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, #15 (a two-vowel poem)

The A&E Channel

Father tells a tale tale

As we travel past the beach.

A man can’t make ends meet.

He trades an ass for a cat.

A week later he seeks far and near,

Darts between paper reams,

Past a lengthy lake.

He awakes near mangled fangs,

Fearing all tears.

Then we bake a cake to eat

At the lake.

The sky shades we three,

As we reel beneath the real. 

  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, #13 (science)

Biology is the birds and the bees,

how life works, from the flea to the elephant.

Chemistry makes us high,

explains the carbon cycle, spins the periodic table.

Alchemy turns lead into gold,

distills the fountain of youth.

Physics searches for the origin of the universe,

from quarks to quasars.

Astronomy names the stars

and moves faster than the speed of light.

Astronomy reads the stars

and names their links to us.

Paleontology delves into the history of biology,

finding life in bones and fossils.

Geology rakes the earth, dirt to rock,

volcanoes to earthquakes.

Mathematics, the language of science,

ties them all together,

excluding the pseudo from the real.

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

Poem a Day, #12 (confession)

(I have no idea what any of this means, but "confession" is the prompt, so here goes.)

Lulu confessed to channeling the lunar module.

Danny confessed to  sweeping daisies.

Janine confessed to telling everyone.

Michael confessed to quiet madness.

Karen confessed to white elephants.

Ralph confessed to blue tears and sychophants.

Ariadne confessed to weaving riches.

Hector confessed to emptying the Trojan horse.

Mimi confessed to swinging way too late.

Carlos confessed to writing obituaries.

Confessions wrap around denunciations,

Assertions confess to eulogies.

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

Poem a Day, #11 (damage)

My husband says he's damaged goods,

But 50 years too late to return him.

The damage is all physical.

Alcohol failed to do its job before

He quit. The liver still good.

He worried about his heart,

His father dead at 54 from

A heart attack.

But it was a different vein that

First spoke up, in his calf

A blood clot, there long enough

To send emissaries to his lungs.

The normal treatment almost

Killed him, blood massing in

Protest in his leg, his hip.

A drug shot into his belly,

twice a day, brings stability for years,

Halting clots before they can

Assassinate.

Now and then the blood runs amok,

Can't stay within its boundaries,

Flooding bruises with too many

Reinforcements.

A bruise graduates to hematoma,

Bringing pain and fear.

So here we are, one more time,

Spending the first spring day

Visiting the ER,

Exiling vials of blood,

Huddling under the CT scan.

Damage to the body continues

Its slow advance. 

 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.

An April First (not Fool's) Poem

It's April, National Poetry Month. I want to keep writing here, and maybe  I'll write a poem occasionally, but I don't think I'm a poet. I did sign up for a poetry class through the University of Iowa's International Writing Program's MOOC that was supposed to start a week ago, so I thought I would have some lessons that I could be practicing this month. Then the class was delayed. So today I will cheat a bit and post someone else's poem: Ogden Nash on baseball, which starts up for real next week.

You Can't Kill an Oriole 

Wee Willie Keeler
Runs through the town,
All along Charles Street,
In his nightgown.
Belling like a hound dog,
Gathering the pack:
Hey, Wilbert Robinson,
The Orioles are back!
Hey, Hughie Jennings!
Hey, John McGraw!
I got fire in my eye
And tobacco in my jaw!
Hughie, hold my halo.
I'm sick of being a saint:
Got to teach youngsters
To hit 'em where they ain't.

--Ogden Nash

Slice of Life, #31

(a story inspired by this photograph by Barrie Karp)

            Lucy tapped into her phone “where r u” and pressed send. It was the fifth text she had sent Jason in the past five minutes. He was supposed to meet her at Chelsea Pier an hour ago, and, yeah, he was always late, but he would text her. “c u soon, bby” sometimes every 10 minutes, but he would be in touch. Today, nothing. She watched gulls diving at the ice. Could they actually catch a fish in this cold water?

            She tried to remember what Jason said he’d be doing this morning, something with his dad. That man was no good. Whenever she went over to Jason’s and his dad was there, which wasn’t often, he was all over her. The last time, two weeks ago, she had no sooner walked in the door than he was up, arm around her, dragging her over to the sofa and sitting her down, then next to her, his arm around her shoulder and pulling her close, nuzzling her neck.

