Archive for April 2022

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About Face

April 7, 2022

About Face

The man is angry; his face looks like it just
spat a slur,
the face looks that way a lot, sneer-shaped,
chin a smear—seriously, his chin is blurred in its firm set,
like the tip of something spray-painted
on a concrete
wall. 

How do you smooth
such a face? With cash?
With fear? 

How do you whisper in a way that it will hear:
you were a baby once,
you will die some day,
you are causing
terrible suffering. 

Can you only threaten, tell the face it too
will suffer?

I don’t know, I don’t know. 

Can you remind the face of beauty? 
That it belonged to a baby once, a child (this feels somehow
important);
that geese fly in incredible Vs;
that an unwounded sky pearls wonder.

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Another draft poem for April. The pic doesn’t really go with the poem, but I don’t have a lot of drawings of angry faces, or couldn’t find one on the fly. I’m not sure that this picture depicts the figure in the poem, but it felt okay to use. All rights reserved. Take care.

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Not Another Moon Poem

April 6, 2022

Not Another Moon Poem

I haven’t seen the moon for days now.
Not true—I caught a crescent the other night, a flash
through glass, and stepped out into the cold
to hold it, making a note of where to look
the next day, next night. 

But since then I cannot find it, no matter the hour
or direction.

I miss it—the moon what one has
In an unpeopled place, that curve and trace
of curve, that glowing ghostly solidity.

I haven’t gone out much in the pandemic, and now
hardly want to. 

But I do want the moon, the company
of the moon. 

When you see it you can’t help but think
how beautiful the world is, how much you love
this world–

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Another poem for April (and also, for the moon.) Take care! (And if you have time, check out my books! Especially the new stories!

(As alwarys, the picture, such as it is, as well as the poem, are mine; all rights reserved.)

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Armed

April 5, 2022

Armed

One reads about the Ukraine: this one first shot
in the elbow, then, later, so mangled that all that lets him be found
is the broken arm
sticking out of the ground. 

You could write about the arm not willing
to be silenced, but the fact is
he was a whole person. 

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Hi, a poem of sorts based on terrible news coming out of the parts of Ukraine, such as Bucha, that the Russians occupied and left. It’s a draft poem, that I’m leaving as is, not because it’s a good poem, but because the subject matter is such that it feels ridiculous to try to be artful. The drawing is from my “archive,” a copy of an Inuit piece, I believe, in the Met.

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Wasps

April 4, 2022

Wasps

This is an old house that births wasps. 
Also, memories.
But also, wasps—

Dozy wasps, drones in the non-modern sense, dazed, who, when they fly, float
as if airlifted by some balloon
of forced air heating.

I try not to kill them, to gently sweep them with the edge
of the envelope onto a flap of free calendar,
though they tend to cling to the envelope, which I then carry,
pressed next to the calendar, to a door, that I carefully open,
then whoosh them away.

I do not
not kill them
out of any particular affection for wasps.
(Yes, they can sting.) I just find something sweet
in the not-killing.

I find that sweetness even
in the time it takes to not kill, especially in the time it takes
to not kill, even
when terribly busy.

The taking of that time reminds me of
who I want to be, how
I want to be, how
I want to be
remembered.

No, they are not honey bees,
yes, wasps,
still, whoosh, sweetness. 

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Another sort of draft poem for April. Have a good day!

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Modern Day Haiku

April 3, 2022

Modern Day Haiku

Bone marrow patch blinks
firefly green through the undies,
saying, still here…here….

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Still don’t know if I’ll manage a poem a day for April–Poetry Month, but here’s a try. The patch described above is given to counteract immuno-suppressive aspects of certain chemo therapy drugs. All rights reserved. Have a good day.

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Today’s Poem

April 2, 2022

Today’s Poem

It’s blue outside and in—
how to begin? 

The horizon’s cloudy, 
also my forehead.

The window cuts the view into panes.
So, what
am I saying?

That it is hard to see ahead
in this hard time, even though ahead
is still there. (We can’t stop it,
even if we would.) 

I peer down at the ground, the low of the window that shows
where trees grow,
then notice how the leafless limbs
still cast a shadow—

And then—panes/pains—I see how my brain
can shape things so darkly
and call it poetry–ugh– 

until the loom of gloom at last
makes me laugh; waking up to a self
that sits apart as on a raft; it is like a rhyme
of myself and says (as so many rhymes)
that those last lines
were a bit daft–

a part of myself that says, oh geez,
Louise—

and calls it poetry. 

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A rather daft poem and pic for today! Stay well!

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Casals

April 1, 2022

Casals

In Pablo Casals’ recordings, you can hear him singing along
with his cello—a gravely hum accompanying Beethoven and
his bow—don’t even get me started on
Glenn Gould—

Great musicians aren’t always great singers,
yet there is a delight we take
in their voices, the presumably unconscious drone seeming to show
how much they love the music, that they are playing
rather than performing,
their whole self
the instrument.

I suppose the hums could be considered “unmindful’,
and yet I wouldn’t mind living like that,
singing softly,
singing along.

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Happy April!  I don’t yet know if I will write a poem a day for this month of April poetry, but this one came to mind today. Pic and poem are mine; all rights reserved.

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