When Truth Hinges on a Long-gone Picture
Granddaddy, I recall the picture
you were long gone, dirt settled
a Polaroid of what had to be Hank
your and Lawrence’s fishing buddy
a blue heron you’d toss too-small croppy to
Him on the bank, you in the boat
might have been Proctor Lake
might have been my cousin July
tried out her teen sex on [...]
Rejected, six poems, with a note that one made it to the final round.
And I didn’t have to wait months and months to hear.
Something of mine is at tinywords (and the trees who inspired it last year are at it again).
Joseph Harker is taking over the Poetry x 12 project.
March — Read a poetry collection written by a poet who has been featured in a movie. This is a challenging one, but there are actually a number of movies about poets. Here is a link to get you started: 5 Favorite Movies Based on Famous [...]
Contrails stitch the sky.
Shears temper waste
stream threads. Spin them:
boucle, ric-rac, polyfill clouds.
What in God’s Name Was She Thinking?
“Use that hacksaw”
the frog mutters,
her lubricious patter
no small work of fiction.
A whine from the other
side garbles weak dissent,
“There’s not enough room
to maneuver.” (Odd phrase.)
She tenders a crown
with red-nailed claws
while panic decorates
the battered footlocker (stickers
read: Kirkuk, Kathmandu)
and decay frosts scattered
eggshells. “If only
I hadn’t lost the key.”
* * *
Strange things were [...]
slow decay
seeps, still for the lens
wind whips
silver grass froth
rush music: whooosh
a warm sun spins
this tender spot
a chorus master
with deft baton
Paper-thin Walls
I’ve never lived
with wallpaper
but I know paneling
thin veneer laid
over pressboard
formaldehyde and glue
medium fake oak re-
varnished every year
tacky tar washed
away and doors
slammed one room
over. Voices, hushed.
* * *
For a Read Write Poem prompt, which was terrific. I need a little more time with it, but it’s all I got for now. Thanks, Dave.
Find other [...]
January’s Poetry x 12 challenge was to pick a book published the year you were born and read it.
I wanted to find a woman poet and had some good ideas, but every book I found was published the year before my birth. So I went with Ogden Nash and You Can’t Get There from Here, illustrated [...]
So we can start the game.
shuffle back everyday use, no want of a museum, theater trading in impulses
if you were a lines to mark a working family’s losses. high, no rococo ornamentation, a fad beacon where would you sit? in the crack like a dam, keyed into a take away supper to whisper what you [...]