POEMS -- 2000-2001

* with Sound Files
  • Poems--1972-2000
  • Poems--2002-2003
  • Poems--2004-2005
  • Selections from National Poetry Writing Month 2005
  • Resources for Writers


    • PROMISE IN A BOX

    Mom performed the yearly spring ritual
    and bought three organdy dresses in
    Easter-egg pastels, white patent shoes,
    and one box of promise for me.

    She shopped for the perfect ham, jumbo
    eggs, red jello and that box; carefully
    nested it among the fare, along with the
    angel food cake in cellophane.

    My heart blipped in time to registered
    prices as the shopping cart's treasures
    were courtesy bagged, then stowed
    around me for the daydream ride home.

    She placed it and end papers on the
    butcherblock counter alongside the butter
    and parkerhouse rolls. I peered with
    expectant distrust at the princess ideal

    pictured on slick-finished cardboard and
    sent up a silent petition to the God
    who genetically coded me with hair
    as straight as the staff of a scepter.

    The acrid smell of ammonia-soaked towels
    permeated the air and I winced
    from plastic perm rollers wound
    overly tight, from watery white

    streamlets of wave solution (the answer
    to my quest for curl) as they cold-dripped
    their way down my neck, and shivered as
    the timer ticked off an eternity of minutes.

    Towel-dried, my model hopes neutralized
    with a glance in the mirror; they were
    discarded along with the empty box that
    never lived up to its lilting promise.

    July, 2000

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    I'M A POET, DON'T YOU KNOW?

    I'm a poet, don't you know?
    And I write the words that show
    what I think and feel and hate and love and say;

    I can't help it, I must write
    all the morning, noon and night!
    It's a frightful thought--addiction, work not play!

    Lord, please help me take a break;
    I've been here since eighty-eight
    and I haven't had a bite to eat since nine.

    Loved ones check out institutions
    while I ponder absolutions
    as I pull my hair in search of perfect line

    breaks.

    O, a poet I must be!
    There's no other life for me!
    No, I don't think I could ever give it up.

    When I die, quill in my hand,
    lay me down, strike up the band,
    then let mourners wake on ink and tasty scup!

    July 30, 2000

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    HAIKU OF THE ANT

    Ants--industrious
    creatures--toiling day and night,
    chewing down my house.

    July 31, 2000--Inspired by a true-life experience

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    PIN OF OBLIGATION

    I watched the pinwheel
    spin at the caprice of breezes
    amid flowers in the barrel.

    It whirled, facing north, then south,
    and I wondered how far it would fly
    were it not anchored
    by a small pin of obligation.

    August 5, 2000
    Edited August 27, 2000

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    MADDOG HAIKU

    Bi-polar canine,
    a jackal in Hyde's clothing,
    eyes my chicken leg.

    August 10, 2000

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    PIPE SOUNDS

    Some things stay with you long after the experience is over. Take for instance the sound of the water pipes in the cabin I stayed in for two weeks while volunteering at our youth camp this summer:

    Water pipes behind walls
    gurgle with regularity.
    Master mimics of sound variety,
    where nightshifts of position
    become babybottom scooches
    in a bathtub or groans
    of wailing mourners.

    August 28, 2000

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    CUSP OF AUTUMN

    We sense the cusp of autumn
    in the valley; field grasses
    are summer dry and no longer
    support the hollow-boned weight
    of sparrows. Only forget-me-nots
    lining roadside ditches
    have their thirst slaked.

    Soon chimneys will exhale
    wood stove elegies;
    I'll wear sweaters, not cotton,
    and maples, a red-orange dowry.

    September 7, 2000

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    BEAUREGARD'S POEM

    I miss the sable ball
    that demanded space on my lap
    as I tried to knit or read; he had
    atypical uncrossed eyes,
    but the primal siamese complaint
    remained intact.

    He was a heat-source diviner:
    sponge on the window sill by day,
    head-plowing under covers
    to seek out my body's reserves
    by night. It would not have
    surprised me to find a pile
    of singed fur and ashes
    next to the woodstove, victim
    of combustion, where
    moments before a cat had slept
    just inches away.

