“Meeting of the Minds” – Day 2 of National Poetry Month

Posted April 2, 2012 by ManicDdaily
Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , ,

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In past Aprils on this blog, I have posted a draft poem a day in honor of National Poetry Month.  Some of the poems are pretty rough, but the commitment is a fun tool to get one writing poetry and I urge you to join in on the exercise.  Here’s today’s:

Meeting of the Minds 

I never knew, she says, that a body stayed warm
so long. You know.

Me neither, I say.  I didn’t know
either. 

Now we are silent, confirmed in
what we both know, but without a clue
as to what comes
next.  


As always, I welcome and very much appreciate your comments and suggestions, particularly since many of the poems I will be posting this month will be still-in-progress!  That said, if you want to read work of mine that is finished, please please please check out:  my very silly but fun novel, NOSE DIVE,  my book of poetry, GOING ON SOMEWHERE, or my children’s counting book 1 MISSISSIPPI. )

Comments: 8 Comments

Hooray for Myammar!

Posted April 1, 2012 by ManicDdaily
Categories: news, Uncategorized
Tags: , , ,

I am so happy tonight to read the news about the election in Myammar/Burma of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. (She’s the one with the beautifully thoughtful and patient face.) After fifteen years of house arrest, she has been elected as a member of Parliament.

So many congratulations to Myammar! Who knows what will follow. Difficulty undoubtedly, and disappointment. (The army is still overwhelmingly in power.) Nonetheless, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s election is a miracle and surely a step forward.

I feel great affection for Myammar, which I can’t help thinking of as Burma. I was there many years ago for a seven day maximum journey.  (More on that some other time.)

Burmese Buddhas have sweet and beautiful faces, with the slight compression of determination around the eyebrows.

I am so happy that there is more hope in those faces tonight.

(PS – apologies for awkwardness of my portrait.)

Comments: 7 Comments

“Man Nesting”- Finding Inner Child (The Crawling Didn’t Quite Do the Trick)

Posted April 1, 2012 by ManicDdaily
Categories: iPad art, poetry, Uncategorized, Vicissitudes of Life
Tags: , , , , , ,

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The above is my pictorial take of Tess Kincaid’s photo prompt for The Mag this week;  the original photo was by ParkeHarrison.  And here’s my verbal take:

Man Nesting

He felt like an idiot.

They’d taught him to crawl again; now this.

The crawling had been a bitch; he’d ruined three perfectly good pairs of pants–(yes, they said wear knee pads.  Yes, they’d suggested jeans.)  But the jeans chafed, and who has knee pads hanging around–

You need to find your inner child, she’d insisted.

You need to find your inner adult, he’d hissed back.

But she’d wheedled, wept, then even moved out for a couple of weeks, and had the softest skin ever at the nape of her neck, and a smell that even now as he shut his eyes over the brittle earth scent of mud-crusted stick–(the words “bird spittle” flashed for a single alarming instant)–

–that, even now as he shut his eyes over the scratch of crusted twig, made his whole being ache, rejoice–the feel of her side beneath his palms. He  held the nest sides gently to not further crush the construct, feeling the callouses at the sides of his hands as if he himself were the branches, broken, bound together —

–even as he shut his eyes, lowering this last still-good pair of pants into the wound wood curves—it was a nest, yes, a one-man nest–where did they come up with such things? 

He had said, please, when he found her–he had said, don’t leave me; he had said, ever.  (He hadn’t been able to help himself, the anger whooshing instantly into need).  He had taken her face in those slightly roughened palms–

Tracked with tears, that face had nodded; his own eyes filled too, like a child’s.

So, now, he settled his crooked pants over the annoyance of straw, clod, bristle, knowing knowing knowing, even without this further lesson, that when he went home afterwards, she’d assure him, with both arms, that she saw a difference already.

(Have a great Sunday–check out all the great writing at the Mag, and if you’ve got time, please please  also check out my comic novel, NOSE DIVE,  available on Kindle for just 99 cents and in print for just a bit more.)

Comments: 32 Comments

Not Prosaic Nightmare – “Clammed Up”

Posted March 31, 2012 by ManicDdaily
Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , ,

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The wonderful DVerse Poets Pub, hosted by Stu McPherson and the very energetic and diversely prolific Brian Miller, has a Poetics prompt on “nightmare” today.  Below is sort of a prose poem that came to mind; above my drawing.

Clammed up

She is pregnant. It seems that he had something on his finger, something bad. Her mom once joked about an aunt who’d gotten pregnant from her leg.  It must have been something like that.

The worst part is that she’ll have to tell now.  The worst part is that they’ll know.

She turns her bare back to the mirror, craning head over shoulder, though it’s easy enough to see, her eyes lodged in a crack in the ceiling.

The skin is smooth as ever between the shoulder blades, until it isn’t.  The pregnancy shows itself in the sprout of green-white stems.

They are tubular, waxen, like those on a potted plant that sits above the kitchen sink, the dirty dishes.  Only now the sprouts have grown into vines, long tangled ones that dangle from the skin around her spine; and now they are blossoming, clam shell blossoms that pull and weight them.

She knows they can’t truly be clam shells–each holds, within its crust, a cluster of soft violet petals, a yellow stamen–and yet, they are ribbed, hard, grey.

She thinks to cut the vines off.   At least, then, she could wear a t-shirt.

With scissors? A knife?

But she is too scared to cut.  And what about the grove of naked stems?  The dry hard roots?  She pictures a bristled section of lawn, the again and again of her dad’s mower.

Better to uproot.

But how can she tug them out?  They are embedded in her own skin.  She is too scared, too frightened.

And what about the baby?

As she walks from the mirror, she feels the vines following her, the clam shells thumping against her back.

She thinks of tin cans following the car of newlyweds, tin cans and shaving cream and big lipstick kisses.  She went to a wedding once; she was the flower girl.

But the vines are not like tin cans, newlyweds.  They do not clang, but rustle; for no matter how hard the shells themselves might be, they hit bare skin.

(As always, all rights reserved.  And as always, if you’re in the mood for something more humorous, check out my comic novel, NOSE DIVE,  available on Kindle for just 99 cents and in print for just a bit more.)  

Comments: 17 Comments

Friday Wanting a Nap 55

Posted March 30, 2012 by ManicDdaily
Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , ,

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Friday Afternoon Poem

Actions are louder than words, especially if
the action involves a fall asleep at your desk, in which case,
actions can be quite a bit quieter
than words, unless the fall takes you down
to the floor, keyboard clanging
after you, in which case,
maybe you better shut
the office door
first.

Just a joke, boss!

Here are 55 words for Friday’s Flash 55.  I need to wake up and tell it to the G-Man!  Rest up and have a great weekend.

Comments: 12 Comments

Some Insist on Living By the Sea – Others Not So Much

Posted March 30, 2012 by ManicDdaily
Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , ,
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Lorenzo Ghiberti (1430-1508), "Christ in the Storm" (Bronze Relief, The Florence Baptistry)

Some Insist On Living By The Sea

Some insist on living by the sea,
waves, even without the wade of Jesus, soothing
the storm in their souls.  Some sleep
to the shush of a stream; some to the silence
of deep pine.  A few–hardy
types, who harken to the habitual–find reassurance
in the clickety rhythmics of nearby rails.
But I wake today in the sure understanding
that my residential pre-requisite
is a dumpster, or
two, whose persistent groans, extended yaws,
hyena bursts of hydraulics, are scheduled (always)
just a bit too early for my alarm.

I should, perhaps,
feel gratitude–they have followed me so
loyally, these dumpsters (trailed by trucks
and cartage contracts)–from apartment to
apartment, neighborhood to neighborhood,
like a stray (huge) cat that I must feed
(unwittingly) in some forgotten but
recurring dream, where we meet on a midnight
curb–me, with my bags
of recyclables, it
with its deep green mountainsides.
And I do–as my back leans against the wall, as the dove softness
of the hour slips to
sheet level, as everything above
tilts, sprawls, clumps,
like so much wadded detritus–feel thankful, yes,
that, in this particular bedroom, I can’t quite smell
the exhaust.

I’m posting this for dVerse Poets Pub’s “Meeting the Bar” challenge to be in the moment; this prompt hosted by Victoria C. Slotto.

Comments: 16 Comments

Obstacles to Enjoyment of Spring in the City (Oops! With Dog and iPhone)

Posted March 29, 2012 by ManicDdaily
Categories: New York City, Uncategorized
Tags: , , ,

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I pause this morning in the middle of walking Pearl to take a photo of what seem to me to be the first roses of spring.   This being New York City, they are behind iron bars.

I then step back right onto a fresh turd, deposited, it seems, by my very own Pearl (who at 16 and a half tends to straggle behind.)

This, again New York City, I am allowed to curse, but must also properly dispose of the squashed remains of said turd.  Fine, I have shreds of the Times handy and do my best.

But what about my shoe?

Because, again, this is NYC (which has experienced a series of dry windy days), the only available moisture appears also to be canine-generated.

I rub my sole against the pavement, along the edges of cobbles, in piles of those prickly round balls, around the squares of dirt that are NOT moist.

And there, voila! behind an opening in the iron bars, I see a park person.  Turning on a hose!

Please, I ask.  But she is impervious.  I am not even allowed through the opening in the fence!  Much less a shoe spritz!  (What’s worse is that she’s not a REAL park person, subject perhaps to discipline for rule infraction–she’s wearing the shirt of a volunteer!)

I scrape the foot home, picking up Pearl.  She’s had enough of this walk.

Comments: 5 Comments

Loss of Two Cultural Icons (And More)–Thanks to/for Them

Posted March 28, 2012 by ManicDdaily
Categories: news, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , ,

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Two cultural icons die over the last two days.

Of course, they were more than “cultural icons.”  (The term ‘cultural icon’ could probably be applied to the star of a reality show.)

Two great American artists die over the last two days:  Adrienne Rich, great and groundbreaking American poet, 1929-2012, dying yesterday; Earl Scruggs, great bluegrass banjo player, 1924-2012, dying today.

I’m not in any way comparing Rich and Scruggs, their impact, lasting value, merits, reach. They were both inspirational practictioners of their arts, each happening to die in late March 2012, each incredibly devoted to what they did and wonderful at it.  I personally really liked them both.

I am sure they had somewhat different visions of the world and country. but what’s strikes me at this moment is my personal great good fortune to live in a world and country that has accommodated both of their voices.

I’m sending out thanks for their wonderful gifts, and the very different inspiration, and invitations to joy, compassion, understanding, and protest that they offered their audiences.

There are wonderful links to Rich’s poetry, and a short bio, at the Poetry Foundation. For Scruggs, well, check out youtube.

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Comments: 6 Comments

“Cooling Off (In a March Cornfield)”

Posted March 27, 2012 by ManicDdaily
Categories: poetry
Tags: , , , , ,

Cooling Off (In a March Cornfield)

The stalks bent down in broken-spined decay
around a squelching way to what she hoped
was fresher mind–clear of the stuffy day
where, shut indoors, resolve itself had moped.
In movement now, and mud, and steel-cold air,
she sought to shed the skin of that day’s self–
she’d bitched at him;  she knew she wasn’t fair–
but his acceptance of what, upon life’s shelf,
seemed crumbs (to her), turned lips to lion’s jaws
that tore at sense and spattered rage.  She walked
on hard; regrets to come should give her pause,
but patience (his) made self-possession balk.
So, laboring through a frozen field of corn,
she waited for redemption to be borne.

This sonnet (newly-revised) seemed to fit today’s abrupt drop in temperature.  It’s my offering for dVerse Poets Pub Open Link Night.   (An earlier  version can be found in my book of poems, Going on Somewhere. )
Also, a question for any interested poets:  at the last minute in my re-write, I considering changing verb in final couplet from labor to “wade,” but decided against it, basically because I voted for combination of labor/borne (born) over sound effects, but am curious about other’s views.  Any thoughts:

“So, wading through a frozen field of corn,
she waited for redemption to be borne.”

Thanks much, as always.  K.

Comments: 28 Comments

Cacaphony of Birds/Wobbly Boots/No leaves yet

Posted March 26, 2012 by ManicDdaily
Categories: Country weekend, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , ,

The above is a video posted for audio purposes only. The visuals are fairly static except where my iPhone wobbles. In my defense, I was wearing extremely unstable boots (MBTs), which make it virtually impossible to stand with completely stillness. (This is one more reason, aside from their comical appearance, why I may not buy such boots again, even on sale.)

But putting aside the wobbly boots and screen–well, listen!

Birds!  There are not yet leaves on the trees and yet–

Birds!

Tons of them. Not exactly singing, still–

Birds!

Below are the wobbly boots.  They make big feet look huge, and skinny legs look–well, look!

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