Category Archives: poetry

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yielding

Y for yielding in Blogging from A to Z.

Again, the definition changes, from Webster 1913 to the present.

Webster 1913: yielding

Inclined to give way, or comply; flexible; compliant; accommodating; as, a yielding temper.

Yielding and paying Law, the initial words of that clause in leases in which the rent to be paid by the lessee is mentioned and reserved. Burrill.

Syn. — Obsequious; attentive. — Yielding, Obsequious, Attentive. In many cases a man may be attentive or yielding in a high degree without any sacrifice of his dignity; but he who is obsequious seeks to gain favor by excessive and mean compliances for some selfish end.

— Yield”ing*ly, adv. — Yield”ing*ness, n.

Dictionary.com is different:

adjective

1. inclined to give in; submissive; compliant:
a timid, yielding man.

2. tending to give way, especially under pressure; flexible; supple; pliable:
a yielding mattress.

3. (of a crop, soil, etc.) producing a yield; productive.

Crop yields are important! But is compliance or giving in, a feeling of yielding, something I am comfortable with? What about yielding to love or to grief or to joy?

Today’s poem:

yield

I am yielding to my family
to no more contact

though I think they see me
as stubborn angry argumentative

they do not love me as I am
they want a different person

who acceeds and yields to their ideals
I am the villain who won’t yield

and yet I yield
I send them love

I send them joy and peace
one said if you make me choose

I won’t choose you
pressure, sorrow, grief

acceptance: I will miss them
I do not know if they

miss me

 

I took the photograph at the Women’s March in Port Townsend. When should we yield? When should we fight? When should we reach out for mutual understanding?

 

 

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regarding rain, ocean and asphalt

the road is wet in the morning
northwest normal and I stop
loading the car because the rainbow
of gasoline is spread slick on the asphalt

I think this is gasoline not oil
from the size and color of the slick
I take a picture with my phone
the rainbow against the grey blue in the low light is beautiful

Is this from one car at the stop sign
or is it leaking from the street itself
as it appears and if so, what does that mean?
I comfort myself that it is not from my cars

What is happening to our environment?
where is this from? This is no doubt human
activity creating this slick. If I dropped a match
on my street would it burn in the rain?

I still want to lie on the street in the rain
sometimes tear my clothes and weep oceans howl
for love for loss for grief. If I did it here
I might be more flammable: ignition achieved

 

I already posted this photograph a week ago…. but then, a poem was published on everything2.com with this title. The title and the photograph kept rattling around in my head until I wrote a poem as well. There are four poems now with that title here: regarding rain, ocean and asphalt.

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Center

The east and the west are yours, the north and the south are yours.

The center is mine.

I stand in the center, I sit in the center, I sleep in the center.

I move and it moves with me.

There are no doors to close.

I am here and the Beloved is here and the universe is all around me.

I walk in beauty and ugliness, joy and grief, riches and poverty.
I walk on concrete and in trees, indoors and out, up stairs and down.
I walk on land and in seas, below ground and above, in darkness and light.

Now I walk in beauty: beauty before me, beauty behind me, above me and below me.

The center holds: blessing to the Beloved.

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Pandora’s Box

I read this: Was Pandora framed? today and thought, I know I have a Pandora poem….and here it is, from 2011. And another write up, Why the number line freaks me out, that too. When I think of infinity and Pandora’s Box…. it’s worrisome…

Pandora’s Box

Oh, you’d think
It would be empty by now

But I open the box again
I say what I want

And hear “No.”

I sit in want
Old wants
Buried wants
Pressure rising

I know by now
What is happening
I let it rise in me
I do not fight it
I clean the bathroom
Scrub tile and grout
Wants claw inside me
Burst like striking oil
A geyser from within
Black sticky want
Screaming up through the air
Falling everywhere
Filthy, flooding

It will take a while to clean up
this dark matter,
pollutant to poison
or fuel to sustain?

 

I took the photograph yesterday on North Beach. It looks like a popped child’s toy, pink. But it’s not…. it is all over the beach. A seaweed? Something hatching? Nature is a Pandora’s Box as well…. infinitely creative….

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fortune

For the Daily Prompt: fortune, an old poem. This is the version I learned, but there are others… I think that I learned this from a nursery rhyme book, that had been my mother’s. A cautionary tale, perhaps….

“Where are you going, my pretty maid?”

“I’m going a-milking, sir,” she said

“May I go with you, my pretty maid?”

“No one will stop you, sir,” she said

“What is your fortune, my pretty maid?”

“My face is my fortune, sir,” she said

“Then I can’t marry you, my pretty maid.”

“Nobody asked you, sir,” she said.

Other versions:


https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Where_are_you_Going_My_Pretty_Maid_(A_Baby%27s_Opera)
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Book_of_Nursery_Songs_and_Rhymes/Nursery_Songs/LIII._WHERE_ARE_YOU_GOING_MY_PRETTY_MAID%3F
http://www.bartleby.com/360/2/138.html

I took the photograph a few days ago at sunset. We are almost at the solstice. Blessings all.

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alphabody

arms around
breasts beckon
curious cunt
deviant dong

erogenous ear
fleeting fungk
great gams
hind hunting hugs

in inner inside
jumping jack
keen kind kisses
langerous lick

mmmm man men
numinous nuzzling
open orafice
pounce pound

query queer quickie
raunchy raking
strong slipsliding
tupped trumpeting

undulating underneath
vivid vinelike vending
watch wearing white
xenophobic

yes yes yes yes
zoo zoooooom

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that

Whenever I think

that
is what I don’t want to be

the Beloved laughs
and orders me
to be that

as if I’ve called it
that

the angels surround me
curious

it’s my passion
anger
fear
that calls them

motes from heaven
fall on me
from their wings

and I weep

and step forward
and fall
fall
fall

becoming
that

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out of minutes

I just read your email

my phone was out of minutes

the internet was down

I was really busy working

I didn’t hear the phone

I forgot I turned it down

 

and you are out of minutes

 

The photograph is from 2007. The dunes collapse, sometimes whole sections with trees. It’s not a safe space to play.
I am choosing this for the Daily Prompt: flames.

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small child

my small child was locked under rock for years

she came out shy reluctant distrustful

you are special, the first adult in whom
she recognized another small child
locked in and called you
out to play

and we played hard

now she stomps her foot at me
“He does not play fair! He won’t come to my house!
He makes all the rules! He doesn’t listen!”

yes, bear, I know

time to go home, small child
you have had your first playmate
since you were locked away
but he is still locked in a dungeon
of monsters and zombies
you unlocked him for a little while
just a tiny bit

but he has decided not to play
he is locked down

come, small child

she is in my arms, head on my shoulder
sucking her thumb, crying
until she is too tired
and falls asleep

she will always love you, you know

anything, to have someone to play with
she let you make all the rules
for a long time

but now she wants
someone who will play fair
and share the rules
and love her back

 

12/2015