    Any open cupboard required
    immediate inspection, dried
    flowers were an opiate nip and
    Cheeto bags signaled a clarion call.
    The 1.5 mile ride to the vet
    would elicit a rabies-like froth
    that received a wide berth
    from concerned clients.

    I miss the twenty-two years of
    hair on black pants. That's
    longer than many espousals last.


    September 20, 2000

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    CANDY CORN

    October's end--it's Halloween!
    Time for tricks and treats again.
    I've got something up my sleeve--
    You be Adam, I'll be Eve.
    Costumes? They won't cost a cent.
    I'll bet that they don't even rent
    those itchy little leaves of fig,
    and I don't want to wear a twig!
    Back to nature, back to Eden!
    (Cheaper than a trip to Sweden.)

    October 31, 2000

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    SO I ASKED
    A Sonnet

    Ask about Avon! it advertised,
    This sign I passed each day enroute to work.
    So I resolved opinion to surmise;
    Behind the door, in house-coat feign, she lurked.
    I chimed, Good morning, fellow Anglophile!
    We toured England, spring of eighty-eight,
    Explored Anne's cottage, every stoop and stile.
    (She was quite short the jambs would indicate.)
    But Will's birth house we chose instead to miss
    (Along with lunch consisting of bland fare).
    To view the scene from Avon's bridge was bliss.
    Did this slow stream inspire words so rare?
    Soliloquy now done, she stared agog,
    In silence handed me a catalog.

    November 12, 2000

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    EXTENDING FAMILY

    Those were Grandpa's odd eyes
    looking out past my shoulder,
    sepia-toned and stoic from high on the wall.
    I gazed back through desuete glass,

    then read the hands of the woman,
    cameo-cut, edged in Valenciennes lace,
    holding a blur of bobbed hair on her ramrod lap.
    Quiet, hush -- but the baby
    would not be stilled
    any more than my own
    by bribe or photographer's ploy.

    For sixty dollars each
    I could purchase their histories
    framed in dark cherry
    (a fine match for my Queen Anne),
    have them parceled in newsprint,
    extending decor and family annals
    by one more great aunt
    or cousin much removed.

    I'd say, Aunt Sarah's brooch
    was willed to me. They said
    it was lost in the move, but
    I'm suspicious it was
    'mislaid'.     Or, What a shame
    Grandpa had such queer eyes;
    he'd have been quite handsome otherwise.

    December, 2000
    Revised--May, 2001

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    THE GARDEN OF LATE

    The garden is choked with grass.
    Tomato vines sag spent and grey,
    and forgotten fruit composts into potential.
    Vetch twines around long-sprouted asparagus
    that stands among the conclave of weeds.

    I stall, outwitting rime and snow;
    these days I prefer such decisions
    be made for me. The plot
    is too tangled and early rains
    seem a rational excuse for avoidance.

    December 20, 2000

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    LEARNING THE TRIOLET

    *A triolet is a poem or stanza of eight lines in which the first line is repeated as the fourth and seventh and the second line as the eighth with a rhyme scheme of ABaAabAB.
    This form will cause my death! This form,
    this triolet, will kill me dead.
    Before I master metric norm
    this form will cause my death! This form,
    an epitaph for bod not warm
    found carved in stone above my head--
    "This form has caused my death! This form,
    this triolet, has kill me dead."


    ROLLER COASTER TRIOLET

    I cling to straps and squeal aloud--
    the rollercoaster climbs the peak.
    While carny spiels attract a crowd,
    I cling to straps and squeal aloud.
    My face in frantic glee, its shroud,
    reflects pure fear--I cannot speak
    but cling to straps and squeal aloud--
    the rollercoaster climbs the peak.


    VALENTINE TRIOLET

    When I gave my love chocolate,
    a Valentine remembrance sweet,
    I soon found out he was a glut
    when I gave my love chocolate.
    That velvet heart, so quick to gut--
    contents plundered, ravage complete--
    when I gave my love chocolate,
    a Valentine remembrance sweet.

