Category Archives: poetry

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Winter bless us

Winter bless us year end dark and freezing
winter turn us inwards prayer for joy
prayer for joy for young ones all are seizing
others mourn loved deaths, eschewing toys
darkness let us settle loving all
silence let us turn our thoughts to peace
walk in wind and birds, iced trees so tall
few are out to gently walk the streets
the frozen ground holds lives that lie in wait
in freezing seeds hear the call and know
let every human drop their arms and hate
while seeds lie in wait to grow
let winter’s silence fill our hearts with joy
let peace descend, war melt to children’s toys

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A poem for Christine Goodenough after reading her Winter Delights.

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Yammer

You’ve joined my silent dead: doesn’t matter
whether you speak or not. You’d like this song
and be jealous of the skills. I yammer
to my dead, the number rising strong.
At sixty I declare that I am middle aged
Mom dies at sixty-one which feels unfair.
My sister dies at forty-nine, cancer rage.
I watched them both as chemo takes their hair.
You too are dead no words across the breach.
I yammer to you daily in my head.
Agates gleam, treasure on the beach.
You refuse to look, I mourn that you act dead.
You sit stubborn in a rocking chair alone.
You don’t believe your dead will call you home.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: yammer.

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Lit

That moment after the tree is taken down
not from greed but because the trunk has split
dangerous operation; all survive
Even the tree. A split 20 foot trunk may survive.
We won’t know until spring.
You are hunting in the sections that are down.
“Yes!” you say and hold them up.
“Invaders. They’re not native.
I shoot them when they steal the birdseed.
They crawl into the trunk to die.”
You hold a shriveled carcass up with each leather glove.
They too look like leather or shrunken heads.
Your smile lit up
at this evidence of your successful aim:
killing squirrels.

I think this is my first ekphrastic poem. Inspiring photograph, right? So that makes me laugh, it’s so gruesome. I was looking for a photograph for the Flower of the Day and came across this. Taken in January 2022.

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Blessed

You needn’t worry that I will importune you.
Words explode and swirl upon the page.
It’s more likely that I’ll say blankly “Who?”
Since I enlarge upon a fascinating stage.
Approaching two years since I was taken sick,
on oxygen I wrote a poem of farewell.
Career ending injury: nature can be such a dick.
Breathing is important. Absent it is hell.
I am still healing. I hope that I can ski.
I am lucky that my fatigue is relatively mild.
My oxygen can go 9000 feet up where I’ll see
muscle dysfunction truly makes me wild.
Friends and family gather close and gather far
I feel blessed beneath a lucky star.

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Sonnet #2 for the Ragtag Daily Prompt: sonnet.

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The tweeter is twerked

Ok, I never signed up to twitter. Bunch of twits.

But I did write another verse for the song SAVED. It might not be the one that comes up on the You tube search. I learn it as a teen from side B of Moondog Matinee by The Band.

I sang it to my father. He said, “Where did you learn THAT?” I didn’t know and did an internet search. I forgot what album I leaned it from. It was his album, that I recorded on tape before I went to college.

Here is my new verse:

I used to Tweet, I used to Twerk, I used to Tweet, Twerk, I was such a Jerk

I used to tweet and twerk, tweet and twerk and I was such a jerk

But now I’m standing on the corner, it was too much work

That’s cause I’m saved, that’s cause I’m saved

People let me tell you about Kingdom Come

I’m saved, I’m saved, I’m going to preach until you’re deaf and dumb

I’m in the Salvation Army, beating on the big bass drum!

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Who else sang it? Laverne Baker! She is the earliest I’ve found. Recorded in 1960, though the videos are later.

And here too, along with her hit “Jim Dandy”.

The authors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saved_(Leiber_and_Stoller_song) .

Anyone else? Oh, yes, and I haven’t even listened to them all. But one is Elvis Presley. A gospel album:

And here is the dance video:

So, chief twit, tweeting gets a verse. I do not mind if it dies other than the verse. Shake your money maker, twitter!

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low dudgeon

I think of how you treat me with low dudgeon.
Rarely and when fatigued I think of you.
You hide away, a hermit like curmudgeon
pusillanimous liar, unfaithful and untrue.
We share a childhood full of trauma
I work hard to heal from all the strife
but you choose to elevate the drama
and excise protestations from your life.
I ask Beloved what I am assigned to do.
You don’t believe in angels nor in me.
The mystery of angels leads me here to you;
like a bear you hide up in the trees.
I find the change the loved Beloved grants.
You refusing change, I ban you from my pants.

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For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: dudgeon.

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My mom loved me

I struggled after my mother died of ovarian cancer in 2000. She was 61 and our love was complicated. Two years after she died I hit an emotional wall and had to go find help. My marriage was showing cracks too. I have written about Adverse Childhood Experiences, but there can be love too, even in a difficult household. I wrote this poem during that time.

My mom loved me

It’s herself she didn’t love
She didn’t love her anger
She didn’t love her fear
She didn’t love her sorrow
She didn’t love her shadows

She packed all her troubles in her saddlebags
and rode forth singing

When I was angry
she felt her anger
When I was scared
she felt her fear
When I was sad
she felt her sorrow
When I felt my shadows
she felt hers
I hid my shadows

I hid my shadows for many years
and then my saddlebags were full
They called me

I dove in the sea
I rescued my anger
I rescued my fear
I rescued my sorrows
I rescued my shadows

At first I couldn’t love them
My mom didn’t; how could I?

But I loved my mom
I loved all of her
Her anger
Her fear
Her sorrow
Her shadows
Her singing and courage

I thought if I could love her shadows
I could love my own

It was hard
It took months
I looked in the mirror at my own face
And slowly I was able to have
Compassion for myself

I am sad that my mom is not
where I can touch her warmth
and tell her I love all of her

I tell her anyway

I’m finding many things as I surface from my dive
Sometimes I feel the presence of angels
I was looking for something else
I found a valentine
that she made me
No date
Many hearts cut out and glued
to red paper

I am so surprised

My mom loves me
shadows and all
now and forever.

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My mother used to quote “Pack all your troubles in your saddlebags and ride forth singing.” Does anyone know where this if from? I have not found the source. It could be her mother or her mother’s parents.

The photograph is my father, the year my sister died of cancer, 2012. He died in 2013.

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stone

stone shaped heart
refuse to love me
refuse to let me in

I don’t try to change you
I am here to change me
not you

not to bury or change or rewrite my past
but to unearth past feelings
to examine them without prejudice or fear

to hold them with love and care
so that they don’t inform the present
so that my feelings are now and not mixed with past

I listen to what you say
I am here with you to learn
what are you saying to me?

you say you are always truthful
but you break laws
you smoke some stuff, legal now

you say you do not speed
sometimes you do not speed
sometimes you do

you say you never watch series
when I suggest a series
now you tell me you are watching a series

you say you never try to hurt me
mostly you never try to hurt me
except when you do

you say you never lie
you seem to believe what you say
I don’t

I try to pay attention to what I say
I try not to say never
I try not to lie to myself

I watch you and wonder
what lies do I tell over and over
to myself and others?

_______________________

Written 6/22/22

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crack

even stone can crack
under great pressure
under great heat
under great force
under water

water?

yes, water
water wearing the surface
water rolling the rocks against each other
water wearing the cliffs and the trees fall down

even stone can crack
under great pressure
under great heat
under great force
under water

___________________

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: crack.