Category: Poems

Poem 20150408

crow

Today’s #NaPoWriMo challenge is to write a

… a palinode. And what’s that? It’s a poem in which the poet retracts a statement made in an earlier poem. You could take that route or, if you don’t have an actual poetically-expressed statement you want to retract, maybe you could write a poem in which you explain your reasons for changing your mind about something. It could be anything from how you decided that you like anchovies after all to how you decided that annoying girl was actually cool enough that you married her.

—–
you can’t unwish the third wish,
she says
she doesn’t remind you of genie
and you don’t want to put her in a bottle
but you wouldn’t mind seeing her in a harem outfit

you shake your head to concentrate

i don’t want to unwish anything
you say
i want to wish all the wishes
the only thing i want to take back
is what i said about taking it back

you want to take back what you took back
she asks
on the verge of smiling

you hear an ankle bracelet strung with bells
tinkling
and you think of persia

Poem 20150407b

crow

i want to count
your fingers
and toes
just like you’re a baby
one-two-three-four-five
done four times
count them all
count the nails
and give each one a squeeze
and a shake
a “this little piggy went to market”
a game
and i’ll
make you squeal
all the way home

Poem 20150407

crow

From the #NaPoWriMo site:

And now our (optional!) prompt: keeping to the theme of poetry’s value, Wallace Stevens famously wrote that “money is a kind of poetry.” So today, I challenge you to write about money! It could be about not having enough, having too much (a nice kind of problem to have), the smell, or feel, or sensory aspects of money. It could also just be a poem about how we decide what has value or worth.

—–

pieces of silver
coins
jingle in my pocket
i remember
asking for quarters
on a hot summer day
when the asphalt heated up
and you could smell
the water running off driveways
like it had rained
and down gutters
foaming with dishwashing soap
while neighborhood teens
(sometimes shirtless)
washed their cars in cutoff shorts
(the girls sometimes in bikini tops or T-shirts)
later
asking for quarters
when the days grew shorter
but still refused to give up summer
even though the smell of autumn
with its brown leaves and dying lawns
and the first fireplace fires
spewed smoke out of chimneys
filling the air
and we played touch football in the street
until the lights came on
even then the ice cream truck
still rolled down the street with its
(was the driver really selling drugs?)
WATCH FOR CHILDREN warning painted in
(was he really a child molester?)
red letters on the back
turkey in the straw playing
endlessly on the speaker
wondering if i should get the bomb pop
again
and plopping down a piece of silver
and god dammit
why isn’t life as easy as that any more
why isn’t the value of something as cut and dried
as an ice cream
from an ice cream truck
when you’re trying to enjoy summer
or when you’re trying to pretend
summer isn’t over
when you don’t have enough coins left
in your pocket
to get someone nailed to a cross

Poem 20150406b

crow

So, I have a bit of a completion problem. I missed the first couple of prompts for #NaPoWriMo, and I’m going have to go back and make them up. Don’t me why. That’s just the way I’m broken. So now, the prompt for Day one:

write a poem that involves describing something in terms of what it is not, or not like.

—–

not fish
not fowl
not slimy toad
lacking legs, it creeps
both up and down
without a nose, yet it smells
no hands or feet, but ascends under it’s own power
seeks neither blood nor violence, yet
armed and ready to defend itself

climbing rose–friend to bees, and fragrant vagrant

Poem 20150406

crow

Today’s poetic challenge from #NaPoWriMo is an aubade. Aubade are kind of the opposites of a serenade, which is a poem or a song meant to be sung at night. The aubade is all about the morning. And I have never written one before. So. Here it is.

—–

so

the sun comes up like he does
and the alarm goes off like it does
and the cat walks over my head
because she wants to eat like she does
and the dog whines
because he wants to eat and go outside like he does

and

you roll over away from me
ready to head into the day
ready to exchange the warmth of the bed
for the warmth of a cup of coffee
ready to get dressed while i’m stuck, flat on my back
checking my phone
sneaking glances at you while you
put on make-up
put on your clothes
listening to you
sing whatever song you woke up with in your head on a loop
and finally when i hear you
hit the coffee machine
i finally drag myself out of bed

then

outside the sun barely is up and hidden behind early clouds
but the hummingbirds already swarm the feeder
four, sometimes five at a time
and somewhere the phoebe is singing
and today the squirrel doesn’t threaten us
from the safety of his tree
no shaking of his tail or angry chittering
just the usual avoiding of other dogs’ offerings
while we perform this morning ritual
even though the dog has a back yard
he prefers to walk on a leash

after

we drive together
NPR providing the background noise
laughing at the amusing disgusting juvenile
wifi network names that pop up as we
pause at intersections
plenty of college freshman
laughing at their own jokes about
“your mom,” pulling out, or vague threats
about stealing their wifi

so

in the parking lot
you grab your stuff
and there’s a quick quartet of kisses
and you surprise me with the last one
and the sun is finally breaking through
the clouds
as i drive toward work

