I’m a woman in possession of her life,
and sometimes that’s enough
in the flash of Christmas lights
and police lights, bells ringing
everywhere. Coming out of the store
on this night before Thanksgiving,
I’m momentarily puzzled over
wet pavement, mist on my face,
as if, in the interstice between
my city exploding and the sick joke
of  ill-timed holidays, rain should not fit.

Hello …You might notice that things look a little different around here. That’s me at the top, for one thing. For another, I got rid of the clunky “editor and poet” business, and the last vestiges of my harebrained scheme to use this blog as any sort of moneymaking venture. This blog is, and has been for some time, the online home for my poetry and occasional updates or thoughts about such.

Also, I finally got up off that $18 so I can have the more simple domain name rather than the .wordpress.com one. After resisting for years, it was easy and painless to give in at last.

There are probably more changes to come. A long-time, terrific follower of this blog has suggested that it really ought to be better organized. I agree — it’s one of those projects that keeps getting kicked down the road. It sounds like a good winter task, especially now that every last monarch has finally left our dining room.

A new theme might be in order, too. I like my current one, Ryu, just fine — or more than fine — but there’s no harm in trying something new. If you have any suggestions of themes you think work especially well for poetry blogs, I’d love to hear them.

What you see here is transitional, but I hope you’ll agree that I’ve taken some steps in the right direction. As always, thanks for visiting!

In the supermarket, you can find
all the answers you left behind
when you imagined pastel mints
with a haze of white nonpareils,
fine as ladies in Sunday gloves,
and you thought this was the world
you’d always belong in, but then
the world changed around you,
and you changed worlds, too,
so that now, in the supermarket,
if you happened to find those
pastel mints with nonpareil haze,
you would think of those ladies
and wonder what ever happened
to ladies, their gloves, Sundays.

Stay sane, my friends,
and do not let your wisdom go
in bucket lines advancing before
a storm that never comes, or a snow
across your window screen,
accumulating nothing

but its shadow self,
a dust of clouds
that whispers
its melting.

In another world,
I’m still in the pool
and you and I have not
had words
everything is normal
there is no taste
of ashes in my mouth
and I can still write poems
about arguments

Oregano

Grown in the joyful yam-colored foothills of Oregon. Shout its name,
in the manner of the early colonists, and see if it comes back to you.

Garlic

As a flavoring, it has no equal. It has been to clam dip and back.
A little goes a long way, gathers itself, and then comes home.

Black Pepper

As old as the tides, as valuable as those, and as sharply aromatic.
Sprinkle pepper at your next masquerade ball to undress your guests.

Bay Leaves

Put one under your tongue and your most prosaic speech becomes
a bouquet garni  Whisper to me your story of cooking water and bouillon.

Cinnamon

It lists to one side and then the other, a sizzling dream of casserole
and potpourri, a con carne applesauce that talks and talks and talks.

Mustard

Not the hot dog kind in the sunny yellow barrel but the dry, powdery kind
to sprinkle on steaks or add to cookies and be better than the rest of us.

__________________________________________________________________________

OK, that’s all the Kroger spice descriptions people sent me. Does anyone have others? (If you’re new to this, I saw a very impressive description from a Kroger brand oregano label, so I asked people to send me photos of other Kroger spice labels or let me know what they say.) If you have Kroger in your area and have spices other than these, please let me know!

Oregano

Grown in the joyful yam-colored foothills of Oregon. Shout its name,
in the manner of the early colonists, and see if it comes back to you.

Garlic

As a flavoring, it has no equal. It has been to clam dip and back.
A little goes a long way, gathers itself, and then comes home.

Black Pepper

As old as the tides, as valuable as those, and as sharply aromatic.
Sprinkle pepper at your next masquerade ball to undress your guests.

Bay Leaves

Put one under your tongue and your most prosaic speech becomes
a bouquet garni  Whisper to me your story of cooking water and bouillon.

Cinnamon

It lists to one side and then the other, a sizzling dream of casserole
and potpourri, a con carne applesauce that talks and talks and talks.

Well, now the problem I’m having is that the Kroger brand oregano description may have been a sine qua non, the height of the spice label writer’s art. Friends have graciously supplied me with a few other Kroger spice label descriptions, as you can see, but none have been quite as inspired or as unusually informative as the one for oregano. But if you comment with other Kroger spice label descriptions, I’ll do what I can. Thanks!

Oregano

Grown in the joyful yam-colored foothills of Oregon. Shout its name,
in the manner of the early colonists, and see if it comes back to you.

… And that’s where I stalled out, and here’s why: Earlier today, a Facebook friend (and a great poet, too) posted a description from a bottle of Kroger brand oregano, and I found it very evocative. I thought I could do a whole rack of spices, and just “riff” on the ones other than oregano. But I can’t. I really, really want the Kroger descriptions! We don’t have Kroger around here, though … do you? If so, would you mind posting a photo or typing verbatim the description on the label of any Kroger brand spices you have — or would be willing to capture in the store? If so, I’d really appreciate it — thanks!

Let’s try this again,
assuming the ceiling fan
can turn time backwards
if we reverse its direction
and correct for any
interstitial interference
by the music of the spheres.
Did we keep the instructions?
The microwave says we did,
but it’s a liar — or at least
its recipe booklet is.
But back to the fan,
how its blades oscillate,
how it whines as if
it’s about to achieve lift-off,
fly through our front window,
seek a new home for itself,
one with lower expectations.