The Bold (and French Roast) Now

Posted October 18, 2012 by ManicDdaily
Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , ,

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The Bold (And French Roast) Now

My cup
runneth over.
For just when I should grab and sip,
mind
blips, fazes
against the machine, leans
into pre-occupied
scenes, grinding all its be’s
and not-
to-be’s, while the
beans stream blacklit
beams, a splash
lashing me like Ulysses
(of old) to the
mast of the bold
(and french roast)
now,
insisting against my sirens (“sleep”) that I
drink deep
until I–
oops–
do.

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

I am posting the above poem for a dVerse Poets’ Pub meeting the bar challenge hosted by Victoria C. Slotto that focuses on “steampunk” (mixing up disparate things) and enjambment (basically the poetic science of run-over lines.)   (Steampunk is still a bit foreign to me, but enjambment is an endlessly interesting subject I think.)  A fascinating prompt. 

And I, by the way, am primarily a tea drinker. 

Check out all the great poets at dVerse and if you’ve got time, my books!   Poetry, GOING ON SOMEWHERE, (by Karin Gustafson, illustrated by Diana Barco). 1 Mississippi -counting book for lovers of rivers, light and pachyderms, or Nose Dive. Nose Dive is available on Kindle for just 99 cents! Nose Dive really is very funny and light hearted, and 1 Mississippi is a lot of fun for little teeny kids.

Comments: 28 Comments

“Thresher Thrashed”

Posted October 17, 2012 by ManicDdaily
Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , ,

Thresher Thrashed

I tried to scythe my tie to you,
but sighed inside, the tie too wide;
so drew a chainsaw, sawed that chain–
soon saw my efforts were in vain.

No axe could hew, the thresher thrashed,
last-ditch combine was all but trashed.
What could I do but chew and chew,
chew what tethered me to you.

I gnawed into the night’s chill gloom,
I gnawed until mouth turned to wound–
then in the furrowed mists of day
I saw that you had gone away.

You’d gone (it seemed) long long before,
but left me with the lead I wore,
except that side once held by you
now flapped with every single chew.

I lay me down on that same ground
like a plant whose harvest’s come and gone,
my teeth splayed kernels, frayed tie root
so very still from head to foot.

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

The above is a draft poem written for a Real Toads prompt hosted by Isadora Guya about the “mechanical harvest.” Yes, it’s kind of self-pitying and pathetic! (I say pathetic because I’m always suspicious of the martyr persona in the first person!) And maybe “lead ” should be “bond” or “leash” or “tether” or “cord”? I don’t know. At least it has a combine.

 Despite the poem’s deficiencies, I want to acknowledge a debt here to Joy Ann Jones (Hedgewitch) whose wonderful poem Cottonwood uses a chain saw that I found quite inspiring.

PS – for those interested in process, this poem’s been edited a bit since first posting – the “long before” couplet originally hinging on “long ago” and something that rhymed with that.

Check out With Real Toads, and also my books! Poetry, GOING ON SOMEWHERE, (by Karin Gustafson, illustrated by Diana Barco). 1 Mississippi -counting book for lovers of rivers, light and pachyderms, or Nose Dive. Nose Dive is available on Kindle for just 99 cents! Nose Dive really is very funny and light hearted, and 1 Mississippi is a lot of fun for little teeny kids.

Comments: 30 Comments

“Hot And Cold Do Not Always Equal Tepid”

Posted October 16, 2012 by ManicDdaily
Categories: elephants, poetry, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , ,

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Hot And Cold Do Not Always Equal Tepid

She felt as cold as unsparked coal
but heat turned up consumed him whole.

The nights so long, the sheets so blank,
he kicked them off his heated shank–
his metabolism so very high
he could barely stand a cover nigh;

while shivered she in downy bed
despite the fire inside her head
that smoldered behind her mental blocks
(requiring her to wear thick socks).

And then they met; their “fingers” touched–
I won’t detail this overmuch.
Suffice to say, they realized soon
that every sun can use a moon.

Said he to her, open up that door,
I’m the furnace you’ve been looking for.

Said she to him (and nearly weeping),
I’m that cool balm that you’ve been seeking.

So, they clove to, held each to each,
making warmth whene’er in reach;
and if not exactly regulated
felt both, at least, well conjugated.

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

My offering for dVerse Poets Pub Open Link Night.  Check out the wonderful poets at dVerse and, if you have some time, check out my books!   Poetry, GOING ON SOMEWHERE, (by Karin Gustafson, illustrated by Diana Barco). 1 Mississippi -counting book for lovers of rivers, light and pachyderms, or Nose Dive. Nose Dive is available on Kindle for just 99 cents! Nose Dive really is very funny and light hearted, and 1 Mississippi is a lot of fun for little teeny kids.

Comments: 40 Comments

A Question Of Cropping and Lady Bugs

Posted October 15, 2012 by ManicDdaily
Categories: Country weekend, iPhone art, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , ,

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Comments: 11 Comments

“Fern-Earred Angel” (Described in Quatrains)

Posted October 14, 2012 by ManicDdaily
Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , ,

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Fern-Eared Angel

The shell of angel ear so fine
a curve, smaller (perhaps) than earth’s
ball surface (and grey stone), still births
bromeliad, fern whose sprung spine

grows fringed with fingered fronds that reach
into the cemetery air
their reversed message, a green clar-
ion (hushed) call, whose unfurled speech,

pronounced by ear, not lips, by dust–
blocked-breeze accumulation–
a granite annunciation–
seeds all who pass with unstained trust.

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

The above is a poem written in “enveloped quatrains” for the prompt by With Real Toads, hosted by the wonderful Kerry O’Connor.  As Kerry explains (much more clearly), a famous poem in this form is Tennyson’s In Memoriam, and the prompt included various cool photographs of cemetery statuary.  These, particularly the photo by Isadora Gruye below, reminded me of the beautiful angel I saw (and drew above) on a visit to La Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires, which had ferns growing from her ear, wings and gown.  
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Do visit With Real Toads to read Kerry’s article on this form and check out the other poetry.  Also, if you’ve got time, check out my books!!!!!  Poetry, GOING ON SOMEWHERE, (by Karin Gustafson, illustrated by Diana Barco). 1 Mississippi -counting book for lovers of rivers, light and pachyderms, or Nose Dive. Nose Dive is available on Kindle for just 99 cents! Nose Dive really is very funny and light hearted, and 1 Mississippi is a lot of fun for little teeny kids. 

Comments: 23 Comments

“I’ll Show You Fear In A Stackfull….”

Posted October 13, 2012 by ManicDdaily
Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , ,

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I’ll show you fear in a
stackfull of fresh-pressed clothes

I know it will not truly jump
across the floor, that I won’t bump
into it when three feet away–almost every day
I use it virtually–
virtuously–
wrinkles raising a very different fear–
imagine my mother here–bending
over the board, sighing willfully
that I–no one–could–
like she did–
a trip–slam, slip–everything perfectly
flattened before packed
like some
old idea
of the planet, even a flounced skirt
pressed into a rectangular
Western state–I really
can–from across the
divide–

I own
my own now–and don’t
bother with board – on my couch, bed, rug–trying not
to be ruffled by
inner
shudder–I know its burn
won’t bite
independently, but worry, in my rushed flush, I just
might press the clothes I am actually wearing, scorching an
imprint like that birthmark on my left thigh that
looks like the map of some far
crannied
continent.

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

Here’s a draft poem of sorts for a wonderful prompt hosted by Stu McPherson for dVerse Poets Pub on fear and phobia.  I am afraid that almost everything I write has some root in fear, so I focused on phobia.  In this case, of irons (ha!), and I really do not hook it onto my mother, but I figure this made for a better story.   For a deeper fear poem, see my “Englyn” on thoughts of death.  

And check out dVerse for wonderful poetry.  And if you have time, check out my books!  Poetry, GOING ON SOMEWHERE, (by Karin Gustafson, illustrated by Diana Barco). 1 Mississippi -counting book for lovers of rivers, light and pachyderms, or Nose Dive, a very fun novel that is perfect for a pool or beachside escape. Nose Dive is available on Kindle for just 99 cents!

Comments: 31 Comments

Sometimes (Unsweetened) – Englyn unodi union

Posted October 11, 2012 by ManicDdaily
Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , ,

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Sometimes (Unsweetened)

I sometimes understand that we’ll all die,
without last try-again.
No refill of siphoned sand,
do-over (do what we can).

And that I too, and all I love, will die.
And my cry does not call
like the mourning dove, a fall/
rise, but has no interval.

—an Englyn unodi union

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

Here’s my attempt at an Englyn unodi union (whatever that is!), a Welsh form, for dVerse Poets Pub. Form for All.  For more info, check out the wonderful article by Sue Judd and Gay Reiser Cannon at dVerse.  All I can say is that it’s a syllabic form with a slightly odd rhyme scheme that probably works better in Welsh or in someone else’s hands. 

But since my two-stanza version has (with the title and little identifying material at the end, exactly 55 words, please also tell it to the G-Man.)

P.S. The photo is of the old Domino Sugar Factory in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.  

Comments: 23 Comments

“Can’t Resist Myself” – Unreliable Narrator/Good Old Etch-a-Sketch

Posted October 11, 2012 by ManicDdaily
Categories: news, poetry, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , ,

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Can’t Resist Myself

I’ll lower all taxes zippity doodah-
but it will be oh so reveney neutrah–
(and I sure know about revenue hoohah
‘Cause I was once a leveraged poobah.)

Close them loopholes fee-fum-fo–
But not a hole that you might know.
(If you deduce which deductions go
It won’t be cause I told you so!)

Now listen up good, while I get this right–
I will not change a thing you like!
(Least not while talking in this mike.)
(Least not in the middle of this fight.)

Leader leader zing zing zing!
Let my etch-a-sketch ring ring ring!
(Shake – is that how you work this thing?)
(Okay, got it, bingity bing.)

*********************************
I am posting this for the With Real Toads challenge to write a poem in the voice of an “unreliable narrator.”  To be read in the rhythms of Vachel Lindsay.

(Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

P.S. I appreciate that it may be a bit cryptic for those reading outside the U.S.  Again, apologies.

Comments: 20 Comments

Game Is Still On (The Tenth!) But Here’s Hoping–

Posted October 10, 2012 by ManicDdaily
Categories: Baseball, elephants, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , ,

Go Yankees!

I’ve posted this picture before (a watercolor by yours truly) but it sometimes proves lucky.  So, with apologies for those who’ve seen it (and for those outside of NYC!), here’s hoping.

Comments: 8 Comments

In Swat Valley, Pakistan, October 2012 (For Malala Yousafzai)

Posted October 9, 2012 by ManicDdaily
Categories: news, poetry
Tags: , , , , , ,

In Swat Valley, Pakistan, October 2012  (For Malala Yousafzai)

She wanted to go to school.
(They shot her in the head and neck.)
She could read and write
and did.
(They pulled her off the school bus.)
Cardboard journals and online, from age 11 to 14–
(Which one is Malala? they demanded,)
pushing for the education–
(gun muzzles ready–)
of her fellow girls.
(“Let this be a lesson,” they said.)

One wants to respond with something ringing
about the power
of a schoolgirl’s voice, but this is a real
schoolgirl–her voice sweet,
slightly nasal,
accented
with sincerity–and one needs
to just weep
for a while, all the time
vowing to learn from her,
a lesson.

**************************************
I’m trying, but can’t really write a poem about something as raw, unspeakable, heartbreaking as the shooting of Malala Yousafzai, age 14, by Taliban gunmen in the Swat Valley, Pakistan earlier today.  Malala became famous in 2009 at age 11 because of her part in a short documentary film about the closing down of girls’ education in the Swat Valley in Pakistan by the Taliban (made by Adam B. Ellick.)  The link above is to a portion of the film.  This is the link to the longer version:  “Class Dismissed” Swat Valley  
Since the  film, Malala (who is a captivatingly brave and perceptive child) has became a spokesperson for girls’ education in Pakistan, even winning a national youth prize.  Taliban gunmen forced their way onto her school bus today, shooting her in the head and neck.  She has survived the shooting.  (The Taliban said earlier that if she survived, they would continue to target her.)  
Thoughts and prayers go to Malala and her family; her father, also loving, brave, articulate, was highlighted in the film.  (He ran a girls’ school in Swat before it was shut down by the Taliban, and largely destroyed by the Pakistan Army.)   I don’t quite know what one can do about these things – other than to try to stay informed and possibly give to charities that focus on similar issues?  Nicholas Kristoff of the NY Times tends to be a source of information on such charities. 
(P.S. – I find the situation in Swat and for girls in Pakistan and Afghanistan incredibly  painful, but don’t mean to suggest here that American troops are the answer.  I don’t know what the answer is – I think knowledge and outrage help–) 

Comments: 13 Comments

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