December 18, 2007

• New Poem and exciting news

  Well, I did it, I am done with school and I now have a Bachelor of Arts in Professional Writing!  I finished last week, and I’ll graduate cum laude with a 3.698 GPA.  Not bad for being 35 and working full time while I did it, eh?

  Ok, enough crowing.  Since I’m done, I can go back to writing for pleasure instead of writing for grades.  Here is my first poem in a few months.

  Thanksgiving Dinner

  The flowers spilled over the edge of their vase
  bathing the table in perfumed decadence
  until the smells of turkey and dressing
  overshadowed the understated floral notes.

  Buttered vegetables and basted meat
  were passed, scooped, and piled
  on anxious Styrofoam quivering
  beneath the weight of uncomfortable burden.
  
  The years had not been kind to all who gathered
  to dine and forget together salty words
  and to hide the things unsavory
  with ladles and ladles of gravy.
  
  There were dinners past that no one mentioned
  scented feasts on sweet dahlias of innocence
  those who ate from the harvest of shame
  with fingers that dipped into and tore tender flesh.

  It is better to grow drunk on shared silence,
  to stare at plates that have no memories
  to focus on food that cannot speak
  or come back from the dead.

  • 10:15 pm
  • 6 Comments