Month: May 2007

  • Mosaic Writing Challenge

    I don’t write many mosaic poems, but I wrote one last night.  A mosaic is where you piece together one whole thought or theme based on short vignettes or stanzas.  The mosaic form can also be used for essays and short stories.  Anyway, LOL, end of your English lesson!  Here is my mosaic…

    Games with my Mother

    Sorry

    Soothing clucks emit soft and low
    trembling her bosom as my
    tears fall.  Her hands flutter,
    wings of a mother hen,
    as my plastic soldiers return home.

    War

    The tedium stirs in my legs
    as they kick and swing beneath the table.
    Impatient sighs fall like grenades
    wreaking havoc on Mother’s nerves.
    Cards are flung, the last War we play.

    Monopoly

    I press the iron on the cardboard,
    scrutinize the rainbow of money.
    Railroads are more interesting than property
    and I still cry when I lose.
    Clearly, no future Me in real estate.

    Scrabble

    I have found my crack cocaine
    as my mind smokes words
    like zineb (a pesticide.)
    I dream of dictionaries
    and double, triple scores.

    Small Talk

    When we grow tired of games
    like “Who is the Worst Daughter”
    or “My Mother is so Crazy”
    we slip out a new bored
    and chat on dancing with the stars.

  • My Pittsburgh

    After a couple weeks in Michigan helping out the family, its nice to be back.  Dad will need to spend a little time in a nursing home as he continues to recover from his broken hip.  My foot is doing well, and I’m able to put some weight on it and toddle around the house so long as I don’t overdo it.

    Pittsburgh really has become home after all these years.  I felt somewhat estranged from my hometown of Bath, Michigan.  We’ve outgrown each other.  Here is a poem I wrote after coming home.

    Birthing Pittsburgh

    Pittsburgh has been pulled from the rivers,
    carved from the forests and Appalachian foothills
    until her eyes arose from the windows
    of steel mills and coal mines,
    until her arms pushed through the mountainside
    with concrete tunnels and bridges.

    Pittsburgh has been pulled from the rivers,
    her hair tangled with hope and opportunity
    as the sons of Europe come to take a bride
    and fill her fertile womb with the neighborhoods
    of Italians, Poles, Slovaks, and Africans
    reaching their hands towards a metal dream.

    Pittsburgh has been pulled from the rivers,
    abandoned for foreign lovers rich with industry
    as she lies weeping for the ones who leave.
    Those who believe wipe their dirty faces,
    roll up their tattered sleeves,
    and help her rebuild.

  • What a Weekend…

    I’m having a rough time today.  My Dad fell and broke his hip yesterday, and with him being terminally ill, he is in a tremendous amount of pain.  He needs surgery too, and the doctors are afraid of serious complications, but the fracture is too serious not to do the surgery.

     
    Also, this weekend I fell and broke my foot, so I am in a good deal of pain myself.  If you could send your prayers and energy our way, I would greatly appreciate it.
     
    Now for something a little more happy.  I got word today that Clark Street Review out of Colorado will be publishing my poems “And the Beat goes on,” and “The Girl You Ended Up With.”   In addition, I’ll have some work in the maiden issue of Venus Envy, a Magazine for Women.  Check out GoJake’s blog for more details.  She’s the editor-in-chief.
     
    Here’s a poem.  I wrote it from my mother’s perspective, as if she were an old woman looking back on her marriage as her husband becomes an old man.  Unfortunately, she won’t get that chance unless a miracle happens.
     
    Glaciers
     
    Melting suits you, Darling,
    as your picture changes from
    a once prickly young republican
    to one that sees with golden wit.
     
    The psyche struggles in a search
    for usefulness, and your fingers
    prod plaster and lathe ceilings for signs
    of springing from their keystones.
     
    This is a good place to be,
    where losses and sums unpaid have faded
    beyond our thatched roof
    into the Mecca of lost decades.
     
    There is something about your smell
    and how you’ve traded expensive cologne
    for the scent of honest crafted sweat.
    This leaves me bent towards pleasure.
     
    The future is a shrug, an afterthought,
    It collects dust near our inner room
    as we focus on the Great Plains of now,
    the landscape of solitude and togetherness.
     

  • A Poetry Challenge and a tiny bit or crowing

    First, the Challenge:

    I got two acceptance letters in the mail today (yay!).  First I want to tell you about Raw Dog Press.  They do a series of Poetry Posts every year.  Its a set of postcards with short poetry works on them.  My poem, Among the Rubble, was chosen to be a part of this years series (and did I mention, YAY!)  There website is http://rawdogpress.bravehost.com/ if you’d like to check it out. 

    So you’re mission, if you choose to accept it, is to write a poem of 9 lines or less and post it on your site.  If you’re feeling jazzed about the concept, maybe do a few of them and send them on to Raw Dog.

    Second, the Crowing:

    I’ve always been a big fan of The Iconoclast poetry magazine.  They have previously rejected me (oh well, comes with the trade) but this time around they have accepted my poem “Lie–A Rolling Stone.”  I know its somewhere on my blog if you want to look around…maybe last summer?  Anyway, many thanks to LadySongbird who helped me title it as I wasn’t able really to think of anything and as a general rule, hate to leave work untitled.

    Three, a Poem (of course):

    The floppy with “Among the Rubble” is back at the office so I’ll post it later.  Here is a short poem I sent Raw Dog that got rejected but that I liked anyway.  Remember to let me know if you decide to write a short poem.

    Yellow Dog

    My little yellow dog is sick
    and this is our last day together.
    Chico sniffs as we walk
    in the park, his hips stiff
    from arthritis.  He hops
    towards a squirrel.
    I am glad for the sunshine.

     

  • Poem

    This is one I tried to write ages ago and gave up on.  Here’s my attempt at a rewrite.  Still not sure it does anything for me so please give feedback.

    The When of Waiting

    You reached out and
    cupped the back of my head,
    pressing your lips
    forcefully to mine,
    opening your mouth
    and mine to the taste
    of each other.

    It was as if a great
    division occurred,
    separating my life
    into two hemispheres.
    One side holding all the moments
    before we touched and
    the other, the transformation
    of passion on the life
    of this woman ever
    and forever after.

  • If I only knew…

    This was a Featured Grownups topic.  I don’t always get to all of them, but this one intrigued me.

    If I knew then what I know now

    1.  I had a particularly tumultuous six-year manipulationship from ages 19 through 25.  I wish I would have known then that overweight girls ARE beautiful, loveable, and valued by the right man.  Another lesson that I have since learned from that difficult era was that my life is made up of so much more than my romantic relationships and that good sex is not equal to good love.

    2.  I would have taken more chances.  My mother was a fundamentalist Christian who was afraid of everything and everyone.  She would have these “prophetic visions” of me coming to a “bad end” if I did anything or hung out with anyone that she didn’t approve of.  I was afraid of these dreams until my late teens/early twenties.  I finally started taking chances and I realized two things:  bad things do not happen when you have a little fun and my mom’s visions were full of hooey.  But I sure have had fun making up for lost time…

    3.  I would have stood up for myself more and learned how to say “no” with love for the other person and respect for myself.  The people that really matter won’t need you to please them 100% of the time.

    So, that’s my list.  As time goes on, I have fewer and fewer regrets.  The things that have/haven’t happened to me did or did not happen for a reason.  The things that I have done and haven’t done are what have shaped me into the person I am now, and I really like me.