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Tales of troubled artists abound.Drug use, violence — especially sexual violence — betrayed families, demeaned employees, deceit — the stuff genius is made of.Painters, musicians, writers, dancers, producers, actors — every art has these dark stains swirled within it — a fecal sundae molding away in a cupboard.”Forget the bio, concentrate on the art,” I’ve…
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When Euterpe, Erato, or Calliope proffer us a poem or tale, who flavors it?Clio, take a bow. History isn’t just orderly lists of rulers and wars — it’s ideas, too.A dance between this writer and that idea.Ideas aren’t genuinely new under the sun. Clio’s got a rolodex she’s converting to a database.Feminism has fought before…
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When you go to a funeral, you meditate on life and death. Somebody’s, at least. Maybe even the guy being memorialized. Or not, if you’re a narcissist. Too hard to imagine a loss more searing than the loss of your precious self. Isn’t anyone going to speak English? Did I get enough praise from my…
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I caught thee, no puppy — aged o’er 3 years plus a quarter — past teethingCracking my own dental guard. I see you, chiweenie, so teeney, yet in need of thinkingOr should be. Grown into a dog-man’s estate. All that ear-flopping thunderous head shakingHas yet to rattle the sense of elders into your dear mind,…
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Back in the 70s, two North American teens,Who had yet to meet,Listened to Carole King and James Taylor on FM radio.(Plus a plethora of other musicians.)Zeitgeist & all. Neither was either’s absolute favorite.But we each liked them well enough. Very well indeed.My beloved and I met in the 80s. Started shedding vinyl albums for tapes.Moved…
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Today is my mother’s birthday.Just past the sixth anniversary of her death.What you learn first, you forget last.We, children in our sixties, were too recent to stick in her mind.At the end of her life, the last voice she recognized was her sister’s. In my heart I hear you sing againEvery note as natural as…
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Helmet, strapped. Brakes, tested.Off to risk my life. Biking to work.The first half of the ride was the lure. A retired railroad bed, turned into a bike trail.Surrounded by trees. A river babbled next to it.Goldfinches swooped yellow flashes alongside.The path was slightly uphill. Until I could coast down at dusk,It was the best part…
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My brothers and I plagued my mom with a nightmare of schlepping.But hey, she signed us up to be that way.Let’s survey the menu of after-school activities dished up for us in the mid 1960s to mid 70s in Morris County, New Jersey. At the Y: Swimming. Arts and crafts. Ballet and guitar (last two…
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The promise is the dead rise again. Find those they loved in life. But what’s the premise?It’s not a corporeal reunion. Just our souls alone.What’s a soul? Something bereft of body. An essence of who we were. Across time, space — doesn’t a soul grow over time? As the universe expands? If not that, what’s…
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I woke up this morning.Isn’t that how all blues start?What more need be said?Awake but alone. Blues enough for the rest of my life.Waiting for the — its — end.What of grief’s other source?A strange, sick man sits in the seat of power.Not a private matter — Our body politic bleeds in ways we’re too…
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When your children grow up, leave you behind, they never take everything. A room with posters of old hockey stars. Stray socks. Jerseys. Things they can use again on a visit. Things they’ll never use again.One son’s a medic with the Army. Checks in when he can. All my kids are good kids — adults,…
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When you are a stranger in a strange land,You can comfort yourself with solitude.A soul selects her own society, doesn’t she?But like our bonobo forebears, we’re social animals.Survived the African plains, the riddance of fur, The growth to uprightness as part of a group.When war and dictators kick you out of your homelandBut an ocean…
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(Shine, Django Reinhardt)Awakening to another Michigan morning.Dogs poke out noses from the covers.Chiweenie Hermes, leaps in to the new day. (As Count Basie’s Lester did.)His elder, a doxie mix, burrows back under the covers. He knows the drill. Mentally rolls his eyes at impetuous youth.Wild Cat Blues (Clarence Williams’ Blues Five)I dress, then feed the…
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Watch bipolar mom draw the drapes. She sobs, plucks at hair. Two hours later, depression flips to fury. Years later, you rage passionately about need for dispassion, reason. Deep-breathed calm.Dashed at a whiff of violence — Mind screams: Duck. Run. Flee.But never back to thirteen. Where blood’s spattered a wall. Desperate search for tranquility. Space…
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In summer, when the morning sun has scoured the last dew from the grasses,The trees rev up an incessant buzz.Cicadas — the annual ones. Old reliables. Who sing all summer. The hotter it gets, the louder they buzz. During the day, they blare background sound. The elevator music of the outdoors. Only louder, and more…
