Contrails stitch the sky.
Shears temper waste
stream threads. Spin them:
boucle, ric-rac, polyfill clouds.
contrails
word play
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 let loose by the Read Write Poem Wordle prompt this week. Like a child who ate too many desserts while no one was looking, I think I’ve made a mess of things and need a bit of seltzer.
Odd, I’ve been missing haiku and American sentences. This should be the tonic I need to get back to those. :-)
For other poems, maybe based on this same Wordle, go here.
wordless Wednesday
a Valentine 2010 bee
confessions
It’s harder to be a dilettante than it looks. One has to be able to dibble dabble endlessly, to be reckless and fickle and give no mind to pundits remarks. To flirt, roll up a skirt, unbutton a blouse. But not go all the way. Don’t get paid for — in small measure (flattering) notice might be — whatever hobby or affection takes one’s attention.
To be an amateur requires a heart full of love, but resides uninitiated in rules or categorizations that desire close dissection, even vivisection — attention the unprofessional can little manage enough focus on to follow to an unnatural conclusion.
Some say “that astronomy, history, linguistics, and ornithology are among the myriad fields that have benefited from the activities of amateurs.”
I shall continue with my back-yard birding. Take my little bits of observation to my bed. Snuggle then sleep deep sleep.
finding pattern
I’ve always been drawn to drawing, to geometric forms, to finding pattern, observing nature. I’m not saying that’s unusual — it’s human nature to create order, find meaning, look for causal relationships. It’s a way of making sense, it’s an attempt to order and control our world. At its heart it is a way to stay safe.
Still. I recall a drawing period when I made pastel geometrically-shaped saguaro cactus for my landscape drawings. They were tall and thin with rectilinear shapes. I must have been ten or eleven, maybe even twelve. Not that we had suguaros where I lived — they aren’t in the Mojave Desert, but the Soronan, quite a bit south of where I lived with yucca, spanish sword, chollas, prickley pear, barrel cactus and others I can’t quite name.
I still like to find order. I like the pinnated fans of Western red cedar in Oregon, scaly fingers of needles woven to fringe and fringe. I like the rough textures of alligator bark juniper I see out in Arizona, with a regular pattern that shifts just when you’ve understood it.
I like the arches I see with thin boughs weighted by bright green lichen, and trees reaching across each other for light.
Wednesday
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
anniversaries
(Click through to get to larger and uncropped images, as always.)
Sandy River Delta (aka 1000 Acres) was gorgeous Friday. Warm weather and blue skies started the walk — and the temperature would beat the average by 14 points. it was warm enough to set the frogs anthem, and to call in a heron to stalk them.
(It’s inspired some thinking about frog poetry, which I have been thinking about without something settling in my brain. Sometimes I have to free write. Sometimes I have to let things stew, internally, for productive writing to take hold. I have not been able to figure out why or when those work best. It’s hit or miss with my fingers, my mind.)
Sport’s birthday was Friday. He’s a dog, although I can still call him a young dog.
Today is an anniversary, of sorts. I was laid off a year ago and continue to be “underemployed.” It’s a bit dismal of an employment outlook, at least in my current field, and I’m feeling very middle-aged and fuzzy-brained about what I ought to do.
But when I take a walk with my dog, feel an early spring, or at least a break in the winter — so different from what others experience — I feel fortunate. I just wish that feeling lasted longer than a sun break.
the wallpaper project
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 ideas, here.
wordless Wednesday* (*false advertising for there are notes)
I am a fan of shadows. And reflected light. And shadows that should be lit for they are candles with unused wicks.
January: Poetry x 12 (the year I was born)
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 by Maurice Sendack.
I was excited about the idea of the book, the illustrations – excited by digging into something new.
I haven’t been able to finish it.
It’s silly stuff.
I like silly, playful. Light verse means what it says. It’s frothy, airy, fluffy, puffy. But it is too much to read all at once. At first I thought, maybe I am simply trying to eat too many sweets at one sitting. Perhaps these are after dinner mints, or truffles. And perhaps, if they were written today, they would be. But these are petit fours, marzipan. They just don’t match me, or what I think is the taste of my time. They are grandmother’s stale candies sitting in a cut crystal dish.
The poems in this collection were previously published in magazines such as Good Housekeeping, Harper’s (Bazaar and Magazine), Look, McCall’s, The New Yorker, Saturday Evening Post, True and the Man’s Magazine. One Etsy reseller describes a vintage copy of Man’s Magazine as “This thing is loaded with good old boy testosterone, whiskey, car ads and Christmas gift-giving, man-style!”
The Nash poems are also loaded with man-style, even if sometimes self-depreciating. And they can be racist, referencing the Chinese by using coolie hats as euphemism.
I tried to write a response poem. Something in rhyming verse that would tickle me. But I couldn’t.
I’m sure I am missing the mastery of Ogden Nash. But if so, I need a teacher to help me. I don’t get it on my own.
That said, I am glad I tried. And I am looking forward to February, which is “Read a poetry collection recommended on a blog.” I think I will read A Walk Through Memory Palace by Pamela Johnson Parker. It’s this month’s Virtual Book Club Tour at Read Write Poem. And I have the book and haven’t read all the way through, yet.
