Category Archives: poetry

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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

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Wings and fog ferry

Wings

I try out
for a solo
singing

my director
is pleased
I am growing

she says
I am beautiful

she says
I look like a different person

she knows
a little of what I have weathered

 
my patient
is 86

and her husband died
in December

she misses him so

as she comes into the room
one day

she says
you look as if you have wings
and are ready to take off

and I freeze
for a moment

in surprise

that she can see
my wings.

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Tree boat

A friend wrote a tune to my poem Tree boat.

 

Build me a boat to float in a tree
A boat of dreams and play there with me
Float in the sky in the leaves so green
Our hands together shaping a dream

Build me a boat to heal our wounds
Scarred hearts and muscles play out of tune
The world is fearsome, hold me soon
From the tree we watch the rising moon

Build me a boat to carry us far
A moon sextant to chart where we are
To Betelgeuse or another star
We are home wherever we are

Build me a boat to float in a tree
Or a lake or a stream or an ocean all three
I dream of a boat with joins so tight
Holding us safe to sleep all night

Build me a boat smooth and slow
The plans alone could take years you know
Smooth each plank with a hand plane slow
And tell me you love me soft and low

Written November 2015. I took the photograph one evening after chorus when the clouds looked like a Maxfield Parish painting….like a dream.

 

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Loved

It’s ok

I just want you to know

even if I never see you again
even if I never touch your hand
even if I never hug you again
even if you don’t answer
even if you don’t let me in
even if you are deaf to anything I say
even if you forget the moment you stop reading
even

I just want you to know

you are loved you are loved you are loved

always

even if

for my lost ones, living and dead 9/15/16

The photograph is from 2004, in the Hoh Rain Forest.

I am submitting this to the Friday Night Music Prompt #62 : Never too late for love & Keep me in your heart