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Being There (between the covers)

October 3, 2013

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Being There  (between the covers)

Oh, the places you’ll go–
the odyssey
through the looking glass,
the voyage out
to the lighthouse–

Everything is illuminated,
darkness visible–
the red and the black,
the wind in the willows,
the shining
leaves of grass,

Goodnight moon.
Far from the madding crowd,
the sun also rises,
pale fire.

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

Okay, I’m not sure what it means either, but here is a “spine poem,” written for Samuel Peralta’s prompt on dVerse Poets Pub.  It also happens to be exactly 55 words.  So go tell the G-Man!

For those who may not know, a spine poem is poem “found” in the titles of books.  There should be a photo of all the books. I’ve been traveling tonight and had to come up with books that I know I own in one form or another.  I just could not get a photograph of spines together. (And I’m sorry this pic also doesn’t really suit the poem!  Tired!)

  The titles in the order of appearance are by Jerzy Kosinski, Dr. Seuss, Homer, Lewis Carroll, Virginia Woolf, Virginia Woolf, Jonathan Safran Foer, William Styron, Stendhal, Kenneth Grahame, Stephen King, Walt Whitman, Margaret Wise Brown, Thomas Hardy, Ernest Hemingway and Vladimir Nabokov.

I am still very uncertain of the poem’s title–if not the books’ titles–I may change when not trying to fit into 55 words.  (Hint hint Galen!)   Actually –I’ve edited this since posting. I meant “between” the covers, but put “under the covers!”

 

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 44 Comments

“Come here, Doll”

September 29, 2013
Photo by Margaret Bednar

Photo by Margaret Bednar of doll house rooms at Art Institute of Chicago

Come here, Doll

He looked down at his large hands,
the thumbs, to her,
like hammers;
then up again, slyly shy,
as if he peeked out from under
his own forehead.

Winked, eyes bright as the crinkle of cellophane
off a Dutch Master,
spreading out his arms,
come here, doll.

She went over to him–what else?
He pulled her into the spread
between his legs.

She smelled, from there, his aftershave mixed
with cigar
and the hard bristle
of his face, muscle,
the heat like another biceped limb
beneath the fold of clothes, holding her
in place.

She did not quite know
what to do in that place,
so tried to hold herself against
his holding, to hold herself in, to make herself
just as small as she could get,
to not let herself
touch anything.

*********************************************
A draft poem of sorts for the prompt of Margaret Bednar on Real Toads, featuring doll house rooms from the Art Institute of Chicago.  The photograph of one of the doll rooms is by Margaret, a wonderful photographer.  The prompt calls for a poem about place–I got focused on the doll aspect, but I think the poem is also about place, in a way.

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 38 Comments

Showering With Shanti (Peace), Goa

September 23, 2013

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Showering with Shanti (Peace), Goa, Sometime in the Early Eighties

Her name was Shanti and she craved
my shampoo.

We stood in a bucket shower, a stall

of tangled vines. She was a Citizen
 of the World,
she said (though her accent spoke

of the States)
and asked, breathlessly,
if it 
was Herbal Essence, and could she please please

borrow some, extending arms thinned to ropes

from a while in India.


While I was just visiting, no matter how long It felt,
so squeezed a gob
onto her waiting palms, and then, 
as they waited longer, another gob.

She pressed the pooling gel

onto her splayed part, right in the center of wet hair

already flattened, closing

kaleidoscope eyes.

I don’t know anything
about her experiences of peace,

but there was bliss–
her whole being–from lathered crown

through smiling fingers, nose, thighs, shins–a stream

of shine, freckles dwarf stars

in a bubble of–It comes in Strawberry?


I squeezed more into

her outstretched palms; she passed them

over shoulders, belly, hips, then cupped them

to her face as if they were a conch shell she might blow,

a prayer that she might call, an answer
to called prayer.


At the time I felt rather glad to be myself,
my ticket home safe
in my zipped passport pouch,
but in years since, I’ve thought of her face

more often than I care to admit,

wishing for at least a piece 

of what she found that day
in between the pour
of pink shampoo and washing
every bit of her, shaded
by tangled vines.

***********************************
Here’s a sort of poem I wrote thinking about h Mary Kling’s “peace” prompt on dVerse Poets Pub over this past weekend. (Shanti, sometimes spelled Shantih, means peace in Sanskrit.) If you feel like you’ve read about this story before, you may have, as I wrote a prose poem about it some time ago. I did not specifically re-write the prose poem for this draft, but when I went back to check it, I was amazed at the similarities. (I don’t know if that means that the story is true to memory, or that I easily get into ruts. Agh.) (I am posting this on iPhone right now but will include link for other prose piece later if any one is interested. I think it was called Duty/Calls.)

I am also linking this to the open link nights at dverse poets pub and real toads.

Categories: India, poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 31 Comments

The Ballad of Zeus, Hera, and Our Bodies Ourselves

September 19, 2013

Zeus Giving Birth to Athena, as Elephant (Ouch!)

