Archive for the ‘poetry’ category

« ManicDDaily home page
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

So, it seems

May 9, 2014

20140509-232945.jpg

So, it seems

In even the most peaceful death,
there is a grimace,
as if the body gives life’s hand
a last tight squeeze, or is
itself squeezed,
the interlace of face releasing
into surprise,
an ah as the jaw slackens,
as if to say, ‘so, that was it, then.’
So, at least, it seems,
holding the hand,
onlooking.

 

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

A poem of sorts.  I am linking this to Susie Clevinger’s prompt on With Real Toads about lace.   I have uploaded the photo from my iPhone and fear it may be cut off by some browsers; just click on it, if you wish to see the whole thing.

I have edited this post twice within three minutes of posting!   I’m not sure if I’ve made better–but seems to be my way lately–indecision in editing–

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , ,

Comments: 11 Comments

Our Hearts Bleed (for Nigeria)

May 6, 2014

20140506-232102.jpg
Our Hearts Bleed (for Nigeria)

In last years, Nigeria has lost
most forests,
but the Sambisa seems a place
of bush as much as tree,
or, at least, thorn.

Traditionally, only elephants,
or others with similarly thick skins,
could traverse it.

Elephants are few
now,

but some trucks seem tough enough,
and too the hides of those who treat people
as things–
those who have been trained in the way
of the cutlass;
though the skin of even strong
young girls
is soft, warm, such
that fingers touching it
should sing.

Boko Haram:
“Western education is
forbidden.”
Only the Western part
is a ruse,
it is education
that is
forbidden–

For things
should not read,
property does not write.
What is to be sold, used, fisted–
tethered to post
and slop pail–
should not have tools
to speak her mind.

The terrorizing
of schools
is a kindness truly–
so, they may say, pulling at their hats
and other parts–
for they are very good
at stopping mouths,
but they do not wish
to have to blind, maim, amputate–
no, they want girls
intact,
young limbs spread dark
as woods’ night shadows,
eyes pooling
stripped bark.

***********************************
A poem of sorts for Abhra Pal’s prompt on trees on dVerse Poets Pub, about the horrific abduction of now more than 230 girls in North-East Nigeria. It is suspected that the girls have taken into the Sambisa Forest, a stronghold of the Boko Haram.

Religion has been misused against women and education for a very long time. But what’s happening in Nigeria right now to both girls and boys pursing education is beyond evil. It’s really beyond what I could write of here–just trying to raise awareness,

The drawing, like most on this blog, is mine. — this post has been edited– the last line– since posting.

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , ,

Comments: 21 Comments

Reversal at Arlington

May 5, 2014

20140505-231142.jpg

Reversal at Arlington

Oh you are men of stones
now. You have cracked
heaven’s vault,
one way or another.
Having tongues and eyes, you have also,
at some point,
howled,
whether silently or aloud, being of
this earth,
this hallowed, hollowed earth.

Though you’re now reduced
to roles–names, dates, ranks, wars–
‘father, husband, grandfather, Purple
Heart” – you were not players strutting
in a play, not king
for a day, nor me neither, a daughter,
who lives,
a daughter who was allowed, always,
to heave her heart
into her mouth,
a daughter who
looks there, as Lear says, seeking breath
in the stillness.

**************************************
I’m sorry. Another Arlington Cemetery poem. And very much a draft–I’ve edited it extensively since first posting. (I’ve probably not made it better either, as this last edit is being done at 4:30 in the morning. But I woke up with a change of heart.)

My father is buried at Arlington. This is a rather odd poem, based upon the last few lines of King Lear in “King Lear” uttered after his daughter, Cordelia, has been killed. A Purple Heart is a U.S. medal awarded to a military service person wounded or killed in service person wounded in combat.

At the suggestion of the wonderful Hedgewitch, I am posting the main quote that I was thinking of in writing this poem. It is Act V, Scene 3, when Lear carries in his daughter, Cordelia, who has been hanged. Cordelia had earlier been estranged from Lear because of her refusal/inability to “heave her heart into her mouth” and declare the specific measure of her love for her father in a who-loves-dad-most competition with her two older sisters, Goneril and Reagan.

Howl, howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones:
Had I your tongues and eyes, I’d use them so
That heaven’s vault should crack. She’s gone for ever!
I know when one is dead, and when one lives;
She’s dead as earth. Lend me a looking-glass;
If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,
Why, then she lives.

Throughout the scene, Lear tries to see if Cordelia is breathing (which would mean that he is mistaken and that she lives.) He repeats as his last words, “look there,” seeming to find her breath.

The line about the players strutting is (kind of) from Macbeth.

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , ,

Comments: 10 Comments

Vignette

May 5, 2014

20140505-060955.jpg

Vignette

I ask you to make sure
that I’m not buried
where I can hear cars.
This, walking to the edge
of Arlington Cemetery where the lawns,
still empty, are separated from a parkway
by a fence, motors roaring
through what was, a few steps back,
only birdsong flickering
through the scores
of small white stones.

“Or muzak either,” you say, squinting,
because we had to leave
a Sunglass Hut earlier–me nutty
about all-around sound–

“Even if I’m only, you know, ash,” I add.

It takes us a moment
to see that the fence is filled
with niches;
a woman sits cross-legged
on the sidewalk facing one, the only movement
the shimmer of her gold blouse.

Just then, a motorcycle fires,
rata-tat-tat, someone peeling away
too fast–ripping–so it feels, with the green stillness behind,
the woman’s stillness ahead–
the immense sky–Washington not
a tall city–

I try to find the bike,
but my eye is caught, instead,
in the light of the woman’s blouse, the unchanging rays
of each bent sleeve.

“So maybe it was good he died when he did.” I try a laugh.

You smile.

“I mean,” I say, “I know I won’t be able to hear anything,
but I’d just go bananas.”

You take my hand.

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

And here’s one for Kerry O’ Connor’s prompt on with real toads to write a vignette.  I do not know if this qualifies for Kerry’s wonderful prompt, but what I came up with.

As a process note, Arlington Cemetery is the Arlington National Cemetery, the US national military cemetery. It is an incredibly beautiful place, just on the other side of the Potomac River from the Lincoln Memorial and the Mall. In my photo, you can see the Washington Monument and the Capitol in the distance. The place we walked was beyond that single stone, which is quite unusual, as most of them are in lines and rows (and the grass is better tended.) My sense is that this one may actually be a marker for the beginning of the next grave area rather than an actually headstone.

Editing and uploading on iPhone from train where internet connection keeps giving out! Agh!!!! So posted before ready, and now in my office, and still uncertain–but, it’s a vignette, right? So, maybe I’ve even said too much—)

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , ,

Comments: 15 Comments

The Brain (how it performs sometimes)

May 4, 2014

20140504-210018.jpg

 

The Brain (how it performs sometimes)

It wants to be petted,
wants to be stroked,
doesn’t like
to be vetted/poked.
Don’t make it jump
repeated hoops
unless they are
high-fired loops–
Then the brain, hard-wired as moth to flame,
dons tiger stripes and lion’s mane,
describes arcs gold as melted butter,
all to hear the clapping after
of another brain.

 

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

Here’s 55 (excluding the title) from a brain that likes to perform when the challenge/audience is there, but that is right now exhausted from a lot of traveling and socializing–not great for poeticizing.  I am linking it to With Real Toad’s 55 challenge, taking over from the G-Man. 

The drawing is mine–lion/tiger jumping through a fiery hoop?  

 

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , ,

Comments: 15 Comments

To Some Much Loved Book, Or Another

April 30, 2014

 

To some much loved book, or another

Unable to be parted,
I took you to my bath
where your pages waved
like the sea–
fine with me, better even–
for I floated then in your open hull
through the primeval family hall
to the shore of my own little bed, where,
my personal moon,
you reflected the light overhead,
my eyes following
the fallen stars you banked–
words, like the room itself,
dark yet lit within.

What sacrifices you made–
sitting up with me, all hours,
shepherding me, when sleep came
and went, from chest-choke dreams to
safely-ventilated boxes
of sweeter sheep,
adventuring tedium, silencing
demand,
even taking the fall, at turns,
from the cliffs
of mattress, letting me
come to the rescue–

No grown-up could be
so consistent–
always on page 2, a boa, more adorable
than a fedora, digested
an elephant,
and always too,
on some later page
in one of those parallel universes upon which
physicists base
their reputations,
Charlotte, the spider,
would die.

You gave me cover
to cry–
a corner where still-ephemeral-
but-soon-to-burgeon breasts
could confess suffering, expand
with the pain of another,
where tears felt like water tapped, at last,
from the trunk of a baobab–where being overrun
by baobabs was not, as some might think,
so bad–

*****************************
Here’s my last draft poem for the month of April 2014–though I think I may have just missed midnight.I am linking this to Grapeling’s prompt on With Real Toads to use some words from a list by St. Exupery (taken from The Little Prince.) I would love to make a St. Exupery-inspired drawing, but I fear I am too late. (Hopefullly some other day.)

Many thanks for With Real Toads, especially Kerry O’Connor, for making this month so meaningful for those of us trying to do the poem a day. Also special thanks to my friend Hedgewitch, blogging at Verse Escape, whose behind-the-scenes camaraderie has been incredibly helpful and to all of you also doing the poem a day (or not) but reading many poems a day–thanks so much–

 

 

Categories: elephants, poetry, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Comments: 13 Comments

Calves

April 29, 2014

20140430-000310.jpg

Calves

The little cows, their faces white as Noh
masks, their cut-out eyes say ‘oh” when they see
me, their twigged legs skedaddling as if blown–
the calves– with muzzles clean as milk should be,
as tremulous as milk blued by a pail
in a morning when the moon still shines
like an 8 ball in sky’s corner. Do not fail
them–the little calves who emit no whines
that corporations are people, my friends,
who, like chickens bred for cage-bottomed breasts,
topple-heavy, do not understand how ends
justify means, the logic that infests
so many bottom lines that it gets lost–
as if we could eat cruelty, without cost.

