i dunnO if people will read this btu right now.. i dont give a fcuk .. so anyway, there's hOrse shie goin around soul and it all started with us seeing michelle as alwayz puttin martin over us ... this is how i first saw it.. i think it was mufty day or maybe jst an Ordinary schoOl day, we were having fun Round Ass, us GURLZ, talkin and jst teasin each other... then they were teasin michelle and it was only foR fun then she was goin to walk away and go to her BF.. i had to stop her and say 'michelle dont go, we're having fun here..' bla bla bla.. well then she stayed.. then days, weeks passed by and it seemed she spent more time with him than us .. okaii, we understand that she wants it to work out with him and dont wanna break up and get back together again .. as they brOke up like how many times already but have time with yur frenz man ..! it was like in year9, she jst puts her bag down where we hang out then goes somewhere oFf .. like HELLO!~ we are yur so called frenz yu noe

I stood silently, a tribute to all the other wallflowers that attached themselves to the off-white walls of our gym.
Right now, however, the basketballs had disappeared. The volleyball nets bundled into the boys' locker rooms and soccer balls in a small heap by the gym office. Occasionally one would roll out of place, and a well-meaning chaperone would run in haste and quickly adjust the setting.

Pastel streamers hung around a skinny DJ with dark sunglasses and clothes around five sizes too large for him, blasting out music we'd never heard of. I'm sure he didn't care. He had that bored look on his face as he systematically changed CDs.

So I sat in the corner, hands clasped over my faded blue jeans, staring miserably at the floor.

SHE was dancing with HIM.

There are always moments in someone's lifetime when things are at their worst and seem to worsen at a gradual rate. I felt that this was one of them. I could feel everything crumbling, so I held myself together as tightly as I could.

By she, I mean my second-bestfriend. By him, I mean the boy that I had become obsessed with.

I'm not so sure that love would be the correct term. This was something more insane, and more desperate. With minimal emotion and maximum action, I sat behind him whenever possible in our classes and gracefully allowed him to dodge past me whenever we played soccer or hockey.

"For every pretty, popular girl, there has to be a plain, average friend."

She could have anyone. I'm not exaggerating when I say that. She could have anyone and she'd chosen the one that I adored. She knew. I had called her that night, bubbling with anticipation.

And now she had gone and taken that from me.

The song ended and the couples broke up. I stood and, gathering my courage, walked over to him. Tapping him on the shoulder, I asked if he'd like to dance.

He turned to look at her -- she was smiling at him so hard it could have drilled holes in his head -- and slowly turned back to me. Told me he was already dancing with someone. I bit my lip, smiled, and walked away.

+ + +

We were on a bus, heading home from a skiing trip. I had candy in my pocket which I was slowly consuming. He sat behind me, and as the bustle of the world around us ceased to exist, we talked.

About her, of course.

He, rambling about her virtues, and I, nodding and eating my Skittles.

There was a moment of silence, which he broke.

In a nutshell: paintings, animals, mythology.

All of the poems were about one or more of these things.

Perhaps because of being with Chris, my poet-friend and truth teller/prophet, who calls bullshit on poets far more than perhaps we can stand, my critical ear was wide open. I'm reminded of a poem Jennifer L. Knox has about a "Super Poem," one that could pay off all her student loans -- it would have Super images, Super language. But would be worth 40,000 dollars.

Maybe we could have a SuperPoem: "A Liberal-leaning Poem About Paintings, Animals, Mythology." I'll work on the title.

++++++++

Seriously, though, what is one to make about these choices of subject matter? Of course paintings, animals, and mythology are all outside the self. Of course they are all, you know lingua francae of certain sets of people -- heck, we all have pets; heck, if we went to a decent college we'll know the story of Hecuba; double-heck, we'll know about chalk drawings of Rembrandt (probably got that wrong).

I don't want to put a trademark on what inspires, or a poet's method, and especially execution. I do want to make this observation -- this desire, particularly American poets, to make a connection with a subject matter at least as equal to this vision of poetry as immortal, as if by piggybacking on the mythical or a domesticated animal or the Met's permanent collection, the poem will last longer than the sentiments and, God forbid, the self of the poem or the feeling of the poem show through, through a self the poem creates. I added that last phrase for those who believe the poem is not a reflection of self but a reflection of words. I happen to believe the words of course come first, but these words are not random, the ghost in William Carlos Williams' machine is the poet. Look at me, upbraiding Williams! But I think Williams had his agenda, and I have mine. And believe me, this choice of subject matter thing, I've done it -- my BAP poem talks about a painting, Frank O'Hara, Cavafy. (And that's precisely why my mom doesn't understand it -- she doesn't read widely, didn't go to college. A trucker's ex-wife, really.)

I'm sort of dancing around my point here, which is what blogs are for. My point, I think, is that poets are usually of such a social station -- or perhaps more accurately, emulate a certain social station -- that paintings, animals, and mythology is the only palette we're handed, by both the poems we've read in, oh, the last desiccated half-century, by the professors we look to as mentors, and by the vision of what a poem is, what is to happen in on, and what a poet is, and what a poet is supposed to make happen.

Last night's Small Spiral Notebook reading was fun. Read at KGB with Meredith Broussard, Maggie Estep, Amy Benson, Felicia Sullivan, Jonathan Ames.  Everyone was great -- was nice to finally meet Felicia, who is one of those energetic lit journal editors I wish I would be (a print annual *and* an ongoing web journal *and* a reading series? sounds like someone I used to know) and somehow stay sane. I never met Jonathan Ames before, and we exchanged some niceties -- god his writing is great. And Amy Benson I thought was pretty amazing. As usual, when I go up to a writer to say I liked such-and-such part in particular, I stand there looking like Artie Fufkin from Spinal Tap, snapping my fingers going "you know, that part where you say boys are dissatisfied with the genetic pool they have to choose from, natural selection, sperm -- you know, that part, the one about summer?" Ms. Benson smiled generously, thank god. Another faux pas avoided -- as opposed to my calling Felicia "Cecilia" upon entering, flustered from step machine and F train.

I'm getting more and more confident reading these God Save My Queen II pieces (heckler: you should, since you handed in the mss, jackass!). They seem to be being received well: since I wrote alot of memoir pieces, and I am not so confident about prose -- witness the wet laundy of this blog -- that is especially gratifying.

Shanna and Shawn and Reen and Chris the Poetic Truthteller was there. I repeated my "paintings, animals, mythology" shtick, just wondering how it would go over. It went over OK. Me and Chris provided self-satisfied laughs. All in all a fun night -- Shafer provided Falstaffian codas when we retired to the across-the-street bar.