Gobble Day

"Sunday Visitors" by George Hughes

 Everybody's back for the holiday;

Daddy's got his football on and he's 

instructing them in the way they should go.

No! No! Up the middle every time!

Flag? What for, refs? Open your eyes!

Today's game brought to you by Target,

Chevy trucks, Placebonol, and Applebee's.

Big brother is blundering around,

chasing the dog with his squeaky.

He steps on little sis's foot--she says, Sorry!

Older sis is opining to cousin Lisa

about her and Kyle's new house and she's

fixing it up just the way it should be.

So these workers doing the tile,

they're hopeless! Mexican or something,

I might as well do it all myself!

Uncle's eyes are more glazed

than last year's ham. Bottoms up!

Mommy's in the kitchen stuffing the kids

and dressing the turkey. She's got spices

on the counter and gin in the cupboard.

No dear, thanks, I don't need any help

unless...could you set the table on the dishes?

Use the good salt and pooper shakers.

Daddy's really angry now, his blood pressure

high and his blood sugar low. Idiots! Dumbbells!

Lisa looks lobotomized. Older sis is still talking. 

Everybody's back for the holiday.

The dog drops his toy in the gravy boat;

Rough seas, Cap'n! shouts older bro

as the two of them high-tail it upstairs.

Mommy has basted the kids and taped

the potatoes to the fridge. 

I think that looks nice, don't you dear?

We always used to.... do something or...

Daddy shouts, Where's that bird?

Mommy collapses in a kitchen chair, crying.

Big bro and the dog come thundering downstairs.

Lisa has left, Uncle is face-down in the cranberries.

Oh, Kyle, it is chaos here, just chaos.

Are those workers doing the sun room today?

Well why not? Oh, right, I suppose.

Daddy shouts, What's wrong, Lillian? 

Mommy falls out of her kitchen chair laughing.

Granny screams, Merry Christmas!  

It's Gobble Day, Gramma. Mwah!

------------------

For What's Going On? "Feast"

Poets' Bento Box

 I dug our grave with a silver spade

and a paper bell in the coffin shell--

a bento box where our lines were laid.

I dug our grave with a silver spade

but then in a dream, a kiss delayed

like a sweetly sorrowful gift from Hell-- 

I dug our grave with a silver spade

and a paper bell in the coffin shell.

_______________

a triolet for Word Garden Word List--The Return of Ellie Black

TLDR:

Dave Van Ronk, in the song Motherless Children, sings these lines:

Dig my grave with a bloody spade when I'm dead

dig my grave with a bloody spade when I'm dead

dig my grave with a bloody spade

make damn sure that the digger gets paid

He also does a song Old Blue about a beloved dog who dies. He sings:

I dug his grave with a silver spade

lowered him down with a golden chain

I kind of combined the two in my triolet, which is not about motherlessness or dogs, but is about an old relationship. The bento box denotes the compartmentalization of it. 

In the 19th century, there was a great fear of premature burial. A solution was offered in the form of "safety" coffins, which had a bell above ground attached to a string underground and placed in the corpse's hand. In the event of premature burial, the person could ring the bell to summon help.

Finally--and my process notes are now quite a bit longer than my triolet!--I had a dream recently that a person I had put out of my mind came to me and kissed me tenderly on the cheek, bringing back old feelings, if only in that moment. A paper bell, if you will. 

Music: Elton John Funeral for a Friend/ Love Lies Bleeding

Word Garden Word List--The Return of Ellie Black

 Hello my little jive turkeys! Let's do the Jumpin' Jive and jump right in with this week's Word List poetry prompt!

Every year at this time, Poetryville is filled to its eye teeth with prompts centered on gratitude. Speaking as a card-carrying jive turkey, I have no appetite for yet another one, and so this week's prompt has zero to do with gratitude unless you are a churlish crank like me and are grateful this isn't a gratitude prompt!

