Happy Birthday

May Nineteenth-

The wind bends two sunflowers

into an X

And until next we meet, may all your potatoes be sweet (and dusted with cinnamon).

2013 May Haiku/Senryu

Chess tournament-
my son moves from
my shadow

Bright welts snaking

down the back of my legs-

Hot Wheel tracks

Purring in my bed-

The cat that is not

my cat

Mouths agape

words wrap around six croaker-

Muhammad Speaks

After church

on the old tube radio-

Immaculate Reception

Red eyes-

Clemente's plane down

unfound

New Year's Day-

Right Field in Three Rivers

now empty. 

Empty Boardwalk-

The silent journey 

towards yourself

Evening thunder-

Daddy's drunken voice through

the bedroom door

Evening shadows-

The stillness of a tern

in the road. 

Traffic

congests

arteries

Brown

banana

boy

Go-Go
Godfather
gone

Four AM-
Even the crack zombies
tire

Crack of dawn-
Thin woman scours the sidewalk
for white rocks

Her new tattoos-
Arched eyebrows

Thunderheads
parting
lips

Afternoon sun
shiny and unblinking
Nephew's glass eye

Pointing towards 

the abandoned house- 

Discarded needles

Scabs 

on a junkies' forearm- 

New neighborhood maps

Soggy Marine 

holds umbrella over Prez- 

Afternoon shower

Old Kentucky Home-

Even the Marriage Records

are segregated

August heat-

The kink in the rope 

between her teeth

Summer heat-

A parted head under

a hot comb's glow

Saturday sunlight-

Orange flames devour 

mother's hair

Wisp of smoke- 

Newports and hot combs glow 

between teeth.

Crescent moon-

lMidnight light treat
Orange slices

Afternoon sun-
Daddy's smile through double
Plexiglass

"You Are My Starship"-
The final note of William's
favorite song

Thick metal bars-
The creases in Daddy's 

orange jumpsuit

Her fingertips
on the back of my neck-
What lies unsaid

Enter the Dragon

"If you lose it, then that's it. You're done?"
 Her eyes locked in like lasers on my face, awaiting my response.
"That's it. I'm done." I said.
And just like that, a deal was struck. I figured it was a win/win situation for me, but you know how life is. It would turn out to be a lose/lose situation. The situation itself was simple, when we got together one of the first questions she had asked me was if I gambled. She made it clear that for her, gambling was a deal breaker. I didn't, so it wasn't. Now, after almost two years of us being together, here I was telling her that I was going to give playing poker a try and even more outrageously, I was arguing that poker "wasn't really" gambling. It was a bit much. She was a tenured Law Professor, certainly no stranger to a debate. But I had plenty of ammunition. Ever since my conversation with Nate, I had been spending a few hours a day in the Border's bookstore downtown reading 'The Theory of Poker' by David Sklansky. All the way through. Twice. Then I read another book by Andy North. And a third. In part because I liked to read, but also because this idea of poker as a beatable game, unlike say, Craps or Roulette, was intriguing. My boy NJ was really good at games and math, and if he thought the idea was sound, then it almost certainly was. But my girlfriend didn't really give a rat's ass about NJ's opinion, or David Sklansky's for that matter. I wasn't going to win any arguments with a mere theory, so we struck a simple deal, I was going to take $100 I had gotten paid for a poetry reading and use it to play poker. And if I lost it, then that was it, no more poker. Forever. I figured it was a good deal, if the theory was correct, then I was going to make some money, and if it wasn't, I'd learn a valuable lesson. We agreed that I'd keep my 'poker money' in a wicker basket on the nightstand next to the bed where she put her jewelry every night and once the money was gone, that was it for poker.

