Instructions

“I drink from a small spring,
my thirst exceeds the ocean.”
—Adam Zagajewski

Spanish folk music plays today on the sound system of this Turkish coffee shop where I come to sit and write and use the free wireless network (well, really, not completely free if you figure in the cost of the $1.64 glass copita of Turkish tea I’ve ordered, plus tax). A chorus warbles the refrain from “Granada” and ends with a flourish of castanets and foot-stomping. Then more guitars, more singing. I can almost see the women’s arms dipping and lifting, maneuvering their ruffled bata de cola skirts, which troubles the oversized flowers they’ve pinned in their hair. I notice that the girl tending the espresso machine has cut her long hair since I was here last; she’s looped a scarf of silvery grey around her neck though everything else she wears is still black. On the coffee stand by the window, someone has placed a pair of embroidered felt slippers, perhaps the kind a minor pasha might have worn indoors or on his way back from the bath. Outside, a skim of snow’s imprinted on the walk with winding, parallel lines of arrows, like a child’s map to buried treasure. The sun, guest maitre d’ this noon, parts the potted greens and signals for me to take my time, cup my fingers around the bowl; sip the tea while it’s hot, but slowly.

Luisa A. Igloria
01.14.2011

In response to today’s Morning Porch entry.

Morning Porch needs a new header

Thanks to the reverse image search TinEye, I’ve discovered the original source of the header image currently in use for The Morning Porch — and now I need a new image. I downloaded it originally from a site offering free wallpapers, but what I downloaded and cropped was apparently already a crop of an album cover by a one-man band called Radical Face. Since the musician, Ben Cooper, is also an artist, I’m assuming it’s his work. Here’s a page from his website about the album, with the cover image and two others (as well as a couple of sample tracks — check ’em out).

Even if it were possible to get permission from Mr. Cooper for the use of his image, which I really like, I don’t want to keep using something so thoroughly identified with another creative project. I need a new header! So I thought I’d put out a call: anyone have — or feel like making — something that might work? I thought about trying to run a contest for this, but I’m not sure anyone would actually enter, which would be embarrassing. Let’s face it, The Morning Porch ain’t exactly the big time, even if I do have a whopping 2,269 followers on Twitter.

But if I do choose your art or photo for the header, you’ll get a permanent credit and link at MP, a feature post here… and $50.00, which is all I can afford. The dimensions of the current image are 940px x 198px, but I could go a little thicker or thinner on that. Whatever art or photo I use, it has to look good at a fairly low resolution. The current image is 63KB, which is actually a bit too large. Under 50KB would be best.

Send jpegs or queries to me at my usual email, bontasaurus [at] yahoo [dot] com.

UPDATE (1/14)

I have swapped in a section of a favorite painting by Clive Hicks-Jenkins, Paper Garden (see comments). This is a very satisfying fit because it includes, as Clive puts it, “everything there you might need for a morning break on the porch. A good view with a distant hill and an open sky, the reassurance of friendly neighbours (as that’s Ty Isaf, you can be sure that your ‘Morning Porch’ neighbours are really great to have around) a blackbird’s song for company and a cup of coffee to refresh.”

Clive is not only incredibly generous but a good sport: he swears he won’t be upset if I end up giving him the boot. So if you think you have something even more in the spirit of the blog and the Paul Eluard quote in the header, feel free to send it along. I’m very grateful to everyone who’s offered images so far: Tina Conroy, Gary Boyd, Natalie d’Arbeloff, Patricia Ternahan, Sarah Q. Malone, Rachel at Sungazer Photography, Ann-Marie at ammiblog, and Pete McGregor.

Menage

A-one, and a-two, and a-three
gray squirrels in slow-
motion chase:

this is when they come
into heat, as the restless town
sifts under powdered sugar.

Where is the rich broth with marrow,
where is the noisy brass gong?
Windowpanes color with steam.

Something celery and something orange
marry above the stove’s blue flame.
Somewhere a ledge of brittle ice

softens to syrup. You don’t see,
but sunlight’s shade turns
acetylene. A woman

steps out of her bath
kimono, and cranes stretch
tremulous above the grass.

What is that tinkle of brass
bells? New snow cascading
from branches, like wedding veils.

Luisa A. Igloria
01.12.2011

In response to today’s Morning Porch entry.

Closer

Closer, says the ear to the voice—

Closer, says the face to the water—

Closer, says the throat to the song—

Closer, say the tissues to the cell—

Closer, says the mouth to the flame—

Closer, says the hare to the hound—

Closer, says the lilac to the unsuspecting chickadees—

Closer, say the hundred leaves to the twig—

Closer, says the estocada to the bull—

Closer, says the red heart to the muelta,
fluttering to the ground in a rain of roses.

Luisa A. Igloria
01.11.2011

In response to today’s Morning Porch entry.

