On Day 7, I asked for a "ramble" poem. As usual, you came through in a big way. So many great poems, and here are some that really stuck out for me.
*****
I used to love to open the cottage
in the spring when there had been
all kinds of unseen wildlife around
the door and the back deck
I wondered who or what
upset the boat so carefully
turned keel up on the blocks
was it a deer or maybe a moose
or possibly the wind that whips in
off the Big Lake that wind that
causes Lake Effect over us
things nested in the leaves
when you kicked a pile
you might kick leaves or
you might connect with
something solid, a squealing
wriggling body that burrowed
further into the leaves or
maybe bared its teeth and
charged out to run off
wildly in an opposite direction
Inside was a different story
no matter what we put out
in the fall there were always
mice scattered some live
some dead from eating the
cake of soap always left
on the sink I shivered
deliciously after we cleaned
and made the beds, wondering
if the mice knew whe
were living there again
the cottage was always
tamer than I wanted it to be
but wilder than my life
back in the real world
halfmoon_mollie |tamsinAT NOSPAMtwcny dot rr dot com
*****
Ready Yet
He grabs a water bottle and Power Bar,
red sneakers and backwards baseball cap,
and only mumbles when asked if he has
everything, eyes bleary,
cell phone in his front pocket,
ready, not ready, for English first period.
Yesterday we visited his university,
where in September, we'll drop him off,
jeans, t-shirts, laptop, red sneakers;
but this morning, I still have him,
(is he ready yet?)
in the front seat of the van, looking out
at a drizzly Monday, just April,
daffodils, still closed,
waiting to unfurl.
ann malaspina
*****
I went to the mall on Saturday
There was a kiosk in the atrium selling hermit crabs
I should buy one for my grandson
He would like a hermit crab
My daughter, Tina, had one when she was younger
She lost him (or her, its hard to tell with crabs) once for three days
We found him wedged behind the couch.
It’s amazing how many things find their way into tight places
Once I found a half eaten hot dog behind that couch
It was smeared with peanut butter—the only way Tina would eat them
The hot dog was shriveled and hard, the bread turning green with mold
Mold is used to make penicillin
They say Elvis liked to eat peanut butter and banana sandwiches
I wonder if he ever had a hermit crab.
Yea, I really should buy my grandson a hermit crab
But then again, maybe not.
Bonnie |bcholbrook05AT NOSPAMyahoo dot com
*****
The Dream Motel
It started about three years ago
the recurring dream of a seaside motel
sometimes I own it
sometimes other people do
but I am always there
and it is always dusk
First time it was Frank and his wife
he was rennovating it and I was trying
to find a room I could stay in
the second time I owned it
and Dad was back from wherever he went
after he died
he was with Bootsie, Cordy and Phoebe
I told him it wasn't a pet motel
he laughed and put his teeth on the counter
and shared corned beef with my mother
who was hiding her boyfriend in the pool shed
"He would die if he knew," she said
"He is dead" I reminded her
Everyone was there last night
Rich was at the bar and smelled like he did
that last time I saw him when I didn't know
it was going to be the last time
"I'm forty now too," he said
"and married and still unhappy."
Frank was fixing the siding
after the storm no one remembered but him
Jon came with his third wife
"This is Treasurechest," he said as he
stared at her breasts
"I can't love a woman with a normal name"
I know.
You were there too
with another man you think you love
As he checked you in you whispered
"don't tell him the truth about me"
as I carried your bags to your room
Outside the long island sound
lapped the pebbles of the rocky beach
I tried to remember where I parked my car
Teri Coyne |tmc329AT NOSPAMaol dot com
*****
Special Delivery
I waited for the mailman to come because there was a car parked in front of the mail box and he won’t deliver the mail if there is someone parked in front of the boxes. I don’t understand why he can’t just get out of his little truck and deliver the mail. But they say that is their policy. I don’t think I could get away with that on my job. Just let the people suffer because I am not going to inconvenience myself by standing up and walking three steps to help them. But he didn’t come. Or maybe he did and I missed him. Maybe he was early today because he was driving past mailboxes where people had parked their cars in front of them…
Ginger G |gingerbread dot caAT NOSPAMgmail dot com
*****
Chips
I got a light, tasty little banana chip here
Not a salty plantain
And I hope I can finish eating them
Before the patients arrive
They're always so early and I want to scream
Don't be such an overachiever!
