April 2011
17 posts
2 tags
#poemaday #18 inspiration
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.
2 tags
#poemaday #17 compassion
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.
2 tags
#poemaday #16 I am doing my best
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...
2 tags
#poemaday #15 halfway there
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.
2 tags
#poemaday #14
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
#poemaday #13 the Got
the heart is only happy/
in the Wanting and the/
Getting/
but never, ever in the/
Got
2 tags
#poemaday #11 and #12: Zombie apocalypse
I am behind and uninspired, but feel the need to press on, even if it means that I am responsible for bad poetry. The hashtag is #poemaday, not #bestpoemeveraday, right?
#poemaday #10: with apologies to both Ginsburg and Carl Solomon
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
zombies, bloodthirsy, violent
dragging themselves through the undead streets at dawn
looking for brains,...
2 tags
#poemaday #10 an element of play? →
Bud’s prompt today showed the periodic table of elements and asked: What is the atomic number for hope? Play? Joy? #
So I rhymed.
They say there exists such a table and this isn’t only a fable a table which shows from the highs to the lows the elements organized by label.
from the Chemical Heritage Foundation flickr
2 tags
#poemaday #9 runcible spoon
poetry matters
not for code cracking
but for love
“an erotics of art”
no poem speaks
as a stop sign
the state of poetry
is for lovers
beautiful and pointless
i really like the runcible spoon.
A found poem based on David Kirby’s review of David Orr’s book “Beautiful and Pointless” in the New York Times.
2 tags
#poemaday #8 →
From Bud’s prompt today
photo credit: Thomas Hawk #
it was not the trio of red lights that stopped him
rather the epic sky sun through clouds like the fingertips of God
not red lights rather the soundtrack of a sinner on the radio the hum of absolution drowning out the honking.
2 tags
#poemaday #7
feeling nostalgic, I dust off these words
hold them in my mouth
edges against teeth
fullness between tongue and cheek
lips, turned down at the edges
tripping over once familiar syllables
secret words, whispered in moonlight
counting one hundred words for love
when we were young
and words were as easily spent as heartbeats.
photo credit: maca.foto on flickr
2 tags
#poemaday #6 →
I have forgiven
a thousand toddler transgressions:
markers on the walls
tantrums at the grocery store
also my own spectacular disasters:
markers left unattended
tantrums at the grocery store
I regret only your name
I wish for a truer name now: guru, zen master
I humbly practice patience, compassion at your feet
reap spiritual benefit of soft kisses
arms thrown wildly...
2 tags
#poemaday #5: bench →
From Bud’s prompt today.
my knees hurt each day in new places like that Jennifer Grey on that dancing program what’s it called. Fifty years old she was doing the splits like a seven-year-old. She had the knees, too, but you wouldn’t know it to look at her.
and with that, the bench settled and sighed warming against the cool morning.
2 tags
#poemaday #4
The wind brought me this poem today.
O zephyr, silvery and honeyed
sweet whispers
promises only
spring
2 tags
#poemaday #3 fish hook revisited
I was re-reading Margaret Atwood’s poem “You Fit into Me” yesterday and I couldn’t get its simple and powerful imagery out of my head. I wondered what happened to the speaker as she aged and moved beyond that moment. This is my third #poemaday inspiration.
“you fit into me
like a hook into an eye
a fish hook
open eye”—Margaret Atwood
there is a...
2 tags
horrible accident or #poemaday #2
@Writer_DG Horrible accident on I-17 on the way home this afternoon—trailer full of cattle hit a guardrail and flipped. Dead cows all over the hwy, —Diana Gabaldon
I imagine they were asleep
to the gentle sway
the close quarters
dark
dreams of meadows and sun
light breeze to keep the flies away
flick of the tail, just in case
then
flight
...
#poemaday #1
You insist
come bedtime
to wear these old jammies I had set aside to give away.
Hidden, I thought, but you drag them into the light.
Chin set hard against offers of these, with Elmo, or your favorite
with feet that look like dogs’ faces
We pretend the dogs are real: I bark and you laugh.
But not tonight,
tonight we stretch the fabric until it nearly tears
struggle against the...
March 2011
1 post
Hypnotized by Bright Objects: National Poetry...
Once again, it is my favorite cruelest month: National Poetry Month. For the month of April, we poetry lovers celebrate all things poetic. Once again, I will be attempting to produce a poem a day here at my poetry blog.
Additionally, a few of us over on the twitters have pledged to participate as a community. We are using the hashtag #poemaday. I’d love it if you posted your poems,...
May 2010
0 posts
April 2010
12 posts
1 tag
Lists: Part I
words i like:
tertiary
elide
semaphore
words i don’t like:
pants
blue
earwig
1 tag
deer
In the grey dawn
we spy eight fawn under the apple tree
whose branches are covered with
young buds newly visible
you run, wild
chubby fingers
reaching out to get closer,
just a little closer
The deer spook
disappear into the thicket
you turn, surprised
and weep.
1 tag
Untitled
I stand, shadow,
at the doorway
the room filled with the sweet
funkiness of your sleeping breath
the light of the hallway
spills across your sweet faces
It seems impossible that you came from me
More like you were just passing through.
It seems that every day I am trying to regain
the intimacy of the three of us
sharing one body
shadows of a leg or a fist or a head
pushing against my...
1 tag
9 of the Weirdest Poems You Will Ever Read →
For tonight’s offering, I give you a fascinating list of the “9 weirdest poems you will ever read” from Shmoop.com. I was surprised to note that I have not only read all of them, but have written whole papers for various courses taken in pursuit of my English degree (actually, #1-6. Thank you, University of Michigan English department).
I am hoping that tomorrow my cold will...
1 tag
It not you Father :) It's facebook
Tonight’s NaPoWriMo offering is a found poem from my facebook newsfeed today.
I believed that all of my neighbors were vampires
Breathe my love
“How come your dog doesn’t bark at me anymore?
but the bluebird sings at midnight.
HUGE turkeys
just got a little more dangerous
“The absence
of your name signed illegibly
at the bottom of a card
you won’t...”
– Written in response to
» NPM 2010: Prompt 4 Bud the Teacher
1 tag
WatchEaster egg hunting today with my boys made me think over and over of Naomi Shahib Nye’s poem, Valentine for Ernest Mann. I put this together as a reflection of that moment.
2 tags
NaPoWriMo #1: feedback requested →
This is the first poem I am posting for feedback. I thought of the imagery for the poem while driving along after the snow melted and noticing all of the dead animals, not quite rotted, that had been revealed by the thaw. I thought about how ugly spring is before the growth starts and that’s where the poem began. I am not happy with the second stanza, but I am welcoming any feedback at...
1 tag
It occurred to me, while reading Nursery Rhymes...
2 tags
“break the news
break down
break walls
line break
broken windows
broken...”
– » NPM 2010: Prompt 1 Bud the Teacher
On the banks of the Mighty Red Cedar, I recite the...
“When she left
she cut squares
[severe right angles—no room for...”
– » NPM 2010: Prompt 0 Bud the Teacher
March 2010
2 posts
2 tags
National Poetry Month 2010 Challenge
Today is the day before National Poetry Month begins.
Last year, I participated in the NaPoMo “Twitter Haiku Challenge,” the challenge born from our conversations at the Michigan State University Writing Center. Evidence of that challenge can be found here.
But onto this year. I was looking to expand my NaPoMo writing horizons and was also thinking about playing with social...