The PoetGuru Podcast

Thirty Seven Thank Yous

poetguru@me.com (thom ingram) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:06:12 PDT

Thank you for this body that is still working.
This body is thanking you for still working.
That is a thank you for this still working body.
That thank you is still working, for this body.
For still this body that is working. Thank you.
Thank you for working this body, still.
Thank you for this body. That, is still working.
Working is this body, for thanking you, still.
This still body is working. Thank you for that.
Thank you for this working body, that is still.
Still, that body is working for this; thanking you.
For this still working body that thanks you.
Thanks. For this body is you, that still working.
For these workings, this body still thanks you.
Thank you for this, a body that is still working.
Thank you is working for this, that still body.
This body is still working for that thank you.
Is that body still for thanking you? This it is.
Thanks; for you, still body, that is working this.
Thank you, for this body is still working it.
Thank you body, for this is still working that.
Is that thank you still working for this body?
Thank you for this body that is still (working).
This still working. That body. Is for thank-yous.
For-still this working body that is thanking you.
For you this body is still working. Thank you.
This, for-still working body, is thanking you.
Thanks for working this, You that is still body.
Thank you; for this body is still working.
This is a still working body. For thank yous.
Thank you working body. For this is still that.
Still body, thank you, for that is this, working.
Thank you for workin’ this still body.
Thank you body, for still working, that is.
Still for this body. Thank you for this that is.
Thank you four. This body is still working.
For You: this body; still, working-- thankful.

Three

poetguru@me.com (thom ingram) — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 20:09:57 PDT

Three does not divide equally
but when the obsessed is faced
with the last tic-tacs
that must be eaten in pairs
and gets stuck with three
she does not take two
and hand one to me
but bites down hard
and passes me her half.

One and a half is not even
and so when the obsessed
makes sure that between
the pair of us the tic-tacs
are split equally her lips
are my lips and we
are more than two people
separate. We are done
searching for the one.

After the work

poetguru@me.com (thom ingram) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:39:53 PDT

After the work, in all its usefullness and emptymaking
I could argue with no/ones in traffic, tossing cursewords
only to arrive home horse and exhausted and laydown
for something like a nap, approximating giveinsurrender

I could, but when I get there, arrive dead in that statehood
you smile and dig my back muscles with themlovenails
and I sense your want/to dripping into me, as in an IV
and whatever anger I held for them no/ones goesout

You smile, and lead me from that frontporchangry in
to where hands/squeezed and backpetting catlegs
absentminded thigh kneading, our limbs like saying love
and crawl onto me curling up and asking for comfort

To where we tie up in that thickhug at our neckmeets
where nolight flickers and we see smell lumps of candle
batting off our eyeshine, which can't spot eyes, but
your head buried in my neck teeth dug of moon and stars

Where nolight is wrapped inside but each other's heart
that beats away whatever stupid/dumb nothing done
coworker customer again today. Who cares here?
where we pounds of flesh, we godinlaws try to get back

That beats away like wings thee thick gravity and lifts
our love bodies into something approximating heaven.
After the work, desire for giveinsurrender, your silt grin
settles in, awakes me for goodwork to begin, and for better.

Tripping Fields

poetguru@me.com (thom ingram) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 12:58:23 PDT

What we thought of as our rooms,
laid out in rows, our beds,
our mattresses, our feet
sticking off the edge was none of it.

The halls could best be described
as belonging to those who cut
a yellow ribbon or first
tye-died clothes in our sink

or belonging to the first to groan
on our mattress, spill love
when they were new, belonging
to the state. We, as Rockefeller's

children, who belonged
to whichever farmer sold the land
or to the natives or the earthworms
or simply to the earth.

We called it ours. Grew tan
by the gunk, thin in the limbs
of a dead tree, ran like bats
along a starless evening.

They paved the tripping fields.
Made soft the slope that felled us
and hung lights so the incline
would never, again, come as a surprise.

Tore up the tree and its roots.
All that's left is a patch,
or a pennant, or a hoodie,
some embellished aberration

walking back to us down a hallway.
Ah-Ann, who may have been
that lovely, worthy of our lustful
admiration and our youth.

Womb and Surrender

poetguru@me.com (thom ingram) — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:57:55 PDT

Sometimes I view sleep;
that covenant between the body and sheet,
between a mind that requires rest,
to cool down, come down
off the mountain into a darkness
with one light small enough
to bay the fears of childhood
but not too bright to penetrate eyelids
or keep away those sweet sweet fantasies
of flying in peanut butter castles
or endless shadows chasing.

Sometimes I view sleep
as giving in to the worst of lazy
habits and sometimes, like a shaman,
as knowing when to pray
and when to rest and when
to breathe. Sometimes
as womb and surrender,
that dark heartbeat of sleep.

So you've come home...

poetguru@me.com (thom ingram) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 21:14:29 PDT

So you've come home
having spent a lifetime alone
on a raft at sea
or on a park bench, or at war
or simply walking a mile (or more)
in someone else's too tight shoes.

Now what do you do?
Set up a desk by the window?
Paint the walls pink?
Sit like a mountain and think (on the floor)
of all the silly things you can hang
and grow and coddle and adore?

You lay down your weapons
and strip to the bone,
decide what sound a good life moans,
what echos bounce off the walls,
that this is all you need to be done:
a drum, a hollow space, taut skin you fit in.

Straight and Narrow

poetguru@me.com (thom ingram) — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 20:35:23 PDT

Face the day lean
stretched out
long in the heart and arms
let the day spill over you like a spout
get out ahead of the curled and the slow
know the Way is straight and narrow
keep below the false drama and sad songs
be lean and long (what some call mean)
for stealing all the lights
and all the beams
all the heat and all the dreams
of the sun
that great warm embrace
across the sky
behind clouds or in front
of the race we run
coming home to our lover
our family and the One

All The Good Sun

poetguru@me.com (thom ingram) — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 20:35:54 PDT

The rain stopped, so I dragged to the porch
the chair we plopped down in when spring was popping

curled my legs up to listen to the resilient bugs
ones left now that all the good sun has south run

to you in your bikini and me with my tanned feet
to you by the river and me in your swimming

to you with the top down and me naked running
to you in the tall grass and me in the weeds.

Now, onto this harvest, this bounty, spirits and feast,
thanking you for summer with winter impeding.

On This Straight Earth

poetguru@me.com (thom ingram) — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 09:54:34 PDT

I can’t see the ice-caps melting, have no love
for concrete. I’ve felt the heat every summer
and my skin browning. I’ve heard the yelping chorus

of crickets belting out melodies
from trees, helping themselves to a hum,
sought myself outside myself, stayed straight
on this straight earth by tilting.

The Cicadas

poetguru@me.com (thom ingram) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 11:30:55 PDT

Off the beginning of summer cicadas would come
and eat the leaves that spent a spring budding.
There would be articles on the news about how horrible
the infestation, that left our trees bald as politicians.

I couldn't join the consternation. We had no plans
to use leaves for food, nor fuel. Simply our aesthetic.
The buzzing sounded like noise, a song we hummed,
one we sung about God given rights to our life

our country, our homeland, to beauty.

But no one wondered why the cicadas come,
hungry and singing, horny and ornery
why they lie dead on our sidewalks,
serve themselves up for oak or poplar,

what love drives them most to death,
what breadth they passed, what distance
and why the chorus sounded like laughing,
what they knew of happiness.

Summer

poetguru@me.com (thom ingram) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 08:43:33 PDT

Graze in the field and I'll shield
my eyes from your eyes, from how
they drowned out other light,
how even in sunlight,
bright bright light,
I have to squint at you.

You ask how someone loves so easy.
To be baked by you, tanned
in your presence, retina panned
at the sight. It's right. The tune
played in my head since I knelt
by the bed and prayed as a child,
a small child, a small and pious child.

It is not easy to love you. But to not to,
to let go and watch you float away
as any warm summer day
must end, would be the end.
With my last breath
I would rumble towards the horizons
at top speed, up the mountains

to chase you at fifteen degrees
across the land, to the oceans,
exhausted, but never able
to calm the wanting,
unwilling to be without you
for a moment, to never
stop moving or leave.

Of A Life Like This

poetguru@me.com (thom ingram) — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 06:57:50 PDT

It's all script, the rend and rip of person
from person, lyric from rhythm, notes
from their home on the page. We're separate.
If I can accept this, then the longing
is simple, chronic, expected.

It was only when I imagined myself of you,
that loving you was coming back
to taste my own flesh. If I could settle for less,
nap and get fat, be content arguing,
investing, hoping in earnest.

All day I could fend off demons,
pretend you're listen behind the windowpane,
that as I wait you wake with eyes open,
lips parted, that I'm not the only one
up early and alone.

If I could bend my will to a paperclip
and forget, hold on to none of it,
then I would not need you,
would not miss you,
would be a fine citizen of a life like this.

Death Is My Pose

poetguru@me.com (thom ingram) — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 09:02:02 PDT

Death is my pose, where I run,
where you can't follow,
that shallow river
in which you dip your toes
and realize, (no, where you really know)
you can't cross, can't catch me
where I am washed
clean and pose
on the other shore,
smirk on my face permanent,
wiping old blood from my nose.

You thought you could keep me,
or that I was gone.
The shock on your face
at my existence shows.

Try, stick in a foot or a toe.
It looks shallow. Like you could cross
to reach me. But by that time I'd be gone,
on a new shore where the wind blows,
where we live separated by a creek,
by an ocean, by the rills
that wind between
our deepest connections.
Until you die with me,
cast off this pretense and these clothes.
Who knows? Death I suppose.

Curtain

poetguru@me.com (thom ingram) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 15:50:28 PDT

Cross the grate,
that gate of iron-moss,
links that won’t stop flame
but make a falling log
or flailing corner
come up short of escape.

I hold your heat
and stare into your deeper bed
and deep, let letters I long to write,
rhymes and reams
meant to singe
your eardrums come.

I bask in your petals,
yellow and orange
swishing out to taste me,
to leave a mark on each spot
you touch, blister
promising to never heal.

Meet me at the edge
at the curtain's kiss
shish your scar of a story
whispered in the dark
wish it were lit brighter
by heavy breathing.

The Work

poetguru@me.com (thom ingram) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 15:50:50 PDT

I complain about the sun, shirt off in a run, the heat
the flab flapping over the clap of feet against concrete.

Stop in a moment of weakness, to catch a breath,
hands on knees and see what appears to be

a pine-cone but thinner, in the shade of a tree,
hovering just above the grass, just off the concrete

spinning on some thread too thin to hold it. How long
has it been here? How old? No way to know.

I straighten and run another lap, complain in my head
about how hard, how unfair, with what I have been burdened.

When I return to the spot, I catch it again, but even
with my eyelids; chrysalis, dinner, some insect catacombed

in a woody sarcophagus. Only then do I stop and watch
the inch by inch of something lifting it, listen hard to catch

the groaning, assume some spider, some insect,
some alien of scale must be straining to lift it.

By my next pass the work is finished. And who knows
what enjoyment's been won, whether the bug

did it for her nest, her stomach or her children,
whether there was any consciousness. All we know

is what we have left when the sweat and twitching muscles
give in to it is the work, and the rest, and the results of it.

Official Sounding Press Release

poetguru@me.com (thom ingram) — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 03:13:02 PDT

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

CONTACT:
thom ingram
PoetGuru.com
206-350-5436
poetguru@mac.com

PoetGuru.com Launches

Columbia, Maryland, August 19, 2007 - Today thom ingram announced the launch of the permanent home of the PoetGuru Podcast and his other poetry and training related pursuits, PoetGuru.com.

Over the last three years the podcast has moved around, being hosted on free sites such as Blogger and Wordpress. The new site will host the podcast, information for the annual writer’s conference Convergence, information for thom’s free training sessions and more.

“I have been waiting nearly ten years to host this site, ever since I signed up for my first free poetguru email address. Sites like Livejournal and Blogger are awesome for people to get out there on the internet, but there is something very special about having your own space. Hopefully, I can do the best work of my life now, having a permanent online home.”

Archives of the previous sites will remain up and are a great resource for over 600 poems written by thom and his poetic friends.

For additional information contact thom or visit www.poetguru.com.

ABOUT THE POETGURU PODCAST: thom ingram is a poet, podcaster and trainer living in Columbia, Maryland. His poetry has appeared on his own sites, The Cloudy Day Art Podcast, The Everyday Muse, Indiefeed Performance Poetry and has been published in local and national journals including Elysian Fields Quarterly and upcoming in 29, The Magazine. The PoetGuru Podcast has existed since August of 2004 in many incarnations and is a member of the Association of Poetry Podcasting at PoetryPodcasting.org

- END -

Shoving Consciousness Through the Side Window of a Lexus

poetguru@me.com (thom ingram) — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 05:54:52 PDT

A better man would drive on, offer no proof,
realize it’s no use ruffling your own nest
trying to better a goof who made it this far

in grey silk suits. Mr. Trendsetter’s
got a nil chance of hearing proof, less
than he’s got reading prayers scrawled on trash.
Here’s a fool, best left aloof.

Seven tables

poetguru@me.com (thom ingram) — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 06:06:21 PDT

On one we flip colors, cheer faces, boo numbers.
Two hosts a hot meal, but just once a month.
Three wobbles when leaned on, a page folded under its leg.
On four rests a discussion from college, hung on a wall, left unfinished.
On five I’ve marked out the beauty of my friends using equations and colors.
Six sits in the desert of my imagination, a towering mesa.
On seven we make arrangements, set a vase and a picture, place flowers.

In Poplar Glen

poetguru@me.com (thom ingram) — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 05:17:03 PDT

Some guess they hear singing. In my younger days
it sounded like an argument, like Congress
or dinner, or free press. I wondered what passes

for news in the forest. But today
I hear recess: robins on swings, crows
erasing lessons from blackboards, dorks
stuck on pavement playing chess.

This muggy summer

poetguru@me.com (thom ingram) — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 06:05:07 PDT

The air, thick like eighties hair held up and poofed
with Aquanet, keeps us hid inside, subdued
with freon and well conditioned. A crew cut day

may come soon, but first we’ll need thunder
storms, wind, shampoo we must massage deep
into our scalp to renew our split
ends, this gooey sky turned blue.

The Champ and Buster *

poetguru@me.com (thom ingram) — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 04:35:52 PDT

The champ, undefeated, undisputed, yet,
something in his visage suggests the ride’s clicked
to its apex, feet planted on the mat while Buster

dances and bobs, raring and weaves.

By the third round the fight’s over, by the eighth
our eyes are swelled shut, a last ditch effort
to slide a bullet proof vest into history.

Space shuttles at landing (and take off).

Here lies facts we dare not admit; brothers,
Presidents, heroes and foils gunned down,
leaders succeeded by mediocre men.

We all miss Cus.

From our torn chairs, our stained carpets, from walls punched
that we’ll never repatch, we pay our debts and cast
votes holding our nose, knowing the awful choice

leads to less tears (and less death).

--

*also an assignment, from yet another friend.

Gray, slow, and gravity *

poetguru@me.com (thom ingram) — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 05:54:01 PDT

If first life were easy,
if for a buck or ten,
one could be tall and thin,

man or woman, with a click
find the perfect dress,
if conversations

were free and flawless.

But change is often gray,
slow, and gravity flows
in the wrong direction,

so for an hour or day
I will forget the first
and take the second.

--

*an assignment given to me, proving again that you can "order a poem like you order a taco"

Paradox in memory

poetguru@me.com (thom ingram) — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 20:33:26 PDT

If I push the muscles of my cheeks skyward,
furrow my brow, blur the edges, try stretching
the cornea of my inner eye, if I deny

that others live, then that shy kid hung
like a stoplight, high on your every
twitch, aligns in memory and myth,
till both lie and truth exist.

To the Edge of Woods

poetguru@me.com (thom ingram) — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 04:48:47 PDT

Welcome, welcome. Why’ve you taken this long
what seems like eons to stroll out along the edge
of the forest? Stroll out with your overloaded back
packed like a camel, packed for the long haul,
when we all know, it’s not like that at all.

You have no more to carry than a flea.
But the words I begged, when I’d pleaded
for you to show your kind and simple face,
to place your sweet paws down below your chin
and begin to welcome me home, welcome me back in.

It’s been cold on this ledge, in the wind, in the mist
of the appearance I’ve been living in. You must
have heard, have caught a breeze of me, shouting,
bellowing for you to come out and catch me,
teetering, sure I would continue failing,

and fall

eventually into the abyss, into nothingness,
into whatever rests in the pit of this long thin
precipice. I know my scars, how their jagged edges
must make me ugly, I know, to you, I must seem
hideous. And though, though I have nothing

yet to offer, no kind words, not a nip of solace,
I promise, promise you, whatever I have, I will give.
Tonight, it is tuna by the can, my hand rubbing itself
along the thin spine of your back, brushing back
the hair you’ve quietly quaffed for your visit,

and tomorrow, whatever gold, whatever riches,
whatever old thoughts laid before me,will be passed
out to loved ones and to strangers as blessings,
for your kiss, for my language, for this visit.
I’ll walk to the edge of woods, to sit and listen.

Lion

poetguru@me.com (thom ingram) — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 07:53:43 PDT

I’ll waste days in your presence,
bring breakfast, hear your whining,
feel the love you offer
as headbutts to my kidneys.

I’ll watch you wheel and scratch
on the back porch, nudge your paws
against the screen dividing us,
sense you, wrestling beneath me.

You come round the forests’s edge
as from a haze, and I’m sure
there is no home on this earth

where your head lays. Sentinel,
each time I twitch you see it

as a sign, that maybe I’ll
come back, let you in again
to rest, weary, beside me.

There will remain this curtain
between us, birds and squirrels
hooting, rooting. But the choice
made can never be unmade.

You may love infinitely,
perfectly, poking your head

round the edge of my failings,
my obsessions, may want me
to return to simple peace.

I won’t get back up. Fallen,
the snap of bones must remain
unhealed, unset, altered

this way.