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Overture: Louder than Possible Congregating, awaiting departure:Strolling organizers shout into megaphones.”Never be baited into violence.” Car honks.”Don’t litter.” The tram’s bell dings.”Obey all the laws. Cross when the marshals say okay.” A truck with a blast horn erupts.Back to chants: “Stand up; sit down; Detroit is a union town.”Up and down Woodward, cars slow, honking…
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April 30, 2024 Luna-Selene fell into our bird bath. While her twin shone above in the sky.Dark ripples of water lined her white, bright face. Although April is her month to be pink, Like Barbie, or creeping phlox.Did she command the tides in the bath? Or lament the lack of bubbles?Or maybe, say the Cree,…
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April 29, 2024 What’s a crush? Love? A bit, but mostly, a weight. Pressing on the chest. Inexorable. Constraining.All thoughts seem to be of another. Did he just look at me? Does he even know my name? Did I stare too much? Or affect too little interest?But the real story is: Me. My agony. My…
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April 28, 2024 Wind ripped through the tree’s branches. On west end, an unbowed headdress.The east splitStrips of bark and phloem – thin bonds twixt leaves and trunk.Breezes dance leaves o’er grass.Like a bustle and hooped skirt, flaunting fecundity. For April 28, write a sijo, a traditional Korean poetry form. Phloem is the vascular tissue…
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April 27, 2024 People are social animals. Even us introverts. Even if a too-generous dose Of society wears us out. How to balance between others and the self? Once, I had that figured. I married a sociable man. He’d get me out and about. Or sometimes, our souls selected our own society. But he died,…
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April 26, 2024 CommercialAddled, angry adsSell problems only objects Solve. Real life? Hidden.EclipseThe moon mocked sunbeamsFor moments. Later, its nightMirror rekindled.Favorite GenreMystery storiesStitch together strands –Make the world whole. For April 26, write poems with alliteration, assonance, and consonance.
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April 25, 2024 What makes a man a bully?Insecurity for a starter. Wants to push you down before you can push him down. Even when he has no reason to suppose pushing is planned.Lying – no one is as mighty as bullies fancy themselves to be. Or as untrue. They might get along with others…
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April 24, 2024 “In the pewter mornings, the cat,a black fur sausage with yellowHoudini eyes, jumps up on the bed and triesto get onto my head.” Ah, Bingley. What a gentle-cat!He awakens Lilac May, our oldest, who slept next to my pillow.Birthday girl, today. 13 years. I pet her. She purrs, and stays put.Two years…
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April 23, 2024 Who is a superhero? People with access to magic?Wonder Woman, spinning round to change her clothes in a nonce?To bring forth a Lasso of Truth,Her indestructible wristlets? Her projectile tiara?Or Barbie, with her Girl Power? Passion for pink? Perpetually perky breasts?Stiletto-heel-ready feet? Her obliviousness to Ken?Once, I knew a child who didn’t…
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April 22, 2024 People chatter about politics: Red vs. BlueBased on a TV network’s color choices on an election night map.But the longer-running war – waged with our eyes, their cones, our brains, Evolution itself –Is green vs. red.Green is a dominant color in our ancestral home, Africa. We had to be able to see…
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April 21, 2024 For my childhood’s last decade, I lived in a leafy Jersey suburb.Once the playground of millionaires, awash in Dollar Bill Green ink.Behind us, an abandoned carriage drive, a viridian morass of overgrown trees and brush.Leading to a barely cleared estate, whose ill owner died slowly in seclusion.The verdant emperor of our lawn…
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April 20, 2024 Essex County, England, 1754A jury finds the brothers Jeremiah, Philip, and William Lambert guilty of 6 robberies, each netting items worth 10 pence. For this, they could have been hung; instead, they got the King’s pardon: transportation to the colony of Virginia for 7 years. No more than four out of every…
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April 19, 2024 “What’s the last book you’d like to read before you die?”Beloved podcaster Jacke Wilson poses this question to guests.Of course, the answer groans under the weight of conditions.Few of us know how or when we will die.Picking a last book this afternoon cannot be as binding as my will or medical power…
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April 18, 2024 1947Six years too late to save Virginia Woolf, the UK began treating bipolar disorder with lithium.In the US, treatments for mental disorders might be lobotomies or warehousing. Also, you could get drugged up to be better behaved in your institutional home.But mostly, we loved Papa Freud. To make it in the US,…
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April 17, 2024 [Verse] I want to take a trip to our past, Not a memory, but live through what made us last, Slip through a crack in space, in time.(Papala-papapala)*Back to that last summer at Brown.Catsitting. Playing house. Failing to break up. Or us with Neva in your arms (Papala-papapala)(Cha-lapapa-dapa-papa-lapa-lapa-ladee-dada-papa)*[Refrain] I want the love,…
