Archive for the ‘poetry’ category

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Penultimate

April 29, 2017

Penultimate

You could no longer swallow, so after they finally let us say no
to the tubes, they wrapped you in white and wheeled you
out into what felt like a plastic lozenge but was also
the only way home.

It was a bitter day, and the white just thin
cotton–the gurney spindling and shaking
in the wind, the curb too high, the door too slow, nothing fast enough
in that bright blow–

so I, having flown down from winter,
wedged my woolen hat
around your head, armed your chest
with my coat
but they were women’s wear, the hat crocheted
with big petal flowers, and you
my father,
and as I worried that you’d die in them, the word dignity
ricocheting about my head, I determined that you would not die,
not on that
way home, and making (maybe) some kind of joke,
laid my head gently gently
against yours, the hat brim whiskering
my cheek

while your eyes, slitted, tried
to smile, while mine kaleidoscoped time,
and as the ambulance began its swerves,
the wagon swinging even though it did not race, I held to some
metal rail, and you to something
else, and the heat
came on at last
with the engine,
and we made it
all right.

 

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

Draft poem for Brendan’s wonderful prompt on Real Toads to write about the penultimate, or other related matters–best to read the post itself.  Drawing and photo of drawing mine.  All rights reserved. 

If I have time and will may try to post a few new (drafty!) things to make up missed days in April. (Sigh.)  Congrats to the stalwart who have posted every day this month! And congrats to others too who have done their best! 

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Still Bargaining Against the Fall

April 28, 2017

Still Bargaining Against the Fall

When I think of you suffering,
I wonder how I can hurt
one thing–step
on a bug, eat
salmon.

I am not comparing you to a bug
or salmon.

I only know that when I think of you suffering,
when I think of the possible loss of you,
I want to lessen suffering,
I want loss to go away,
I want you to stay.

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

A drafty poem that was inspired in part by Rommy’s  childhood bogeyman prompt on Real Toads, though I’m not sure it really fits the prompt, as it is not really limited to childhood, but it came up thinking of the type of bargaining one does as a child (and an adult) to keep something difficult from happening.   Drawing is mine–all rights reserved.  

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What I Don’t Know From Poetry

April 27, 2017

What I Don’t Know From Poetry

What I don’t know from poetry would fill
a book,
would fill a bulldozer
if a bulldozer were a book,
which would be an extremely hard read–even a murder mystery would not be easy to read in bulldozer, the earth in
your ears, the grumble of dirt
crumbling–

and though I could undoubtedly pack
a book in the way that a bulldozer packs
its maw,
would anyone stand
on some hill–perhaps it is just
the other side
of my excavation, elevated only
as compared to my dug pit–
and squint across that chasm for
some ore–I can’t honestly imagine
a nugget, tending as I do
to overly long poems–but some vein of something randomly
broken up–

If there is  such a person,
I bend to them my multi-jointed neck,
I toggle my levered gears,
I stop my tread in my tracks,
I here mound up
my thanks.

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

Another poem for my outsider prompt on Real Toads, trying (sort of) to make up my deficit in this April National Poetry Month.  I’m not even sure of my number of missed days, but may try to squeeze some extras in!  

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No Heel

April 27, 2017

No Heel

He tried to speak in boot, but worried that it came out
in penny loafer–

The problem was that he didn’t want to speak
in the tongue of just any
boot–not goose-stepper, arse-
kicker, not
shit-stomper–

but rocker, worker, hiker,
Frye–he’d even have settled for high-top, which was rather like boot, if cloth–

Oh, bass weejun could, he supposed,
talk the walk,
but his words felt flat, soulless–also, he really really
did not want to sink
to topsider–

Then he met her,
and one night at a party full
of ankle-covering (if
metaphorical)

she took his hand and pulled him outside
to a lawn fresh-soaked
with summer night,
and sighed–”isn’t it so great
to have slip-ons–” slipping
hers off–

He accepted then
some part of himself,
which felt snug, in a good way,
and almost as warm in that moment
as her side–

*********

drafty poem for Real Toads prompt by the wonderful Marian Kent to write of shoes.  The pic above is a charcoal (photograph modified) of mine, and for interest I post one I made on iPad below.  Thanks!

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Mourning

April 26, 2017

Mourning

His body was no longer outside the spark
that had sputtered and flamed,
that had fluttered and beaten
wing,
that, guttered by his limb and skin,
had flickered and flown in him.
She tried to breathe it in.

 

 
***********************

For my own prompt on Real Toads based on the idea of an outsider or outsider art.  Pic is mine, based on a pieta at the Metropolitan Museum, but the poem is not meant to refer to the pieta or to be overtly religious.  (I am just using this drawing, in other words, because I like it.) 

A warning that I may post a lot (if I can) in the next few days to catch up to April quotients.  Ha.  We’ll see, I guess.  k. 

