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An Authority on These Things

August 8, 2015

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An Authority on These Things

Be petty in
your enjoyments–
no breath too trivial,
to be now’s all–

Ask your death,
perched so unlike
Poe’s raven–always,
in your little-bit-more–
not on a dark mantel
but as a dark mantle,
collaring the shine
in your forehead,
(though you keep yourself careless
of its close fold)–

ask it–that, that contains
the shine in you, where
your light
should be cast–

If you take the trouble,
turn to your death,
you will not long wait
a reply–

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

Very much a draft poem posted very belatedly for Margaret Bednar’s post on vases on With Real Toads.  The photo was taken by Margaret Bednar at the Brooklyn Museum and all rights belong to Margaret.  

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 10 Comments

In the Mountains (Late July)

July 27, 2015

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In the Mountains (Late July)

By evening, Fall has come.
All day it pushed against the sun,
which fought back with a full
corona,
as if grandeur could sunder thunder,
as if the hulking bulk of cloud it broke
into beamed heavens
would not more heavily
regroup,
as if it could shun time
with shine.

Until, after yet another rain, Fall
staked its reign, if just
for a foray, infiltrating
shaken leaves that, like riddled battlements,
will soon be blown sky high.
My sleeves already
are pierced, even as I hold tight
my arms,
and my face finds an old pallor
in the gloaming.

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

Very much a draft poem for Margaret Bednar’s “Play It Again, Sam” prompt on Real Toads.  This one responds to an archived challenge by Kerry O’Connor to consider cadence in free verse.   I had several additional lines in this poem–a whole assortment==but got my husband involved as an editor–he is very much of the less is more school–so leaving it here. 

 

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Comments: 12 Comments

Walk in the Woods

July 24, 2015

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Walk in the Woods

I read this morning that walking in nature quiets
the frontal cortex, frees
something, but I walk so fearful of bears this evening
in this all too natural wood, my frontal cortex busy
with bewaring, that anxiety cantilevers a small cellblock about me,
a prison of projection my sneakered toes shuffle forward,
my knees bang into, and that I only break through
to start
at the flickering of moths in the fiddleheads,
the shifts of darkness
against dead trees,

until, bowed by own nervous system, I try simply
to keep my head down–what I don’t see
won’t hurt me–
(the fact is I am thrilled whenever I see a bear,
I keep telling myself)
and now my brain’s sovereign is
the brood
as I replay with blurred certainty the bared foolishness
in the mails I sent today,
every sop of misrendered advice,
sighting in the brain-garbled distance
sure evidence of cortex’s demise, underlined
by pre-demise inadequacy–

It all comes to the same thing, truly–
a fear of bear racing–(a chase I’ll surely lose even tumbling downhill
where they’re supposed to be at a disadvantage)–
and a fear
of the embarrassing–

Then, I remember–and now I’m trudging uphill (where I’ll be too slow
for any bear, so try not to physically look back)–
that a dear friend died
five years ago today.

She would have liked to live
to fear foolishness, even maybe
bears. Yes.

I can’t find anything
freeing there,
until I arrive, in the green stumble, at one of her favorite stories–
a time she greeted a doctor, after sitting in a hospital chair all night, next to a sick son,
with a long string of dental floss impossibly stuck
between her teeth–you know how early
they make their rounds–how neither she
nor the doctor mentioned
that long crooked dangle
as they both tried to seem supremely
competent, focused on charts
and probabilities, the boy’s
soft breathing.

And foolishness, bared, suddenly doesn’t seem
so bad; being a know-it-all not so appealing
in the context of
an afterlife, the knowing of
what’s next–

Almost home, I think of her round smile–her teeth were
quite big actually, her smile bigger,
a flash of incisor at each side–

Almost home–
and I think
of her
round smile.

**********************************
Sorry sorry sorry for the length and the fact that it’s not really a poem, and that it’s so much like all of them lately, but here’s what I’ve done for Grapeling’s “Get Listed” challenge on Real Toads.  Ps==drawing mine, an old one–the bears are really not that big here!  

 

Categories: poetry, Stress, Uncategorized
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Comments: 13 Comments

Found

July 18, 2015

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Found

We lost the trail in the darkness,
made so much worse by the fog,
so switched children.

You took the little one, cocooned
from stick and branch,
passing the older from shoulders that broached,
as you tried to lead the way,
encroaching trees.  It seemed

forever.  Bracken up
to the knees, crashes half-caught,
I whispered to the child postured sureties,
all the while thinking screw
the contact lenses, maybe we should
just sleep in one of the small ravines where we slid
without meaning, leaning
into wet leaves,

until a long downward stumble
yielded to a field we knew, a field
found new,
and the child I could have carried forever
grew instantly so heavy
I could hardly move,
there, where the uncanopied moon silvered
rain-slivered stalks
and the road shone like a striped ribbon
wrapping a gift
called soon.

I think of this now–the flashlight’s gaze
dazed only mist in the darkness–
when I try to think about
grace–

I think of how humans stretch what they are
to shelter another,
as if they were tents made of
some miracle fiber, as if their strength
were truly tensile-

But what was graceful that night was not the way I carried the child
until carrying could be put down–
because there are plenty of parents, surely crowned
with grace, who have not been able,
to carry children
through their nights and fogs–

but that I so wanted to carry her,
grace more the gift of caring than carrying–
the gift of somehow lifting up
one’s self,
what makes us try, impossibly, to be as true
as the blue about the late moon, mornings,
and, nights, to hug another as closely
as haloed glow encircles
that reflective rock.

I can feel still
the pressure of small arms, legs,
making conscious my own contours,
as we both
held on.
*****************************

A draft poem for my own prompt on Real Toads to write something sparked by the idea of grace.  Honestly, I wanted to write something much shorter than this, but this is what came to mind.  Check out all the wonderful poets at Toads and congratulations to Kerry O’Connor, the founder of the blog and Toads Community, on its 4th anniversary.  Congratulations to dVerse Poets Pub on its blog anniversary. 

The pic above is mine. As with the poem, all rights reserved. 

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 26 Comments

Early Evening, July

July 11, 2015

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Early Evening, July

The hay just mown,
birds fly low,
wings holding light
like fingers round
a great candle.

Field just shorn,
insects shown,
wings alight
like wax ringing
a bright candle.

Days new mown,
summer shorn,
gold ring circling
to down-faced
palm.

Lord, have mercy
as time feeds on,
wax eaten
by a held candle;

new mown hay,
wing-blown day,
gold ring
glimmering–

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

A draft poem for no prompt.  I’m calling it a draft since I’ve done about a zillion versions in the last day and am by no means sure this is the best, even adding things I probably shouldn’t as I post.  But I’m a bit anxious to move away from it for now. I wish all a happy weekend.  (The pic above is mine; as with the poem, all rights reserved.) 

I am linking this to Real Toads open platform.   

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 20 Comments

(Book) Skywalker

July 9, 2015

(Book) Skywalker

Overcast.
Still, there’s sky in the air,
and, light on the blacktop
of this country road,
I say that what I’d like to be
is a person who walks all day.
Preferably holding a book, I add
with unusual frankness, to you
for whom the world outside
is usually enough–

And you, who knows what I do
when alone, especially in the City when not
in the fold of you–how I follow an arrow of page
through lines of print and people, cross blocks
of blocks, that is,
how I read, walking,

grow serious, saying,
you better watch out down there,
you’ll make yourself a target–

not understanding the cover
of cover,
the shield of
one’s own corner, carried,
how those there, yet not there,
(like the sky in this grey day’s air),
(I’m talking about characters) serve
as my personal pages,
while the page itself makes
my weather–
and how can anyone who holds
a small separate sky
in their hands, be harmed, I want to protest.

But don’t.
Don’t even tell you how surprisingly well
my feet read the street
with my other soles–

Because I must confess, thinking it through,
that wheeled fenders seem
extraordinarily insensitive
to sky,
so vow silently to look both ways
on those read streets,
and also, you know,
up–

**********************************
A rather odd poem for multi-taskers or escape artists (like myself).  I am talking here about reading a real book, not phone, which I have done for many many years.  I am posting  for the With Real Toads prompt of Ella about things you’ll never grow out of.

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Comments: 18 Comments

Ode to A Rock (On a Bedside Table)

June 20, 2015

Ode to a Rock (on a Bedside Table)

You’re heavier than
your grey,
and so rounded
you’d pass for a stone
if rolled some way.

And I (meaning me)
could use you, my husband says one night,
to throw at the forehead of
a gunman, knock
him out.

This casts you
in a somewhat different light–
no longer an oversized bite
of forest floor, something to hold open
a door,
but a possible means of deliverance
like the rock rolled away
from the tomb.
Only not.

For I’m not sure gunmen are swayed
by rocks, certainly not rocks
of faith, ages–

Hard to understand
even when your heft
weighs down my hand
that you will outlast its flesh–
that all our individual flash
will transmute to dust, ash,
while the wind still feeds on you–

So, life seems to pass faster
than a speeding bullet for some,
while for others, it is taken away
at exactly
that pace–

*****************************
A draftish poem of sorts for my own prompt on Real Toads to make an ode to something relatively quotidian.  This one, of course, is very influenced by the horrible tragedy in Charleston, South Carolina, this past week, at the Emmanuel African Methodist Church. 

I’ve edited this since first posted, as the end didn’t quite get across the meaning I was aiming for.  Thanks. k. 

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Comments: 23 Comments

Picture of (add music)

June 18, 2015

       

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A not-haiku inspired by Shay (Fireblossom’s) prompt on with real toads to write a poem beginning with the words “Picture of”, and also by one of my favorite songs.  (And beverages.)

All rights reserved.

ps – the pics were all uploaded from my iPhone–they may not show up in full on some brewers; just click on pic to see (if you wish!)

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Comments: 20 Comments

Giving Thanks (on Train)

June 17, 2015

Giving Thanks (on train)

What has been a day thick
with humidity
blossoms mist
over the Hudson.

Oh, father, why did I never thank you
for the incidental
kindnesses?

I do not write here of God–
at least, not mainly, of God, I add,
as I look back out the window
where an archetypal depiction of heaven
halos hills, a godhead’s parting
of cloud by sun over water.

How long he would wait
to drive me home–after school, after
rehearsals–all that seemed
so important–me, who could not stand
to wait–

Do I think of this because the river shines
like a windshield swept by night,
because the train drums the tracks
with the rhythms
of tires’ turn,
or, because the sky, so big at heart,
asks so little of me?

Do it now–give
thanks–and often.
Do it knowing
that the oncoming
has already passed, that in
the endless revolution of then,
no amount of clackety
can take you back.

Do it for the mist
and the missed
and in the midst of all
that you will not
then miss,
you with your eyes
full of sun
and cloud
and water.

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

Though much revised, this is still very much a draft poem for Real Toads open platform, hosted by the wonderful Kerry O’Connor–

The pics are in fact from my train ride (Metro North) along the Hudson yesterday evening. 

Categories: New York City, poetry, Uncategorized
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Thinking About Scott Walker in Eleven Haiku

June 14, 2015

Thinking About Scott Walker in Eleven Haiku

Why workers joined?  Locking them in from smoking breaks
was worth their death by fire.

One hundred and twenty-three petticoats; twenty-three shirts–
what a waste–

Some will abase themselves for money.  I’m not talking about
employees.

How about I scotch pensions?  Will you give me
one hundred mill?

Chicken farmers are not allowed to balk.  They talk? No
bucks, far worse fowl–

The Company Store kept them in the mines, all spent
before even coughed up.

So.  At least, garment workers crushed in Bangladesh
had the right to work.

Maybe… we degrade education, no one will know enough
to know–

Hey!  Who likes teachers anyhoo?  Says the guy who could never
finished school.

Who can I cut? What can I gut? What hard-fought battle can I
betray?

What future can I flush?  And since you’re flush–another
hundred mill, please?

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

Very much a draft poem for Grace’s prompt on With Real Toads to write something in the style of Marilyn Chin.  This was influenced by a series of one-line haikus she wrote–each of the above 17 syllables. 

Process note, especially for those outside the U.S.:  Scott Walker is a GOP (Republican) candidate for President of the U.S.  His claim to fame as Governor of Wisconsin is breaking down unions and attacking the University of Wisconsin, through budget cuts,targeted attacks on professors (especially it seems those with an environmental outlook)  and attacks on the institution of tenure (though this is actually enshrined in the Wisconsin State constitution.)   He is supposedly the chosen candidate of the Koch Brothers, oil billionaires, who plan to spend hundreds of millions in upcoming elections.  The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in 1911 was a factory fire in New York City which 123 women garment workers and 23 men died largely because they were locked into their factory floors.   

Poultry farming is a big business in the U.S., with actual farmers under the thumb of big corporate chicken producers.  An interesting clip on this subject by Jon Oliver may be found here. 

Composite pic is mine–all rights reserved; no copyright infringement intended in underlying pic. 

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Comments: 17 Comments

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