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April 16, 2024 The sun slants in the western window.In this room, for too many years, my love satLosing strength, health, life.One or another of the cats sat on the armrest of his chair.Soft, stalwart, purring him through the dusk.Today, two dogs sleep on the couch, supper done.The older dog wakes up to cough. A…
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April 15, 2024 Tiny artwork.Mini currency.Signifier of a state. Once, letters kept distant people in touch. Internet, unknown. Telephone calls, telegrams required brevity. If your desire to speak, to listen, exceeded your funds, you wrote.A validating sticker stamped on an enveloping coverOf the letter containing the heart of what you said.Or another inscribed to you.…
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April 14, 2024 I think Michigan could use more people. I feel outsiders don’t understand how green, flat-out lovely it is here.I believe global warming will clear their confusion. Hard to have a drought with so much fresh water.I know the winter that scares outsiders will grow weaker over time.I wish there would be no…
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April 13, 2024 In Kentucky, the home’s wind chimes bong. Rapid, urgent. The clime thrusts on us a thundery view.Dark clouds overhang lighter ones. Thunder bangs loud, but the storm refuses to relent, to move on.The wind rattles even the largest trees. Slender new branches – seized and bent.Young lithe insides fail to flex enough.…
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April 12, 2024 In the dark, Yeti Sasquatch stretched and shook his fur. Within his dark eyes was a ring of gold that glowed like a panther’s.Alone, as always. He once yearned for another Sasquatch. But that hope had died many winters ago.Now he focused on gardening in the dark –Spreading morel spores was a…
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April 11, 2024 Common QueriesMost frequent: “Huh?”Second most frequent: “Are you funning me?” (translation: “Is that true?”)I want thoughts to inform my feelings and feelings to animate my thoughts – reality: if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.Home State?Cross the Ohio River heading south – why do I suddenly feel at home in a place…
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April 9, 2024 Constrainer of flesh.Binder of sides.Before zippers, velcro, hooks and eyes, or even buttons, laces kept us(Or at least our coverings) together.A seam writ large. Externalized.Think it’s a simple criss-cross through loops?So many possibilities.Does the lace go down into the hole?Or up through it? Centuries of improvements – grommets protect the holes.Aglets ease…
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April 8, 2024 For centuries, in medieval Europe, ignorant, hateful men decided to kill women. “Burn the witches!” And cats – their “familiars.” Especially black cats.What did all this ostentatious, bloody religiosity get them? An exploding rat population. Bubonic plague. Approximately 100,000,000 Europeans died between 1350 and 1400.Some – a precious few – black cats…
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April 7, 2024 Off to Kentucky on the quest for totality – the 2024 eclipse.You loved these astronomy events. I remember you teaching our daughter the constellations.A primal homing sense warmed me when I crossed the Ohio River.“Florence, y’all” rose in the distance.Remember how we used to tell the kids that from there it was…
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April 6, 2024 Weather folk warn a tornado may lurk in our future.Some of us plan for eventualities more fully than others.A wise woman delivers a warning. Via the internet, of course.True sages rely on ancient wisdom, remembered experience, and the latest & greatest.“Bras and teeth.” she intones.I drop my phone, then look down at…
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April 5, 2024 The House craves value. Utility. Once six people lived here. Now, all the men have left. Only two women remain. Rooms that once belonged to a person have half-packed boxes in them. Semi-sorted piles of clothes. The women walk by them day after day – rarely entering. To the House, grief is…
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April 4, 2024 Exotic invadesItaly. Plant, poison. Fruit?Add garlic. Shoe fits. For Day 4, write a poem based on a topic in The Strangest Things in the World. I chose tomatoes as the “Cinderella” of vegetables, which got a skeptical welcome when it was imported to Europe. I got some additional information about its role…
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April 3, 2024 “Write a surrealistic poem,” they said.“How?”“Check the masters.”So I asked Samuel Taylor Coleridge what he recommended.“Take some opium.”“I’m not much of an opium eater. Would drinking enough coffee to leave me buzzed do the trick?”“Maybe, but the second step is to fall asleep, then have a weird dream.Which you write down.”“What about…
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April 2, 2024 A siren rips through the air. It’s midnight. Slicked with rain, no one knows whether ice is forming.The dogs awaken.Our elderly puggle starts a throaty, contralto litany.The doxie raises his head for a full-on howl. It rises and falls with the siren.We live a quarter mile from a fire station. Also, across…
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April 1, 2024 Jo March runs the story. But what of the two younger sisters?Amy: bratty, strong, overly blessed baby sister.And then — Beth.Harp strings plink in the distance from the moment she’s introduced.Sweet. Accomplished. Mender. Baker. Noble. Lover of kittens. Knitter. Domestic goddess — no, she’s too demure for that. Domestic devotee.And just so…
