Posted tagged ‘April 2016 National Poetry Month’

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One Teenage Girl

April 20, 2016

Christina's pictures 204One Teenage Girl

She wished some nights
she’d just die.
She’d see them all
at her wake
where she would lie
(dead but awake)
and through closed eyes
follow their remorse–
that sorrow surely forced
by their prior
shallowness–

Her grin within the crimped
pink satin
would be mistaken
for a slip
of the lipstick (thankfully, the dead
do not guffaw).

Sometimes, the vision seemed so real,
she could make out the granules
of her make-up–blusher clinging
to her cheeks like fuzz
on a peach,
her friends’s hands
over their mouths in the pow
of disbelief, the glint
of their shined nails.

Oh, then,
they’d be sorry.

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

Some numbered April poem for Magaly Guerrero’s prompt on Real Toads about a wish gone wrong.  I’m not sure if this one really did GO wrong–seems a bit wrong from the start.  The pic is a terrible photo of a really interesting piece (part of a series) by my daughter, Christina Martin. 

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Not I(sle)

April 19, 2016

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Not I(sle)

I will not go as I arise
to till another glade
though its clay be good for bean rows
and bees may have it made.

I don’t care to find some peace there–
it won’t happen if we’re there too–
not because we drop things–
but because I’m me, you’re you.

You’re sorry about the singing–
I know–you have explained–
and in bed, you hate that purple glow–
(though I dim my phone when you complain.)

Still, I’ll not go when I arise
for always night and day;
I want your side close-lapping
especially, by the way,

when I’m in the City,
upon the pavement gray,
also when in the country
where linnets’ wings hold sway.

I want your side close-lapping
as we shift limbs old and sore,
even through the fleece and flannel,
to feel your deep heart’s core.

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

poem of sorts of some number for April–for Brendan’s wonderful prompt on Real Toads about turning something on its tail, poetic surprise.  I fear I’ve cheated a bit here, cribbing  from one of my very favorite (and much mined) poems, The  Lake Isle of Innisfree by Yeats.   Recycling older pic too.  (Any port in a storm.)  All rights reserved.

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Blackbirds, Horses

April 18, 2016

Blackbirds, Horses

I was of three minds
like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
–Wallace Stevens,  Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

I was of three hearts
like a wooden horse painted red;
I trotted him about the floor
and kept him by my bed.

Gave one heart to my mother,
another to my youth’s love,
but oh the last it carried me
to places I knew nought of.

There, I saw a horse a’heave
legs painted high with red
as it stepped right fearsomely
over bloats of limb and head.

The rider said, call me Captain,
but my voice had flown away;
it perched upon the crooked pitch
of what had been tree one day.

There, it joined its fellows,
birds of ebon wing
and if they knew what I might do–
of this, they did not sing.

Just so, my last heart slackened,
sank in a stew of trench
where horses can only founder
unmanned by rot and stench;

where what was wood inside me
melted equal with the flesh;
where captain’s curse can’t find me
no more can any breath.

Three hearts were painted on the horse
I trotted about the floor–
I rue the one whose beating
saddled me with war.

I’ve no more mind for blackbirds
who caw but cannot sing
for what was me no longer
can hear a single thing.

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

Agh.  Draft poem of sorts for the wonderful Hedgewitch’s wonderful prompt on Real Toads to write poetry raised to the power of three.  I think this is 19th for April.  

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After a Long Day and Funeral

April 17, 2016

leonardo_pre_rest_last_sup_adj_web-1

After a Long Day and Funeral

I think today
of the leftovers
of the Last Supper.
The crusts–did someone have the wit to save
the bits, not
for future investment–to sit in some gilded coffer–
but like my mother saved the chocolate Easter egg
my grandmother was working on
at the time of her
last fall,
for love–

I think of all those little rolls of Leonardo,
oval as children’s drawings
of mice.

I think of my grandmother nibbling
(so nicely), the dishes done, my mother
making tea.

They would certainly
have finished the wine, circlets ringing the bottoms
of their glasses–Leonardo paints a brown wine–
it might preserve better
if I call it amber–

The tempera itself
hardly lasted, fading, flecking, a mold maybe
seeming to eat
the apostles–I think
of the mottled darkness below
the table–the robed legs, the possible
crumbs–

They broke off each night
one piece of chocolate shell–
that’s it, they said,
and then, when that was done,
they always, yes,
had a little bit more.

I think of what
we wish for.

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

Draft poem for my own prompt on Real Toads about remains.  I’m not sure what this one is–18? for this month.
The painting is Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper, before it was restored.  The pic below is one I took at New York’s Met Museum.  I believe it is Greek (agh–I didn’t take notes of the origin.) 

img_3625

 

 

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The Year of Weeping Dangerously

April 14, 2016

The Year of Weeping Dangerously

It made it hard to see
where she was going,
harder to see
where she’d been.

When she walked, she seemed
to squeegie,
shoe leather sodden,
even rubber soles
losing their grip.

Old friends stayed out of her way,
only animals
never strayed,
liking, she assumed,
the salt.

These things tend to come in waves,
maybe because we’re part sea
and Time part sand (the other part tide).

But caught in that divide,
she cried,
sometimes beside
herself, sometimes,
like a small animal,
beside herself.

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

16th draft poem for April National Poetry Month.  This one for Kerry O’ Connor’s wonderful prompt “in other words” on Real Toads about using bits of a title–in this case, The Year of Living Dangerously. 

This has been super hectic/dismal work week so very sorry to be late returning comments. Also pic not really right–but there it is. (Mine, all rights reserved.) 

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My Inner Confessional – If Its Walls Could Talk

April 13, 2016

jamie_exhibit-32My Inner Confessional – If Its Walls Could Talk

If walls would say what they should–I do not mean
if walls would just stick
to the script, but rather

if walls would speak
what was in their hearts, that is,
their I-beams, that is,
the borne cross of inner
rebar and all that zig-zag
of wood-should–

that is, if walls would say aloud
what they whisper
into their pillars,
these walls
could not help but speak
of forgiveness,

for these walls, whatever you want to say,
about their speech, are per force
good listeners,
and no wall listening to even my faked

remorse
could mistake the sadness
behind all that sinning and sensed
sinning–

(So, maybe the walls I like to imagine
are softer than the walls
of the archetypical confessional–
mine having been weakened
by an awful lot of headbanging–)

my walls, if I would but cede them words,
would say some wall-talk equivalent of
the laying on of hands
(you know, wall hands)–

I can still feel that cool plaster, when, as a child,
I ran my feet up up the stretched expanse
at the side of my mother’s bed; it was like
the soothing
of my aching head,
only she’d be sleeping then, her arms about
her middle,
and it was, actually, well
a wall.

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

15th drafty poem for April, National Poetry Month.  I wrote this one for Mama Zen’s prompt on Real Toads about if walls could talk.  Pic was posted by MZ–not sure it equates to my “inner confessional” but close enough. 

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Leaf No

April 13, 2016

Leaf No

When I was a seed,
all I needed was
some grounding.

But even rooted,
all I wanted was
to shoot.

When I shot up,
I seethed to leave
(not understanding what
the “F”–)

And climbed way out upon a limb
where swaying with each passing wind,
I fell to the ground again
(and here I am, and here I am).

Now, I’ve had some time to learn
more than I’d lief know
of what it means to be sown, oh yes,
and what it is to grow.

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

Yes, tired.  Yes, eminently drafty.  14th poem for the month of April.  Posted belated in Real Toads Open Platform, hosted by the wonderful Kerry O’Connor.  This one influenced by a song she posted whose title is Seven Years.

Pic is mine taken this morning of Central Park, modified.  Sorry if late returning comments; will be there!

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A Winter Beared

April 10, 2016

IMG_3009

A Winter Beared

In the winter of dreaming bears, the night mare
barely dared enter
the forest,
for even the poorest ursine unconscious
would have none of her clip-clop.

What could she trot out?
When the bear dreamed of rot,
its snout twitched at riches;
when its sleep faced fear,
its fur flared, small coronas of dust
haloing its humifying aroma;
hibernation already borders
death, even if it’s the neighbor
whose grass is always greener, even this old
snow-weaned grass, bleached brown gold.

Still, the mare, though wary
of the dozing bear, nosed, post dusk,
its spun aura of steam, dust, musk,
as if she might inhale such dreams–
as if she might inhale–
as if she too
might awaken
come Spring.

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

12th poem for this April;  this one for Magaly Guerrero’s prompt on Real Toads to use three of one’s own titles.  I’ve used the winter of dreaming bears, night mare and post dusk.  

The picture is a painting by Jason Martin, reposted here.

ps corrected since first posting to correctly spell “humifying” which is the process of turning organic material into humus–that rich black soil, essentially. 

 

 

 

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Memoriam

April 9, 2016

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Memoriam

I was so sad today
to hear of your death.
I thought of it as my breath climbed
this hill and as my gaze filled
with a slice of stone
by the drive side, its face faceted with quartz
like a medal of valor.

I thought of it when I saw limbs caught
in the cruces of other limbs,
trees gathering
their fallen.

I feel sure you believed you would meet her
again,
that you’d gather her up
as when she was small,
that you’d laugh
as when she was almost
a young woman.

I saw you too
in the gatherings of leaves
from last fall,
wondering if I would ever catch their turn
into new earth,
that birth
of what’s left, that rebirth
of what has left.

********************************
11th poem for April; for Hannah’s prompt on Real Toads to write of a walk in nature.  Pic is mine as well as poem; all rights reserved. 

 

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About Women Somehow

April 8, 2016

About Women Somehow

Somewhere there is an oyster
or a clam or, more likely, a mussel,
that has pushed, one-footed,
out of the shell, until, after a long tread trailing
bearding threads, it finds itself
in a cascade of drought–

the flow is like
a waterfall– as if it stood, lip-skinned,
behind iridescence as high
as a canyon–
only what falls before this mussel
is ash.

It is a creature of sweeping
tides, but it’s walked on water
for so long and
so far
that the sea has turned
to rock, and now, to broken
rock, so that if it wants a drink, it needs
to weep

or sweat,
collecting wetness
in a picture of nacre held only
in mussel memory (the shell
of a shell.)

Though, honestly, the mussel barely looks back
to that blue-black age, since, in truth,
the water was always rock, and the mussel has always
walked, and yes, this sounds, oh,
so melodramatic,
but that is just how it is
for some mussels.

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

10th poem for April–yes, it’s a strange one, and a draft–I’ve changed it many many times and it’s still weird–for Sherry Marr’s prompt on With Real Toads to write something about strong women– 

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