Category Archives: poetry

Three erasure rejection letters

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I saw someone online making erasure poems out of their query rejections and thought it might be fun. I love erasure poems, but maybe “fun” is the wrong word here — too much bitterness and dejection at play. I’ve not queried in a long, long while.

Note: there are four versions of a single rejection below. The fourth version is pretty much the gist of letter — in other words not done in the true spirit of erasure poems which seek to pervert the original meaning or discover some other meaning. I include it anyway.

Speaking of one of my detailed and well-imagined characters (Eliza Lucas Pinckney), here are a few erasure poems based on a single letter to her father.

Haiku October ‘23

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10/1
Asters five feet tall
hosting a cohort of bees.
Beauty with purpose.

10/2
How can I think when
jackhammers and lawn machines
pound and roar and pound.

10/3
Squinting. Morning glare.
Does she hold lanyard or leash?
To Finn it matters.

10/4
Called a bearcat though
Bronx Zoo Kevin is neither.
Real name: Binturong.

10/5
Innocent bird flamed
by crisis. Antique fire truck
won’t help. Where we are.

10/6
A winding road through
Lincoln where trees are turning
and heartache resides.

10/7
“Oh look! There she is!”
Museum-goer when Madame
X came into view.

10/8
Another Sunday.
We walk around Crystal Lake
in reverse. Wild times!

10/9
Sukkot branches flung
off the frame. Grief not joy
in every toss.

10/10
Acorns tear through leaves
succumbing to gravity.
Violence of fall.

10/11
Clean the colander,
feel like crying. Walk the dog,
bathe, feel like crying.

10/12
Another treasure.
“Is it the snake or just skin?”
Crushed head in my palm.

10/13
“Oh no! It’s splodging!”
“Oh soddin’ hell! It’s so bad.”
Devonshire splits test.

10/14
Soft air, blue sky; we’ll
take the T to Copley Square.
A good day for books.

10/15
Instead of two hands,
six. Vote yes on issue one!
Ohio postcards.

 

10/16
Two Barbaras from
Cleveland writing postcards to
Ohio with me.

10/17
Unrelenting grief
and terror, bombast, so
I watch The Closer.

10/18
Dentist’s office with
dead branch outside and clutter
on the windowsill.

10/19
Pong! Pong! Black walnuts
being run over. Thud! Thud!
Thud! Hitting the ground.

10/20
SOS. What does
it mean in a centuries
old conflagration?

10/21
Cinnamon rot, the
smell of fall. Bronzing clethra
and plump hawk, the sights.

Another:
I fell in love with
a dog today. What day don’t
I? Fluffy, white, sweet.

10/22
Abigail Adams?
Of course not, dope! She’s Elsa.
Brother, caped and masked.

10/23
Stringy poop. Kleenex?
Oh no — a worm? He pulls, pulls:
embroidery floss.

10/24
We smell caramelized
sugar down near the T tracks.
Donuts? Apple cake?

10/25
Every morning I
fling treats around the backyard.
“Find it!” And he does.

10/26
He was renting shoes
when the shooting began. He
ran, hid behind pins.

10/27
Stunted oak, scrub pines
Slow traffic on Route 6 East.
Sunset on the bay.

10/28
Winking light diamonds
and the wooshing surf say, Rest,
little darling. Rest.

10/29
Pewter sky, flat sea
gun metal grey. Beauty does
not require sun.

10/30
Stitching a bird now.
The flannel house is tacked down.
Watch me make a moon.

10/31
October sun glares.
Yellow leaves glow. But winter
chill laces the air.

August ‘23 Haiku

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Only a partial effort for August in the haiku department.

8/1
Near the super moon.
But it’s Christy’s light making
the east wall light up.

8/2
Once read that lies were
the devil’s greatest tool. I
wasn’t sure. Am now.

8/3
Motorcade obscene.
No big crowds. Just reporters.
Sad day? Not at all.

8/4
Dog gacking lately.
In my dream, he spits up one
quilting pin, then two.

8/5
A single yellow
leaf winking on the road speaks
to coming season.

8/6
Rain clip clops through trees,
back pain unspooling at hill’s
crest. What’s for breakfast?

8/7
Who do you choose to
be: a pond dimpled by rain
or the mighty oak?

8/9
We missed the exit.
But the turnpike was quicker.
Now collapse on couch.

8/10
Soaked sphagnum moss like
they said to for orchids but
for too long. It stinks!

August 11
Between the wars. She would have
been ninety today.

Haiku July ‘23

8 Replies

7/1
Nothing like a nice
baked potato with butter,
sour cream, and salt

7/2
Hello, little toad!
First spotted this century.
Oh, the things we’ve lost!

7/3
First rain, then smoke-sky.
Jays cry. A lawnmower runs.
It feels like April.

7/4
Walked the Lost Pond trails.
Lush canopy. Cool fungi.
Burgers? Kin? Flag? No.

7/5
Out-of service train
Bell-clanging, wheels ka-thunking.
Slow, slow, then fast. Whoosh!

7/6
Dismantling it
isn’t gifting others. It’s
self-liberation.

7/7
Summer air clamps close.
Coleus curls in the heat.
Ice cream for dessert.

7/8
Who knew rhino’s top
lip comes to a point? Or that
warthogs kneel to eat?

7/9
Orchid-like flowers
fall, rust, stick to the bottom
of shoes. Catalpa.

7/10
Words I like a lot:
velocity, catapult,
serendipity.

7/11. Three today!

Tear downs signal wealth.
This one released a stink that
lingers still, weeks on.

Moss adorned stone walls,
dressed as royally as a
queen in purple silk

Often prickly I
sometimes push people away.
But really, so what?

7/12
Rains rage in Vermont.
Canada’s woods are burning.
In the fridge, there’s cake.

7/14
CO2’s not smog.
There’s no scrubbing it away.
Heat is here to stay.

Robin alights. Branch
waggles. Berry grabbed, eaten.
Robin vanishes.

7/15
They pecked at the lawn,
crept among the ferns, two grown
turkeys and four chicks.

7/16
Congo elephants
are smaller, more quiet than
the Savannah type.

7/17
Slow, sore down the stairs.
But the coffee pot is full!
Evidence of care.

7/18
Granite quarry full
of green water. Gulls bobbing.
Two cormorants. Us.

7/19
Midnight: waves crash and
shur near hotel’s foundation.
Mother’s lullaby.

7/20
Hajib black. Sleeves black.
Legs covered. She sits low and
lets the waves drench her.

7/21
The slavery spin:
beneficial for some. Next
up: women like rape.

7/22
My cousin’s birthday
The first without his father.
Mine gone forty years.

7/23
Tablesaw whine all
day. Hammer rat a tat tat.
Vacation’s over.

7/24
Forty mile march
to Tel Aviv. First hundreds.
Then twenty thousand.

7/25
The wind comes. Then rain.
The dog and I sit, listen.
Part cuddle, part prayer.

7/26
Single web strand holds
light. Every swag and sway makes
photons slide. Magic.

7/27
Breathless coverage.
“Reading the tea leaves” is just
guessing, but I watch.

7/28
Humidity forces
an abbreviated walk.
But coneflowers thrive!

You know it’s hot when
shade with poison ivy is
better than no shade.

7/30
Prize: rusty washer,
a perfect blue jay feather.
No. It was the breeze!

7/31
The spending! Mac D’s,
Chick-fil-a, Wendy’s. We’ve talked.
Make a sandwich! Jeez.

The Loop and Haiku

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I “got” three haiku on my walk with Finn this morning. Because it isn’t raining or blisteringly hot, we could make the full loop. More time to hear my thoughts.

Rather than save these for month’s end, I’ll share today. And BTW, I had the wrong link for Robert Hubbell yesterday. Fixed it.

Moss adorned stone walls,
dressed as royally as a
queen in purple silk.

Often prickly, I
sometimes push people away.
But really, so what?

Tear-downs signal wealth.
This one released a stink that
lingers still, weeks on.

To Ohio. This makes 975 PCs for me.