Category Archives: Poetry

Prompted poetry: robin photo

Posted on September 18, 2013 | 2 comments

This is in response to a photo prompt/meme posted by Shawn at Shawn L. Bird on Monday. The title isn’t very clever, but it provides some context that’s lacking if you don’t have the photo as a reference. Suggestions and comments welcome!

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Robin at Montserrat

bit of parti-colored fluff on a rocky ledge cares
nothing for the travelers on this pilgrim way, intent
rather on insects stirred by their passing, dusty votives
for the wide-mouth choristers who clamorously intone
the offices of her days — their stuffed silence the peace
she seeks, their bulging craws the benediction
over which she folds when evening’s chill sets in

 

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Prompt poem

Posted on September 16, 2013 | 2 comments

This poem is a mash-up of bits and pieces from a long list of prompts I’ve collected in my writing journal. Nothing profound, just something fun I tossed off Saturday morning.

listening to the voices in the cracked
red bowl while you were lost
I could not sleep — bowlegged dreams
follow the grain of indolent beliefs and discarded
remainders of ideas in a dark time

use your favorite letter traveling alone
without leaving home out of fear
I could not sleep — growing in an old place
as if seeing it for the first time
a scrawl of words in the background

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Ekphrasis: Self Discovery

Posted on September 10, 2013 | Leave a comment

This is my response to a writing challenge prompt by Elizabeth Beck and John Lackey from the Accents Publishing blog. Accents Publishing is a wonderful independent press with a global literary presence and a commitment to the local writing and visual arts community.

within the very atoms of our bones
swirl the fires of creation and our flesh
smolders with the expanding
passion that gives birth to stars

luminous though our celestial bodies appear
to instrument and naked eye alike the greater
part of matter and energy remains
dark and unknowable

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Prompted poetry: short

Posted on August 26, 2013 | 3 comments

I have a hard time convincing some folks that modern poetry is not necessarily biographical, and that good poetry manages to be personal even when it is fictional. This is a moment of imaginary conversation between imaginary people in an imaginary coffee shop.

Tall decaf mocha latte

I’m feeling a little short,
he said. Of what? I asked
absently and sipped coffee
still too hot to drink. Of time, money,
inspiration, he said, flinging
hands in the air. Of stature,
he added as he dropped them
in his lap. I eyed him over
the steaming brim. Of stature,
I echoed. Metaphorically speaking,
he answered, shoulders slumped.

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Found poetry: Advice to a writer

Posted on August 23, 2013 | 2 comments

The other book I purchased from the gift shop at the Mark Twain House was also written by a New England author who had taken part in one of the wonderful writing workshops the museum sponsors. I’m working my way through the book very slowly, saving it for those days when I sit down to work and struggle to find something coherent to write.

Advice to a Writer

you should not walk
around with your heart
hanging open — there’s too much
danger out there
just find a way to make your heart
safe for opening slowly
chamber by chamber
so you can get back
to those in-the-moment
moments

— Nancy Slonim Aronie in Writing from the Heart: Tapping the Power of Your Inner Voice, p. 33 (Hyperion 1998)

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Prompted poetry: overboard

Posted on August 19, 2013 | Leave a comment

Here’s a little something from my journal. I toyed with a different title (Lost at Sea); let me know what you think. I’m also not sure how well the imagery holds up, especially at the end. I would love to know your thoughts on that as well.

Man Overboard

he pressed his lips to the back of her
hand, held her fingers lightly in his
own as he did, lest he telegraph his desire
to clasp them like a lifeline and haul himself
kiss over kiss up the length of her arm
to salvation

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Found poetry: Judy

Posted on August 7, 2013 | 2 comments

While trolling the gift shop at the Mark Twain House in Hartford, Connecticut, earlier this summer, I found a table of books marked down to half price. Exercising nearly superhuman restraint, I only bought two titles, one of which was The Last Days of Dogtown by Anita Diamant.  Near the end of the book, the following passage jumped out at me as something that might make a fair poem. Let me know what you think…

When Judy returned to the empty
house, she clapped her hands
at the pleasure of having it all

to herself again. She moved
her clothes back upstairs to the high
ceilings and windows she’d missed

all summer, and then strolled through the quiet
rooms, stopping in the library, where she emptied
the dregs of the Judge’s sherry into a crystal glass, put up

her feet, and watched the sunset
turn the harbor into a pink punch
bowl. The great clock ticked while

the gulls became black apostrophes
against the line of one endless lavender
cloud that stretched to the horizon.

– Anita Diamant, The Last Days of Dogtown, pp. 248-9 (2006 trade paper edition, Scribner 2005)

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Prompted poetry: photo caption

Posted on July 25, 2013 | 2 comments

I subscribe via e-mail to The Write Prompts. On Image Tuesdays, the e-mail I receive only contains the photo’s caption; I have to click the link to see the actual image. A couple weeks ago, the caption by itself suggested a poem. I finally looked at the photo when I went back to revise the poem, and found exactly what I needed to make it work. Here’s to creative captions!

blue water fountain stone
garden palms heavy
fruited lemons

water falling soft
sound of sighing
stirs leaves and oleander

scented twilight glowing
salmon deepens blue water
fountain stone garden

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Dream poetry: The best medicine

Posted on July 20, 2013 | 2 comments

This was inspired by a dream I had last week. I woke to my alarm in the middle of the dream, and its disturbed feeling stayed with me until I had time to sit down and write about it. As I recorded the dream, I saw patterns that very nearly reversed my initial perceptions, so that I ended up feeling very positive about it. I guess maybe I’m one of those irritating glass-half-full people.

The Best Medicine

A technician arrives to put in
the IV. Cancer, the doctors say.
Five tubes of thick, red poison
wait in a tray. The rubber strap snaps
around my upper arm; cool fingertips press
the crook of my elbow, my wrist,
the back of my hand. I look away, cold
with fear and anger. The bee sting of entry
barely registers, but slashing pain seconds later draws
unwilling sound from my throat. The tech pulls
the needle, bandages purpling flesh, murmurs
apology, avoids my eyes. She puts
her arms around me and I see
she is crying.

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Another garden poem

Posted on July 15, 2013 | 6 comments

I’m not sure what it is about gardening that brings out the rhyme and meter in me, but it seems to have happened again. (Previous effort: Garden delights.)

Response to the gardener’s proposal

Do not speak to me of roses
rooted in a garden fair:
I would rather hear of meadows
and the thistles growing there.

Do not talk of ordered orchards
laid in rows all long and neat:
I would rather dream of wildwood
overgrown with bittersweet.

If marriage be a stately garden,
it were all too mild and tame:
measured beds with well-marked borders
hedged and trimmed to look the same.

I prefer a reckless corner
riotous with self-sown seeds,
tended with unbound affection
and a fondness for glorious weeds.

*     *     *

A question, dear reader: Do you prefer it laid out as above or below?

Response to the gardener’s proposal

Do not speak to me of roses rooted in a garden fair:
I would rather hear of meadows and the thistles growing there.

Do not talk of ordered orchards laid in rows all long and neat:
I would rather dream of wildwood overgrown with bittersweet.

If marriage be a stately garden, it were all too mild and tame:
measured beds with well-marked borders hedged and trimmed to look the same.

I prefer a reckless corner riotous with self-sown seeds,
tended with unbound affection and a fondness for glorious weeds.

*     *     *

I like the visual weight of the four-line stanzas, but worry that it may interfere with reading, which should be phrased as two lines. What do you think?

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