Again, my apologies for falling off the face of the planet this month. I have finished the school year and started a new job. Unfortunately, this will leave me even less time for outside activities, and I am going to take a break from commenting on the NAMI blog this summer. That doesn't mean that you all have to stop posting, however. If its helpful to you, please keep posting and commenting for each other. If anyone is interested in the fall, please send me an e-mail at akeener@iastate.edu and we can start up again with weekly posts (as long as you are willing to be patient with my sporadic responses). I want to thank you for sharing your work with me. It has been a privilege to read it and I am grateful that you trusted me to do so. I hope that you were able to progress as writers, and I want to stress again how meaningful it was to me to read your work. I wish you happy writing and a wonderful summer!
Sincerely,
Anna Keener
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Mandy's Story Part 1
 Brenda came home from getting her nails done. As her 2011 Mercedes pulled into the drive, she noticed the landscaper trimming the shrubs. The housekeeper, Marie, was there that day and opened the door for her to enter the large house set in a gated community. The aroma was wonderful and Brenda wondered what Marie had made for lunch. Her black high heels clicked with every step she took on the marble floor. As she ate, she and Marie discussed what would need to be packed for her trip to Italy next week. She needed to ask her husband to get the jewelry from the safe deposit box. Brenda had always lived a fast-paced, A type personality life. She worked hard and played hard too. She had come from a wealthy family, and had just retired from a lucrative real estate firm. She generally spent her afternoons by the pool, margarita in hand. Her husband was a successful civil engineer, so Brenda had her days to herself. John frequently worked until 8:00 PM, finishing his day with a business dinner. As Brenda started up the stairs to change, she stopped and looked at the portraits of her children, Thomas, twenty-tree, and Amy, twenty-one. They were both doing well at their respective universities. Thomas was in the drama club, frequently the lead male. Amy was an exceptional violin player. John and Brenda had a good relationship, and got along well with parents and in-laws. They generally attended a concert or theater performance together once a month, and often met for brunch after church on Sunday. Despite all of this, Brenda had never felt content. She had a persistent restless, empty feeling as though something was missing from her life. That afternoon, she was to play bridge with two of her friends, the third having recently moved out of state. Short a player, they had invited an acquaintance, Linda, to play with them that day. Linda lived down the street in the same gated community, but didn't move in the same social circle as Brenda and her friends. Brenda had heard that Linda spent her days volunteering at a homeless shelter in the city. During the game, Linda mentioned how short of help they were at the center. She had volunteered there for the past three years. The local churches were good at making financial contributions, but volunteers were hard to find. People were too busy, and the work not glamorous. Linda had been raised in the inner-city by a single mother. Scraping together enough money for the rent each month was difficult with her minimum wage job. They made frequent trips to the food bank in order to have enough to eat. Linda started waitressing at a little family cafe when she turned fourteen. She would study after getting home at night. She was able to maintain good grades as school had always come easy for her. She was quite interested in the social sciences. Working hard, she obtained a scholarship to college. Staying in the dorms was the first time she she was exposed to people coming from wealthier homes. Linda worked her way through college and sent any left over money home to her mother who continued to struggle financially. In her senior year, she met the man who would become her husband. He came from a wealthy family, and had a prosperous career ahead of him as an architect in his father's firm. After marriage, Linda worked part-time as a social worker, but her main interest was helping those in poverty. She had held a variety of volunteer jobs before landing at the homeless shelter where she immediately felt at home. The center was chronically short of staff, and with Easter weekend approaching, it probably would not get a lot better. Since Brenda was now retired, Linda asked her if she would give it a try. Brenda hesitantly agreed, but was uneasy about the type of people she would meet there. She had the common stereotypical view of the homeless as being lazy, drug addicts, criminals or mentally ill. Yes, there are some of those, but many more people just down on their luck. Linda asked if she could begin Easter weekend. They were seriously short of help and planned to serve an entire Easter dinner on Sunday noon. Brenda