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Poem for April, Upstate New York

April 24, 2016

Poem for April, Upstate New York

With sore knee and stick staff,
I upwill the hill, hoping to see
new calves,
slowly, yet inside-hurrying, as if a crud
could dull their blind-white masks
before a cud can even be chewed (not true)–

still I step-stumble, excited and trying for fast,
through mounds of clodded grass-ground,
till at last I’ve found–
ah.

The mom sees me and immediately starts
her sure scuttle
while the little one, brown-blinking through cut-outs
in moon (new moo-n)
wobbles wonderingly after—

and I stop, wanting to follow, but not
to push them on–

Why do we write of such things,
and call them poems?

Better: why write
of anything other?

*******************************

Draft draft poem for Bjorn Rudberg’s  post on real toads to write a poem using “kennings” –compound and kind-of made-up words.  My not very good pic of new calf and mother.  All rights reserved.

So far, a little ahead of the April game of a poem a day, I think, but heading into some busy days.  Sorry if slow returning comments. 

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Comments: 15 Comments

Considering a Game of Shakespeare

April 23, 2016

Considering a Game of Shakespeare (Where You Have to Choose One Item)

If I could only keep one Shakespeare bit,
it would be the Complete Works.  Oh, sure, I hate
the teeny print–so hard for me to peer at,
squinting–but the malignancy of that fate
would be my fault (and not the stars). I mean,
not from stars do I myopia pluck.
For how could I foreswear yon Cassius lean
in favor of plumper Bottom, pricked by Puck?
Pass over Fools? Forego Mercutio?
I don’t wish to clean my hands of their quick bluff–
I confess I’m not in love with bold Banquo
but forget the pretty chickens of MacDuff?
Better to lug huge book than choose just one–
my love more ponderous than any ton—

***************************

A bit of a joke poem for Kerry O’ Connor’s wonderful prompt on Real Toads concerning the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death.   Various lines are, of course, cribbed, but last (which I’m rather proud of) is Cordelia, Scene I, Act I, King Lear.)   

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Comments: 23 Comments

Dancing with the Stars

April 23, 2016

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Dancing With the Stars

When we hear music of the spheres,
a circle dance unwinds our gears,
a cog goes ping, pied orbits sing–
“hear” means “see” in belled sky’s ring;
and all that’s night in us does pray
for light steps in the coming day.

***********************************

Some poem for April, National Poetry Month, and for Gillena’s prompt on Real Toads about fashioning words for a dance on Earth Day.

 

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When Elephants

April 21, 2016

Christina's pictures 398
When Elephants

I read a book
“when elephants weep”
about tears that look like tar, as impossible
to scrape away

about the grief
of elephants–the messages
sent through shaken
earth-

and then I put the book
on a shelf made of composite wood
and only every once in a while, would catch
the title etched grey along
black spine, maybe while fetching
my raincoat–

wanting somehow not to feel,
to cover, how our world eats
suffering–
I don’t mean meat here, or only–
cows with their kabuki faces
in spring, elephant calfs pink
as raw steaks–

but how we eat land,
trees, air–

and how so many only worry about elephants as large canaries
in this
cold mine–

Oh Christ, we think,
unable to number the species
whose paths we’ve crossed–

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another draft poem for some day in April, for the heck of it, and also for Fireblossom (Shay’s ) prompt on Real Toads about elephants. (Second of those–neither is a great poem! Agh!)  Pic is of some old bones at the American Museum of Natural History (I believe some here may be of elephants/mastodons given what looks like a bit of tusk protruding.) 

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Inner Elephant

April 21, 2016

IMG_3294Inner Elephant

I’m so mad.
I’m so sad.
Here’s the thing–my inner elephant
is matriarchal
and its bony spine, bellying up through its back
like that dark line from the navel
that forever defines a woman
who’s given birth
is sick of bowing, sick
of bundled sticks, sick
of switches–and, though it likes, in fact,
to sweep, it (my back) is sick of being suited
with a broom as an
accoutrement.

Sick of being bulled, it wants
to keep its slightly sunken calf
between its legs,
doesn’t care if it must trumpet dust, wants just
to strumpet, let
me be, says my

inner elephant,
wrinkle kneed,
thick toe-nailed, trunked
like a blubbery eel–stop
telling me what
to feel

let me wobble,
all my loosening body parts
in loose tow,
so creased my whole being pleats
like an old neck, what
the heck—

here’s the other thing–when you, female,
are an inner elephant,
you somehow forget
about being physically
overpowered.

******************************

Very much of a draft poem, some number for April, and for Shay’s (Fireblossom’s) prompt on With Real Toads about elephants.  I actually have a couple for this prompt, but not sure I’ll get my other one together (or that this one is together particularly.)

I’m sorry by the way if late returning comments–a really busy week.  Sorry also that the drawing is a recycled one.  Just a hard week. 

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One Teenage Girl

April 20, 2016

Christina's pictures 204One Teenage Girl

She wished some nights
she’d just die.
She’d see them all
at her wake
where she would lie
(dead but awake)
and through closed eyes
follow their remorse–
that sorrow surely forced
by their prior
shallowness–

Her grin within the crimped
pink satin
would be mistaken
for a slip
of the lipstick (thankfully, the dead
do not guffaw).

Sometimes, the vision seemed so real,
she could make out the granules
of her make-up–blusher clinging
to her cheeks like fuzz
on a peach,
her friends’s hands
over their mouths in the pow
of disbelief, the glint
of their shined nails.

Oh, then,
they’d be sorry.

**************************

Some numbered April poem for Magaly Guerrero’s prompt on Real Toads about a wish gone wrong.  I’m not sure if this one really did GO wrong–seems a bit wrong from the start.  The pic is a terrible photo of a really interesting piece (part of a series) by my daughter, Christina Martin. 

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Not I(sle)

April 19, 2016

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Not I(sle)

I will not go as I arise
to till another glade
though its clay be good for bean rows
and bees may have it made.

I don’t care to find some peace there–
it won’t happen if we’re there too–
not because we drop things–
but because I’m me, you’re you.

You’re sorry about the singing–
I know–you have explained–
and in bed, you hate that purple glow–
(though I dim my phone when you complain.)

Still, I’ll not go when I arise
for always night and day;
I want your side close-lapping
especially, by the way,

when I’m in the City,
upon the pavement gray,
also when in the country
where linnets’ wings hold sway.

I want your side close-lapping
as we shift limbs old and sore,
even through the fleece and flannel,
to feel your deep heart’s core.

*****************************************

poem of sorts of some number for April–for Brendan’s wonderful prompt on Real Toads about turning something on its tail, poetic surprise.  I fear I’ve cheated a bit here, cribbing  from one of my very favorite (and much mined) poems, The  Lake Isle of Innisfree by Yeats.   Recycling older pic too.  (Any port in a storm.)  All rights reserved.

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Comments: 16 Comments

Blackbirds, Horses

April 18, 2016

Blackbirds, Horses

I was of three minds
like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
–Wallace Stevens,  Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

I was of three hearts
like a wooden horse painted red;
I trotted him about the floor
and kept him by my bed.

Gave one heart to my mother,
another to my youth’s love,
but oh the last it carried me
to places I knew nought of.

There, I saw a horse a’heave
legs painted high with red
as it stepped right fearsomely
over bloats of limb and head.

The rider said, call me Captain,
but my voice had flown away;
it perched upon the crooked pitch
of what had been tree one day.

There, it joined its fellows,
birds of ebon wing
and if they knew what I might do–
of this, they did not sing.

Just so, my last heart slackened,
sank in a stew of trench
where horses can only founder
unmanned by rot and stench;

where what was wood inside me
melted equal with the flesh;
where captain’s curse can’t find me
no more can any breath.

Three hearts were painted on the horse
I trotted about the floor–
I rue the one whose beating
saddled me with war.

I’ve no more mind for blackbirds
who caw but cannot sing
for what was me no longer
can hear a single thing.

*****************************

Agh.  Draft poem of sorts for the wonderful Hedgewitch’s wonderful prompt on Real Toads to write poetry raised to the power of three.  I think this is 19th for April.  

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After a Long Day and Funeral

April 17, 2016

leonardo_pre_rest_last_sup_adj_web-1

After a Long Day and Funeral

I think today
of the leftovers
of the Last Supper.
The crusts–did someone have the wit to save
the bits, not
for future investment–to sit in some gilded coffer–
but like my mother saved the chocolate Easter egg
my grandmother was working on
at the time of her
last fall,
for love–

I think of all those little rolls of Leonardo,
oval as children’s drawings
of mice.

I think of my grandmother nibbling
(so nicely), the dishes done, my mother
making tea.

They would certainly
have finished the wine, circlets ringing the bottoms
of their glasses–Leonardo paints a brown wine–
it might preserve better
if I call it amber–

The tempera itself
hardly lasted, fading, flecking, a mold maybe
seeming to eat
the apostles–I think
of the mottled darkness below
the table–the robed legs, the possible
crumbs–

They broke off each night
one piece of chocolate shell–
that’s it, they said,
and then, when that was done,
they always, yes,
had a little bit more.

I think of what
we wish for.

*********************************

Draft poem for my own prompt on Real Toads about remains.  I’m not sure what this one is–18? for this month.
The painting is Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper, before it was restored.  The pic below is one I took at New York’s Met Museum.  I believe it is Greek (agh–I didn’t take notes of the origin.) 

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The Year of Weeping Dangerously

April 14, 2016

The Year of Weeping Dangerously

It made it hard to see
where she was going,
harder to see
where she’d been.

When she walked, she seemed
to squeegie,
shoe leather sodden,
even rubber soles
losing their grip.

Old friends stayed out of her way,
only animals
never strayed,
liking, she assumed,
the salt.

These things tend to come in waves,
maybe because we’re part sea
and Time part sand (the other part tide).

But caught in that divide,
she cried,
sometimes beside
herself, sometimes,
like a small animal,
beside herself.

**************************

16th draft poem for April National Poetry Month.  This one for Kerry O’ Connor’s wonderful prompt “in other words” on Real Toads about using bits of a title–in this case, The Year of Living Dangerously. 

This has been super hectic/dismal work week so very sorry to be late returning comments. Also pic not really right–but there it is. (Mine, all rights reserved.) 

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