The RetroLounge Daily Poem Thread (Fri 2/3/06)

[RetroLounge]

Vacation Sex

We've been at it all summer, from the Canadian border
to the edge of Mexico, just barely keeping it American
but doing okay just the same, in hotels under overpasses
or rooms next to ice machines, friends' fold-out couches,
in-laws' guest quarters — wallpaper and bedspreads festooned
with nautical rigging, tiny life rings and coiled tow ropes —

even one night in the car, the plush backseat not plush
enough, the door handle giving me an impromptu
sacro-cranial chiropractic adjustment, the underside
of the front seat strafing the perfect arches of his feet.
And one long glorious night in a cabin tucked in the woods
where our crooning and whooping started the coyotes

singing. But the best was when we got home, our luggage
cuddled in the vestibule — really just a hallway
but because we were home it seemed like a vestibule —
and we threw off our vestments, which were really
just our clothes but they seemed like garments, like raiment,
like habits because we felt sorely religious, dropping them

one by one on the stairs: white shirts, black bra, blue jeans,
red socks, then stood naked in our own bedroom, our bed
with its drab spread, our pillows that smelled like us:
a little shampoo-y, maybe a little like myrrh, the gooseberry
candle we light sometimes when we're in the mood for mood,
our own music and books and cap off the toothpaste and cat

on the window seat. Our window looks over a parking lot —
a dental group — and at night we can hear the cars whisper past
the 24-hour Albertson's where the homeless couple
buys their bag of wine before they walk across the street
to sit on the dentist's bench under a tree and swap it
and guzzle it and argue loudly until we all fall asleep.

Dorianne Laux

********************

RL

********************


Dorianne Laux is the author of three previous collections of poetry. She is also coauthor, with Kim Addonizio, of The Poet's Companion: A Guide to the Pleasures of Writing Poetry (W. W. Norton, 1997). Her work has appeared in The Best American Poetry, The American Poetry Review, Shenandoah, Ms. magazine, Ploughshares, Barrow Street, and Five Points. Among her awards are a Pushcart Prize for poetry, two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Laux is an associate professor and works in the University of Oregon's Creative Writing Program. She lives in Eugene, Oregon, with her husband, poet Joseph Millar, and her daughter, Tristem.

[yvr girl]

1. Good morning

:*





















BTW, you're a tease.

[RetroLounge]

4. Good Morning.

Yes I am...

:D

RL

[yvr girl]

5. Just for that...

I'm going to ignore you for HOURS and HOURS




















But you might cross my mind a time or two...

[RetroLounge]

11. Let me know how that works for you...

Maybe a picture will be forthcoming...

:hi:

RL

[wildhorses]

2. you have the largest collection of sex poetry

I never knew there were so many poems about sex...






when I graduate from DU I am gonna be one smart mofo

[RetroLounge]

3. You are at DU and on this thread

That already makes you pretty damn smart!

:hi:

RL

[wildhorses]

6. thanks RL...coming from you that means a lot

:blush: :hi:




sure I am here...willing student and ardent admirer



slowly turning from one carnivorous anarchist to a halfway decent vegetarian democrat...

[RetroLounge]

12. See, you are already writing great lines...

"slowly turning from one carnivorous anarchist
to a halfway decent vegetarian democrat"

You just wrote a very nice first line of a poem.

Now write it in your notebook and go from there, anywhere, with it...

:hi:

RL

[wildhorses]

14. for real????

see I do not know that


I just tossed it out there...you know just funnin' around


but I will put it in my journal and see what happens...


thanks for the input



:blush:

[RetroLounge]

15. That's what I use my journal for...

I just write, anything, and every once in a while a good line emerges so I put that on it's own page and write from that.

A fun exercise to to take the first line of anything you like, aroty, poem, recipe, whatever, and then write the rest from there for fun.

:hi:

RL

[eyesroll]

7. Hey, happy birthday, RL!

:bounce:

[RetroLounge]

8. Not for 10 more days, but thanks!

:hi:

RL

[eyesroll]

9. (Hm...NY99 has it on her list today.)

Well, happy early birthday.
:hi:

[RetroLounge]

10. Damn, I'm gonna be 45!

I'll wait 10 more days :rofl:

RL

[swimboy]

30. My birthday is two days before yours

on the 11th.

Thanks for the rollicking good poem. :hi:

[RetroLounge]

31. Yeah, but you are younger than me, right?

:hi:

RL

[swimboy]

34. 11 comes before 13

That makes me two days older than you are!

[RetroLounge]

35. Ooh, an older man!

wiser in the ways of the world, too...

:hi:

RL

[miss_american_pie]

13. Well that explains all the the posts to the poetry thread before 10

:hi:

[RetroLounge]

16. Early Morning Sex Poems...

nice way to wake up...

RL

[miss_american_pie]

21. ahem

I think you have an extra word in there. ;)

[RetroLounge]

22. I think you're right...

Always been a bit verbose...

:rofl:

RL

[miss_american_pie]

26. I know of a cure for that

;)

[RetroLounge]

28. Why, whatever do you mean?

:shrug:

Innocently looks down at his shoes...

RL

[miss_american_pie]

29. Lollipops ...

What other answer could there be?

Batting eyelashes...

[RetroLounge]

36. Lollipops ...

just what I was thinking. uncanny...

:rofl:

RL

[CaliforniaPeggy]

17. My dear RetroLounge.......

Lovely poem......just lovely!

I thank you for it today, and every day!

I'm so happy to see you and yvr girl out in the open......

I know how good that feels!


:loveya: :grouphug: :loveya:

[RetroLounge]

18. "happy to see you and yvr girl out in the open"

:shrug: Huh? Are we a DU item now?

:D

RL

[CaliforniaPeggy]

19. ROFLMAO!

Yes, you are! Silly.......


:rofl:

[xchrom]

20. a car is my favorite place.

[RetroLounge]

25. Hope you don't drive an MG Midget...

:rofl:

RL

[xchrom]

33. well, i've managed in a vw.

but i'm not as young as i used to be either.:evilgrin:

[RetroLounge]

37. Hmmm, always had big cars.

except that one time in a Hyundai Accent... :D

RL

[Shine]

23. Very nice choice.

vacation sex is hot, but hot, home-cooked sex is better.

to me, this poem is a sexy metaphor of the spiritual journey: we search OUTside of ourselves for the answers, but ultimately, they lie INside ourselves.

hmmm...

[RetroLounge]

24. sexy metaphor of the spiritual journey

Thanks! I missed that.

Vary astute observation, makes the poem read much deeper...

:hi:

RL

[RevCheesehead]

27. pardon me for butting in here...

but I think in the last coupla days, you have crossed into the Canadian border.

And you never posted anything like this for me. :cry:

[RetroLounge]

32. Nah, I don't have a valid passport

and besides, the Deparment of Homeland Security has me on their watch list. They won't let me out of Wisconsin, let alone cross the Canadian border. Poets are a dangerous bunch, you know. Like artists, musicians, writers, sculpters, and radical reverends. Gotta keep them in their places, and mine is here in Milwaukee...

As you know my sweet, I post these threads for me. Any additional enjoyment is purely a bonus.

:hug:



RL

[WritingIsMyReligion]

38. More sex poetry!

:woohoo:

:D :D :bounce:

I probably shouldn't look into your threads, as a minor....

:P :P

[RetroLounge]

39. Maybe I should add a disclaimer for you minors?

:rofl:

RL

[WritingIsMyReligion]

41. Might be a good idea....

:rofl:

[Deja Q]

40. Kick

:kick: