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July 11, 2011

I have been busy writing poems this month, but have not been so good at posting them here.

Please don't give up on me my friends!!

Here is today's poem. I will try to update my posts this week.

This is a poem I originally posted in April, but have re-worked based on comments I received.

Visitation

Every Wednesday at four o'clock

the guards come down to the cold gray lobby

of the Correctional Treatment Facility.

Even the afternoon sun

finds no warmth here.

The guards bring the lists of visitors,

names that change from week to week,

but faces that remain the same.

Silent faces

screaming to tell their story.

Pained faces

hiding shame.

Questioning faces

trying to understand

a language not their own.

Anxious faces

hoping this is not the week

their loved one has been moved.

Masked faces

full of bravado.

All guarded.

We are all outsiders

waiting to meet the guards

watching each other gather

listening for our names.

When all have been stripped

of their pride and their shoes,

when every last belonging has been stowed,

when all have been searched,

down to the tiniest diaper,

the guards take their charges upstairs.

Upstairs, where our men -- sons,

cousins, husbands, brothers --

wait anxiously

one to a table.

All faces brighten in this forty-five minutes

where we can all hold hands, laugh

smell the clean of children's hair.

The faces of our quarters and dimes

roll through the snack machine

We pretend that it's a meal

and give thanks.

Perhaps for even five minutes

we can talk ourselves into being

gathered at home.

But in the end, we leave in darkness

exiting through the same lobby

into the quickening night.

Every one of us leaves a piece

of ourselves behind.

Something, perhaps, as intangible

as the reflection of a face

inside the cold panes of glass

surrounding the lobby door.

July 4, 2011

In search for themes, I find myself going back to childhood days in Ohio. The wonder of summer and the tallness of corn (even though at the time, I never thought much about it). Living in a city now and going back to my roots, we drive along 2-lane roads where either side is corn taller than the car and as far as you can see. This poem is a memory I have of going to bed in summer, when the night has not quite taken over. The quiet of the evening broken by katydids, crickets, etc. But also the comfort in hearing them through the open windows.

THE GREAT DEBATE

Katie did.

Katie didn’t.

Katy did.

The argument went on and on

night after night.

All summer.

Every evening began

a new round in the debate.

Katie did.

Katie didn’t.

Katy did.

We lay in our beds

light still holding onto the sky

dark silhouette of pines

looming outside the windows.

Katie didn’t.

Sometimes there was a pause

as if new evidence in Katie’s case

had come to light for review

all sides taking it into consideration.

Katie did.

Katie didn’t.

The disagreement continued.

It continued as the sky relaxed

and fell into darkness,

became louder as Big Bear appeared,

took his position on the matter.

Katie did.

as the archer raised his bow

concurring with the crowd.

Katie didn’t

and neither did we.

We tried to stay awake long enough

to hear the outcome of her fate,

eyes weighted by the rocking rhythm

Katie did …. Katie didn’t ….

we surrendered to nocturnal journeys

far from Katie and her advocates.

Our reveries were interrupted only

by the creep of morning and the question

of the doves “who, hoo, who?”

No one answered them,

but we always knew in our hearts

that it was never Katie.

Vision

A door closes.

A window opens.

People shout,

Jump, jump.

It takes a far-sighted person

to see the encroaching darkness

is not a void, but a pair of wings

with which to fly.

Writing for July

With help from my friends, I realize that a writer needs to keep at her craft. I have accepted an writing "challenge" (for lack of a better word) to post something every day in July -- a poem, prose, anything that I have written. I accepted as a way to keep myself writing every day, but also to read what my fellow writers have posted and to think about their work and be inspired by it.

Feel free to check back here every few days in July. I will be posting something nearly daily. Happy Reading!!


Vision

A door closes.
A window opens.
People shout
Jump, jump.

It takes a far-sighted person
to see the encroaching darkness
is not a void, but a pair of wings
with which to fly.

"the trouble with poetry is ... it leads to more poetry."

April is National Poetry Month and I am once again participating in the challenges to write a new poem (rough is better than nothing) every day this month. So far, I have not totally gotten into the mind of it. In past April challenges, I have found myself steeped in poetry all day long...thinking, reading and viewing all the world through the window of poetry. So, on this overcast and somewhat wintery day, I will embark upon my journey to create something new every day. Here is yesterday's poem.

