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Sunday Diner

April 6, 2014

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Sunday Diner

Somewhere, waffles beam
from a plate that gleams
white as the Milky Way.
A pat of butter sits fat
as the noonday sun.
A waitress says “Hon,”
as if it were
a benediction.

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Here’s a poem, 6 for six in April (ha!), for Kenia’s “Sunday” prompt on With Real Toads.

Real Toads is very thoughtfully providing daily nourishment for all those poets trying to celebrate National Poetry Month through self-flagellation. Check it out.

Once again, pic is not quite right, but I haven’t had time to do new ones this month, so in place of seated elephant, you’ll have to imagine waffle, waitress, butter, maybe sun.

Categories: elephants, poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 17 Comments

Free That Day

April 5, 2014

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Free That Day

“so, that’s the Hall of Mirrors,” I said,
hoisting my little one by her waist–not so little–nine–
but no way could she tiptoe to the height of the paned
glass–
“where they signed some big treaties–um–”
darting looks-out–  “World War I–”

the red checks of her dress’s skirt bunched,
in my hold, into the flower sprigs of
the bodice, a pattern of mismatch like
our socks, after travel, our feet now
interlopers in the gravel that bordered
the razor-sharp lawn, there, on the other side
of the bunted rope
we’d just slipped around–

”Can you see?” to her older sister.
Balancing her too then
on my braced knee, against
the stares peering back at us–
our own in the blinked
sheen–so hot, a record
for Paris–
“They’re super tarnished
anyway–”

“Yeah, it is huge–”
But no guards, it seemed, the one day of the week
the Palace was closed,
not that saw us scooting back to the gardens–”really the best part–”
with its avenues of shrubbed poodle tail
where one or two capped men, sitting beside
the refracted bronze of dolphin leap and nymphic breast–
“and, at least, it’s not crowded–”
found sun translated to breeze.

That may be the day I remember best
of that whole trip
when the guidebook slipped past me
and we ended up seeing ourselves
in historical glass, as if we too
were a secret part of it,
nearly always the way
of women and young girls.

 

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

I realized once I started this that I had already written about the same incident!  (Agh.)  It has to do with a day we went to Versailles and the palace turned out to be closed.  But that poem is a little bit different and this is this poem–very much a draft!– and certain memories are rather indelible I guess.  At any rate, here’s my fifth this April, posted for the prompt of the wonderful Grace (of Everyday Amazing) on ‘mirrors’ on real toads. 

 

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 17 Comments

Mailbox

April 4, 2014

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Mailbox

She sat when she was small
and Time was tall
and the unfolding of a house–
the way it yawned and roused
itself from the naps of houses–
she’d stayed home sick, alone–
they worked, they phoned–
filled her chest with fright
as if she’d sighted
in the hall–for she was small–
a gorilla or a thief–Time was so tall–
a robber in the closet–
she’d turned full hard the faucet
for the noise, the TV too–
but even the bright blue
of whitening power,
the game show of the hour,
could not crowd out
the terrible roust-about
of brick, of wall, nowhere at all
to run (for she was small, Time tall)
and she would walk out to the curb–
and yes, it sounds absurd
if you are big and time is short–
but for her it was a port
from roomside storm, and she would sit
beneath the mail box as if it
were a matter of an important letter,
as if she were important, or better,
as if she were, and of course, she was—
which is exactly what she feared, because
if she was–she could be caught–
there, in the house where she thought
she heard the step of someone home,
someone who didn’t know that, yes, they phoned,
someone who could trap her in the bedroom or the hall
where there was nowhere to run at all,
if you were small and Time–too tall–

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Here’s my draftish poem for April 4, written for Fireblossom (Shay’s) prompt on With Real Toads to write something about letters, the mail.  I am recycling the drawing (mine) from another somewhat different poem that uses some of the same imagery. 

Reading note–as some know, I am a big believer in punctuation, so typically in reading my poems, there are only pauses at the ends of lines, where punctuated. 

 

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 15 Comments

Death’s Turn

April 3, 2014

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Death’s Turn

How long it takes
for death to turn the stomach,
its odor as ochre as goldenseal
stopping the throat.

Unhabituated, we’re sickened, sure,
but like a child swallowing a roller coaster, gullet tense
so stretched,
we still–early on–relish the drop at the top, the spin
to our bottomless sure seat, locked guards against
our buckle.

Bitterness a supposed virtue
in the medicinal–
oh, the drama–
we even nibble
at Death’s edges, inking its stink
with a tincture of svelte shadow.

Until all those little doses climb,
like our clackety strapped cart,
to some high teeter
and of a sudden
we’ve had it up to here–
Death there–
cancer on our corner–

We want
to throw it all up–
all clots of seeming,
any empathy that even slightly smacks its lips.
We want something strong–
red wine, dark chocolate–
to take the taste–
open air,
bared arms,
time–

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

Please don’t be alarmed.  I’ve had no bad diagnosis, just heard bad news of a few different friends.  I am doing a poem a day for April–this my third in three days–ha!–and I am also posting this for Claudia Schoenfeld’s post at dVerse Poets Pub about writing a poem about emotion that doesn’t name the emotion.  Not sure if it qualifies, but know I haven’t used the word “despair” in there. 

Note that I am going to have a hard time focusing on visuals this month–so they may not always fit!  I thank you for your indulgence in advance.  (As I say that, I realize that they often don’t fit!  Oh well.)  

 

 

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 25 Comments

After Kilroy

April 2, 2014

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Nobody said it had to be a GOOD poem a day. Here’s one for Susan’s perfectly great prompt on With Real Toads to write a poem you imagine as grafitti. Process note– some refer to B.C. as B.C.E. (“Before Common Era.”)

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 13 Comments

Tight Spot

April 1, 2014
Parallel Parked

Parallels?

Tight Spot

She’d angled it in
looking at a mirror,
fixing parallels, nosing
fended bangs,
but the thumping that she thought
had been the road
still thundered,
the heart refusing to be parked
somewhere,
the uncurbed heart.

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Here’s first draft poem for April, for Mama Zen hosting Words Count at With Real Toads. She asks for a poem that will surprise her in 37 words or less–

April is the cruelest month, or the most fun, or some mixture of the aforesaid, for those interested in poetry. It is National Poetry Month, a time in which some tortured people inexplicably decide that they should pull a new poem from their pocket every single day. Real Toads is planning to offer an assortment of prompts every day this month for those interested in testing their resolve but also needing inspiration.

Categories: poetry
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Comments: 11 Comments

Ride

March 30, 2014

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Ride

You bought some doughnuts; it was so fun
when you called me your honey bun,
then took me in your sharp-finned car
the night dark blue, the stars near far.
The seats were cold and rough to touch–
the car smelled like you smoked too much–
but you wrapped me round with one taut arm
that felt so lithe and live and warm
that soon the clammy stink of ash
flew from the window like the trash
you tossed out your side–crumpled sack
tattooed with doughnuts’ greasy track,
then lifting your arm’s weight a bit
dug out a bottle, took a sip.

Your breath like fire, wrongness too–
it somehow wired me to you.
You leaned, you kissed, you made me feel
a heat that steered me like a wheel.
You didn’t care what people thought–
oh, I wanted what you’d got.

And then, still driving, came a thump,
it was like the car had hit a bump,
only not, just not, it was not like that,
blackness squirreled inside my lap.
‘Oh shit,’ you said, your head turned back,
‘Goddammit all,’ not turning back.

Mad, you drove with both hands on
except for swipes of light-trapped palm
that wiped your face, the hair that tossed,
your forehead fisted, double-crossed
as any two-lined two-laned road–
all that hot now grown so old.

In light beam’s mutter, light beam’s glare
in the flashing stutter of my stare,
I caught remembrance, glittered blip–
bristled sugar at your lip–
but the only rounds in this holed world,
were tires that whirled and whirled and whirled
and a mind that skittered, tried to care
but only could come up with scared–
no honey bun, no glaze of laughter,
just things that we kept secret after.

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Here’s very much of a draft poem (also a bit crazy) for Kerry O’Connor’s prompt on With Real Toads (http://withrealtoads.blogsopt.com) to write a poem using the line “there were things that we kept secret after.”

I am sorry that the drawing is a little recycled. I am hoping to do a poem a day in April and will, I’m afraid, likely have to use recycled visuals to keep up. (Hence, my excuse for starting now!)

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 16 Comments

Moon-tied (Last Friday Flash 55 for the G-Man)

March 28, 2014

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Moon-tied

Ice floes,
ice flows.
That is how
ice goes.

Sunrise,
sun rays,
that is how
sun makes days.

Moontide,
moontied–
in its pallor
lovers sighed.

Hearts please
heart’s pleas–
never wise
for hearts to tease.

Moontied,
sunfound,
lover lying
on dank ground.

Too young this love
to ever know
quite how long
ice will flow.

 

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My last 55 for the gallant Galen–Yes, some of those are two words jammed  together! But the ever tolerant Mr. G will still, I hope, allow my weekend to kick-a…

On a more serious note, many thanks to Galen, the G-man, Mr. Know-it-all for his wonderfully clever and sweet hosting of Friday Flash 55. His 55 prompt is a real exercise in discipline and, when discipline fails, slyness. He will still be blogging to–the delight of one Manicddaily.  Also, thanks to his new hosts, Shay and Mama Zen.

P.S. – the above if anyone is interested is a picture taken a night a couple of years ago of ice floes in the Hudson at the bottom of Manhattan. 

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 12 Comments

Shared Ribs

March 27, 2014

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Shared Ribs

My unconscious deflects the cryptic, oscillates
between the quotidian ho-hum
and the quotidian urgent,
makes a big to-do of the to-done–
fetishizing all those t’s foolishly dotted,
i’s crossed–
though often, turns only my torso,
doesn’t even scan
dream pages.

While you, asleep, leap
from penumbral cliffs,
wheel monkey-wrenched helicopters,
exact precise control
over the trigger kegs
of ravening St. Bernards
and, whenever I reach across, are chasing hard,
some sure inkling
of salvation.

You want, upon waking,
to tell me about it.
Pupils amplified by night’s close,
voice as husky as if it wore
an aviator’s jacket–
you tender word montages
from the irrational geographic, a tout
for your disappearing country,
while me, I pout about needing tea,
willfully weighting
the baggage that keeps
me here–

for I fear,
shouldering the sheet,
that you are Jung at heart,
while I find myself an old hand
at schadenfreude.

Oh, the heart, the gloved heart, mittened
by its own chest, caged
by those expanding, contracting ribs that join us
on some anthropomythic level
(which you will likely describe
one morning–how the curved bones moonscaped
Lethe skies–while I silently bite ribbed lips, nodding)–

for you listen to me often enough
mornings, evenings, afternoons, even without
kegged St. Bernards.

Why we love so much
the ribs beside us
in this dream
of fitfully shared
sleep, companion heart beat.

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Here’s a poem posted for a prompt by the wonderful Hedge Witch (Joy Anne Jones) on With Real Toads. The prompt, accompanying a very cool article on Mind and Symbol, is a list of words taken from the first chapter of Man and Symbol by Carl Jung.

Categories: iPad art, poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 8 Comments

For My Mother, Who Always Wears Blue

March 24, 2014

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For My Mother, Who Always Wears Blue

You insist on blue
even when all your azures
are in the wash
and all you can find
is one of his old ties,
which you knot about your waist as if it were a sash and not
an amulet,
in the same way that you wrapped,
after unwrapping,
the foil robin shell around his Easter egg
a whole year afterwards,
pondering what to do with it frozen,
the chocolate marled
like a cataract blind
to aluminated sky, isoceles crimped
to cirrus,
because he’d enjoyed it so
a couple bites a time, nights,
savoring small sweetnesses–

Though your blues harbor luck.
It’s the kind that’s found even
through the cracks of loss,
like stripes in frayed
silk, and that pale Prussian that mirrors ‘up’
around the ice floes
just there, outside the window of this train,
my arms warmed, as I look,
by navy sleeves.

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Here’s a poem for the poetics prompt by Abhra Pal posted in honor of the Indian festival of Holi, about imagining coloring people, at http:dVersepoets.com. (My “linker” not working.)

Also, this is a picture outside my train window looking out over the Hudson River, but it is not a picture taken today, and it doesn’t really show the fragmented ice floes now there.

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 19 Comments

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