    Learning the Triolet--January 6, 2001
    Roller Coaster Triolet--November 25, 2000
    Valentine Trilet--February 10, 2001

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    FORTY-NINE AND HOLDING
    A Birthday Sonnet

    The sun had the audacity to rise
    and scrutinize my squinting eyes; what spite!
    Malicious Sol, you're cruel! I despise
    the glee displayed when you should mourn my plight.

    Conspiracies arise at every turn--
    newspaper fonts are set at New Times one;
    my bathroom scale tells lies and should be burned;
    "New Math" has made the mile a longer run.

    If governors can pardon crimes long past,
    make them to be as though they never were,
    (and since I look quite pale in sack and ash)
    why can't a birthday clemancy procure?

    I'm forty-nine? There's been a huge mistake!
    I'll stay my age and have a slice of cake.

    March 19, 2001

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    GENDER LIMERICK

    There are, from time to time at the PFFA site, challenges issued. This limerick came about as a result of the challenge to "...write a limerick, double dactyl, epigram or clerihew about a poet, dead or alive, or indeed frequenting this forum." There are many who post at the site who do not know that I'm a woman, probably from me posting under the name of 'Donner' (a reindeer, right?) and someone wrote a poem for me, but assumed I was male. I couldn't resist and replied with the following limerick:

    Though honored with words, kind they be,
    Donner's giggling because 'he's' a 'she';
    Her husband of years
    Would think it quite queer
    If he'd missed all the clues, don't you see?

    D is for Donna

    May 3, 2001

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    THIS SPRING

    She'd transplanted bulbs
    from bed to bed, preferring
    this spring's reds and yellows
    in clumps of display. Yet

    a stray corm, dormant for a season,
    now bloomed apart in brazen
    defiance. The nurse
    had phoned; a nodule found

    required more evaluation. Bulbs
    winter silent and deep as dead men
    until their ordained
    time of resurrection.

    May 21, 2001

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    ELEGY FOR MY NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC COLLECTION
    Inspired while cleaning the garage one Saturday morning

    I'm finally free of the scourge of the 'Graphic,
    I've broken the cycle of monthly arrivals.
    The magazine covered in yellow that clutters
    the attics of National members (I'd place them
    up into the millions) will no longer haunt me
    because my subscription has lapsed; now I'm home free.

    I used to consider them utterly sacred
    and sacrilege even to think I'd toss copies
    or cut out a photo. "They must remain intact
    for all generations! The future of life on
    this planet--God help us!--relies on such linchpins
    of civilization, and not in the trash bin!"

    No longer will mudmen of Borneo linger
    and take up the space that I currently covet.
    No, Menhotep won't be appearing at my door
    nor giant bugs, Amazon rodents, or Cousteau.
    I'd rather be thoroughly hated and chastized,
    firmly refusing to anthro-apologize.

    August 5, 2001

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    PYRAMID SCHEMES

    While in bed with her famed Roman Caesar,
    Cleo said, "Jules, you're some kind of pleaser.
    When you carpe my cruris
    my munitia fall, useless."
    "Et tu, my dear vamp--let's reprise 'er!"

    September 4, 2001

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    POINT OF REFERENCE

    Having mapped the quadrants of his face
    before the widening of pier and hull,
    my view is now blocked by vans
    and stenciled warnings on high metal walls;

    and though I can't use the pylons
    as a point of reference or watch gulls
    playing dip-tag in the wind,
    I know the ferry has left the dock
    from the churn below and shimmy of cars.

    It moves through the wind's wake, my hair
    buffeted as I stand on this canyon deck heavy
    with the smell of diesel and brine,
    and echoed yawls from shiphands.

    December 10, 2001

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    Feel the urge to write and post your own original poems?
    What to read original poetry from the poets of the internet?
    Need help with your writing? A list of anthologies? Book recommendations?

    Click here for a list of resources--from online dictionaries to a Shakespearean Insulter.

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  • Poems--1972-2000
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  • Poems--2004-2005
  • Selections from National Poetry Writing Month 2005
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