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25th Day of National Poetry Month – “Thin Birthday”

April 25, 2010

Birthday Grapefruit

25th Day of National Poetry Month, and my 25th draft poem of the month.  As those following this blog know, I am writing a draft poem every day this month, and I sincerely hope that some of you are inspired to also try some drafts.

The following poem has a rhyme scheme I just made up;  I suppose it could be considered a modified (and much less musical) terza rima.  The stanzas are three lines, with the first two lines of each stanza rhyming as a couplet, and the third line rhyming with the third line of the next stanza:  AAB, CCB, DDE, FFE, GGH, IIH.  (It makes more sense if you look at the poem, although, because many of the rhymes are slant rhymes, it may not make that much more sense!)

Thin Birthday

On one birthday when she was very thin,
he brought out, after much whispering,
a half-grapefruit set upon a platter.

It was their birthday cake platter–wooden,
painted with blue ribbon swirl, holes put in
careful spaces along its perimeter.

The lone half grapefruit balanced in the place
for cake; a pink candle centering its face
like a faded, twisted cherry, stretched out tall.

He looked at her with such worry, not
(she thought) for her condition, but to please.  What
to give a child stuck in rigid refusal?

She’d disdain cake, she’d groan (he knew), oh Dad.
So, for her to weep, to get so very sad,
was quite unfair.  I wanted to give you

something you would take, he said, as they sat
out in the car and he awkwardly pat
her arm, reaching for something flesh and true.

 

(This poem was posted some time ago, but I’m linking it today, May 31, 2012 (the day before my birthday in fact) to Imperfect Prose, hosted by Emily Wierenga, who’s publishing a book on anorexia.

Since this original post, the poem has also been published in my book of poetry, “Going on Somewhere,” by Karin Gustafson, available on Amazon.   Check it out!!!!

(As always, all rights reserved.)

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized, writing
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24th Day of National Poetry Month – Working Like a Dog Poem

April 25, 2010

Dogtired

[YIKES!  I wrote this last night on April 24th very late at night at a hotel with WIFI and thought I’d published it but apparently it was not published.  Either the hotel wifi cut out, or the dog ate it!  So, it’s a day late, sorry.]

Working Like A Dog

It’s not so apt
to talk of working
like a dog.
Mine sleeps like a log all day.
Working like a malamute,
maybe, that beautiful, dutiful, drudge
who pulls a sledge,
trots, trudges,
understanding both teamwork
and leadership.
My dog understands
CHEESE.
She likes the CHEESE job.
She can tell,
by smell, sure,
whenever CHEESE appears,
but also, it seems, by some
combination of fridge door and drawer,
the shifting of legs and knife, and,
of course, the time—it’s late
when I take out the Monterey Jack–
sleep is shaken away,
logginess rolled to the side,
alertness electrifying every matted hair–
they also serve who only stand and wait.

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized, writing exercises
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23rd Day of National Poetry Month – Slant Sonnet About 22nd Day of National Poetry Month

April 24, 2010

Helicopter

23rd Day of National Poetry Month! Here is a sonnet written (oddly enough) about the 22nd day of National Poetry Month, that is, April 22, 2010, the day that Obama came to speak to Wall Street (though the poem is not really about Obama so much, or Wall Street, but just that particular day.)

Although the poem is, I suppose, technically a sonnet (it has fourteen lines), it uses slant rhyme and run-on lines rather than ending the lines with a rhyme or slant rhyme. (A slant rhyme is a “not-quite rhyme.”) This gives the poem an assymetry which tonight (I started late!), may be a function of lack of time, and fatigue; however, this assymetry can also be a useful tool as it avoids the cutesiness that can sometimes plague a rhyming poem.

April 22, 2010, NYC (Day of Obama Visit)

The meteor shower that I didn’t see
was seen yesterday, as was the fox outside
our country shed, painted white and faded green.
It ducked down in the spring grass, only orange spied–
orange-red. (Why they call it a red fox.)
But I drove down the FDR so early
I only saw the police and the blank box
of heliopad, waiting for the whirling
blur of polished light that seems to form
around anyone whose picture is taken
often enough. I saw too my cabbie’s worn
shirt collar (grey with black and white flakes of
contrast.) Wife was from Belize, he’d never
been. We talked of that by the dawn East River.