************************************
Here’s very much a draft poem, another sonnet for With Real Toads, Helen Dehner’s prompt re talking to animals. I think this is only my 29th for National Poetry Month– not sure, so one more to go?

The little calves above have, I think, quite a nice life; the poem is really about factory farming, all too prevalent in the U.S.

Categories: cows, poetry, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , ,

Comments: 15 Comments

A Re-telling

April 28, 2014

20140428-220436.jpg

A Re-telling

From the start, we cause pain, whether pushing
through mother’s loins or cracked from her abdomen,
raising, in others and ourselves too, shushing
moans and gewgaw howls, trailing ache in crumbs, and
not by the Hansel–that is, not to lead
us home, but to move us on–our over-
sized brains plopped terrified as a treed
cat on our upright stance, our plover
quickstep trying to balance it all–but not
really. We don’t truly try for balance
but to get–to beget, to get get, have got,
get away–wanting both to sidestep the dance
and to caper wildly, to be both bird
and gingerbread–in our beaks, the last word–

******************************
Okay, so it doesn’t make much sense.  It’s a sonnet.  And it’s some late day in April, National Poetry Month.  I am linking this to Open Link Night on Real Toads, which has been terrifically supportive of this every-day-a-new-poem endeavor. Thanks to all of you as well.

PS- the drawing, like most here, is one of mine. (Much improved by having the help of an iPad.) All rights reserved.

Categories: poetry
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Comments: 7 Comments

Later, the Earth Took the Driver’s Seat

April 27, 2014

20140427-090108.jpg
Later, the Earth Took the Driver’s Seat

They thought the world could be filled with roads
and still would be the world. They thought that paving
was the way to go, and, answering goads
of “faster”, they speed-spread tar, enslaving
every chump-change clump of grass and stalk
till even oak bowed and hemlocks drooped, dying.
The axel beds drooped too beneath their bulk
for they grew huge in their cars, ever vying
for more wiggle room, which in a world
of roads, took several miles, even with
the windows open, bunched arms unfurled–
though soon all rush of air became a myth,
a yarn passed back and forth on the sealed drive
like the tar-dust trunks, said once to be alive–

***************************************
Here is some consecutive poem–27th–for the 27th day of April, National Poetry Month.  (Agh!)  I am linking it to the Real Toads – “Play it Again, Sam” challenge by Margaret Bednar, allowing participants, thankfully, to use an archived challenge–in this case, I chose a prompt for 14 liners by Kerry O’Connor. (Mine’s a sonnet.)

Margaret’s prompt included beautiful drawings by her daughter and I urge you to check them out. I tend to like to use my own visuals though–the above and below photographs are mine. (I took a bunch of this car, so you’ll probably see more at some point!)

 

20140427-090348.jpg

Categories: country life, poetry
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Comments: 18 Comments

(W)riffing on W (Not Bush)

April 26, 2014

(W)riffing on W (Not Bush)

What words (do I wait upon)
to work wonders?

What words
to wrangle
from wishful winking
weal world well-being;
to wend us west
of woe;
to not warfare
our Womeos,
to wreck war-mongering (wanting not
waste);

to even, when whirled whichaway,
make magic–

“We, women…”

***********************
Here’s a rather silly one for some late day of April, National Poetry Month, posted for the prompt of Marian (of Runaway Sentence)  on With Real Toads, to use the letter “w”.   Hannah had a specific list which was just too hard for me to use on this late day of April; I’ve tried to comply, however, with the letter, as well as the spirit of the prompt. 

I think/hope women’s empowerment worldwide may be a huge force for positive change  this century.  That said, I do understand that women are a VERY diverse group, and I know that some can certainly be just as warmongering and egotistical as men!  (I still have hope for them though!)  

The above video is the reposting of super brief clip of a woman reading at a poetry slam held for a women’s labor collective called SEWA (Self-Employed Women’s Association), founded by the very remarkable labor leader, activist, community organizer, revolutionary thinker, Ela Bhatt,  in Ahmedabad, India.   I do not know the name of the woman reading.  (She is not Ela, whose picture is below.)   All the women on the stage are SEWA members. 

Ela Bhatt of SEWA (Ahmedabad, Gujerat) (photo by Manicddaily)

Ela Bhatt of SEWA (Ahmedabad, Gujerat) (photo by Manicddaily)

Categories: poetry
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Comments: 19 Comments

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »