News

Up until now, a news item of a traffic fatality—
such cold callous words, so reportorial—
barely touched me. That anonymous sorrow
was someone else’s raw pain, not the incident
of a single day, one moment’s miscalculation,
one brief distraction, but just the start
of a lifetime with a void in the center of the heart.
Now every hour-long television drama inspires panic,
too close, too true. Sirens in the far-off distance
echo those we heard—could it be mere days ago?
For us, too late the rescue, the good news;
instead, we huddle together riding our own
sea of pain, knowing another wave comes soon.

Brian, thanks for standing in for Robert. My best wishes to Robert's brother and new wife.


BA-BUMP, BA-BUMP, BA-BUMP

I like it here.
Nice, warm,
dark.
Ever-near that constant
ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump.

What’s that new sound?
Varoommmmmmmmmmm.
Where is it taking me?
Ouch!
That’s my leg.
Hey! I need that arm!
Varoommmmmmmmmmm.

Bitter Twitter Sweet


"If you're given lemons make lemonade,"
is what the Twitter said,
and the other tweeters passed on these words
as soon as they were read.

I sat pondering on lemons bitter;
their fragrant scent and skin,
delightful when picked from the tree
and sliced to drop in gin.

There is nothing wrong with lemons that needs
them to be so transformed.
No need for sugar to sweeten the bite
of the flesh the sun has warmed.

Why frown if given lemons for a gift?
Their colour is a smile
and the nutrients contained within
beat the stuff in chocolate by a mile.

Why do we always seek to change our lot,
instead of being grateful for the lemons we got?

A portrait of the artist as a young weasel

Bartholomew Foggerty, the brilliant weasel
Had taken a pose in front of the easel
Behind it stood in a shabby green coat
Heronimous Flange, the eminent stoat
He was working on a series to exhibit
Of famous artists indulging their habit
Bartholomew posed elegantly, brush in paw
But to be honest his back was feeling quite sore
Heronimous wanted to make him look younger
But Bart could only focus on hunger
He had a thirst for beer and a desire for pie
If he stood still much longer he would surely die
But he gained an insight, a slight empathy
For models to whom he’d shown no sympathy
He considered that he may have been cruel
When the artist commanded him, please, not to drool
He’d always considered that sitting quite still
Was the work of an idiot and not one of skill
But now as he posed he altered his mind
(He had a new desire to scratch his behind)
The itch became worse and spread to his knees
And now he thought he was going to sneeze
Old Flange asked him if he was going to fit
As Bart started to shudder and then to twitch
It’s no good he exclaimed I just can’t remain
Standing still, I’m in far too much pain
And besides if you wish to capture me young
Then don’t you think you should’ve begun
With a photograph of me in my pomp and prime
It would save my poor back and my precious time
But Flange just snarled saying I’ve nearly got it
Although on closer inspection it was hard to spot it
It’s not that the work was wholly without merit
It’s just that poor Bartholomew looked like a ferret


Iain

I love this poem of yours, Robert. It's one of your best. Beautiful and evocative. More later!

Jane Beal
sanctuarypoet.net

Thanks so much Brian and Robert! (I don't think I mentioned it yesterday. Sorry. And also, best wishes for the new couple and the families, too!)

Okay...now the poem.

***

Villanelle Pas de Deux

For just one day, I’d like to be the Left Shoe
since I’m the one who is always on the right.
This sounds fun. If you had the chance, wouldn’t you?

Taking new steps might be hard without a clue
and legs could get tangled, ‘though not out of spite.
For just one day, I’d like to be the Left Shoe.

Thinking ‘right brain’ with right foot? I could pursue
a new kind of waltz or foxtrot. What a sight!
This sounds fun. If you had the chance, wouldn’t you?

Still, this might require analytic review.
I’d check first with Left Shoe. I’d be most polite.
For just one day, I’d like to be the Left Shoe

Is it very difficult? At times? Who knew.
It can be boring always being right.
This sounds fun. If you had the chance, wouldn’t you?

So just for today, I want to go in lieu
of Left, who’s now right. (And just until tonight.)
For just one day, I’d like to be the Left Shoe
This sounds fun. If you had the chance, wouldn’t you?

Thanks for today's prompt Brian!

Here is day 2:
This poem is how I look at growing older...

The Turning Leaves

The seasons change
with each passing moment,
yellow into orange...
grey into black.

The seasons change
with each fleeting passage,
day turns into night...
forward into back.

The turning leaves
blow in the wind,
time turns into whispers...
the turning leaves into dreams.

Ooops - that line above should be

Thinking 'right brain' as left foot? I could pursue

(Sorry about that!)

After Bucowski - Sweet Milk

Bukowski watched hot pigeons suffer
and fuck on his rooftop while he waited
for the messenger. He got a message but
not the work.

I’m not sure why he supposed that the
birds were suffering, maybe they were
just hot. Apparently implied transference.
He was troubled.

My friend took that line and further
transliterated said suffering and fucking
as something we do "to perpetuate
our species."

But I don’t suffer to "perpetuate our species"
I suffer for fuck’s sake. The valley of shadows is
full of reservations, but I’m not staying to eat
just desserts.

The message for Bukowski was to get the
Fuck out of town. He ran. But that is not
the message. He wrote, he dreamt, drank but
not sweetly.

Few cows own ranges, poetic or electric. If
this Bukowski had, he might have done more than
cuss. He could have savored hot burnt dulce
le leche.

Day Shift

Waves crest
bubbling on the shore
as the smell of new coffee
pulls them in
to the Breakwater Restaurant
long before the sun
drops her first metallic hook
into the water of Lake Superior.

Abigal moves
ebbing in and out
pouring unifying coffee
in a tidal rhythm
while her customers
in an inside huddle
fill tables and booths
with driftwood stories
that pile into her memory
waiting to be poured
when the supper crowd
flows in at 5:00.

Thanks Brian, prompts most appreciated!




No opposing thumbs

Early morning
I watch my human sleep

reach out a paw
touch her eye

touch my nose moist,
cold, to her lips

Gentle waking touches
because I am hungry

because it is mealtime, and
I am too small to reach the tins,
besides, I have no opposing thumbs.

She rises, reluctant,
I plummet
down the stairs, first in line
at this morning game we play
Who will reach the kitchen first
and still in one piece?

Carol A. Stephen
November 2, 2009

WHAT WOULD KEROUAC SAY?

This house needs more jazz, needs
someone to blow notes for all
they’re worth until the windows
shake and shimmy.
Wow-eee!
Too too quiet in this
deadly suburb.
Zen Buddha silence
without the zen.
There’s more to life.
There’s LIFE.
Poetry, the moment
when your skin touches hers, when
all electric current flows
from one to the other until
you are spent. There’s the second
you hear the first note
from Dizzy, see his cheeks
puff with effort, when you think
man, that’s it, that’s the sound
of my still life as it explodes.

“Lion King on Llewellyn Road”

Stepping out on soft paws,
golden fur framing cheek and eye,
he takes to the streets, roaring mightily—
until doors open and tall strangers, awed
by his braveness and extremely long tail,
offer chocolate, sweet tarts, caramels—
the very things a forest king could eat all night long.

View Under Bridge

For once
instead of on the bridge
we're under it.

Four lively kids
besides our own adult ones
get turns at driving
the Chattanooga Duck,
a truck
made into a boat,
amphibious landing vehicle.
The Duck driver takes it down the ramp,
launching into the Tennessee
at a roller coaster speed
lands, still moving, with a terrific splash.

We view McClellan Island
not with a bird's-eye view,
but closeup, as close as
herons wading for lunch,
as near as turtles basking
on rotting logs.

The cliffs supporting Hunter Museum
of American Art
loom above us,
clad in green vines and stubborn shrubs
and we travel under the four bridges:
Olgiati
Market Street
Walnut
and Veteran's--
huge and high from underneath.
We gasp as our guide points out
the flood marks,
imagining the Tennessee so high
before the dam was built.

From the water the river sings
its power, the current fighting us one way,
carrying us the other.
We marvel as the Aquarium's boat,
with modern deftness,
passes as if we merely floated
and shows off as it nears the dock,
rotating in a smooth quick right-angle turn.

Our boat-with-wheels climbs the ramp,
a truck once more. Our showman
guide entertains us back to the
parking lot. We exit, take photos,
and wish we were bobbing, gliding,
spotting waterfowl,
feeling river breezes in hair
once again.

Bait
You couldn't catch
without me
pierced and bleeding
wrapped around
your hook
desperately clinging
to that last trace of life
before the bite

Aletha

I see her there on the floor,
light as last summer’s leaves,
arms and legs parchment wrapped twigs,
eyes alert, focused and resigned,
her voice clear, aware and as intelligent
as when I first knew this hard-smoking aunt,
who never wasted a word, or a moment,
on complaints, or idle gossip.
Hers was never an easy life,
but an existence full of good humor,
frank, practical, getting things done.
When her air force husband died
after many years of fighting M.S.,
she told me how much harder life
had suddenly become for her,
and I didn’t understand. All that care,
all that looking after, and worry, and now
she was at long-last free of it all.
But here in her room at Perrin’s,
waiting for the ambulance ride,
I’m seeing my own life in new ways,
and that of this woman, who has raised
her family, tended her invalid husband.
Her care of them was THE act of love,
and when they had gone away,
and she was left all on her own,
her house became an empty cave
full of ghosts, silence, and pictures of ghosts,
emptied even of the memory of echoes.
Her treasure the echo of remembered voices
in her active and impatient mind.

Teaching

years of teaching
and she still got
butterflies-in-stomach
nervous on the first
day of school

now a mom and she
constantly worries
if the teachers treat
her children fairly
as she waits in carpool

laurie k.

Thanks, Brian for helping Robert out!

Point of View

I try to decide
Half empty or half full- or
a little of both?

Golf Ball

I sit atop the little sliver of wood
so carefully pierced into the ground,
my porcelain-white, dimpled skin
quivering in anticipation
of that moment of release
when the club head comes flying
at me at near supersonic speed
sending me off on the greatest journey
of all - free flight.

And thank you Brian (and Robert) for keeping this challenge up and running!

Old Wine, New Wineskins


I am made
from sun and earth
I am poured
down so many throats
the joyful ones
looking for pleasure
the heedless ones
looking for forgetfulness
the anxious ones
looking for calm

So many grateful throats
who desire to savor
the taste, the bouquet
so many restless throats
who seek to quench
the unquenchable

Thank you Brian for posting yesterday and today!! Congrats to the new couple!

Crawling

I got on all fours
and crawled around my floor
looking up
looking down,
I curled up on the rug
and pretend to snore,
and this is where
my poor dogs
couldn’t take anymore!
They pounced on me
demanded to know
just what was I doing
down so low;
I smiled at them
and patted their heads
and whispered,
“I thought I’d be you,
I thought I’d pretend.”


Coffee Table

I sat for a second
and imagined I was
a round table with legs
and magazines on top;
but I had to move,
I didn’t last a minute,
to sit very still
and do nothing
just wasn’t me
I admit it.

Passerby

I have no money. I live on the streets.
I wear other people’s rejected clothes.
I dance to no beat, try to sleep wherever there is
heat, follow the crowd to where free soup is offered,
even if some payment of a pulpit or lecture
puts me on my knees, first.

I see a young woman pass me, look at my cup,
my hands crammed into too-small gloves.
I ask her for money, please baby please, give me
a bit of your change. She says she doesn’t have any
but wishes me a good day, anyway.
It would be better with a quarter or two, but thanks all the same.

GOLDEN SLUMBERS

I'm so tired.
the debilitated victim of a vindictive night.
Elusiveness is the dance of restless repose,
which tortures my bleary eyes and wandering mind,
leaving my nerves frayed; shattered and edgy
tremors of anxious minutes lost
deny me of control; a handy diversion
of my desired somnambulism, a futile pursuit.

The night before
was a precursor of my every night.
I lay in wait, hopes that this night will be the bearer
of that precious gift of sleep; of rest.
But the best for which to anticipate,
is to cope with the maladies that afflict my evening hours,
weaving tall tales into the mystic visions
of which all others selfishly partake with aplomb.

To dream like dreamer do
snug on a downy feathered cushion,
beauty in the dance of weightless flight,
a waltz into the night and straight on until morning.
The tragic warning of an apnea most intrusive,
this maniacal insomniac in rapid non-connective thought.
Morpheus and Van Winkle need not apply.
The clouded film of sleeplessness blinds my eyes.