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March 31, 2024 In January, we dream of the beach. And beachwear. A bulge here. A fat roll there.Time to diet. Exercise. Fight the urge to eat.Purge. Sweat. Medicate. Despair.Then, come fall, beach body dreams fade. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas flaunt their feasts.In March, beach businesses dream of summer crowds.What do they see? Garbage from the…
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December 6, 2023 People, we say, only people, have the memory to mourn.Pull a puppy away from its mom, and neither remembers. Or, at most, for a day. Or is it a year?(Oh, how lucky to only cause what we intend.)We award superior us badges for bereavement.Aching memories of touch, voice, scent.A smile sunrising on…
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Emily Carr moved her paint with a rhythm known To the great green trees of her forests. Never silent.Too many insects for that. Huzz-zing. Birdsong, too.Nor untracked — first folk’s feet pad paths sans pavement. She saw their art as she created her own. In the rain Racing her oils with gasolined speed — undrizzled…
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First Movement: Introducing the Past, A Foreign Land Apollo gave Cassandra the gift of prophecy. Or so say myth makers.Perhaps she could’ve simply been a noticin’ sorta gal — if you steal the wife of, well, anyone — never mind a king — bad stuff’s gonna happen. Predictable enough with a merely mortal mind. No…
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We are sparks that spiral upward, in the darkness, in the nightLike bright sweet eyes longing for our approval, our careWe are brief as summer lightning, we are swift as swallow’s flightWhen did I not have at least one animal, by my side, in my sight?Too young to remember a time before a dog or…
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I struggle to remember exactly what the word “bemuse” means because I often see it in contexts where it could mean “confuse” or “amuse.” Then I look it up & the Dictionary rolls its eyes. “Here again? Duh, lady: it can mean either.”An in-betweenish state.’Twixt wit and wilderment. (Why isn’t bewit a word?)I know who…
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The northern midwest has an impish Spring.Every March, it and the SunStrut out to tease. Gray gone. Winter done?But of course, no, no, no.Meanwhile, Winter snowbirds off to Florida, to give the tanned a show.Teases iguanas. Freezes them out of trees.Frosts oranges. Squeeze-freeze the juice. Leave, please, Florida pleads.Spring break over, home, Winter flies. Grays…
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The answer, we agreed, to nearly all problems, all questions, was to read.You couldn’t know everything, but you could always know more, so read.Naturally, none should trust just any authors — bloviators can write (or hire ghosts).Culling’s what critics are for. Thinking friends who see what you cannot because of all they’ve read.And not to…
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Back in my days of corporate cogdom, I used to dream of a more pastoral existence.Yeah, family farms struggle to remain self-sustaining. Yeah, my husband was seriously urban. Yeah, he would hate the commute between any rural area and his work in the city.But what, I mused, if we concentrated on high value crops instead…
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My Minnesota alma mater had Saturday classes. Alarm off at 7:20. Shushed. Off again 10 minutes later. Start to awaken at 7:30. Dark, and -20F, if it was a warm dawn. Finally get up at 7:40. Dash off to class. Too rushed to caffeinate. Let panic suffice for an hour.Our Russian history prof liked to…
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Preschool. Happy Valley, Arvada, Colorado. An actual ranch.With ponies. If we were good and no blizzard roared, we got to ride the ponies. Or at least pet them. Offer a sugar cube. Or carrot. Extend your hand, flat. Let nostrils, lips, tongues tickle. Delicious.How to be good? Do what the teachers say, of course! It’s…
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Last gasp of adolescent mood swings broke my studies. Mind, bleak. Kept missing my grandma. An anchor for my mind. Outside, dark, snowy night. Who shivered out there? Black under the night’s weather. Meowing on a tree branch near my window. Minnesota wind chill could kill.The window stuck shut — ice. I frantically hair-dryed it.…
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Color, color, blazing brightBurning canvas & critics’ sight.What mere sneer of ego nastyCould destroy my joy to see thee? From other distant lands and eyesDon’t I a blue horse espy? With pigments, marks, bold as thine?And did not Van Gogh so shine? In what ice limned Morrisseau Fauves in whose lines arctic hues did flow?…
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Portrait I A tilted chapeau on a tilted head. Concentric circles of blue, red, black — some full, some balked — swirl.Eyes face down, but glance up through a mauve shadow. A lively nose, shaded in curves of green, mauve, and yellow. Leads your eyes to her nonchalant smile.Color — even more than shape or…
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Not a poem — just some recollections Our school district (at least through 2019) used the Abstinence Only sex ed curriculum. In practice, that means students learn nothing about rape. Abstinence Only tells you that every time you have sex, you are a piece of tape on the bottom of a shoe. You grow more…
