POEMS - Selections from National Poetry Writing Month, 2005

  • Poems - 1972-2000
  • Poems - 2000-2001
  • Poems - 2002-2003
  • Poems--2004-2005
  • Resources for Writers


    • BIRDS AND ENDINGS

    People say they wish they had wings
    so they could skim the sky. But often birds
    break their necks on glass or get eaten
    by owls and cats; fledglings tumble,
    top-heavy, from nests; havens are swept
    with disdain from eaves; they generally meet
    all sort of bad ends. But the worst end
    would be if the songs they must sing
    came only from instinct and never from joy.

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    COBWEBS

    Prismed strands sway, anchored
    from ceiling to walls
    to corners to sills.

    They are my reward
    for not dusting daily.

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    SPURTLE LIMERICK

    There was a fine callan named Myrtle
    Who stirred up her gruel with a spurtle
    When she strolled in her kilt
    Lads' eyes rolled to tilt
    Her tocher guid being so fertile

    *callan -- girl
    *tocher guid -- the goods or money constituting the dowry

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    BOXED

    "I wish they wouldn't do that,"
    the words out even as I handed
    her the boxed orchid. I figured
    it would be bad for Mother's
    Day business had I said,
    "Indulge them now, your headstone
    will wear the corsage soon enough,"
    so I delivered a smile, crossed her
    from the list and drove off
    with the other arrangements.

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    FROGEO, FROGEO
     With apologies to W. Shakespeare for purloining a few lines
    from "Romeo and Juliet," Act 5, Scene 3

    A thousand road ditch Romeos
    croak-calling to their Juliets
    tell me that spring has finally arrived.
    So sad they often meet the same
    old star-crossed lovers' fate anew--
    not with a true apothecary's brew,
    but rather road-crossed; warm, new kill'd
    between the asphalt and retreads,
    their consummation joy's cut short instead.

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    FOR THE POET I CANNOT LET GO OF

    His work has appeared in several issues. We don't take credit cards--bank charges
    are too high--but a personal cheque posted after receipt of your order will do.

    The parcel with handwritten bill tucked
    inside, transcribed from pounds into dollars:

    arrived from Edinburgh. The cat sniffed
    the wrapper's faraway scents; I snatched up the poet
    I cannot let go of.

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    WAITING FOR FALL

    Summer has only just broken ground
    and I'm already looking forward
    to autumn. The hues of marigolds
    and roses, poppies and sunflowers
    do not dress the hills as fall does,
    and fields brown out
    before September rains.

    My own center is more attuned
    to the vine maples that spot the foothills
    than my garden's array. Before August
    has even vacated they can't conceal
    their impatient flare. They won't
    wait their turn.

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    A POEM FOR GINGER, MY VERY LONG-HAIRED CAT
    on the Occasion of Her Spring Grooming

    I brushed and brushed your tortie fur,
    equivalent to another cat,
    but then I sneezed--Kätz-CHEN! It flew
    and that was the end of that, my chat.
    No playmate spun for you, my gat-
    o, no! No playmate spun for you.

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    PEER PRESSURE

    A student parks his car in that slot now,
    a different one than last year and the year
    before that. The peer pressure that held
    the space for flowers doesn't endure. Time

    pushes everything--life, death, people,
    landscapes slip like driftwood on the tide.
    Housing tracts spring up like mushrooms
    on damp ground and adjust my view

    of the mountains, but what elegies can be written
    by those who will never see latent fields
    backdropped by snow, who will pass a parking lot
    altar each day and never know it existed?

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    BETTY CROCKER EYES

    Her apron's white, crisp-starched
    Her cake's a sweet surprise
    Her family's never parched
    She's got Betty Crocker eyes

    She'll plump your pillow for you
    You won't have to ask twice
    Demure in pearls and bows
    She's got Betty Crocker eyes

    And she'll feed you
    From her pantry
    All the recipes that please you
    She's a great cook
    And she knows just
    What it takes to make a mousse fluff
    She's on a Julia Child stand-in high
    She's got Betty Crocker eyes

    She'll make you feel at home
    She'll dust sideboards with her Pledge Wipes
    She'll disinfect the throne
    She's got Betty Crocker eyes

    She'll tumble dry your laundry
    And fill your glass with ice
    She's never in a quandary
    She's got Betty Crocker eyes

    She will pamper
    And indulge you
    Hoover up the crumbs dropped by you
    She's fastidious
    And she knows just what it takes
    To wield a scrub brush
    We all love Mom's apple pie
    She's got Betty Crocker eyes

    And she'll feed you
    From her pantry
    All the recipes that please you
    She's a great cook
    And she knows just
    What it takes to make a mousse fluff
    We all love Mom's apple pie
    She's got Betty Crocker eyes

    Betty Crocker eyes....

    Betty Crocker eyes....

    * Based on "Bette Davis Eyes", original lyrics by Donna Weiss/Jackie DeShannon

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    UNTITLED

    You'd think they'd notice. This tree
    has no life left. Unlike its driveway mate
    there are no tender spring-green sprigs,
    no tentative leaves uncurling, no robins
    busy scouting out the best branches.
    Instead, this one's trunk supports nothing
    but firewood in waiting. Yet they've dressed
    both sets of roots with bark and landscaped
    in tulips and hybrid teas, tending to that one
    as a mother who clucks around her debutante,
    to this one as an undertaker who preens
    a body for final viewing before it blesses
    the earth. That tree breathes; this tree
    inters dried limbs skyward.

