Firsts

My, then, totally cute,

love- of- my- life boyfriend

gave me his old and my first car,

a cream colored VW Beetle.

He had moved to NYC

and I was finishing college

in Boston traveling 

to home, school, work.

That car held his scent 

and showed me his intent.

It was the scene of other firsts as well

but that's for another poem altogether.

He came to visit one weekend

and admired my legs in my mini skirt

as I swung them into the drivers seat.

It's what I remember most

about that car- the jolt

of being in the driver's seat

for the very first time.

I went on to marry that man 41 years ago and we've owned many cars since but talk frequently and fondly of our first car... Posted for Herotomost at Real Toads who asked us to write about our first car. 

Bone Quiet

It's strange

to be without

boundaries

marking inside

and out, defense 

made impossible. 

Din arrives 

not just by ear
but surrounds
each bone. 

I thought 

quiet would reign,

the death silence,

but wind's

fierce incursion 

blunts bones 

with no skin 

to hold it out. 

Intrusions
blur any sense 

of safe containment;

after gone 

comes noise.

A Flash 55 in my bone poems series for Kerry at http://www.withrealtoads.blogspot.com.

Contact

She shuffles by lost
in the fog of mental illness,
mute, unreachable.
I make nursing rounds,
hum some old tune. She
turns, follows me, hums
the same song.
Across her chasm
of neural chaos,
contact.


The prompt from Fireblossom over at Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads was to write about calamities and from my 36 years as a psychiatric nurse, there is no calamity that touches my heart more than major mental illness. This is a true story of a client with schizophrenia in a state hospital in California who had been mute for years. I was humming a song my father used to sing and she hummed along. So I started singing the songs I remembered from him and she sang along. She had a beautiful voice. Eventually we learned she was a singer with Benny Goodman in the mid 30's. She loved to sing. I offer it on dVerse poets open link night as well.

Long Partnerships - Erasure Poetry

From: The Last Gift of Time by Carolyn G. Heilbrun

Long partnerships are rare, endow
inhabitants with equilibrium
otherwise unknown.
A woman, her spouse
cherished, endured.

This moment, at last, overshadows
resentments, betrayals, boredom,
disallows a sin of omission to serve
as mental magnet.

Memory and anger recede,
dissipate. Life in the moment
no longer expects what will never occur,
expects neither more nor less
than who he is.

Marrieds of many decades earn,
as reward, mutual mellowness,
find life good.


This was actually sparked by Mary's prompt on Friday: Connection over at Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads and a continuation of Anna's Erasure Poetry from dVerse Poets Pub. Their current prompt is from Stuart: Missing You. Since I have the good fortune to be in a marriage of 39 years with my Honey, I erased all of the last chapter in The Last Gift of Time except the above as a hymn of praise to long relationships. And on the theme of missing, it expresses why I miss my Honey when he's away.

Sack Races

Remember the day we
raced in bags, tripped
constantly as we
tried to hold hands?
The bags stamped patterns
on our skin when we hit ground.
Do children still jump in sacks,
hold hands against the solitary
stance they somehow know?
Do they still search patterns on their
skin as if maps to the future?


This is posted in response to the prompt by Laurie on 'Burlap' and Patterns over at Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads and is 55 words for the g-man for Friday Flash 55.
The photo is from Your Dictionary Images.

Sing I Must in Thanks

Sing I Must in Thanks


As I have all I want and more, sing
I 'thanks' with full heart and strong voice
to all who fill my heart, and then, sing
again, blare voice, and join thy voice
as we share and sing, record all sound
of thanks to trumpet 'round the world, rejoice
that we share, rejoice, make joyful sound,
bare hearts as one, bare souls as we rejoice.

20 November 2012



This is posted for Open Link Monday at Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads but is a form described in their previous Sunday mini-challenge. It's an eight line innovation by William Butler Yeats with specific prescriptions regarding repetition of end words and repeats of those words within lines of the poem. If you click on this link and go to "older post" you can read all about it and read some great examples.

It is also linked to dVerse Poets since this is Open Link Night hosted by the ever generous Brian Miller. Check it out and you'll meet some very talented poets.

It took me a while to finish but I hoped to have it as a poem for Thanksgiving. So here it is with my gratitude to my friends in the blogospere. Thanks for your inspiration, your conversation and for sharing your voices, yourselves with me. It's an important thing we do. My life, indeed the world, is richer for it.

Colors on Charred Walls

Sunset colors caught on charred walls
counter destruction caused by fire
which licked roof until gone, took all contents
to ash, obliterated collections that marked
history hard fought, savage in its greed,
even consumed tree leaves, this
consumate devourer. Family stood and
stared, imagined causes, calculated
incalculable losses. Then came the colors
reflected in water soaked walls, rainbow colors
marked the promise of covenant but cruel in its contrast
to now; vivid, mesmerizing, surreal catch of color.


This is in response to a prompt from prolific commenter, Brian Miller, over at dVerse Poets who wrote about Poetics: Through the Artist's Lens. The artist is SueAnn of SueAnn's Journey and it's her art above. Check out her other provocative pieces.nAlso posed for Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads on Open Link Monday. Join in.

Magic

Gargoyles watch throughout
the town, sneer, leer, stare
down as she hurries about.
She collects all she needs
for potions sought by desperate
friends: herbs, bark of tree, seeds,
grasses from dark spaces, essence of flowers,
things found on forest floor to sound of crow.
She assembles attentive to moon's phase,
boils while humming old phrases
passed from grandmother's grand-
mother, ancient knowledge held in spare
words said with right intention. Add the care
of friend for friend when fashioned
and the faith in efficacy.
Some call it witchcraft
but it's simply magic.

This is in response to Fireblossom Friday over at Real Garden with Real Toads who asks us if we believe in magic. Check out some of the eerie answers.

Fashion

"Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening. "Coco Chanel


I thought I would teach 
fashion to my granddaughter, age 5.
We went shopping at her request. 'Look
grandmother, I like those colors
together, and they're sparkly.'  

'You like sparkly?' I asked. 
'Sparkly is fun because
it makes me feel happy. 
And, when colors are all together, 
they look like flowers.'

I decided I'm the one to learn and she's my fashion teacher. 


This is posted in response to Ella's prompt over at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads regarding Coco Chanel's quote above on fashion. It reminded me of an incident that happened last year with my granddaughter. And for Open Link Night at dVerse Poets Pub hosted by Natasha Head who generously admonishes us to encourage one another's poetry.
(the photo is the desk where my granddaughter, now six, designs her fashion creations)

Tundra

The very name chosen for me speaks
to my strength, tundra. Sounds
strong, like lichen, Don't
tell of my fragility,
they'll banish me you know.
Each step on my surface means

habitat lost, mosses crushed. When so
little lives, each is essential, precious. Not
in some darling sense but bedrock
real, life based now on what others
do unto me, outside
my control, while winds howl.


This is based on a prompt form Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads on Transforming Fridays Take Two- Tundra with the challenge to speak in the voice of the flora or fauna of the tundra, or as the tundra herself. (Photo from Hannes Grobe at Wikimedia Commons.)

Family

Family and how
it shapes me,
its power -
that's mine.
But then
I brave up and
dive into life
and me, find
new power -
mine.


Mama Zen, over at Imaginary garden with real toads, challenged us to name our power image in 25 words or less.