I strolled into the park that day brimming with excitement. And trepidation. The books said that if I employed a very conservative strategy with my beginning cards that I could be a winner in Seven Card Stud. I aimed to find out. The game itself was unusual, all the players were chess players, very strong chess players, in fact I was probably the weakest chess player of the entire group. And we played on a chess table. Since we were outdoors in a Federal Park where gambling was prohibited, we couldn't put any money on the table. So they had devised an ingenious solution, we used a chess piece, a pawn usually, to mark the amount of the bet. Each box along one edge of the chess board embedded in the concrete table counted for a certain dollar amount. If the pawn was moved two square,s then one owed $2 and we squared each other up at the end of the hand. Each player stated  which amount they owed as they folded and we all policed each other. It was an Honor System, but it worked because we were all friends and all paid attention. Because of my memory, my well known hyper attention to detail, and my reputation for honesty, I quickly became the arbiter of disputes about when someone had folded.

To be honest, I had never thought that I'd be any good at poker. I have always had a very expressive face. Whatever crosses my mind usually crosses my face too. This is a great attribute when one is on a stage reciting a poem, but a real problem when trying to conceal emotions in a poker game. Poker is a game of incomplete information, one can't be handing that info out for free. And so I thought that my lack of a 'poker face' would be a big detriment. As it often was in conversations with (mostly women) who fill in conversational gaps with facial expressions. The problem is that my face reflects what I'm thinking, but since my brain works so fast, what I'm thinking is often ahead of or tangential to what is being said. Which can lead to a great deal of conversational skew, sometimes with hilarious results. But as it turns out, my ability to laser focus and to hone in on and recall minute details was way more of an advantage than any expressive face could ever be. As a result, even following a simple and very conservative strategy, I quickly became a winner in the poker game. And as I accumulated more and more information about my opponents, I had little trouble discerning what cards they held. After that first day, I spent less and less time playing chess and devoted almost all my free time in the park to the poker game. The game was full of characters. Most of the guys had very good jobs that paid well, some over 100k a year and two were even millionaires. Several of the player were engaged in nefarious activities, one of the them was a drug dealer, another was a pimp. Across the chess table, no one cared what one did for a living and it was the same in the poker game. The money we were playing for was inconsequential to them, and so they gambled it up with no regard for odds or proper poker strategy. Needless to say, by the end of the week the bills in the basket had bloomed to $300 and in a month's time, topped $1000. For years I had spent countless hours in the park pushing pawns across concrete tables, losing $20 or $30 a week. Now I was hanging out with my boys clearing $500 a week. Both sides of the street seemed sunny and I couldn't have been happier. Her jaw however, was clenched tighter than a pit bull's teeth on a chew toy. But, a deal was a deal, right? The bills filled the basket with trepidation.

And until next we meet, may all your potatoes be sweet (and dusted with cinnamon.)

X Marks the Spot

I'm standing in line to cash out my chips in the Borgata Poker Room, facing a seemingly unending line of guys (mostly) waiting to sign up for the day's tournament, when I spot a familiar beat up Boston Red Sox cap. And I know this cap because it belongs to Joe F. a cat I haven't seen in a very long time, mostly because he was barred from the Borgata for Comp Fraud. Joe F. is infamous among AC grinders because while we all are whores for casino bonuses and promotions, he took it to an entirely different level. For every hour a poker player plays, the casino compensates him (hence "Comps"), how much depends on the size of the game, but 1 point per hour is common in AC for 1/2 No Limit. A point is basically worth a dollar and can be used to buy food or rooms or items in the gift shop. Back before he got barred, the system at most casinos required players to clock in and out at the Sign Up desk at the beginning and end of each session. Some guys would sometimes finish playing, but not clock out right away to earn more points. In the bigger rooms, like the Borgata and Taj, there was no real way for the casinos to tell. Some guys would clock in at one casino and then go play at another and earn points at both (or even three casinos) at the same time. In the bigger games, a player could earn as much as four points an hour, which meant that an eight hour session would accrue 32 points, which was basically $32 to be spent in the casino. Joe F. was barred for (allegedly) going to the casino computer and creating a very high limit game that he would then clock himself and several family members into, thus earning comps on multiple cards. You don't have to be a math whiz to figure out that an eight hour session times five or six players is $160 0r $192 in comps. Each day. Which could be used to eat in gourmet restaurants or to pay for rooms that could be stayed in or sold. A saturday night room could easily be sold for $250 since the Borgata often charged up $400 a night for premium weekend dates. Joe F. had it pretty good for a few months, but eventually they caught up to him. Because he actually played in high limit games, getting barred from the Borgata was pretty bad for him, given that most of the AC high limit action was there.

