Archive for the ‘poetry’ category

Ruby At End of February Tunnel (Sorry, only Jello.)

February 28, 2012

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Here’s a February kind of poem I’m reposting for dVerse Poets Pub open link night.  (The picture is at least new, and I’m  about as proud of it as one can be of a picture of jello–)

Wondrous

We flew out there, then drove.
My mother, who despised gum chewers,
snapped hers loudly, pushing herself up to the wheel
as if it were the chin rest
at an eye exam.

Though my grandmother lived in Minnesota, the hospital
was in Iowa. When the rental car crossed state lines—
another source of amazement—
my mother, who only drove set routes, had rented a car—
the road narrowed and curved and my mother
cursed all Republicans.

She took the thin gravelly shoulder as
a personal affront; the lip the tires
skidded against was even worse,
an insult to FDR.

At the hospital, my grandmother’s hair cast
about her face like a bridal veil blown back.
She was better already, she said, just
at the sight of us (but we sure shouldn’t have come;
it was too darn hard).
Then pointed to a cup of jello,
which was as crimson, faceted, as a ruby,
and, at first, resisted my spoon.
“Mama,” my mother said.

Enjoy the day!  And while you are enjoying it, check out dVerse Poets Pub and the wonderful poets there, and also my books!  Comic novel, NOSE DIVE,  book of poetry, GOING ON SOMEWHERE, or children’s counting book 1 MISSISSIPPI.       

“Great Scott!” says Andy (“What ho, Marilyn?)

February 26, 2012

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Move over, Ican

What say you, Marilyn?
Now that he kneels
before the True Icon,
with curves so ho
supreme, lids
silvered, cheeks
rouged, surface
steamy, the object
of heated
exchange all over
the word, spooning with
the Plebian, can-
noodling with
the Sublime.
Great Scott! says
Andy, can this really
be love?

The above is for Mag 106, Magpie Tales, hosted by Tess Kincaid.  My picture is based upon an unidentified photo, posted as Tess’s photo prompt, appearing to depict good old Andy Warhol.   I’m sorry that I cannot resist re-posting another version of Warhol’s icon/can below.

For The Love of Gorgon (Stone-faced Poem)

February 25, 2012

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Dealing With Problems Head-On Was Not Their Strong Suit

He
was about the opposite of
Medusa, his stare
turning itself
to stone, without aid
of mirrored shield.
She,
in the face of
that stare, usually
transmuted to dust, from which
a few small slivers
of heart
slithered frantically. 

He,
being stone,

did not much care
for dust (a bleak future
for granite) while
she
became increasingly
desperate,

trying to capture the
wriggles of what had
been her life
before they slipped
under the couch, or behind
the wainscoting.

The above is a poem written for a dVerse Poets prompt on “sculpture,” hosted by Victoria C. Slotto.
If you have any time this weekend, please please please check out, my comic novel,NOSE DIVE,  book of poetry, GOING ON SOMEWHERE, or children’s counting book 1 MISSISSIPPI.  Pearl, below, likes Going on Somewhere, but Nose Dive is only 99 cents on Kindle.      

Pearl Perusing GOING ON SOMEWHERE

“Determined” (To Write Visually)

February 23, 2012

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Here’s a poem written for the dVerse Poets Pub Form for All challenge hosted by Blue Flute and Gay Reiser Cannon about writing visually (as inspired by the beautiful imagistic poems of the Chinese and Japanese.)   I am not sure this fits that bill, certainly not on any formal basis, but here goes.

Determined

Heavy-duty aluminum rods stand
steel straight though their coat of
red paint has worn
in places to a fatigued grey.
Staring into angled reflections
of storefront, he rests
against the braces that cup
his forearms, stretching fingers away
from plastic grips, fisting
and re-fisting free air. What he is looking for,
he says, is a coat, a jacket,
long enough to keep hips warm, but not so
long as to hem a stride
mid-hike, the fabric waxed
to shed rain; it should be green
softened by brown (a collar to turn
up against the wind) like a mountainside
mid-November, after the fall
of much leaf, before the fall
of much snow. The display
cuts light into square fluorescent grids
like nothing found in the wild.  A coat,
he says (not going in), that will fend off
brambles.

(As always–all rights reserved.)

Also, please please please check out one of my books: my comic novel,NOSE DIVE,  book of poetry, GOING ON SOMEWHERE, or children’s counting book 1 MISSISSIPPI.  Support a blogger!  Okay, let’s not exaggerate.  Make a blogger happy!)

