Everything Is Tuberculosis (And Other Things I Fear, Too, But Call Me, John)

A totally nonscientific, fear-based trip through tuberculosis, as taken by one anxious, poem-hoarding Word Raccoon.

NOT LISTENING TO:
This playlist John Green posted once: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1E4EHcWZKczEPM?si=KrVm99kNQwCXfakPA6EFFw

ALSO NOT LISTENING TO: The Mountain Goats – Sunset Tree

Now Playing: ~~Toys in the Attic, Aerosmith~~. (For now. Nope, can’t land on anything today. Oh well…)

I tried setting the vibe for this with John Green’s musical tastes, but I have a feeling I’m gonna have to find Drema Sass music and be happy. The word raccoon has dressed me today (my hubby’s castoff porkpie hat, a purple tee with some sort of an animal print at the bottom though I don’t DO animal print– there’s an explanation, but not now) anyhow, I don’t trust her to give me writing fluid, too.

Let’s start with a definition, shall we?

“The White Plague” was a 19th-century nickname for tuberculosis, called that because it spread like wildfire and left people looking ghostly and worn down.

I should probably confess I’ve got a bit of a literary crush on John Green.

Not just because he writes like the world is on fire and still somehow manages to sound like he’s offering you a cup of tea—but because he feels like one of us: anxious, trying to make a dent in the world with his writing. His new book, Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection, has been sitting on my metaphorical nightstand, quietly judging me. (It’s strictly literary, my crush, kinda like when I was a kid and was into Speedy Racer.)

I haven’t read it yet. I’m scared of what I might learn—about tuberculosis, yes, but also about how close fear and fascination can live in the same ribcage. I do watch his YouTube videos religiously, though. The way he tugs at that crest of hair when he’s nervous. The soft, fierce way he loves his brother Hank. And when Hank was diagnosed with cancer, I found myself worrying almost as much for John as I did for Hank. But they both made it.

So, because I apparently cope by writing poems and Googling Victorian death statistics, I wrote this poem:

Everything Is Tuberculosis (And Other Things I Fear, Too, But Call Me, John)

They are out there
training African rats to sniff out
land mines
and maybe, I hear, even
tuberculosis.

Someone get John Green
on the phone.
He says everything is tuberculosis—

like that guy in
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
who traces (spuriously)
every word back to Greek.

It must be exhausting
to someone with anxiety.

I get it.

You want to know what’s out there
but then, oh god, you know.
Which is only marginally better.
And is tuberculosis now something I
should be looking out for,
skulking on every street corner,
and, I don’t know, lurking on dollar bills?

Doesn’t matter how you really get it,
it’s dangerous for women writers
&
Their Characters.
I know you’ve read the classics.
Emily &
Anne &
Julia &
Elizabeth
God, I want to read your book, but can I bear it?

White plague
Everywhere.

Hey John,
maybe everything is
tuberculosis.
*Squeezes eyes shut*
Unless it’s not.
I never doubted you.
Just wanted to.

Real-Life Women Writers Felled by the White Plague (Only a Sampling)

Emily Brontë
Author of Wuthering Heights, she died at 30 from tuberculosis, refusing medical help until the very end. Because who needs doctors when you have moors and ghosts? Sad face.
Anne Brontë
The youngest Brontë, passed at 29 from TB. Her novel The Tenant of Wildfell Hall tackled alcoholism and women’s independence—scandalous at the time.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
A prolific poet, she battled chronic illness, likely tuberculosis, throughout her life, dying at 55. Yikes! Her love letters with Robert Browning are kinda hot.
Adelaide Anne Procter
A favorite poet of Queen Victoria, Procter died at 38 from TB. She was also an activist, because being a poet wasn’t tragic enough.
Julia C. Collins
Considered the first Black woman to publish a novel, she died of tuberculosis at 23, leaving her work The Curse of Caste unfinished. That’s going on my TBR if I can find a link.
Katherine Mansfield
Wrote luminous, aching modernist stories while slowly dying of TB. Her prose still aches. Woolf was said to be jealous of her writing, a bit. Scanning her short story titles again, I’m pretty sure we’re literary kin. It’s been too long.
Angelina Weld Grimké
Black poet, playwright, and educator—haunted by grief and the shadows of disease. Died at 74, after a life steeped in illness and brilliance. “A Mona Lisa” is one to read and re-read.

