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Cowspotting

November 13, 2012

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Cowspotting

Life, she thought, let him off easy, while she–
she had to fight
for everything.
So when he declared, stentoriously, that cows
always faced
the same direction, she fumed
inside.

You just look in any field, he proclaimed,
the cows will all be facing
the exact same way.

The country road they traveled curved
around hills spotted,
she realized horrified, with
almost-gridded shanks.

Look, she squinted, that one’s
completely sideways.

An anomaly, he crowed.  The exception
that proves the rule.  

For years then, still smarting over fate’s
unfairness,
she carefully checked (when she had the chance)
the collective stance of cows, refusing to ever settle
for a near unanimity
of moist soft snout. but finding, even if it took
a rearrangement of gaze
or slope,
that one, that two,
that several
who stood askew, and oh, then,
how righteously
she delighted.

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

Supposed to be doing Nanowrimo and am, sort of, but I could not resist revising an older poem for dVerse Poets Open Link night.  I make no claims as to any accuracy.

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Comments: 30 Comments

Train Refrain–Don’t As(k)

November 12, 2012

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Train Refrain–Don’t As(k)

So, I moan upon the train,
refrain of work week:
Why is it why is it why
sit I? Until each cheek
is less than sleek–
Sure, I’m sure I won’t regain

lines that never reached the plane
the vain label chic–
but must I sit and fit my–
slit my– The word I seek
is not quite “seat,”
nor rhymes “in the,” nor “a pain.”

******************************
I’m actually blessed with a beautiful train ride some days of the week but despite the view from the window it’s long and seats are–shall we say ‘worn out’–
and to while away the stiffness could not resist the challenge from Kerry O’Connor of Real Toads to try a very complicated rhyming syllabic form invented by Louis MacNeice.

(Reading note -as with virtually all my poems – pauses only come with punctuation and not at ends of lines.  Thanks.  It’ll make more sense that way!)

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“Joining Forces” – Truce (Delivered)

November 10, 2012

Joining Forces

There is always the watcher, the one who espies
inside, slyly
analytic, silent
except when snark.
Though for hours, she’d tried
to decamp,
to flee the body that we share (ensnared
by pain), to pull out
of any continguity
with lower torso. Whining
well before the Irish nurse crooned push,
push the baby, that all
was going wrong–impossible for her, the mistress
of ‘should-be,’ to believe so much pain
not terribly incorrect–

Then, when all did
go wrong, the knell
of my wired belly slowing
to the low thuds of the inconceivably
inexorable–oxygen
wrung from room and umbilical cord and only
in those seconds after life and flesh hardened beyond
what could be borne, unleashing, briefly, the
flutter of caught bird’s heart–
push push push push
now–

Straddling contractions-1-2-3-
they–LIFT– maneuvered us urgently
into the OR–push
push push push–
while she, peering through face-clasped hands,
crouched in the ceiling corner
of my brain’s buzzing
flourescents–

Overhead, masks aimed metal shells
of high-tubed light–I grabbed her by hunched–
you’ve got to–
just this once–
push push push push–
and she–
and she–
and she–
gave me
our all.

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

Here’s a reading of the poem, which is the true story of the birth of my first child.

As a “process note,” the wired belly refers to the fetal monitor which conveys the sounds of the baby’s heartbeat (all those thuds and flutters.)  Contractions make the pregnant stomach unbelievably hard.  Tangled cord can cut off  O2.

I wrote the poem for my prompt of “truce” for dVerse Poets Pub, a community of wonderful poets, which I am hosting today.  Check it out!  I am also linking to Emily Wieranga’s Imperfect Prose (about childbirth).  

And also, my books!  Poetry, GOING ON SOMEWHERE, (by Karin Gustafson, illustrated by Diana Barco). 1 Mississippi -counting book for lovers of rivers, light and pachyderms, orNose Dive. Nose Dive is available on Kindle for just 99 cents! Nose Dive really is very funny and light hearted, and 1 Mississippi is a lot of fun for little teeny kids.

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Comments: 50 Comments

Olive Branch (Of Sorts) To Bill O’Reilly

November 9, 2012

Imagine this as Olive Branch (no time for new sketch)

To Bill O’Reilly

Yes, Mr. O’Reilly
we want “things” – good schools, decent
jobs, a safer planet.

“Stuff” –  like
our soldiers home
with limbs
intact.  Our own bodies
our own.

You’re bile-full, Bill,
but I’m even willing
to give you some-thing
back – my belief that you too want
such things  – truly – the stuff
that dreams
are made of.

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

Yes, yes, I’m supposed to be working on Nanowrimo – and I am here and there – but can’t resist the call of the G-Man.  

The above are 55 words responding to Bill O’Reilly’s comments re 2012 election saying that people who voted for President Obama just wanted “things,” “stuff,” that President Obama would give them.  (I’m guessing O’Reilly thinks that Shelly Adelson and the Koch Brothers and all those who gave tens of millions to Karl Rovian PACs were not interested in getting any “things,” “stuff” out of this election.)  (I’m sorry – that last bit is snarky and I mean to be conciliatory, because I really do believe that we all want what’s best for the country; that there’s way more good faith out there than each side likes to acknowledge.) 

Have a great weekend.  I am hosting dVerse Poets Pub’s Poetics tomorrow (if I get it together) so check it out–as well as the G-Man, of course, who has a great poem today about the wonderful tradition of the Hedgewitch!  

P.S. – just realized that this is my 1400th post.  No wonder my life/health/mental health is collapsing! 

  

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Trying To Keep It Light On Election Day! (Sonnet) (Not Nano-ing At this Exact Moment)

November 5, 2012

Post-Eden

Before the sky, a lovely pale, a boy,
tall on glistening grass, tosses a ball,
and I wonder why it is that joy
is not simply inhaled.  Is it the Fall
that keeps us from feeling how it lines
the air we breathe?  Is it that first loss
that keeps us toiling within the confines
of our skins, unheeding unhidden cost?
A soft haze, like a blessing, nestles on
the sea, mutes the horizon, brings the far near.
So much within reach.  The brain wrestles on
its hardscrabble way, yet slowly fear
unwinds, diminished by sky, sea, view.
An inner hand makes the catch, more too.

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

Ah.  Why is it that joy is not simply inhaled?

In my case, it is partly because I am endlessly fretting.  This evening, the eve of the election, however, I  am feeling so much better–so very much more joyful –  because I’ve made a committment to get up super early and get myself to a swing state where I will work as a poll monitor, helping to people to avoid being disenfranchised.   So hopefully I’ll be able to get where I am supposed to be, and hopefully you will to!

The above is an older sonnet which, if I have access to internet, I also hope to link to dVerse Poets Pub Open Link Night.  (And I’m sorry the pic’s not the sea!)

And yes, I’m trying to take a break from blogging for Nanowrimo – and I will!  But for here and now, a wonderful and open-hearted day to all.  Take care, and may we all get some peace, wisdom, and sense of unity and pride from all this.  Thanks much.

Categories: poetry, Stress, Uncategorized
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Comments: 36 Comments

Hooked

October 30, 2012

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Hooked

A woman uptown
comes home to two children
stabbed.  All the next day I hear, silently,
her screams.

Then think, as I see caught fish pulled
onto the esplanade–of how we ache
for silver linings–slitted gills grasping desperately
at thin air, metallic iridescence belly-flopping
on stone–something to be made right, fixed,
bearable–and how, to a fish,
all upper surfaces must
seem silvered – ripples plated by sun
or mist, until whipped
into the sky, it finds
that the world is not as it
has known, that there are vast portions
where neither body nor
instinct can protect, can even
function.

So we too
forge ahead, with or against
the current, but still in the comfort of luminous
viscosity until some terrible ‘suddenly’
when we are pulled
onto a stone slab of rending gasp and bootless
throttle, where the grey of sky is at best
mercurial.

If lucky, we are thrown
back – and though our breathing may labor,
accordion halation un-keyed, we float at last lopsidedly, slither
at a slant.

But sometimes, some one of us
is trapped in that sharded air until, seemingly, the end
of days.

We gasp, spin, in the eddy
of their reverberating
pain, then, gratefully, guiltily,
swim on, faster,
faster.

*******************************************
Hi–many of you know that I’m a denizen of New York City, specifically Battery Park City, and have been evacuated a couple of days.  This poem is not really about that, but something I’ve been mulling over since last week, a terrible terrible tragedy in which a nanny seems to have killed two children and then attempted suicide.  (I’m sorry; it’s a very sad story; my thoughts and prayers go to the families involved.)   I am linking it to dVerse Poets Open Link Night, hosted by the wonderful Tashtoo.I appreciate the concern of all about the New York storm.  We still haven’t gotten home but have been very well taken care of and feel immensely lucky.  The city is also in a good mood, friendly, relieved. 

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Sandy Poem (In the Midst Of)

October 29, 2012

Sandy Poem (In the Midst Of )

Do you leave the windows open
(against a vacuum)
or closed (against
wet roar)?
Curtains?  Thin but, if pulled,
the mayor tells us, might catch
glass
shards.

Still cake
has just been made; life
lets us eat it.

A rich cake, moist (though in this warped/wet
night, it feels somehow
dry too, yellow straight-edged
wedges able to keep
their shape
like sanity, sun).  We’ve left

the windows
open–small apartment
needing air – and for a while it’s the images
from the computer sweep
us, floods
fled, though every now
and again and now and
now
the here/now wind
shakes with
scream-edged
harshness
everything, unsettling
that sliver of sweetness that sits
so light upon my
stomach, that extra pinch
of crumbs I sneaked
as part of
my serving, dumb
undeserved
luck.

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

Trying to pass time in storm – I am the kind of suggestive person whose stomach gets more than butterflies.  Agh. So here’s kind of a poem.  So worried about my City right now – complain about it plenty, but hate to see it down. 

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“Forced In Place” – Poem on Rape and Rant on “Rape Exception”

October 28, 2012

photo by Teresa Perin

Forced Into Place

Raped she was and sure it’s her fault,
self-assault.  That she’d been dumb
keeps her mum
till covered up, can sob
choked--could he again
shakes brain –hide, pretend–

Who she is now – raped.  And shell self
shields, with scraped-together husk,
self=disgust.
He’d pushed–but how to shush
despair? – her down, must
not tell–she works hard her face–
forces into place.

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

The above is my attempt at a Real Toads challenge by the wonderful Kerry O’Connor – to write in a quite complicated rhyming stanza developed by  Paul Laurence Dunbar.  The lovely photo is by Teresa Perin.  I appreciate that this may be a fairly intense subject for a rhyming form–and I don’t think it works very well – but rape has been (horribly enough) on my mind these days.

Here’s the thing.  The recent U.S. debate on rape has focused on certain GOP candidates who have advocated prohibiting abortion even in the case of rape, and others, who may be willing to allow abortion for rape, but have questioned its definition, making distinctions between legitimate rape and “other” (I guess “okay”) rape.  The odd thing about this debate it that it has managed to make those anti-abortion GOP candidates who would allow abortion in the case of rape seem almost moderate, almost empathetic to victims.

This is just not true.   Think about it.  Let’s say that Roe v. Wade were overturned, and we were subjected to a regime of no abortion except for rape, incest, and endangering the life of the mother.  How would this work?   Would the victim have to prove rape?  Would she need to go to court before getting an abortion? Would the proof have to be without reasonable doubt?   (And how long would that take?)  What would happen if she did not initially report the rape?  (There are plenty of reasons for this.  Aside from shame, loss of self-esteem, fear of further humiliation, fear of reprisal – there is also the fact  that many counties and states require women to pay for rape kits often costing over $1000.)

Such a “loosening” of the anti-choice GOP stance would not be a loosening at all; it is a guise.  A woman who’s already been victimized does not need a state legislature to hold her down.

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Plaque (Friday Flash 55)

October 26, 2012

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Plaque

Increasingly, she had the feeling
that the only plaque she would every
be awarded would be made
of amyloid.

She pondered her acceptance speech:
“I prefer stainless actually,
mounted on some
nice bench.”

She imagined that bench
in a park. So much better than
in a brain. Not nearly so grey
most days.

***************************
Okay, okay, so what else can I think up on a late FRIDAY evening! Luckily my computer counted the words for me and there are just 55, so tell it to the G-man.

And if you’ve got extra energy, 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, orNose Dive. Nose Dive is available on Kindle for just 99 cents! Nose Dive really is very funny and light hearted, and 1 Mississippi is a lot of fun for little teeny kids.

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Comments: 13 Comments

Certain Songs (A Villanelle) With Turnips

October 25, 2012

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Certain Songs (A Villanelle)

There are certain songs most poets like to jive —
your true love swoons, pretty tunes of longing so,
but some rhymed hearts need rougher food to thrive–

They just can’t drink deep from a honied hive,
even buzz-fudget around ‘hey dilly-do’
(which is a certain song some…um… poets jive.)

They skip the main course, focus on the side,
sing odes to turnips (forget the tournedo)
for these rhymed hearts need rougher food to thrive.

Oh sexy blue jeans ‘cross the blue-smoke dive;
oh peeling rose; oh first grade talent show–
are certain songs most poets like.  But to jive

in harsh-of-day-job unjust world, abide
on uptown curb the homeless crusted toe
that’s sometimes rimed–  Hearts need rough to thrive,

survive.  Suffering plumbs throat with sharp salive,
an acid against those lumps that keep voice low
in certain songs.  Most poets like to jive,
but some rhymed hearts need rougher food to thrive.

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

Agh!  I am posting this draft villanelle to dVerse Poets Pub’s Form For All hosted by the wonderful Samuel Peralta.  The odd thing was that I am so worried about the election that I started this villanelle focusing on the line –  “Osama’s dead and GM is alive”–but somehow could never work it in.  Yes, I know.  I need to calm down!  (And also, I think all poets pretty much deal with rough emotions.) 

You can hear the poem below.  It’s not the greatest reading, but does help delineate the pauses. 

The villanelle is one of my favorite forms, mainly because it has a built-in music.  (And also because you don’t have to come up with so many lines!)  Check out dVerse for more.  If you are interested in other (perhaps more polished) ones of mine, click here.    Actually, the most fun one is probably an illustrated one I did as a children’s story called Villain-elle.  (With elephants.) 

 

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