part time job hunt part two

OK, so there was a LOT of interest in me taking the nit picking job.

i went to an open house about it, which at first i was really nervous about, since it was a job off craigslist, and how did i know there wasn't a crazy person on the other side of the door of this "open house," ready to trap me in their monstrous newton house.

but there was no craziness or monstrousness, unless you count some of the stories she had about lice: people putting their kids in chemical baths, people on farms giving her fresh eggs in exchange for payment, people with over a thousand nits on their head, people who told their kids to call her "goddess of lice."

i could definitely do it -- it's totally within my capabilities and i don't think it's gross -- but i haven't decided yet if i have the time to commit to it.

part time job hunt part one.

so, only working at the church part time job leaves me time to pursue another part time job.

so guess what i applied to do?

be a professional nit picker! go around and pick lice eggs out of people's hair!

the other side

so, we're looking for an administrative assistant for our church office, and i get to do the second interviews.

i had my first one yesterday, and maybe i will get over this feeling by the 4th, but it was REALLY fun being on the other side of the desk, making someone else nervous instead of being the one who was nervous. not that i like making people nervous.
ok, maybe.
no, of course not.
well, maybe.
i think it 's that i would never think that i actually COULD make someone nervous. i mean, me?

anyway, it's way better than i thought it would be.

those winter sundays

One of my all time favorites, a major reason why being the way my poetry professor would say the last two lines, leaning back in his chair, closing his eyes, holding them in his month like they were some sort of sweet wine.

Those Winter Sundays

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.



I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?

--Robert Hayden

taking it old school...

i'm in a romantic mood tonight...

SONNET 130
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

i said to poetry

pretend this is yesterday, too. i suck at daily posts.

if you are a poet, you have been here.


I SAID TO POETRY

I said to Poetry:"I'm finished
with you."
Having to almost die
before some wierd light
comes creeping through
is no fun.
"No thank you, Creation,
no muse need apply.
Im out for good times--
at the very least,
some painless convention."

Poetry laid back
and played dead
until this morning.
I wasn't sad or anything,
only restless.

Poetry said: "You remember
the desert, and how glad you were
that you have an eye
to see it with? You remember
that, if ever so slightly?"
I said: "I didn't hear that.
Besides, it's five o'clock in the a.m.
I'm not getting up
in the dark
to talk to you."

Poetry said: "But think about the time
you saw the moon
over that small canyon
that you liked so much better
than the grand one--and how suprised you were
that the moonlight was green
and you still had
one good eye
to see it with

Think of that!"

"I'll join the church!" I said,
huffily, turning my face to the wall.
"I'll learn how to pray again!"

"Let me ask you," said Poetry.
"When you pray, what do you think
you'll see?"

Poetry had me.

"There's no paper
in this room," I said.
"And that new pen I bought
makes a funny noise."

"Bullshit," said Poetry.
"Bullshit," said I.

--Alice Walker

we interrupt your regularly scheduled poetry week

...because i just can't hold it in. i try to be an environmentally conscious consumer. i have canvas tote bags for groceries/other purchased products. i buy environmentally sound dish soap and trash bags and paper towels. i reuse my ziploc bags. i recycle. i bring my travel mug wherever i go since i'm such an avid coffee drinker. that way, if i decide to stop, i have my mug with me. i even have a iced coffee container that i bring around on hot days.

i go into the dunkin donuts (the hypocrisy of a self-proclaimed environmentally conscious consumer buying coffee at dunkin donuts is yet to be determined). i say, holding out my mug, "can i have a french vanilla with cream and sugar please?"
the person behind the counter says, "what size is this?"
i say, "medium."
she pours the coffee into BOTH a small and medium sized disposable cup and then into my mug, discovering that of course, it is a medium.

this is the SECOND time this has happened to me. the first time, it was with my iced coffee container, which is an actual dunkin donuts piece of merchandise (my regular travel mug is not). i told the cashier it was a large (which she should have known, being an employee of the company which manufactures this container), and she used a small, medium, AND large plastic cup full of water to determine the exact size. which is large. "you're right," she said.

yes. yes i am right. meanwhile, more waste had been produced than if i had just purchased the coffee straight out. GAH.

we now return you to peaceful world of poetry.

dancing toward jesus

pretend this is yesterday...

so the previous post was probably one of lucille clifton's most well-known poems. this one i discovered later, and would probably like just as much if i didn't relate so much to the hips one (having magic hips, myself)

i like this one because it combines nature and city and makes both seem beautiful, and makes worship embodied.




God send Easter

and we will lace the
jungle on
and step out
brilliant as birds
against the concrete country
feathers waving as we
dance toward jesus
sun reflecting mango
and apple as we
glory in our skin.

--Lucille Clifton

funny thing about google imaging

so in pursuit of finding a suitable picture for my very favorite poem by my very favorite poet (below), i had two interesting/exciting/ arguably life changing discoveries:

1. first i googled "hips" and on the very first page on the VERY FIRST LINE got a picture of a woman giving a water birth! yup, bit of a shocker.

