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An Older Lady Walking Out In The Teens (Farenheit)

January 11, 2015

 

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An Older Lady Walking Out In The Teens (Farenheit)

Sun masks the cold, sort of.
I think, as I walk out, of a thin blanket
thrown over an elephant in a living room–
you are sure something looms, but can’t quite make out
its toes.

Or maybe the toes are all you’d see–
maybe, in fact, the toes would be all that actually sticks out
from under
that blanket.

All I know is that I keep stepping through the tracks
of feet out here–
the sewing machine stitch of mice (the seams running straight
into our house’s foundation),
the tricorne sloop
of a hare,
the deeper divide of hooves,
and up the snow-blazed hill, the beaded cicatrice
of vole tunnel.

But I am tracking youth and vigor
and so trek slowly down a ravine where only snips
of the sun’s thin blanket (and me) slip
through the firs, and wonder, once I’ve slid down,
how to cross the small stream, how to ford
the ice-rivered gush, whether–even if I manage to edge farther
along the steep–I’ll find a possible pass,
when I notice the imprint of paws marking a path
over the snow-crowded stones
and follow with clumsy boots
the way chosen
by the animal.

Though these are big prints, the cluster of some being distinctly
carnivorous–so even as I follow,
a part of me longs
to turn back, and I hold tightly
to the large stick I use to stake my passage–
happy in its sharp point, its snub wooden muzzle–

The sun blinks both eyes
when I get to field again,
a there where almost any step will do–
and yet I find myself following the tracks still,
those paws whose imprint looks both like a heart
and a brain, a small hive, a huge
berry–

wanting not to see the creature
and yet also to spot him–
How is it that we so crave connection
with the wild–we with our cold-toed boots
and our elephants in
the living room–

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

A draftish poem for Poetry Pantry on Poets’ United.  Note that the pics above are of tracks, but not a close-up of the paw print.  Below are some pics of the tunnels of animals under the snow, and also a bigger stream than the one I crossed–but you get the idea re the freeze–and elephants!  (The fabric a beautiful gift from a family member who kindly brought it for me from a military tour in Afghanistan.)  (All photos are mine, all rights reserved.) 

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Categories: elephants, poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 13 Comments

Prayer (After David Huerta’s Poem of the Same Name)

January 10, 2015

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Prayer  (After David Huerta’s Poem of the Same Name)

Lord,
save this moment.

It opened as if we two were feet
in a coupled walk, bits
of a walked beach–tide, ebb,
sand, wave;
as if our mouths might have sparked the light
of a leading moon–

It began as if beings who are sand and wave met only
in a frisson of foam, a bubbling
of rainbow,
which sounds
so stupid now—

as if waves didn’t crash,
as if sand didn’t flatten harder
than houses,
as if feet could not be buried
in an instant, buried again.

It opened as if we could not be weighted down
then tossed around;
as if neither of us could be drowned
by what spewed from our own throats;
as if we were known to emit waves
of soft sound only, and as if
a moment, any grain of time’s sand,
could withstand
our onslaught–

Lord, who even in this crush
knows found quiet,
who breathes
like the stars in this night
wider than ocean,
stars too far to care
for a glow going out,
and yet lend theirs–

Lord,
save this moment.

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

This is very much a draft poem and not about any particular current incident, but I’m sure we all know about moments gone sour!  It was written for Grace’s (Heaven’s) prompt on With Real Toads to write something in the style of David Huerta, a truly wonderful Mexican poet.  My title and first line are taken from Huerta.   

PS –this has been edited since first posting, as I think I was not very clear in the first version, seen by the first six or seven commenters.  (It’s still probably not very clear, but that may be okay.)  

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 24 Comments

Prompt – That First Vehicle That Gave You Freedom

January 9, 2015

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Prompt – That First Vehicle That Gave You Freedom

Sometimes I feel like I never really got away ever.
Someone else has steered the wheel
the whole damn time and I don’t mean
God.
Even though I know the rules
of the road, passed
my drivers’ test.
Even though they–the great big capitalized
They–issued me some kind
of license.

Sometimes, the driver’s a nice person,
if only she wouldn’t constantly look out the window
and yammer,
but sometimes she’s mean as hell, riding
people’s bumpers, scooting by
on the wrong frigging side– then–
just when they get back to their toodle,
slamming (bam) the brakes
with a vagrant squeal
that sounds almost like road kill,
but the one she’s got her gimlet on
sits just there–you know–
in the frozen squash of the vinyl,
not knowing how
to ditch that ride,
hitch another, way too afraid
to open the door even if
she would slow.