Literary and Stage Heroines Who Carried Handkerchiefs – A Quick Dip

Marguerite Gautier (La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas fils)
The OG tragic courtesan, Marguerite dies of tuberculosis, inspiring Verdi’s La Traviata. She practically set the standard for glamorous death by consumption.
Mildred (Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham)
Not saintly. Not tragic in a pretty way. Just sick, spiteful, and complex. TB doesn’t redeem her—it just gives her more time to wreck things. I love to hate her.
Fantine (Les Misérables by Victor Hugo)
After selling her hair, teeth, and dignity, Fantine succumbs to TB. Dang.
Mimi (La Bohème by Giacomo Puccini)
The quintessential bohemian waif with a handkerchief.
Beth March (Little Women by Louisa May Alcott)
Sweet, selfless Beth contracts scarlet fever, but many adaptations lean into the TB aesthetic—pale, gentle, and doomed. (So she’s a MAYBE. But still…)
Nancy (Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens)
While not explicitly stated, Nancy exhibits many symptoms of TB before meeting a violent end. Because Dickens liked to double down on the misery.
Violetta Valéry (La Traviata)
Sings her last aria with blood in her handkerchief. High society, high drama, and high mortality.

Who are these lists missing? Hit me up. Especially you, John. In the meantime, I’m thinking it’s time I return to my novel.

CLEAR BAG POLICY IN EFFECT

Here. Try this. It’ll hurt a little, but god, it’ll taste like something you almost remember.

Busking from the Busted Poetry Machine Bunker —”Over It” Edition: Cold, Whatever

Now Playing:
“Let’s Tattoo the Moon” – from the unreleased Post-Apocalyptic Seance Mixtape by DJ Word Raccoon

Even if he lands, we’ll just bleed together/ maybe we can sit in silence while we do / But you’ve gotta get the blood/ Before you can see the tattoo

REALLY PLAYING: THE CARPENTERS GOLD – GREATEST HITS

Welcome to my complicated, glitter-soaked sermon. Hand in your expectations at the door.

CLEAR BAG POLICY IN EFFECT
Guests may only bring bags that are clear plastic, vinyl, or PVC.
All bags (including brains) are subject to inspection. No exceptions.

Written Sunday:

Danger, Glitter, and the Absence of Tinder

I was in the mood
to do something dangerous,
until I realized—
I am the danger.

If you grind your pain to glitter,
you don’t need Tinder—
just a spotlight and a decent pen.

You don’t need messages from the void.
Heavens to Murgatroyd,
you don’t need
permission.

You don’t need submission

You don’t need an audience

just a megaphone
and a scream

to rub the thing raw.

Post Apocalyptic Seance Mixtape

So apparently I’m writing an album. I mean, writing an album sounds on-brand, and I think it’s a way to give me a break from poetry while still being poetry, if you see what I mean. I think it’s an exercise, just for fun, though actually, I have the first song complete with guitar chords.

*whispers* And I think I’m gonna pull my guitar out from under the bed.

Real talk: I’m thinking of overhauling the song, the lyrics, the tone. It’s trembling between innocence and experience. It could be all tattoo the moon with our love or with cigars and burn marks. (Metaphorically, obv.) Don’t stand behind me while I figure out which to choose.

The song has nice ankles and a handsome wrinkle or two. So much longing in it. Almost as if I’m a writer.

I must be feeling better because although nothing tastes good yet, I’m craving barbeque chicken and beer. I’d settle for crab rangoon.

Wanna see the track list so far? Maybe we can bust out the lyrics for one of the songs, too. Feel free to chime in. Raccoons aren’t afraid to share. BUT FYI, trademark notice on them all. (Winky face.)

POST-APOCALYPTIC SÉANCE MIXTAPE

(Limited release. Only available through haunted jukeboxes.)

Side A: Bunker Ballads (Song selection still in progress.)

Jim Jones Bartends at the End of the World After Party
You’re Only Alive When I’m Dead to the World

Side B:

Grocery Cart Gospel
Let’s Tattoo the Moon

Now for something really special (or not) from the bunker. (Actually, I am live reporting from a coffeehouse today. Bottoms up!)

Listen Up, Kid:

You can bleed beside someone in the garden or

you can bleed for yourself and write it down.

One of those might give you a song.

The other might just

take all the ones you haven’t written

yet.

Pause and say Selah!

(Prove me wrong. I’m waiting. I’ve got a hankering for a Waffle House omelet, M-Fer.)

Oh yes,

I was going to tell you about my Poetry on the Road writing session from Sunday.

It was rainy and gloomy, and I did the thing but I wasn’t feeling it. Bonus points for AIS time, am I right?

Turns out, I rescued two half-drowned poems and a song from the primordial stew. (See the first poem above. If you don’t remember it’s dangerous to conflate the author and her work, that’s on you. And I can’t make that disclaimer every time, so I ask you to please write it where you keep your passwords, please and thank you.)

I was writing the song and didn’t realize an undergrad was around the corner at a table. Oops. Should’ve asked him what he thought of it.

Today, I am revising my poems, weeding through random lines and asking if there’s something buried there, if I’m being repetitive now. If it’s time to go back to my novel.

If it isn’t too much to admit, I think I have a second collection. (I write short poems that press their luck and your pants at the same time, so…)

What I see at risk with this speed is I’m getting very world weary and am telling truth with a knife, not something most people would see as my brand.

