What Keyser Soze Has to do with My Most Recent Poem (and Googling)

It was my lunch hour. I had a little time, a little space, a great deal of quiet. I was trying to write a poem but nothing would come. It felt like floating in a sea of corks. No fluidity. Lots of blunted mental buffeting.

Finally, I decided to Keyser Soze the second half of the poem. I turned to my bulletin board and picked off random pieces of language to move things along. Some of the language I chose: astra, full cold moon, onion sets. Also, from stuff I'd seen on the internet that morning, the idea of winter, the idea of the northern lights.

At different times this week I was dib-dabbing at two separate poems. Here are some of the things I googled in the course of composition:
--mukluk--spelling and manufacture
--counterpane--is this word obsolete?
--clog dance--and its ties to the industrial revolution (who knew!)
--astra--word origins
--macron--exact definition
--musical saw on youtube--what do they sound like? first song was "Ave Maria"
--saucers of milk for the fairies ("green jacket, red cap/ and white owl's feather!")
--bank as in river bank or bank at the side of the road--looking for definitions and synonyms

My sister googled:
--deadly nightshade again (paralysis)
--girl's names beginning with "L"
--Slovak for "be quiet"

Googling is terrific for quick (and sometimes unexpected) facts and connections, but I miss the pages of my old dictionary, my old Roget, the massive OED.

Final Drafting: Send Off Time

Working on the ms. this weekend.

• I put back two words that I'd taken out last time
• I reordered the last two stanzas in a poem--moving away from finality
• I took the stand alone poem away from the beginning of the book (before Part I) and put it into the midst of Part III
• Part IV (last part) didn't seem lumpy as it had on last read-though
• I fixed the page numbers and the Tof C
• I updated the acknowledgments page

I think that maybe this is it and that I'll start sending it out which is a good thing because I have some ideas for other work curling up like tendrils, like morning glory vines.

I also worked on the third part of a poem (which will actually come first), zoning in on the last two lines of it, questioning the language which turned out to be a big plus. From my notes on this: "I don’t like the contradiction of lay/moved. Maybe I shouldn’t say 'Lay' although it’s a nice rep. What did we do if not lay? cringe? yearn? sat? paused. But I guess part of the problem is that the beach = the world.  We tarried (only if I was from another century!)."  Problem solved I think. It wasn't just the contradiction of those two words but also their relative colorlessness.