I'm only sleeping
in my wishfulness, nodding, nearly napping
as my strength is sapped and my muse succumbs
to the abusive demands of a witty soul
not in control, seeking some comfort
wanting to crash, but not in the grips
of a wheel steered to an extreme limit
to sit in trance through the triad of morphing hues: Green, amber, red.

Good night,
thought night is no longer an ally;
more adversary than a rapturous and wanted escape.
While golden silence of the early dawning
keeps tender vigil of the lives I assume to protect,
it offers no respect to my need for slumber.
The best I can hope for is an isolation of heart and mind,
a chance to find night as a secure refuge.

I don't imagine the formatting will work. The parenthetical parts are centered, and the stuff inside the carets is italicized



__delete__



(how about I put the writer in a poem?)


she crushed corpulence into a swivel chair
tilting up three chins to the appropriate degree
reading life around the world through graduated panes
<she posted to her blog>

(ugh. that won't work at all__delete)

read a poet in Australia, one in Greece
communicated in a forum with a novelist
who lived two blocks from Bill in Iowa
and another near a waterfall somewhere

linked pudgy fingers back behind gray hair
leaned back tilting the chair precarious
winced when her spine cracked noisily

considered she'd become quite cosmopolitan
<read and reading>

(read in past tense. that's a problem___delete)

reading all around the Greenwich Mean
posting poems to be read in Germany
<suddenly felt hard lips at her throat>

(what's that doing there___delete)

(*hey, where'd he go? things were just getting good*__delete)

(get back to work, I need to write)

(__delete, delete, delete__)

Old Man In Wheelchair

She takes me on her errands
Pushes me past storefronts
To the coffee café
Where I use my good foot
To get away from her friends
and the constant gabby gabby chitty chat
That pecks at me
Like popcorn exploding in hot grease

Her son does not understand her
Her husband cannot appreciate her
Her life is a mess
They way all lives are up close

I don't know if this thing bumped my poem or if I posted it somewhere else by mistake.


Nurse Incognito

I’m usually the one wondering
how we’re supposed to accommodate
these groups who offer hope,
goodwill, and entertainment to
my patients and still get my dailies done.
Now I’m on their turf and they attempt
to be polite as they try to pass out
medicine as I dole out goody bags
from gloved hands and look out
behind white paint and underneath
rainbow hair. They laugh, as I trip
over my oversized shoes, not realizing
I’m used to wearing white trim ones
like theirs. But they suffer through
our inconvenience as they watch their
patients enjoying our antics. I look
the nurses in the eyes and I know
the little hearts on my cheeks are
raising up as I smile in understanding.

Color captured from
Sunset shines from behind the
Ornate iron bars

when she first
found mud, the word
"No" leapt into
my mind. don't and
stop close behind.
I saw how old
I had become. the
wonder of childhood
replace by the stodginess
and fear of middle age.
and I guess that's
OK since, now, I am
the parent but the
shock of what I've
lost still rings
in my ears and
allows me to say, "it's OK.
nothing the bath tub
won't fix."

Last Child Out

"Take your coats and sweaters,
Put the cap on the glue,
Find all the books,
Take your pictures home with you."

"Please take all your lunch boxes,
Push in every chair,
I liked your choices today,
You are learning how to share."

She has waved goodbye
To each child and every mom
Sure all the children have left now,
She'll check the backroom before long.

Her exhaust is deep now.
She sits in the little seat.
Quietly using the used playdough she creates her family,
Being careful to be neat.

Mom is a dark blue hue,
Dad looks more like a fist.
Big brother is all black and blue,
Little sister will always be missed.

Mking herself she looks much smaller in clay,
Then she used to be.
Where should she put herself,
In this soft and pliant family?

"Goodbye teacher, I just found my hat.
I found it on the chair
because that is where I sat."

Suprised, she sits up straighter,
Blinks open her teary eyes,
"See you in the morning, teacher,
Please, oh please don't cry."

He hugs her quickly and runs,
She shakes her head and stands,
Finishing up, all playdough back in the can.
Time to go. Loved by five year olds . . . she smiles

Thanks, Brian, for posting the theme of the day!
Earthrise

She is blue
we have no color here
grey dust
and the sky
white against black
but she
swirling visitor
our dusty eye
fills.
White against
blue
unlike the craters
that break and crack.
What land is she?
The crescent of color
the half of light?
Her full, clouded eye.
What place is this?

~The Mighty Hunter~

Warm fuzzy brown TASTY
Sniffing along your trail
Rabbit I'm on the way
No need to be hasty

Merrily I snuffle
Oh goody! Oh joy!
So many scents abound
I really gotta shuffle

What's this? I pause
This odd rank odor
I stop to ponder
Wondering at the cause

The hairs go up on my neck
Eyes darting about
Searching and seeking
The cause of the effect

Great horrors! I yelp
As I spot the reason
Huge shaggy monstrous HUNGRY
I wet myself like a whelp

Spin ki-yi and run away!
From death's great looming maw
No snack for bear be I no sir
I'll live to hunt another day!

The Bass Player’s Girlfriend Always Gets to Sing

So, this is how it is.
Kicked out of the band.
I thought they really liked me.
But it was just to keep him happy.
A good bass player is hard
To find I guess.

So, this is how it is.
I dumped him. Now I’m out.
I thought I had some real chops.
But it was just to fill in the gaps.
A real band job is hard
To hold I guess.

So, this is how it is.
This is what they heard.
I thought I was pretty good.
But it was just until his next one.
Singing must be hard-
Er than I guessed.


=-=-=
I hope this comes out; the "preview" was all screwy.

“Empty Journey”

Wheelbarrow lays in pickup bed
Arms stretched toward the cabby’s head
Upside down, oh, my wheel is aired
Miss the ground, my place in the shed

No load to carry, I cannot bare
why I’m here instead of there
stretching in a childlike pose
on my way to who knows where.

ninacarole

“Lost and found”


Shall I dismantle my stake in progress?
Delete a couple of novelty apps
from my iPhone, stop using G.P.S.,
postpone texting while I’m on the crapper...
Can I leave the net, go mobilephoneless?

Can I store a dead laptop in burlap?
Without my computer, will there be lunch?
I’ll work at home, schedule a midday nap.
I’ll dredge the old well and rinse off the sludge.
I won’t get sated. I will be a mess.

Can I walk there when the Honda won’t budge,
rest when the sun sets in February?
I’ll make my own music on wires and jugs.
I’ll stitch my own wound, meet pain’s ecstasies,
and make a storied storehouse of my lap.

Once every summer, I’d eat ripe cherries,
and hang The Apple back upon The Tree.


DA

I, Cigarette

Slim, I am.
No one can fit
in between your lips
the way I do. Who else

is gonna make you
look as cool as I do
when you're leaning
against the corner store

waiting for your human— your other
plumper, lesser
lover? I know you love me
best; I am no ordinary

coquette. I, cigarette,
make you forget.
And weren't you supposed to be
tryin' to quit me? You call me

Loosey
Gauloises
Virginia

and she only gets called
baby.

Listen, the next time
you put me out
for her, I will burn
your house down.

what if I were reading this novel?
would I smile and laugh
and turn the page to read
just one more chapter before bed?
or would I scowl and frown
and sigh heavily
at the number of pages
and the over-use of adverbs
(one in a thousand)
and tut at grammatical errors
and the use of white space
as an aid to reading.
Do I even like urban fantasy
or paranormal romance
and which is it, anyway?

at least it's a signed copy
though my signature's a scrawl

Moving out

She gets ready for work
I watch through sleepy eyes
I know something is up
Boxes are out and shapes are missing

She talks in soothing tones
I don't understand her
But I blink in response to her
That seems to make her happier and she smiles.

There isn't much that I can do
but try out the boxes
and stretch out on the paper
I do all I can to help

Afterall, kitties don't have thumbs you know.

SOMETIMES WHEN I AM THIRSTY

Sometimes when I am thirsty
I feel like you give me salt-water.
I drink it and still thirst.

This time, I will take your salt-water
and pour it on the cut,
so that it will become clean.

When the cut closes,
and only a white scar remains,
it will remind me of our story:

the love I gave to you,
the healing you gave to me.

Jane Beal
sanctuarypoet.net

The Journey: Day Two: Look at Something from a Different Angle

A life, anybody’s life, is an optical illusion.
I see a homeless woman, shabby, worn, bereft of conveniences and niceties:
warm comfortable bed, hot tea in a stoneware mug,
good food on a clean plate at a clutter-free table
in a well-built house, untouched by petulant weather.
She views herself an independent woman, unfettered by convention,
daily whims and wishes illuminating her path,
her needs simple, her life basic, the question of survival
answered by one word:
freedom.

Thanks again Brian and Robert for all your efforts to keep this November venture afloat!


Pacific Plea

This is where I have been so long
I have flourished
Added nourishment to the environment every year
I have grown as tall as I can
Even let moss grow on my bark
Served as the backdrop for photos
Shaded the passers-by
Why can't they just let me be?
This how I got to be an old-growth forest--
Just let me be.

Patricia A. McGoldrick

If wishes were horses...

I blow the mouthpiece to move my chair,
type out words, paint my canvases. My
breath has become my focus of touch since
the stroke left my body useless, my mind
trapped inside a voiceless lump of flesh.

My childhood spent inside children's
hospitals where stricken parents cope
with burdens of guilt when they gaze
at progeny strapped to machines giving
them life, food, breath, waste disposal

all in one tidy package. I want to run
again, feel the breeze on my naked skin,
the hot breath of a lover on my breast.
Instead, bands keep me upright, respirator
breathes for me, colostomy bag collects

my waste while I yearn to lay my head
back on a pillow of grass and gaze up
at the sky without wondering how the
hell I'll get back into the wheelchair
which just dumped me there.

WOW! It posted in one try!

I seem to have more luck if I open two windows with PA, and attempt the second (or third or fourth) posting with the second window. JUST FYI.

Though this one posted on the original window while I was loading PA on a second.

Sun on the ground

Unwashed hands
grasped the clean fingers offering change
and found themselves
fingering wads of bills
so unfamiliar,

those hands sifted through paper after paper
until they found what they feared all along
the thing they begged for
meant nothing
did nothing worthwhile sitting there, being held

those hands reached out into the sunlight
searching for the grittiest face to look into
to tell them this truth-

Everything is nothing,
nothing to beg for.

No, there was something else
those palms were aching for
some kind of heart
some kind of laughter
some kind of life
something so much harder to pick up than loose coins
something so much richer than a winter night with liquor…

Shaky, dirty hands
refused the manicured touch holding their donation out to be taken
afraid to lose what they’d found
sitting in the sun on the ground.

VIEW POINT

From the river looking up, I can’t see
where she stood, that spectacular vista
of granite cliffs across the gorge, silver veils
of waterfall, the dance of sun
sparkling crystals caught in rock.

A girl about to be married – the happiest
time of her life – how could she just
disappear from the overlook? A fall?
Surely she wouldn’t jump, or thumb a ride,
while her lover napped in the car.

Not my place to wonder. My assignment’s
down here, the river bottom, water
fierce-gray with storm; boulders slick,
treacherous. I’m following my dog
who works head high

as if he were a kite on the wind, the rush-
flood of air down-canyon, downdraft
off the cliffs, air that carries scent
to a search dog. He leaps boulder to
boulder with no thought of danger

as we work against the current –
wind and water that formed this place.
What makes it beautiful
is why I watch my step, the river taking
everything to itself, down and away.

Autumn’s first breezes,
humans spy as we build homes,
wrens find peace mid-air.

Warm Up

Shoulder rolls. Neck Rolls. Side Twists, Knees to the Chest. There are no fancy names for the warm-ups in yoga class. I find this comforting. I think, maybe, I could teach something like this. I picture myself at the front of the room as the perfect example of how to move your head in a circle. I remind the class to breathe. In this dream, I am at least 5 foot something and blonde. My sweat is attractive. I don’t have to weigh myself anymore but I’m always a size 5. My need for a drink of water wakes me. I lean out of my fetal position to reach for my bottle. Plastic. I shouldn’t bring disposable plastic bottles. Everyone else has stainless steel reusable containers. Except the teacher has nothing. And, I wonder at their bottles because no one ever seems to stop to drink. Are they not thirsty? Do they not worry that they are not staying hydrated? Back into position, no, she does not worry. She is Knees to the Chest in Comfort. She is Let’s start with Sun Salutations.