It’s typically not. But also, I’m just really good usually at throwing glitter and leading a dance under the disco ball. Or is that a moon?

I think sometimes the dance is kinder. For all. And tons more fun. Sometimes.

Neither, however, is a lie.

My Cathedral’s Ready—Want to See the Stained Glass?

So yeah, I had a blog post all ready yesterday (okay, mostly ready). Fine. I was working on it. And then I checked my inbox.
NBD, just a chapbook competition closing—LAST NIGHT.

I know how premature this might sound, entering a contest mid-fever dream and new to poetry, but this cold has had me underground with poetry. And it was either do something with the work or host a fire sale to clear the emotional clutter.

My husband said I’ve been like Kenny from The Middle — totally absent and absorbed. Guilty. But he gets it. Sometimes art has to come first.

Deadline as Defibrillator

It was good discipline. A great way to figure out which poems might be ready and which were…half-baked but necessary. Kind of like writing a novel: something’s off, but you can’t name it yet. I’m still learning what makes a poem work. I just know what works for me. Because honestly? I have to like it first.

Anyway, I spent the last few hours of yesterday collating, shining, and submitting poems. I even dabbed a little rouge on a couple before sending them into the wild.

Was I scared? Intimidated? That someone was about to read my insides, which are barer than my outside by far?

Weirdly, no. I was more excited than anything.
(I don’t know the judges personally, so there’s that.)

Want to See the Titles? Please Say Yes.

They were so fun to come up with. It reminded me of when I wrote headlines for the college paper, and my editor kept begging me to write normal ones. I knew how. I just didn’t see why. If you could jazz it up and make people actually read the thing? Why not?

(Some of these you’ve seen before. Some you haven’t. One, “Renewal,” I had forgotten about, and then I realized it was a cornerstone. That’s the one based on Logan’s Run.)

Soundtrack:
As I compiled last night, I listened to Comfort Eagle by Cake. Perfect energy. This morning, I texted my husband, “Hey, what’s that Beach Boys album with ‘Flip, Flop, Fly Away’ on it?”
(That is not the name. He’s used to my musical manglings.)

He gently redirected me to Endless Harmony. I recommend it—especially “Kiss Me, Baby.” Haunting.
And P.S., the song I meant is actually called “Loop De Loop (Flip Flop, Flyin’ in an Aeroplane).” It’s got vaudeville vibes. From the Beach Boys. I know.

Brian Wilson is a genius. I’m a reasonable woman, but if you talk trash about Brian, I will invite you to the Waffle House parking lot.

(I have a new cowboy hat. Don’t test me.)

This Just In (Because the Raccoon Has Ears):
On Rob Lowe’s podcast Literally, he and Chelsea Handler did a dual-feed episode. And guess what they ended on?
Handler thought he was going to talk about the Big O. He claimed he wasn’t—but then teased that he would. On her podcast.
Classic.
I’m quite sure it’ll be irreverent, hilarious, and not at all sexy. Still… I both don’t and very much do want to hear what he says. Oh who am I kidding, I just listened to it. It’s…anticlimactic. False advertise much, Robbie? Eh, you’re forgiven.

A Guided Tour of the Cathedral (with Commentary)

