Bearing Up

Posted September 12, 2014 by ManicDdaily
Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , ,

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Bearing Up

She shuffled through life
like a bear wearing shoes,
which is not to say
that she scratched herself
indiscriminately
or would take any honey
who would have her,
and, honestly, “hirsute” could only truly describe
her underarms,
or when spelled differently, her work clothes–

but it does mean that she shied away
from most humans
(though not, typically, their food)
and from conflict too
except when her young were near any line of attack, when she would become as ferocious as–
well, you know–

It also explains why she wore socks always,
even in bed, her feet not as furred
as her predilections, and why she could stand no chair long–
bears preferring even a stump to a straight-back–

Shoes aren’t great for bears, but were, you know, manageable
when the kids were..um, cubs,
a mother willing to put up with all kinds of difficulty–
snout full of ants,
the sacrifice of salmon,
even pumps–
for the sake of family time in the den,
or, better, the dew of those summer nights
when they lay together in a flattened corn field,
cubs cradled in the warm and slightly hirsute hollows
of her arms,
staring up at their starred totems–

But it also explains the hobble,
later–
after the cubs had grown away,
and the shoes felt always too big,
or too little,
rubbing her slashed pads, the claws
curling inwards, some
wrong way.

It’s true that there were other bears around–
wolves, mammals, poultry too—
even some very cold fish, all also jammed
into shoe leather–but not being a social creature,
she did not interact with them, except to startle
at their nearby heel clicks
down city walks and tiles, and to wonder, repeatedly,
how the fish managed to tie their oxfords on
so tightly.

Perhaps had she ever gotten dancing shoes, ballet flats,
she may have fared better,
but remembering how she once carried
her erstwhile young, she always went
for a stiffer sole, something with support.
Besides, bears tend not
to be good at ballet, not liking
the barre, much less mirrors–

No, if a bear wants to see some version of itself,
it looks down to those beings it was born to protect,
or up to stars’ paw prints, glinting
in the blue-black sky.

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A draft draft draft poem–meaning freshly written, little edited, and probably too long–but for my own prompt on dVerse Poets Pub, meeting the bar, to use extended metaphor. I am also linking to with real toads open link night.

The picture is mine and was originally done to ask people to bear with me in filling in the shoes on the prompt for the wonderful poet and host Brian Miller (who has computer issues.)  But I liked the picture, and it sparked the poem.  For this poem, however, the bear should perhaps have different shoes.

Also–and sorry for the plug–but please do check out my new book, a rather serious one, called Nice.  It is available on Kindle for just 99 cents and in paper back for a bit more.  Also, I would be very happy to send a hard or other copy to anyone interested in writing a review!!!!! 

Comments: 38 Comments

False Trade

Posted September 7, 2014 by ManicDdaily
Categories: poetry
Tags: , , , , , ,

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False Trade

Who will live in yesterday
slipping on the faux sleeve of tomorrow?
That us that can’t say yes, today,
to a present not pressed through the narrow–
the narrow I of our needling, my friend,
as we wheedle a bargain with sorrow,
our right-now breath lent to some other time,
time we pretend can be borrowed–

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Here are 55 of the somewhat examined for Mama Zen’s flash 55 on With Real Toads. (I’ve edited a couple of times since first posting–agh!)

Also, some news–my new (and only adult) novel, Nice, is out at last in print on Amazon.

PP Native Cover_4696546_Front Cover

The Kindle version should be also out very soon, if not tonight, tomorrow.  It will only be 99 cents, so I hope you can get it!   (I think a kindle version can be downloaded to a computer. )

And if any one is feeling especially kindly, I would be very grateful if you could read it and review it!

I will say more about the book in a future post, but I’ve gotten a bit tired waiting for the kindle version to make an announcement so am taking advantage of today!

 

PS – Kindle version is out now.  Here’s the link.

 

 

 

 

 

Comments: 34 Comments

Circle

Posted September 2, 2014 by ManicDdaily
Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , ,

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Circle

Dear Mother,
I realize now
there was a miscommunication.

We were like children playing “telephone”–
sitting in a circle on the floor, mis-whispering
hand-cupped messages.