Poem 20150405

crow6 Comments

Day five’s challenge from #NaPoWriMo:

Find an Emily Dickinson poem – preferably one you’ve never previously read – and take out all the dashes and line breaks. Make it just one big block of prose. Now, rebreak the lines. Add words where you want. Take out some words. Make your own poem out of it!

Ok, here’s the original, lifted from the Poetry Foundation’s website. Picked at random, as in, i had my eyes closed.

I would not paint — a picture — (348)
BY EMILY DICKINSON
I would not paint — a picture —
I’d rather be the One
It’s bright impossibility
To dwell — delicious — on —
And wonder how the fingers feel
Whose rare — celestial — stir —
Evokes so sweet a torment —
Such sumptuous — Despair —

I would not talk, like Cornets —
I’d rather be the One
Raised softly to the Ceilings —
And out, and easy on —
Through Villages of Ether —
Myself endued Balloon
By but a lip of Metal —
The pier to my Pontoon —

Nor would I be a Poet —
It’s finer — Own the Ear —
Enamored — impotent — content —
The License to revere,
A privilege so awful
What would the Dower be,
Had I the Art to stun myself
With Bolts — of Melody!

Now, mine:

i would not paint a portrait
i mean, what’s the point
i don’t have the skills
to capture a living spark in oils
and anyway
my hands shake whenever you come near me
and my pictures look like they were done
by a child
not paying attention

i’d rather be the one to be painted
why not want that for myself
it’s a bright impossibility
that will never really
be mine
but to dwell delicious on the idea
is a fine taste in my mouth

i wonder how the fingers will feel
holding the brush
mixing the palette
wielding the knife
cutting through layers of paint
cutting through layers of me
scraping the canvas
to get to the bottom of things
to get to the bottom of me

to tear open the sky and glimpse
that rare celestial clockwork
a sweet torment
a sumptuous despair

Poem 20150404

crow4 Comments

Today’s challenge for day four of #NaPoWriMo–write a love poem without using the word love.

—-

it’s all in the eyes
not her eyes,
not the way she looks at me
or the the way her eyes catch the light
in the room
when she smiles
or the way a room becomes a chilly place
and dim
when she’s angry or sad

it’s all in the eyes
not her eyes,
not the way they follow
the rhythm of a story or joke
or lower
half-lidded
when made drowsy with desire
or the satiety of desire

it’s all in the eyes
but the eyes are mine
and they watch and they see
what shivers and trembles
they watch and they see
what moves and breathes
they watch and they see
what stretches and reaches
they watch and they see
every atom swirling

Poem 20150403b

crow

I didn’t know it was National Poetry Writing Month!

I don’t know how many of these challenges I’ll try. I’ve missed the first two already. Today’s challenge is a fourteener, a poem with lines of fourteen syllables.

—–

the fox and bear were famous friends, at least that’s what i heard
until the fateful day the fox threw caution to the wind
and dressed in finest reds and whites, a top hat on his head
he came to court the lovely lass, the bear’s only daughter

‘this is an outrage,’ shouted bear, ‘you’re more than twice her age’
‘my age has nought to do with love,’ said fox, severely grave
‘i seek her hand and she seeks mine; do not begrudge us this
‘why you yourself are thrice my age and yet we still are friends’

‘we’re friends no more,’ the bear cried out, ‘you seek to ruin her”
‘far from the truth you wander, friend, and farther still you stray
‘if she’ll have me, she’ll be mine, the devil take your blessing’
so fox and the bear’s only child strove to run away

—

okay, no rhyming and it’s kind of a fragment.

Poem 20150402

crow2 Comments

the cat
sits at the glass door
not making a sound
just watching
moving only her head
as the hummingbirds
zoom in
and
out
of view
her ribs rise and
fall
and she watches the phoebes hop in the grass
and up into the limbs of the young avocado tree
sporting their little black mohawks
and she thinks–
if cats think like this–
if this door weren’t here…
if this glass weren’t between us…