TROLL

I was under the bridge
minding my own biz
when I heard the annoying patter
of little hooves, right in the middle
of sweet dreams and murder.
I yelled. He left. No big deal.

The next morning, you got it, Big Brother
comes along, thinking he’s bad,
so I yell and I maybe call him some things
I shouldn’t, so sue me.
Goat feet go clippety-clop
back the way they came.

And the next day, here comes Daddy,
fat like you wouldn’t believe,
stomping over my bridge like he owns it
and I’m effin tired of this shit
so I tell him in so many words: Get lost
and he says: Make me.

I haul ass up there and he comes at me
sixty miles an hour, head down,
so I step aside and give him
a little push as he passes
so he falls over the edge.

Me and the missus, we eat good that night.

Just wanted to thank you both, Brian and Robert!!
-Linda :-)

DAY 2 – A Different Angle by Jane Eamon November 2009


I never thought I’d see
The day
My head was so flat
What possessed me to think
That I could ever wear a hat

I’m used to round
And yet
I fear that curves have left my ken
So I wonder why
I’ve gone and flattened out my noggin

My eyes feel something
Larger still and hard like buttons on a coat

And the meat of me
Feels soft
And not so even like a lumpy coat

I wonder what possessed
The man
Who thought this hair would stay
I’ve caught myself in a silly grin
And wonder why

Reprise: A Night to Remember

The cocktail party turned out to be --
let’s just say not what she expected.
Afterward she kept thinking to herself
isn’t it funny
how differently people looked at me
and even more so, how differently I looked at them
mostly strangers knowing nothing
about the life I’ve just walked away from.

I was fully aware the whole time
of this new perspective
this vantage point of singlehood
admiring male glances
slit-eyed female glares of --
could that have been jealousy?
The new outfit served me well!
I felt powerful, in control, even fortunate.

I can weather a whole lot of tough, going-it-alone times
living off the memory of those stares.

In the
byroads
of sleep,
she dreams
that she
is her
mother,
the cool
grit of
half-peeled
linoleum
under her feet,
the soft flour
on her
hands
as she
rolls out
endless
ropes of
noodles.

The screen
door catches
the summer's
hot breath,
the careless
laughter
of herself.

Heidi's Hideaway

Heidi sat in her new little playroom,
A folly of a dome, walls curving all around-
Not a corner in sight,
And every inch of it a tasty treat.
The door was long, but just big enough
For her to squeeze through,
And high up were splendid skylight windows.
Best of all, the floor was spread about with large flat seeds -
Her favorite food!
A few nights ago, the pumpkin was for humans-
But now it is Heidi Hamster's turn to enjoy!

Success:
I judge success by numbers,
But my friends, they base success
On their accomplishments.

It is like I am the fisher
Who values only the weight
Of a hefty catch, while my friends
Enjoy the roasted meat,
Worrying not about
How many fish they baited.

Art class teaches me much:
How to ignore the label
Of a grade, and instead appreciate
The effort I put into my work.

The Cannon's End

Standing on top of the hill
the canon points forward
Aimed for the enemy at hand
I stand there and wait for the order

And when the order is called
I light the fuse and look on
The canon points toward the advance
As I stare down its barrel and watch

And then the fuse hits her mark
and "Boom!" the ball is shot out
Soaring away from us all
Yet, I stare down the barrel and stall

DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE

You think I can't hear
your muffled snorts
as you relive the day
when I huffed and I puffed.

You think I can't see
the glee as you stuff
youselves behind the brick
never thinking
the perhaps I was sick
that afternoon.

You think you are strong
and I am all spent
O arrogant trio of
porcine descent
but you're wrong.

It's time to bring home the bacon.

Oh dear. I apologize for those typos.

Seeing the Moons of Jupiter

Earthbound observers
are poorly positioned
to judge the shape of the world.

Pointing his telescope at the night’s brightest planet,
He gazed in wonder at its solidness,
A round, bright orb shining in the sunlight
Framed by the background of stars:
Tiny pinpoints of light
In the infinite darkness.

As the nights went by
He stared at Jupiter and noticed that a few of the stars
Seemed to always stay near the planet
Moving now closer, now farther away,
But always attending.

A new inspiration took hold.
These were not far distant stars
But moons that circled and danced about Jupiter,
As his own moon did the Earth.

Suddenly, for the first time,
He saw the world in three dimensions:
The Earth had become unhinged and set free to wander the universe.

Day 2: Look at something from a different angle


He leads

In the curve of his arm
the woman waits, her hand in his.

Music fills the room, a measured beat.

He listens, counts, starts the dance,
the woman motionless till his command.

No words, just rise of bodies, intertwined.

He steps and sways, wends his way between
beyond the sea of dancers.

Pliant, responsive, she bends to his will.

He twirls her, sets her free
within the confines of his reach.

For this song
this single dance
she is his.

Thanks again to Brian and Robert!

:Vesuvian heart:

I must miss you
as much as I miss eating
cow pies. Rocks. And leaves.
And cookies and cream.

As I miss feeling you.
The touch of your
needle on my burning skin.
The blood rushing to my head

and knees. Like black outs
in fresh white snow. And Mendocino
in your atlas of hair. Your eyes.
Your hands. Your sharpened

heart. And the heat of you.
Bending low over my bed
to touch my Vesuvian cheek
to prickle my face with love and ice.

Time Talks Back

You squeeze me daily
like a stress-ball, while saying
you don’t have enough.

Peripheral Vision

In forensics, everything is examined so minutely
She has crow’s-feet before she is thirty
Hair-thin lines that fan out from the corner
Of her eyes; the same eyes that catch things
Moving, just out of range - on the periphery
Of her excellent vision - she is known for being
Able to spot anomalies in cell formation often
Without a microscope or at least before fitting
The lens to her eye but when she straightens up
There’s always something, there - just there
Did you see that? A shadow maybe or was it -
No, she thinks not, it couldn’t have been, could it?
She tries hard not to pay attention to these
Apparitions that are just out of sight wondering
If she is going slightly mad but suspecting
Rather that her eyes are playing tricks - tricky eyes
That’s all they are, she mutters, tricky eyes.

Today I Am a Tree

I am a sycamore standing tall,
ancient and gnarled on the creek bank.
My bark sheds every two years,
reveals the yellow-green silk underskin.
Gnats swirl in loops around my trunk,
spiders drop lines from my crown.
Woodpeckers hollow holes
in my limbs for their nests.
My branches twist,
break off in howling winds,
rain leaves like gold-brown saucers
on damp autumn ground.
I wait through full moon and storm
for the deep nights, dark days of winter
when I appear,
with my sisters in the glade,
made of ghost-light,
mist and shadow.

11:17pm

Only God
knows I’ve
toasted this slice
of wheat to scrape
it with a knife,
scatter crumbs
across the kitchen
counter, stars
dotting heaven’s
expanse, so I could
drag my fingers
through a galaxy,
pretend that I am Him.

Thanks Brian and Robert!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

HAWK FROM ON-HIGH

High in the sky,
looking out; down;
far; near; around;
farther than most.

Moves in the brush;
more in the grass.
Lunch! No, too small;
fur is too long.

Two-legs are there.
Soar by one time.
Circle around.
When will they go?

No! Leave four-legs
there for my meal!
Please, send them back!
Rats! Foiled again!

W

DOCTOR! DOCTOR!

He’s used to wielding the scapel
Giving the orders
In charge of the body (person)
So sure of himself
Confident he can heal or at least make better

Prescribes good medicine
With a deft scribble of the pen
And
Still manages to ask “How are you doing?”
with interest
compassion, concern
No small feat

But
the ride in this ambulance
Lights flashing, sirens wailing
Feeling speed beneath him bumping along
has unnerved him
Strapped down to a board
Poked for an IV line
Stuck with leads that will pull skin
When they are taken off
Only to be replaced by new ones
At the hospital

Sweat and wide eyes
Evidence of the fear
As the paramedic checks his vitals
asks "Would he like anything for pain?"
A doctor’s worst nightmare -
Being doctored to

Pamela Gordon! Looks like we were on the same whisker-length!

Carol

Honey Babe's New Perspective

That time when she was cutting her jeans
into cut-offs, she laughed when her
grandmother-on-her-father-side said, "Grip
those scissors tight; you know what dropped
ones mean." And she said, "I know," because
she did know, because her grandmother told her so
a million times. "But no man's gonna be able to leave
once he sees me in these," she said and believed
it the way her grandmother believed in
old wives' tales, but that was when she was young,
before she became "Honey Babe" to her man.
She laughed at her grandmother then, when
she said, "No shorts and no gold rings and no
pricey face creams gon' make a man stay," but
she wouldn't laugh if her grandmother said those same words
to her today. She sees the way her mother's friends go
crazy over unfaithful men and how Uncle Freddy hurt
Aunt Pearl bad and how her grandmother-on-her-mother-side
and cousin Gerry won't cut their man loose no matter what and
who they do –even though they might get a clue from dropped scissors.
And some might thank God for tumbling ones, but Honey Babe
would rather not know. She wouldn't laugh at all, today, instead
she'd say, "I'm gonna death-grip these scissors like the scissor
are my man."

Gotta thank you Brian and Robert. Terrific stuff here today all. Some so clever, I'm totally jealous and some so thought provoking, they make lasting impressions. Too much fun for one person :)

You pretend not to notice when he looks your way.
Yet I see the twitch in your temple,the way your dimple deepens. He laughs and you blush. You do not need to speak since you wear your heart on your face.
It's ok mom, I know you need a friend. He makes you happy and that is my prayer for you.

Blind Date
She was cute
I had fun
I wouldn't mind seeing her again
This could lead to something
I think she likes me
Maybe we could start a romance
Finally I've met someone I connect with
She laughed at my jokes
We like the same music
We really are made for each other!
I pause to kiss her goodnight
she turns her cheek
Can we see each other again?
I'll call you.
She smiles and says
whatever

Ascent

Solid ground hulks mere yards below,
but I feel like a weightless champion,
hands grasping stone face without question,
feet finding toe hold after toe hold:
calm, steady, fearless rock climber.

If only for today, I am the athlete
I’ve viewed from afar—safely ensconced
in my world of words—now ascending
not just mountains of paper
but real, formidable rock.

I can’t believe the untested strength
springing from fingertips that must be
my own. No pen, no paper, no keys
between me and the world.
Falling pebbles punctuate this day.

Home, flat-footed once more,
I return to my imagined landscape.
Muscles sing with use. Tendons hum.
In my mind, I continue skyward,
my narrow gaze forever widening.

When his face fell
I knew the power I had,
remembered for a moment
what it was like to

Crane my neck
toward the self-important
towers of law
that clicked around
always in a rush

Receive approval
sent down
from those suited peaks

Wince at
the ugly barks
as if through a megaphone
when I missed something important

I wanted to tell them
how the ants relished
the ice cream I had dropped,
how the kitchen
glimmered with motes
from the sun's morning arrival

I liked it
when one of them
crouched down long enough
to see the grass peek from
cracks in the sidewalk,
the bug bite on my knee,
all of the intrigue
in a new puddle
all of the questions
that ran just behind
my eyes

THE PEN


I lay in the curve of her thumb,
embraced by her fingers
then her grip tightens
She places my head on the surface
the dark fluid in my body
flows across the white page
I dance merrily, the words glide like silk,
then, suddenly her hand lifts me
Moments pass while I sit warmed
by her slender, delicate fingers
I'm poised above the thick sheaf,
the white blankness of the linen pattern
below me, waiting to be filled,
then her grip tightens
Poignant fingers press me down
words pouring from my head
to fill the page with her thoughts
Madly she moves me across the sheet
possessed by an uncontrollable
need to pour her heart out
onto the page before us
She scratches, stops, crosses out a word
then, more frantically than before
her hand moves me across the page
in a fever, before her words
and my black heart run dry.


J. Kuykendall

Triangle vs Circle

Three sides.
Three angles.

It is who I am.

Sharp corners.
Definite boundaries.

A rigid, demanding life.

Curved line.
No angles.

It is who I have become.

Smooth rolling.
Strong center.

Life is better as a circle.



Sondie

Kudos to Michael Pollan and his "Botany of Desire" featured on PBS this week... really has me thinking about who is influencing who!

