Saturday, April 4, 2009

poetry writing challenge - day 4

write something about an animal or animals.
(not feeling it, but here we go)

Cow Haiku

Grass. grass. grass. grass. grass.
More grass. More grass. More grass. More.
All day.

Friday, April 3, 2009

poetry writing challenge - day 3

write a poem begininning with The problem with ______



The Problem with Waking Up


The problem with waking up is not
That you have widened, unimaginably in the night
That under the warm press of comfort
your body is now the size of a inland sea,
[- a new species swims at the bottom, eluding the photograph].

The problem with waking up is not that as each car passes your window
things vanish in its wake –
the man in your dream who pushed you – who pushed your car from the outside so you almost, almost hit those women, their tea, the glasses breaking. you were in the backseat and could do nothing why did he push you to it what did he look like that man a car passes and the water you poured then cut with scissors in a bag that stayed there like water would never do – you cut it and it stayed, - it doesn’t spill but vanishes into the beginning of the question

when

The leather belt that she held onto with her teeth.
The stairwell in which she was sick.
Going

The question: when.
The answer: now.
The question: when is that.

The problem with waking is not that you quickly become
so much smaller
(- one or no fish swim inside)

The problem is that you know where you are.
You know what came before.

It comes to you
And this you cannot help

It comes to you.

That.

Oh.
Yes.
That.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

poetry writing challenge - day 2

write an outsider poem. You can be the outsider; someone else can be the outsider.

••••

Cul de Sac: Juniper Place

It was all wrong. So hard to say why.
The fabric in their sweaters, the thickness in the men’s necks.
The dumb jewelry pagodas in the mall with near-empty corridors
that smelled and felt of nothing.

Plants I didn’t recognized lined the street towards a house I slept in,
A house I didn’t sleep in. A house I sat outside of and ringed in smoke.

In the morning the juniper trees in the backyard were
as beautiful as any I’d ever seen - or more.
Seventeen. I counted again.
I have never lived in a house more lovely.

I stood in my bathrobe and turned on the little lawn.
My neighbors’ son – there again, lifting weights,
his mother, - a paper white curtain,
looking at him, or past him
as he grunted and pressed.

The day before, over the fence, she gave me Pat Nixon’s meatloaf recipe
and told me, without segue, her husband hadn’t touched her,
not even by accident,
in years.

I stood and turned on the little lawn.
I looked around myself, my hands and feet.
I did not exist.

But the house was lovely.
It had seventeen trees in the backyard alone.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

poetry writing challenge - day 1

for National Poetry Month the challenge is to write a poem a day, based on a prompt. Don't know if I can but I will try.
First prompt: write an origin poem.

•••••••••••••••

Shape of the Bulb,
Bloom of the Flower


The peonie root is a gnarled piece of work
As big as the hand that buries it.
The flower is not even curled inside,
Waiting,
The flower is a dried, over-built, gnarled piece of work.
When it dies, after it has lived, and the petals drift down the street
unconnected,
it will never look as old as this
Or as complicated.

I think, the night before I was,
They chose silence over clearing words.
Corners were retreated to.
Separate pieces took peace.
Crickets spoke instead.

Deep in a moonless night
I took root and formed,
Like a pearl around a piece of sand,
As small as the kiss that made room for me.