So, when you said, or at least meant,
“you are my everything,”
I heard, “you must be everything.”
And when you said, at least meant, “there is nothing
more important,”
I heard, “otherwise, you’re nothing important–”

I don’t know how the wires got crossed.
Maybe you’d misheard the messages yourself–
we were not the only ones
in that circle–

But the words of a song learned wrong
soon belong to the tunes we sing, fit our musics
like a glove.

So, what’s to be done, love?

What comes to mind
is simply kindness–
a kindness that is everything
yet gives itself, too, to nothing important.

It feels–the receiving
of this kindness–like bared hands cupping
one another–
like the breath of palm upon knuckle,
the caress of air’s
tissues–

It feels–the giving
of this kindness–like these hands cupping
a heart
as if it were an infant animal, baby chick,
some ball of warmth whose murmured messages
we think we well understand.

But it’s hard to cup one’s own heart, to reach
inside the cage of one’s formed ribs, twist elbows
against their grooves;
fearsome to stretch fingers
into that deep,
to find the aching beat one can’t see but must just feel for

when we sometimes seem to feel it everywhere,
even in the boards I pace as I call you, now from a cell phone,
as if the heart could be cut and sanded,
made into planks that we might sit upon, you and me,
holding us upright, as back and forth
we whisper, try too, to listen.

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Here’s a poem for Real Toads Open Link night. And also for Kerry O’Connor’s fortuitous prompt on dichotomy.

Comments: 37 Comments

Trying Hard Though/ Roadside

Posted August 28, 2014 by ManicDdaily
Categories: poetry
Tags: , , , , , ,

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Trying Hard Though

I’d like to be–
a breath of fresh air,
drink of cool water,
fireflight encirling warmth, nights.

I’m more likely–
a breath of cold water,
drink of end air,
night flight, circling–

Meaning, if you would find me, seek,
the sodden, panting, extremely late,
still warm–

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The above is a poem about what makes me weird for Mama Zen’s prompt on With Real Toads.  MZ, the mistress of the verbally distilled, limits the poem at 46 words.  Writing this poem led me to the longer one below–sorry to try your patience, but if you are interested, it seemed to me the better poem–  Unfortunately, the pictures I tried to get of what I describe below did not work out–they needed to be videos taken from a moving bicycle–something that is well beyond my pay grade!

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Roadside

What I like about myself–
that I bow to the shadows of crickets flickering on the tar,
when the sun shines at just the right angle,
the whir of my bike stilling
by the lithe field.

What I don’t like about myself–
that I see shadows everywhere.

What I like about myself–
that I think about that dance of grays
for days afterwards, that I think too of the field–
how the grass rippled like a stream,
light sparking in the dry darts
of thoraces.

What I don’t like about myself:
that my brain feels
like crickets scampering.

What I don’t like about myself:
as many things as there are crickets
in the field.

What I like: that, for a short while, while the sun shone
at just the right angle,
my mind wheeled in sync
with singing legs.

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

Thanks.

ps–I will be without Internet for the next few days so will not be able to return comments. Will respond when I return.

Comments: 11 Comments

Pared Down

Posted August 24, 2014 by ManicDdaily
Categories: elephants, poetry
Tags: , , , , ,

Pared Down

So, what if, in those days
when Despair walked her like a dog,
heeling her sternly,
one of those cabs she dashed in front of,
not exactly on purpose, but not looking both ways
when faced with any chance to dart away–
to bypass the silver flash of plate glass, to out-dive the splash of yellow
under white-skied sun, to feel, for a moment, lucky–
what if one of them had, in fact, crashed
and Despair smashed
into the tar, and even though lashed
to her same stretcher,
had ended up as hospital offal,
ashen–

Would she then, after the long recovery,
the fitting of fiberglass or steel, the pairing
of the prosthesis–
would she then, nights,
after its pegged bulk had been unbuckled, bedside,
long for you–
I’m talking to you directly now, Despair–
Would she feel, in the flat vacancy below the sheet, down comforter,
your abscessing absence–
Would she, wakeful
in the ache cast by your phantom, prop herself up,
and not quite able on crutches to feel her way, still search
by window’s glow, some bottle of balm or pill–
something that might kill pain
from afar, a heat-seeking missile
encapsulated–

And what if, by some strange happenstance, you, Despair–
that limb that is so much a part
of her given form–were restored–
the despaired-of calf reattached, the rank ankle knobs
re-positioned–
Would she now dog you? Trot gamely by
your re-joined gait even as you heeled her sternly,
after, that is, you held her close–

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Here’s a sort of poem for the “play it again, Sam” prompt on With Real Toads, hosted by Margaret Bednar.  Margaret gives a choice of certain past prompts–the one I chose was by Kerry O’ Connor to write a labyrinthine/mazelike poem (hopefully influence by Borges.)   The picture is another recycled one, I’m afraid–called “between a rock and a hard place. ”  (All rights reserved, as always.) 

Comments: 28 Comments

To Do

Posted August 23, 2014 by ManicDdaily
Categories: elephants, poetry, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , ,

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To Do

I make such a todo
of the to-do
that I don’t make time
to be.

To be or not to be, ponders Hamlet.
Don’t be a do-bee, responds me (after Miss Connie).
Dooby dooby doo, croons Frank Sinatra.

Frankly, my dear,
though I don’t always like his style,
Sinatra probably said it best;
for Hamlet doesn’t even make it
through the play,
and Miss Connie (of Romper Room)
never actually said it
my way
(ahem).

For there’s naught quite like
a dooby-do
when you just don’t know the words–
(so much so absurd)–
when you strive to do
what you want to be
and not to be
what you do,
when your face surprises
in mirror’s light,
when your shadow seems
yet stranger in the night–
when the world swims by
in grey-green glances
stillness swarming
insect dances–
so many many hums,
and you’ve got
to sing something–

 

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A draftish sort of poem for a prompt by Fireblossom (Shay) on With Real Toads to write something involving lists.  I mean dooby here solely as the dooby that goes with doo!  I wrote the poem last night and have probably over-lengthened today–originally ending with good old strangers in the night, but that seemed a bit grim. 

Have a nice weekend, and check all the great posts at Toads. 

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PS – both drawings are recycled, but old favorites–all rights reserved.

 

 

 

Pps– I have edited since first posting .

Comments: 17 Comments

Screen-Free

Posted August 21, 2014 by ManicDdaily
Categories: dog, elephants, poetry, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , ,

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Screen-free

This is the First Day of the Rest of My Life.
Determined not to live it in the blue light
of a computer screen,
I grab my notebook and
what turns out to be
a leaky pen.

This is the First Day of the Rest of My Life,
but already my fingers are blotted bluer
than the dawnish morn (this being the First Day
of the Rest of My Life, I’ve gotten up early)
and I’ve smudged the down comforter
with indigo.

I tell myself that anyone who will live like I will
in this, the Rest of My Life,
will, of course, have bedclothes stained
with ink and, probably also, tea,
but that feels depressingly like
the rest of my life, that is, the spotty part that came before.

I try to block out the smudge
with my notebook–for even at the Dawn
of this energetic, disciplined, real-world Rest of My Life, I do not have the vim
to get up and wash my hands, much less
the comforter–

Rub my fingers along the white pages,
but their blue-lined grid is stolidly oblivious,
the ink already too embedded in my skin
to rub off.

A lone cow lows
out the window,
somewhere down the valley,
but beneath the same pale sky.

 

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Here’s a sort of poem posted for two prompts–though I don’t know that it’s quite right for either.  One is from Victoria C. Slotto on dVerse Poets to write about patterns in our life; the other is Susie Clevenger’s post on With Real Toads, to use a Native American springboard–in this case, the line–“Listen, or your tongue will make you deaf.” – Tribe Unknown.  I don’t know how this came from that, but I think it arose from the idea that the big change would be just to look out the window in the morning with neither pen nor keyboard.  

The drawing above is an old one, and because in black and white, I did not include the blue smudges!  

Comments: 28 Comments

An other trinity

Posted August 17, 2014 by ManicDdaily
Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , ,

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An other trinity

Three is thee
and me and the other
me, which occasionally equals
more–that is, when Other You comes to the fore, slips
through the door, pours itself
into that “now” so full
of you, me,
and Other Me.  Yes, I
know it’s not fair.  Other You too should
feel free to be here, should know that space will be made
in the shaded crook of my breastbone
(or hers), but don’t you see–
I only
have two arms, and one must
keep hold of that Other Me, which means
I’ve only the one side left (or right).  So…sorry–
hope you understand–um–and You too–
whom I do love truly.
(So does she.)

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Here’s a “triquain,” for Kerry O’Connor’s prompt on With Real Toads.  This is a new form with a syllabic breakdown of lines, developed by Shelley Cephas.   I think this one would be “triquain swirl.”

The rather silly drawing is mine–no good eraser handy! so sorry for the smudges–but you probably get the point.

Comments: 19 Comments

“Nice” Blurb – Plea for Help

Posted August 16, 2014 by ManicDdaily
Categories: Nice, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , ,

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As some of you may know, I have been working in an increasingly desultory fashion on the publication of a new novel, called Nice. (I say, “increasingly desultory” as it has become harder to work on this project the closer it is to completion.)

Unlike my first published novel, Nose Dive, which is a comical young adult mystery (and a lot of fun!), this is a serious novel, with an intense and, I hope, emotionally affecting, story.  It is about child sexual abuse; it represents years of work.

I think it really is a good novel, though I’ve worked on it so long it is hard for me to still look at it.  I am super happy with the cover picture, which I did myself.

Here’s my quandary–the sales information!  The little blurb that goes on Amazon and elsewhere!  This kind of thing is so darn hard for me that I  can hardly squeeze something out.

So what I am asking for–I don’t know–ideas==approval==is the below horribly embarrassing?

 

It is summer, 1968–Martin Luther King Jr. shot in April, Bobby Kennedy in June–“what in the world is happening to this country?” Americans wonder. 

It is summer, 1968, the civil rights movement in turmoil, the Vietnam War escalating, but Les, a ten year old suburban girl, has been trained to be nice.

Her teenage brother, Arne, on the other hand, aims for rebellion.

But they are kids, it is summer, it is 1968, and what they both truly want–aside from world peace–is to be a little more cool.

Then a distant relative visits, a cool cat, rebel of sorts, childhood favorite. 

“What in the world is happening?” Les wonders, as the unthinkable does.  

“What in the world is happening?” Arne wonders, as his sister changes, as he too is faced with a darker picture of growing up–

Their story traverses the landscape of country, family, heart.

Since posting – B. Young made some very useful suggestions and here’s a whole other approach:

Nice is a story of child sexual abuse and its aftermath.  It takes place in the summer of 1968, the U.S. reeling from the April assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., the June assassination of Bobby Kennedy, the escalating Vietnam War.  It is told from the points of view of a ten year old girl and her teenage brother, each separately finding a voice in the face of personal and political disillusionment.  

 

Better?  Too terse?  (I was going to add in here a very horrible joke, but cannot in the face of the terrible loss of Robin Williams this week.)

Any ideas?  Should it be more direct?  Less direct?  Should I just press approve/publish!?

The book will be issued by my own imprint, by the way, which is BackStroke Books, and when I do press publish, it will be available on Kindle and in paper.  I will let you know when.  I am aiming for cheap pricing so I do hope you’ll be able to read.

Comments: 23 Comments

Blue

Posted August 15, 2014 by ManicDdaily
Categories: poetry
Tags: , , , , ,

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Blue

One’s heart is broken.
One’s heart is a well that neighbors call down,
searching for a lost child,
the mother held back
in the house.

It is a white frame house,
where someone paces kitchen
to living room,
a swell below the door sill
where the floors meet.

The heart looks out to the horizon, worrying
as night falls,
worrying
as the lawn that turns to field that turns to sky
turns to cobalt,
though the heart loves
that deep blue;
though the heart, when it can breathe,
loves blue.

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Here’s very much of a draft poem for Herotomost’s prompt on with real toads in honor of Leo, to write a poem that comes in like a lion, leaves like a lamb.  I’m sorry I’ve been a bit behind returning comments.  This has been a very job-intense summer for me.

P.S. – photo is mine–all rights reserved, as always.

Pps have edited since first posting.

Comments: 17 Comments

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