I have finally gotten a chance to harvest American Sentences from the last few months. As you may know, this is my 13th year of writing one every day and I’ve about 37 left for 2013. Found poems, mistakes, my trip to Morris Graves famous last home in Loleta, CA, The Lake, dreams and things I notice on my daily walk around Hillman City/Columbia City are all sources of poems. You can see all of 2013’s published sentences here: https://paulenelson.com/american-sentences-2/american-sentences-2013/ and learn more about the form here.
10.25.13 – In last year’s dream the Buddhists called him: “An attractor of diseases.”
10.23.13 – Nothing takes weight of October fog more serious than spider webs.
10.26.13 – He says “Not happy in an interpreted world” through his translator.
10.27.13 – On Lake Washington Boulevard fallen leaves make a median.
10.29.13 – “When life hands you lemons, turn your dead cat into a helicopter.”
N.2.13 – So sexy when a woman next to you in a café speaks French.
N.2.13 – Not so sexy when the woman next to you’s speaking French on her cellphone.
Some American Sentences Written at The Lake
N.3.13 – Clover grows in needles dropped by Redwood trees on the path to bench three.
N.4.13 – Waves of oar-made ripples reflect sun off the small island’s lichen-caked tree.
N.5.13 – Single file coots cut a trail through November morning duckweed.
N.5.13 – Stellar Jay outside studio window wants to know when Latihan starts.
N.5.13 – In time it takes to fix the fire puer’s steeped the duckweed still there.
N.5.13 – That’s not Jesus coot standing on water (part of the tiny island’s submerged.)
N.5.13 – The occasion of spider web rides an updraft floating above the Lake.
N.6.13 – I went to the Lake’s so-called Vista View just for a quick look-see.
N.7.13 – Stellar Jay watching me eat lunch – it’s only leftover breakfast tofu.
N.7.13 – Not a dead hummingbird dropt from the sky – just a leaf after the rain.
N.7.13 – Shopping list: lamb patties, cheese Danish, tweezers, whores & a llama.
N.7.13 – Me, Morris, each went after eternally yowling cats w/ a broom.
N.8.13 – Enjoy them now because the redwing blackbirds won’t be singing all day.
N.8.13 – C’mon slug! You don’t need a life vest and this one too big anyway.
N.8.13 – Slugs on the trail are about the same color as the Lake’s duckweed.
N.9.13 – Still spitting out seeds from first attempt at eating a dogwood berry.
N.9.13 – Almost every place I go at the Lake, coyote got there first & shit.
N.9.13 – Slug stuck flat four feet high on the window tryin’ to get a good look.
N.10.13 – Just as I finish the last of 99 haibun, Eagle cries twice.
N.10.13 – Ground rules for afternoon coot races: No wing must ever touch the water.
N.12.13 – “The day after Morris died a symphony of birds sang on the Lake.”
* * *
N.13.13 – Best way to be plunged back into civilization – AC/DC.
N.13.13 – Downtown L.A. parking lot, a cockroach crawls over a razor blade.
N.14.13 – The cloud crashed into the Siskiyou mountain & everybody lived.
N.15.13 – Each restaurant I choose in Albany frequented by obese people.
N.16.13 – Because of the way his mind works the horizon’s made of chorizo.
N.20.13 – Bird shit Bird shit Bird shit Bird shit no, lichen lichen lichen lichen.
N.20.13 – “…bad photography makes this look like a tower of pus-covered meat.”
N.21.13 – “It’s kind of hard to psychoanalyze someone from a bread wrapper.”
N.23.13 – Wanda Coleman indeed’s been “seized and surrendered her terrible squawk.”
N.24.13 – Some dog owner leaves a full shit bag front of the pet store – recycling?