined and am the newest member of Pacific Northwest Writers Assocation, an organization dedicated to helping writers in the northwest connect to other writers, publishers, agents, and editors across the country via conferences, workshops, and a magazine.