consented, but was still nervous about the types of people she would meet there. But as promised, she left with Linda for the homeless shelter on Saturday AM. She shunned her dress clothes and managed to find a sweatshirt, jeans and tennis shoes. When she arrived at the shelter she was given a burgundy apron to wear. That is apparently how they tell the difference between clients and volunteers, as they really aren't that much different, other than which side of the serving line they are standing on. There was row after row of bunk beds, one wall was lined with toilets and bathing facilities, a second wall was partially lockers in case the clients had possessions worth spending 25 cents to lock up. There were also racks of donated clothes for the truly needy. The third wall was lined with card tables and chairs, and a few donated children's toys. The last wall was the meal service line, separating the kitchen from the rest of the facility. As Brenda met the other volunteers and got busy with her tasks, she began to relax. There was ham to slice, rolls to bake, fruited jello, sweet potatoes and pies, Brenda had never seen so many pies. It was estimated they would serve 300 people rather than the usual 150. The meal tables had been donated from a local school after a remodeling project. They weren't attractive, but they were clean and functional. Brenda was asked to help with the serving line at lunch while most of the others worked on preparing for tomorrow's Easter dinner. Each person received one sandwich, a handful of chips and a cookie. There was some sort of purple koolaid to drink. Milk was reserved for those eight and under. Most of the food was donated by local stores and a few of the local churches. As the clients started through, Brenda looked more at ease. She noted there were a lot of men going though, but also some women and children. She would glance at their faces, noting many were fairly young. They appeared clean for the most part other than unkempt hair, worn clothes. Many carried backpacks, which she assumed contained a good share of what they owned. Looking up into the sea of sad faces, she saw Mandy who had grown up down the street and played with Brenda's children. She looked as if she had aged an additional ten years beyond Brenda's children. Mandy politely introduced herself, her husband Seth and their two small children with a toddler in tow. Brenda wondered what had happened, but she knew the line needed to keep moving. She vowed to herself to catch up with Mandy and her family later and find out what had happened. To be continued as Mandy's story:
|
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Ruth, April 3
I have some questions about this, but I don't want to bias anyone's view, so I'll ask after you've read this and tell me if it makes any sense, lacks subtlety, is too morbid, whatever. (Hey, those are my questions!)
...............................................................................
'Til Death Do Us Part/Bone of My Bone(s)
Conceived in darkness,
you were born on a stunning
June day. We honored
you with champagne
and a three-tiered cake.
You wore a halo of golden rings.
For a few giddy months you
glowed with your own light.
We wrapped you in a silk quilt
and couldn't take our eyes off you.
We wanted to learn everything
you were. Your breath
whispered to us all night and we
listened to your limbs rustle
under the bedclothes.
Then the curtains fluttered open
and we breathed the sweet lure
of earth's aura. We looked out
the window to the open arms of the oaks
and knew it was the season to wean you.
At times we forgot to feed you
or cover you at night. We let
you sleep in dirty denims,
your thin fingers catching
in holes frayed by wear.
We blamed each other into
silence and didn't teach you
the words you needed, to grow.
You learned to talk listening
to the jays quarrel in the brush.
In the dim light of our home
your sight grew weak. Your
watery blue eyes followed
us out of the house as we
went our separate ways.
You sat behind closed
doors in stale gray air
and your strength faded
pale as the midday moon
against a smoky sky.
One stormy day we watched your slender
veins stop pulsing, until you lay flaccid/limp
in the tempest. The wind blew until
the trees bowed and the soil rose to swallow
you into darkness, where you began.
Monday, March 28, 2011
A Good Life
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When Our Souls Dance
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Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Ruth, March 22
Here is the only one left of the NAMI booklet poems that I need criticism for. There is another, but it's not ready to post. There's also another, "Son," which I might use for a workshop. There's a deadline to submit a 20 or fewer line poem soon.
As usual, the italics are phrases I'm not sure about, the slashes are choices, one or the other.
As usual, the italics are phrases I'm not sure about, the slashes are choices, one or the other.
Marking Mother
We walk beneath the hospital
in an endless corridor
lined with closed doors
and waiting patients,
a surreal dream.
Your frail form is so insubstantial
that when I hold your arm
I have to use all my weight
to keep you from floating away.
I tether you to me
as I was once to you.
There is a moment of silence
when the others,
solid and alive with hope,
suck in your spectral/ephemeral presence.
Then they return
to their hushed, nervous conversations.
Not here for levitation,
but radiation,
the doctor tattoos
your pale skin
with intricate hieroglyphics.
He ornaments your cheek and neck
like a magical incantation,
a comfort,
until he etches,
an X at the center of your forehead.
Son
Son
I pushed him head first into the light. He
squinted his eyes and moved forward, wore holes
in his overall knees, ran barefoot to the sandbox,
shoved through the weighty door of school.
He was a planet in orbit around me; I wanted
to shine on him like the sun. I sustained him
with whole milk, day camp, the World Book.
He grew so strong and fast I couldn't keep up.
He fueled his body with his own choices:
Pizza, beer, smoke. He wore baggy
jeans, his hair hung in dreads, girls' high
voices spiraled from his cell at two a.m.
One windy day, he spun away from me at light
speed, his childhood and my motherhood
crammed in his ragged backpack. Unfinished,
I meant to give him courage and spirituality.
Now he hurtles, directionless, away, away. As my
light dims I must trust he'll arrive in the shining
place he needs to be. If he travels far enough,
he'll see me, like a star, long after I'm gone.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Ruth, March 20
A rewrite of an older one. Italicized words with slashes are word choices. I like "tribal" and "blood" best but don't know if they fit, especially "tribal," and especially in the second choice for last stanza where they come before the "family tree" phrase, though I prefer this order for the last stanza. Any other comments also appreciated.
I just had another thought. For the last stanza I could add another line, being able to say a little more about the "trouble," then end with a one line stanza, "She shuts the door firmly behind her." What do you think?
Happy first day of spring
I just had another thought. For the last stanza I could add another line, being able to say a little more about the "trouble," then end with a one line stanza, "She shuts the door firmly behind her." What do you think?
Happy first day of spring
Granddaughter at Sixteen
A peal of laughter seeps through the wall, whirls
dust into a golden galaxy in the window's light.
Inside, her room is a kaleidoscope of crumpled
clothes and incense, an ever-present phone,
psychedelic sketches hanging askew, a patchwork
of red textbooks and pink paperbacks.
She pliés, plucks a bright rag from the floor,
slips it over her slender neck, and it falls,
polished silk, to sheath her lithe frame.
Her flexible backbone twists her upright,
she glissades to the kitchen, cell to her ear,
a rosy shell. She's all creamy-skinned ease.
She bows before the refrigerator and rises
with a bowl of chili and sharp cheddar,
spoons it through the perfect coil of her mouth,
and still her skin is scented with honey, her breath
a confection. I'm astonished this is the surly girl
who threw herself on the floor wailing at fourteen.
She moves to the den with grace, her arms sweep the air
as if pruning the past, praising what is yet to come.
She opens Pandora on the Dell, turns the volume
to a high, throbbing beat. One raised eyebrow
expresses her boredom with my company. Leaving
the music to pulse, she spin-steps back to her room.
She shuts the door firmly behind her. Tendrils
of my DNA spiral in her cells, filaments of ancestors
incandesce her flesh, and sometimes she half-laughs,
a gesture, her mother's and mine, that climbs down
the family tree into the future. I foresee challenges
for her, troubles that flow in our tribal/inherited/familial/genetic blood/veins.
or
She shuts the door firmly behind her. I foresee
challenges for her, troubles that flow in our tribal/inherited/familial/genetic
blood/veins. Tendrils of my DNA spiral in her cells, filaments
of ancestors incandesce her flesh, and sometimes
she half-laughs, a gesture, her mother's and mine,
that climbs down the family tree into the future.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Ruth Here, March13.
Okay Anna, here's the deal. I wrote a nonfiction piece about an incident with my son and then a poem about just the first part of the incident a while back. Now we are making a booklet of writing for NAMI's April meeting. I was asked to shape the latter part of the story to match or go with the poetry that details the beginning of the incident. Well, it has turned out very long. There is a Part 1 (the old one) and Part 2 and 3, the new ones. I think this is too long and not engaging. Also since Part 1 wasn't written with Parts 2 and 3 in mind, it doesn't quite fit together.
I guess I'm going to have to post the whole piece here. What can I do to make it more engaging, make more sense if it doesn't, etc.? My idea is to have each of the three parts have the same number of stanzas. I'm hoping there can be some cuts from the newly written, raw, Parts 2 and 3 and just make the lines shorter, but still keep the stanza structure.
This is a lot at one time. This has to be done soon and I'm not sure there's any other way to present it. Here goes.
From Ruth on Mar. 19: I removed this so you could look at something newer, Anna.
I guess I'm going to have to post the whole piece here. What can I do to make it more engaging, make more sense if it doesn't, etc.? My idea is to have each of the three parts have the same number of stanzas. I'm hoping there can be some cuts from the newly written, raw, Parts 2 and 3 and just make the lines shorter, but still keep the stanza structure.
This is a lot at one time. This has to be done soon and I'm not sure there's any other way to present it. Here goes.
From Ruth on Mar. 19: I removed this so you could look at something newer, Anna.
Positve Outlook
| By Debbie |
 I have depression It can make me sad Sometimes feel blue At times it makes me hurt But no matter what it does I have depression It doesn't have me Many claim to suffer from depression But I can fight It can try to hold me in its grip No matter how hard it struggles I am stronger and more determined I don't suffer from depression It suffers from me |
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Ruth, March 6
Another one recently changed as per some advice. I'm not sure. The advice was to use the shoe/foot/leg metaphor more throughout the poem--and to bring in a modern pair of shoes. As usual italicized words with slashes represent choices I'm not sure about. Word choice in one place: I like 'prepare' because it echoes 'unaware' but 'strengthen' is a stronger word (by definition!) Too many 'ings' in the last stanza? I could change that, e.g. "will bring," "that vanish", "that glint?"
1953
Summer’s over though the air still glows.
You can’t hear our shrill laughter, smell the Brylcreem
in the boys' hair, or see our shiny leather shoes.
In unswerving rows, a pack/array of nine-year-olds
gazes out of our class photo into the future.
We don't know that the straight
path on which we'll set off into adulthood
will be skewed by a sheer of wind,
that fifty years will pass between two breaths.
We'll look down and see we're wearing nylon Nikes.
But in 1953/as children in the schoolyard, we look at a sky
that is blue and cloudless, at a sun that will last
forever. We smile into a channel of endless
brilliance, unaware that half a century later
someone will look back at us with sadness
for the smudges that obscured the light,
with regret for who we became
and who we didn't. We'll lament the loss
of choices replaced by outcomes
already curled up inside us
like muscles fibers ready to swell
and prepare/strengthen our legs for the journey.
The child I once was looks forward
with guileless eyes. His unfolding bones
don't yet ache from what lies ahead.
He doesn't know that his new shoes
will scuff in the schoolyard/on the sidewalk,
reek of Shinola, that his heel will blister
where the stiffness rubs,
that it will fester for months.
He doesn't yet suspect dusk will breach
his skin and enter him, bringing with it
an array of chaste faces, voices
vanishing in the wind, and wing-tips
glinting in the diminishing light.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
I Wish For You by Debbie
Happiness
I wish for you
A long and healthy life
But if it doesn't happen that
You live a happy and full life anyway
Making the best of whatever life brings to you
Life doesn't always give you what you want
But in spite of that happiness
Is there for the taking
I wish for you
Happiness
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ruth Again
Who can say why I post what I do? I was going to post a new one I am working on, but I have been discouraged and it needs more work; I don't even know if it's worth pursuing. Here is one I'd like to resurrect. I wrote it about a year and a half ago when my granddaughter had just turned 16. Much has changed in her life and my life since, but I dragged this out and I feel safe working on it. So, since I didn't write it for any classes or anything, I don't think I've put it on here before. Here it is:
Granddaughter at Sixteen
A peal of laughter seeps through the wall, whirls
dust into a golden galaxy in the window's light.
Inside, her room is a kaleidoscope of crumpled clothing
and incense, psychedelic sketches hanging askew,
a patchwork of red textbooks and pink paperbacks.
The black cat startles from a dream in his bed of fuzzy
blankets and stretches awake as she strokes his back,
until sparks leap like stars that blink on a field
of gauzy blue curtains. My granddaughter doesn't know
where she comes from or where she is going
any more than the cat understands the world he entered.
She pliés and plucks a bright rag from the floor,
slips it over her slender neck, and it falls,
polished silk, to sheath her lithe frame.
Her flexible backbone twists her upright,
she glissades to the kitchen, cell to her ear,
a rosy shell, all creamy-skinned ease.
She bows before the refrigerator and rises
with a bowl of chile and sharp cheddar,
spoons it into her soft insides
through the perfect coil of her mouth,
and still her skin is scented with honey,
her breath a confection.
Tendrils of my DNA spiral in her cells, filaments
of ancestors incandesce her flesh, and sometimes
she half-laughs, a gesture, her mother's and mine,
that climbs down the family tree into the future.
She moves to the den with grace, her arms sweep the air
as if pruning the past, praising what is yet to come.
She opens Pandora on the Dell,
turns the volume to a high, throbbing beat.
One raised eyebrow expresses her boredom
with our company, and leaving the music to pulse,
she spin-steps back to her room,
shutting the door firmly behind her.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Ruth beats a dead horse
I was going to post something new, but I decided for one last opinion about one of these I'm planning to submit. Anna, I think you were the only one who said we should know the baby's overdue sooner, though I think some didn't quite get why I wanted to hold on longer. I don't think this really answers it, but...
First, what was to be my final version:
First, what was to be my final version:
Holding On
July, the leaves are dense with chlorophyll,
a green I want to grasp, and plums in hand
are sweet. My husband and I keep vigil.
We watch my swollen belly, firm and round
a melon ripening while the fetus grows,
my sugared blood sustaining our shared bond.
My partner and I are forty and we know
the season soon will turn, descend to fall.
Now I want to feel the jutting elbows
and bony knees, vernix covered, caul
encased and safe--away from the knock
at the worldly door--inside, behind snug walls.
The last time I'll be pregnant, I balk.
I'm five days overdue and culpable.
I've suspended earthly time, I sleepwalk...
A one way voyage through the birth canal--
our cleavage, breath from breath, will be final.
...................................................
And then, just transposing second to last stanza to first, which messes up terza rima form, (but I could work on trying to restore it if anyone thinks it's really, really worth it):
Holding On
The last time I'll be pregnant, I balk.
I'm five days overdue and culpable.
I've suspended earthly time, I sleepwalk...
July, the leaves are dense with chlorophyll,
a green I want to grasp, and plums in hand
are sweet. My husband and I keep vigil.
We watch my swollen belly, firm and round
a melon ripening while the fetus grows,
my sugared blood sustaining our shared bond.
My partner and I are forty and we know
the season soon will turn, descend to fall.
Now I want to feel the jutting elbows
and bony knees, vernix covered, caul
encased and safe--away from the knock
at the worldly door--inside, behind snug walls.
A one way voyage through the birth canal--
our cleavage, breath from breath, will be final.
........................................
Okay, this is added a little later. I'm sorry, I said only one post a week after last week, but these are going to be submitted this week and I have one last question. I have two alternative third stanzas for this one, in italics. Is one better, and why?
........................................
Okay, this is added a little later. I'm sorry, I said only one post a week after last week, but these are going to be submitted this week and I have one last question. I have two alternative third stanzas for this one, in italics. Is one better, and why?
Adios, Salad Days
Corn tortillas spread with creamy green avocado,
the seductive Aztec fruit--and smooth leaf
shoots, succulent verdolaga, crowned
with rounds of red tomato flesh.
