Archive for the ‘poetry’ category

« ManicDDaily home page
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

“Going to Ground”

February 5, 2013

20130205-010514.jpg

Going to Ground

And then there are those times when you follow
ground rather than sky, spying your way
by clump, not star, tufted mound, found hollow
in a hill. You’ve not been kind, and as day
falls, and night falls too (from your perspective),
you want to weep, but can only walk,
cross snow-swept field, unable to relive
what you didn’t rightly live when the clock
wound round first go. As coat sleeve side-slides,
yaps sound, a wild chorus, and not distant,
though muted in dim.  Your startled heart invites
in fear to replace remorse, but, next instant,
recognizes the whine of rubbed nylon.
You walk, arms behind back now, head still down.

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

A sort of a sonnet, with slant rhyme and shifting pentameter, for dVerse Poets Open Link Night.

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

Comments: 42 Comments

Streaming Winter (Cinquain)

February 3, 2013

20130203-081144.jpg

Streaming Winter

Water
Flowing frozen,
Floating frozen over
Flowing, growing floes of frozen
Water.

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

The above is a slightly silly cinquain (what is this with the alliteration!?)  a five line syllabic poem, for With Real Toads, hosted by Marian (of Runaway Sentence).  (For more on cinquains, read Marian’s very imformative post.)  Above and below are photos of some wonderfully frozen water.  I will probably post more at some point as it is the kind of thing that I at least can’t stop photographing or videoing even though the pictures are never as good as the real thing and IT IS COLD!!!!!!!!

P.S. I’ve edited since posting.  Agh.

20130203-081521.jpg

Categories: Country weekend, poetry, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , ,

Comments: 33 Comments

“Between Light and Dark”

February 2, 2013

20130202-023435.jpg

Between Light and Dark

My mother saw the “light” once, a few days
after my birth when complications happened,
mounds of blood unearthed on linoleum maze
wherever she trod.  In crash of pan and din,
from kitchen to OR, she was transported
to a view of light as bright as snow-sunned field.
It beckoned; it said, come.  Put down assorted
care; just rest; let wounds and heart be healed.
And she was tempted.  For she was so tired,
even young.  Till she remembered my crabbed face,
mottled with blue, yet red as a small fire,
and she, protesting no, chose the shadowed space,
the dapple at tunnel’s start, the ombre
of arms clasped, the crosshatch of joy with somber.

****************************
Here’s a sonnet (of sorts) for the dVerse Poets Pub Poetics prompt hosted by me today on the theme of bright shadow (in honor of Groundhog Day).

Check out all the great poets at dVerse and, if you have an extra moment on this wintry day, check out my books!  Poetry, GOING ON SOMEWHERE, (by Karin Gustafson, illustrated by Diana Barco). 1 Mississippi -counting book for lovers of rivers, light and pachyderms, or Nose Dive, a very fun novel. Nose Dive is available on Kindle for just 99 cents!

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

Comments: 57 Comments

“To Ed Koch” (and certain other New Yorkers)

February 1, 2013

20130201-092131.jpg

To Ed Koch, My New Yorker Aunt and Plenty of Others

There was a certain old-timey New Yorker who wasn’t shy
of picking up a discard on the curb (hopefully, before
the dogs took aim)–maybe a chair, a table, even a whole city–
(what’s it to you, buddy?) –hoisting it
in their arms, cleaning, polishing, making it
something anyone could be proud of, love–

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

A belated 55 to Ed Koch, who like my Aunt, and many long-term New Yorkers, knew how to take something at a low and make it wonderfully special.  They furnished their rent-controlled apartments, and even their lives, and others’ lives with such things – making the discarded (or bankrupt) function!  Please tell it to the G-Man. 

I didn’t always agree with Ed Koch, but could not help truly liking him and being very grateful for the energy and devotion and unapologetic chutzpah he gave to NYC.  

Categories: New York City, poetry, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , ,

Comments: 8 Comments

“Oath” – Ghazal

January 31, 2013

20130131-105006.jpg

Oath

I will quit you for sure, tomorrow.
(It’s the day you’re with her–tomorrow.)