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    WHY YOU HAVE TO BE NUTS TO OWN CATS
    A Rationale in the Double-Dactyl and the Triolet

    Calico, calico
    Rorschach-splotched kitty cat,
    races down halls and up
    stairs at tilt speed,

    clipping my ankle bones
    hyperkinetically;
    get me some Prozac, it's
    all that I need.

    * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

    I brush her fur; it clings to all
    my clothes in black. Accessories
    for free, for me. She purrs, it falls,
    I brush her fur. It clings to all--
    my pants, my coat, the floor, the wall--
    the missiles hit trajectories.
    I brush. Her fur, it clings to all
    my clothes in black; accessories.

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    HUNTING HENRY

    From Hampton Court to the great Abbey, we hunted
    for Henry the Eighth's remains, scoured castles
    and halls for the Tudor king. We whispered

    over Westminster bones as cold as the marble
    slabs that roofed poets and statesmen
    and monarchs; but His Majesty was not there

    among the effigies of long-dead princes.
    Guidebooks, of course, would yield answers,
    but there's no thrill in indexed travel. Blind

    dates, road trips unmapped and who-done-it twists
    are far more intriguing gambles. However aptly anglo-
    macabre, the VIII's final bed would not rest

    near the green where cousin wives #'s 2 & 5
    lost their heads, or close by one missed lover's
    knot. St. Paul's too new, the Tower's all wrong, so

    on to Windsor. We found it fitting that he lie
    completely at rest in a place he completed, always
    preferring the accidental encounter.

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    LITANY FOR AN EIGHTH GRADE GIRL, c.1964

    They tell me these were the good old days,

    My 50-somethings are the good new days
    I wouldn't trade, I tell them.

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    HAIKU
    On the Occasion of My Inaugural Spring Jog

    Adidas unearthed;
    Sweat pours like spring rains; body
    falls to ground like leaf

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    MC NEIL'S LAMENT

    She's lurking under chairs again. I see
    that vicious little stalker wearing fur.
    "How come this fluffed assassin roams scot-free
    in my domain?" I plead, my nose to hers,
    a nose which cannot take another swipe.
    "You know that sneaky, runty cat's insane--
    but by design? I recognize the type,"
    I whine, "she wages hit-and-run campaigns
    behind your back. Despite her masquerade
    of purrs and chirps, she's not what she appears,
    not sociable or kind; in fact, she's played
    you, dammit--what a twerp! I'll volunteer
    to grab her by the scruff," I wag, "and stuff
    her in the trash, headfirst. I've had enough."

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    MONDAY'S LIFTS KEEP ASS IN PLACE

    Monday's lifts keep ass in place,
    Tuesdays, tone up thigh's disgrace,
    Wednesday's workout--cardio,
    Thursday's jog, 10 miles to go,
    Friday's to-dos include swimming,
    Saturday, crunches for ab trimming.
    But it's pizza, not weights, on the Sabbath Day;
    Who cares that tomorrow there's hell to pay?

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    DISCRETION

    There are twelve moons
    to plot under, but I'd rather wait
    for the porch light to burn out.

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    LOSING TOUCH
    For Uncle Wes

    He slouches on the grass
    and rocks his hand, the mower
    still droning. Add two less fingers
    to that long past chem lab tally.
    He's forgotten how to count to ten
    by now, the index of students that passed
    by his desk. He can't remember
    the years he sky-etched St. Basil's
    silhouettes or linked histories
    when he traced the Great Wall's joints,
    when he toe-waltzed their daughter
    off to bed. All of these have flecked away
    like the paint off Aunt Jennie's deck,
    like the siding that has weathered,
    almost unnoticed.

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    OFFSHOOTS

    She thought the mess was trimmed
    up, but pruning the tree's offshoots
    didn't keep the roots from suckering
    beyond the fence.

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    '63

    In '63 the Secret Service
    couldn't protect the President and God
    let the Pope die. God could do magic
    when you were 12, all you had to do was ask
    and it was a given, or so said Mrs. Stanson
    and Pastor Newell every Sunday AM. They stood in
    as His right hand, they knew how to swap
    repentence for favors, but at 12
    there's little to barter with.

    The spring after, a boy dropped mid-baseline
    to the dust. We watched Mr. Z. fly
    out the window to the rescue just like SuperMan.
    Joey later said he found him sobbing
    in the men's room. I overheard the principal say,
    He could taste the vomit for weeks.

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    DYE TRYING
    A Limerick for Rachel

    I promised my hairdresser friend
    that I'd never, no never again
    tempt my fate with a box
    of self-dye, or a pox
    on my head she would surely expend.

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    PHYSICS LESSON

    Chipmunk boldly holds
    ground. SUV acquires
    fresh retread fur patch.

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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
  • Poems - 2000-2001
  • Poems - 2002-2003
  • Poems--2004-2005
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