 

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At some age

April 25, 2017

At some age

Her eyes tailed him–
he was just so cool and she so
the opposite
that whenever their paths actually crossed,
her gaze was grounded,

till it got to to where he sat down
and she felt blindfolded
not that she was so bound
to the hind parts
of the his anatomy,

but because she so missed
his dart and swish
(the white formica of her own tabletop
a visual white noise)

that she could even seem blocked from
the thrill in
her ache–

***********

Belated poem for Margaret Bednar’s prompt re peacock on Real Toads.   I am some poems behind for this April and may try playing catch-up if I get a little time.

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After Re-reading “The Sleepers”

April 23, 2017

After Re-Reading “‘The Sleepers”

You look so beautiful when you’re asleep,
he says, and I say, no, yet,
having read Whitman, I also know
what he means,
how faces soften
when sleep comes,
how the sneer of even the hardest heart calls
a short cease-fire,
how the scowl of the unmoved makes
a temporary peace,
as if between the wrinkles of sheet and skin,
against the rock-dark grid
of pavement or sheen
of sateen, on the slope
of slack-jaw,
the features find some child that is so young
it still is willing to embrace them–you know how unconsciously kind
the very young
can be–

And I wonder now about the sleep
of other earthen things–whether stone softens
as night falls or if we just imagine
its velveting,
whether grass puts down
its blades–
only grass, it seems to me, is just as likely
to snooze on a midsummer afternoon–I’m sure I’ve heard
its snore–in fact, this is one of the qualities of grass
about which I have
mixed feelings–

and, I don’t, I say to him, you probably just think I look nice asleep
because I’m not talking for once—

 No, he smiles, bending to kiss the knuckles
of one of my hands,
and I know in that moment
a peace that can also be found
fully awake–

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

Drafty poem for Gillena Cox’s Prompt on Real Toads to write in response to another poem; in this case I am writing a poem after re-reading The Sleepers by Walt Whitman.  This poem is quite different from that, but that started it out.  Drawing is mine; all rights reserved. (This has been edited since first posting.) 

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Comments: 15 Comments

Turning

April 22, 2017

Turning

You expect green, but, in the mountains,
Spring edges in with head tinted red
and brown carpet slippers, yet

glorious.

After a shower,
even trees dress
for the occasion.

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

Poem for Susie Clevenger’s prompt on Real Toads asking for a response to the beautiful lithograph of Mi Young Lee below.  Above pic mine.  All rights reserved to holder. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Stroke Of –

April 21, 2017

Stroke Of–

If he’d planned for it, he would have joined the glee club.
Hell, if he’d planned for it, maybe he would have quit
the god damn smokes.

But he’d not planned for it,
and when all that his mouth would loose
was what he’d learned,
preferably to music,
he was stuck with nursery bits, saved
like a favorite sweet, tooth-marked and not really suited
for bed.

So “twinkle twinkle,” he sang when he needed to pee,
and, when he wanted to know the time, “hickory dickory,”
though there was a big clock he could just make out if he let
his good side loll, and the nurses couldn’t tell what he was aiming at
anyway, but simply scanned
his torsoed sheet–

if he could even come up with a jingle, but his tongue was a backside caught
in a collapsed
somersault,

until that time he looked at the nurse he thought of
as her,
as she tried to help him shift,
pulling one sheet side, her eyes reminding him
of a cow’s eyes, the one
that jumped over the moon–but in
a good way,

brown curls about her face like bovine eyelashes,
as thick as cream
rising–

and a voice that he almost recognized tilted into
“oh beautiful–”

and she stopped mid-tug–
“for spacious skies–” some part of him went on,
unconsciously smoothing the sheet with the hand that still
obeyed,
only really, this had nothing to do
with that blue sheet–
“for amber waves of grain,” quavering–

“Aha,” she said, but her eyes somehow then became rain
to him, that gentle droppeth, and more like moons
than cows–

“so, you’re getting hungry, huh?” she tried,

and he was pretty sure that wasn’t what
he meant at all, still what could smiled.

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

Another drafty poem for April 2017; Magaly Guerrero’s prompt on Real Toads, to talk of idea of “I have no mouth but I must scream.”  Here I write of a phenomenon where certain stroke victims lose the ability to speak but are able to recite poems or sing songs because the words are stored in a part of the brain other than the speech center. 

 

(Song at the end is America the Beautiful lyrics by Katherine Lee Bates.)

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Trace of Crow Snow

April 20, 2017

Trace of Crow Snow

wings finger the snow
like hands pushing up from a bed–
who cares what he said/she said (you/me)
in the face of crow tracks
the bones of flight, nighted,
take-off

oh caw, here’s
my response–oh,
awe–

 

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

drafty poem for Fireblossom (Shay’s) prompt on Real Toads to write something relating to crows. Pic is mine, all rights reserved. 

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