Ballad of Zeus, Hera and Our Bodies Ourselves

So when Hera, she was ragging,
I turned to her and said–
Can’t take this women’s lib talk
from a deity I’ve wed.

All day over ambrosia,
all night over retsina,
you whine about the female
and the way that males demean ‘er!

Choice? I said.  You’re a goddess!
And by they way you got those pills?
you know the ones the humans use–
I think they’re called Advils.

‘Cause my head hurts something beastly–
oh sure, all men are swine.
But this hubby needs his Ledas
and a swan is not porcine.

But–ugh–my head is splitting
and swelling up so big,
cramping and contorting
hard as Jagger at a gig–

Help, Hera! Help me, Sweetie–
What?  Don’t forget to breathe?
Is that all you’re gonna tell me
when my brain’s bursting its sheathe!

What’s this?  Wah wah!  A baby?
Oh God–(that’s me)–but Hell–
Okay, her toes are very cute,
but my head don’t feel so well.

I can hear Poseidon’s chortle–
Hades’ quake like a jelly roll
served up on a vibration plate
in his most shallow hole–

What’s brought me this wee darling?
That Titaness I ate?
I never thought just swallowing
could put me in this state!

I mean, I’m still that big strong guy
with thunder under thumb–
but could ya’ help me with the diapers,
you little honey bun?

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

This is supposed to be in a ballad form for the wonderful prompt by Tony Maude over at dVerse Poets Pub, and also a soliloquy of Zeus for the wonderful prompt by Kerry O’Connor at With Real Toads.  Kerry asks us to impersonate a deity in modern times.

The scene takes place as Zeus is about to deliver Athena from his forehead.  Zeus, although paired to Hera, was quite the Lothario.  His lovers included Metis, one of the original Titan gods who was expected by soothsayers to have two children by Zeus, first, a girl and then a boy who was destined, if he lived, to overturn Zeus.  In order to beat the prophecy,  Zeus swallowed Metis, but after he had impregnated her with Athena.  Athena was subsequently born through Zeus’s forehead.

In order to stick with my strengths, I’ve portrayed Athena as an elephant.

Categories: elephants, poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 36 Comments

In DC Across from Arlington

September 17, 2013

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In DC Across from Arlington

I walk in my hometown to and from
a business meeting, wanting to weep,
your grave across the river,
and me caught in
such boxes–money, time–
stuck fast
in fast-moving side tracks.

I know the shape of your stone
from seeing others, and, from the diagrams,
what it should say, and I’ve seen
the clipped expanse of grass where
it’s supposed to sit, which my brain folds into
the oblong vista of sky and riverbank seen
from a landing plane, there, just beyond
a runway–

But I walk an asphalt street, walled in by architecture
shaped like faked honeycomb, interlocking
chained links,
while you, my dear, lie
over a bridge I don’t see how I can cross
today.

There are, my memory believes,
winged horses sheathed in bronze
upon that bridge, their nostrils flaring
in full vigor, feathers woven like outstretched
hands–

The street narrows, is sided
by actual houses, faced
with actual brick, and their individuated crumbling
softens the air I walk through, as if it were
your pardon, as if even stone could forgive
when broken down for parts–

And how astonishingly lucky I have been, I think,
to have known such love, without
condition, though I cannot say the thought
makes me more cheerful, that it lifts
me like a flying horse, or sends a current of wind
or river or freedom against my cheeks–

only that it shifts
for a moment
the lids from all known boxes, letting in
sharp corners of fresh blue.

*********************************
Another draftish rather gloomy poem (sorry!) posted for dVerse Poets Pub Open Link Night. Also, sorry that I have been traveling and quite busy and fear I haven’t been able to return visits from commentators–will try to do this shortly. k.

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 19 Comments

Old Dog

September 15, 2013
By Kathryn DeChairo

By Kathryn DeChairo

Old Dog

First hard frost
and when I take you out to the ice-furred grass,
you stand stock still
as you always do these days,
then edge blindly towards the side of a stone step,
nudging away from collision only just
as I bend down–all normal enough
for the now you–

until after taking your next stance,
you begin to heave, something newish,
torso jerking in waves of disjoint
that bring up nothing,
and there is nothing I can do
but wait until you’re still again, then pick you up
so that my fingers do not interlace your ribs, at least not
with pressure,
and hold you in the folds of my nightgown, which I realize
from the sensation of sleeved seam
against my cheeks
I’ve put on inside-out
in the rushed near-darkness–

Hours later, I wonder whether that was comforting,
the flannel worn next to my skin
smelling more of me
than the patterned side,
and think how rare it is
to have a well-adjusted being in one’s life
who actually seeks out
one’s smells–

But at dawn I think only of your trembling
trust, and worry, as I carry you,
about how mute you’ve become,
though you still manage to communicate so well, I keep
telling myself, the way we know
each other–

My husband scrapes a porthole in the windshield,
leaning towards me as he drives
to peer through. Taking me to the station,
and we talk of what, next, how, until
as my tears run into
the roar of the defroster, he reaches from the wheel
to pat my leg, which is when, I realize,
that we truly speak,
at least, understand–

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

Here’s a draftish poem – I’ve cut a lot that maybe should be put back, and put back stuff that maybe should be cut–for a With Real Toads challenge hosted by the very talented Canadian poet, Grace,  and featuring the art work of Kathryn Dyche Dechairo.    The above is a painting (or mixed media piece) by Dechairo, called “Barren.”

Those who follow this blog will know that the old dog in the poem is Pearl, 18, who is actually doing pretty well (for 18).  This was written about a not-great morning, but it is not, thankfully, every morning.

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 26 Comments

In the Night Kitchen (With Broom)

September 14, 2013

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In the Night Kitchen (With Broom)

I sweep the kitchen floor nights,
light as dim as brain, and think
in the quiet swish
how lucky that it’s just detritus
(sweep sweep)
I rearrange,
the letters like me, myself–anyone–
swept so easily in the big
back-and-forth
into weeps weeps weeps,
wishes dust-jumbled–
how wonderful
to be just
sweeping–

**********************************
Here’s a one-day belated Friday Flash 55 posted for the G-Man. Tell him it got lost in the mail.  I am also linking this with dVerse Poets Pub Poetics prompt posted by Shanyn; the prompt deals with using a familiar phrase.  I’m not sure this is quite right for the prompt, but in my case, the phrase would be the title derived from the wonderful Maurice Sendak.

Categories: iPad art, poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 23 Comments

Not-Jazz Poem

September 13, 2013

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My Not-Jazz Poem

My hands don’t find
Bobby Blue bland;
I’ve driven hours
over Miles.
My legs sure glide when
the trombone slides
and my eyes tear
when Louis smiles.

But I don’t poem jazz;
I just can’t poem jazz–
oh, I jitter
and I’m plenty bugged,
but can only riff old honkywonk
and snip a bordered rug.

I can listen till I’m Dizzy,
Muddy Waters on the brain,
But I don’t poem jazz–
I just can’t poem jazz
it’s just the way I am.

********************************
The above is my non-jazz poem responding to the wonderful prompt by Gay Cannon on dVerse Poets Pub to write a jazz poem. My apologies in advance to anyone who finds the poem offensive or politically incorrect–it’s intended only to make fun of myself. Have a great weekend.

Categories: elephants, poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 13 Comments

Safekeeping

September 12, 2013

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Safekeeping

She sewed pieces of eight
‘gainst the harshness of fate
into her muslin-lined bodice.

Then found that her breast
like an oak treasure chest
weighed heavy.

She walked with a bend,
clanked in the wind,
smelled of a grasping fist,

and always she feared
that if love came too near
it would lift her dubloons
as its levy.

So, long long before
she e’re met death’s door
she slept lone with arms
tightly crossed.

And cursed her harsh fate.

*******************
Here’s a rather silly little poem for wonderfully distilled Mama Zen’s challenge “words count” on With Real Toads. It is below 80 words and bounces off some usage of 8.

Categories: iPad art, poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 11 Comments

The Obsessive Stripper

September 10, 2013

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The Obsessive Stripper  (to know her was to love her)

To know her was to love her,
she just knew that was the case–
If the world scoped out her essence,
it would look beyond her face.

Not that her face was terrible–
round, sure, and sort of freckled
(but nothing like her dad claimed–
a hen’s bottom plucked and speckled–)

So, how to start? She bared her soul,
her deepest and her darkest–
but found that no one cared much
for truth at its most starkest–

Now, naked flesh was something else–
she noticed when the wind blew
and her skirt performed a Marilyn
that the street burst out with woohoo–
(woooooohooooooooooooo——-)

Wolf whistle wheezed into the breeze,
but it made her think again–
her dad had only mocked her face–
he’d approved below the chin.

She moved from skirt akimbo
to what they call decolleté,
neckline lower than limbo
on winners’ take-all-off day.

What she bared soon jiggled from shoulders
to waistline and well beyond
sashaying up her freckled thighs
past Venus’s precious mound.

But though the rhythmic clapping
burnished all her cheeks with glow,
still, she couldn’t see herself
as a girl the crowd cared to know–

not know for real, not know for self,
most certainly not for life–
her father’s sneer showed in their leer,
and cut her like a knife.

But to know her was to love her–
how could that not be true?
maybe the nightly dis-cloth-ure
left too much to be seen through.

So shaved her bod, so shaved her head,
uprooted every eyelash;
spoke without punctuation,
and spiked heels into the wet trash–

Stripped off, bleached out, believing
that revelations would end lonely days–
for to know her was to love her–
that just had to be the case.

******************************
The above is a rather sad and far-too-long ditty written very belatedly for  the very creative Fireblossom’s Friday prompt of a while back on With Real Toads, to write a poem based upon an assortment of mandatory composite titles. I am also posting this for dVerse Poets Open Link Night, hosted by Tony Maude.. 

Categories: Perfectionism, poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 22 Comments

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