aunt louise and aunt linda began fighting over who would cook thanksgiving dinner

at grandma’s february funeral

(cold grandma, cold ground)

when we arrived that november at aunt linda’s door

were we surprised to see

the windows thrown wide against the cold wind,

smoke billowing upwards to the heavens?

(grey november smoke against grey november sky)

we shouted, we called out

(we cussed under our breath)

we found her

smoking over the charred remains of a turkey

match flame creeping towards her fingers

(hot oven, hot bird)

our eyes stung, lungs on fire

hard to say why we wept.

(the matches of our grieving)

aunt louise cooks now.

Prompt from the http://3030poetry.com/: burnt dinner

after a long and protracted fight between Aunt Linda and Aunt Louise

over who would cook Thanksgiving dinner now that Grandma died,

we arrived at Aunt Linda’s house to see smoke

(grey against grey November sky)

pouring from the windows

we entered frantically, calling her name, shouting through the haze

we found her

calmly smoking next to the smoking oven

with a charred half-cooked smouldering bird

ashtray overflowing with

half-smoked smouldering cigarettes

our eyes stung, lungs on fire

 (the matches of our grieving)

hard to say why we wept.

Aunt Louise cooks now.

The prompt today was to write about regret:

there was the teeth against flesh
there was that.
but, then again,
there was also
the licking of lips

After day one, I received a note from my friend Steve that I needed to work on my rhyming. I’m not sure rhyming actually helped me improve, but at least I tried it. So, this is for Steve and apologies in advance. :)

There once was a woman from Michigan

Who found every Spring made her itch again.

The flowering trees

made her snot, wheeze, and sneeze,

and her only relief was antihistamine.

A found poem based on Grant Wiggins’ Creativity Rubric for Educators. Original is found here(pdf): http://grantwiggins.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/creative.pdf

The Judgment

The work has:

clever cliche’

hackneyed simplicity

broken algorithms

responsive direction

exquisite template

scattered and trite blend of explicit and explicit

unusually, somewhat, not very, un/creative

showering is the best place

but listening to talk radio does it, too

sometimes I sit real still

 and the words flutter about and if I don’t move

they just might land

sometimes they hit me while walking

sometimes they are whisper doing the dishes

or folding laundry

I have none of the digging deep, or wreck diving, or whatnot

mostly, I just shower.

the tranquility between

beats of a bird’s wing

the serenity in the lull

between inhale

and exhale

the calm of the mind

when hurling down the highway

between here and there

the new stillness of the trembling hand

enfolded by another

be still, be still

the ache of the heart.

i am the abandoned half-full coffee cup

i am the practiced movements of diaper changes in the dark

i am the lullaby

       sung in a whisper to the click click click of the rocking chair

i am the exasperated frown

i am the Wyatt Earp giver of time outs

i am the unkempt, unslept, unwashed mother

i am the bag full of snacks

   and the wiper of noses

i am the prayer uttered at 5:02 please lord just five more minutes

i am the curse word uttered at 5:08

i am the healer

i am the tylenol and bandaids

i am the kisser of all manner of injuries, a universal salve

i am the storyteller and the lap

i am

    really just doing my best.

if we halve the distance between us

and then cut in half again

they say I will never reach you

we will be separated always by

the half, then the quarter, then the eighth

I choose a more direct route

feel your pulse in my own veins

counting the distance between us.

we assume

so often

that love is

finite

boundaries with barbed wires

we guard it like a shiny, precious thing

don’t touch that we scold

that’s mine

but the secret of love

is that it grows

as a universe grows

boundaries pushing against infinity

a trillion tiny suns

pressing against the dark.

Inspired by Bud’s prompt