I nod and say "Long time no see."
To which he replies "Yeah, six years"
"Six years?!?" I say, "Has it really been that long?"
He nods, "Six years to this very day."

And I trust his count, because well, he'd know. Joe F. is one of the few guys left from when the room was downstairs and that was seven years ago that it was moved. And then it hits me that the Borgata has been open for ten years now. Ten years. Wow. Seems like only yesterday The Borgata was the shiny new kid on the block, a position occupied now by the Revel. But more importantly, if the Borgata has been open ten years, that means that this year marks my tenth year here as a poker grinder, because in January of 2003 I started playing in AC for five days a week, going back to DC on the weekends to spend time with my son. And that summer the Borgata first opened its doors. It's been one hell of a ten years and in my next ten blog posts I'll look back at some of the more memorable things that I've witnessed along the way, as well as chronicling my personal journey. Which, as far as poker is concerned, began in the middle of Dupont Circle in Northwest Washington DC, on a chess table no less.

I first discovered Dupont Circle in 1983. I was an Airman stationed outside the city at Andrews AFB and my mother had asked me to go to the Cape Verdean Embassy to inquire about dual citizenship. As the daughter of two Cape Verdean immigrants, my mother qualified for Cape Verdean citizenship, but she was already a US citizen and had a bunch of questions. Too many really to be asked over the phone, so I volunteered to go and ask and perhaps get the necessary documents to apply. As I had no car, I had to take the bus, a long arduous trip that required changing buses three times. The last of these changes was at Dupont Circle, a neighborhood that even then was known for its heavy concentration of LGBT folk. The inner part of the circle is a Federal Park and is crossed by two pathways that divide it into four quadrants. I had gotten off the L bus on the Southwest side of the circle and was walking towards its iconic fountain, when I noticed a series of stone tables built along the Southwest quadrant of the park. From where I was standing it looked like the men standing there along the tables were playing some kind of game. As I got closer I could see that they were playing chess. I'd been playing chess since age eight and was in the Chess Club in high school, although not good enough to make the Travel Squad of the Chess Team. I was intrigued and so I wandered over. To make a long story even longer, I never made it to the Embassy that day. I started playing and by the time I asked anyone what time it was, it was after six o'clock PM and the embassy was closed for the day. Which wasn't a problem since I was off the next day too. So, I returned the next day, making certain to visit the embassy first, before returning to the park and playing chess until the last bus back to Andrews.

After I got kicked out of the USAF for Insubordination and moved into the city, I visited the park pretty much every day that the weather allowed. The community of chess players was an eclectic group drawn together by our love of the game, but across the board nothing mattered, except one's ability to outthink the opponent. Race, class, height, weight, personal income, none of it mattered, either you could beat the person or you couldn't. Fiercely competitive, chess was the perfect game for me. Over the next fifteen years I became a fixture in the park, drawn not only by the game we all loved, but also by the intellectual company of chess players. Avid chess players tend to be pretty smart and are often well read and well educated. But in our (frequent) debates, like in our games, the only thing that mattered was if you could hold your own. Which I could. My education, though entirely informal, is pretty formidable, I've been an avid reader since I was four years old and I read pretty much any and everything. And remember no small amount of it. So I fit right in.

Fast forward fifteen years and it's 1998. I'm hanging out, waiting for a game to finish so I can play the winner, when I spot NJ, a Master level chess player from NYC who sometimes comes down to play in DC. NJ is one of the best games players I've ever met, besides being a Master at chess, he's also a Master at Bridge and good enough at Backgammon to earn a living playing it. He also was one of the members of the last Blackjack team to crush the AC casinos, before the casinos changed the rules about Mid-Shoe entries to shut the teams down. Me and NJ kick it for a few and then he eyes the last table on the end, where a group of chess players are all arranged around a table playing cards. Seven Card Stud to be exact. Many of the guys who play chess (myself included), also often wager on the games, either games you're playing in or games you're not. Since chess is entirely a game of skill, I don't consider wagering on a game I'm playing in to be in violation of my personal prohibition on gambling. Gambling in my mind, and the eyes of the law and science, is wagering on random events. Chess is anything but random. But other players have no such aversion to gambling and so sometimes craps games break out, or games of Spades or Tonk. And much smack talking and betting ensues. Occasionally someone might even bring in a Scrabble board and it too, becomes a vehicle for wagering accelerated excitement.