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Maybe 10 years ago, I heard NPR announce that a literature PhD had made a discovery about William Shakespeare.New news about the most studied writer in history. Bravo, buddy. Evidence cited and submitted to a serious journal of lit-crit.All too soon, someone else refuted it. I winced for the prof’s loss. The misery he must…
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April 30, 2023 Today’s challenge (optional, of course) is to write a palinode.A poem in which you take back something you’ve said –In some external poem or within the one being written.When I forget what I meant to do. Or discover I have been sitting, daydreaming, for hours.There’s a refrain echoing in my ears that…
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April 29, 2023 The first time I went to Stuttgart, I fell in love.Daily, the hotel put out whole-grain breadBedecked with sunflower seeds.Sonnenblumenbrot. Ignorant then about Ukraine, I conjured up vast Kansas skies. Wheat fields, yes. Fluttering just like the oft-cited amber waves.But even more eye-popping, fields of sunflowers.Great green leaves, heavy heads with brown…
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April 28, 2023 Adopt Don’t Shop, (thank you Happy Feet Pet Rescue) Belly rubs Let the rolling & rubbing begin ” Snap!” No bite, just playing Sharky! Best dog (Nota bene: I have 2 dogs. So this statement actually applies to both, despite rules of usage.) Cats Bed, here first! Food, I’ll take some of…
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April 27, 2023 Standing together, in a suburban drivewayYes, it’s raining, but not a lake, yet.Two feathered dinosaurs with hard lips.Hissing velociraptor hatred at my dogs.Seeking what? Grass? A place to nest?Spring and gosling time.You are a road away from the river.When I worked, I saw you takeTurns resting on light polesSwooping down on hellspawnEntering…
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April 26, 2023 When you are enslaved, those who enslave you will never celebrate your birthday So, shrug off the year of your birth. 1797, 1800? Who cares? The enslavers spoke Dutch, although Americans. Named you Isabelle Baumfree. Yankee enslavers from New York. Sold as a child, sold as a woman. Enslavers raped you. Made…
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April 25, 2023 That wounded puppy lookSo useful for you, aborningAn unwilled laughOr at least smile. No Fight could last its blast. Like a violet’sUnfolding embrace In snow. Wilts the cutting frost.Leaves the plant aglow. For April 25th, write a love poem with a parenthetical expression, a flower, and some odd line breaks.
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April 24, 2023 Charcoal Bingley Cruel felicide of Middle Ages left today’s black cats with a dash of white chest hair. Cuddle-friendly to humans. No clinging to ancient, still-deserved grudges. Congenial Bingley befriended Rosa, kept Quaker peace with Lilac. Napping position is key – sleeps near, but at a respectful distance from Lilac; Rosa and…
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April 23, 2023 1Before my birth, three families, all mine.Lived on one street. All in houses built on a rounded hill.With steps up from the sidewalk.My Mom Jackson mowed that lawn with a push mower until she movedTo another house so situated. And she mowed that lawn until she was 90.2We always came to Kentucky…
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April 22, 2023 Further in Summer than the fledgings begin flight Pathetic, from the grass, A minor nation celebrates its unobtrusive Mass No ordinance can be seen, so gradual the grace. A pensive custom, it becomes enlarging loneliness ‘Tis audiblest, at dusk, when day’s attempt is done And Nature nothing waits to do but terminate…
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April 21, 2024 My chest shakes.Breathe more slowly.My mind talks fast.Gesticulates. Scratches a thoughtWith its fingernails.Hissssss.Breathe more slowlyExhale more slowly.Make your body calm.Then you’ll be.Think a good thought.Think a happy memory.Think a slow breath.A sunset breathFlaming colors, So the memory is making you cry.Dumbity dumb.The goal is calm.Back to slow breaths.Seeing-a-kitten breath.Calm. For April 21st,…
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April 20, 2023 Remove all jewelry from your hands and wrists. Smooth all nails. Push your fingers into the thin, synthetic fabric. Scrunch the fabric so it’s a thick, wadded ring. Put your foot into the toe of hose. Slowly – no matter how late you are – smooth the hose to a point above…
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April 19, 2023 In many ways, my mother was like any other.She loved us, worried about our education, health.But she had bipolar disorder. We didn’t know it then.We knew she was prone to days-long bouts, crying in a darkened room.Or insensate, maybe violent, flurries of bitter fury.Even incandescent, she could speak in complete paragraphs. The…
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April 18, 2023 Atlanta was where I first started to read. Or pretend to. Between my mother and brother, I played with a board book.Cotton, like the balls or swabs, was glued to a page, poking out of a rabbit silhouette.Dixie, our dog, sat on my lap (at least when I was older — Dixie…
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April 16, 2023 A starch, yes. Not potatoes. Not rice. Not couscous.With sauce. Not syrup. Not white. Not green. Not brown.And meat. Not whole slabs. And cheese. Not orange. Not white. Not whole. For April 16th, create a poem that describes something in terms of what it’s not.
