Sneakers

 

I dreamed I was young again

which seemed natural

(and woke up old again

which did not.) 

I had on kicks that looked as if

they'd been left out in the rain,

buried in a mud slide

and chewed up by wild dogs.

Does a life get old, too?

When is the last day of school?

When do all these teachers

lose their love of lessons?

I dreamed I was looking

for new blindingly white shoes

to make my feet like new brides

puppies fresh as fabled loves.

I woke up gimpy, slow, sore.

A shining soul misplaced

in this beat-up box of a body.

It must be keen for a new ride.

I dreamed I was young again

but woke up old

without possibility of parole

except by the sleep that cures and mends.

_____________

for Word Garden Word List--Game Six. 

Music: Grace Potter, I Shall Be Released

Process notes: I did dream last night that I was young again and wearing completely worn-out sneakers from long travels. I had it in mind to buy new, spiffy, blindingly white ones that day as I had another journey ahead.

   Some years back, I had a dream in which I was vividly, pointedly, and emphatically told that April 17th would be my day to step across into the light. However, there was nothing about what year. And so, every spring I get a little nervous. In fat, I was seriously scared the first time around, but the day has come and gone several times now and like Elton John, I'm still standing. For the first time, I'm sanguine about the day approaching. If this is the year, I'm okay with that.

Word Garden Word List--Game Six

 

Hello my little spring chickens, and welcome to another Word Garden Word List poetry prompt! If you know me, you know that I have been a seamhead since I was 6 years old, and with this week being the opening of a new baseball season, I have chosen an excellent book as our source this time: Mark Frost's Game Six.

The Mick. He had retired by the time of game six.

Game Six is an immensely entertaining and readable account of game six of the classic 1975 World Series. It delves into the personalities of the players, what made game six so memorable, and is packed with interesting information I didn't know before. 

Some of you don't care about the sportsing!

I know that not all of you care about baseball, but it doesn't matter! Just use 3 or more of the 20 words provided in a new, original poem of your own. Then simply link up, visit others, and then sit back in the sun with a dog and a Coke and enjoy yourself! This prompt remains active through next Saturday. 

And now, your List:

children

curiously

doggone

fabled

few

gimpy

job

kicked

leather

master

plant

poster

promise

rain

school

scrap

souls

spotlight

story

tradition

Forever Friend

 I was (as you know)

your father's friend,

his support and sanctuary.

He trusted me

with his Royal

and knew I would guard

his heavy black pencils,

gum erasers,

handheld hole punch

and precious papers.

Robert Frost, 

forever choosing between two roads,

was my partner

your Dad's familiar,

watching over us from the wall.

And you, young lady,

used to slip in on the sly

and pretend to be

as great as the man you loved so much.

Now he has passed

but you have his treasures in a box

and me 

in your home,

an honored guest.

I know you know

that I am your friend as well

and can be trusted to be here

(sans ashtray)

to guard your things and your heart

just as I did

for your Daddy

when you were just a child.

for Dverse Poetics: Personifying the Abstract

Music: Nilsson Good Old Desk

Remember, Word Garden Word List remains active until Sunday!

En Graved (A Love Poem)

 look close--

here is your engraved invitation

the Hubble at your disposal.

A long bone

and rose thorn comprise my stylus--

the blasted dust of the moon we thought so lovely

is wounded into an imago

a blighted imbecile twin, 

love lost and lunatic.

_________

for Quadrille Monday "Engrave Your Name Across My Heart"

Image:  from the excellent indie film Another Earth

Music: Til Tuesday The Other End (Of the Telescope)

Giselle

 

In Paris, at that time

we knew of Giselle, the world's most

talented and also hideous torch singer.

Muddy complected,

with white eyes like egg shells,

and skin chock-a-block with blue veins,

the woman was hard on the vision, sweet to the ears.

Have you ever heard

a buzzard that could break your heart?

Giselle could wring your soul with Gloomy Sunday,

make you miss someone

you never met with Lover Man

(Oh Where Can You Be?) She was serious!

Willow Weep For Me used to make 'em bawl like babies.

So one night this strange cat

showed up and started bringing her

trifles -- sugar candies, baubles, pretty shells and whatnot.

Oh, she sang, Just in time,

you found me just in time and she smiled

like a split shoe and ran her broken branch fingers through his hair.

We wondered, is he crazy? Blind? What?

Well, he weren't blind.

Cat could read a menu from five miles off

and he was no bug either, he was some kind of poet.

What we found out, after a long time,

was that this cat was stone deaf from bombs in the war.

He just loved Giselle like a bird loves the sky at dawn when it's

Beginning To See The Light. 

_________

for Word Garden Word List--My Dear I Wanted To Tell You. 

Music: Della Reese I'm Beginning To See the Light

Word Garden Word List--My Dear I Wanted To Tell You

 

Hello my friends and welcome to another Word List! This time our source is an amazing novel by Louisa Young entitled My Dear I Wanted To Tell You.  This title is taken from preprinted cards given to wounded English soldiers to send home. They read "My dear ____ I wanted to tell you", They then went on to say the man had been wounded, and the wounded soldier would then cross out either "slight" or "serious" leaving the other to describe his wound. 

Louisa Young

The novel follows two couples, an officer and his pretty but shallow wife, and a pair of young lovers. The men both go off to the trenches while the women deal as best they can. WWI changes all of them profoundly. The book is marvelous, but also gutting. It's one the best I have ever read, but it also tore me up. So, recommended but with a caveat. It's not an easy 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 enjoy your Sunday. This prompt remains active until next Sunday when I will post a new one. 

And now, your List:

artistic

bird

bitter

blue

circled

egg

end

golden

hideous

letter

muddy

narrow

Paris

ribbon

scarf

shell

sugar

sweet

trifles

wards

Anyone writing "sweet as sugar" shall be driven into the poetic wilderness by a mob of angry pedants carrying torches.

Sharing an Orange

 

I will share my orange with you,

passing the sharp sweet sections

across the table, and in so doing

pass the branches, the roots,

the sunny days and the rain,

the small leaves and blossoms, 

the whole tree and sky.

I sit across from you smiling,

a child, a woman, and old crone,

eating an orange, existing

as the breeze does, in fluidity.

This orange is gone, but the world

is full of other oranges. One day

we will be gone too, from each other,

from ourselves, from this life,

but time is full of other bodies,

other names, other days. We will

recognize each other. We will pause,

and share an orange again.

_________

Sparrows

 

Love bloomed

like the green buds of the wild weeds

under the overpass.

She lost the thread

when her ears filled with dialogue

written by devils and idiots.

Her love, in wool socks and field jacket,

lost his libido in the war

but phantom desire lives in his memory.

It isn't being coy

to hold back what you cannot save

from the black nest of loss.

Is it dusk or is she going blind?

The robot doctor holds no cures,

just needles with tiny mouths, enthroned.

Under the overpass

there is a constant buzz of insects

who live in old yogurt cups

Singing their serene song

like an engine before the crash

lifting lovers into each other's arms

somewhere beyond the wreck, beyond reason, 

at the edges of sodium lights and night frights--

two sparrows sold for a penny

where crows and cats spend all night calling.

_____________

for Word Garden Word List--The Beautiful Bureaucrat.

Music: The Doors Indian Summer

Word Garden Word List--The Beautiful Bureaucrat

 

Hello my little worker bees, and welcome to this week's Word List poetry prompt! As I am only halfway through Louisa Young's amazing WWI novel My Dear I Wanted To Tell You,  I had to scavenge for a source for this week's List. I settled upon The Beautiful Bureaucrat  by Helen Phillips.

Helen Phillips

I read it some while back and only remember the broad strokes, but I did like it, and feel certain that whoever came up with the concept for Apple TV's series Severance  surely have read this book beforehand and modeled its office and the seemingly pointless and endless work that goes on there, after the office in this novel. This is a post-modernist fable about a woman who gets a job filing, but the whole situation is strange and baffling and bizarre. 

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 don't get caught up in an inscrutable and soul-crushing office job. This prompt remains active until next Sunday when I will post a new one. Enjoy!

And now, your List:

baby

boxes

bread

buzz

coy

crazy

dusk

ears

files

fruit

green

handle

insect

memory

robot

serene

squiggly

tactic

yogurt

zombie

Ballad of the Lost Shark

 A song for the lost shark

at the bottom of the sea

A song for the notions

that line up perfectly

A song for the children

who once were you and me

A song for the west wind

and the nest high in a tree

Sing, sing, sing, for no reason

just because you can

A song for the lost car

rusting in a field

A song for the card sharp

who says shut up and deal

A song for the baby

who was born and then grew old

A song for the kind ones

who give their hand to hold

Sing, sing, sing for no reason

just because you can

for the shark down in the deep sea

and you there on the sand.

Beauty

 I stole beauty from another girl--

Ripped it right out of her hands
In a hail of cosmetics and hairspray,
Then ghosted away with it to my underground lair.
But when I tried to bash it open,
The lock wouldn't budge
And anyway, it wasn't my size.


I took it to my mother's house and dropped it dead center on her holiday table--
Shrieking, I raked my broken fingernails right down to the bone of love and hatred that props us together, and she
Embraced
The locked
Foreign
Beauty that I ripped off from some bitch on the bus,
And said, "Daughter,
At last!
Welcome home."

___________

for What's Going On? "Beauty"

House of Mirrors

 

You can open a window

by lifting it

or breaking it

you, with the bloody fist

of Creation.

"You rotten bastard"

can be said with a sly smile

or with his shit out at the curb.

One tongue can speak two languages.

One pane can break in, or out.

Some windows can't be opened.

This one has nine sections,

none of them whole.

Some are bricked up, painted shut,

or warped by weather.

I could tap on your window

with a lopsided grin

or a brick.

Let me in, I want to love you.

Let me in, I want to mess you up.

The blue window at seaside

is a yellow window after dark.

Open in springtime, so sweet the breeze.

Open in winter, someone has moved away

or died. 

I disliked you, but changed my mind.

I loved you right away, but changed my mind.

My reflection in the night-pane isn't the old me.

Should I wipe a clear spot on the window

or lean from the ledge in front of it?