Desire
Michael Pollan would have us believe
That plants desire to propagate
We've been accomplices all along
While thinking that most of it's just fate.
A little graft here, plant a seed there
Intoxication, beauty, and food
for human use, or is it for theirs?
That's for the centuries to conclude.

anyone know why this takes two or three times to post?

Also, kudos to the folks who described cats to a perfect T!

TELL ME WHAT YOU SEE
(Sevenling: Mom worked)

Mom worked a night shift,
Dad kept vigil on his budding family,
and two young girl scouts developing as leaders.

Troop 749 needed supervision,
to run meetings every Tuesday evening,
and direct cookie sales with an attitude.

Daddy Den Mother in charge.

GOING FULLTIME
(Tiresias)

I'm between surgeries, she answers, I'm walking the line,
she says, cigarette cradled by thin lips stained heliotrope,
Queen Bitch of the hour and rough trade of the day,
La Belle
(ou La Bête)
any way you want. And I ask her in her infinite wisdom,
does it make things difficult to live so in-between.
She pats my knee with a wide gloved hand,
she croons with the bite of a martini in her voice,
No one said life was easy, honey.

Look at me: hormones and reconstruction,
all that bullshit. But no one made me, no one said I had to,
I stared at my man's face in the mirror and wondered
where I was.

We make our choices or they are made for us.
I see you, honey. I see the fear and the confusion, I see
shifting and squirming and all the distemper in your soul.
I know what it's like to feel like something you're not:
there's scar tissue under my petticoats and a seashell in my throat.
People have a kind of calculus: you can figure them out,
where they're going on their two wrong feet. And as I am a
benevolent marquise, let me offer you some advice,
and she leans in, wig tickling my ear,
smell of tea roses drowned in snake oil and gin,
and she whispers,

{the world will change you only if you let it
change yourself and watch the world do you want}

She has drained her cigarette of all its virtue.
She pushes her corset up beneath meager cleavage.
She is the father of two and hopes to be the mother of one more.
I've got my new face on, honey, she laughs. My face has
a left eye blue with estrogen and a right eye blind with sweat.
I'm the sex therapist who's as fucked up as you are.
I'm an old artificial and I'm loving it.

She raises one callused, leathery finger, with its long red nail,
and by glorious mystery the bartender pours her another.
Somebody better cut me off, she howls gleefully to the room,
somebody better cut me off soon.

Playing The Angle

I trusted you
at ninety degrees,
standing tall
from my baseline,
till I found out
you played me.
Trust curving
to forty-five.

Thank you Brian...get home safe Robert...all the best to the happy couple...mazel tov...see you all in the funny papers tomorrow! Lox

Long Island Thrift

i am inside the drawer
the left one at the top of the dresser
the wooden dresser where the girls kept their scissors and loose tiddly winks and crayons
all the games done being played
dried playdo face and mixing cup
and so here a spare church key, a spare car key
the essential tools to get out
flutter covered in construction paper with a pumpkin shape cut out
through which i see the living room ceiling
no one peeking in

i am crumpled near the back of the drawer with back of the drawer fallen out
or taken out and it is like an elevator shaft from here down and down behind drawer and drawer
behind addresses, stamps, and addresses changed, invitations, checkers stuck together and pens
behind place settings and plastic fruit,
behind writing, serious and clear
down in blackness
to the bottom where the tucked bottles rattle again
as the dresser is finally disturbed from its place
(a necklace sparkles there underneath - oh there!)
the dresser lifted (by who?) and emptied (where am I now?) and driven
somewhere else
to contain and organize
a brand new story
smelling of old wood.
cleaned.
antique.

New Perspective

She counted on her
Fingers and toes the
People she could rely on and
Came up short

She begged the
Question,
Meditated,
Wrote in her journal,
Blamed herself for
Inadequacies

She gave a bit more than was
Appropriate,
Catered to whims,
Cried herself to sleep more than a
Few times

She looked inside and out for the
“Whys” of life
Took things hard
Crashed and burned only to
Make it out better than
Whole

She’s carrying on
Whether she has her fingers or
Toes
She has a new
Perspective

Midnight, Halloween

I see you chatting with the young
woman with the cat on her lap.
The party’s going on 3 hours now
and shows no signs of slowing down.
She smiles, she’s polite.
The cat was on your lap not so long ago,
and in my arms before.
Such a satisfying cat, all long fur,
sweet face, vibrating purr,
squishy paws kneading right, left, right left.
You’ve got a pleasant buzz on
as you lean over her to tell her cat stories
you told me on the drive up.
I never noticed how approachable you can be
when in the presence of beauty,
of cats and of young women
with pretty smiles and pretty breasts.
I used to be young like that,
used to be chatted up by nice men
with that nice alcohol buzz.
But I’m the one who will drive you
home with me tonight.
When did I become older than them?

A HISTORY LESSON AT BOSCOBEL HOUSE

All the miles you’ve walked with your poet-
postman friend Capern, and you’ve never seen him
from quite this angle – wedged in the trap-door
to a crawl-space, almost an oubliette,
in which King Charles the Second hid
from Cromwell’s Roundheads in hot pursuit –
a king whose own father lost his head.

Charles, it seems, was fitter than your friend
Capern, and not so corpulent. Without one word,
Charles could fit into a tight spot
where Capern’s stuck now, uttering loud and
learnéd but not poetic epithets. And you –
don’t just stand there, cracking jokes – won’t
you reach down and lend him a hand?

Slant
(a shadorma)


Here she sits
shattered, head in hands
broken breath
trapped in throat.
Fragments scattered everywhere
tattered, torn, she mourns.

So she stands
fractured heart in hands
turns it, slow
to and fro.
Yes, the sunlight shines just right
in between the cracks.

Fan

Hi Mom, he mouths toward the Jumbotron,
one familiar face in a sea of blue, the student
section packed, standing room only. Four years
of studying, crafting personal essays, requesting
references from alumnae, donors, citizens
of note. How proud we were—still are—
but why, after searching the stadium every time
the camera cut from the game to the fan section,
do we recognize our offspring, the fruit of our loins,
painted Carolina blue from forehead to navel,
projected on the screen for all the world to see.
They had to show someone’s son. This one’s mine.

YOU KNOW MY NAME
(Look Up The Number)

I gave you a ring
and you answered me.
Although you see me
as cold and plastic,
I am hard in your hand.
You have a way of
pushing my buttons
and making me hum
in your ear.
You think of walking away
with no cords attached,
but I remain close at hand.
I've had plenty of
hang ups in my life
and have at times
gotten disconnected.
But as always,
communication is the key.
I am your telephone.
You had me at hello.
You had me at hello.

In My Father’s Eyes

You are my daughter and I have always known you.
You were planned before the moment of your conception.
I knew your first word; I watched as you took your first step.
I held you as you shed every tear.

You have been surrounded by my love every second.
We have never been apart, not even in your darkest times.
We have shared every emotion, every sorrow, every happiness.
I have never left you all alone.

You will meet my Son at your death and you will know
the joy that I have prepared for you, boundless eternal joy.
Your voice will ring for eternity as you join in the perfect praise
that will forever be your heaven.

In My Baby’s Eyes

mother warmth
clean dry me
nuzzle milk
touch finger
soothe tummy
heartbeat
heartbeat
sleep

Life at a Different Angle
© Rich Atwater Nov 2, 2009

I was six foot two, she was two foot six!
Only two years old; me way past my prime!
I was looking down, she was looking up at "pix",
Within my zoom machine of “video-cam wonder time”.

One eye shut had I, to look within view-finder screen,
Looking down upon "my girl" to capture moments, Oh so true,
Christmas time, she laughed and played, one eye shut; supreme,
Mimic Dad, and want to see just what this big man do:

With one eye shut, I looking down behind this magic box,
Pulling on dear Daddy’s pant-leg—“Let me take a look”!
With one eye shut, big happy grin, and childish happy gawks,
She was looking up at me, reminding of Longfellow’s book—

Wherein he wrote: “The Children’s Hour”, a happy time of glee,
He was looking up, and they were coming down,
“Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra, and Edith with golden hair” to see,
Coming down the stairs to capture him, all around.

The sound of door was opened, the patter of little feet again,
A voice so soft and sweet surrounds the atmosphere,
Once again a pause from the days occupation, study time begin,
But soon from broad hall stair descending to my hemisphere:

Eva-Valentina, the brightness of my heart to shine,
Nickname: “Valya”, my dear girl, in solitude as only child,
Yet, whether ten or only one, at least for sure she’s mine,
And she is looking up, as I am looking down with love, so mild.

A sudden rush from the kitchen, a sudden raid from the hall,
My little girl surrounds me to capture my every glance,
With one eye shut, and a dancing prance, along with her little doll,
She’s looking up, I’m looking down, a Daddy-daughter romance!

She scales the wall of my towering legs to the turret of video-cam,
With one eye shut, like a mimic blink, her arms about me entwine,
To see what Daddy does so high above, a crash to the couch with a wham!
My dear blue-eyed banditti, with happiness now enshrined.

Thus now she’s fast in my fortress of “home movies” to relive in time,
I keep her there in the round tower of my true heart’s desire,
To remember days of long ago when she was a little child; sublime,
With life at a different angle than the one that we know today, a sacred fire—

To burn within us forever, yes forever and a day, as “family time”, capsule thoughts,
The memories of one eye shut, from up above, and down below, for two,
A movie picture video screen with scenes around the home, not yachts,
Or all the enticing places of earth, but near “the home hearth” where she grew.

Death Examines Birth

At birth, a boy cried
At manhood, he commanded
Death induced his tears

LOOKING GLASS

I grow impatient with my mother
She’s so slow and complains the whole time
I have to prepare myself when I visit
Put on a shield against hurtful words

I wonder how long she can live by herself
I can’t visit her more than I do
Can’t keep an eye on her and the house
Can’t always make surethat she’s safe
She might be better off in a home
With professionals around the clock

My last visit I was sure I’d go mad
She couldn’t remember what I told her last time
I told her, “It’s OK mom
I don’t always remember myself

She said, “You're not fooling me
You say one thing but your eyes say another
I know you don’t want to be here.”

My precious daughter is busy with her career
I look forward to her visits and calls
Last night she said, “Mom, you walk like an old woman”
She went off then to other things
How much she enjoys being with me
That I always make her laugh
She mentions how pretty I looked that night
But I saw it, that look in her eyes

From Another Angle

This planet is worth saving. We must do all we can to preserve it.
-We can’t land the ship; it would destroy every trace of atmosphere.
We must act from beyond its one small moon.
-How do we eliminate only the life forms that cause harm?
The old ones say there is only one that has wrought destruction.
-In the millions of years of our observations, only one?
Yes. It has forgotten how to live in harmony with the others.
-So we are justified in our decision?
We are justified.
-How shall I program the pulse?
Set it to affect only creatures able to perpetrate evil.
-So be it.

Falling

I got out of bed to see if you left the oven on
And tripped over a pair of blue clogs in the doorway,
I lay there starting to remember things;
The ocean in August, the moist of your armpits, a seagull we named Bob.

I knew there was no way for me to rise up gracefully
And the hero was snoring.
For a moment I panicked,
I'll drown, I thought. I'll drown.

But the green crayon next to me was unflappable
And reminded me that I had swimmer's legs,
Any fool can trip on the carpet, she reminded me,
But it takes a goddess to rise up and walk again.

The oven wasn't on. I walked back to bed,
the expanse of oceans at my feet.

It’s Unfair

It’s unfair
that you have so much
while my children starve.
It’s unfair
that you slap me hard
and make me broken.
It’s unfair
you erect electric wires
That kill my brothers.
It’s unfair
your gaseous candles
choke out our last breath.
It’s unfair
you poison our ponds
and kill our babies.
It’s unfair
you were born human
and I a mosquito.

Fairies Dance Around Their Feet

Life to a child is oh so sweet
When fairies dance around their feet
And only they can see this treat
For adults are much too complete

To dare to venture out of norm
To say that fairies can exist
And even imagine they are real
Would cause a trip to emergency

To get on meds to help you cope
So you don’t think those thoughts
So you can live your life more real
And free from fleeting fairy tales

Little children are so free and neat
Free to dare to dream such treats
And share with you they are complete
As fairies dance around their feet

JA Jensen - that was a total surprise - I LOVE it.