Showing up forty five minutes before your appointment
Doesn't get you a little gold star
Like when you were in elementary school
Those heady, heedless days of construction paper
And the burgeoning social skills like muscles
Learning how to flex, how to strengthen, how to squeeze
An empty Valentine box one year and stuffed the next
With trophies of your building popularity
Before transferring to a new school
And starting all over again
IleanaCarmina |cathleenbakkerAT NOSPAMyahoo dot com
*****
Open Mic Poetry Night
I went with Katrina to open mic poetry night
right away I was sorry
grasping the mic someone chanted “I’m a
wuh-ma-han! Yes a wuh-ma-ha-an!” thrusting
her hips at each syllable to the swelling
adoration of the crowd and I thought
good god I hope this gets better
not that I’m a purist, not that I think
I’m better (except that maybe I am)
the next at the mic tossed off an anecdote-
cum-poem whose resonance
lay only in her halting delivery
where do we poets learn this stuff?
the stilted [pause] vocalizations [pause]
that pass [pause] somehow [pause]
for significance [pause], the SEEsaw
alterAtions of enunciAtion that plAgue
texts about FLYing SQUEEZing DRIVing
or any other verbiage we must enact
and the rising tone…
as we leave each line…
trailing into the universe…
from the bar’s window I could see a television flicker
in a second-story apartment across the alley and I thought
how lucky they are not to be here
things looked up when a genuine poet
stepped up to riff on tones, pulled
pure wordmusic from his throat
unpretentious and genius jazz that soared
over most everyone’s head
after he left the emcee cruelly impersonated him
to the great amusement of most everyone
then launched into a singsong singalong
“everybody clap!” verse about Volkswagens and pot
that caused much whooping
as we left Katrina asked wasn’t it great
and I was polite but this is my answer now:
no
tria
*****
Hands
After I’ve dried the last of the dishes,
I light lavender incense
before carrying the garbage out to
the compacter chute.
I lock the door and collapse onto my sofa.
I look down at my hands.
My cuticles are dry and thickening.
I thought I had pushed them back
as I washed my hair last night.
I go to my bedroom and snatch the cocoa butter off the dresser
and as I moisten my hands,
I study them.
My fingertips are slightly bent, like my father’s.
I remember the flecks of black grease that used to dot our sink
after Daddy washed his hands when he came home
from long days of handling baggage at the airport
or fixing our neighbors’ cars.
My sister and I would tease Daddy
about his ashy hands.
He’d laugh, and
began keeping a tiny tube of Curacel in his car.
I’d watch him shake the lotion down into his palms
rubbing his long strong brown fingers
until they had a light fragrant sheen.
After he died,
I couldn’t bring myself to throw out
that little white bottle with the blue cap.
How I wish we had just
held his hands
in ours
every day
and said,
“Thank you.”
Carla Cherry |cmcmagiconeAT NOSPAMgmail dot com
*****
Lost in Wikiburbia
It starts out innocently enough. You need
to help your fifth grader write a report on ants,
but soon enough you are following link after link
& you find yourself an hour later, alone at the screen
reading about John Wayne Gacy, the report
long since faded from your memory and that of your child
who gave up on you and is now watching Spongebob.
So you look him up to learn the creator
was a marine biologist. That makes sense.
From there it's only a click to find out the guy
who voices Patrick is the actor who played Tom Cullen
on The Stand. "M-O-O-N. That spells Moon."
You tell yourself ten more minutes because you forgot
that one actor from 16 Candles. Not Anthony Michael Hall,
but the guy who played Jake Ryan, gave up acting
to become a woodworker. And who was it
that wrote and directed Harold & Maud? It's all
coming back to you now, all the questions you had
when you were a kid. Getting Serious, you want to see
what people have to say about JFK's assassination
or if George Washington really did have wooden teeth.