Categories: elephants, poetry, Uncategorized, writing exercises
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21st Day of National Poetry Month – The Body Is Not Your Good Dog.

April 21, 2010



Good Dog! (Not Your Body)

The 21st day of National Poetry Month, and I have a terrible, terrible cold.  So far, I’ve managed to spare you the poem devoted to “rhinovirus,” but I found, in trying to write tonight’s draft poem, that I could not stay completely away from the subject of the fickleness of the body.

Note, in reading the draft poem, that pauses are only intended to be taken based on punctuation–commas, semi-colons, periods–and not at the ends of lines (unless punctuated.)

Here, Body

The body is not your good dog.
It may sit, lie down, roll over,
do tricks for food, and seem to love;
but there’s a limit to its Rover

aspect.  It will get sick just when
you tell it not to.  There’s no yanking
on that leash.  It will decay
when you say stay;  there’s no spanking

with a rolled-up newspaper,
not even the Times, which can train
it to heel, to keep
to the right side of that called sane.

It won’t obey you even when
it knows what you desperately want,
when its lesson has been learned
before, again; still, it will vaunt

its own fleshly, furry ways,
taking up all room upon your bed,
refusing to hush when hushed,
and, except when dancing, to be led.

Categories: dog, elephants, poetry, Uncategorized, writing exercises
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19th Day of National Poetry Month – “Shoeshine”

April 19, 2010

Shoe

I got my shoes shined today for a special evening event (which delayed my posting till now).  I don’t get my shoes shined very often, so it provided useful material for today’s poem draft (as well as a beautiful dark sheen.)

Shoeshine

He stiffens his finger with
a wrapped flap of plastic then, with the precision of
a surgeon, binds it with a worn swathe of
fabric.  In a world in which all is disposable, his cloth
is ragged, frayed, stained, authentically used.
Like so, like so—he sprinkles a dose of something clear, then,
after rubbing my dark
rounded toes, delves his finger into the thin can which holds
the black, more tar than jet,
the color of spider bellies, widows’ skirts,
that shadow in the cheek of certain saints outlined by
El Greco, the eyebrow of Frieda Kahlo.
He is short, as they tend to be, born in mountains,
where height adds insult to
uphill climbs, a slight tilt a part of the landscape.
He strokes the sides of my shoes
as he paints them; I feel the strokes
in the sides of my feet,
the ribs of the arches, like a very
polite massage, the caress of the humble, and think of the feet
of certain statues, whose insteps have been worn
into silent tongues by those
seeking blessings, though I
feel blessed by him, his attentions, the worn, made new.
It is something of which we don’t speak.

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized, writing exercises
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16th Day of National Poetry Month – Vacationing Away From New York Limericks

April 16, 2010

New Yorker In a Car (Outside of New York)

Unfortunately, this 16th day of National Poetry Month was so busy I had little time to focus on much poetic.  A good day, in short, for draft limericks!

I’m sorry to say that the limericks I did  (which connect as one longer poem draft) have a fairly limited subject matter;  they describe that feeling of “going to seed” which may descend on vacation, particularly a family vacation, in which normal exercise and eating routines are put to the side; this feeling may be particularly pronounced in the case of the peripatetic New Yorker.

The limerick form is five lines, with a rhyme scheme that is typically: A, A, b, b, A; with the first, second and fifth rhyming lines longer than the truncated couplet of the third and fourth lines.

Traveling New Yorker

There was an old gal from New York
who watched what she put on her fork;
still, outside the confines
of the Four and Five lines,
she felt herself turning to pork.

The thing is that life in the City
made her walk through the nit and the gritty,
while, whenever afar,
she traveled by car,
quite bad for the hips, more’s the pity.

So she worried, this gal from Manhattan,
as she felt herself fatten and fatten–
too many fast treats–
too many cheap eats–
and just about all came au gratin.

Oh, for her home—twenty blocks to a mile;
twenty steps too, till the average turnstile.
Sure, there was soot,
but she’d breathe it on foot.
Once back, she’d stay put for a while.

Categories: elephants, New York City, poetry, Uncategorized, writing exercises
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The 14th Day of National Poetry Month – Writer’s Block Sonnet (and White Sock)

April 14, 2010

Blank Page and Sock

The 14th day of National Poetry Month, sigh.  The draft sonnet I wrote today is intended to illustrate the principle that a poem can be written with no inspiration whatsoever!  In other words,  don’t wait for the muse.

The draft below follows the rhyme scheme of a Shakespearean sonnet; although I do keep to certain syllabic limits (approximately 10 or 11 syllables per line), I’m not sure that these exactly correspond to iambic pentameter.   For more on sonnet structures, check here, (or check out the poetry category form the home page of this blog).  For more on writer’s block, check out the writer’s block category.

Writer’s Block Sonnet

A blank page is not like a plain white sock.
It will do nothing for a cold foot at night,
and fits poorly into a shoe; you can’t tuck
your pants into it as part of a fight
against Lyme’s Disease; it won’t put you at ease
in any way; won’t cushion the impact
of concrete; won’t even give you release
from the itch of sand or pine needle, the tact
of the blank page so much less than the sock,
though also white and cheap and omnipresent.
The page won’t be worn quietly, it will talk
to you, it will talk at you; it will resent
any effort to shush its voice, cap its sound.
You won’t listen?  Then, it will stare you down.

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized, writer's block, writing exercises
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12th Day of National Poetry Month – “Cheater”

April 12, 2010

Grrr....

I guess I’ve not been in the best mood lately.  This 12th poem draft seems to be evidence of that.  (Lesson of the day–writing can be a way to vent your feelings!)

Cheater

When someone cheats me, or worse,
cheats my friend, one for whom
I’ve stood in, stood up, I understand the mind
of the stalker.

I want to call the cheater, anonymously, at
whatever time he grins, and hiss
imprecations of punishment,
both divine and karmic.   I want
to seek out his car and smear something
on the glass that will dry hard and
impenetrable—tomato paste,
shellac, maybe sardines–
spelling out some simple
characterization like “this guy
is a big fat cheat,” or
“smells like dead fish.”

I want to picture him
rattled, spilling large mugs of coffee
over a beige shag rug.
(A part of me wants to imagine him
stumbling with borscht, only anti-oxident,
wonderful beets are
just too good for the likes of him.)

Speaking of beets, I’d like to beat him, only not
in the flesh, but in the mind, in a re-make of
that money game we’ve just concluded (or he and
my “friend”), only this time I’d bargain him down
to a pinhead, a place from which he would truly beg, at which point,
I would gladly extend largess; I’d be absolutely
generous, a softie all over again, happy
to show him, at last, how these things should be done.

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9th Day of National Poetry Month – Good News, Bad News

April 9, 2010

Good News/Bad News

Good News/Bad News

And then there was the children’s book
about the man–look!–who fell out of
a plane. That was the bad news.
But, phew! he fell onto a hay stack;
this was, apparently, the good news:
that his back was not broken
through the intervention of
dried grass. But hey! there was
a needle in that stack–
which was the bad news.  Except that, wait!
He turned out to have a spare camel
in his pocket which fit exactly through the eye
of that needle–which was the good news!
for it took him straight to, do-not-pass-go to,
the kingdom of heaven, not
so much because he was a rich man
but because the hay stack hadn’t worked that well,
after all, not against a fall from the sky.

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized, writing exercises
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Eighth Day of National Poetry Month – Villanelle to Glasses (Leopard-skin-pillbox style)

April 8, 2010

Furred Glasses (Underwater)

As followers of this blog may know, I made a commitment in honor of this April 2010 National Poetry Month to post a freshly-minted draft poem every day.  I am cheating tonight and putting up an older draft poem, Villanelle to Glasses.   This poem came to mind (and seemed to justify the cheating) due to the many kind and helpful comments I got about yesterday’s poem re sore eyes.

For instructions about how to write a villanelle, check out these prior posts on (i) how the assembly of a villanelle compares to banana pudding, and (ii) a specific breakdown of the form.

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.  As edges of my world are furred,

so too, I find, my verbal memory’s slurred:
I’ll say 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 are furred:
ideas are seen as if through water, blurred.

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