Poem a Day, #18 (history)

Personal History

Can you say, “Fifty years ago, I (did, was, etc.)...”?

Is fifty years ago ancient history to you?

Do you think someone who is fifty is old?

Fifty years ago, I had just gotten married.

Fifty years ago, I attended the first big anti-Vietnam War demonstration.

Fifty-two years ago, I was at the March on Washington.

I never asked my parents,

“How old were you when your life became history?”

When did they start to remember “Fifty years ago, I...”?

When does your life become history?

How old do you have to be to become historical?

Is history happening every day, but

You don’t know it until fifty years later? 

 http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/the_carriage.png

Poem a Day, #16 (authority)

The prompt for this was some take on authority, so I thought about what I know and don't know.

I'm Not an Expert

I’m not an expert on

the internal workings of the human body.

I’m not an expert, but

I know the difference between “which” and “that.”

I’m not an expert on

getting blood out of a living human to test it.

I’m not an expert, but

I know where to put commas in and take them out.

I’m not an expert on

what makes blood clot at the right time and place.

I’m not an expert, but

I know what punctuation goes inside or outside of quotation marks.

I’m not an expert on

veins, arteries, the deep vein thrombosis, the pulmonary embolism.

I’m not an expert, but

I know that pronouns have to agree with their antecedents.

I’m not an expert on

kidney function, urethers, bladder infections.

I’m not an expert, but

I know editors and book sellers aren’t “curators.”

I’m not an expert on

keeping a human alive when the body goes berserk.

I’m not an expert, but

I know celebrities and buildings and attitudes are not “iconic.”

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/the_carriage.png

Poem a Day, #14 (swing)

Swing music might have been my parents’ soundtrack

If they danced.

Swing dancing always looks like so much fun,

But I’m bad at learning steps.

I would have swung high on a backyard swing

If my father had hung one.

I loved to swing a bat at a softball

But never played on a team.

I’ve never lived in a swing state or

Cast a swing vote.

I never have mood swings

(my moods hover around the midline,

boringly so).

Swinging is more fun than standing still.

Swinging left is more fun than swinging right.

Swinging opinions are called flip-flopping,

But why is changing your mind a bad thing?

 http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/the_carriage.png

Poem a Day, #9 (how to...)

How to Drive Yourself Insane

Offer to write a short interview piece.

Acquire a free recording app for your iPad.

Test the app. Yes, it works.

Record the interview.

(Take notes just to be on the safe side.)

Try to play back the interview.

Wonder why nothing happens.

Try to play it back again.

Still wonder why nothing happens.

Look up .m4a files online.

Find out that iTunes or QuickTime Player will open .m4a files.

Transfer the file to your laptop.

Open iTunes.

Try to open interview file. Nothing happens.

Open QuickTime.

Try to open interview file. Nothing happens.

Stare at computer screen.

Go to Web page of recording app’s creator.

Write impassioned plea for help.

Web page refuses to post your plea until you fill in a nonexistent field.

Resist impulse to scream.

Look at notes.

Curse your aging memory.

Have a stiff drink.

Wish for angels to whisper interview into your ears.

 http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/the_carriage.png

Poem a Day, #8 (work)

What is work?

Is it work if you don’t get paid?

Is it work if it’s fun?

Is it work only if you’re obliged to do it,

As Mark Twain wrote?

When is work a joy and

When is it torture?

Is mindless, back-breaking work

a crime in the class war?

Will your back pain from waitressing

earn you a Purple Heart?

When is caregiving an act of love

for a family member, and

when is it work?

When is it both an act of love and work?

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/the_carriage.png

Poem a Day, #7 (dare)

Dare you

Do you dare to eat a peach?

Do you dare to swim upstream?

Do you dare to wear chartreuse?

Do you dare to leave the team?

Do you dare to run amok?

Do you dare to run aground?

Do you dare to mingle starlight?

Do you dare to drink soft sounds?

Do you dare to write for no one?

Do you dare to sing pure fashion?

Do you dare to paint Orion?

Do you dare to knit a passion?

 http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/the_carriage.png

Poem a Day, #6 (love or anti-love)

Love is a four-letter word,

Hardly spoken in impolite society

Where lust, eros, itch are preferred.

Love evokes romance, purity, idealism.

Romance, where the lover

Loses herself in the loved one,

Purity of purpose, innocence in knowledge,

In search of an Ideal never attained.

Lust evokes passion, hedonism, desire.

Passion’s craving for more more more,

Hedonistic pleasure in the body,

Desire to indulge all cravings.

