This poem was inspired by the friends and family I know who keep this intricate handcraft alive.
Tatted
made of lace, this heart is delicate
but not fragile: strong knots and stout string
bind it to itself, to generations
of hands with shuttles and dreams
drawn in tight loops against
hardship and despair
Today’s poem came from mulling over an episode of Madame Secretary while walking the dog.
Thought loop
It is said
that clinging is the source
of suffering.
It may also be said
that suffering is sometimes
the source of clinging.
Posted in Poetry
Tagged 30 in 30, Buddhism, Madame Secretary, poetry practice, The Second Noble Truth, writing challenge
The first stanza is an actual fortune cookie fortune. The second stanza seemed to follow from the first.
Variation on a fortune cookie
The river seeks its own level.
It will not fight the rock:
it flows around it.
The rock sits lightly
and does not fight the river.
The rock becomes its own center.
I’ve been collecting fortune cookie fortunes to use as prompts. These three seemed to form their own poem.
Perspective
Prejudice
is the child of ignorance.
Wealth
is the ability to fully experience life.
Your flashlight
is a case for holding dead batteries.
Thanks to Diane Mathews for providing the prompt for today’s poem (which ended up a bit geeky), via Facebook.
a fallen AT-AT
kneels in the mist at twilight
petrified camel
Posted in Poetry
Tagged 30 in 30, Caspar David Friedrich, ekphrastic poetry, haiku, poetry practice, prompts
Today was another funeral for someone I know and love. There have been entirely too many of late.
At a loss
who doesn’t want to believe the rain
may be sharing their grief
or recognize in cloud cover
denial reflected a hundredfold
or understand the thunder
shudders at their own pain?
This was inspired by September 1 Picture Prompts photo on Twitter.
Alight
the heart is a red lamp, fist-sized, fragile
and glowing among the rocks
a beacon to the dark-wandering
mind and a source of warmth
for the soul at home
Posted in Poetry
Tagged 30 in 30, @pictureprompts, Picture Prompts, poetry practice, prompted poetry, writing challenge
A final found poem from Gary Shteyngart’s “Thinking Outside the Bots,” in the June issue of Smithsonian Magazine (pp. 78-80).
The cult of perfection
will extend to every part of us, and the cosmetic-surgery bots
will chisel us
and suck out our fat
and give us as many eyelids as we desire.
Our grandchildren will be born perfect; all
the criteria for their genetic makeup
will be determined in utero.
We will look perfect, but inside we will be
completely stressed out and worried
about our place (and our children’s place)
in the pecking order, because even our belt buckles
will come equipped with the kind of AI that could beat us
at three-dimensional chess
while reciting Shakespeare’s sonnets
and singing the blues in perfect pitch.
And so our beautiful selves will be constantly worried
about what contributions we will make to society, given
that all cognitive tasks will already be distributed to devices
small enough to perch at the edge of our fingernails.
Posted in Poetry
Tagged 30 in 30, found poetry, Gary Shteyngart, poetry practice, poetry writing, Smithsonian Magazine, writing challenge
Gary Shteyngart’s “Thinking Outside the Bots,” from the June issue of Smithsonian Magazine (p. 80), once again provided the material for this found poem.
As the great rush of technology envelops us
and makes us feel as small as the stars used to
make us feel when we looked up
at the primitive sky, we will be using our Samsung
NewBrainStem 2.0 to send out streams of emojis
to our aging friends, hoping to connect
to someone analog who won’t beat us at Go
in the blink of an eye, a fellow traveler in the mundane
world of flesh and cartilage.
Others of us, less fortunate, will be worried
about our very existence, as armies of Hubos, built
without the safeguards developed by kindly scientists
like Professor Oh, rampage across the earth.
And of course the balance of power will look nothing like
today; truly, the future will belong to societies – often small
societies like South Korea and Taiwan – that invest
in innovation to make their wildest techno-dreams a reality.
Can you picture the rise of the Empire of Estonia, ruled by a pensive
but decisive talking toilet?
I can.
Posted in Poetry
Tagged 30 in 30, found poetry, Gary Shteyngart, poetry practice, poetry writing, Smithsonian Magazine, writing challenge
Everything seems to shift in September. The angle of the sun is distinctly different, the amount of daylight is perfectly balanced, and the temperature and humidity become once again bearable. Everyone is in school and we can settle into a productive routine.
To that end, I’m setting myself a writing challenge for the month: produce 30 poems in 30 days. This year’s NaPoWriMo was a terrific warm-up for Lexington Poetry Month, and I hope to use this month to do the same for NaNoWriMo in November (though I have no intention of working on a novel). I even created my own logo!
So here is the first poem, a found poem from “Thinking Outside the Bots,” by Gary Shteyngart, in the June issue of Smithsonian Magazine (p. 80).
Seonbawi (Zen rock)
a weather-eroded rock formation that looks
like two robed monks, said to guard
the city – where women come to pray
for fertility, often laden with food
offerings for the spirits (Sun Chips seem to be in abundance
on the day I visit) the women bow and pray
intently – one young worshiper, in a thick puffy
jacket and a woolen cap, seems especially focused –
squarely in the center of her prayer
mat she has propped an iPhone
later I ask why – one tells me
the young woman was recording to prove
to her mother-in-law that she went to the fertility
rock and prayed for hours
another suggests that the phone belonged
to a friend – the woman is creating
a connection between the timeless and immortal
spirits and her childless
friend – this explanation I like the most
the young lady journeys from her city of 25 million to spend
hours on a mountain in the cold, promoting
her friend’s dreams, hands clasped
tightly in prayer: in front of her, a giant
timeless weather-beaten rock and a small
electronic device steer her gently
into the imperfect world to come
Posted in Poetry
Tagged 30 in 30, found poetry, Gary Shteyngart, poetry practice, poetry writing, Smithsonian Magazine, writing challenge
The Daily Compost 