I will bind up lips, breasts; hold onto
my breath, with no kind of tremor, tomorrow.

My scuffed bag will be packed, sag on my back
with the stuff dreams make heavier, tomorrow.

I won’t let noon pass by, shadows longing
to tie, knot me to another tomorrow.

You’ll sneak into night house, not much of
a mouse, so sure of my cat’s purr, tomorrow;

slip into our bed whose palely smoothed head
won’t burn with tears’ fever, tomorrow.

I swear it, I say, as I did yesterday,
that all caring is over, tomorrow.
***************************************

The above is a rather odd “Ghazal Sonnet,” posted for dVerse Poets Pub “Form For All,” hosted by Samuel Peralta.  Sam explains Ghazals very well–so check out his article.  The form has a repeated word, and a rhyming sequence, but I’ve added a  whole bunch of non-required rhymes because the meter just felt wrong to me.   

Oh yes–and you are supposed to put your name somewhere in the last line.  My name, for those who don’t know it, is Karin.  Caring? 

All I can say is that I do not think I lived in Persia in another life. 

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

Comments: 24 Comments

Crusted

January 30, 2013

20130130-114721.jpg

Crusted

Ian cried tears on to the hard shell of a dead crab
and knew in his heart he was finally a man–

So, she imagined him to feel at least, remembering
her own crustaceous wake-up, when a clam
she had singled out from the litter of bushel basket–
a clam that had smelled perfectly fine once far
from the ranked fillet of cod, had become
her pet clam, her very own dear, whose
smooth ridges she had brushed
(in breaks from the fridge)
against her cheek,
but who, in a betrayal
of pencil tray, school desk afternoon, had unnotched
into something as wet and pink and
vulvular as a disobedient
slave’s shocked
tongue–

She had learned then
of the uses of shells and coldness, of the price
of using itself–the wages
of show and tell, reflected
glory–and if these lessons didn’t turn her
into a woman–she was six–they
did teach her what most women
know –  that you must safeguard that
you love–that pride goeth
before a fall–teachings that now pierced her
like the sunset pincers
she would pluck, if she could,
from her son’s puckered fingers–
for he was not yet ready
to be a man, and she, who thought she knew
so much, had not shielded him, but instead, callowly, had shown him
a quick-rotting taste of life trials, a tale
of pried consequences, a drowned cup
of salt and sand.

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

Agh!  Another draftish sort of poem for Isadore Gruye’s prompt on With Real Toads to write a poem that uses a line singled out as “promising” by publishing afficionado “Hamilton Cork”.  (I don’t watch enough TV to know for sure, but I think he is a made-up kind of guy!)   The italics line above is one of “Hamilton’s” lines.    Check out Izy’s great prompt and the other poets at Real Toads.

 

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

Comments: 25 Comments

Escape

January 27, 2013

20130127-072621.jpg

Escape

a guard in the blossomed darkness, as she rubbed off pink,
he turned from the gloom of what walled lay ahead, to peer
into her glow, watch her mouth the words, “no chances,”
between the wipe-away of lipstick, spit in their last
handkerchief, as if erasing the tracery of smile
could secure safe passage.

He wished it were so, and tried to count up luck
in corridors slipped through, but the garden’s indifferent growth
rooted him, despairing, into place, made him wonder,
as rose rubbed grey, whether they should not close
their eyes for this next leg, masking the whites
against thickening night, begging blind faith
to lift them above
stacked stone, flashed fire, blackest
boot-tip.  Instead, he pressed only his own
lips closed, clasping
her hand.

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

Here’s a very draftish poem that I wrote in response to Susan’s prompt on With Real Toads to write something that began with a last line of an earlier poem.  My earlier poem “Pink” is a sestina, that ends with this poem’s first line.  

It was an interesting, difficult, exercise.  I confess that this poem, which had about a zillion very different (and possibly more sensible) iterations earlier today, was influenced by my discovery that it is International Holocaust Remembrance Day.  I don’t pretend that this really expresses much about the Holocaust, only that this set me thinking along slightly different tracks.  