Lavender–“When All Else Fails” (Mag 105)

February 19, 2012

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Here’s my offering for Tess Kincaid’s Mag 105.

(Tess posts a wonderful weekly photographic prompt.  The original photo this week, and basis of my picture above, was by Epic Mahoney.)

I hate to double (or triple) up but, due to onslaught of demands (beside poeticizing), am also linking this to Imaginary Garden With Real Toads and dVerse Poets Pub Open Link Night.

When All Else Fails

And then there are those times
when one resorts
to lavender–
the scent in a drawer (tempered by cedar),
and folded inside, a kerchief with initials
cross-stitched in bottle blue–
when all has gone wrong, when
there is
no
last minute saving grace.

Even honey
can block a throat, lines cut, engine not
turning over, the days of horseback
gallop like the wind
no more.

Still, one pedals/pushes/pulls
through the pale of night as
across a sea or desert, holding,
in the chest of the mind, that drawer, that
handkerchief, the ghost
of lavender worn at wrists
that worked their way
through all of this before
(or something similar), the
lettered threads, cornered by
sieve edge 
of persistent lace,
signing the possible.

(As always, all rights reserved.  And as always, check out my comic novel, NOSE DIVE,  book of poetry, GOING ON SOMEWHERE, or children’s counting book 1 MISSISSIPPI.)

Making the Best of It – Natural Life In Unnatural World (“They Perch”)

February 18, 2012

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They Perch

They perch
on posts in the Hudson above/
below Canal, by the West Side Highway,
downtown.
Walking, we duck
our heads, bob knees, swish shoulders–as if
our moves will motivate their stretch
or intake of wing.
On a sunny day, their still basking
seems so reasonable that it takes some time
to realize that
they are sculpted–Herons?
Seagulls?
On those same sunny days,
New Yorkers stretch
on the jetties, Adam’s apples towards the
sky–there, by the brick/braille ventilation
tower of the Holland Tunnel, all that
putput
below the tide.

We want to think that our life
is natural, here in this city, country, mindset.
We want to believe
that a place where many building windows
do not even open
can support wild birds.

Apparently, there’s even a raptor
or two, aeries wedged
by cornice.

We want
to believe that they like it
here.  That even untempered
by doses of the more rarified Metroplitan (opera or gallery) (which
we too do not experience enough)
life
can thrive.

We strain–eyes, head, shoulder–
just in case a living one
has gotten confused, just in case
a living one
has landed, perhaps even
settled down.

On the opposite side, cars
rush every green light.

Hi all!  Happy Saturday Night!  The above poem is a draft posted for the wonderful dVerse Poets Pub poetics prompt, hosted by Brian Miller, based on beautiful photographs by Reena Walkling.  I don’t like to post other people’s are work so have done my own drawn version of Reena’s photo above.

(As always, all rights reserved.)

Vulnerability as Heroic – “My Father (Baby birds)”

February 16, 2012

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dVerse Poets Pub has a “meeting the bar” challenge today, hosted by Victoria C. Slotto, to write about a personal hero.  I thought of an older poem (reposted below) about my father, who, as many of readers know, died recently after a protracted battle with Parkinson’s Disease.

I’m not sure that I thought of my father as much of a hero when I was young.  This may in part be because he was very generous with his time–the generosity of the archetypical hero tends to involve one swift grand swoop,  not a day-to-day slog.  For another, my dad could exhibit both deep tenderness and touching vulnerability–qualities that tends to be  “heeled” in the archetypical hero.  Finally, he was self-effacing, good at bringing out the best in others.  He tended to make us see ourselves as heroes (or at least as competent–which, for the young, is almost as good).

Here’s the poem:

My Father (baby birds)

My father’s voice
when he sang
was deep and cragged and
reminded me of a froggie
gone a’courting.
But this was baby birds.

It was not even a person
who had died.
It was not even a particularly noble dog,
though like all of its species, it was capable
of a self-debasing attachment that could
seem Arthurian.

But after the accident, the rush,
the sad blur home,
my father’s back faced me in my room
with a sound
of birds.
It silenced all gone wrong,
turned me back into a person
who could do things in the world.

(As always all rights reserved.  The drawing in this case was done by my father on an iPad  a few months before his death.)

