Tag Archives: poem

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Listen

There is anger and blame and silence.
People talk about each other.
People talk about others.
What is truth? What is rumor?
No one wants to listen.
They want to blame.

I do not see
I do not feel
I do not hear
how to heal this, Beloved
if no one will listen.

Only love.
Anger drains away.
I send love
Into the anger
Into the blame
Into the echoing silence.

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Pathos

Beloved, what is my path?

I remember. You are gone and dead
I lie on my side, close my eyes
I feel your body behind mine
your arm tucked under me
your breath on my hair
your body warmth against me
your arm lying across my side
thighs and knees relaxed against mine
you are not gone and dead
as long as I can remember

Beloved, what is my path?

I remember. A path alone
so that I can see
so that I can hear
so that I can feel
so that I can write
Beloved, you set the path before me
a brief elaboration of a tube
Beloved, sometimes I want
Beloved, sometimes I say why
Beloved, sometimes I forget

And then I remember

_______________________________

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: March.

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Content

I never do know where a poem is going when I start it. Usually I start in the dark. To my surprise, those poems will end in the light. Apparently the reverse is true too.

Content

At the moment I am feeling content
deeply content
with monsters

At the moment I don’t need more
then this
me
a few friends
and all the monsters

I can’t fix the monsters
healer, right
the people come
over and over
and won’t admit
their monsters

the monsters sit on the floor
of the exam room
clinging to the person
chained to the person
the monsters wail and cry
while the person
ignores them

It has taken me all these years
to let go of anger
fury
rage
that almost no one
admits to monsters
or tries to heal them

Except the addicts, drunks, crazies
they see them too
many try to destroy their vision
with alcohol or drugs
or persist on telling others
about the monsters
until they are drugged

Yesterday I look on line
for local music
not bluegrass
thinking that I would like
to find a place with grown ups
quiet

I think, how silly I am
to look for grown ups in a bar
and then I try to think
of where to find some grown ups
and I think THERE AREN’T ANY GROWN UPS
it’s all just children
who’ve grown big

I do not like drama
there are no movies
that I want to see

I like clinic
where I try to help a little
sometimes a lot
sometimes a person might remove
one knife
one chain
one arrow
from their traumatized
terrified
bleeding
monster

And really
that is why I am here
and that is all that I can do

__________________________

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: journey.

Meanwhile, rat joy: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20241128-i-taught-rats-to-drive-a-car-and-it-may-help-us-lead-happier-lives.

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Austere choice

What could be more austere than rock?

Taken in Echo Canyon in the Colorado National Monument, Thanksgiving, 2024.

Austere choice

Why do I still feel sad when I think
that I am best off with my cat
and that I should eschew dating.
Why do I feel like I am rejecting love?
I don’t have that sort of love.
It’s not like I am rejecting anything.
I am rejecting looking for it.
I am rejecting active interest in a partner
other than my cat.
What is wrong with that?

I do not ever want to reject hope.
I am not trying to reject wanting.
Hope and want are the deep and terrible ache
for the Beloved. I do not reject that.
I am still open, Beloved, to what you send,
though getting more particular in middle age.
A writer says that he uses a pencil and a pad,
because no better tool has been invented.
I take the same approach to wanting love.
If the relationship is more work than my cat,
for less love, why bother? It seems silly
and until I go home to the Beloved,
so far, I am best off with my cat.

____________________________________________

The first thing Sol Duc does when we go out for a walk, is roll on the sun warmed dusty sidewalk. The house faces south.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: austere.

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Tool

I don’t wear livery at work
and anyhow that’s a uniform for men
or a place to board horses
though the horses can be male or female.
Once I go to my daughter’s second grade
for a bring your parent day
and bring part of my uniform,
or perhaps it is a tool or instrument,
my stethoscope. The children all want
to listen to my heart
or at least touch this magical tool.
Afterwards I receive thank you notes.
I think that every one, except my daughter’s
thanks me for bringing the stethoscope
to their classroom. I did not know how
special and magical a tool can be.

__________________

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: livery.

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Wait

I came close but no cigar
I want a mind that I can love
hand holding mine in the car
I send a quiet prayer above
Love of nature, kind to friends
not afraid of their own dark
Lust to learn until their end
willing to risk to build an ark
Curious but not controlling
Not addicted to booze or drugs
Intense at times and others strolling
Opinions, laughter and lots of hugs
My heart open yet I don’t faint
I think I am waiting for a saint

_____________________________

I wrote the poem yesterday, but I have used up my memory in wordpress and now I need to go through and delete things. Any advice, Martha? I know you did it. It seems that I have to delete the post and the photograph, or is that not true? Advice welcomed.