There is a beautiful and terribly sad pictorial essay in the N.Y. Times today about what happened to a couple, the wife Jewish, staying at an Italian hotel, after the Nazis came to visit.  The story may be found here.  (Again, the poem really has nothing much to do with this story, just caught in the atmosphere.)  

I am also linking this to dVerse Poets Pub Open Link Night. 

 

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

Comments: 48 Comments

“Un(h)aired”

January 26, 2013

Junk News Speak

Un(h)aired

I try to skip the me-me-media
the talking heads of hair and tedia–
though it can be fun to watch those ‘dos
bob above their soundbite stews.

Still, the fact is there are those who will
shill and shill and shill and shill–
fake some outrage, mime some shock
though careful to keep every lock
of curl and bang and tress in place
while they fecklessly ape chase
of stories they tilt like a table
of pinballs whizzed right through the cable.

Instead I try to read and read,
or watch whole tapes, a whole news feed,
(Oh, sure I fail, sure I miss out–
there’s tons I don’t know much about.)
And maybe what I read ain’t fair,
But at least my news don’t come with hair.

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

Here’s a kind of silly poem for dVerse Poets Pub, hosted by the wonderful Brian Miller, on the subject of media.  I don’t read as much news as I should to be fully informed.  On the other hand, I do try to avoid TV news (don’t have a working TV), but I do get some news from clips!  And I think print media tends to be a bit more thorough and less narcissistic.  (That’s just my take though, and honestly, I don’t watch TV news so probably shouldn’t speak to it.) 

Categories: News Media, poetry, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , ,

Comments: 41 Comments

“Degrees of Separation” Friday Flash 55

January 25, 2013

20130125-035623.jpg

Degrees of Separation

Weather
was her faithful
companion.
No Thisbe leaned more eagerly
into lover’s chink in wall than she
towards her
thermometer; its mercurial missives delivering
(‘twixt barred glass,relentless jamb) the warning of
chill, waxing of warmth, satisfaction
of indoors. She relayed
its caresses over her arms
bare or sleeved, as Weather, window-whispering,
would have them.

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

Pyramus and Thisbe is a tragic story told by Ovid and then (hilariously) Shakespeare (in A Midsummer Night’s Dream) about two lovers who were forbidden by their parents to meet, but who communicated through a chink in a wall. My Thisbe has no clear Pyramus, just Brrr… For more on Brrr…., check out the G=Man, Mr. Knowitall. He’ll give you a clear rundown.

And have a great weekend.

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

Comments: 14 Comments

“Making Me Feel Better

January 24, 2013

20130124-025859.jpg

Making Me Feel Better

I ask him, if I die–(if)—
would he hold me
till the last moment.

I know he will, though not
why I need to hear it — I have no illness, not
yet, but he’s not
right here and tears of an instant
jam me, their heat as tight
as clothes I should have
grown out of–and I feel again
a child, home alone, sick
and out of school for the day, when, shaken
by the hollow house, I would go
outside and sit upon the curb–there, out
by the mailbox–even fevered–
so that there would be places, I thought,
where I could run;
so that I would not, I hoped,
be trapped;
imagining in the narrows of corridor
and mind, some body, padded with shadow, blocking
my every egress.

Now, I’ve had so many friends–
I won’t count them–who’ve gone already, trapped
inside bodies that would not
hold them, not here, and he says
‘oh, darling–’

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

I am posting the above for Anna Montgomery’s great prompt at dVerse Poets Pub “Meeting the Bar” on flow and creativity.  It’s a wonderful article on creative engagement, and how that brings a kind of energy to one’s life and work.  I was thinking here more about flow – my personal blocks and twists–and really how the mind flows too – though mine sloshes more than flows, I think – like a rather leaky bowl! 

(The picture, albeit without elephants, is original.  So, as always, all rights reserved.)

ps – kind of a draftish poem – maybe the end should refer simply to bodies “that would not hold them here, and he says, ‘oh darling–” I don’t know.   Sometimes things flow too fast. k.

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

Comments: 52 Comments

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »