January 7, 2015 (Thinking of Paris)
A mind that will shoot a cartoonist
for drawing a picture
will shoot a young girl
for picking up
a pen.
This is not a matter of lines being drawn,
but of the drawing of pen
or gun. `
We must be brave
on behalf of
the pens.
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A poem of sorts for the terrible massacre of the cartoonists and journalists at Charlie Hebdo and (not to sound pompous) for all those who fight for the right to be educated.
Frost Reversals
I walk on a scattering of clouds.
Trees, in the absence of birds, chirp,
while, in the absence of leaves,
something small, brown, and seemingly
windblown, whisks just above the frozen ground,
till, catching a rutted stump,
it shows one beetle-bright eye, grey
snow scarf.
My thumbs in their solitary sleeves of mitten
beg to cede their opposition
to all other digits, to join
the flock.
Only the stump stays stalwartly itself,
still, frost-bitten.
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Another little poem about cold, belatedly posted for With Real Toads Tuesday platform. (In the photo, which is mine, and taken at a different time than thoughts for the poem–so doesn’t really fit it–you can see three deer.)
Also, apparently some bloggers from blogger are having a hard time posting comments. Please do let me know if you have any difficulty. I’ve tried to go into my settings to at a minimum re-save them, but don’t know if that is doing anything. Thanks.
Sounds of Snow Silence
What passes for silence
in snow–
the flicks of flakes, shush
of pants’ legs, trees’ creak (rocking against
sky’s floor), the ocean
that is wind, the freeze
of my chin, which would sound, if cold
resonated, like a bolt tightening, lightbulb
screwed in, or when I bend
into the current, the glow
of its undertow.
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55 (without title) for the G-Man, who lives on at Real Toads. The image (as is normally the case on my blog) is some construct of mine. (All rights reserved.)
Some Things Under the Moon
The moon out,
the emptiness around leafless limbs
is lit,
their fractal stretch sketched,
while firs are read first
as the absence of tree
rather than its fullness;
only, after a careful stare
does the eye find the slant uplift of
night-black boughs.
So, I often mistake the world.
And so I vow, the next noon, to look
at other people as out
to teach me enlightenment
(all those others who were previously out
to bar my way.)
Amazing, then, how much better
we get along.
************************
Another new year’s poem of sorts, thinking of the quotes of Susie Clevenger on With Real Toads (though I already linked a poem there, so will leave this be!) Happy last New Year’s weekend before work onslaught begins!
The photo is not really right for the poem–as it doesn’t show a field of trees (!) but an old one that was closest I had.
New Year’s Bring
What the new year brings to you will depend a great deal on what you bring to the new year.”
–Vern McClellan
I consider potato salad,
but potato salad sort of says
‘summer.’
‘Focus’ sounds better,
but smacks of discipline,
and discipline sounds
like a bummer.
I’ve never owned a brand new car
but would never stoop–which I know doesn’t make sense
given its geometry or price, but at least rhymes–
to a Hummer.
Besides, what new year times
most raise in me
is the wish to do
a runner.
But, here I am–
an Eve past the eve,
sans potato salad,
with an undistinguished car
full of undistinguished dings
and no clear thought of what to bring
to that great ring ring
just knelled–
There just seems nothing in my fate
that is not well past
its best-used-by date
(and long ago not sold.)
I grow old, I grow old,
I shall wear my trousers
rolled–
hisses the poet, or his
doppleganger,
through my rumpled brain folds–
Sigh.
Yet the whimper-worn words also wrangle
a sly bang–
for I’ve always rather liked
rolled trousers.
****************************
For Susie Clevenger’s prompt on the New Year on With Real Toads to write a poem on a New Year aphorism. (Also, although it is not a particular numeric milestone, I just realized with some astonishment that this is my 1905th post on this blog. Crazy.)
No Satin Sheets
We were innocent
or well-trained enough
to depict the torture doled out
to girl spies (us)
as the denial of sex
rather than its forcing.
Our captor, a spymaster on the other side (whichever
girl was made to play
that part), held,
in his (her) arsenal,
a one-handed glove to feather
our racked flesh–
Not the glove! we’d whisper,
enacting febrile anticipation
from the bed at the back
of the basement
or the bar of the shower curtain, which we’d grip,
as if manacled, our toes tethering
a balance on the beam
of the pink-mauve tub–
Our hips embraced a pitched charade
of rise and fall beneath the glove’s
hovering shadow
as we simultaneously refused to betray state secrets
and steamed for love.
(There was no glove, and yet there was,
for truly, it was all
in the glove–
as if we understood already
that the touch of flesh to flesh
was not a game–
as if we understood
anything–)
The mattress was thin, and where our self-pulled limbs
disengaged the worn bottom sheet, hosted cowboys on
bucking steeds, its foam’s fabric sheathe–
but we knew nothing of symbolism,
only that sheets should be satin in this world
where to not be loved
was the worst torment
we could imagine–
***********************************
Very much of a draft poem for Grapeling’s prompt “Get Listed” on With Real Toads. The poem is supposed to describe a children’s game of sorts. I’m not sure that comes across; maybe a change of title in order. The image manipulated/ doctored by me.
Many many thanks to all of you who have made this year not only bearable but special. I so appreciate your reading, your comments, and, in the case of those of you who are fellow bloggers, your writing and your prompts. A special thanks to those who bought, read, or put up with the writing of, my book Nice!
I wish you the happiest and healthiest of new years.
If the Statue of Liberty Could Speak, Maybe
We won’t torch her,
they said, and I admit
I felt relieved, for there was just
this smell–
even after the months of rubble smoking
at my feet
which, despite all the steel
and people, smoldered
of plastic mainly–
an ingredient in so much
these days–
Still, I picked it up, even
though my nose was, as it were,
de-sensitized–
Some hum
that made me insecure
in what they said and so I held on tightly
to my own, which, is
affixed to my hand anyway and copper—
probably not
the copper they use–you know, sliced
into electrodes–
(Collar it what you will–
re-name rape as rectal
hydration–both begin with r
and smell as sweet)–
But did nothing more–
just stood there–
not
enough-
So, sick now
to my stomach, sick
at heart, sick even unto
my grey-green soles, to the depths
of my scrolled harbor.
There’s a certain foulness doesn’t go away
closed up–a fetid
mess that will in darkness
feed on–its seep poisoning
even as we pretend
like children playing peekaboo,
that we can make the real flee
that we can make a lie fly
that we can make all better just
by covering
our eyes.
****************************
A poem I wrote a few weeks ago I am posting as a second poem for With Real Toads open link night. The image belongs to New York City and is from the New York City Coat Drives campaign. It is an image that I saw being photographed in Washington Square Park about twenty-eight years ago–so beautiful I think–on a very very hot afternoon, the woman–a Statue of Liberty impersonator in green make-up, sweating.
Elephant Not Ready For Wake-Up Call
Not Ready For the Year Now Past
This was the year that now is past
though honestly it seemed to last
no longer than it took for me
to write its date down correctly
without a slash through errant three–
And I always thought my learning fast,
but faster still the year that’s been,
fast as a missile, fast as sin–
Tho’ that part’s nothing new, I guess–
the way each year becomes a mess
just as we vow to do [blank] less
in our last binge of [fill it in].
For we always start the New Year late–
If up, we trash the starting gate.
(I suppose I speak for just myself–
others may be New Year elfs–
while me, e’en as I drink to health,
I consign me to a sick head-ache. )
So, this year–this coming year, that is–
this year that sure would bring me bliss
if I could only live it as
a person not like me that was
but as a newbie who always does
just what I–(the me with wits)–
think she should do–exactly so–
for this I tell you, this, I trow–
if I could act as I advise,
my actions would be oh so wise
that Time would take another guise–
not going perhaps exactly slow
but allowing me to grasp its toe
so, I could hang on through its tow–
looking out to my side and to yours
and finding more than blurry blurs–
Instead I’m snagged by all life’s lures
that hook me to the status woe—
(You say the Latin phrase goes quo—
but I write only what I know–)
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A poem for the end of 2014–posted on Open Link Night on With Real Toads. This is also a poem in a new form I came up with–aabbba- not sure I like it so much–but was thinking of Kerry O’Connor’s new year’s prompt of December 31, 2011 (as part of Margaret Bednar’s “play it again, Sam.” )
Pink Dream
She holds the breast to her chest
as if it were a baby nestling,
as if it could suckle
the ribbed cavity,
latching on
to its own past home.
The nipple stares up at her
like the eye of a truncated
dolphin, her arms waves
it needs to surface, not able to breathe
in the trough
of that separated flesh.
She tries to apologize, but her mouth
cannot move;
it, too, swallowed.
Later–later–
she wonders at the will
of the mammalian.
***************************
Yes, a strange poem I know. I am posting it for With Real Toads, the prompt by Margaret Bender. Margaret’s prompt is called “Simply Beautiful,” and I don’t think the poem fits that, but it was something that came up after looking at Margaret’s beautiful photographs. I modified the picture above–Margaret’s picture is below.
Not-a-Child’s-Poem For a Child
There are times when no matter your beliefs,
you pray.
These are the times when the life of a child
is at issue,
and you come back, like a child,
to a God who takes care of children,
who guards them and keeps them
through the long night that can be life at moments,
and you ask that God
to forgive you,
as if it was you caused some lapse
in the universe,
as if the universe would have gone smoothly
but for you,
as if you could barter
with the universe,
and you do barter
with the universe,
you know, for the child–this is how humans
evolved
and what persuades me
that, really, there is no conflict
between belief in evolution
and belief in God, both of them
taking us to the same place
when it actually matters,
to a place that holds
a child at its breast, that
understands the all
of a child.
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A draft poem, linked to Real Toads.
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