Fluke

Schistosoma mansoni

What moon presides over the chance
meeting of egg with water,
miracidium with snail, forked-tail
cercarium with human skin?
The young vampires voyage
first through the lungs & then
to the heart, where like Cupid’s arrows
they pierce its left side & travel down
into the liver for their fateful pairing.
The female inhabits the male,
slides tongue-in-groove style
into his gynaecophoric canal
& latches on. Could anything be
more romantic than this life-
long nestle? Together
they navigate the narrow
tunnels thunderous with blood,
questing for the rich intestinal wall
where they will fasten & thrash
& begin to plant. And if their hosts
should have granulomatous reactions,
female or male, regardless of menses
their bellies may begin to swell,
gravid with a stranger’s eggs
conceived under a vagrant moon.

Auguries

On this house plan sketched on college ruled paper, I study the four directions—north and south, east and west, the placement of doors and stairs. My daughter’s partner says rooms and hallways must open and close on auspicious spaces, in order not to create voids. Windows must open not only to the sun and rain but also to the winds of fortune. What spells do the curlicues of dried brome grass press for us to read against the snow? To ward off evil, she lists for us water and crystal, wood and stone, mirrors and discs inlaid with blue glass eyes. In how many languages could we recite the more than 99 names of God? Because the eaves of heaven are steep, we need all the help we can get: celestial guardians to sit at the east, amulets for wealth in the foyer and on windowsills. A sword to guard the front facing north; and from the southeastern end of the garden, imagine a merchant ship steered by the immortals: laden with goods, coming to rest in the middle of your house.

Luisa A. Igloria
01.10.2011

In response to today’s Morning Porch entry.

Graupel

“To win all the tricks by a vole.” —Alexander Pope

Drifting snow, snow that blurs the edges of the world again so that all I can think of this morning is how fragile the line between beauty and sorrow. Here is the edge of glass, here is the cold screen mesh, here is the print on the frame. A snow dervish whirls on the side of the road and travels a dozen feet before collapsing. How the little ghosts of dog roses and hellebores rise like wraiths from the ground as if to spite us, how beneath the John Clare roses, the Burgundy Icebergs and the Brittens, their plain clustered heads more deeply touch me. Just yesterday, a child no older than my own rose in the morning to rinse her face— did she tether a scarf around her neck to go into the day, did she go down her front walk and ride into town, one arm of the sky’s burnished parenthesis drawing her closer, back to the day of her birth? Drifting snow, just deep enough to provide cover for voles. Drifting snow, drifting through channels; later, battering our windowpanes with pellets of ice.

Luisa A. Igloria
01.09.2011

In response to today’s Morning Porch entry.

Walmart Public Service Announcement


Watch video at YouTube.

This year for Christmas, I got
a pair of jeans pre-faded to gray:
as if to compensate, the linings
of the pockets are solid back.
My hands feel clandestine going
into them. It’s a soft cotton, not
the kind of thing you expect
to find in jeans, & I worry about
my hands in there. They might
decide to come out only for
the handshakes of investment bankers
or the fur of certain cats.

Like the jeans, this quilted shirt
was made in Bangladesh, where last June,
child workers from the garment factories
protesting for decent wages
were beaten by police wielding
bamboo staves & fired on with
tear gas & water cannons. In the photos,
they appear to be wearing only
flimsy t-shirts & faded saris.
I wear a quilted shirt all day long
to stay warm in my frigid house —
the oil furnace isn’t cheap to run.
“Save money. Live better,” as
it says on the Walmart sign.
At least 58 people died in fires last year
at Bangladeshi garment factories,
unable to escape because the exits
were blocked. If you see
something suspicious, alert
the manager, Homeland Security
chief Janet Napolitano urges
on video screens at 600 Walmarts.

And then there are these new slippers
from my niece: a size too big
but so what, I thought, they’ll get me
to the bathroom & back. Ah,
but the soles are filled with viscoelastic
polyurethane foam, so plush, &
the toe-room is so ample, my feet
luxuriate, even begin to yearn
for feet of their own
that they could wiggle & stretch
& never, never send to the store.

(Written with this week’s Big Tent Poetry prompt in mind: “write something with feet.”)

*

Tell Walmart to stop exploiting Bangladeshi workers.

Vertices

Somewhere in Plummer’s Hollow,
a man sits clipping his nails
this morning. There

is snowfall, light as down.
Much further east, uncommon frost
recedes into the hills of Atok, Benguet,

studding the heads of cabbages,
stalks of wild grass, flowers.
Wasn’t it there

conquistadors sought
the fabled orange tree that flew or fell
from El Dorado? Under the earth

are jars of ore and silver.
Little flotillas of creased paper
go down the creek. Sometimes

it seems the past might never
have happened. But even here
the ends of threads are gathered;

the lines on the horizon draw
this world into the other one.
And back and forth the shuttle goes.

Luisa A. Igloria
01.07.2011

In response to today’s Morning Porch entry. Atok, Benguet is a mountainous municipality in western Luzon northeast of Baguio City, where Luisa grew up. Due to the elevation, occasional frosts occur, with devastating effects on vegetable growers.