2. then i googled "lucille clifton" and on the THIRD page found a picture of myself! from the profile of this blog! the fact that a picture of myself came up when i googled the name of my favorite poet made me very giddy indeed.

ultimately, i decided to save the lucille clifton picture for my other lucille clifton post (yes, there will be another), and couldn't find a good enough one to embody the hips and so the post goes pictureless. but it doesn't need a picture, it's THAT FRICKIN GOOD.

homage to my hips

wait, but if this is your favorite poem, christina, by your favorite poet, why are you putting it on wednesday of all days. why didn't you put it first, or save it for last?

well, because it's the perfect poem to make you want to sway your way into the rest of the week...

homage to my hips

these hips are big hips
they need space to
move around in
they don't fit into little
petty places. these hips
are free hips
they don't like to be held back.
these hips have never been enslaved,
they go where they want to go
they do what they want to do.
these hips are mighty hips.
these hips are magic hips.
i have known them
to put a spell on a man and
spin him like a top!

---Lucille Clifton

This is Just to Say

because it is a warm summer night, and i have fresh peaches to eat...




THIS IS JUST TO SAY

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold.

--William Carlos Williams

alternate versions

this made me laugh, but make sure you read the real one above first...

VARIATIONS ON A THEME BY WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS

1
I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer.
I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do
and its wooden beams were so inviting.

2
We laughed at the hollyhocks together
and then I sprayed them with lye.
Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.

3
I gave away the money that you had been saving to live on for the next ten years.
The man who asked for it was shabby
and the firm March wind on the porch was so juicy and cold.

4
Last evening we went dancing and I broke your leg.
Forgive me. I was clumsy and
I wanted you here in the wards, where I am the doctor!
--Kenneth Koch

Love Calls us to the Things of this World

Editor's note: this poem is not formatted correctly. i keep adding spaces to no avail -- when the blog is published, they're not there. sorry, richard wilbur! sorry poem readers!

************************************************************************************

LOVE CALLS US TO THE THINGS OF THIS WORLD

The eyes open to a cry of pulleys,
And spirited from sleep, the astounded soul
Hangs for a moment bodiless and simple
As false dawn.
Outside the open window
The morning air is all awash with angels.

Some are in bed-sheets, some are in blouses,
Some are in smocks: but truly there they are.
Now they are rising together in calm swells
Of halcyon feeling, filling whatever they wear
With the deep joy of their impersonal breathing;

Now they are flying in place, conveying
The terrible speed of their omnipresence, moving
And staying like white water; and now of a sudden
They swoon down into so rapt a quiet
That nobody seems to be there.
The soul shrinks

From all that is about to remember,
From the punctual rape of every blessed day,
And cries,
``Oh, let there be nothing on earth but laundry,
Nothing but rosy hands in the rising steam
And clear dances done in the sight of heaven.''

Yet, as the sun acknowledges
With a warm look the world's hunks and colors,
The soul descends once more in bitter love
To accept the waking body, saying now
In a changed voice as the man yawns and rises,

``Bring them down from their ruddy gallows;
Let there be clean linen for the backs of thieves;
Let lovers go fresh and sweet to be undone,
And the heaviest nuns walk in a pure floating
Of dark habits,
keeping their difficult balance.''
--Richard Wilbur


********************************************************************************
a perfect Monday poem. i take issue with the soul/body split, but i love how beautiful and even spiritual everyday things like laundry, steam, and rosy hands become in this poem.

a former professor told a story about changing her baby's diaper while in a faculty meeting with other prominent theologians/scholars. one remarked to her that there she was this well known theologian having this high-falutin' theological discussions with all of these academics, and moments later she was stuck doing a mundane, dirty task. she looked at him and said, "this is the most theological thing i've done all day."

o let there be nothing on earth but laundry!

we real cool

i'm putting this one in because my friend once sent me a link to an audiorecording of Gwendolyn Brooks reading this poem, and it is amazing. she read it in a way that was completely surprising to me and honestly? knocked my socks off.





the poem:

WE REAL COOL

The Pool Players
Seven at the Golden Shovel

We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

i read a piece where she wrote that reading it you should say the "we" softly, because it is meant to speak to the uncertainly of the boys in the pool hall.

and because she said she wished people remembered she wrote other poems:

SPEECH TO THE YOUNG :
SPEECH TO THE PROGRESS-TOWARD

Say to them,
say to the down-keepers,
the sun-slappers,
the self-soilers,
the harmony-hushers,
"even if you are not ready for day
it cannot always be night."
You will be right.
For that is the hard home-run.

Live not for battles won.
Live not for the-end-of-the-song.
Live in the along.

i love this one, especially as a somewhat progressive (for my denomination at least) pastor, because i want to say it: "even if you are not ready for day, it cannot always be night."

“A poem begins with a lump in the throat” --frost

so i had a friend stay with me this weekend, a fellow lover of poetry, and we got to sharing some poems we really liked, and i, having not read poetry in a bit, remembered what it felt like to get goosebumps from a line of a poem that was to me especially true, especially real, especially hitting a note that had not yet been hit, and so well...

i therefore decided to dub this week poetry week. i was going to do my top ten poems, but then i decided to not be so organized. all the poems will be ones i really like, though, therefore they will all be really awesome poems.

let us begin.