There is no connection: That is the line I asked you to use in writing your poems on Day 18. It was a line that'd been rolling around in my head for awhile, though the context is totally lost on me now. As it should be. It's amazing how one line can go so many different directions.
Finding the connection in these poems is as simple as the line I asked you to use, but outside of that there appears to be no connection. (Hahahaha--yeah, I know. Bad joke.)
*****
:“mutually exclusive dinner party invitations”:
Between her old self
and her new self there is
no connection
anymore They sit on opposite
sides of the room They
sleep in
separate beds
They eat dinners in silence and rarely
call company to
toast their exclusive successes Between
the two of them
there is little room
for change Maybe someday
But for now there is no
connection
Khara House |leftnwrite08AT NOSPAMyahoo dot com
*****
FALSE LOVE
There is no connection between them anymore
False loving glances are exchanged across the table
for the sake of the children
The excuse they use to stay together
But the children see them sleep in different places
and overhear the muffled arguments at night
The tension between them chokes and suffocates
the life out of all those that come into their presence
but they continue hiding behind strained smiles
and forced affectionate rubs on the back
a piece of each of them dies everyday
knowing that life would be better apart
but it's so much easier to play the role
than to accept the truth that lies in their hearts
Christa R. Shelton |c_writesAT NOSPAMhotmail dot com
*****
A Reason
“Why did this happen? I haven’t been a bad person.
I’ve lived a good life.” There had to be a reason for
what the doctor was telling me. Cancer didn’t just
happen. There had to be a reason.
“I assure you, there is no connection between the
type of life a person has lived and cancer. You haven’t
done anything wrong.” His words flew past me, over
my head. All I heard was “cancer.” In my mind, that
was the only word that counted.
I looked back at the previous 40 years, trying to
locate the point in time where I had gone astray,
walked off the right path, jumped the tracks. I
wasn’t a perfect angel by no means, but cancer?
“I used to shoplift. Maybe that’s it.” I had to find
a reason. “I cheated on a test in high school. Wasn’t
very nice to that Jenkins girl.” He reached out and
patted my hand. “Listen to me, there is no connection.”
There had to be a reason.
Susan M. Bell |maylandwritersAT NOSPAMgmail dot com
*****
The Myth Is
there is no connection between
lollipops and pumpkins,
skyscrapers and hovels,
terrorists , saints,
the aliens that abduct
and those that intervene in angel garb:
not smithereens of a chaotic big bang –
or the fuselage of a big kahuna-deity’s
ark smashed to puzzle pieces –
but string theory, the divine quipu,
waiting to be read, quarks
to unravel, embroider,
or hang by in ignorance,
for the science and god, one,
that we have yet to touch.
Maria Jacketti |medusashairdresserAT NOSPAMmsn dot com
*****
Well-connected
Scientists are up in arms
at the speed of global warming.
Environmentalists shake their heads,
no one will heed their warning.
A ten-year window is all we have
until the point of no return.
"To hell with that", say executives,
"We've got tons of coal to burn".
Our planet cries "Stop it now
before everyone gets hurt".
Lobbyists still earn their keep
while politicians hit pay dirt.
Industry must motor on
til it hits that intersection
marked "Turn back before it's too late",
and "It's OK. There is no connection".
Joe |joemackinnonAT NOSPAMhotmail dot com
*****
Schism
How can you say there is no
connection from the crow's glistening
wing to the night that flies
away at dawn. No link
between the winter wind
and the hard sweep of grief,
no coupling between the bell
and the waves of its ring
in an empty courtyard?
How can you know there is
no chain pulling taut
the distance between tears
and the ocean--or, say,
Antarctica, the mountains and shelves
of ice, the white blindness held
together by cold until weight
or melt makes them calve,
fall apart with a roar
that echoes in your blood,
that binds you, even in sleep,
to more than one ending.
Joannie Stangeland |joannieksAT NOSPAMmsn dot com
*****
Even Teachers Get to Have Fun Sometimes
---------------------------------------
Today in class one of my students, not
knowing how to start an English essay asked,
How is the past an indicator of the future?
