4 American Sentences

   The image above was first used with my poem "The Girl Who Loved Hemingway."
                  I suspect she might also love American sentences.



Allen Ginsberg's American sentence, in case you might not know, is a response to his feeling that haiku did not work well in English. It is simply 17 syllables arranged how ever you like, and it must be, of course, a sentence. (That doesn't mean it can't have periods within it.) While haiku are normally concerned with nature, an American sentence can be about anything. Kerry, at The Imaginary Garden, first told me about them. And so here are four I wrote today:


my joints grind like old bricks. 
garden warms.
my cane is sturdy.
sun is strong.

dog, i am your mother
though i am not a dog.
bed is yours to hog.

baseball on tv.
dog and me on couch.
we sleep through several innings.

in age i find beauty in more faces
than i ever did when young. 

And so, I have written 30 poems in 30 days this April. As I depart The Imaginary Garden With Real Toads--like a tv actress or a back-up singer embarking on a preposterous and disastrous solo career--I want to say that the inspiration from all of you has been instrumental in the writing of so many of the poems on this blog, Coablack's House of Pain, and Black Mamba. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for everything. I will still see you when I appear as a  "legendary" (read: washed-up!) guest on the show. (Fireblossom as Aunt Biddy, with one line: "Follow your heart, Chrissie!") xoxoxox

a little road music:

Sounding

There were bells, and shaven-headed monks in saffron.
Prayer flags whipped in the wind.
There were stepping stones and a cat as silent as a yogi.

There were bells and waist-high goldenrod.
A gust caught your open shirt like a sail.
There were tiny drops and your hand sure and solid holding mine.

There were bells and a nine-paned window;
my desk permanent as a tattoo.
I wrote this poem to the sound of bells, from my fingers, the walls, the sky.

There were bells. 
There are bells still, 
sounding from every form and object, and in every tone. 
______

for Susie's "Bits of Inspiration" at Toads.

 

My Dog

"Let me in!"

My dog
has short stubby legs
and a ginormous barrel chest.
People laugh and say,
"He's put together wrong!"
He likes to dig,
play tugga,
and once,
he killed a skunk.

Evenings, while I watch tv,
he snoozes with a big doggy smile on his face.
If I stop rubbing his belly,
he opens an eye, lifts a paw and wants more.
I like to watch him sleeping
with his little legs
and barrel chest,
all the while marveling
at his little body in its Perfection. 
______

For Day 9 of the April thang.