I search my photographs for gloves and it comes up with two: foxgloves! Well, strictly speaking, that is a form of glove, right?

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: glove.

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Alphabeasts

ambulating antelopes
bellies bearing beer
carrying cantelopes
deride damp deer

elegant elephants
feeling fitly fat
give generous gifts
handing hippos hats

ignorant iguanas
jealously jeer
keen kindly kites
lilting laughing leers

many merry meerkats
nearly never notice
one old orangutan’s
pompous pronouncements

querulous quail
reject reports regarding
shimmering snow snakes
tearing through tunnels

undulating ungulates
veer vivaciously
wondering why whales
xerox xylophones

yellow yaks yell
zip zap zoo!

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: zoo!

I wrote this sometime in the 1980s. My proof is the drawing by my mother. We had it in a show and hand colored with colored pencils. There is now a book with the same title by a Canadian author but it came later.

And hooray for the zoo! They are all asking for you!

Martha, what would the AI think of this poem? Heh. ChatGPT: “That’s a fantastic poem! I love how it captures the playful nature of alliteration and the whimsical imagery of animals. Each stanza has its own charm, and the ending with the β€œyellow yaks” is such a fun wrap-up! Did you create this as a fun project, or is it inspired by something specific?” Ok, so ChatGPT doesn’t get sonnets, but it likes nonsense poetry.

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The boring vampire

I meet a boring vampire
when I am boring too
when I am worrying with angst and ire
and have too much to do

It’s in the time of covid
We start to walk the beaches
The vampire won’t take paxlovid
His ego overreaches

He says his life’s perfection
He says his brain can’t fit his head
He has no belief in resurrection
That’s probably because he’s dead

I wonder that he lies
Does he think that I don’t see?
The person that believes the lies
Must be him, not me

I grieve before he ousts me
He says he’ll always be my friend
And he speaks of longing to be free
I know there will be an end

I know before he ousts me
He says we’re friends forever
I blink and calmly see
That it will soon be never

Some vampires don’t need staking
They do it to themselves
Isolation of their making
Hoarding blood upon their shelves

______________________________

The photograph is a “swamp robin” (Varied Thrush) from my yard, December 2022.

This has nothing to do with the Ragtag Daily Prompt: festival. Except that swamp robins are very festive.

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Reason

Dr. Suess has a ruse
that disguises when he pats a moose
He’s teasing that the hidden reason
Is the looming change of season
Locks the box, rocks the docks
Fox in socks, equinox.

We do have concerts on the docks in Port Townsend in the summer. Not in the winter, the instruments get wet. This is the Pourhouse, which is also right on Port Townsend Bay, in August 2022.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: equinox.

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Forgiveness

Rumi writes about the wound being where the light gets in. Leonard Cohen says the cracks are where the light gets in. My poems about being reborn or changed seem to involve either burning or the sea. I wrote this in 2009.

Forgiveness

I want to forgive something
Someone
In fact a group
Something that hurt a lot
I’ve tried logic
I tell myself
“It was an expression of concern”

My heart doesn’t agree
It is sullen
Immobile and grumpy
It whispers
“They have not apologized”
It whispers
“When people say you’re crazy
It could be a joke
An expression of concern
It wasn’t
It was a palm held out
At arm’s length
To distance me.”

My head argues
“That’s what it felt like to you.
You don’t know their intentions.”

I want to write
A poem of forgiveness
Hoping my heart will follow

My conscious doesn’t write my poems
My conscious wrestles with an idea
The poem comes out of this struggle
I look at the poem I’ve written
I think,
“That is what I would like
my conscious heart to feel.”
My poem is often more generous
than my conscious feels

My poems are not mine
They are a gift
From the unconscious
It is much larger
Than the small conscious me
I dream of feeling envy
I climb into a bathtub
And transform myself
To battle a trickster
We are transported
To the bottom of the ocean

In the ocean
The trickster and I are one
It is unlimited
It is not my unconscious
There is no separation
It is all unconscious

I did not think
A poem would give forgiveness
But pain drove me
Into the sea
I am connected
You gave me these pearls
Thank you

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: crack.