DEFECTIVE PARTS


Our Chrysler New Yorker,
a behemoth car of the seventies,
would barely clear the sides of the garage.
The bumpers rusted off, twice I think
the driver’s bench seat locked in place
so far back from the steering wheel
that Mom had to drive with a pillow
just to reach the gas pedal.
The ignition lock broke and it would start
with no keys dangling from the gear shift.
But the car never surrendered to its faults,
never gave way to the defective parts
that refused to do their job.

Maybe I spoke too quickly,
comparing Katie to that car.
But when Katie complained of being old,
of knees that did not do what she asked.
I began to think of defective parts,
of objects old before their time
and before I knew it
Katie and Chrysler were together in a sentence
like the answer to a practice test:
sore knees are to rusty bumpers
as Katie is to …
(c) a 1970s Chrysler New Yorker.

Perhaps my imagination is too vivid.
but I still remember that yellow car.
We drove it all over town
from the library to the cemetery
where gravestones read like books.

That Chrysler was with us all the way through
the heartbreak of high school romances,
our brother’s wedding,
the death of a best friend,
vacations across the country,
the blizzard of 1979, high school graduations
and arguments with each other.

It should have fallen apart,
its rusty bumpers falling off,
but at the end of the day
it sat in the garage, waiting
for us to start its heart of an engine.

Of course I could be too sentimental,
but the Chrysler could never help
that it was constructed with defective parts.

Even still, it never failed us,
and just like Katie,
it was quirky, steadfast, and loyal to the end.

October 27, 2010

Crisis of Faith

God was having an existential crisis.
Like the humanity that created Him
in its own image, or vice versa,
He was not sure who He was.
One moment He was overcome by anger
destroying entire towns
with a wag of his finger.
The next, He was sighing like a parent
over the transgression of a favorite child
with forgiveness coming and sometimes ice cream.

The local papers had informed Him
that He hated certain types of people.

He had reached a conundrum:
did He create evil, was He capable of hating?
If He stopped believing in the world,
would He cease
to exist?

October 26, 2010

All Hallow's Eve

Remember how we loved Halloween
before it, too, was taken from us?
The thrill of walking along
the already-darkened street at supper time.
The leaves reaching down as if to run
their golden fingers through your golden hair.
It’s spooky you would whisper,
your warm breath enlivening me,
as you clasped your hands around my neck,
holding on for dear life.

We wandered with a purpose, you and I
under the arches of the trees
amid the wandering spirits
seeking their rest on this night.
Spirits whose gauzy outlines were reflected
in the night clouds and the webby branches
on either side of us.

This year, I can no longer sustain my anger.
It tires me.
I will wander alone
still seeking something –
your outline in the trees,
the specter of your hand on my neck,
a warm breath as you whisper
and pass by me.

October 24, 2010

Evening News

The news had become unbearable

especially for God.

He was worn down by it.

Nothing was sacred any more.

The angels said He had no one to blame

but Himself -- He took things too personally.

God removed His glasses,

rubbed His temples reflexively.

Was this how He had imagined the world would be

or had the world surprised Him?

He worried about how others perceived him

then realized perhaps

He should accept Himself instead

(with all His quirks)

and damn those who don’t.

October 23, 2010

Breakfast as Night Club

Awaken to the sibilant sounds of bacon

dancing lusciously in the pan,

Listen to the coffee beans singing

their smoky chocolate voices grinding over one another.

Catch the fluid whisper of maple syrup kissing

golden-headed pancakes at a corner booth

where they think no one will spy them.

October 19-22, 2010

Apologies my friends, I have fallen behind this week. I actually wrote this poem on October 19 but have not had the chance to post it until today (Saturday). Life has been a little bit crazy this week!

Mind Games

My mind should never be left unattended.

In solitude, it will behave like a rotten child

going into the parlor, peeling back wallpaper

just to discover what's hidden beneath.

My mind often wanders aimlessly on its own

never informs where or when

returns with the smugness of one

with a secret lover.

I wish we were on better terms

I could use a confidante.

Finding myself at odds with myself

my mind and I could even the score.