            “Jason, you got a real sweetie pie here, you know that?” And Jason just sat over there on the window ledge looking out, not making a move to get her away from this old letch. “Yeah, you’re a real cutie, too good for that sonuvabitch son of mine, if he really is a son of mine.” Lucy kept herself rigid and sent pleas from her eyes, weak little arrows, “get me out of here, Jason, pls.”

            Today they were going to go skating at the Sky Rink. Jason was going to teach her some dance moves. There was a competition later in the month, and Lucy had already entered their names, but she hadn’t told Jason yet.

            Her phone buzzed. “cnt tdy. dad in jl. need bail. c u l8r” Lucy stared at the icy water in the Hudson. She imagined gulls diving and pulling Jason’s dad, dripping icicles, out of the cold water. 

Slice of Life, #30

            I had a doctor’s appointment this morning on East 63rd Street. Afterwards I walked across town to Columbus Circle. If it had been spring-like, instead of simply springtime, I would have walked through Central Park, but it was too breezy and too cold for walking anything but the most direct route, almost a mile and a half.

            At the southeast corner of the park, Fifth Avenue and 60th Street, I came across this structure.

It’s a public art work by Tatiana Trouvé , an Italian artist who's created three “spool racks” that respond to the miles of walkways throughout the park. After looking at maps, Trouvé found 212 paths in the park; then, she estimated the length of each one. There are three structures containing 212 spools, one for each of the pathways, and the cable wrapped around each spool approximates the length of the path. And each spool has a metal plate identifying the beginning and end point, as well as a name that conjures the cultural significance of walking.

            The spool racks will be up through the end of August. If you’re in New York City, stop by to see them. They are impressive, and may just lead you to try walking one of the paths memorialized by a spool. Pick the one with your favorite color, perhaps, or one of the black spools. And check out the Public Art Fundfor more information and more public art in New York.

            Here's another spool rack.

Slice of Life, #29

            Communities of writers are wonderful and necessary. They nurture and provoke, engage and challenge. They can take many forms: writers’ groups, workshops, reading series, salons, open mikes (“mic” looks to me like it’s pronounced “mihk” and only came into use when “mic” was engraved on recording equipment in the 1980s; “mike” was the word before then). I am in several: a writers’ group I’ve been in for more than 20 years (and it’s been in existence for more than 30 years); a continuing workshop with an old friend focusing on short fiction, as well as the Blueprint Your Book workshop with Minal Hajratwala; the Big Words reading series; and the Women Writers in Bloom Poetry Salon and Open Expressions Harlem.

            Today the Women Writers in Bloom Poetry Salon met at the Brooklyn Workshop Gallery for an afternoon with featured poet Cynthia Manick. Cynthia led a workshop on character poems, with examples by Patricia Smith (“Medusa” was really powerful), Lucille Clifton, Carol Ann Duffy, and Cornelius Eady, and direct address poems, with examples Chris Abani. We then had the opportunity to write our own examples, with many amazing poems written in just 10 minutes. Cynthia read some of her own work. And then the open mike, with, again, many beautiful pieces of writing. And of course, the Two Writing Teachers, with their Slice of Life Story Challenge in March, and National Novel Writing Month, in November, which pushed me to finish the first draft of a novel some years ago (it still sits, with half a dozen attempts at a second draft, in a drawer).

            There are more out there. In April, National Poetry Month, there are at least a couple of 30 Poems in 30 Days challenges. I hope you are in more than one writing community; maybe you can join one in April.

            Write on!

 

Slice of Life, #28

        Last Thursday’s Open Expressions didn’t have the usual group poem. Instead, we were asked to jot down words we heard during the evening, and before we left, to write a poem for women’s history month addressing journalism’s classic questions to women:

who are women?

what are women?

where are women?

when are women?

how are women?

why are women?

            Here are three of my efforts.

Women nestle into frozen culture

Women’s hair cushions the harsh chains of lies

Women bring exciting accents to bear, unhearing lies

Women are unrepenting in their imagination

Women are essential.

Women deny the harsh culture of hair

Women’s accents nestle in repenting sighs

Women leave the essential lies behind the barn

Women’s disordered minds reveal frozen truth

Women leap into exciting imagination.

Who are women? exciting imagination of culture

What are women? essential hair repenting its chains

Where are women? in harsh rooms echoing screams

When are women? now, then, before, after, never, forever

How are women? frozen accents undermine disordered minds

Why are women? truth nestles among the lies