Love is the metaphor, never realized

but assumed,

While lust creates its own

Facts-on-the-ground, a reality

That cannot be resisted,

That sweeps away pretence.

Love is lust’s imagination,

The clothes it wears in polite society.

 http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/the_carriage.png

Poem a Day, #5

Who Are They? Who Were They?

Who is the winner of Top Chef on the Food Network?

He spent two years in prison for armed robbery.

Who is the first violinist in the symphony orchestra?

She spent her first two school years living in a homeless shelter.

Who is the founder of that famous computer company?

He was a college dropout.

Who is the prize-winning reporter for a major newspaper?

She was dyslexic through high school.

Who is that old man shuffling along the sidewalk?

He used to be an All-Star pitcher for the Yankees.

Who is that woman scrabbling through the trash?

She used to sing backup for Whitney Houston.

Who is the middle-aged man sitting on the street,

with a paper coffee cup holding a few coins?

He used to be Phi Beta Kappa at Brooklyn College.

Who is the woman humming tunelessly

as she trudges through the park?

She used to teach English at Princeton, wrote

bestselling novels in the summer.

 http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/the_carriage.png

Poem a Day, #4 (vegetable)

The Garden

The garden starts as a rocky plot.

I sit on my haunches and toss rocks to the side,

filter dirt through my fingers and toss pebbles to the side.

The earth smells clammy, hiding something unwanted.

The seeds drop into tiny hillocks, searching for something reclusive.

Weeding requires attention.

What is a pea sprout? What is fiddleneck?

What is chickweed? What is dandelion?

If its roots are strong, it’s a weed, pull it out and toss to the side.

Beans climb the trellis, tomatoes hug the stakes.

Pea pods crawl along the ground, corn shoots to the sky.

A watermelon the size of a cucumber, a cucumber the size of a watermelon,

wins a 4-H prize for my brother at the fair.

Picking peas for lunch, I slit the pod, scrape the peas into a saucepan,

Eat one from each pod immediately.

Green taste crunches in my mouth,

Revealing the secret hidden underground,

Fresh flavors of sunlight and heat and riddles never heard.

 http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/the_carriage.png

Poem a Day, #3: Departures

Departures

I have departed many places.

The first seven were involuntary.

My parents decided we would leave

Virginia;

Havre de Grace and Silver Spring, Md.;

Washington, D.C.;

Avenue P and 20th Avenue in Brooklyn;

West Haven, Conn.;

Levittown, Pa.

Each new place a new possibility,

but each new place had new rules and customs,

new ways to pronounce common words,

new ways for me to be a newcomer, alone.

Does anyone remember my name?

I departed Gladwyne, Pa., voluntarily and with glee,

to leave home and be on my own was my goal.

I departed college twice, voluntarily.

Settled in New York City, again my goal.

I departed many jobs, voluntarily.

Here I've lived, in the same apartment,

for 45 years. I will live here, I hope, until,

involuntarily, I depart this world.

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/the_carriage.png

Poem a Day, #2 (machine)

And here is another poem, amazingly enough.

The Body

The  machine of the body wears out.

Olive oil can only lubricate so much.

A shot of bourbon will jolt the brain

for a moment,

but it shrivels quickly.

An ice cream pack will ease the back,

chocolate preferably.

Lentil soup will warm the joints.

Chicken soup is the young machine’s elixir.

It smooths over, but cannot repair.

The young machine soaks up

experience, love, sensuality, curiosity.

The middle-aged machine coordinates,

recreates, blossoms, ripens.

The aging machine rests between exertion,

patches broken skin with almond butter,

restores torn ligaments with carrot sticks,

soothes sore nerves with peppermint.

The aging machine wraps itself in cocoons

of mocha meringue

to protect against the dark.

 

Poem a Day, #1 (secrets)

All right, I'm a day off. The prompt for today’s Poem a Day Challenge on Robert Lee Brewer’s “The Writer’s Digest” blog is “secrets.” Here’s my entry, among more than 700 (as of 6:30 p.m.; Day 1 had 1,118 entries!).

I have no secrets.

I have stolen my brother’s bravado, my sister’s curls.

I have lied to my mother and forsaken her thin precepts.

I have killed my father’s faith in revolution.

I have worshipped the images of words on a page, on a screen.

I have many gods; they reside in books, movies, music, in the trees, the sky, the ocean and rivers.

I make idols every day that I write.

I take the names of my gods and scatter them afar, to seed wonder and beauty.

I have coveted, oh, how I have coveted. My desire runneth over.

I wear my secrets like armor.

My desire is manna.