It's the end of National Poetry Month

And if anyone wants to read a frenzy of poems, go visit thirty - forty - a bunch of poets who wrote and posted a poem every day during that month.

Poetry-Free-For-All

As for me, and a few others, I started late, and have eleven poems to make up.

Here is one of mine -- written for the other poets in the challenge, tired of writing and commenting on everyone's poems: a delight, but also hard work every day!

Here, a poem for my reader... I was thinking, if I drag my tired typing fingers, my burning screen-staring eyes, my fluff-tickling throat, my metaphor-laden brain to this thread, and decide to go for the very most recent poem, what would I love to see?

I think I know:

Thank You For Not Reading

And if you do
anyway, Thank you
for going away!

Are you still there, Reader?
Confess you loved to hear it.

Take a break
from NaPo
as poetry
from me to you.

Still there? OK, the title
was borrowed from Croatian
writer Dubravka Ugresic.
Zabranjeno čitanje

The quote was overheard
by my friend Judy:

A tramp trying to sleep
among tourists in Jackson Square:
"Please go away. Thank you for going away!"

NUNS go shopping again!

Happy Easter, Lent is over!
Laurie, hope you are getting spring clothes!

Me, I ordered a book on Amazon as shops are closed here today...

Morning Paper on Rye Road

A sense of action: the thud on the mat, you open
the door, show your spiky hair and rumpled
pyjamas with virtuous sangfroid, carry
Dagsavisen and Klassekampen back to bed.

They rustle, scrunch up, flap a wing
over your bowl of coffee, you smear marmalade
on the comic strip you had planned to cut out
for the fridge door. The bed linen smudges
from fresh print but you still feel in control:
you are doing something
real about the world’s problems: you don’t stare
helplessly at an online edition, or listen
to the news on the bedside radio.

You are hands on, get to grips with President Bush
in his latest denials, prop bird flu against your knees,
leaf quickly past car crashes, tear out a story
on Germany’s Audubon. Iran should maybe
be allowed to proceed under your coffee rings,
you spill crumbs on Prodi’s face.

That evening, you wrap a broken
whisky glass in Politiken
to protect the trash collector from injury.

Orbiting Venus

The probe has arrived!

See it here.

What Language To Learn?

Take the quiz!
Got it from a thread on a favourite hang-out .

My result was:

You Should Learn French

C'est super! You appreciate the finer things in life... wine, art, cheese, love affairs. You are definitely a Parisian at heart. You just need your tongue to catch up...

What Language Should You Learn?

April Twosome on Rye Road

The mouthy girl at the supermarket check-out
is on the subway train from downtown
with a small boy, he craving attention, she
cradling a tub of half-eaten popcorn
and nursing a head-ache from "Ice Age I"
at the Saga Cinema, full blast. "And it’s not
as if he needs it loud any more," she says
proudly. "They fixed his deafness
two months back. A new boy, he is
-- oh shut UP, Mommy’s tired!"
We step off into a freezing flurry
of April snow. "Gonna snuggle up warm
now," she says. "With Play Station?" he asks.
Under the blanket? Just us?"

Oh dear!

I went more than a month without posting again.

How have I spent my non-shopping time? Lapsing once, last weekend (which is not much if you have set aside a weekend for teenage shopper niece to go round all the jeans and shoes and DVD and cosmetics shops of Oslo, or as many as can be done in six uninterrupted hours!)

This was the lapse: half-price and we both love Harvey Keitel. I have forgiven myself.



Paul Auster's screenplay, Wayne Wang directing-- and it is about two ways of telling a story: in images or in words.

What else am I doing? reading newspapers in the flesh: in their paper clothing (how retro is that?) and cutting out interesting bits to send to friends or keep-- and on the Web (as we all do) -- cutting out links to send to friends or keep. The more it changes, the more it remains the same thing, as the French say.