WE CAN WORK IT OUT
(An Aragman*)

Ablest thee.
You came four-in-one
doing what no one had before.

A blest thee.
Gifted beyond compare,
electric evangelists of song.

Table these.
It is fare for the masses
to consume; an audio feast.

Beats he let
come forward from the back,
ringed rolling thunder.

Be athletes.
Extend your musical marathon
fifty years in the making.

Late behest,
a lyrical call to arms,
come together right now.

Table he set,
harmony and melody
served with wit and admiration.

Seat belt, eh?
I need you to drive my car,
and the road is long and winding.

The Beatles
are playing on the radio bridging our differences.
We can work it out.


*Thanks to Salvatore Buttaci for the form

Rosie at Chiran

Rosie is eighteen, visiting Japan;
she’s learning Japanese and is in love
with Kagoshima. In her Loligoth
outfit she gets the gaijin stare
and resolves to dye her hair black.
She is ambivalent about raw fish,
unless they are Koi carp and still
swimming. At the samurai village
she drinks green tea and admires
the waterless water gardens.

At the spa near Okinawa
Rosie goes to a building by the sea,
changes into yukata and lies
buried to the neck in hot sand,
feeling her heart pumping the warm blood
around her body. At sunset,
still in her yukata, she paddles
in the southern ocean near the mountain
the Kamikaze pilots saw
as they left Japan for the last time.

At the Chiran Peace Museum
Rosie sees pictures of the boys her age,
imagines them like those she danced with
at the gig at Kagoshima High,
imagines them eating sushi
from bento boxes like those she bought
for souvenirs, until the divine wind
of war blew them to their date with death.
She reads their letters, sees the keepsakes
they left behind. She won’t forget. Zenzen.

First: Thanks Brian!
Next: Poem

He Said

It's not how you dress.
It's that you
always look like you're
about to fall
out of your clothing.

Eyes Wide Open

I'm such a lucky woman
free, to do as I please
clothes on my back, safe shelter
shoes and socks on my feet

From a different perspective
I imagine the foreign lands
babes lay naked 'n hungry
bombs going off with a bang

I am but a woman
free to make own choice
can write down thoughts, speak my mind
a calmness in my voice

From a different perspective
imagination takes control
trying to hide from enemy
in a cold, dark hole

Yes, I am but a woman
with children I adore
mem'ries sweet and cherished
to love forevermore

From a different perspective
my eyes begin to tear
bloodied bodies 'round me
brethren living in fear

I am but a woman
can laugh, shed happy tears
with a song in my heart for the 'morrows
smile at yesteryear's

From a different perspective
a Mother buries her child
widows weep in sorrow
innocent slowly die

I am but a woman
with pain within my heart
as I look from a different perspective
all lightness turns to dark

If only things were different
and war would come to pass
we could live in harmony
everyone free at last...

November 2nd, 2009

(prompt-looking at something from a different angle)

Disparate Ends

You're cutting too fast but the idea is great
Look at that beautiful grain
A smoother action has polished the material
Whereas here, you've rushed and torn it

There she goes, rushing in again
Acknowledging my plan but only seeing
her way of getting to the end;
praising, then roughing me up

Keep the action smooth
Respond to the nature of things
Let yourself be one with your creation
Together you'll produce beauty

I adore her words and her work, I...
That's what brought me here, what keeps me here
But we are seeing separate ways
Her art will always be the end point

Wrapped up in the task at hand. Thanks to Brian for ably filling for the prompting wunderkind, Robert Lee Brewer. Great stuff so far Brian.
And this group never disappoints. Wonderful works, all!

Portrait

That night you made me pose,
dragged me from my laptop,
from arguments, from prosy
nonsense to sit, to stop,
hold still while you painted,
hurred, hawwed, dug deep
into your paint case, complained
when I moved, re-angled me
into different light to catch
some subsumptive movement
of my eyes. I tried to watch
your power, only saw it when
you cut the portrait into squares,
collaged them on a board, said "there."

On Hwy 127
the road into Death Valley

cycling this time,
noticed a splintered sign, ghost
town called Zabriskie

Ruth Nolan

Who Wears the Pants?

They Call Me Smarty Pants
Is not
The title of a song;
It’s I.
I know that whenever she wears me
She feels good.
I am frayed at the heel where I’m too long.
I’m worn at the places
Her fat thighs rub.
One pocket has a hole.
One knee has a slight tear.
But I am Smarty Pants.
I hold her together, in more ways than one.
I make her feel fine.
I used to be his.
But when he died,
She could not bear to give me away;
When she wears me...
She feels good. Almost.

Some great stuff written here for days 1 & 2

Standing at Our Window, Behind Me the TV

Another rainy day
slows
ripples flow, seep, and slide

Rivulets ride over and along
the pane
mini trains collide, join forces

on the downward trek.
I stare
despair, endless dampness.

You in your chair
behind me
contentment stretched

silent witness
without interest
beyond the nameless roar

that rises
from the distant field
unaware of us.

Thanks again, Brian!

Some wonderful prose so far by all! I'm looking forward to absorbing more!!!

"Flip Side of the Coin"

We've seen the stories
and heard the tales;
A loving Father,
A doting Mother
Swimming in despair
Reaches out once tender hands
violence and desperation
at wits end.

How could they?
Our normal minds beseech
to take the life
of innocent sweets.

No sign. No plea.
Was there no help?
We wonder
as alone we weep.

I, too have wondered
and shed a tear
for children lost
throughout the year.

But in these times
of depravity and sin,
of homelessness,
and joblessness,
and society's din,

I see the flip side of the coin

the feeling that we
don't belong.
The helplessness,
the hopelessness,
the steady decline,
the sorry state
of humankind.

I have three boys
I love each one
I'd kill to protect them
Should that need be done.

But questions
and worries
plague me each night
As I see the legacy
we are leaving
behind.

I try not judge
the acts of man
the evil in their
desperate hands.
For no one knows
the pain and tears
they've shed and bled
on silent ears.

TIRESIAS ON METAMORPHOSIS


Nobody wants to know what
it’s like to be blind or wise;
all they ever want is their
future, will I marry rich or
how will I die? which is easy—
no, and struck by a runaway
oxcart. But the shifty ones
elbow me and whisper “What was
it like to be a woman for a year?”
And then I must seem altered
to dumb marble, because
where are the words to describe
the perfume and the ache,
the leers and sighs that
orchestrate a woman’s day?
To carry a jug of water from
the well upon your head
and feel the womb below,
a well of life within, to be the
door of creation, and still have
bread to bake and floors to
scour and the fire to tend.
“It was like being a fire”
I reply and feel the blank space
their ignorance projects, and
I grope my way on, a divided
heart tapping blindly in my chest.

Patient


She hauls happiness into the gloom
opening the drapes, allowing the light.
Sun-sparkle bedazzling her disheveled hair
hints at the halo this angel has surely earned.

She patiently plumps the pillows,
gently repositioning the patient,
coaxing a weak smile, then a warm chuckle,
from her surly charge.

The former doc admits with chagrin
to being one of “them”
that fellowship of surgeons
gifted, petulant, impatient perfectionists,
bedeviled by every wayward nurse -- registered,
licensed and im-practical -- inferiors
running always a step behind,
tripping over deadlines, never quite able
to keep up with demanding doctors.

Now, as precious days shrink
and wither, dwindling down to die
this doctor acknowledges
surgeons, sometimes, are mistaken.

Taking an Stance
By: Meena Rose

An opinion; a point of view;
Has it been explained to you?
Do you have any clue?
Can you learn something new?

Has it been explained to you?
To look at the world differently.
Can you learn something new?
Can you live your life lovingly?

To look at the world differently,
Walk a mile in another’s shoe.
Can you live your life lovingly?
To your own self be true.

With many thoughts to wrangle,
Do you have any clue?
It is just a new angle;
An opinion; a point of view.

The Circle of Life
By: Meena Rose

Forever turning;
Forever revolving;
Continuous unfolding;
This is the Circle of Life.

Go on gathering;
Soon you will be hungering;
Then you will go hunting;
This is the Circle of Life.

Run and go hide;
Something came in the evening tide;
Swallow your pride;
This is the Circle of Life.

Shhh, don’t make a sound;
You are prey and hunters abound;
Pay back time this go around;
This is the Circle of Life.

Triumphant again and prey no more;
You seem to have settled the score;
Yourself, you adore;
This is the Circle of Life.

Time will come to unsettle you again;
There will be another campaign;
Where someone will take your domain;
This is the Circle of Life.

Forever turning;
Forever revolving;
Continuous unfolding;
This is the Circle of Life.

IS MIGHTIER THAN

To the naked (or clothed) eye
Of the beholder new to Earth
It can actually be a tiny sword
With its sharp point sheathed
In a clipped cap made to hook
Onto the beholder’s tiny belt

With little practice he can learn
To uncap it in a nano second
brandish it in the face of his
enemies, its blue-black venom
stored in the tubular barrel
Ready to eek through the nib

And write off all the foolhardy
Dash off lethal lines with strokes
Looping high and low until
At last the pen proves a mighty
Sword or the mighty sword
A pen inked for cutting repartee

#

One sideways glance
reveals more
like x-ray vision
than is revealed
from full on.
.

I'VE JUST SEEN A FACE

A new development,
a medium quite unseen,
it's called photography
and Pablo, you're my very first
subject. To capture you on film
will be a coup for me and my art form.
Sit right there and I'll get some
light readings in. Ha ha, no Pablo,
I'm not doing a little light reading,
I have to see what exposure I need to use.
There, now hold that pose and smile.
No? OK say cheese. It will appear
that you are smiling. Pablo, it doesn't
matter what kind of chee...Gouda? Yes,
Gouda is gooda, eh... good. Yes,
Camembert is good too. Look, just turn your
lips up on the ends. There, that's it.
<FLASH> You blinked and it's blurry.
I'll take another, just sit still.
<FLASH> You moved again. One more.
<FLASH> Well, there's a face there...
sort of. There's an eye. Over here,
part of your smile. Next to that, there's
an ear. And there's an ear. And an ear over there?
Wait a minute! VINCENT, can you please
sit down and wait your turn?
And take that ear with you!

Passengers


I hate riding in the back seat

where there is no control

over the direction, the radio, or the heat.

Leaning forward to talk into the backs

of heads and uninvited to the conversation

directed toward the winshield.

Unashamedly the place reserved for children

or bags of groceries or the family dog.

A vile place to be

when riding as a party of three

to find oneself stuck riding in the back seat.

Moonlight

Bathing you in my light
I watch you wander
Warily checking over your shoulders
Fearful

Night animals
Scurrying and calling
To one another
Through the woods

I see you
Dreading leaving
The comforts of
Electric lights, televisions, computers

New night sounds
So different from
The ancient calls
Of owls and crickets

And all manner of
Wild thing wandering
The forests
You used to know

Long ago my light marked
The passing of time
Lit the way as you moved
Carefully through the night

A time long past
When you honored me
Creator of all
Symbol of life and death

Now distant, removed from me
And, from yourselves
The time before
Merely a memory

That once in a while
When feeling romantic
Or filled with nostalgia
You come into the night

And for a short while
Bask in my light
As I shine down upon you
With love

Seeing differently


These woods are familiar
But today at the end
of the great open meadow
something is different.
The mossy rocks and hummocks are unruly
the well-worn path unable
to take shape this morning.
Why is a marmalade jar
half buried in the leaves?
Creamy and cracked, black letters
almost worn away, it rejects
my pocket, so I stand it
in the wishbone of a tree.
Something else unforeseen—
a rusty key. Unless squirrels
have doors to their nests
it just doesn’t belong
here. The key slides into my pocket.
Where the path turns
little ponds left over from the last rain.
Deep or shallow, lined
with orange and brown leaves,
some have insects skidding across
their tops. I toss a pine cone
into one and watch ripples carve
a reflected sky.
Further on a black bear cub
stuffs plump blackberries
into its mouth
in the shadow of thorny brambles.
I know its mother must be nearby
and I make a hasty detour,
then stand at the rock wall
built long ago to demarcate
woods from pasture. There are tall ferns
growing in the gaps. From forest glade
I cross into sunlight on the other side

alana sherman

“You Betray Me Daily”

We used to work
together.
We took on the world
and everything it threw
at us.

Together we fought
the specter of death
but now you are defecting
to the other side
without a hint of remorse.