Lone Poet’s Love Poem -“Castaway (Retrieved)”

February 14, 2012

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Castaway (Retrieved)

When he’s away,
she sleeps sideways, lolling
in a sunken corner of
the bed where
gravity weighs
heavy, computer serving
as splintered
guard rail. Sometimes, in the
sway of blue-light
wavelengths, she’ll send out
messages as if in bottles
that can swim, the words
protruding fins, defined and
sleek, above glassy surfaces.
Other times, the words tie themselves
into knuckled knots, as if
love, stranded by
the fraying self, could weave a net that,
when thrown upon chopped
waters, captured a
salvageable catch. (Not
typically.)
But if, in the end, she can collect
the strands, solitude
takes flight, net acting
as its own safety, the knots points
of engagement, syllables frolicking, the
bed’s entire coverlet
afloat.  She will call him then,
reading aloud, and he will say,
that’s beautiful, and the words–his/hers–
cannot be said to hold her, but will
lap against her brain, a susurrating
companion to the ebbed night’s sleep.

(As always, all rights reserved.)

The above a sort of lone poet’s Valentine’s Day poem–posted here for all of you who have been kind enough to follow and support me throughout the last couple of years, and the wonderful dVerse Poets Pub Open Link Night.

Why Pearl Is Not At Westminster This Year

February 13, 2012

Pearl

Why Pearl is Not in Westminster This Year

Because when she was a puppy and was groomed
professionally, she would
sit on the couch for several days afterwards
the only part of her not trembling
a bright pink bow the groomer had
stuck on; and

because after that, when I began cutting
her hair myself–I can’t
call it grooming–she would end up–
with splotches of fur and
baldness, since, I confess,
I’ve been known
to wear mismatched
socks and to fix my own ‘do
by rubbing palms through it
like a balloon that you want
to stick to a wall or sweater; and also
perhaps,

because her breath
smells an awful
lot like dead fish these
days, though
after sixteen years
you tend to
be sort of glad for things like that–
breath–
especially in the warmth
of speckled, oddly-
furred, tummy.

(Check out a “Truest Love Poem” for Pearl, from Going on Somewhere, my collection of poetry.  Check it out too!  And NOSE DIVE!)

Chocolate/ Blonde Hair – (Lady Godiva replaced by H. Kisses)

February 12, 2012

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I wrote the draft poem below for Tess Kincaid’s Magpie Tales, where Tess posts a weekly photo prompt.  This week, I’ve really just used Tess’s photo as a springboard;  my drawing and poem are not meant as direct interpretations.

Chocolate/Blonde Hair

I.

Some people have a real hankering
for long blonde hair.
Do you really think
there would be a certain overrated
chocolate chain,
if Lady Godiva
had paraded atop her nag
with a short shag?

II.

“You can’t get that out of a bottle,” strangers would
say about my hair as a kid, when it was
long and straight and naturally
blonde.  Dyed hair, my mother
declared was blocky, all one
shoddy shade, nothing that could even compare
with what I grew, and so, for a while,
I felt a certain halo, until growing
tired of halos, I
insisted on hair cut short, though because
it was my hair,
collected the swathes in
a small and dark brown
box, which both amazed and
hurt me, for what had felt so long
(for so long) and golden, had spun down
to a handful of softish straw.

When I looked in the mirror,
what I saw there too was
diminished, not the sly pixie,
but a confused Delilah,
shorn by mistake,
whose face was round and
who didn’t even have the name
right.

III.

You can’t get that out of
a chocolate– 

a memory:
tobogganing, the sky turning lavender above
tracked speed, as if
we were a flexibly flying flame
amidst the drifts, and below the
blur of snow-flaked lashes, everyone’s
skin shone, till legs trudged (toes urging faster),
to get to the burnish of gas-fired
stove, pot of milk, melt–

a taste:
it was Colombian chocolate, cut in squares
sprinkled with brown sugar, leaving a trace
of smoke in the throat, the kind of smoke that, bluish, always
carries dawn or dusk as it slinks down
steep altitudes;

a friend:
she was my best, and on different visit, when the wind
chilled and I’d had to wear some older sister’s old beau’s sweater
and thick shoes, she’d laughed at my discomfiture, till I learned not to care
about such things for a short
while–truly not at all–the look of them–not
once she re-filled my cup.

(As always, all rights reserved.  Sorry this so long–a draft!)