Incoherent Upsets All Over

September 16: Miss Moody, watch your words.

I am not a poet. I won't claim to have any of the drive the dedication required, nor any modicum of talent (I ramble too much, I rhyme all the time, I rhapsodize romance). Therefore I hate when I judge a poem as not good or not great or simply boring or I could do better. Because I could not do better. That is a boldfaced lie. I do not have a need to write poetry. However my need to read poetry is another matter altogether.

Consider: hierarchy of needs: food & water, shelter & sleep... hierarchy of desires: books and men, poetry and shoulders. Airy spaces, the quality of light, the surface of things, the right weight of fabrics. Coffee & tea, music, sculpture, installations, theatre, wine & vermouth.

There is nothing so upsetting than _______, _________ poems packaged in a slick that bothers my fingers-- I'm talking to you revamp of __________, I don't like change and the only poems I think I like in this issue are the __________'s. I think I like them, I'm not stamping my feet in the magazine shop clutching the issue to my chest until I get home, I'm not rolling any one line round and round my brain and tongue, I actually rolled the entire MAGAZINE, not newspaper, into my bag and forgot about it until just now.

Maybe I simply hate everything about this issue because I am (simply) in a foul mood today? This is not a blog, this just a journal because I have realized that I can no longer fully truly write on paper anymore and I do not know how to fix this (boldfaced). What I mean to say is, tell me about this grey sulk, this slow sick feeling like weak tea or wet socks, yet hot like jealousy, like a sweater unraveling faster and faster as I pull at what started as (simply) one small loose thread:

I went to the library where I coudn't find anything rien du tout and where usually the gallery has just consistently great shows except our city has been taken over by art commissioned to celebrate the sports team centennial so I just didn't bother to go in.

After a day where work made me inexplicably grumpy for no damn reason, events and events and a knot of stress over tomorrow night's.

And running into the one I like best after the library and mall made me a bit upset, maybe because I don't like unexpected things even though it was expected if I could only remember what day of the week it is or even just thought back to something he said earlier in the day.

Or because I had just braved the mall to try to find thin gloves or mittens but all I found was nothing but disappoinment. Like in the romance department. Make outs and fall mittens without sequins, too much to ask for? Possibly, that's what poetry is for. Also, it seems as if the romance department is a section of The Bay, but even if it was I bet it would be "Sometimes I look at this pair of mittens and I think they are just as intrigued by me as I am by them" but face it I am hallucinating. Mittens will never return your affection. Mittens are just too damn interesting and intelligent for someone who compares people to winter accessories and mixes her metaphors and meanings like the worlds worst bartender.

And the cat just knocked over a dish of hairpins all over the bathroom floor. The other night she broke a small mug I adored.

So while I am sometimes most of the time unbearably positive and esctatic and nervous with delight, I am now sulking like a brat beacuse I can't find a single new poem that makes me lose my mind and I just had to throw the __________ down because the texture is making my skin crawl. Also what I really wanted was the new issue of the __________ but it isn't in yet. It too apparenty has a redesigned cover but it looks nice and as long as it doesn't get a petroleum slick finish, we will be okay. Everything will be okay. Maybe you should just get some sleep, you cranky petulant pouting child?