Enjoy the unplann(t)ed.
Posted tagged ‘manicddaily’
Weeds?
May 4, 2012“Leaving” – Clarian Sonnet
May 3, 2012
Leaving
When I left home to have my second child,
the first (latched to my legs) turned woeful, wild,
“don’t go, she cried, her “mommies” torn with “please,”
while I, as tearful, tugged her from my knees,
then picked her up to briefly wedge my heart
above the labor’s crazy stop and start.
I loved that age, that strength, but love won’t bind
much of anything that has to do with time.
So now when I hear words like “please don’t go”
I don’t return to births from long ago,
but to the bedsides dim of friends and more
where fearful like an only child, voice torn,
I pleaded with them please to please stay on,
even after every piece of them was gone.
***********************************
The above is a “Clarian Sonnet,” named after poet John Clare (1793-1864) posted for the dVerse Poets “Form For All” Challenge, and hosted by Samuel Peralta who blogs as Semaphore. It is a sonnet based upon seven rhyming couplets. (Quick editorial note – the second child was born healthy and wonderful and the first and second are now very very close.)
I am also linking this to Imperfect Prose, where Emily Wierenga blogs about motherhood and other difficult/wondrous experiences.
Any Bidders?
May 2, 2012
Sotheby’s auctioned Edvard Munch’s The Scream for nearly $119.9 million today, the most ever paid for an art work at auction. I am pretty sure that I can get you the above (elephant included) wholesale.
************************************************************
I am linking this post to Emily Wieranga’s Imperfect Prose. Yes, I know, there’s precious little prose, but Emily asks for descriptions of things that are broken, and honestly, as much as I love Edvard Munch (I do), and art of all kinds (absolutely), I also think 120 million is a bit out of whack. It turns art into a commodity instead of an expression and overvalues certain popular pieces and artists while undervaluing others. Also, it causes viewers to see dollar signs rather than images. All that said, congrats to the seller, Peter Olsen, Norwegian businessman and shipping heir, whose father was actually a friend, neighbor and patron of Munch.
MayDay Night Lower Manhattan
May 1, 2012
MayDay Night Lower Manhattan
Helicopters strap the sky here as
the President speaks from Afghanistan, of
the deaths that laid
their ash a block from where I sit and so
many more since.
Earnestness
in the half-shadows below his
eyes, and I wish hard
for time to pass, to get, fast, to whatever
date he speaks of–that date that date that date
while copters buzz-saw the night, weedwhacking
lamplit peace, and I wonder
whether they are on the look-out for
terrorists or 99 percenters?
Nearly every wall here bordering Wall, so is it
retribution or redistribution that
they target?
I don’t know, only that
the endless tomtom (blades blades blades blades)
triggers a quiver in my innards, and I feel
thwap thwap
histrionic, yes, still
buzz
like a woman whose husband–New York–
has beaten her enough that
she listens hard now
for his return, any love left pleated
with dread.
Is his step heavy on the stairs? Is his lurch hard? Goddammit
they are really coming
close—
though what she mainly hears is her own
strained breath, her hovering heart, each
swallow.
****************************************
Agh! A new poem written for dVerse Poets Open Link Night, hosted by Natasha Head (Tashtoo), under surveillance of endless helicopters down here in Lower Manhattan (even as I hope that Obama’s speech means we are moving closer to some kind of negotiated peace in Afghanistan.)
Last Day of National Poetry Month! (April!)
April 30, 2012
At The End of National Poetry Month
I am linking this old post to With Real Toads, where Kerry promises that the Real Toads crew will do thirty prompts in thirty days for National Poetry Month. I’ve written a poem a day in April for the last few years – and since the Toads prompt today is about what April means to a poet, I thought of linking this. The poem at least is short – apologies for the discursive beginning.
Today is the last day of this year’s National Poetry Month. As in the last couple of years, I’ve tried to write a new draft poem every day of the month. I hope that even the not-so-good ones have provided some fun for readers, even if that fun was at my expense!
One of the great things about an exercise like this (to my mind) is that it helps debunk the notion of the muse.
People/poets/writers/artists can get very attached to the idea of a muse–this shadowy presence that comes and goes and makes them feel special.
To me, a rather plodding sort of person, the muse is mainly a combination of attention and determination.
Attention to what is going on outside; attention, too, to all the little pokes and prods inside.
Then there’s the determination to take notes of what you’ve paid attention to, and, once you’ve taken the notes, to reshape them in the sometimes harsh (sometimes way too indiscriminate) light of your computer screen.
The advantage of an exercise like writing a poem a day is that you just can’t wait for the muse to come your way. You simply have to get down to attending and determining!
As my final homage to National Poetry Month 2012, I am re-posting my April 30 poem from 2011:
End of National Poetry Month Haiku
Some say that April is the
cruelest month. They must
be people who write poems.
Thanks so much for checking in!
“Sunday Morning Ajar” (Mag 115)
April 29, 2012
Image by Manu Pombrol
Sunday Morning Ajar
A swab about the kitchen quick
then silence re-descends so thick
it brings translucence to the calm
and calls for yet another balm.
Ah, he thinks, stripping down to luster,
there’s nothing else that cuts the mustard
like a Sunday morning soak.
Sinks, then feels the bath invoke
the thinker in him, so holds quite high
a slim slim volume of poe-try.
Till suddenly, a blistered curse,
that’s quite the opposite of terse,
sounds loudly from a nearby room
above the beating and the boom
of door of fridge and counter clutter-
“gosh darn it,” comes a distinct mutter–
“and now where has my Dijon gone?”
He, dripping, reaches for his thong–
and hurries hurries all to dry,
while fumbling for an alibi–
though it probably won’t do the trick
even if his brain works quick
for it seems he left the door ajar
while dipping in her favorite jar.
***********************************
Posting the above for Tess Kincaid’s The Mag 115. Tess gives a photograph prompt each week. (It’s a lot of fun – check it out.) I usually try to do my own version of the photo, but I am tired enough from National Poetry Month to just stick with the plain old wonderful image by Manu Pombrol.
“Giving Thanks For Small Favors” (Bugged by) Haiku
April 29, 2012
Copyright Mama Zen Photography
Giving Thanks For Small Favors
Fake flowers gather
no bugs. So I tell myself
when dark truths pester.
***************************************
The above haiku was written for for a “Real Toads” Poetry Prompt featuring photographs by the wonderful Mama Zen (who has both a photography and poetry blog.) It is also written for National Poetry Month, a poem a day–I’ve lost track of which number. (Agh.)
“Short Sleeves” (Thinking of Sierra Leone)
April 28, 2012
“Short Sleeves” (Thinking of Sierra Leone)
I cannot come close to really imagining
the bite of knife, the cold metal
below the shoulder blades.
My image of the invading soldiers as they unsheathe
their intent
is stock, stereotyped–when I try to place myself as captive,
the man now without arms, I feel
like the lowest thief of despair, a vampire
sucking at the heart of darkness, truth, suffering,
to fill my own precious
vacuity.
The metal hooks that serve
as his hands
bring wounds to my head, soundbites like
“the congealment of survival.”
My safe/sound cerebellum sees him dreaming
of lost arms, fingers, that clutch at the throats
of metal grins, until, as a dark flock flutters overhead,
all taking wing at once, they stretch
down to his loins, caressing,
tender. I imagine him waking to nub sides, weeping
at the loss of touch, the touch of him, and
I want to weep–that
part is genuine enough–I want
to weep without, I imagine,
ceasing, touched
in every part of soul I can muster,
hurting
as best I can.
**************************************
I wrote the above post for dVerse Poets Pub Poetics Challenge on vampires, hosted by a blogger named Blue Flute. I have read my share of straight and fun vampire books–in fact if you search vampire on this blog–you will find vampire elephants, vampire camels, and many posts on Robert Pattinson–but today the theme brought to mind the current war crimes trial at the Hague against Charles Taylor, Liberian dictator–the blood lust of the soldiers and the sorrow I feel over these things without, I know, a true understanding of them. When Taylor’s troops invaded Sierra Leone, they sometimes taunted victims with the “choice” of “long sleeves,” the cutting off of their hands, or “short sleeves,” the cutting off of arms above the elbows. People were given “smiles” by the cutting off of their lips. Taylor has been found guilty.
Watcher of Charles G. Taylor Trial, From Sierra Leone
April 27, 2012
Watcher of Charles G. Taylor Trial, From Sierra Leone
He raises with hook a bunched white handkerchief;
it is not a flag of surrender.
Still presses it to lips to catch at least
pieces of sobs that linger, that sunder
him in two–before and after, then
and now–when already he’s been trimmed
down to his core, both of his arms sliced off when
the slicing was good, so that now he’s rimmed
with sling, limbed with plastic counterparts.
He misses hands, mourns more those who are gone–
he wants to see their shine of faces, hearts–
not smeared with blood and not with bodies shorn.
He wants to take them in lost arms, to enfold,
he wants them back, and then to hold, to hold.
*****************************************
The coverage of the trial of Charles G. Taylor, brutal dictator of Liberia, is horrific and moving.
“Dust to Dust” (Dust to Sisyphus)
April 26, 2012
Dust to Dust
I roll this rock
up up this hill,
trying to remember
where I put
my….
The rock is large, chest-high–not like some
marble you can thumb at all the world.
I lean into it as I push, as if it
were the dais of my existence–
though I also pinch my lips
into a tight shut fist against the dust
thrown up by our erosive path,
our close connection–
Of course, I want it to
crumble–the rock to pulverize, the
hill to subside. How else will I dis-solve
this problem
of path and footing?
But still chest stumbles; dust
seeping through every refusal–
Because I just can’t breathe
when holding breath, can’t rest
when pushing.
(And not-pushing is not
an option–I’m pretty sure
they were clear on that much–)
Oh where–
did I put–
my–
rock….
**************************************************
I am posting the above poem for dVerse Poets Pub “meeting the bar” challenge, hosted by Victoria C. Slotto. The challenge was to write an allegorical poem. I went for the obvious (sort of.)
The 26th day of National Poetry Month!
ManicDDaily 
Recent Comments