4.30.13

It's the last one!  A return to "normal" life (as "normal" as my life ever gets, anyway).  My poem for today bids farewell to NaPoWriMo (for now).

Thanks for visiting!

Breaking It Off with Poetry (Again)

So I guess this is it. You knew
this couldn’t last, right? You knew
I can’t commit to something
this serious, something that takes
this much time and energy. I can’t
do this every day. I’ve got
responsibilities, other things
I need to be doing. I need to wash
my hair, weed the garden, change
the oil, change the furnace filter,
clean the fridge, and after all that,
I’ll probably need to wash my hair again.
I don’t really have time for this, you know—
these long rendezvous in the evenings
where we drink wine and stare
into each other’s eyes. Or the coffee dates—
the five-dollar mochas and the frantic
scribbling, the ones that made me late
back to work from lunch break. You know
I can’t lead this double life: I have a husband,
for God’s sake, and two kids. This can’t
be my life, all this sneaking around
WRITING in the wee hours, stealing
moments when I should be doing something
responsible, useful—shelving all the stuff
I get paid to do and meeting up with YOU instead.
If we keep this up, it’ll destroy me.
You know I love you—you know I’d do anything
for you—except this. I just can’t. I just
can’t.

I’m glad you understand—
we’ll both move on from this.
We’ll be strong. This will help us grow. Really,
we can still be friends, right? I mean,
there’s nothing wrong with that. Maybe
meet for coffee a couple times of month.
Or maybe we could email each other? I’d like that.
You know, I heard about an open mic for poets
downtown next Wednesady. Maybe we should
team up for that? A professional relationship,
mind you, not this passionate mess
we’ve gotten ourselves into.

You want to? I’ll plan on it then.
Pick you up at seven.

4.29.13

Siberian Squill

Early April, grass
just greening , gray sky curling
down to the horizon. Then,
punch of sun—carpet
of exploding azure stars.

4.28.13

Nothing Rhymes with Orange

In school they taught us, “Nothing rhymes with orange,”
and other absolutes: geometry,
the nine planets, and the length of an inch.
Back then, fact was fact. But now I'm thirty-three

and Pluto’s not a planet. Facts can change.
What they told you might not be set in stone.
And changing the inflection of your “orange”
can slant the sounds and play tricks with the tones.

Depending how you say it, the word “orange”
could rhyme “arrange,” and “mange” and “lozenge” too.
Pluto hasn’t jumped its frozen orbit
just because NASA named it something new.

Sounds and planets are always what you make them.
Only learn the rules so you can break them.

4.27.13

Why Roses are Overrated

Well, now—if it’s not the prom queen
of flowers, all dressed up for forever love
in flashy mylar-paper wrapping,
thorns clipped harmless, fresh from the florist,
petals soft as promises and smooth
as white picket fences: beating you
with picture-perfect symbolism,
making you love it, making you believe it.
A flawless dozen offered on a snapshot night
could hang around for years, mummified
upside down or encased in a glass bubble.
How can you plan a life around a dozen roses,
around a clean pre-packaged ending?
Love is too big and messy, showing up unbidden,
spilling apple juice on your shoes, lowering
your standards, and riding its bike
through the front garden at midnight, drunk.

You want to be symbolic? You want to show me love?
Pick me fourteen dandelions. Stick them in a tinfoil hat.

4.26.13

White Space

Nothing is more daunting than

nothing—it  stares you down,

rears up to meet you: the black beetle

 scurrying over its flanks, hobbled

with things you need to say

before it notices you’re there,

before all that nothing stomps you flat.

4.25.13

Today's color prompt was purple.  I wrote a rant today after photographing my daughter's Mardi Gras beads.  The costume shop where I work is located in a party store, where practically everything we sell is created for one use and eventual discard.  The sheer volume of things manufactured for the landfill boggles my mind and depresses me, especially considering that one of the classes I teach deals partially with sustainability and environmental responsibility.  Whole industries ignore those things.  Mind blown. Rant explained.  Who knew Mardi Gras beads could go all sinister?

Landfill Necklace

Fuchsia, copper, gold, purple, every color

imaginable or able to be manufactured

in metallic plastic, they hang in enticing rows.

Beads by the billions, flash-formed and melted

onto cotton string, pressure-painted in toxic brilliance,

four for a dollar, cheaper if you buy a gross.

Created for cheap sparkle and a fast fade,

they are thrown from parade floats,  sunlight

spangling their flight with jewel tones.

They are slung by sixes and sevens

around the rubbery necks of revelers that dance,

and spill vodka, flashing like disco lightning.

After that fast moment, they lie forgotten as cigarette butts,

and bound for the same place.  The ghosts of a thousand

identical parties, bound for a thousand identical

push brooms, trash cans, curbs and landfills.

Or, worn home and abandoned on the dresser,

 moved from place to place for a few weeks,

then boxed away.  Billions of beads, lost,

tangled as ground-ivy, metallic sheen grown flat

with time.  What if all the useless items came out at night,

uncurling like asps, dull beads glinting like scales

in the moonlight as the click, click, click brings them

up the stairs, out of corners, a rustling

 in the trash, crawling out of the landfills

to come and strangle us while we sleep?

4.24.13

I may be behind, but, by God, I AM going to write all 30 poems this month! 

Today's color was gray; I started off following the NaPoWriMo "anagram" prompt, but the poem took off on its own.  The photo is of an old photograph of my great grandmother, Estella.

Where I’m From

There is not much nonsense.

The sun comes up, the gravel roads are graded smooth,

the crops are harvested.  Weeds grow

and are burnt from the ditches each April.

The smoke curls into the cold blue sky.

You don’t get away with much

when you’re sixteen, looping all nine streets

of town in your beat-up Chevy freedom machine,

smacking the dusty radio to make it keep playing,

waiting for the leaves to come out,

waiting for something to sprout.  Where I’m from,

we drop R’s into “Warshington D.C.”

like dropping pebbles into the river.

Our garden trellises are strong, weathered  gray

by five months of snow.  In summer,

the wisteria climbs frantically, squeezing the lathe

in its grip: its foothold to the open air,         

something to grasp onto as it clambers out.

4.23.13

Nest in an Abandoned Building

Where sparrows live the sky peers through,

and the sun shines on their dust-baths.

Bricks crumble slowly, rendezvous

with sparrows as the sky peers through,

becoming mankind’s residue

on brilliant days that quietly pass

here: sparrows and the sky fly through,

and the sun shines on their dust-baths.

4.22.13

Daffodils

The season is slow

to wake,  wiggles fingers, toes

tingling from waiting, mist a

mantle of winter

still covering her nightgown.

She startles upright,

her nightcap cocked askew.  What

pokes?  Then she sees it—bright and

impudent,  laughing,

her overdue alarm clock.