I have just recently finished a humdinger of a thriller by Emiko Jean entitled The Return of Ellie Black. I absolutely could not put it down. It concerns a teenage girl who is abducted when she wanders away from a party alone. Two years later, she reappears, discovered by two hikers, alive. 

Emiko Jean

Where has she been? Who took her? How did she escape? She's not saying much, which is a mystery in itself. If you enjoy this kind of novel, read this one!

Meanwhile, what we do here is to use at least 3 of the 20 words provided in a new original poem of your own. Then simply link up, visit others, and then be discovered at some distant later date carrying a plate of turkey and mashed potatoes and asking, " Could you pass the cranberry salad, please?"

And now, your List:

bento box

baby

bandana

bento box

chatter

dizzy

eyes

flipped

gestures

gift

hand

loop

maroon

nervous

ocean

paper

perpetual

seven

vulnerable

wheel

world

Black Calla Lilies On My Grave

 

When my home was made in the wind

in owl-silence, as patient as the planets,

black calla lilies grew upon my grave

where Hera's spilled drops transformed.

I had a million sisters, the scattered stars,

a sibling mobile telling night-stories

as I slept on the silver surface of a stream.

My mother was the moon; my father flame.

Black calla lilies grow upon my grave,

where I was born into flesh, a sentient stone.

I wandered off, unattended or so it seemed,

and made my home in sand and sorrow.

Like a branch in the rain, my body grows

heavy, a stiff cocoon my winding sheet.

Below me, the black calla lilies watch

as if I were now the sister-star singing.

Where is the wind where I made my home?

Where the owl-silence and the patient planets?

By day my father whittles, by night my mother shines,

whispering, " 'Calla' means 'beauty' dear child--

Come home to the lilies, to the wind, and to us."

________

for What's Going On? --"say it with flowers"

Music: Ane Brun All My Tears

Still Life w/ Cryptids

 

The fox with a layer in its mouth explained:

it is merely a totem,

a representation

or avatar,

but the hen's red throat 

called bullshit

as it died.

The women with stones in their pockets

were made lonely by the waters of the river.

They sang, their heavy diver's helmets ringing

with rare harmonics

hailed by critics

panned by pop fans

and made more difficult to understand

the further from the surface they sank.

Everyone said it would be the moon,

but it was the sun who went mad,

incinerating gardens in an afternoon.

Cosplay Aztecs

held up hearts

in their palms.

Please join us for the afterglow

with refreshments and a swag bag.

Everyone thought that the baby's first word

would be "Mama", but it was "Dada." 

Tristan Tzara's disciple Marcel Duchamp

 presented the child as a readymade

with orange tail

and silver helmet,

an artless objet d'art he named L.H.O.O.Q.

with enigmatic smile + mustache. 

_______

for Word Garden Word List--The Last To Go. 

Music: DJ Dero The Horn (El Tren) Batucada'n Bass Mix

Word Garden Word List--The Last To Go

 

Hello my little Sunday drivers, and welcome to this week's Word List poetry prompt! Our source this week is Rand Richard Cooper's collection of interconnected short stories entitled The Last To Go: A Family Chronicle. It came out in 1988. I read it then and have never forgotten it. 

I feel that Rand Richards Cooper is a supremely skilled and marvelously observant writer, but somehow it seems that he did not receive the attention he should have IMO. I am to blame myself, as I never pursued any of his other books, most of which are now out of print. I did find one of them at Thriftbooks.com while preparing this List, though, and ordered it.

What we do here is to use at least 3 of the 20 words provided in a new original poem of our own. Then just link up, visit others, and then sit back for a nice family dinner. Or not. (You can always substitute in the family pets instead and stay home with them!)

And now, your List:

always

angles

bump

colored

expected

expression

flashlight

gardens

hiding

inkwell

jealous

layer

lighted

limped

older

pockets

sang

totem

winter

wrong 

 

Mistral

 

In Spring the madding winds arrive

and leave the winter to its dreams

of fools such as my love and I.

In your eyes Provence does lie--

false Spring is never what it seems

when Mistral sings the lullaby. 

The ring is left to rust and die

by drowning pool or icy stream

while scudding clouds above it fly.

Your wind has temper come alive

to kill the bud or turn the cream

and howl unchecked to Italy.

So comes the Mistral, mad with spring

My love, destroying everything.

_______

for Dverse Meeting the Bar "Wild Wind."

The mistral is a strong, cold, northwesterly wind that blows from southern France into the Gulf of Lion in the northern Mediterranean. It produces sustained winds averaging 31 miles an hour.

It is said that madness occurs particularly often in the Spring. I believe it.

Clover Flowers

 

I have a memory of a clover field--

white flowers in the warm June green

like spilled sugar on a farm wife's sleeve.

I have a memory of a spring lamb--

carried to the shed as the ewe screams

under a summer sky blank as muslin.

In the farm house, an old couch.

a television, and a sturdy oak table.

There is a savory aroma and mint jelly

set out with the white china plates.

My memories mix like a bowl of vegetables,

gravy on the tablecloth, blood on the ax.

I don't like to remember,

even in summer, on a bright afternoon.

_______

for What's Going On? "Memory"

Music: Cat Stevens Into White

My Despair

—when skies are hanged and oceans drowned,

the single secret will still be man  --e.e. cummings

I spoke to my despair

in a voice that October

wears around its injured throat

on a chain of dripping water.

Because the nights are too long,

I sew their darkness into a jacket

and on the sleeves are

embroidered golden snakes.

I sit at a table made of the world

with legs of heirloom iron and wind.

Young men run past, shouting

and dragging morning to her grave.

In evening, I speak to the cardinal

who comes to my window like a Gypsy.

I say, the dawn is still in love with you

but a snake strikes the cardinal

from my sleeves

and my despair.

______________

for Dverse Poetics "Reflections" The image by Andrew Ridley and the quote by e.e. cummings are required. 

Don't forget that Word Garden Word List remains active through Saturday. 

Word Garden Word List--Joy School

 

Elizabeth Berg

Hello everyone and welcome to the Word List on its new day, Sunday. Originally, I did not choose Sunday because I didn't want to compete with Carrie's Sunday Muse, but that's not an issue now, so here we go. 

This week our source is Elizabeth Berg's 1997 novel Joy School. I have read seven of her novels and liked them all, but this one is my special favorite. Some novelists are all over the map, one stunning read, one awful one, and one in between, rinse, repeat. (Anne Tyler, I'm looking at you.) Elizabeth Berg, though, is money. She always delivers a wise, entertaining, heart-tugging story. 

What we do here is to use at least 3 of the 20 words provided in a new original poem of our own. Then simply link up, visit others, and then go skating or something! This List remains active through Saturday. 

And now, your List:

automatic

book

brains

cookbook

dismal

evaporated

exact

fix

iceberg

luxury

museum

narrow

newspaper

punch

skate

spray

unfolding

vase

whole

witch

Pomegranate & Oleander

 

I traveled through an arid land

where pomegranate trees bent like new widows

to find myself in a room with white stucco walls,

an almond in batter, with oleanders in a vase. 

Scarlet oleanders, delicate and bright, fragile

pages of dawn in a book of finite days.

The windows are narrow and look out on the bay

blue with white edges, sewn for a tide that never stays.

White boats like a spray of Nerium oleander

on a blue-edged plate set in a shifting hutch,

or whites of eyes from evaporated dreams

of a lover on an iceberg, things slowly lost and such.

I traveled through an arid land

a museum of what not to become,

born from a pomegranate seed,

fed on oleander, a gull duty-married to a setting sun.

________

for Word Garden Word List--Joy School.

The Dark Bird

 

Behold the dark bird,

new as a fresh injury

old as antiquity

spreading its wings 

bespangled with collected eyes.

Millions cheer the dark bird.

empty sockets over their grins

like twin red suns

over a planted scythe.

Behold the dark bird

in all its majesty and power,

its feathers tipped with blades

and blades are most of what it is,

wounding all, even itself.

All hail the dark bird

whose spread tail obscures

the east, its head devouring the rest.

Kneel to the dark bird

and behold in its bones

your own grave.

_______________

Music: Cream Deserted Cities of the Heart by Jack Bruce and poet Peter Brown

Poet

 The futility of being a poet in a country that loves hate. 

Slough O' Despond

 

Welcome to the Slough O' Despond Shopper!

Oh, the warmhearted clerk you liked won't be back--

we chained her to a stove and dumped the stove down the 

roiling 

          oilspill

                     of our ravenous bellies.

Don't be bitter, we still offer a wide selection

of watery logic and dubious ingredients.

Our highly satisfactory laundry products get everything

whiter than white like a terrified horse's eyes

when we ride him into our slaughterdreams

which are

                 members-only

                                           and fully automatic. 

Check out today's special! BOGO on genders

of which there are two but only one matters.

Recite with us our shopper's guarantee! We

pledge allegiance to our public, but only

those who happened to be born in our parking lot. 

Come on,

                 crawl in, 

                                leap in, but don't look 

at the price tags cleverly hidden in plain sight and doubled every day.

_________________

for Word Garden Word List and WGO? open link. 

"Slough O' Despond Shopper" taken from a line in Grover Lewis's poem You Know Where. 

I am in a state of utter despair today about my country and the apparently innumerable people in it who just voted in a doddering Christo-fascist dictator.

Music: Celine Dion Think Twice. It's a break-up song. It reminds me of my country.

Word Garden Word List--Absent in the Spring

 

Hello my roving rhymesters! Here I am with your weekly Word List, a day early this time! I have been mulling changing the day to post because the first few days have been a ghost town; most people seem to show up at the end of the week. Thoughts?

Anyway, our source this week is a novel by "Mary Westmacott", a pseudonym used by the famous mystery writer Agatha Christie for her non mystery novels. This one was kindly recommended to me by my friend Queen Cool Dora and is called "Absent in the Spring." I'll include now my review from Goodreads.com:

My Goodreads review of "Absent In The Spring" by Mary Westmacott (Agatha Christie writing under a pseudonym). 5/5 stars.

I know all too well the type of person that the unreliable--even, or especially, to herself--narrator of this novel is. Joan is unwilling to face reality even as it goes on relentlessly right in front of her face. She's shallow, judgy, materialistic, surface, and possesses an iron conviction that everyone else is confused, shabby, pitiable, and most of all, absolutely in need of her expert guidance. She's a prig, a meddler, a busybody, and a snob, still blundering through life as the perfect student from St. Anne's, her girlhood school. She doesn't set out to be cruel--in fact she thinks herself the soul of kindness--but somehow she leaves a trail of injured, damaged loved ones in her wake all the same. It's all a mystery to her until she finds herself stranded at a lonely desert "Rest House" waiting for a train that's been delayed by several days. There, she quickly runs out of distractions and diversions, and with no busy tasks to attend to or people to interact with (except for the three foreign workers there, and that fails utterly), she has time to do nothing but think and comes face to face with her true self, and she doesn't much like it. The scales finally fall from her eyes, as it were, but will her new and unwonted self-knowledge stay with her when she finally gets back home in familiar, comfortable surroundings? Read it and find out.

What we do here is to use at least 3 of the 20 words provided in a new, original poem of our own. Then just link up, visit others, and don't get lost in the desert afterward like Joan in the novel. This prompt remains active through Sunday.

And now, your List:

alarm

amusement

bitter

capricious

competent

dubious

far

impossible

lazy

nerves

quietly

recite

roving

satisfactory

stuffy

suffered

symbol

vision

warmhearted

watery