We’d Like
We’d like to just sleep.
We’d like to just eat.
We’d like the stars to just
shine down on us—
we’d like it all
to be simple.
We do sleep, eat.
The stars do shine down on us,
but it rarely feels simple.
We can try to look away
but that won’t cut that connection
that binds each to all,
all of us under those stars,
wanting to eat,
sleep,
shine.
*****************************
Another little poem for April. Have a good day! Thanks as always for your time and kindness.
TGIF
Friday brings possibilities.
There are mystery novels that may be read
where all the unexplained
will be resolved.
There are walks to be taken
that may veer
from the road.
There should be time to tease you
gently, and, laughing,
to be teased.
Recrimination just might de-crimp, given
some room, and regret let itself go,
at least a little.
As the work week cools,
self-castigation dulls, like a saturated fat that turns solid
at room temperature—solid and stolid,
and relegated to some jar
over there.
Outside, clumps of daffodils
that have survived spring snow
hold their heads sunny-side up.
Just writing that makes
me hungry.
*****************************
Another drafty poem for April! I know the pic doesn’t quite go, but there it is! Have a good day.
PS – this post has been edited since first posting as I dropped the T from the Title!
Hybrid
She was not like other birds. She knew that, and knew also that it might be a problem.
So, before entering the greater world, she tried to signify that she came in peace, by wearing olive leaves on her brow.
Getting the leaves stay up there was no easy task. (Of course she could not just carry them, what with her wings.)
The webbed feet did hold the branches in place upon the ground, however, and her nose, though not a beak, was rather long for a nose—useful that.
And, of course, the teeth helped.
So she managed, amazingly, to tear the leaves from a handy branch, and to weave a little circlet, which, when she saw her reflection in her pond’s still surface, looked rather handsome, she thought.
But pride, perhaps, goeth before a fall. For though the crown stayed on well enough, it did not seem to get its message across so clearly—the message of peace.
At least other birds were flying straight towards her now with intentions she could not gauge.
Yes, she was big, awkward. So, she had been made. She worried that they would hold that too against her.
********************************************
A little illustrated snip of a story for April. I took down yesterday’s poem, as it just felt too grim and too graphic as the day went on. Crazy times. Stay well.
This is a poem I posted in April, but took down as some of the imagery felt too graphic, and (possibly) open to misinterpretation. I’ve changed and am reposting below. Sorry for the repetition.
Need
I need to get back to the belief that the universe loves us.
I also need to buy shoes.
I understand that the universe does not necessarily love us
in the way that we want to be loved;
it doesn’t care if we have a long life
or suffer pain.
Don’t get me wrong—it doesn’t want us to suffer pain.
It’s just that a universe in which trees split in the wind
and stars are born and die with fiery outcries,
may not understand pain.
I cannot think about those tortured in the Ukraine
and I cannot not think
about them.
Even when I don’t want the images—hands tied behind the back,
and much more horrible things—bullets through
eyes–
It helps to worry about shoes. Almost none of mine will work as warmth
approaches.
It’s ridiculous. Still, I imagine trying to run after a young child in sandals,
the young child someone else’s but in my care.
and I don’t think I can trust
sandals.
I dream about—I don’t want to write what I dream about
for fear of imprinting it further—
How did people feel in the 1930s and 40’s,
the Great Depression, World War II?
My mother, one of those people, once told me she kept wondering
when it would all end—
will this never end, she said she wondered, thinking that when it did at last end,
she could finally start
her own life,
a life that was ongoing all the time she waited
to start it,
and is now (as we think of life) long over,
always the universe loving her, us,
in its way.
I need to get back to that.
*******************************************************
Another draft poem for April. Sorry I’ve missed a few days, crazy internet issues that knocked out my momentum (such as it was!)
Note that all these poems are drafts of a sort–of course, I’ve re-written them some, but they are poems that can probably benefit from more thought! And more thought might actually cause me to put them in the recycling bin! I appreciate your understanding!
This is about a witch who netted butterflies.
You’d think that the butterflies would be disturbed by the hover of her broomstick, but the witch had good opera glasses, and so, could spy the butterflies out from even a relative high distance.
She caught them with something akin to a fishing net, wide and slightly weighted. She was never sure if the mesh were gentle enough, but tried to make up for this by pouring or patting the butterflies into the large bell jars she carried and never actually handling them.
She carried the bell jars in little thatch baskets that were hooked like saddle bags upon each side of her broom, and though they were big jars, she tried never to overcrowd them, even in those days when, for some strange reason, butterflies are magically plentiful.
Once she had an assortment—she called whatever she collected an “assortment, though they were often just swallowtails, she would re-charge the broom stick, meaning she would put her mind to re-energizing its float, and putt putt it back home. This was a decayed tree in the center of the woods that she had outfitted as a studio apartment.
It was, admittedly, a small space—oddly shaped as well—the hollow trunk more like a collapsed column than a room. It was hard, from the outside, to imagine anyone could be very comfortable inside. But the witch was not just anyone, not at least a human anyone. She could, for example, adjust her size quite easily. So, once she squeezed the bell jars in the trunk, she miniaturized herself, and easily stepped in too. There, she settled herself on a little divan made of twig and bark, upholstered with moss, and basked in the beauty of the bell jars, whose glass caught the light through the breaks in the dead tree in the most marvelous way. She gloried too in the beauty of the butterflies.
You could call it an immersive experience, though she never actually entered one of her jars.
She did not mean to be cruel. But there was something about lounging beside the glossy curves of glass and the velvet curves of wing that she could not resist.
You might ask why she didn’t simply miniaturize herself in one of the gardens she poached—why she didn’t settle herself down besides a host of stems or leaf.
But she also loved the element of control—the fact that she had captured the butterflies, arranged the jars, made the whole tableau.
You could argue, quite reasonably, that she had not made the butterflies, or, for the matter the jars. But she was a witch and you would not be wise to make such arguments.
Of course, it is possible that she would answer that she had made her tableaus as much as any artist makes anything—a collage or a painting—
But she might not think to offer such counter arguments.
She might point out that she always tried to return the butterflies, that butterflies did not live long in any case.
But she might not come up with such justifications either.
It’s possible that she would simply become very angry.
And it never does to make a witch angry. Especially not a witch with a net.
********************************************
Here’s a little story today in place of poem! As always, pics are mine. All rights reserved. Thanks for your visit! Have a good night!
Dream Igloo Poem
I dream of a couple who live
in a igloo.
One keeps trying to write poetry
about it.
The first lines are:
“when you asked me
to marry you,
you failed to mention
the igloo.”
Igloo doesn’t really scan, still
the poem goes on, describing how
the igloo owner promises
to keep the other always warm
with the fire that he carries
in his arms.
They sleep, this couple, under
a throw of caribou, and depending upon
whether the dream poem is written in the first or third person,
a further cover of “me and you,” or a “tangle of
each one’s
sinews.”
See what I mean about scanning.
Though I know when I wake, that I could make the couplets work,
in the same way that the couple
makes the cold work.
Words can certainly be made to fit together
as well as blocks of ice, or arms
of warmth.
Except that the meanings
might get skewed.
For in the dream the frozen house
does not symbolize distance between the couple,
or an attempt to freeze out
the world.
Mainly the igloo is just where
the couple ends up, and though they do feel the cold more
as they age, they still love the blue that radiates from
the ice bricks, like bits
of preserved sky.
They stay warm enough too,
as long as together.
In fact, the dream poem tries to end
on that note—hoping to God that they “go out
as two,
beneath that throw
of caribou,”
when, of course, the way they really hope to go
is as one.
But it’s hard to rhyme lines about dying
with words like “fun” and the various other
choices.
***************************
Another slightly weird poem for April! Have a great weekend.
Strange Cell
It was a strange cell, with only
a bucket, two cots and a
piano.
I can’t say why
the two of them were there, the young man, young woman,
only that they were.
With a piano, a bucket and two cots, and
no common language, no common spoken
language, but they were each aspiring concert pianists, so
music was a shared tongue.
It quickly, almost accidentally, became how they spoke
for the cell was frightening and cold, what with the concrete and
the iron bars, what with
that bucket.
So, after all footsteps faded
down what passed for a corridor, and silence
grew thick as a wall,,
one and then the other would play.
At the beginning, that is, after they were brave enough to try a few notes and no guard
shouted or appeared—they only played songs they knew.
Luckily, there were many—far too many in some ways, as once they began to play,
each itched
to occupy the bench.
But almost as soon as the trading of songs became their method
of communication, they knew they needed to improvise.
For the pieces they knew only seemed only to get at certain things—
longing, yes, but it was a longing
for something deep and emotional, not, for example—“I’m longing
to use the bucket, could you please
turn your head.”
Some songs (surprisingly folk dances and polkas worked well)
could be played with great urgency; these were easier
to mold into some insistent pass of
why in the hell
this cell? And, I think they may be bringing
the food, better
be careful.
But, soon enough, hands that lived to fly, birdlike, over the pale keys,
needed to gesticulate—
Their fingers felt, at first, ridiculously bared, mid-air.
It was only when the other’s face softened
into comprehension that the humiliation lifted.
There was never complete darkness in that place, but little light,
when the sun set, and
it was in the near-darkness that each placed a hand
on the other’s arm, breast, thigh, tapping out this song,
and then another.
******************************************
Here’s a long, but I hope interesting, draft poem, another written for April. Poem and pic are mine; all rights reserved.
After Reading The News This Morning
It’s hard to believe after a day not reading the news
that everything is still going on; the bad still happening
so badly,
even as daily life
perseveres (clocks tick, light
shifts, spring tries.)
Wind shook the windows last night—it felt like winter
clinging to the leg of the countryside, wailing please don’t go,
only it’s winter that must
move on—
Everything seems reversed like that—
the blowhard shaking
what he can—
********************************
Another poem for April—I don’t think the drawing fits so well, but it’s late!!! Have a good night!
Power Outage
The darkness feels thicker than regular darkness.
I lift one arm to test it, expecting to need
a swimming stroke,
only when I type that, it comes out as “warm harm”
instead of “one arm,”
maybe because I am worrying about a candle that burns down in the kitchen,
and the kettle that I have also left to heat
on the hand-ignited gas
stove.
The unattended candle, kettle,
feel foolish,
so I imagine wrapping my blanket
about my shoulders and
stepping down the treacherous-in-the-darkness stairs
to check on it all,
yet still I sit, blanket
over my legs, listening
to the hum of the kettle, the taps
of my typing, the farther silence that follows a dog’s bark
down a nearby road, and also the
slight tinnitus of which I am suddenly conscious,
an internal chorus of cicadas.
I look up to the room, amazed somehow
that all its physical, unelectrified contents, are exactly
as they should be, even more so—
the window panes, the chair, the pictures—
me beneath the blanket, warm, unharmed,
and, I am conscious now, not only of the tinnitus,
but of the great blessings that I have
been given, so unearned.
I am almost afraid to think of them,
as if some spirit of the universe
might say,hey!— and correct the
imbalance.
A lantern sits to my side, blowing glitter
about its glass, and also about
a stiff little cardinal that sits
on a twisted wire tree.
White-stuccoed gimcrackery that somehow manages
an immense beauty
simply in the way
that it circulates light.
The walls dance with it.
***************************
Another poem for April. Written early this morning. (Nothing burned down.)
Have a good night.
Why I often get up at 5 (Or a Little Before)
No one can expect anything from you
at this hour.
Maybe there are things you should
be doing, but, hey—it’s 5
in the morning!
You could even make dinner
(you know, in advance),
but no one will think to say
why didn’t you make dinner?
You could do office work, and those times
when you give in, smugness coats
each email like
an underscore.
You do at last make yourself budge from the blanket
you save for these dawn hours in a small not-totally-freezing room,
and find that the morning moon
is in a completely different quadrant of the sky
than seems the norm. Seriously!
It’s veered way over
to the South. (Definitely, South.) But how
does that happen?
You could look it up.
Looking it up is the type of thing many people (i.e. your husband)
would do, but it’s still only 6:09 and he’s asleep,
while you are not even going to let yourself
feel embarrassed
by your lack of intellectual curiosity.
(Okay, okay: so, the reason that the moon changes position in the sky
is that the moon’s orbit around the Earth
is approximately 5.1 degrees offset from the Earth’s orbit around the Sun,
which causes moonrise and moonset to vary to the North or South by as much
as 28.6 degrees.)
Are you happy now?
Yes.
******************************************
The moon, in fact, set way to the South today, and was full, or almost full. I did not get a photo of it though, so here’s a pic from my children’s books, The Road I Like. (The pic doesn’t really suit the poem, as this poet is, thankfully, no longer a commuter!)
Have a good day. (And check out The Road I Like!) (Also, the moon!)
ManicDDaily 
Recent Comments