• Look, I Built a Cathedral – Title poem. Earnest and ironic. And an invitation to see yourself in it.
• Can’t Call Myself a Cathedral In a Title (Can I?) – The parenthetical is the title.
• Paging Father John Misty – Was I Bat-Signaling him? Didn’t mean to, but maybe.
• Rob Lowe Is Definitely Funny – Divine generosity. Dammit.
• Emotional Support Comma –I’m pro-Oxford. Fight me. You know when and where.
• It’s the Real Thing – That Mad Men scene. You know the one.
• Blue Cardigan of Age – Devastating. A plea. Don’t laugh or I’ll put you in one.
• Mr. Damn Darcy, Is It? – A late-night feminist protest because I was pissed.
• Flipping Pancakes and Expectations – Now I want pancakes. You in?
• Teaching Him to Play – Nothing witty, everything heartfelt.
• All In – A plea to do the thing already. (Sensing a theme? Short of a cattle prod, this is all I got. Wait, I don’t have a cattle prod. That sounded weird.)
• Mutual Mass – A quiet god and her pilgrim. Nothing ensues.
• Wound and Witness – Banished brilliance. I am pissed.
• You Can’t Laugh This One Away – Water metaphors. Or are they?
• Authorial Intent Ale – About workshop and authenticity or the lack thereof. I have feelings. And proper brew.
• Grecian Urn, Busted – Read the Keats. Then come back to me.
• This Is Not An Invitation to Home Invasion – Boundaries.
• Some Said It Thundered – You’ve seen this one here.
• A PTSD Role Reversal – Espadrilles and self-respect.
• Might As Well Call This The Sound of Your Own Voice – Silence, with teeth.
• Shredded Journals for Breakfast – A light Swedish death cleaning. Metaphorically and not.
• Almost a Prayer – Truffles. Regret. A poem.
• Well, Someone Hit Send – You already know. This is for you, clubbers. Mama got you – hand over your phone.
• Stephen King at Midnight – 1990s fridge included.
• I Guess It’s Okay to Still Color My Hair – Transparent grief, sponsored by Clairol.
• Renewal – No sanctuary but the fire in your hands. Have you seen the movie?
• Fight Me in the Waffle House Parking Lot at Dawn – Still a favorite.
• Homegrown Defibrillator – Bounces. Doesn’t break. Mostly.
• Glossary of Gentle Threats – The title fits but also doesn’t.
• If You Please, Sir – Donuts. Dawn. Tenderness to the abandoned gift. Don’t do that. I will open an orphanage for abandoned talent and come and kidnap your gift kid.
• The Art of Exhaustion – Saltshakers and maternal rage.
• Things Found on the Backs of iPhones – Comes with a lens cleaning cloth.
• Quietly Feral – The word diadem showed up and stayed.
• A Post-It Note Found On Your Self-Worth – Library vs. liability.
• Collision Energy – The poem of a newly anointed, uncertain poet.
• Lose the Tie – That whisper at the end? Only to be done with pearls running through your teeth.
• Casting Spells on Scarecrows – A woman interrogates Midwest mascots.
• A Men – Not a typo. Not really a prayer. A gentle dismount.

Stay tuned: DJ Word Raccoon will be reporting soon on her rain-drenched writing adventures yesterday, complete with undergrads, an accidental serenade, and a new song that might be a lunar spell.
Spoiler: Poetry on the road still hits. Just not quite as unselfconsciously. Not yet.

Now Playing: Nevermind in a Jagged Venus Fly Trap

(A prose poem)

Riddle me this, bat kids, my muse is drinking vintage 90’s music and I just finished writing a poem with the word “Nevermind.”

What music am I listening to?

This morning, it was “Try a Little Tenderness,” but if you’re gonna let the muse twist the dials you’d better be prepared for fast and furious flights through decades.

Last night, it was Hole along with other assorted half-forgotten Grunge goldens. I can’t remember who all/what all.

And the why?

No idea. LOL. I’ve just decided to start listening to my whims. Can’t age in reverse, that’s sure, but I can listen to life on shuffle.

I’m afraid I was rather incommunicado this morning to the caring coffee man as I tried to re-enter from orbit, pen running across my notebook like a rabbit being chased. But wait, I’m the feral word raccoon, right? Don’t mix metaphors or metas, friends.

If this sounds like stream of consciousness, that’s because it is. And if you can put your hand on your chest like Patrick Swayze put his hand on Baby’s chest in Dirty Dancing, you don’t need to know what it means, just move to it. Guh gunh, guh gunh.

Abrupt music shift to Swayze’s contribution to the Dirty Dancing soundtrack: She’s Like the Wind. Gone too soon. Elbow on table, chin on fist, full tilt wistful: Do you think he was as shy as he seemed?

And Dirty Dancing was all the rage the year I graduated. Coincidence?

Now back to our regularly scheduled program.

This morning, I wrote what is probably the best poem I will ever write, and I can’t share it. Not with the person I wrote it about. Not with you.

It was a reply to someone who absolutely tries to control everything I do. What I wear, what I weigh, what I do for the monies, what I write, wants me to fit a role like I can be ordered from Ikea, some assembly required. Would absolutely send me a uniform if only I’d don it. Nothing I do, nothing I accomplish, nothing I attempt, will give me the sanitized strip of approval in their eyes, and I’m done trying.

I’ve tried. God help me, I have. But I don’t come with an Allen wrench and an instruction manual, so eff me. I have never had anything to offer, my heart, but me. If that’s not enough, if I’m too much, I’m afraid I don’t know where we go from here.

(This is not about anyone who lives in my house, btw. Just for the record.)

Writing the poem gave me almost peace. (This is not that poem. Just echoes of it.) For once I saw it was about them and not me. About how insecure and worthless they feel. And my heart bloomed, because dammit, I love you anyway, my poor jagged Venus fly trap. If only you’d let me. My heart and hearth are huge. I wish you knew that. But you will tell nobody this is your song. (Google it.)

Ok, come up for air now. That’s earnest, that’s too much. Confessional. Journalistic.

Hey, lady, didn’t you shred your journals without malice?

I did, all of them. (And I’m not sure, but I think I’m supposed to be offended that you called me lady unless it’s my title.)

But that doesn’t mean it didn’t all mean something to me.

Postscript: the music has shifted to Prince. 1984. Purple Rain is falling all over this post, and I am delighted.