But right now NJ is eying the poker game and asking about the stakes. I don't really know because  I don't mess around with the game, in fact I don't even watch, even though all the guys in the game are my friends. In fact, my boy LP, one of my closest friends,actually started this game, when Governor Glendening shut down the legal poker games in the firehouses in Prince Georges County. I'm surprised because NJ doesn't wager unless he has the best of it and I didn't figure him for a poker player. I ask him about it and to my surprise he tells me that, mathematically speaking, poker isn't really gambling, not like Craps or Blackjack. Now, I respect NJ's opinion very much, in fact he's one of the few people I know who is better at math than I am, which is saying something, given that I was also on the Math team in High school and taught myself Calculus, just for the hell of it. But this sounds like some bullshit, and I tell him as much, gearing up for a debate that I surely will have the higher ground in. But NJ, just laughs and runs down how probability works in poker and how an informed player can basically choose his own odds and only play when they favor him. I still call bullshit, but I face an uphill battle now, since the key question depends on whether or not there is a significant skill element to the game. NJ says that knowing when to fold, is the the primary skill and entirely up to the player. I'm about to argue again, when he cuts me off and says "There's books about this, I'm surprised you haven't read any of them." And I haven't, it's all news to me, but he points to the bookstore across the street and says "They've got some of them in there, just go find "The Theory of Poker" by David Sklansky." I still think it's all a giant crock of bovine fecal matter, but hey, if there's a book to be read, I'm down for that. I hop the bench, dodge a few taxicabs, and enter the bookstore. The employees all know me because I'm there all the time, so they just wave as I head back to the Games Section, a place I know well because I come frequently to peruse the chess books. I locate the title NJ mentioned and find a nice chair to sit in, unaware that once I crack the cover of this particular book, my life will never again be the same.

And until next we meet, may all your potatoes be sweet (and dusted with cinnamon.)

2013 NaPoMo Haiku/Senryu (and other poems)

Well kids, it's that time of the year again wherein your intrepid hero attempts to navigate the roiling and treacherous waters of inspiration with his flimsy poetic craft. This year unlike others, we come into the month with a great deal of momentum, although sans our former muse who now merely glowers when she deigns to glance in our direction at all. But the Show must go on and write we will even if it is without the buoyant mania that once propelled our craft. We are tied to no line except that one which anchors us nightly. Our goal is the distant city of Haijin many miles downstream. How far, you ask? Who knows. The point is to get closer. We will enjoy the process of the ride rather than sweat the arrival. We must make at least thirty stops along the way, a haiku or senryu for each day, although they will likely swirl in eddies and waves as opposed to a continuous flow. By the end of the month I would also like to have written at least seven haiku in Kriolu, last month I wrote my first two, which leaves me five to go. We begin though in English;

Whitney's voice
from a passing car-
An old receipt

Fresh blueberries
after I fell into the bog
Chucky's laughter

Barren slope
of the volcano-
Nunny's stare

This beach
black with crushed pumice-
Grandfather's temper

She thanks me
for no reason-
Thawing ice.

Ninety eight
reasons to come out-
Sports Illustrated

Gay
and finally happy-
Collins rebounds.

Not as yellow
as this midnight banana-
Crescent moon

Lingering
over this comma-
Quarter Moon.

April swirls
Bobbing in the white waves
a little buoy

Sound of Evening rain-
The apple trees' branches
against the window.

Clouds drifting-
Just before just after
goodbye kiss

Crack of thunder-
All the neighborhood cars
alarmed.

This tongue
between moist lips-
Sealed envelope.

A scar
below her right breast-
The Milky Way

Mountain Laurel blooms-
Flickering deep in Penn's Woods
a simple candle.

