NaPoWriMo Update

6 poems accepted - 3 forthcoming in Weave Magazine and another 3 in Cimarron Review.

Others rejected recently by Poetry, Field, The Beloit Poetry Journal, Jubilat, Agni, and Saltgrass.

3 more batches under consideration - fingers crossed!

It's all about finding the right key for the right door at the right time, right?

freckles

I'm enjoying the summer in this body. I walk miles each day in a white tank top and black Nike shorts. Skinny as my 20's. I've donated most of my closet and bought new clothes.

I haven't used a vending machine or drive-thru in nearly 3 months. The liquor store doesn't miss me. At gas stations, I only buy gas.

My favorite destinations are whole food stores and farmers markets. I've learned to love the long way home.

But there are pills. Beta blockers. ACE inhibitors. Statins. Mononitrates. Plavix. Aspirin. Sublingual Nitroglycerin small as grains of sea salt. There are days I am an old man. There are symptoms I'm required to report. There are nights I'm held for observation.

I feel like someone else. I'm carrying around a glass heart with one hand. The other hand isn't my own. There is a birthday arriving in weeks. There are gifts I've already opened.

how are you feeling

I'm trying to witness my life without forming opinions.
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vegetarian alternatives

My body has learned a new language.

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online creative writing sessions

Suddenly I have students I'll never meet in person.
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10,000 steps

Now that I want less I've started seeing more.
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far from sudden

I believe I have a second book manuscript ready to send out.
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review

"Reading poems from this collection over the last couple of years in various magazines, journals and at his blog did not prepare me for the power of the book as a whole. This collection has a nearly perfect narrative arc. Every poem falls into place, ebbs and flows seamlessly to the next and from section to section as Goodman elegantly, tenderly and heartbreakingly details his older brother's death from cancer."

Thank you, Collin, for your close and thoughtful read! Deep thanks also to everyone for leaving comments.

check it out

the new issue of ANTI- is live

menu

One of the biggest drawbacks of living with early onset heart disease is the restricted diet.

Tonight for dinner I was forced to eat baked cod fillets with fennel, onion, tomato and olives; roasted organic sweet beets, and brown rice pilaf.

Oh, and for lunch I had the best baba ganoush. *wink*

I'm doing well. Thanks everyone for your comments and kindness during these ups and downs.

Peace.

outpatient

A quickie to report I'm home and that the angiogram showed no reclosure of the stent, which was the main concern (it's not that uncommon to happen within the first 6 months). Everything is looking as good as the day he put it in. So instead of staying overnight, I came home the same evening with some new meds.

My heart muscle is getting stronger - I'm up to 56% from 48% ejection fraction. A healthy heart pumps at about 60% or greater.

WHEW.

a poem by Peter Oswald

GOD TRIES TO SEE THINGS FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF AN ATHEIST


I speak to the door
And the door does not answer me.
I try all the tables and chairs,
The floorboards,
The entire fabric of the house.
Nothing will make any reply.
I go out, I listen to the wind,
Birds and animals
Run towards me and away from me.
Everything moves in circles of its own.
There is the sea,
Tearing at the rocks
With soft fingers.
I calm myself
But the sea carries on foaming.
I lie down to sleep.
In all the universes
I am the only substance
That can cease to exist.
Time slides away from me
Like shale down a mountain
When a goat slips over the skyline.

-- Peter Oswald