Teeny Tiny Press by Amanda Laughtland

So I've been writing some new poems, but I haven't posted one here since August. Figured it was about time to post one then. This is brand-new, wrote it the other day and revised it this morning... Unlimited Nights and Weekends You could be anywhere. You’re calling from a parking lot, not someplace you meant to be but the eye of, before and after your real Sunday, your errands and obligations with strangers to me. Most evenings after nine you call from bed, and I crawl into mine, where I try to resist talking your tired ear off but fail miserably. I can accept the consolation prize: your voice for another five minutes, scolding me for another too-late night.

OK, my favorite favorite favorite Pet Shop Boys song is the duet they did with Dusty Springfield, "What Have I Done to Deserve This" (if you want a treat, go and watch that video on YouTube; it always makes me feel good), but I have a bit of a soft spot for their remake of "Always on My Mind," hence the title of this poem... So yeah, here's a nostalgic poem. Always on My Mind Chorus after chorus, layers of indistinguishable beats. I couldn’t tell the Pet Shop Boys were gay even when they played love songs to each other. I didn’t know gay people except two math teachers with very short hair but they weren’t for sure.

I started drafting this in April and forgot about it but found it in my notebook last night and tried to tighten it up. Sorry for the lack of posts; this reflects a lack of writing. No Original Thoughts Just my old ones and several of yours remixed and repetitive as extended dance versions which ruin pop songs.

I made a 12-page collaged booklet using (among other things) images and text from a book of pin-ups. The poem below is a reconfiguring of the text which makes up the booklet: each page in the booklet has a few lines on it, and here I've condensed and changed a bit. Recycled Beauties Not movie stars, much more than sleek limbs followed by countless others, these girls who are now elderly women, girls of a specific time, a specific war, still promise a wonderful postwar world. Things are peaceful where they wear sheer dressing gowns or nothing at all.

Earlier this week, I happened upon a used copy of a tiny book called Turkish Pears in August by Robert Bly, and in it, he uses a form he developed called the "ramage" in which you have 8 lines of roughly 10 syllables each, and each line is also supposed to contain a repeated sound/syllable. OK, so below I am trying to repeat a sound like "air." I like trying to repeat a sound without using end rhyme; I try to do this anyway but not so specifically as trying to do it in every line. I may experiment more with this form, as an exercise to get myself writing if nothing else! Cheers Mortgaged as everywhere, our suburb is sometimes carefree. For example, take me— I bake brownies and bid for rare knick-knacks on eBay, in a pair of plaid pajamas until two or three. I do laundry when I dare let it air-dry on warm afternoons as I sit in my plastic chair. I sip tap water or beer—come on by, and I’ll share.

I've been working on some poems inspired by Uncensored , a pretty trashy mag from the 1960s. The issues I have (thank you, eBay) are from 1961, but this link will show you some ads from an issue from the late 1960s. I realized I haven't shared any of these poems on the blog yet, so here's one: Please Reply in Your Normal Hand Friends, I’ve advised thousands like yourselves who want to learn my kind of expert work as a full-time job or dignified means of extra income. I want to send you, without charge, a window to your personality to acquaint you with this science, an analysis of character revealed through handwriting.

Next to The Bangles, I think I loved Belinda Carlisle and The Go-Gos the best--OK, well, I still do... Dear Belinda Carlisle For as many weeks as you are on Dancing with the Stars I’ll give all my votes to you though I’ll forever think of you all in black, maybe a pair of gold hoop earrings, nothing like the spangles and colors the producers will make you wear as you dance with a gentleman instead of the women I remember.

I don't suppose I was ever exactly a "grrrl" because I was busy watching old movies when others were going to concerts and making zines and stuff. But I'm hoping this new poem will fit into a series I've been working on for some time now that involves different first-person perspectives... When We Were Grrrls Ears ringing, all smiles in the mosh pit, the opposite of violence, sweltering in the crush of strangers’ bodies in our pact that nothing but silence can scare us that it’s best to shout all we have into the static of voices that shout back at us.

I've been reading about this winter's weather troubles, and here's a very tiny poem on the subject. After Swans gather on lakes formed in the flood. Horses step from their trailers. Pruning blueberries, we ignore our strawberries gone under.