P.S. This afternoon, hubby’s band takes over the barracks, (locals, set your phone to record from 1-3!) and while I’ve been known to hole up upstairs during practice—once even fielding a call from a former classmate who ran for president (true story, he’s writing a book and wanted tips; I wish he were president now)—I might decamp to the local uni and see what kind of trouble Poetry gets into on the road, even if I do have to kick that last sophomore eating lunch out of the coziest nook. If not, I’ll just look for the brightest corner of the building. All I need is my laptop and decent lighting.

Bring snacks. Or don’t. I’ll be writing either way.

It doesn’t have to be pretty, Precious, if it sings

I know it’s April, not October, Herbert, but if I want to give jagged lipstick vibes on my own damn blog, I will! (What — it’s May? Damn.)

The last years we lived in the Nashville area, we lived in Willamson County. There’s this cool town there called Leiper’s Fork. We DID NOT have Leiper’s Fork money, but we went there occasionally for a meal at Puckett’s or to go to a cool architectural salvage place there.

I wasn’t building a cathedral then, but I loved stopping in. I’ve always enjoyed repurposing things with a history. People discard the most mind boggling stuff – an oak altar rail from a defunct church with a murderous backstory, stained glass windows burned into a baked Crayola state, (half off), mismatched drawer pulls nevertheless trying to succeed in the same rectangular space.

It’s only when you’ve done without that you see it, I think. Some of the items were too special to ignore. Some were fighting too hard. It’s difficult to know if you’re not in situ.

This is the area where Michael McDonald and his family lived – we’d have the occasional sighting. (I read a biography on him earlier this year that he wrote with – wait for it – of all people, Paul Reiser! Apparently Reiser is a fanboy, and he convinced McDonald to let him help tell his story. Definitely worth a read if you don’t mind deep dives.)

The timer went off just now and when I went to the kitchen I discovered I had not put the chicken IN THE OVEN! I have to get my head out of my…cold medicine.

The chicken was rescued but it got a good scolding of spices for not reminding me it needed to be put in! (Does Reiser make chicken? I could use some help in the kitchen while I’m writing. Really he could just play keyboard and collaborate with me on a song.)

Which reminds me, I wrote a poem this morning while listening to Queen (Freddie’s ma boy!). I want to share it but she’s looking for her other shoe under the bed.

I also wrote a poem today called “Karen Russell Did It Best,” full of alligators and freak shows and tenderness. And witness. (Don’t even try to argue with me about better or best. Life is so much more than comparatives and superlatives, okay?) “Microwaving Sadness” (eh, it’s not that serious), “Scrap Wood,” “Straight from Central Casting,” “Cohabitating with Your Past,” a few others, and, oh yes, see below.

I’m just a word raccoon attempting to keep this post the littlest bit quieter so as not to scare America’s sweetheart, Sue Heck, offstage. I’ll be back tomorrow with too much jewelry and unforgivably chipped nail polish. I promise. I think I just heard you gasp.

Cinema of the Unseen

On the back of your
Leiper’s Fork barn
You project
Movies
Of the too-seen

Move slowly
And unbreak things,
St. Sebastian, She

At least Sue Heck
Had that flanneled guy show up
For her
Pumpkin patch
Showing

It doesn’t have to be pretty, Precious,

If it sings

For maximum haunting vibes, pair this post with the lyrical To Build a Home by The Cinematic Orchestra. Or not. Nobody’s making you, know you. Once it’s out on the curb, it’s abandoned property. Hope you enjoyed the show.

Authorial Consent (Well, Someone Hit Send)

Caption: (I didn’t say how many centuries ago I built it.)

I think I’m almost over this inconvenient little cold that hijacked my week. I always get the crankiest right before I get better, and right now? I’m irritable. So here I am—me and Billy Joel again—trying to outwrite it.

Unexpected upside of this quarantine-of-one? Writing time. I can’t stop writing poems. Apparently, I’ve written enough to call it a collection. Which is both hilarious and humbling because I didn’t plan this. I just kept writing and suddenly, a pile of poems.

Tentative title: Look, I Built a Cathedral. That’s where I’m putting all these strange, overly sincere fragments I’ve been calling poems and hoping they aren’t just the remnants of fever dreams pretending to have meaning. (Pretentious and perhaps premature to give it a title, maybe, but I need something to organize me when I write. And I was shocked to see there were common threads in most of them after all, maybe even in one called “Stephen King at Midnight.” I kinda wanna try to get that one to him. Is that silly?)

Looks like I’m on a bit of a streak writing about famous men. Another poem’s called “No, Rob Lowe Is Definitely Funny”—and yes, it is exactly what it sounds like. So yeah. Something’s going on. Maybe this whole cathedral is just a fan letter in disguise.

When you get to the feminist BS calling out in some of the poems, you’ll know better. (Not that any of that is aimed at Rob. I’m not a monster and I love his podcast. And spoiler, but he has a great sense of humor.)

I’m used to interrogating sentences for logic and structure, not for assonance and consonance. But I did have an Arts Appreciation professor in college who wouldn’t let us leave class until we could clap a certain meter. I forget which one—it wasn’t iambic, that’s too easy. I was among the first rhythm-captives to be released.

His class was brutal. One night I stayed up cramming, parked illegally in front of a fire hydrant in a panic, and somehow pulled off the only A on the midterm. Color me shocked. I was homeschooling my son, taking a full class load, working part-time. I thought I’d failed.

When he handed the exam back, he just said, “Very good.” I needed that. And I’ve been able to spot a Jacques-Louis David from across the room ever since. That red, am I right?

Anyway.

One of the poems in this accidental collection is called Paging Father John Misty. I thought I was just asking him to bless my weird little cathedral—he is a “Father,” after all. One (very early) reader thought I was propositioning the good man. Which—no.

To clarify: I am not bat-signaling Josh Tillman for a booty call in that poem. Did see him live once. It was 2018, on a September lawn in Indianapolis. Weather: perfect. Setlist: divine. I ran up front periodically to take photos. And now, obviously, I have no idea where they are.

And I claim all rights to Bat-Signaled Booty Call™

Still. That little misreading got me thinking.

What happens when someone misreads a poem? Or at least not the way I meant? Am I allowed to say, “Hey, that’s not what I was trying to say”? Because, let’s be honest—how do I know my subconscious wasn’t off doing something sneaky behind my back?

You may or may not know about Barthes’ famous essay, The Death of the Author (don’t panic, we’re not going full academia here). The gist: once a text exists, it’s out of the author’s hands. Readers can interpret it however they want. I usually use it as an excuse to say: “Sure. Whatever you think. I said what I said – take it away.”

But when it actually happened to me? Authorial intent may be considered dead by some. But at this point, I’d argue for a little authorial consent before you go deciding what I mean. Or don’t, I don’t know. I’m still figuring this out. I just have to take a deep breath and remind myself to trust the reader. Or?
Oof. Authorial Consent. That might need to be a poem.

(Is there a switch for this impulse, by the way? Poet friends, don’t leave me hanging. I don’t want it to go away—but I would like to do other things occasionally. It’s like I bought a new KitchenAid attachment and lost the manual, and now the meat grinder is making mince of the bones and it just won’t stop.)

All this to say, I’m all about a good double entendre (girl, please), but what about when I’m not trying to slide into Josh Tillman’s DMs, and a reader decides my subconscious is?

First of all: how dare you?
Second: how did my subconscious get my passwords again? Hey. We’ve talked about this. No personal devices after two drinks.

Here’s a little poem for those of you ever tempted to get thumbsy at 2 am:

Well, Someone Hit Send

I regret the drunk text

less than the thing

it kept me from doing.

No reply.

It was still

a kind

of rescue.

So if the author is “dead” (poor authors; did you mean to off us?), does that mean the reader is next?
👿 All’s fair, you know. (Kidding. Unless you’re not?)

P.S. I also wrote a poem called Authorial Intent Brown Ale. It’s for the writing residency crowd—and only for those who don’t take their work too seriously. Or do. For now, it’s going into my cathedral, as strange and drunk as both it and the cathedral are.

Trying Survival Food: in a bunker with a pen and a beat-up radio

When you happen upon a fortune cookie slip in your pants pocket that says “On Thursday, your creativity will soar to new heights” and it’s Wednesday evening, you sprint to your computer to be sure you have something to gnaw on tomorrow.

A few good words, you know, an idea, maybe a story you’re stuck on. What comes to mind to share is this.

So admittedly, I watch some odd things on YouTube. I mean, off kilter is kinda my brand. Have you seen Mrs. Fallout’s videos of her opening survival food? It’s a niche channel where a woman lovingly unwraps decades-old survival food like it’s precious jewelry. Some of the videos are manky, visually disturbing, actually. In one video she opens a can of 70-year-old peaches that are BLACK. I’m like, hon, gloves please.

But here’s a pretty innocuous one featuring cookies and candy. Enjoy!

I came for the food, stayed for the music.

I swear, the main song she uses is “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire” and it charmed me so much I listened to it over and over the first time I paid attention to it. (The InkSpots, 1941) TBH, I could do without the recitation in the middle. That’s a little affected for me. Okay, it’s downright embarrassing. Kinda like when someone sings to you in public. Just. Don’t. Unless I’m a drink or two in.

My dad took a test to be a fallout shelter manager back in the day, he liked to tell us kids.

What else, what else?

Oh, right.

I woke up before 3 am again (cold medicine brain) and wrote poetry for five hours. FIVE! I didn’t know you could say so much more in so much less space with poetry. It’s like, what, condensed milk? (That’s a place holder, obviously. Please find me something more apt and email it to me. I’m begging you.)

After lunch, more poetry. I had no idea I had so much to say. The poems ranged all over the place – some brittle, some feminist, existential angst wriggled in, as ever, and some yearning pieces, and oh yes, one schmaltzy sentimental poem that brought me to tears. Barf.

The title of one is “Shredded Journals for Breakfast.”

Another couplet: (Does this qualify as a couplet? Kinda sounds reductive – they’re not a couple, they’re a couplet. IDK, maybe they haven’t been dating very long?)

You’re not lost.

You’re just in a bunker with a pen and a beat-up radio,

Isn’t the line ‘Tell all the truth but tell it slant’?

There’s no other way to tell it, Aunty Em.

Now I’m onto Joel’s song “For the Longest Time,” which has modern day “Barkis is willin’” vibes if I’ve ever heard them.

Just so.

Fight me in the Waffle House Parking Lot At Dawn

Fight me in the Waffle House Parking Lot
At Dawn

Take out your onion rings
And hand them to your bestie

Except
no onion rings here

You can’t handle
The Roof
Wrapped in paper napkins

Shadow box
Four rounds
Or line dance your way
Back to town

Go inside,
Pick a spot
At the counter
And perform
Americana

Norman Rockwell
Will see you now

Psst…I kinda like this little freak.

(author’s note, filed under “uncertain transmissions from 3:12 a.m.”)

That, that poem(?), my friends, is what happens when you’ve taken cold medicine and are up at 3 am thinking you want to do anything but be inside your own mind. You take a line and twist it like desire and shove it into a poem. You think “Waffle House, but make it Hopper.”

If I had to name an influence on it, it’d be somewhere between Father John Misty’s Mr. Tillman and a half-remembered poem about the DQ that I read years ago.

This is what passes for clarity when you’re alone, buzzing, and full of unnamed things too G-D early.

Control: The Language

I’ve had Billy Joel’s “A Matter of Trust” on repeat this morning—
not quietly, I might add.

The music kept the blaze alive while I finished the poem that jolted me awake—
which, naturally, sparked another poem.
How do you poets hold hot coals to your chests? Holy guava dip!
I’ve no idea what to do with one except toss it from left hand to right until it cools enough to shape.
That’s exactly what I did with that first flame today.

To smother the doubt, I cranked the song even louder.
Yes, Mr. William Joel’s tune that doesn’t mean only what the title claims.
I won’t dissect it here—this isn’t about the song—but psst… that not-so-little ditty is not just about trust.

So anyway, the first poem is called “Renewal,” and it’s been rattling around in me in one form or another since I first saw the movie Logan’s Run as a kid. I just never thought I would be able to tame that particular fear with words.

I’m not ready to share it, because it’s fresh. And, to use a terribly tired and tortured word, raw.
This was meant to be the simple post—the little hand-wave,
“Hey, I wrote a poem today. Maybe take a look?”

Some days controlling language isn’t as easy as I’d like: here, have another poem. Maybe it’s foolish to share something on the same day it’s written, but I’ll either come away Joel’s fool or his king (queen, obv.). I’ll take the chance, every time, for art.

Side note: I’d pay to have a constant supply of that fire in my chest. It’s cardio by poetry. Makes me wish I smoked – I’d pace back and forth, a cigarette (minus the nicotine and, you know, real smoke) between my fingers, mumbling, laughing when I found a word, pulling at my hair when I couldn’t quite land on what I was looking for.

I remember sitting with someone once, puzzling over a title for a piece of my work. The right one came not from me: someone else had found le mot juste.

Paradoxically, the word we landed on was paradox. (Collaboration is a beautiful thing. Not essential, but fun. It was kinda like having another brain on tap for a hot moment.)

Throat clearing over now. Please accept this humble offering from my Busted Poetry Vending Machine.

Control: The Language

Before coffee,
before my overnight oats,
before I wrestled everything into the day:

the brain fire
that has burned in me for days,
subterranean Pennsylvanian coal fire,
shouldered its declaration front and center,
an overheated lover
smoldering syntax all over my
kitchen counters.

Mighty early,
mighty cheeky,
but it knows I am here for it.

The word plasma
that jumped onto my steering wheel
on Thursday
also asked for water.

I gave it a glass
before refilling my own bottle.

How many words
to an ounce?

My lips, dry,
but my soul?
quenched.

Not extinguished.

I pull up my digital day planner.
Under writing,
I put a check.

The language must be controlled,
except when it can’t
be.

Yup, Billy. Now it’s a matter of trust.

Writer Fuel

Dirty Diet Coke

This isn’t even my recipe. It was offered at the local café, and I, being the genius I am, said, “Sure,” while some small, reasonable voice inside me whispered, Hey… what are you doing?

