In the Wake
Birds watch
child; sand reflects
child; clouds shine
on child, waves calm
for child; day itself takes
care, finding
its inner adult, in the
hope (perhaps) that what
will be born
in that sparkle of foam
will not be a full-blown
goddess, but simply
love, a child lost
in finding, a child
concentrating
in light.
(It’s late, but it’s Friday and it’s 55 words – tell it to the G-man.)
Screened (Mid-Sixties)
It looked, from the peaceful pictures,
like the land of the hand-held scythe,
what with the impossibly green gatherings
of ankle-short stalk so gently bordered
by palm and vine,
till the choppers swept the frames
like combines, their great blades
threshing a beat that thwapped
to the other side of the world, even of our
TV screen, where we fought
over the only truly comfy chair, its
thick sag re-shaping to each
as required, the rest of us
stretching out on the living room rug
rather than take a straightback.
We watched, silent beneath that thwap,
the jewel shag of paddy turn
to a blurred-stained-brown, the sweating lens
become a windshield wiped
by blades of chopping/chopped, fogged
by non-monsoon cloud and
napalm drizzle, vibration only clipped
by shouts of Charlie, shots
of GI, the stretch of sagging legs,
boots notched at elbows–the air
seemed to be sucked from us too
by the rotary vacuum, though, of course,
that was not the case; we could change
the channel, turn off
the TV, pretend
that what we’d seen
had absolutely nothing
to do with us there, in our living room;
we could fight again
about our only truly comfy
chair.
I am posting the above poem for dVerse Poets Pub Open Link Night. (For dVerse devotees, it was the poem I wrote last weekend thinking that the poetics prompt would relate to going back anywhere in time, not specifically 1999!) And if you are not a dVerse devotee, become one! Check out the site.
And while you are at it, check out my comic novel,NOSE DIVE, book of poetry, GOING ON SOMEWHERE, or children’s counting book 1 MISSISSIPPI. ) NOSE DIVE is a lot of fun and a great bargain on Kindle for 99 cents, only a bit more in print. K.
Another week beginning, and here’s a new picture prompt from Tess Kincaid of Magpie Tales. The real photograph by Uzengia Aleksander Nedic is somewhat blurry; my version (not blurry enough) is above, and my poem below. I am also linking this poem to “Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads” for their Monday Open Link Day.
Villanelle to Glasses
Without glasses, the edges of my world are furred
like the ending of an echo, crush of shale.
Ideas are seen as if through water, blurred,
trooping muzzily through head, not shaped by word,
as if mind’s eye can’t make out thought’s detail
without glasses, the edges of my world so furred.
Then, too, I find my verbal memory’s slurred:
I’ll say this “peach” for onion, “kite” for sail;
ideas are seen as if through water, blurred,
and though I tell myself I’m quite absurd–
my mind’s still good, it’s only eyes that fail–
without glasses, the edges of my world are furred.
Even corrected vision’s not assured,
each type of lens its own peculiar jail,
where ideas are seen as if through water, blurred,
and I must make a choice between page or bird,
eternal grain of sand/horizon’s trail.
Without glasses, the edges of my world inferred,
ideas are seen as if through water, blurred.
Have a nice (fully-lit and clear) Sunday. And, if you get a chance, check out: comic novel,NOSE DIVE, book of poetry, GOING ON SOMEWHERE, or children’s counting book 1 MISSISSIPPI. )
New found advantage of daily savings time: dawn’s early light.
Okay, maybe not dawn, but closer than midday.
I’m not normally someone who will get up and out at even at 7:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning, much less 6:30.
Oh, I’ll talk about how renewing it would be, but then I’ll pull my comforter over my shoulder and snuggle deeper into that little (big) depression I’ve formed in the good old memory foam.
But today–aha!–profiting from that extra (or rather subtracted) hour–I was up and out.
Sure, I wasn’t quite able to get dressed–pulled my only long skirt (velour) over my nightgown, hiking boots over sleep socks, down jacket over the whole assortment.
But I was up! And out!
