jeffrey mcdaniel rides again

Jeffrey McDaniel Rides Again!

Mikaela says:

So excited!

One of my absolute, hands-down, god's own, favorite poets, Jeffrey

McDaniel, is coming out with a new book of poems in April. I can't

tell you how fantastic that is.

His poetry is so accessible as to be transparent -- in the form of

corrective lenses. He's a master of metaphor and one of the only poets

that I can use to get teenagers to understand the power of an image,

how one simile stands in for all the "pain, shattered glass, hurt,

heart, soul" you can throw in a teen-angst poem. To really hit home my

point, I use this little gem, from The Jerk:

"I'm standing behind you on the subway,

hard as calculus."

Oooooo, do they get that!

Here's the rest, just cause it's too good to pass up:

Jeffrey McDaniel

"The Jerk"

Hey you, dragging the halo--

how about a holiday in the islands of grief?

Tongue is the word I wish to have with you.

Your eyes are so blue they leak.

Your legs are longer than a prisoner's

last night on death row.

I'm filthier than the coal miner's bathtub

and nastier than the breath of Charles Bukowski.

You're a dirty little windshield.

I'm standing behind you on the subway,

hard as calculus. My breath

be sticking to your neck like graffiti.

I'm sitting opposite you in the bar,

waiting for you to uncross your boundaries.

I want to rip off your logic

and make passionate sense to you.

I want to ride in the swing of your hips.

My fingers will dig in you like quotation marks,

blazing your limbs into parts of speech.

But with me for a lover, you won't need

catastrophes. What attracted me in the first place

will ultimately make me resent you.

I'll start telling you lies,

and my lies will sparkle,

become the bad stars you chart your life by.

I'll stare at other women so blatantly

you'll hear my eyes peeling,

because sex with you is like Great Britain:

cold, groggy, and a little uptight.

Your bed is a big, soft calculator

where my problems multiply.

Your brain is a garage

I park my bullshit in, for free.

You're not really my new girlfriend,

just another flop sequel of the first one,

who was based on the true story of my mother.

You're so ugly I forgot how to spell!

I'll cheat on you like a ninth grade math test,

break your heart just for the sound it makes.

You're the this

we need to put an end to.

The more you apologize, the less I forgive you.

So how about it?

And because it's still New Year's... an encore.

"Friends And High Places"

It's like escaping a hot, bright room

for the serenity of a city at night, covered in snow.

People eliminated. A carpet of silence

for taxis to whisper across. The world becoming

a pleasant dream of itself. The itch

of want smoldering to life on skin. Memory sends

a chill vanishing between vertebrae.

It's New Year's Eve. Hail the Calendar! As if

clocks will pause for a moment

before reloading their long rifles. Years are tiny

freckles on the face of a century.

Where is the constellation we gazed at each night

through a bill rolled so tight

the first President lost his breath, as our eyeballs

literally unraveled? I am alone

in the rectangular borough in the observatory,

where even fire trucks can't rescue

the arsonist stretching his calves in my brain.

More than anything, I'm excited because I think Jeffrey McDaniel is

the poet who speaks most directly to me. It was his work that allowed

me to dream that I could call myself a poet -- that the work I was

already doing might be relevant to someone other than me.

I'm contemplating ... big confession time ... putting together a

manuscript of my own work. I'm terrified to do this and have been

dragging my feet for years about it. The very idea breaks me out in

hives. But it's Jeffrey McDaniel's work that nags me to do it.

Here's the poem that changed the course of my writing life:

1977

from Alibi School

The family around the table and a silence

so compact no words can break it.

Not even a pigeon swirling through the window

can nudge mother's poorly taped grin.

Her face has the euphoric glow of a mathematician

whispering a formula into the whorl of a rose.

Her eyes are tiny stones testing the black

silk bags she lugs them in.

Since father banned television the sons stare

at the marriage dangling from the ceiling.

Each month it sinks another couple inches

until it's in their food.

No wonder they don't eat.

How amazing is that??? It's like Wes Anderson in a minute, isn't it?

In fact, that would be a BRILLIANT collaboration.