One of the dangers of a Dirty Diet Coke—besides people mistaking it for something stronger and possibly scandalous if you tell them what it’s called —is the way it clings to your nervous system like that last leaf on a tree in winter.

Ingredients: two shots espresso, one bottle Diet Coke.

Pour over ice.

Exhibits notes of sage, somehow, after sitting for a few minutes.

This may not be my year of yes, but I’ll be damned if I let it be my year of less, I thought, when offered it. So I drank — deeply. Turns out, it’s basically an anti-sleeping potion. I wrote poetry until 3 a.m.
Did I learn my lesson?
Hell no. I repeated it the next day.

Because the poetry wasn’t all that bad—even if I was part zombie the morning after. Not that I’m sharing it yet—don’t go getting addicted to my Busted Poetry Vending Machine™. It’s still missing a few screws.

Yesterday Morning, Pre-Breakfast:

Backing out of the driveway, one last poem hurled itself onto my steering wheel—just as determinedly as the squirrel that once launched itself onto my back while I sat waiting for the gym to open. Thump.

Yesterday, I stopped the car, grabbed my phone, wrote a note.

Coffee with a friend after that—heady discussions about heady writers: Murdoch, Woolf (briefly), Jackson (Shirley, that is). We swapped notes on the books we’re reading. My friend dropped a brilliant theory about why a recent novel’s editor is prominently credited on the cover—something I hadn’t even considered. I loved that so much I think I clapped.

I wore my cute-ass bibs instead of a hat. Sat adjacent to the sun, “warming up” to my old friend El Sol. Waved at the walking crew who sprawled at nearby tables in post strolling bliss. Caught video of a squirrel nibbling at a crumb tucked into a crack at the top of the café’s stairs. (No relation to the gym squirrel, as far as I know.)

Oh, and my back hates me right now, so if anyone knows what I did to piss it off so badly, please advise. In the meantime: send ice and ibuprofen.

Meanwhile, in the Department of Sustaining This Creative Cloud:

(This recipe is brought to you by Yesterday, because sometimes blog posts are written on multiple days, especially when after cooking you end up splayed on the sofa with an ice pack pressed against your lower back.)

Every creative should have a fallback meal for those nights when you really ought to eat but don’t want to stop, oh, I don’t know… writing poetry past dinner time. And when your back says, “You can cook, but make it quick.” (Hubby would totally have agreed to takeout yesterday, but our town has so few choices.)

Enter: Write Night Chicken Bacon BBQ Pizza.

(Inspired by a pizza Hubby and I ate loooonnnggg ago at Planet Hollywood in Chicago, back when we unironically visited theme restaurants.)

Recipe:

Premade pizza crust (the kind you don’t have to refrigerate—whatever kind you want, I’m not the boss of you).

The bacon that’s about to go bad in your fridge. Fry it. Or bake it. Or leave it off. Your call.

Rotisserie chicken. White meat, dark meat, both. Choose your own adventure. Amount? To taste. Obviously.

Preheat the oven to whatever temperature your crust package recommends.

Brush the crust lightly with olive oil. (What’s that? You need an exact measurement? Who hurt you? I promise you won’t lose any points if you freehand.)

Add a generous brush of barbecue sauce. Enough, but remember, we’re not filling a swimming pool with it.

Toss on the chicken and bacon. If you’re me, add more sauce, because we both know we don’t do subtlety. *Raises eyebrows several times*

Top with shredded cheese—your favorite kind. Enough to cover but not smother. If your cheese isn’t shredded, shred it. Or tear it into chunks with your bare hands. Who cares?

Chop some green onions. Sprinkle them on top—unless you want to skip your one chance at a green veg tonight. (At least it’s not kale. I’m done pretending to like kale. Kale chips are fine. Regular kale can see itself out.)

Bake according to crust directions—assuming you didn’t throw away the package like I did. If so, wing it. Trust your instincts. You’re a grown-up. Probably.

Timer? Set one. I use Echo so I can shout at her while my hands are dripping with mango juice. (Did you just taste mango when you read that? Same. It’s a glorious fruit.)

Once baked, slice the pizza. Pair it with fruit salad (cut up fruit, add a squeeze of lemon, sweetener if you want, maybe walnuts, maybe coconut flakes—depends on the fruit, right?) and (as a separate side) whatever veggies you can scavenge from the fridge. Serve the veg with hummus or bean dip. Fiber. Your mom called and said you need it. Eat it.

Voila. Dinner is served. Total time? Fifteen minutes, maybe, assuming you cut the fruit and vegetables while the pizza baked. (Pro tip: Slice extra strawberries. Someone will definitely want them.)

Perfect for the nights you’ve been writing and cannot be arsed to make something more complicated. Or, you know… on days when your back hates you.

(And we’ll just have to wait and see if the poetry becomes anything viable. The lab promises to have the results back within a week.)