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April 15, 2023 Nota bene: Thoreau’s Essay on Civil Disobedience is widely understood to be a seminal document in civil rights activism, worldwide. Nothing in this poem disputes that reality. When I was young, hippies were new. Let’s go live in the woods. It’s free! We can live so naturally. Bell-bottomed, bearded, and free. Men,…
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April 14, 2023 In Windsor land did Queen Liz A fairy-tale wedding decree. Where paparazzi do predation as a biz Bare the known for the bored – e’en known kids. What fairy tale the tabs threatened to make this be. Query: was the bride Cali-tanned or Black? Tabs scream “From Compton!” The one-drop rule is…
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April 13, 2023 DelineationWhat do you call A chicken (or maybe a duck) Crossing the road? Poultry In motion.PhilosophicalWhy did the chicken cross the road? To bock traffic.Further Interrogation“Don’t you love sleeping outdoors?” asked Tom, intently.(Expunge all images of male turkeys from your mind. Not going there).”Have you removed all the chicken’s feathers?” asked Tom,…
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April 12, 2023 I write because I have something to say.Not vainglorious enough to assume all love to hear..So if I write, folks may read or not. No pressure.Of course, I know people who write much better than I.Maybe that’s because they’re more practiced. When I tried drawing or painting from life, every day, for…
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April 11, 2023 We sat facing each other in a chic Chicago restaurant where the tables were chic-ly close. The couples on either side tried to murmur softly, as did we. Why is it chic to have to overhear? Not chic, but sometimes, wicked fun. “What grade would you give me?” the lady across me…
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April 10, 2023 [Verse 1] I shoot up every morning when a dog’s bladder aches Hear’em scratch the door, whine, nuzzle, and beg for a break It’s set the halters on, push each foreleg through, snap the leashes Grab some poop bags, shove on shoes, while the dogs keen & beseech. [Chorus] And it’s hey-ho,…
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April 9, 2023 The cat glowed on Petfinder. Charcoal fur, big black pupils, ringed with amber irises – a gleaming flash, like lightning bugs dancing in the dark. I so miss my Darcy, a black, genteel tom, who cuddled an older cat in her dotage & bore his own illness stoically, and, as best we…
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April 8, 2023 Coffee’s started. The day – a branch on an old tree: thick choices pointing here, narrower choices, there, until the end twig bifurcates so thinly you feel ashamed to answer to such an inconsequential dictator. The Author pours Carnation into her coffee, silkening its fluid, strong bitterness. And trying to pick today’s…
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April 6, 2023 The wooden flute breathes in my ear. Rougher voices chant “K” sounds: anquayllu, kusi kuqtam munayky Quechua rising out of Peru – out from the Andean mountains. Sounds from before the Spanish massacred Incas. Anquayllu means “the grief of an orphan.” Colonized people know that agony. May your voices live on. For…
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April 5, 2023 With people, my husband was a patient man. Over 40 years, he put up with me & my faults. But when things didn’t work, he balked. Sulked. “You fix it!” Preferred the mathematical swamp of theoretical physics to handling all the rewiring and other tweaks experiments required. When he switched to medicine,…
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April 4, 2023 Three cats doze upon our – my – bed The bed is huge – hugely empty. Where is he, who here slept and read? Three cats doze upon our – my – bed Finding comfort among the dead? No more sore sickness? Rests gently? Three cats doze upon our – my –…
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April 3, 2023 Dull brown dwarf, would I were as changeable as thou — Not in shared gloom hung below the day And ignoring, with mortal eyes squeezed shut, Like a fickle, useless, frivolous socialite, The growing desert at its civilization-crushing task Of impurely defiling the climate’s last gasp, Or ignoring the heat-ravaged visage Of…