Sunrise-
her tongue warms
my nipple

Low fog-
A Mourning Dove's
high coo

Above the hum
of the power line-
Crow.

Vaguely threatening
The man in the red pickup
afternoon sky

Golf ball
semi-lodged in sand-
Half moon.

Chilly afternoon-
I turn up the flame under
a pot of greens.

Storm clouds-
Branches of this lone tree
untrembled.

All in-
My stack suddenly
larger

Thanksgiving Night-
Wild Turkey in a
tumbler.

Fiftieth birthday-
Looking up a word
I used to know

Dawn bayside-
Marsh reeds break through
sidewalk asphalt.

At the corner
A boy with his pants sagging-
Half moon.

Hair bun bobbing
she slowly disappears-
Setting sun.

Adjusting the hat
then readjusting it-
Cool breeze.

Plink plink
a shuffling of poker chips-
Fortunes.

April first- 

The waitress' fingernails 

are ivy green.

First of April-

Maybe this cute cashier 

has no boyfriend.

Spring lonliness- 

The wind pushes an empty 

box of Newports.

April puddles-
Even this atheist
must take a leap.

Starless night-
Almost forty ounces
of emptiness.

Autumn breeze-
Brushing what's left
of my hair.

Early April sky-
Even a seventeen bar
Blues isn't this gray.

First kiss
after making up-
Sheet lightning.

Monday Morning-

Even my reality checks 

are bouncing.

Apparently I

didn't catch her drift-

Leaves swirling.

Thesaurus

I find everything

except love.

April Fools Day-

At least the puppy knows

he's chasing his tail.

Cracked nail 

on my left big toe- 

Sliver of moon.

The homeless man
staring into the window-
Me.

As part of output this month I'm going to try to get this haiku translated into French, Arabic, Spanish, and Portuguese (those being the primary languages of the West African Slave Trade);

Only sunlight
passes in both directions-
Door of No Return.

Só os raios do sol
passam nas duas direcções-
Porta sem retorno.

(Portuguese translation by R. Erica Doyle)

Ne passe que lumière
dans les deux sens –
Porte du voyage sans retour.

(French translation by Christine Lux)

Anyone with expertise in translating to those languages or in writing haiku in those languages can feel free to comment or add input.

So far, the only regular poem I've written this month is this fun one I came up with for Jericho Brown's birthday;

I placed a candle
upon a cake from New Orleans
And Please it was, upon a plate.
It made the nervous words
Surround that cake.

The alphabet rose up to it,
And curled around, no longer ordered.
The candle was Please upon the cake
And of a shimmer in wick.

It took desire everywhere.
The cake was chocolate and Please!
It did not give of fork or knife,
Like nothing else from New Orleans.

And until next we meet, may all your potatoes be sweet (and dusted with cinnamon.)

HOLE (noted)

"each hoisting forever upward his burden"

Each shriek,

hoisting a heavy tome

somehow calligraphic,

upwards as dust

a new music, old

burden, unbreathed.

Each bar stumbled from

hoisting hymnals

forever humming

upward, arpeggiatic

a soul, saxophonic

burden, burnished.

Each solo, flat sharp,

hoisting a hammer

forever falling,

towards

the ash-black

burden, airborne.

Each scream almost

hoisting down heaven.

forever. flaming

upwards. hell-bent.

your passion's single

burden. burning.

I'm thinking of revising this poem from the above form (which is a quotilla) to a form I call the B-Bop Solo, where I start with a quotilla, but then use normal enjambment and variations of the original phrase. I have written more successful poems like this than I have quotilla and it may become my favorite form to work in. The first revision looks like this;

HOLE (noted)

"each hoisting forever upward his burden"

Each shriek hoisting

a heavy tome

ssomehow calligraphic,

upwards as dust

a new music,

old burden, 
unbreathed.

Each bar stumbled
from

hoisting hymnals,

forever humming upward

arpeggiatic

a soul, 
saxophonic

burden, 

burnished.

Each solo, 
flat sharp,

hoisting a hammer

forever falling

towards

the ash-black

burden, 

airborne.