The first bite revels on our tongues like
the spent juice of youth. It floats down
our throats to our hearts, which split
open like ripe love apples.
Eat slowly. Before we know,
it's gone, like the few years
we have left.
Eat slowly. Before we know,
it's almost gone. The shreds (or since you didn't like shreds, smudges or crumbs)
are like the few years
we have left.
Wipe away the seeds
with a white rag,
a shroud.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
The Light
My Light
Cold, hard shards of glass
Pierce my empty heart
My eyes, tears of loneliness
Whenever we’re apart
Being my sun and my moon
You brighten my dark sky
Darkness I feel without you
Impossible to deny
Longing for you strong arms
And your gentle touch
Darkness without you frightens me
Memories of you I tightly clutch
You brighten my days
And light my lonely nights
Your presence next to me
Fills my heart with delight
Dreaming of you in the dark night
Seems so real you are here
Awakening to your gentle caress
With you here, there is no fear
Together as we are meant to be
Fills my heart with bliss
As our longing lips touch
I ‘m filled with love and happiness
Quatrain Poem
From Ruth
Hi, Here are the last two of the five I am planning to submit to "Lyrical Iowa." At least one of them I've put up on this site before, and maybe the other one, but since now I'm going to submit them to something, I want feedback.
The first is a truncated version of one I did last year. Too many "the"s in it, but I'm not sure if I want to cut any of them. The second poem is a terza rima, (also from last year,) which means it is in a specific form, so I can't make changes without substituting something with equal syllable count, etc.
The reason I chose these is that either they were under 20 lines or easy to cut to 20 lines. Maybe not a good reason but that's the line limit for submissions. After this you'll only see one poem a week.
July, the leaves are dense with cholorophyll,
The first is a truncated version of one I did last year. Too many "the"s in it, but I'm not sure if I want to cut any of them. The second poem is a terza rima, (also from last year,) which means it is in a specific form, so I can't make changes without substituting something with equal syllable count, etc.
The reason I chose these is that either they were under 20 lines or easy to cut to 20 lines. Maybe not a good reason but that's the line limit for submissions. After this you'll only see one poem a week.
Ashes
A cloud of smoke hovers above him; the cigarette's eye glows
at me when he breathes in and winks when he breathes out.
I don't need this evidence of his love. He survived war and famine
to cross a scrolling ocean and a rolling continent to become my father.
Sparks fall to the floor and he curses in a tongue that's all gasps
and clashing consonants. I fetch a heavy ashtray, cut-glass,
to set on the breakfast table. The sun filters through it like a prism;
phantoms sway on his white shirt like nightshade in the wind.
I pick a silvery coin from his jingling pocket; brown tobacco
covers it in flecks. I inhale the loamy smell of the leaf he carries
in a packet like an herbal amulet. Dizzy stripes, like prisoners wear,
slant through the blinds. My father lifts me to his shoulder.
This close, his eyes reveal a grief he's carried with him since the last war,
when his past smoldered to ashes. I'll grow tall in the light
of my new life; he'll shrink into shadows cast by the old world,
he'll become smoke in my lungs, dust in my throat.
But now my father lowers me to the linoleum by the oak icebox,
my gleaming dime gripped tight in my fist. He squeezes orange juice,
a bright miracle of the new world. I lift my glass and the cold liquid
slips down my throat, rich and sweet. The newspaper exhales as he folds it.
or The newspaper inhales when he opens it. or He opens the newspaper; it inhales.
...................................................................................................................................
Holding On
July, the leaves are dense with cholorophyll,
a deep mid-summer green, and plums in hand
are sweet. My husband and I keep vigil:
We watch my swelling belly, firm and round,
a melon ripened while the fetus grows,
my sugared blood sustaining our shared bond.
My partner and I are forty and we know
the season soon will turn, descend to fall.
Now I want to feel the jutting elbows
and knees, blanketed in creamy wax, caul
encased and safe--away from the knock
at the worldly door--inside, behind snug walls.
The last time I'll be pregnant, I balk:
I'm five days overdue and culpable;
I've suspended earthly time, I sleepwalk...
A one way voyage through the birth canal--
our cleavage, breath from breath, will be final.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Here We Go Again, Again, from Ruth
Okay, since I didn't get comments on last weeks entry, I'm doing two this week. Both ones I plan to be in the five I'm going to submit to Lyrical Iowa soon, so I need comments soon. One of them appeared in an earlier form here last year. As usual, the things in italics are either choices or possibilities to leave out or change.
Eighth and Main
You park five blocks away since it's a pleasant day
to walk--well, it's a little hot, but your bank
account is low and the parking lot expensive,
and you certainly could use the exercise.
You're plodding along the sidewalk on Eighth,
then /when you turn the corner onto Main.
For a moment you feel that old optimism,
the possibility of a bright future, infuse your being.
Is it the way the green fingers of ginkgo reach
through the infinite blue sky to clasp the golden sphere
of the sun, cradle it, ready to hand you its pure
radiance, its alchemical cure, its wealth?
But your knees ache and you remember
your cache of good health has been spent, coin by coin,
until you grasp for what's left with both hands.
Happiness stamps away, enraged that you don't embrace it,
or Enraged that you don't embrace it, happiness stamps away
and leaves you to walk alone with one foot planted
on Main and the other raised over the abyss.
......................................................................................
Salad Day
Fresh tortillas spread with creamy green avocado,
the seductive/voluptuous/zaftig/curvy/lustful/lusty/lush Aztec fruit--and fragile young
leaf shoots, succulent verdolaga, crowned
with rounds of fleshy red tomato.
The first bite revels on our tongues like
the smooth juice of youth. It floats down
our throats to our hearts, which split
open like ripe love apples.
Eat slowly. Before we know, it's gone.
The crumbs and smudges
are like the few years
we have left.
Wipe away the shreds
with a white rag,
a shroud.
A Baker's Dozen
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Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Here We Go Again, from Ruth
Hi, Ruth here. As I said I would do, I've posted two different versions of the same darn thing--the first one based on a friend's comments, the second on Anna's (and others'.) I was going to wait longer and work a little more on these before posting, but I see more than a week has gone by. I explained in a comment to Debbie why I'm working on this so much... I tried to italicize the differences between the two versions.
Getting Close
The end of August is tinder dry. Your steps raise clouds
of golden dust that follow you to the house, hiding
your shadow. On the porch, faded towels
are laid out, and kid's sandals are matched in pairs
of half-hearts, good luck charms for our marriage.
Inside, I watch from the window. The oak table
is scattered with lined paper and yellow pencils.
I clear them for summer's final supper, fish and fries.
Children vanish to grieve the start of school,
though sparks of excitement crackle in the air.
High pitched voices dissolve, and in the silence,
the day has melted to dusk. We carry glasses
of wine out to the pale, thinning grass
to breathe in the blue haze of Russian sage,
and we are alone, together.
The moon relects pearls in our blushing wine.
Insect wings stitch seams of shelter
in the remnants of light. The force
of evening pulls us toward each other.
Your blood stirs, my breath catches.
Remnants of Summer
The end of August is tinder dry. His steps raise clouds
of golden dust that follow him to the house, hiding
his shadow. On the porch, sun-faded towels
are laid out, and kid's sandals are matched in pairs
of half-hearts, good luck charms for our marriage.
Inside, I watch from the window. The oak table
is scattered with lined paper and yellow pencils.
I clear them for summer's final garden harvest.
Children run to their rooms to grieve the start of school,
though sparks of excitement crackle in the air.
High pitched voices dissolve, and in the silence,
the day has melted to dusk. We carry glasses
of wine out to the thinning pale grass,
to breathe in the blue haze of Russian sage,
and we are alone, together.
The moon drops pearls in our blushing wine.
Insect wings stitch seams in the descending
silk of night. The force of the evening
pulls us toward each other.
Your blood stirs, my breath catches.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
My Friend
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