You can open a window

by lifting it

or breaking it

you, with the bloody fist

of Creation.

__________

written for dverse poetics--the romance of the open window

image at top: Jim Holland "Summer Reading" 2005

Music: The Hollies Look Through Any Window

"Us" movie clip Adelaide meets her double.

Word Garden Word List--Shy Creatures

 

Clare Chambers

Hello my little recluses, and welcome to this week's Word List poetry prompt! I have recently read a marvelous new novel by Clare Chambers entitled Shy Creatures. It's about a 37-year-old man found living with his rather dotty elderly aunt. He has a five foot beard and no inclination--or perhaps ability--to speak. He and the aunt are removed to a mental hospital (the story takes place in 1964) where the aunt quickly gives up the ghost, leaving the staff to try to solve the mystery of William, the man of few words. Find my review HERE. 

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 at least some others (or you're a dick) and then relax and smile benignly. This prompt remains active through next Saturday. 

And now, your List:

act

animals

arrival

art

cold

crash

cricket

fox

funny

hidden

instinct

mute

naked

private

ribbons

seconds

sky

spirit

ticket

weeds

Pawn

 

I want to pawn my grave

but they tell me it is worthless

and want my skin instead. 

the sky meets a pickpocket

who lifts the sun and sells it on eBay.

roosters' GoFundMe falls short.

the world spins but produces no cloth.

naked world, let me know you, and love you.

it responds with acid ink on sandpaper.

I buy the sun and slaughter the roosters.

I set the world on fire but die alone.

I miss my skin but have lost the ticket.

________

Shared with Word Garden Word List--Shy Creatures

Book Review--"Shy Creatures" by Clare Chambers 5/5 stars.

Shy Creatures is a marvelous and sometimes heartbreaking yarn about a man discovered hidden away in a tumbledown old house with his elderly aunt. An argument has caused neighbors to call the authorities, and they find the heavily bearded, nearly naked, and apparently mute man in an upstairs bedroom. He and the aunt are removed to a mental hospital where we meet a young art therapist named Helen and a married doctor for whim she falls. (Yes, I know, sounds trite about the affair, but the author has a real knack for drawing it in such a way that it's interesting and enlightening.)

The book wavers between 1964 (the novel's "present") and flashbacks that go ever further into the past to tell the tale of how William (the man discovered in the old house) came to be where he was. It turns out that he is not mute, he just only talks when it suits him. His backstory is extremely entertaining and heart-tugging, and his progress at the hospital--and Helen's as well--makes for a fine story. I loved it.

Mister Barbenstock

 

Mr. Barbenstock had eaten one of his students--

a little girl who sat in the third desk, 

far right row, a tiny ladybug in a hand-me-down jar.

There was a flurry of shrill criticisms from yappy parents,

the kind who weep at every brown leaf

and drive their sissy-ass cars to carnivals on Sunday.

Mr. B (as he was known at Grimoire Elementary)

stood out like bloody steak atop a birthday cake--

this bearded, uber-correct male among the ewes.

How many had he done this to? demand school paper reporters,

caps askew in the rough and tumble of a performative press conference.

What evil lies unsuspected beneath blah blah yadda yadda.

Mr. B. hears hummingbirds in his head; they alone can understand

his infinite lovesickness, lugubrious as an engine leak

in his smoking, whirring, damaged heart, hurting him.

His life has become a kind of constant translation--

bathtub to oceanside, mini-Cooper to Graf Zeppelin,

vacant, fidgety students to roaring throng of weird cryptids!

Mr. Barbenstock blinks. The prosecutor is asking for a cardinal number

denoting his victims. Everyone has grown up in a matter of moments.

It's a math problem! He begins to instruct, his forte where he hides.

________________

for Word Garden Word List--Richard Blanco. 

Music: The Temptations I Can't Get Next To You

Word Garden Word List--Richard Blanco

 

Hello my little unread volumes! It is time once again for a new word list poetry prompt! This time our source is How To Love A Country,  poems by Richard Blanco. Your faithful but slothful, no-account, do-nothing hostess is only half way through her current read, and so I had to select something else. Delving into my poetry shelf, I found this one. I have not read it and so can supply no review. I only know that Mr. Blanco was an inaugural poet for Barack Obama. 

This poetry thing that we do is such a funny animal. It isn't like novel writing, or journal ism, or jotting down one's thoughts on events. Poetry is some mixture of dreams, imagination, hard truth, form (or not), rhyme (or not), and somehow saying the things that cannot be said as well in any other way. It is a way of making the universal personal, and the personal universal. It is the art of not saying a thing directly, but somehow saying it all the more clearly for that. It's magic, light as a feather and heavy as a jackhammer. It exposes lies even as it is filled with invention. It's a helluva thing and I love 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 simply link up, visit others, and perhaps do what your hostess has not done, and read Richard Blanco! This prompt remains active until next Sunday. Note: please no haibun. 

And now, your List:

audacity

bearded

cardinal

children

cure

eaten

erase

exactly

exile

hummingbirds

infinite

jazzy

lovesick

prayer card

sea

sissy-ass

sky

translation

veil

yappy