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April 2, 2023 Slippery liquid balls, rolling across a floor. Sliding and splitting. Then, massive turbines, racing, spinning, jolted by lightning, spark a life. The stuff of sci-fi noir. Usually an evil genius appears. Clumsy gods, slipping on heaven’s floor, yet landing with the disdain of a cat who’s misjudged a leap. With a quick…
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April 1, 2023 Preschool, Denver, Colorado I loved the ponies. Don’t remember them so much as the fact of them. If we were good, we could ride them. Dreaming of a gallop, just like on TV. Struggling to lie dutifully still during nap time. Thin mat. No pillow. But when I closed my eyes, I…
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March 31, 2023 Rewatch Meet Me in St. Louis. Reread an Austen. Sit in a rocker, cat purring on a lap. Or walk the dogs around the lake. I know where I am; where I’ll go. How things will end. And what won’t. Distraction’s a lazy trick. Shameful in an adult. Facing facts is our…
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April 30, 2022 Come and I will show you all / Makes each day a festival. 1 small horses ride me / carry my dreams /of prairies and frontiers where once / the first people roamed / claimed union with the earth. 2 While the sun shines / In one quarter of heaven And the…
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April 28, 2022 For April 28, write a concrete poem. A concrete poem is one in which the lines are shaped in a way that mimics a topic of the poem.
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April 27, 2022 Often, when I exchange one place for another, I long to stay where I arrive, indefinitely. When I was young, I spent summers embraced by the warm love of kinfolk. Basking in love like a cat in the sun. No arguments over schoolwork, chores. But could that survive residency? After awhile, we…
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April 26, 2022 Like a she-bear, who, finding herself with cub in the fall, feasts on blueberries and salmon — the better to get her through pregnancy and the winter — Who burrows into a den, and sleeps away all the indignities of pregnancy (she even stays insensate as the baby bounces on her bladder),…
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April 25, 2022 Facebook showed me a picture from Georgia, 6 years ago. A memory.My mother was still alive, happy, sitting upright in her wheelchair. She knew who I was, then. Although she would forget within a year.Alex wasn’t perfectly well, but good enough. He could work and travel and smile. He knew who I…
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April 24, 2022 Wry wit helps with mothering.. If we were discussing someone whose behavior was dubious, We might play at upping the ante. “She has a mind like a steel trap.” “One rusted shut” “It snapped on nothing long ago, but she hasn’t noticed since.” I got tongue-sharpening lessons from my grandma. If someone…
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April 23, 2022 Man on the Zamboni, polished ice. Did the rink proud. Shiny. Come playoffs, slick gray-pink octopi rained from a red-winged crowd. The crew ran, slid to pick them up, Eight legs times two, equals wins for the cup. The driver’d twirl the biggest one over his head. Our victory dance. Then, an…
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Dating apps introduced our sons to their wives. Serendipty came through for me and my husband.I lived in New York City.Hopped a train to Providence for a friend’s party.Like about 100 others, Alex was invited, too. We started talking at 10 pm. Conversation ended, reluctantly, at 4.Guess you could say we hit it off. Providence…
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April 21, 2022 All I wanted to do after college was write. Even applied for underwriter jobs, until I found out what that involved.Then – a writing job! Copywriting, but still, writing. For money.Green, grass green was I. All business people are businesslike, yes?Truth-in-advertising laws were real laws, like “don’t rob banks,” yes?I blush red…
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April 20, 2022 Garlic fluffed her cloves inside her papery skin. She missed her green tops, ruthlessly whacked away when she was pulled from the ground. Still, when she sniffed, she could smell her own glorious fragrance. She sighed in delight.Basil sat in a pot on the window sill. He looked at Garlic with concern.…
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April 19, 2022 Cease put-offing. Just do the to-dos. Success – not a list. It’s done-ness. For April 19, write a poem that starts with a command.
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April 17, 2022 Married people have unspoken agreements. One of ours was that whenever one of us proposed expanding our land-bound ark, the other would veto it. Full of confidence in our bond, we ended up looking at puppies. A small white ball of fluff, with prick ears, black eyes, and white eyelashes, looked up…
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April 16, 2022 My mother’s parents lived their religion. Every morning, with their oatmeal and orange juice, they read a Bible verse and commentary.When my grandmother woke me up, she’d say “This is a day the Lord has made. Rejoice, and be glad in it.” Even if it was raining.People on TV who are evangelicals…
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April 15, 2022 My senior year in high school, our football team was undefeated. I went to every game.I wore my band jacket, which I’d earned after only a freshman year’s participation. I replaced the marching band letters with: “Literary Magazine.” I was the editor. Drove up our sales rate by flogging it at football…
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April 14, 2022 The archetypal American tale is a journey. Preferably, out west. My family moved from Atlanta (where this heroine was born) to Denver, when I was just forming persistent memories. But to Grandmas’ houses (Kentucky), we must go!Look at a map. Animate the travel line.From Denver to St. Louis, the mountains are to…
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April 13, 2022 We sit together watching TV. Really nothing on, but what else can we do? He can’t read any more. He speaks in a whisper, and doesn’t always know what he’s saying. But we’ve been together since 1981. As Eva Cassidy sings, we know each other by heart. When Covid first started, I…
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April 12, 2022 When a single neuron fires, it is an isolated chemical blip. When many fire together, they form a thought. From Mind Aglow: Scientists Watch Thoughts Form in the Brain, by Sara Chodosh How big is a thought?A neuron is between 10-25 micrometers.If 100 fire at once, about 2500 micrometers of brain tissue…
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April 11, 2022 Let us talk about the elephant in the room.You don’t see it? Oh, it’s there.Probably dressed like Babar – a proper suit, shoes with spats, a bowler hat.Elephants in the room are all about propriety. Never let others know if something about you or your family is imperfect, untidy, failing.The elephant takes…
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April 10, 2022 Once, when I laid down, I slept. Languid hours with Morpheus. On weekends especially, Drowsy awakenings, reveries, back into sleep’s arms. Coffee not contemplated until well after noon. Then, came childbirth – later, other cares – that tear me from dearest sleep too soon. Too often. Still, though we may be regularly…
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April 9, 2022 Sparrows, nearly all sparrows. Plus, some Chickadees. A drab cardinal – Scarlet spouse. A jay caws – where? Pigeons eat on the ground. Finches have their sock Grackles, suet Shadow swoops All fly Hawk! For April 9, write a nonet. A nonet has nine lines. The first line has nine syllables, the…
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April 8, 2022 All of us have our deficiencies. As an artist, I lack a muse. Unless you count my cats. Or dogs. But I don’t think that’s what my drawing teacher has in mind. As a writer, I’m stuck with the only ego I’ve got. There’s no alter. Once, for Halloween, I pretended I…
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April 6, 2022 When I was a high school junior, Congress passed Title IX.Hadn’t a clue what it was about. Ignorantly assumed I could do anything. EvenAP math. Then our teacher got a grant for a computer — in those days, a golden toy in a mere high school.Told me and the other AP math…
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April 5, 2022 Venus put down her bowl of spaghetti. Pretty good stuff. These Romans weren’t all bad. When you stretch orzo beyond all recognition, it does great things with any garlicky sauce. But why did they have to conquer Greece? And by what right did they change her name? Athena’s had to go, of…
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April 4, 2022 The Divine Miss Em suggests we write so that readers say “I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off.” A stretch for mortals’ brain muscles, but let’s walk the Dickinsonian way One’s “reach should exceed his grasp,” lest heaven scoff. Wait – what if Mis Em merely…
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April 3, 2022 During my lifetime, when our pols have sent our soldiers far away to fight, they always say it’s for freedom. For defense. Soldiers say they fight for each other. For the guy who always shares the homebaked brownies from the mail. For those plunked into planes, flown 10 time zones from home.…
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April 2, 2022 I rise at 6, and read. Daylight won’t begin for an hour. At 7, gray light shuffling through the blinds hints it may be a gray day. Too early to be sure. Feed the cats, the dogs, and, with the dogs, the birds. Only then, close to 8, does the sky flash…
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April 1, 2022 The colored glass in the ceiling barely glowed in the rain. A church social hall, its black-wrapped cross shoved to the side, was dotted with squared red crosses. It also accommodated blood drive tables like the one I laid upon. As the nurse wrapped my elbow in bright red, she recited her…
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March 31, 2022 Tell all the truth, but tell it slantSuccess in circuit lies Emily Dickinson, Number 1263 When I was a copywriter, I used to think about that poem all the time.Not lying, just circuiting, circling, wandering around the truth –Never stating it, nor denying it.But what does a writer – even a copywriter…
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The Inveterate Indoorswoman 