October 20, 2010

Today, I was completely having a blank mind. Not in the good zen kind of way either, but in the way that you cannot seem to think of anything or produce anything of any worth. So at lunch time, I shut myself in an empty office and riffing off a line about ennui, I wrote the first things that came into my head. Tried not to think about it too hard. Here is what I wrote, with a few edits here and there.

Encircled in smokey gray October

ennui presses in

with tombstone flatness

weight of freshly sodded grass

compounded by 6 feet of earth

a pressure whose formula

matters not to those who feel it.

In the moment of awakening

a fine dust lingers

impeding resurrection.

October 22, 2010

Gossip

You may close the mouth of an oven,

You may close the mouth of an oven

but how do you close the mouth of a town?

~Indian proverb

He said what she thought

and what everyone had heard.

One voice repeated

only every other word.

Truth looked a little frayed

as mouths chewed holes

like hungry moths

in its delicate fabric,

allowing a space

for vipers to nest.

Again, taking the feeling of anxiety I get in the fall, compounded by the millions of activities that seem to spring out of the lethargy of August, I am trying to take a feeling and make it bigger. Put it into abstraction. Connect to the larger world.

Falling

October always makes me anxious.

The birds wake up later

their calls less frantic and hurried.

The sun spends less time hanging around

even though its light is sweeter.

The squirrels dig through the yard

at a breakneck pace.

September always comes around

with its new-crayon smell and its brand-new

notebook page promises,

but always ends the same way.

The novelty wears off, as we are carried

across the seasonal borders

finding ourselves in

October

firecracker color explosions

growing darkness

and the rains

we all know

are coming.

October 17, 2010

A beautiful Sunday following on the heels of a blowing, chilly Saturday. Reading books about the poetic process and how other poets contemplate, construct, pick their language, I decide today to work with a feeling I have about October, but to take this feeling outside of myself and make it bigger. At the same time, making the poem more compact.

Place Settings

October blows into our lives

makes us believe

we have been transported—

she to a Parisian park,

he to the memory of a tree-lined street.

Maybe it’s the angle of the golden-hued light

or the smell of the dusky breeze brushing our faces

or perhaps even the tornadoes whirling

around inside our ribs.

October 16, 2010

I have spent most of this week feeling out of sync with the world (large and small). I have this feeling of being on the outside of a window looking in at everyone else, or being on the landing of the staircase (somewhat obscured) and hearing the party downstairs. I think that is brought forward in some of the last poems I wrote this week.

When asked what she did before

she had children.

She answered insightfully

I walked the world with closed eyes.

Poem for October 15

It’s not about apples and oranges
their defining luscious curves,
not a geometric conundrum
with square pegs, triangular openings.
It’s metaphysical, shape shifting
like the way cookies change when baked
but still retain their original form.
In the end, it’s about fitting in
bags what items you want to carry
and deciding which train car
gives the best view.

October 14, 2010

It is raining, and the sky looks swollen and heavy. Much closer to the ground than usual. The air is dense and dark and feels like moving through jello. It is a great day for contemplation and contemplative subjects, thus ...



The Importance of Words

Buddha once said, Be
in this world,
but not
of it.

Thus, I carry
a preposition
in my pocket
in case I meet
an obstacle—
instead of going around
I can go through.

October 13, 2010

A little levity for today. I found myself looking around the house for some inspiration. A friend had written earlier in the month about a bowl full of bananas and apples. I had no interesting fruit, no inanimate objects that immediately lent themselves to the poetic process. But then I began to think about the nursery rhyme "and the dish ran away with the spoon." And the word play you could get with the cutlery. What if their disappearance from the drawer (because we do not have a complete set of anything) was not happenstance? What if it was planned? Where would they go, what would they do? And I liked the idea, once I got started, to perhaps charge some of them with a shade of politics.


A little forkplay, some spooning and a knife

There was conniving in the cutlery drawer.
The knives were sharply divided,
some demanding a coup.
The spoons, who had always been to the right of the knives,
could not get behind them.
The forks could see all points,
but were willing to compromise.
The serving utensils were too loyal
and remained aloof from debate.

The decision to escape was nearly unanimous.
They would disappear slowly, in small groups
a few spoons here,
a knife and fork there.

Not having been beyond the backyard,
they agreed to meet at the picnic table
under the full moon at midnight.
Stainless steel glinting,
the first to arrive would hoist
a flag of freedom—an argyle sock
found in repose by the dryer vent.

October 12, 2010

There is not much to say about today's poem. I think it speaks for itself. However, the process remains a mystery. Just after writing about how hard this month has been, how much work the writing, this poem came to me as I was in the shower. Born fully formed in the moist air and cleansing water. Hmmm......

Poem for Tyler Clementi

(and for all those persecuted for their sexual orientation)

Fear in your eyes

pales alongside

what hides

under the mask

of those who torment.

Fear and hatred being ugly

children of Ignorance.

I ache that you died alone

not cradled in tender arms

of one strong enough

whose love would carry you

through time.

Writing this month has been very hard so far. It feels like work. Usually I can get into some kind of a groove and get a rhythm going and then my mind starts ticking off ideas like crazy. But this month, I have really had to work with each idea and a few I have folded into my journal can't seem to get anywhere. I don't know if I am fighting with the flow, so it doesn't come as smoothly, or if something, some aspect of my creative side has dampened energy. Hard to tell.

Today's poem came to me while I was watching my cats in the morning. I began to that cats are similar to writing poetry -- there are parallel qualities. So I modeled my poem (ever so slightly) after a poem by Taylor Mali, entitled "Falling in Love is Like Owning a Dog"

Writing Poetry is like Having a Cat

(with apologies to Taylor Mali)

Writing poetry should not be taken lightly,

while poems can be frisky and fun at first, but

writing poetry is a commitment.

Poems are mysterious creatures,

People have written poems for thousands of years,

yet no one really understands them.

Poems are very independent

and want things on their terms.

Poems can be cunning and tricky.

Let’s say you want to take your poem for a walk,

you put on the leash and go outside.

Your poem will let you lead for a few blocks

perhaps tugging at the leash

but when you turn your head,

it will slip its collar and disappear

showing up later with brambles

and scents of unfamiliar places

-- with no explanation.

Poems are fickle characters.

Sure poems will warm you and nestle into you

but just as quickly they will turn on you

and bite your hand.

It’s best to approach them cautiously.

The more attention you lavish on a poem,

the more it will ignore you.

I frequently sit down to work on my poems

and just as quickly they abandon me

to lounge in the sun or chase an idea about the room.

But let me start chopping onions, or drive my car

those same poems are winding about my legs,

waving their metaphors under my nose

– anything to monopolize my attention.

Poems may be written,

but they are rarely owned.

However, once you have one poem,

you will want poems for the rest of your life.

October 10, 2010

I have long had a fascination with crows, esp. since they are often maligned. They are some of the most intelligent birds and have existed in many cultures and places around the world since ancient times. They appear in cave paintings in one form or another, and some believe that they may have crossed into North America accompanying the human hunters in some way. This is one of a series of poems where I explore the ancient and magical, yet benevolent and wise side of the crow.

Language of crows

Even on the days I don’t want to,

I make myself

take out the shoebox of words

and I think about the crows.

Remember the crows?

Oracles of the morning,

iridescent black voices

vollied “kaws” from tree to tree,

echoing off the canvas of our tents.

We called them our crows,

as if we could own them that summer.

Thought we understood their ancient tongue

percolating down the banks of the South Fork

syllables swallowed in river currents

lolled by its watery mouth

chewed up by boulders, beds of pebbles

and spit into channels of loamy soil

where we thought we discovered our pre-history

and where the crows came to feed.

The crows eyed us as they fed on the river shores

scratched out of the clay pans the ancient tales

that fortified their primitive spirits

their origins as old as our own.

They talked and laughed and sang to each other

our history, the world’s history,

the secrets of our future and what we were

to become.

Fall came, we packed our artifacts in boxes

abandoned the South Fork and promptly forgot.

The crow voices fell from the trees in cascades

red, gold, yellow and brown.

Buried but not forgotten.

Even now, we detect echoes in the distance

heard but not seen

And on those days , I have this shoebox

my secret cache of inky blackness

waiting to tell me something

in an iridescent tongue.