But then, sometimes
of a sudden, long and lost,
the car will wander into the desert,
its chrome burnished orange
by buttes that store sunset,
or it will glide by the side
of a sea held level in its glass,
or it will simply lose itself
in the long pitch of horizon
and that bitch of a driver will go
completely away
and yet the car–the car–
will stick right to the road,
moving on.

****************************************
A poem of sorts (yes, a draft poem) for Herotomost’s prompt on With Real Toads  – “Road Trip,” to write about the first real vehicle that gave you freedom.  (This has been slightly edited since first posting and first comments.)

Categories: elephants, poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 14 Comments

January 7, 2015 (Thinking of Paris)

January 8, 2015

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January 7, 2015 (Thinking of Paris)

A mind that will shoot a cartoonist
for drawing a picture
will shoot a young girl
for picking up
a pen.

This is not a matter of lines being drawn,
but of the drawing of pen
or gun. `

We must be brave
on behalf of
the pens.

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

A poem of sorts for the terrible massacre of the cartoonists and journalists at Charlie Hebdo and (not to sound pompous) for all those who fight for the right to be educated.

Categories: news, poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 6 Comments

Frost Reversals

January 8, 2015

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Frost Reversals

I walk on a scattering of clouds.
Trees, in the absence of birds, chirp,
while, in the absence of leaves,
something small, brown, and seemingly
windblown, whisks just above the frozen ground,
till, catching a rutted stump,
it shows one beetle-bright eye, grey
snow scarf.
My thumbs in their solitary sleeves of mitten
beg to cede their opposition
to all other digits, to join
the flock.
Only the stump stays stalwartly itself,
still, frost-bitten.

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

Another little poem about cold, belatedly posted for With Real Toads Tuesday platform.   (In the photo, which is mine, and taken at a different time than thoughts for the poem–so doesn’t really fit it–you can see three deer.)

Also, apparently some bloggers from blogger are having a hard time posting comments.  Please do let me know if you have any difficulty.  I’ve tried to go into my settings to at a minimum re-save them, but don’t know if that is doing anything.  Thanks.

 

 

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 9 Comments

Some Things Under the Moon

January 3, 2015

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Some Things Under the Moon

The moon out,
the emptiness around leafless limbs
is lit,
their fractal stretch sketched,
while firs are read first
as the absence of tree
rather than its fullness;
only, after a careful stare
does the eye find the slant uplift of
night-black boughs.

So, I often mistake the world.

And so I vow, the next noon, to look
at other people as out
to teach me enlightenment
(all those others who were previously out
to bar my way.)

Amazing, then, how much better
we get along.

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

Another new year’s poem of sorts, thinking of the quotes of Susie Clevenger on With Real Toads (though I already linked a poem there, so will leave this be!)   Happy last New Year’s weekend before work onslaught begins!

The photo is not really right for the poem–as it doesn’t show a field of trees (!) but an old one that was closest I had.

 

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 7 Comments

New Year’s Bring

January 2, 2015

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New Year’s Bring

What the new year brings to you will depend a great deal on what you bring to the new year.”
–Vern McClellan

I consider potato salad,
but potato salad sort of says
‘summer.’

‘Focus’ sounds better,
but smacks of discipline,
and discipline sounds
like a bummer.

I’ve never owned a brand new car
but would never stoop–which I know doesn’t make sense
given its geometry or price, but at least rhymes–
to a Hummer.

Besides, what new year times
most raise in me
is the wish to do
a runner.

But, here I am–
an Eve past the eve,
sans potato salad,
with an undistinguished car
full of undistinguished dings
and no clear thought of what to bring
to that great ring ring
just knelled–

There just seems nothing in my fate
that is not well past
its best-used-by date
(and long ago not sold.)

I grow old, I grow old,
I shall wear my trousers
rolled–

hisses the poet, or his
doppleganger,
through my rumpled brain folds–

Sigh.

Yet the whimper-worn words also wrangle
a sly bang–

for I’ve always rather liked
rolled trousers.

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

For Susie Clevenger’s prompt on the New Year on With Real Toads to write a poem on a New Year aphorism.  (Also, although it is not a particular numeric milestone, I just realized with some astonishment that this is my 1905th post on this blog.  Crazy.)

 

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 16 Comments

No Satin Sheets

December 31, 2014

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No Satin Sheets

We were innocent
or well-trained enough
to depict the torture doled out
to girl spies (us)
as the denial of sex
rather than its forcing.

Our captor, a spymaster on the other side (whichever
girl was made to play
that part), held,
in his (her) arsenal,
a one-handed glove to feather
our racked flesh–

Not the glove! we’d whisper,
enacting febrile anticipation
from the bed at the back
of the basement
or the bar of the shower curtain, which we’d grip,
as if manacled, our toes tethering
a balance on the beam
of the pink-mauve tub–

Our hips embraced a pitched charade
of rise and fall beneath the glove’s
hovering shadow
as we simultaneously refused to betray state secrets
and steamed for love.

(There was no glove, and yet there was,
for truly, it was all
in the glove–

as if we understood already
that the touch of flesh to flesh

was not a game–
as if we understood
anything–)

The mattress was thin, and where our self-pulled limbs
disengaged the worn bottom sheet, hosted cowboys on
bucking steeds, its foam’s fabric sheathe–

but we knew nothing of symbolism,

only that sheets should be satin in this world
where to not be loved
was the worst torment
we could imagine– 
***********************************

Very much of a draft poem for Grapeling’s prompt “Get Listed” on With Real Toads.    The poem is supposed to describe a children’s game of sorts.  I’m not sure that comes across; maybe a change of title in order.  The image manipulated/ doctored by me. 

Many many thanks to all of you who have made this year not only bearable but special.  I so appreciate your reading, your comments, and, in the case of those of you who are fellow bloggers, your writing and your prompts.  A special thanks to those who bought, read, or put up with the writing of, my book Nice!  


I wish you the happiest and healthiest of new years.  

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 11 Comments

If the Statue of Liberty Could Speak, Maybe

December 29, 2014

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If the Statue of Liberty Could Speak, Maybe

We won’t torch her,
they said, and I admit
I felt relieved, for there was just
this smell–
even after the months of rubble smoking
at my feet
which, despite all the steel
and people, smoldered
of plastic mainly–
an ingredient in so much
these days–

Still, I picked it up, even
though my nose was, as it were,
de-sensitized–
Some hum

that made me insecure
in what they said and so I held on tightly
to my own, which, is
affixed to my hand anyway and copper—

probably not
the copper they use–you know, sliced
into electrodes–

(Collar it what you will–
re-name rape as rectal
hydration–both begin with r
and smell as sweet)–

But did nothing more–
just stood there–
not
enough-

So, sick now
to my stomach, sick
at heart, sick even unto
my grey-green soles, to the depths
of my scrolled harbor.

There’s a certain foulness doesn’t go away
closed up–a fetid
mess that will in darkness
feed on–its seep poisoning
even as we pretend
like children playing peekaboo,
that we can make the real flee
that we can make a lie fly
that we can make all better just
by covering
our eyes.

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

A poem I wrote a few weeks ago I am posting as a second poem for With Real Toads open link night.  The image belongs to New York City and is from the New York City Coat Drives campaign.  It is an image that I saw being photographed in Washington Square Park about twenty-eight years ago–so beautiful I think–on a very very hot afternoon, the woman–a Statue of Liberty impersonator in green make-up, sweating.

 

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 11 Comments

Pink Dream

December 26, 2014

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Pink Dream

She holds the breast to her chest
as if it were a baby nestling,
as if it could suckle
the ribbed cavity,
latching on
to its own past home.

The nipple stares up at her
like the eye of a truncated
dolphin, her arms waves
it needs to surface, not able to breathe
in the trough
of that separated flesh.

She tries to apologize, but her mouth
cannot move;
it, too, swallowed.

Later–later–
she wonders at the will
of the mammalian.

***************************
Yes, a strange poem I know.  I am posting it for With Real Toads, the prompt by Margaret Bender.  Margaret’s prompt is called “Simply Beautiful,” and I don’t think the poem fits that, but it was something that came up after looking at Margaret’s beautiful photographs.  I modified the picture above–Margaret’s picture is below.

 

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Categories: iPad art, poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 7 Comments

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