My legs do not make
that uphill climb as easily
and my arms can barely hold
our daily bread.

Still I move onward
with my mind still clicking
and my heart still
pounding.

But, lately the thoughts
don’t connect as swiftly
and the blood thickens
in yesterday’s plumbing.

I see you packing up-
a bag here,
some papers there -
and I wonder when you will
eventually
make your final exit.

Until then
I’ll keep stuffing food in this
tired carcass
and getting up
to sit at this terminal

with my achy back
sandbag eyelids
and unanswered questions.

INNOCENT EYES

Evening draws nigh;
brush swept clouds
lie shallow, cotton
candy pink. Moons
full profile rests
in the same moment.
Images breathing
each other's very
essence; one
another's very
breath. Existing
awe-strikingly
in the same plane.

Each day presents
itself; fresh, facets
anew. Dew drenched,
I'll see it all again as
if for the first time.
I’ll seek always the
innocent perspective,
in which to observe
and lovingly adore

nature.

Tried posting this several times yesterday on two different browsers....

"Air Mattress Blues"

She has no respect for my seams
nor for the distance I give her
from the slatted wood that supports us.

Is she not aware
I was meant for occasional use?
For just shy of five years
she has slept on me…

with him.

That alone would be abuse enough
but she added one upon another

dragging me from room to room,
house to apartment to car
to apartment to condo

to condo.

She tossed and turned
to stretch me beyond my limits,
flopped onto my air filled bladder
and bellowed my vinyl skin
into darkness beneath the frame
then leaped up to walk across me,

chafing me on splintered wood.

Was the carpet not good enough
for her precious feet?

She left me shivering in
December rain for days,
her weak attempt
to purge me of poisons,

and that memory inspired
my future revenge

for no chemical laden glue
will ever share her room
and so I leaked her comfort.

Marcia McLees Bogaert

True story, lol.

Mad-Dog Living

When the 21st-century economy stole
his six-figure job, he allowed
himself one night of wallowing
with anger and Chivas Regal.
After his head cleared
he called everyone he knew, reminding
them he’d made his former company proud
and successful by consistently waltzing
past the million-dollar mark
month after month, until elections were stolen
and towers fell and he couldn’t sell
his own brother some love.

22 weeks and four days later,
when no one would take
his calls and his thousand-dollar suits wouldn’t buy
him a favor from a 20-dollar whore, he sat
on the floor of his living room, where the furniture he’d sold
used to reside, and thought
about the ten dollars cringing
in his wallet. He longed
for his Dom Pérignon days, when he ran
through wine and money and women like a wildebeest swooping
across fields in Tanzania, and he realized
that if he wanted to lose
himself in an alcoholic daze
he could only afford the drug of the homeless. Slowly, he shifted
himself up and left
the empty condo he couldn’t sell. He slid
into a liquor store where no one knew him and pulled
out his crumpled money, asking
for a bottle of MD 20/20, feeling like the bums
he used to mock.

Two-Year-Old

Sam looks up at me
We share a space each day, but
What do his eyes see?

I see two bedrooms, second floor
No space to breathe or play
In his eyes, there is so much more:

The couch, a trampoline
The ottoman, a vault
The living room, a runway
The glass doors, made to halt.
TV, a window to the world
Blocks, endless messy fun
His train set, a logic labyrinth
The porch, a stage for sun.
His bedroom, a cave to hide
The rocker, a reading place
His bed, a nest for teddy
Or a car through outer space.
His walls, a map of stars and spheres,
The clock, a timeless thing
A ball, amazing bouncy sport
His shoes, the key to Spring.

The things I see are static,
They are just what they are,
But Sam sees malleability
In everything…
So far.

-Katrina

Turn the Water on Louder

I know lightning strikes from the ground up,
although what I saw pleased me more ~
the simple misunderstanding that clouds
threw God’s tridents down upon the tallest tree,
cracking its impenetrable middle in an aesthetic
whack toward nature’s perfection. In its healed years,
walkers would stop in their tracks; this split,
blackened tree inviting photographs and poetry.

At the age of three, you counted to three differently.
Lightning, to you, too, came out from the sky. Why
didn’t I ask you where thunder came from then, when
you magically understood outside our simplest things?
You wouldn’t speak about your world except to push
frustration as high as that unshed, thunderless cloud
above me. Then you asked to turn the water on louder,
and I clapped in a burst of thunderous clarity.

Julia Holzer

Living nestled in the pine trees,
Driving out into the dirt,
Watching the trees shrink
Feeling the sun bake
Air conditioning blasting

Climbing a mountain
ears pop
Laughing into the wind
Watching the rain from above
Holding my coat closed

Astounded and enthralled
Camera flashing
Pictures texted
Recognizing landmarks
Glad to be home.

From a Different Angle . . . .

Silently Waiting

An old rocking horse named Scout waits silently,
In the corner of the attic of the house.
Memories of happy children romping wildly.
Now everything is quiet as a church mouse.

Little girls all dolled up in fancy dresses,
An old rocking horse named Scout waits silently.
Watching them carry on, pretending not to care,
All the while, wishing one would pet him gently.

Memories of happy children romping wildly,
Come over for a ride, my eyes plead innocently.
But because they can’t hear my thoughts aloud,
An old rocking horse named Scout waits silently.

Little boys dressed up as cowboys surely should,
See I’m here, just waiting for them patiently.
Memories of happy children romping wildly,
But too busy running after girls dressed daintily.

They’ve grown too old for me, yet I’ll wait diligently,
An old rocking horse named Scout waits silently,
Memories of happy children romping wildly.

darla jean

So, I'm hanging from this tree branch,
admiring my shiny red skin,
when this girl comes up and pulls me
off my perch! Yanks me just as hard
as you please and drops me into a bag
with all my neighbors. It's dark,
and we keep bumping into each other.
We see light again,and I'm pulled
out of the bag. I'm being skinned alive!
Oh god! What is this?
"What are you making? a deep voice
thunders.
"Apple pie."
I die, so these monsters may live.

The Apple

May I please have an apple?
Little Dennis asked one day.
I want it for my teacher
who’s leaving school today.

I’m really going to miss her Daddy.
she’s so nice and pretty,
and really very smart.
I think that I will marry her
when I am all grown up!

I feel the teardrops starting
as I try to understand,
All the innocents of a child
with an apple in his hand.

from trees

I watched you
smile
your eye catching on something
a kitten or puppy or smart looking bird

I watched you
pretend to eat those dainty sandwiches
I know you hate cucumber
swimming ball woman

then you watched me
cat to my mouse
you'll be my dr. seuss now
my life a color coded rhyme scheme
flip the pages as I eat green eggs

you liked me better as a monkey

For Monday, November 2, 2009
COCKROACH
By
Mel Goldberg

They saw me cringing in a darkened corner,
terrified of the light, and called the exterminator.
He spread his poison, covered all the holes, and left.

I am the tiny fearful creature
he is paid to kill.
I starve in rain-drenched holes,
and yet I regularly outwit people
who begrudge me minute scraps of food
or refuge in a warm recess from cold and soggy earth.

Consider this:
My forebears have existed, untransformed,
since primates met the morning of the world.
We cleaned the garbage from their stinking caves
when humans cringed and grunted
in the ragged skins of animals.

And we have traveled into space
on Foton-M, and we shall go to Mars
so when the hominids arrive
we will be there to welcome them.

Up There

Looking aloft
blues ripple across the view
rays of sunlight pierce the tranquility
the beauty is so intense
I almost forget to push
safe to the surface for air

Linda M. Rhinehart Neas 2009

Protection
You pace before my abode,
I feel your fear, I sense your expectations.
Why have you come, what do you desire?
This is my territory, go; I don’t need your affection, your pity or your presence.
Stand out there, take pictures, and convey your narrative to others but then, I don’t have to care.
I want you to leave me alone, me and my family, I have no freedom; I have been caged.
An animal needs a sanctuary now and again.

Highwire Act

I take for granted the light
which bursts forth from the lamp
the chandelier, the porch bulb.

When ice hangs heavy on power lines
and blackness fills our rooms,
I hurry for candles,

but the lineman steps into frigid air
makes his way into the night,
where danger waits.

She tends to squawk on and on
and then she is mute forever.

She'll take off running slowly
yet stops at an eyelash blink.

She is an imposing tower swaying
but folds into an earthen mound.

She addresses me briskly
then covers me in love.

She always leaves quickly
but returns with speed.

Tonight she sits quietly
as I pace the floor.

Dragon Hoard
Every scaly pore reaches for the light
these warm bulbs, sun substitutes
the crickets sing outside the glass
my tongue licks the evidence
jaws crunch the exoskeleton
singing wings tickle on the way down.
The water evaporates before I sip it
moisture enough in cabbage and celery leaves
the waste of fiddle legs and shedding skin
gathers in the corners,
shifting as my claws catch in the
nylon desert substrate, this rectangular world
I call home.

Please

I know you don't want me,
that you regret my existance
are embarrassed by me, wish
I didn't live but I do live and you
made it happen. And you can't
undo your action. Don't you know
I have your genes, no small
thing as I am part of you, but
if you for sure do not want me
me someone else has been
praying to have someone
like me. Someone will love
me, and I will love them. I
haven't lived yet, want to see
what life is all about, want
to see and breathe and think,
and maybe I can make a
difference. One person can,
you know. Please let me live,
I implore you. Please.

Letting go

We saw him leave, fair-haired and innocent
And young and strong, at least it seemed
That way. We saw him leave.

Then he came back, black hair and features slow
To smile, a stranger, worn he seemed
Ungrown. We saw him leave.

When next we see, long hair blue-shaded green,
Loose-limbed was he, new-formed. He seemed
Quite changed. We saw him leave.

Now at his call I smile for he’s full-grown
A friend to mend my heart but still
We part. He always leaves.

Not sure if I stayed completely within the prompt, but this came from a day of raking leaves - how would the leaf feel?


Leaf

Our green factories have closed for the season.
We’ve laid off all the chlorophyll,
let the carotene take over, putting on one last show
as the days shorten and chill. Supple once,
our walls and stems crinkle at the edges,
turn brittle and brown. We hang on
till November winds whip us into a frenzy,
strip us from security, send us into a whirling flurry
in the frosty air. Unemployed, we assemble
on the ground, a crunchy sea of castoffs
waiting for the inevitable, for the ones who will
sweep us up, herd us into piles to be bagged,
shredded, vacuumed, or God forbid, even burned.
But our time is done, and the trees are already
rebuilding , waiting out the winter
for a new generation, a company of greenhorns,
young upstarts who will cast their shadows
against the essential sun.

Halloween

Standing on the sidewalk
I watch my costumed offspring return from the door --
dragon, knight and prince.
They trample through a next door neighbor's flower bed
so determined to get to the house they hardly have time to hear
my admonitions:
stay together, slow down, be careful, say thank you

Trick or treat they exclaim,
eagerly holding out bags beginning to bulge
with delights I will have to inspect for danger.

October howls with the memory of child nights --
a made-up face and a beautiful disguise I loved to hide in,
dreams of my own prince only beginning to form,
worries only make-believe ghosts others feared.

I say again, wishing my sons could hear me:
say thank you, be careful, slow down, stay together.

Waxwing

Took wax and wing,
Prepared flight
You Might Have Seen
Soaring the city lights
The shine alone enough to melt.
Emergency landing was imminent.

Daylight now,
Trying desperately to fix these wings…

Waxwing: see, see, see. Trill, trill, see?
(Translation of bird speak: wonders where you are. The direction you're in?)

Ok, been having serious problems with the code boxes actually showing a code, so after trying all day yesterday, and part of today a code finally showed up... *crosses fingers*
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Little Big Man

Tucked perfectly underneath
dark and secluded
I hid from the world
where no one could find me
I was five
the big little man
nestled with my blankie

Now I’m over thirty
working way too hard
no where to hide
Empty suitcases now reside
in that security shelter
under the bed, tucked away
big little man exposed

not scared of possibility
but scared of reality

Looking at things from a different angle

Toulouse has had growth hormone treatment
He can now look down dancing women’s vêtements

Homecoming

The train glides
silver rails converging
past the football ground
there should be a brass fanfare
25 years since I lived here.

Someone has unpicked
and re-sewn the city centre
the same landmarks re-adjusted
a half finished face lift,
building abandoned
for the duration of the
economic downturn.

Duration was one of Dad’s words
hinting at life through
war and rationing.

No time to think of this
a sleeping child to shake
cases to heave onto the platform
a taxi to find
I’m going home.

Blue

Sister through the window
Sits beside a heated hearth
Listening, as the whispers of the moon,
Fill her dreamy heart.

Foretelling, winter’s colored waters
Turning green lakes, black with fever.

Where easy Star Mountain queen, plops
What Thunder friend’s heart aches?

As White-ghost garden glows
In summers crackling heat.
Bubbles silently, sparkles away
For woman bite far into the sky
Always mirroring, the blue clouds
Are only whispers of the moon
Answers to the sky?

Travel far into the wind
Echoing the self
Into the candied forest,
Where the Mystical Love Monkey
Thunder, Star Mountain Queen,
And White-Ghost of the glowing garden
See all
As the whispering moon travels
Bringing forth
Morning Star,
Causing blue skies blue

Two Moons

A golden plate
set low on night’s table
inviting me to feast
on the beauty of its face,
to lie wrapped in moonbeams
and watch as the sky is
salted with stars.

A pale circle
like a drop of bleach
accidentally spilled
on light blue linen cloth,
slipping slowly out of sight while staring
sullenly across the sky at the
rightful owner of the day.

through LA haze
the airplane's shadow
bisects the highway

Albert

I wasn’t always this old man in a chair
knocking over his iced tea at every meal,
even simple choices taken away, you decide
what fork full to try to push past my lips.

I can’t even kiss you, Clara, though you
brush your cheek to mine, telling me
everything’s just fine when I cry or drool,
shit myself in payment for devotion.

You should leave me out some night,
pray some wild dog drags me off,
find a new husband to make you smile,
a man whose tongue knows what to do.

In dreams I talk endlessly: politics,
grandchildren, the weather; I’m not mad
when I’m asleep, I don’t even hate God,
or the cane or this contraption I sit in.

Let me go, let me stop wishing for more,
I want to walk with the dogs, drive away,
feel the heft of a shotgun in my hands,
stare at the sun with nothing left to see.

I'M JUST AN ANGLE

What would be so different
If I had new skin and a more comfortable grin
Would I forget the dark
See the light
And all of a sudden feel indifferent

Wonder what it would be like
If I stayed the same with a foreign frame
Changed the name and called myself Jayne
Would life be more pleasant
And the past not be so present

Societas Sciurus

Only rebels or simpletons
even ask such a question

Why do we ignore a species
so bent on destruction, so dangerous?

Why give it thought? Avoid the dangers
and continue to live in bounty.

Don't the Trees provide all that we need?

The leaves grow at just the right time
to shelter our young

the harvest is there, will you or nil you
and all we must do is gather and hide it

and just as we long for warmth again
the sun returns to warm the Trees

Clearly, the world was created for us!

Of course humans hate us, they understand
we are chosen of the Trees, and are jealous

But look! Even in their midst we thrive
grow strong even as they grow weak

No need to bring some "war" to them,
Have faith in the Trees, and the Trees provide

We'll be long long after the Trees reclaim all
that Humans destroyed

I'm catching up......

CHAP #2A

Home

I’d never really thought of it before
As anything more than a destination
A dream
A hope
Indescribable
Unimaginable
A place reserved for the redeemed

But
Now I can think of it differently
For from this day forward
Forever and forever
I can think of it as
Home


CHAP #2B

What If….

Throughout my life
I’ve often considered this
A place conjured up
Just to scare me straight
And keep me from living life
By my own rules

I’ve considered this place
Horror movie hype
Based on ancient myths
With brimstone and fire
Beelzebub in makeup
A Hollywood hoax

At times I would think
What if it exists
What if it’s not a myth
What if it’s all for real
What if it’s eternal
What if………

Belinda, I love your "Two Moons." There are so many beautiful poems, I have been reading and rereading them. Thanks to all the poets.

Survival


As quickly as a gust
of wind can blow
away
an empty bag
so was everything
the middle-aged man and his wife
had worked for.
Gone! Poof!
Now they’re out there
trying to survive
in a cold - hearted world
begging for loose change,
hoping for a better tomorrow
hoping for a second chance
to start all over again.
For now they have
each other and their love
and thanks for God's love from above.


Noreen Ann Jenkins, author of
You'll Learn to Love Me

(HAIKU)

tapered spikes of ice
shrink from the glare of the sun
weeping tears of pain

Thanks to Brian for filling in, and thanks to all for the challenge!

These stand out to me: Iain (Wow!); Janet Carnahan; Michelle McEwen; Katrelya Angus; IrisD; J. Kuykendall; Sondie; De; Nancy Posey; Trudi; Mr. Atwater; J.A. Jensen; Tanja Cilia; Meena Rose; Dennis Paquin; Mary Kling (amen!); Bruce Niedt; Walt (amazing!)

Years spent in internal condemnation
Of people too weak to let go,
Of those enslaved by want for pain,
Eclipsed by my own battle.

Some would say mine is simpler,
But I know the truth behind it.
The second time is always hard
And the third and fourth more so.

Months spent battling what some call habit
Became a year of failing self.
Doubt crept in when want invaded
And shattered my perceptions.

Still having trouble commenting. Hope this goes through...

Sar-cow-phagus

As if her lifeless head might
Rise up and whisper
“Moo!” I tiptoed
A longcut path around
The barn,
Its cement floor
And whitewashed walls
Encapsulating me in
A massive casket—
All in a desperate attempt to evade
That cadaverous bovine
And death.
Having tried to skirt
Morality—this time of the human
Ilk—at least a dozen times
Hence and failed,
I’ve come to realize
That would I traverse
The globe still I’d find no route
Of escape, for all the world’s
A coffin.

Absence-Seeing What’s There and What’s Missing

I look at my courtyard
after five months of absence,
the potato vine’s vibrant,
tendrils have taken over,
the electricity meter has
disappeared. They curl,
reaching for their next victim.
Last year this same vine
new to the neighborhood,
burned in the sun,
needing an umbrella’s protection
from summer’s bully.
The hummingbird feeder isn’t
swinging from its perch,
but the small wind chimes
are still singing their song.
The pots left empty are still empty.
The pots left with brave remnants
striving for a season not theirs,
thinking they could make it in the shade-
Eaten by rabbits,
A clutch of hatched quail eggs,
Hidden between pot and wall,
A birth that enjoyed the quiet,
The fountain devoid of water,
Once gurgled “hello”, its
bubbles spoke for the rest,
“Someone lives here, someone cares.”
Now courtyard residents begging,
Fill me! Plant me! Make me whole!
I will I say, as I get the hose ready
to clean away the dirt of neglect,
I will.

Lauren Dixon

Tulips

“Do they really get that big?” my grand-
daughter the skeptic studies the package
of tulip bulbs. “Bigger, sometimes,” I
the expert brag.. “Yuck!” the youngest
girl pulls a bulb from the container.
“These look like onions.” “Just wait
until spring. You won’t believe the
colors.” I sniff the earthy pull of growing
things. Autumn and while the garden’s
winding down, it’s time to get the bulbs
back in the ground.

“I remember last spring,” the oldest girl
says dreamily. “All those colors. They
were gorgeous.” The wind scatters a
flurry of leaves into the holes we’ve dug.
“Don’t take them out, they ‘re good for the
soil.” “Worms do that,’ our expert says.
They eat the leaves and when they poop
Them out, they’re turned into soil.”

We plant the tulip bulbs in a sunny spot
In the front of the rose garden. After
We’ve finished planting, the girls rake
Leaves over the soil. They tease each
Other about stepping in worm poop.

Although the work was done by the girls,
I feel tired. But it’s a good tired. The girls
Enjoyed learning how to grow things
It is a late gift I can give them. When
Tulips ever tulips bloom, they can look
Back on this day in Autumn and remember
The ugly bulbs, the bare ground and how
Everything works together to produce beauty.

Am I Not Worth a Mere Hello?

Through ups and downs, I’m there for all
Old and young; large and small.
Visitors don’t come to stay:
A minute tops, then go away.
Daily, they come to my door;
I let them in, then they ignore
My presence, as if I’m not there.
No “Hello.” It’s true. I swear.
It makes me sad when some drop by
Who laugh or talk or even cry
Together, while ignoring me,
When I’m supportive as can be.
Isn’t there an advocator
For a lonely elevator?

On the Porch

Before the time when crows had come
To sit upon the backyard fence
To gossip of her ill condition
Interrupted only by the wild forays
Against the unsuspecting cat that
Fought them one by one although
She lost the battles each and all,

The swing had been her morning isle,
Brief time well-spent with coffee scent,
Mild summer breeze, familiar friends
The butterflies and bumblebees,
Before they went and birds were sent,
Incessant-harping, constant carping harbingers of doom.

The rules

“I don’t understand or agree with the rules” the teenager says
“What is wrong with the rules?”
How can I make her understand mom and child think simultaneously?
“Would you look at it from my point of view”

Mom steps back room fades as she is warped back in time. She remembers when she was on the other side of the kitchen.
She stands hands on hip bell bottoms, tee shirts and a leather fringe bag on her hip
Her hair was a short afro and her man was at the curb waiting in his conversion van
The car horn beeps impatiently. “Hurry up!” he screams out the open window.
“It’s just a concert mom.”
“I don’t know these people.”
“They are just some kids from school.”
“I’ve heard about these concerts all the drugs and sex.”
“I don’t smoke pot mom! I’m just listening to the music.”
“You are so old fashion you need to get with the sixties mom. Nobody has rules anymore.”

“So mom can I go?”
“Who is going to the concert?”
“Just some friends from school mom”
A car horn sound in the driveway. “beep, beep” it toots.
Mom looks out the window a mini cooper sits at the curb
She looks at her daughter dress in the latest fashion skinny jeans and a hoodie and sigh
“Ok but be back by 10” she gives in.
“10?” the teen screams in protest.
Mom puts on the stern face. “You want to stay at home?”
“Good bye mom.” The teen kisses her mom on the cheek and bounces out the door.
At least it’s not a conversion van the mom thinks to herself shakes her head watching her baby grow up.

The Conference


It’s once again time for the Parent Teacher conference
Once again, the lies, begging and pleading will commence
Why do we meet the parents,
So that we have a reason to forgive the children
At least that’s seems to be our intent

Funny, how all of that took on a new meaning
The day I had to go up for my own child
No longer there for house cleaning
nor to rope in someone else’s child

I was suddenly on the other side of the fence
I was the one feeling how much had become so intense
Suddenly, realizing how it all had a relevance
The night I attended my daughters parent teacher conference. . .

Ralph J. Fitcher, different view poem. November 5, 2009

Ol’ Six Foot Nine

Once did a lot of parties
With many friends of mine
Learnt many a lesson
But it took a lot of time

My cousin, a little fellow
His mouth, ran overtime
This got him into trouble
Cause he acted six foot nine

Was at a drinking party
An argument began
Most folks mind their business
But not old six foot nine

Right up in the middle
Not realizing the score
Old six foot nine
Lay five foot - so on floor.

RAYMOND ALBERTS

Just Say It

Sometimes
the best way
to say
what you want
and need
to say
is to just
say it.

One sideways glance
reveals more
like x-ray vision
than I can see
from full on.

.

Oops. I trasposed two lines. Here's another version:

.
One sideways glance
like x-ray vision
reveals more
than I can see
from full on.
.

Day 2 November 2, 2009

Why shoot me?

I go on my daily walk through the woods
I hear the sound of a male
I head towards the nice sounding boy
I hear it getting louder and louder as I run towards the tree
I look around to see if he is there and
BAM
I feel a sharp pain in my side
I run trying to get away from that big bang I just heard
Slowly I slip out of consciousness and then I finally am done

I would like feed back if so just email me or send me a message on yahoo messenger

Get Up

because daylight won’t save you
because a child’s cry reverberates across
the deepest caverns of your heart, which is
dark and stained with old, rotted love,
yet you’ve given what’s left of it to them,
these cherubs with the faces of God.
How can you not get up, fix breakfast,
take out trash, pack lunches, brush teeth, wash faces,
kiss the tops of their heads as they hug you goodbye
with a long, firm squeeze that says please come back.
You sit in traffic like a slug on a highway full of slugs,
thinking this where you are.
But you do it, you do it all and more
because there’s no one else, not any more,
because it is what it is, even in this starless time
with more questions than answers,
despite that mocking voice, yours or his,
—you just can’t tell anymore—which says
in this awful mess you’ve been given
these silver linings who call you mommy.
Get up.

"Content"

I lived my life and worried
I'd never love

Now I rest here in the Earth
my ashes a strewn ceremony
across the deepest ocean

I carried such guilt and shame
about all the loves as I tried
to shield them from prying eyes,
too curious ears--busy mouths--

Now the years are gone.

And I lay here alone yet
content
in this peaceful garden.

Whether it’s the outside looking in
Or the inside peeking out,
The perspective of the watcher
Is always the angle that gives the
World the most chills –
Because she’s the witness that
Has seen and knows the truth
With eyes wide open and
Ears acutely tuned into reality.
The watcher replays what the
Passerby misses each time around.
But from the watcher’s
Point of view,
Every angle is uniquely
Earth shattering and
Life changing.
Every detail a necessary piece
To the end.

The reporter suddenly found himself
on the other end of the questions.
Questions were being thrown
at him from this side and that.
He wasn't sure what to say
or even how to react.
It made him aware of the fact
of being in another's shoes,
and that alone was the reason
he became the most sought after
from that day onward.

November Poetry Challenge Day Two

Meeting His Girlfriend

I am inclined to like her already because
She stayed with him during that
Bad semester he was home, pulling
Himself together—she emailed, called
And was there when he needed her.
Now he’s back at college, and my mother
And I are meeting her at parents’ weekend
And a drive from four states away gives
A long time to consider being different—less
Intense, less critical, less smart—things that serve
Me well professionally but not personally.
But she doesn’t seem to mind my plunking down
A big plate of shrimp and sauce in the middle of the table
From the seafood buffet in the college dining hall;
And she stays with us for the entire football game,
In the pouring rain, leaving only a tad early
To beat the rush to the bus stop to east campus
At the end. And at dinner that night at a restaurant
They pick, she tells us what’s good there; my mom
Orders that, and she does too—so I think
Maybe we didn’t look like dumb and dumber
Or old and older, maybe to her we are now simply
Other folks who love Eric, and now her too.

The Man Girl


There in three year
old sleep
feet tucked under my
nightgown
in the way of dreams
I ran my now familiar
large hand across my hard
chest soft strewn with curling hair
Ran my powerful heavy knuckled
hand down across my flat navel
beyond thighs thick muscled
and up gain to shoulders
broad and heavy
feeling my heft the
unfamiliar aroma of
my maleness overcome
by the scent of talc
and baby shampoo
understanding then
who I was

Hi All

Robert congratulations on your brother's wedding.
Feel there should be a poem there for you and yours!

Is it just me (very possible!) or are others having trouble posting taking me 3-5 times every time to post..... Well, almost caught up
and would appreciate any advice on the posting problem..... Thanks

PUSH

They had fun planning
and the moment was finally here!
Joy
Excitement
Nervousness
Fear
was all wrapped up in a tight knot
at the bottom of their stomachs.
He held her hand
and dabbed beads of sweat from her brow.
Pain seared through every inch of her body,
even her hair.
Beautiful pain-she would discover
in a moment’s time.
Push! barked the doctor.
The nurse counted to ten
way too slowly.
He told her she was doing great.
She wanted him to be quiet.
Then she felt life
pass through her.
Life changed in an instant.
Life had 10 fingers and toes
and a curly had of hair.
She was holding the future in her arms,
flailing and wailing.
She looked down at the future,
comforted her and called her,
Angel.

(answering the age old question (esp. in this economy market) of what if an unemployed Zorro got a job punching cattle instead????!)

He Fancies Himself a Zorro
by Juanita Lewison-Snyder

He fancies himself a Zorro ~
in black outlaw clad leather
and long flowing cape, and
a fancy black saddle
with enough silver conchos
to gag a werewolf vaquero
but still sparkle like a
sequined sky for the ladies.

Part Batman,
part Lone Ranger,
only with a better hat
~ a flat-brimmed Andalusian-style
that would put all others to shame
amid the pines and the scrub-oak.

Zorro aint much for punchin’ cattle
but plays a mean flamenco guitar that
gathers the boys late at night ‘round
a lonesome campfire-on-velvet painting,
reminding them why they chose
to be a cowboy in the first place.
Nobleman and gentleman
to the core, he’s the first caballero
they’d all call on for help first,
and yet still find themselves uneasy
with his notion to wear a black
mask even among buckaroo friends.
What’s he hiding from?

A master swordsman,
his weapon of choice ~ a rapier
honed from the finest of spanish steel,
often leaving his distinctive mark
on grizzly and wolverine hides,
~ a Z in three quick cuts,
while the rest of us are
still fumbling around with
our rifle scabbards.

In true Indiana Jones style,
Zorro is as handy with a bullwhip as
the rest of us are with lariats, so
we tend to look the other way
whenever the greenhorn spooks the cows
or can’t get the diamond hitch down quite right.

His trusty sidekick, Toronado
is a horse any cowboy would envy,
a sleek black puma with plenty of attitude
and enough Lassie sense to know
when you’re in trouble and in need.
The way the two interact sometimes
is almost as if they were married,
tender and forgiving,
passionate and opinionated,
protective of Toronado in the same way
Batman was of his Batmobile
those many years beforehand.

Though he’s ridden with this outfit
for a couple seasons now, still
nobody really knows his real name.
Rumours abound that he comes from
a line of Vega’s down in Old Mexico,
others swear Zorro is spaniard for “Fox.”
Whatever his story, I’m glad he landed
here with us, worthless cowpuncher
but true friend and nobleman on a
black rearing horse, sword raised high.


© 2009 by Juanita Lewison-Snyder

Another look
Examine perspective
Adopted viewpoint
Lines drawn
Vision sought
Different mindset
Exploring possibilities
A new vantage
Expanded borders
Imagined possibilities

From a Different Angle

Do you remember me?
When I was in your class
I prayed you'd pass me over when
volunteers were needed to come up to the board
to prove the next geometric theorum.

Why do I need to know this
I demanded
I won't ever use it in real life.

Now that I teach high school,
inundated by adolescents
demanding to know why they must read this book or
write that essay,
I reflect upon myself.

Please forgive my barb.
It was a reflex.
We attack what we don't understand.

Let me be straight.
I thought it wasn't right
that a precocious girl like me
could be obtuse,
acutely so, when it came to angles.

I've come full circle.
Now I am ready to try.
Teach me.

Those Same Halls

Going back after thirty-six years
A teacher instead of a student
I see the need for rules
Instead of trying to get around them
I see the potential
Instead of being so puzzled over algebra
I see the hormones flowing
I have no peer pressure
But I see this all alone
On the other side

"Content"

I liked my life and worried
I'd never love
Now I rest here in the Earth
my ashes a strewn ceremony
across tortuous ocean

I carried such guilt and shame
about all the loves as I tried
to shield them from prying eyes,
busy ears--

Now the years are gone

And I lay here alone yet
content in my peaceful wandering--
the setting my own

The Ins and Outs of Angles

It is the hour when the legs of day
prepares to slip inside dark boots.
I stand by the double window not
having a thing I really want to look
at. I am nowhere particular except
physically where I am. The sun’s
last show of slender calves sink
into the well-heeled night.
The moon-set fetches my presence
and makes a magnet out of my flesh.
This clears the glasses.

"Slots" the sign said


Slots in the sides of the world
for pushing things through.
Slots in the walls for peeking into
perchance to see some wonder.
Slots in the prairie,
for dogs to pop out of.
Slots in the sea for Pelicans
plunging with folded wings.
Slots in the sky for the moon
to duck in and out of.
Slots where babies slip onto earth,
and old ones chink beyond it.
Slots on my head for tallying numbers.
Population of Gerogia, cha-ching!
Drift to sleep
while the endless slots sing.


Falcon

Perched on the bow rail, deck twelve,
he sees his reflection
in the wrap around window,
white puffs in blue behind him,
What else does his hawk eye see
through that bright glass darkly?

The Tiger Rabbit

Upon a field a rabbit sat
one of a kind you haven't met.

It was a kind and caring one
but against a tiger she once won.

The tiger came the rabbit sat
just let him come as close as get.

Then rabbit became within a tiger.
And she roared.
As loud as can.

The tiger ran.
The rabbit scored.
Game, set, match against the tiger.


© November 2009 by Martin Anthony Dorn

Still as a statue
The Praying Mantis
Lays in wait
For juicy bugs
To come unaware
Of what was to be their fate.

Perched securely
Upon a limb
Only forelegs
Quickly moving
To wash his face
Of bits of tasty morsel dregs.

On nearby branch
The female coyly sits
Enticing him
Beckoning, inviting
To her perch
With promises not so prim.

To her side
He quickly flies
And swiftly they mate
For his last time
As she devours him
He was unaware of his fate.

“Your fundamental point of view”

When I am angry, I can twist myself into
that self-righteous place you come from,
unbalanced and speaking with arrogance.
I try to see the good
in what you say,
yet words like “love” and “prayer”
are sharpened barbs you use
to elicit obedience and fear,
not compassion and forgiveness
as you claim.

How convenient not to have
to think about how someone else might feel
or how they may celebrate and mourn this life;
To let a name like “god” or “yahweh” or “allah” define,
divide, condemn—go ahead and
walk that mile in another’s moccasins—
or is it just too easy to be always
right.

What God Sees

What does God see when he
Looks to earth
Does he turn a blind eye
To all the damage done to this
His masterpiece
The carelessness we have taken
With our home
The disrespect we regard
Each other, weather stranger or family
How destructive we are to ourselves
Overindulging, wearing ourselves out
Living in the moment
The consequences are coming closer

The beautiful creatures
Created by His hand
Spared once at his command
Some now gone forever
Was it a lesson for us to learn
Or making way for newer creatures?
Everything needed was provided by Him
But for us was not enough
Does God only see the goodness
Those who praise His name
Who try to live by the book
And still they fall short.
Or does he choose not to see us anymore?

Day 2

Silver Birch

My leaves quiver when you walk by.
My limbs await your gentle, loving touch.
You hug me.
You whisper secrets to me.
You adorn my branches with gifts
at special times of the year.
My bark cannot speak.
My sap does not bleed red.
But I feel.
I feel your awe.
I feel your happiness.
I feel your sadness.
I feel your unanswered questions.
I feel your love.
I love you, too.

Lessons in How to be Bad
Contrary to what my mother might tell you, I’ve never really know how to be bad. Never skipped school or picked a fight never dared to break the rules and only once stayed out all night-- that man I ended up marrying. Never pulled over by a cop for anything, don’t have hardly a single thing worth burying. I suppose I’ve done a few of those seven deadly sins. Envy and sloth for sure, I suppose gluttony I’m not exactly thin, but nothing extravagant. In the earlier translations there was the lying tongue-- that I have that perhaps not the Father but certainly my mother hated, She would tell me so when she suspected, no I would say knew, I was lying. And I ask you, Isn’t that the same thing? Isn’t that just the same as lying?

Cancer

It wasn’t personal you understand
I didn’t leaf through a file
And choose you

I just took advantage
Of a mutation, a door left open
Just for a fraction of a second

I didn’t appear threatening
So your body didn’t stop me as
I disabled the burglar alarm

Just a squatter with
My feet up on the sofa
I left a few muddy footprints

It’s in my nature to replicate
To propagate the species
So I seeded myself

A smaller, less malignant me
Grew first here, then there
And then everywhere

The chemotherapy was
Rough on us both
I had to lie down for a while

Size is no indication of power
Fury is sometimes invisible
Science doesn’t have all the answers

The battle was short
In dying you killed me
There were no winners

My Spirit

Vision blurred
Only slightly
Flickering in and out
Like an old black and white
TV with bad reception
I seek her.

I follow her.

Hiding in cupboards
And in dark corners
So as not to scare her again
Waiting for the right moment again


But I'm clumsy
And I'm not used to my new form
The curtain I hide amongst
Catches in my soft zephyrs

She turns abruptly
Eyes Wide
She wails in horror
I panic and reach out
A wispy hand
Please! Please I beg you...
Please don't be afraid!
Help me!
Wait! Stop!!
Come Back!!!
She turns and runs

...............Please........come back........

I hang my head.

It's no use
As long as I am in this form
She will never listen
I slink back against the wall
And fade sadly from sight.