If you're not careful, you will be reading all night
about this president or remember that you read
how Rosalynn Carter once posed for a picture
with then unknown serial killer John Wayne Gacy.
Now you are off thinking about Karl Jung, synchronicity,
how everything is connected deeper than we know,
only catching brief glimpses of our vast unconscious.
Yes. No. Perhaps. It's a quantum universe,
this world of Wikipedia. It is the world's biggest
practical Schrodinger Cat experiment, who in truth
never was convinced of quantum theory at all.
Justin Evans |evjustinAT NOSPAMyahoo dot com
*****
Old glasses
Old glasses that I
Wear in private
Covering my face
Like two full moons
Fragments of those
Half-forgotten
Teenage years I
Wept because of
Not being beautiful.
Now I wear contacts
Everywhere, premium
Placed on success
And happy in having
Discovered lip gloss
Except for these
Late nights up
Writing poetry when
My half-forgotten
Teenage years
Come to peer out
Of my glasses
Like two full moons.
tara
*****
Seasonal Affective Disorder
This afternoon I spent three hours
riding back and forth on the Erie Canal Trail,
not giving a shit if I snuck up on people too fast
or if they caught me singing along with my iPod;
no, I was too far gone: too drugged-up
on the unspeakable beauty of spring, or just
too damn full of strength and stealth - and myself,
the quietest, quickest thing on that road,
the speeding bright yellow bullet,
the wheeled minotaur maverick
with that maniacal smile,
that rough facial contortion,
lips parted enough to let the flies in -
I was unrecognizable from the me of a month ago.
I was something new and elasticized and ready
or just recumbent, recombined like the phoenix:
I fell away to ashes when the cold came,
but the sun, sneaking towards summer,
pulled all my parts back together
in one-hundred and eighty minutes
as I pedaled past piles of pedestrians,
as I forced my way against the wind,
as I felt sunburn on my unready skin,
and as I thought of diving in Lock 21
to put out the crazed fires in me,
to cool down the searing strands
of feral thoughts in my mind -
oh, what the weather can do!
Callan Bignoli-Zale |shehadausernameAT NOSPAMgmail dot com
*****
Waiting
At least she lives near a pond
where the spring announces
its presence in bubbles on the
water and tender green shoots
line the identical buildings and
it reminds me of our house on
Long Island and the revolving
garden in front where we planted
tulips, crocuses, and daffodils
for spring, and gladiolas tall and
haughty for summer. When the
snowdrops bloomed we waited
for the tulip blossoms, red and
yellow, delicate like the skin on
elderly veins I see all the time.
I'd wait for summer for the few
days the gladiolas bloomed
towering over the other flowers
in a cacophony of reds, lavenders
and yellows. Their delicate
climbing blossoms lasted a few
weeks, yet I waited for that all year.
She is late for our appointment
but I'm lost in the twitterings of
birds and the wonder of signs
of spring I used to teach. Would
there be skunk cabbage on the
pond's banks? I don't check, the
weather is changing and I seek
refuge in my car. Making a pact
with myself I plan to leave at
6:30 if she doesn't arrive. But she
arrives.
Barbara Ehrentreu |lionmotherAT NOSPAMaol dot com
*****
Nostalgia
Music catches memories like a net
drags them out of us like fish,
flopping around, gasping for air,
reminders of a turbulent past
in the cold clear light of the present.
I recall the song that drove us across
the country in our blue Ford van, Ohio to
Oregon, something about summertime and
distant thunder. Or that song I played after you left me,
alone in the third floor apartment, night after night,
verse after verse, a mournful ballad of leaving and being left,
how the neighbors must have hated that song.
Now this album, I remember we played it
when you called and asked me to come back, long
after midnight I left the warm bed of my new lover
and drove to your motel in the grey dawn.
You said you were leaving her, you said
she was out of town. That song was playing
as she came up the wide stairwell, fists clenched,
calling your name.
Kate |kberne50AT NOSPAMhotmail dot com