I am a history teacher, and as you know,
teachers know everything. We have no life
outside of school. In fact, some of us
live in our classrooms, pulling our Murphy beds
from beneath the chalkboard, shower up
in the denizens of the faculty lounge. Her logic
in asking me was, shall we say, inspired.
Trying to act the clown, or just to see her face
I replied as straight as I could, There is no
connection, no way to tell from one day to the next
what is going to happen. I pause before adding,
Haven't you ever heard of Chaos Theory?
This is the part I always like best, when they
ask themselves if they heard me right, decide
if they can trust what I have told them.
Sometimes, they catch on right away, think back
to the beginning of the year when I told them
about Heraclitus, how you can never step
into the same river twice, how all things
are connected. Then their smile comes
and they know the real answer is yet to come.
That's when I know I have them, know when
they are going to really listen, give this whole
school thing at least one more shot, let in
just a little more light into the cave and
dust down the shelves of their minds.
Justin Evans |evjustinAT NOSPAMyahoo dot com
*****
Proximity
I'm walking down French Road
and I see a familiar vista -
up there, to the south of me,
a miniature mountain rises
(we Uticans call it Crow Hill),
a mountain crowned with trees,
four of which stand out
like the straight spikes
of a truncated stegosaur.
There is no connection
between them and the rest
of the little oak forest
that's been standing there
for a hundred years or more.
It's like something sudden
and completely unplanned -
like a wicked windstorm,
or a minute meteor,
or an errant bulldozer -
just so happened to pass
through that small space
and thus forever changed
that fractional footage
of Oneida County landscape.
Whatever it was, it left
the dwellers of this valley
with a place that radiates
that sort of bizarre beauty
that throws the futile
humdrum claptrap of life
into relief and makes you say,
"Well, I guess maybe things
aren't so awful after all"
as you look up at those four trees,
thinking of how close they might be.
Callan Bignoli-Zale |shehadausernameAT NOSPAMgmail dot com
*****
In Rio de Janeiro,
a pregnant woman throws up
for the second time today.
In Perth,
unable to sleep, a boy watches rain drops
snake down his bedroom window.
In Cambridge,
two teenage girls kiss
under a blooming dogwood for the first time.
In Palo Alto,
a computer crashes as a student
tries to save the final version of her thesis.
In Cairo,
a woman cleans her kitchen
in preparation for her mother-in-law's visit.
In Bucharest,
a man on a bicycle is knocked into a ditch
by a small truck that doesn’t stop.
In Kawagoe,
a man holds his granddaughter in his arms
and feeds her a bottle of milk.
In Reykjavik,
an old woman dies while drinking her afternoon tea,
which spills across the front of her blouse.
There is no connection.
JL Smither |jlsmitherAT NOSPAMgmail dot com
*****
Special Information Tone
I learned the annoying, ear-piercing,
three-toned chime that sounds on the phone
when there is no connection,
is called a SIT code.
Three sharp pings, aptly called
SIT, command the listener
to wait for special information.
But those three notes, the ones I hear
several times a day, always
make me jump.
I hang-up before hearing the message—
I already know the number is disconnected
because you no longer live there.
And you didn’t tell me goodbye
because there is no longer a connection
between you and me.
Sara Diane Doyle |saras dot sojournsAT NOSPAMgmail dot com
*****
Even then
Even when there is no connection
Even when it rains like slate
Even when you can’t smell anything
Even when your legs stop working
Even when you can’t find work
Even when someone you love dies
Even when you loose a favorite earring
Even when you can’t breathe
Even when your car breaks down
Even when someone is mad at you
Even when the fridge is empty
Even when the birds wake you at four AM
Even when people are rude
Even when you have a headache for three days
Even when
Even then
beauty suffuses every molecule
Even then
your smile restores me.
Jacquie Wareham |wareham dot jacquieAT NOSPAMgmail dot com
*****
THERE IS NO CONNECTION
“Don’t be so stupid -
there is no connection
between butterflies
and typhoons,”
she exclaimed.
The child went quiet
and hung his head.
A great sadness
fell on the school
after that
and things
were never the same.
Maureen |sajwriter06AT NOSPAMyahoo dot com dot au