And the light was blue and pale and fresh and kindly promising in just those ways of a somewhat earlier morning, and the coming day seemed eminently possible.
Hope yours is too.
Used To Be
Fridays were permeated
by the smell of fish; fuzzy brown
limp sticks exuding stink
through the school in vengeance for
their not-so-sea
change, an odiferous insistence
that they had once been something actually
found in the natural world, subject
to the laws of birth, death, decay. We
could only eat them
with ketchup.
As always, all rights reserved. And, as always, have a great Friday. And, since it’s Friday, tell it to the G-Man!
And finally, finally, if you are looking for some light-hearted escape over the week-end, check out NOSE DIVE, my comic novel about noses, New York, friendship, and fallen goudas. Told too with a dab of fone sex. (But very innocently.)
PS – and I should really have made it 55 flavors instead of 57, but couldn’t do that to an old icon.
Here are two triolets! A triolet is a medieval form that is the subject of a wonderful article by Samuel Peralta and Gay Reiser Cannon for dVerse Poets Pub Form For All. It is a form involving repeating lines. (I think of it as a short waltz of a villanelle, but I’m not sure where the 1-2-3 comes from except that the first line is repeated three times.)
Below are my two draft attempts; they use some of the same lines. I personally think the second is better (though maybe I can work them into a pair.)
Starting to Unwind (Beginning Yoga)
I found that I’d not breathed for many years
and that my heart was lodged in my right-hand back.
I’d recycled air from way back when and fears
I found that I’d not breathed for many years
to anyone–not sympathetic ears,
nor those stopped up against a hurting fact
I’d found. I had not breathed for many years;
my heart was lodged in my right-hand back.
Who knows?
I found that I’d not breathed since who knows when–
a cherry blossom spring, I wore white gloves
whose seams ran up my hand, then back again.
I found that I’d not breathed since– Who knows when
the heart bursts seams when it finds a pen
to hold it, when it leashes its wild loves?
I found that I’d not breathed since who knows when,
a cherry blossom spring–I wore white gloves.
All rights reserved.
Here’s a rather silly poem posted after reading a lot of good online poetry.
Tuning The Quivering Lyre
What I want is to write something lyrical,
with language that’s tonally spherical,
with similes deep and de Chirical–
what I want is to write something lyrical.
But instead I end up with prosaic–
a verse like a sulphuric egg–
with word usage much like the Hague–
(the Conventions–oh oh so prosaic.)
Which is why I am hoping this time
to at least find some music in rhyme–
the repeating of vowels the same kind
at the end of each hoppity line–
Sure, some may insist it’s no poem,
if it does not recall a Zen Koan,
or love story picked to the bone
(the meeting, the parting, the moan.)
But me, I still find that I write it–
caring not that its words are benighted,
chock full of old sentiments tritish
and rhymes that are really not quitish–
Hope you don’t mind.
Republican candidates, especially Rick Santorum, have been making a big effort to appeal to blue collar workers. Apparently, one reason for Santorum’s perceived strength against Romney has come from discomfort with the fact that Romney is just so darn rich.
Gingrich has also been positing himself as the Republican candidate against Wall Street. (Simultaneously claiming credit for the prosperity and deficit reduction of the Clinton years and policies.)
I’m not a supporter of Romney, but it somehow seems ironic for Santorum and Gingrich to tout their street cred. Santorum reported income of approximately $1 million per year for 2009 and 2010; Gingrich and Callista together reported earnings of over $3 million for 2010.
A million a year is small potatoes compared to the $21 million earned by Romney. Still, I can’t help thinking that at least Romney’s earnings come from an actual business (even if one is critical of its practices), while Gingrich and Santorum are career politicians.
A million a year to Santorum as a “corporate media consultant”?
Really?
(To be fair to Santorum–a lot of ex-pols have done very well in kind of creepy ways on the post-office circuit==I think of the millions made by Sarah Palin and Bill Clinton among others. Also, I don’t know how someone runs for president at all if they don’t get some kind of nest egg behind them. Still, I don’t think any of that makes the practice more palatable.)
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