Each scream
almost

hoisting 

down heaven

forever

flaming

upwards

hell-bent,

your passion's
single

burden. 

burning.

And until next we meet, may all your potatoes be sweet (and dusted with cinnamon.)

March 2013 Haiku/Senryu

You never know where the light will come from. Had a spell where inspiration was drier than a psoriatic elbow and then Boom! NPR sends out Tweets announcing this year's NaPoMo Twitter Poetry Contest and The NPR Cherry Blossom Haiku Contest, so I decided to get an early start. I initially decided not to submit any haiku or senryu deciding instead to submit excerpts from existing poems that I thought were interesting or could stand on their own. A funny thing happened on the way to internets. I started revising the excerpts to make them fit the 140 character limit and some of the poems got better. I also revised a couple to help them stand alone better and whaddaya know, but the new lines were not only better solo, they fit better in the poems too. I gained a new revision technique, one that looks to help my poems mightily. And then I decided to revise a few haiku/senryu and wound up submitting them too. Which has lead to me Twitterbombing haiku over the last few days. Including my first ever Portuguese haiku (Thanks Deborah). In fact, for NaPoMo I'm going to try to write at least seven haiku in Kriolu. I searched the web, but couldn't find any, maybe someone else is searching too and not finding any, so now there'll at least be something out there. No, my Kriolu isn't good enough to be writing haiku, but I figure this will force it to get better (wish me luck!). All the new ones felt like they wanted to pool in one spot, so here they are;

Atop a mountain
of grey ash and scarred rock-
Her fuschia sweater.

Shining sign
"Dangerous Curve Ahead"-
Her lower lip.

Titanium screws
won't help these brackets hold-
Swirling March wind.

Chuva miudinha
Cai nas ruas da cidade-
Floras de cereja.

(Translation)
Light rain
Falls on city streets-
Cherry blossoms.

Tears
of a boy charged with rape-
Late rain.

Clips of grass
from the Mailman's boots-
Junk Mail.

And these next two Ladies and gentlemen are my first attempt at haiku in Kriolu;

Sodade
de Cabo Verde-
Quel ventu seku.

(Translation)
Longing
for Cape Verde-
This dry wind.

Cigaru sem fumo
na beixu di homi-
Vulcan na Fogo.

(Translation)
Cigarette unlit
on a man lips-
Volcano on Fogo.

Cigarette smoke
drifting across a stage-
Cesaria's voice.

Only sunlight
passes in both directions-
Door Of No Return.

With her sisters
Nunny speaks Kriolu-
Sudden sunbeams.

This Dealer's green eyes-
Lima beans in Nunny's
jagacida.

Almost Thanksgiving-
Nunny stirs a giant pot
of Caçhupa.

March morning-
Opening the drapes to
Morning fog.

Fumbling with cotton
to reach the pills-
Morning fog.

Out of
the whiteness of the fog-
Snowflakes

From the big toolbox
I select the correct wrench-
Grandfather's smile.

NPR Cherry Blossom Haiku
(These are the 5-7-5 versions for the contest)

Early March snowfall-
Her cheeks almost pink
as cherry blossoms.

The man next to me
wearing no deodorant-
Not cherry blossoms.

The shadows somehow
darker after she departs-
Cherry blossoms swirl.

Vernal Equinox-
Our backyard halfway full
of cherry blossoms.

Wet April morning-
Windshield wiper blades heavy
with cherry blossoms.

Parade of blossoms-
In morning's pink avalanche
we leave snow angels.

(Here are the versions I prefer even though they aren't all 5-7-5)

Early March
her cheeks almost pink-
Cherry blossoms.

A man
wearing no deodorant-
Not cherry blossoms.

The shadows somehow
darker after she departs-
Cherry blossoms swirl.

Vernal Equinox-
Our backyard halfway full
of cherry blossoms.

April morning-
Windshield wiper blades heavy
with cherry blossoms.

Parade of blossoms-
In morning's pink avalanche
we leave snow angels.


Until next we meet, may all your potatoes be sweet (and dusted with cinnamon.)