Tag Archives: poetry

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Undulating ungulates

I wrote a poem titled alphabeasts quite a while ago.

The letters u, v, w, x are here:

Undulating ungulates
veer vivaciously 
wondering why whales
xerox xylophones

It turns out that whales and orcas and dolphins are ungulates, along with hoofed mammals. That is a surprise to me. Amazing what I learn regarding the Ragtag Daily Prompt.

Today the prompt is ungulate.

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Imprecation

imprecation

damnation

what a nation

what a notion

needs some lotion

or a potion

to awake

not be baked

by booze or sun

just no fun

we’re on the run

after the clock

time in hock

where are our socks?

get up woke

or you’ll get a poke

job loss no joke

worry re banks

sink or sank?

money there give thanks

worry heaps

til back asleep

falling deep

imprecation

what a nation

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For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: imprecation.

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I was looking for a song with imprecation. I did not find one, but there is an infernal Texas horde (aka a band) named Imprecation. The band’s new album, Damnatio Ad Bestias will be the first since 2013’s Satanae Tenebris. Here:

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=yYOPr4SSSEo&list=OLAK5uy_mRyE2ZBb8s_LYFam77uMP76ayELbYtVd8
I did listen to a little. Maybe Elwha or Sol Duc is into infernal Texas death metal. Now, is Sol Duc begging me to keep it on or turn it off in the photograph?
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Intransitivity

Intransitive verb

Intransitive? But you know
sometimes it will snow snow
sometimes it will snow sleet
while I’m awake or when I sleep
it may be snowing sleet or snow
but really I’m not sure I know
if it can also sleet snow

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Intransitive

He’s intransitive, just so annoying
Intensitive bastard, good old boying!
Sentensitively prosing about bird wings!
Insentivizingly verbing almost all things!
So intransitive, just boycloying
Intensitive batshard, boyhowannoying!

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For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: intransitive.

There is a red headed woodpecker in this picture, though it is not a very good shot. No, it’s not a red headed, they are east of the Rockies. A red breasted sapsucker? https://wildyards.com/woodpeckers-in-washington/

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Junction

Sometimes paths meet and we walk together for a while.

Still we are separate. Promises made, friends forever

and yet the path diverges, one person leaves. We

can’t see that in the future. I am wary of always and

never, I try not to use them. I will not promise friends

forever: addiction could drive me away or lies or betrayal.

I might still love. I might return to be present for death

but still, I will not say forever.

Because that is a lie.

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I took the photograph yesterday blind. We were on Marrowstone and could not see what was out in the water. It changed shape though. I took this zoomed all the way out and then still couldn’t see what was there until I downloaded the photographs. We thought it was a stick. Or a turtle. Then we wondered if there are turtles in the Salish Sea. I googled Salish Sea turtle and get this: https://www.epa.gov/salish-sea/marine-species-risk. That’s a bit sad. Read on down, though, because it lists seven things we can do to help.

No Salish Sea turtles though.

What about the Olympic Peninsula? Here: https://www.nps.gov/olym/learn/nature/amphibians-and-reptiles.htm. Not an ideal climate for reptiles, it says. Well, no, I agree. No turtles listed, but there are some other reptiles.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: junction.

And still, people are being found under the rubble alive, though far more dead. Prayers and praise for the searchers and the victims and families. A song for them:

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Don’t come back

I wish you weren’t coming back. Ever.
I don’t want to see you here again.
I drive down to the beach thinking never.
If your car was there, I would park you in.
That makes me laugh out loud at how absurd
my stupid heart is longing all the time.
Hurt and vengeful, all those words
for a heart in tears. You won’t change your mind.
My pessimistic side growls I don’t care.
And thinks up gruesome ends for you.
It’s sad that you’ll be torn up by a bear
or eaten by Sasquatch in a stew.
Just think, at last you’ve managed to be free
From one thing always. It happens to be me.

Sonnet 13

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: pessimist.

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Old men never die, they just spout poetry

I wrote this in 2009. I don’t know why this gentleman comes to mind today. Partly because I have a friend in the hospital. She is in her 80s. When the doctors ask how she is, she says, “Fine.” I want to yell “Liar! She is NOT fine!” Luckily she has her daughter-in-law and me and her sons saying “She is NOT fine!” Sometimes people are very stoic and will not tell you that they are not fine.

When I was in residency we rotated through the Veterans Hospital in Portland, Oregon. Most of our patients were either very elderly or they were alcoholics or addicts in their 50s, starting to really go downhill medically.

One elderly patient is particular vivid in my memory. He was in his 80s and black. He was weak and had various problems. I was not doing a very good job of sorting him out.

He wouldn’t answer questions. Or rather, he would give a reply, but it was not yes or no and I couldn’t figure out how the answer related to the question.

On the third day he gave a long reply to a question and I recognized it.

“That’s Longfellow,” I said. He nearly smiled. “We did a bike trip around Nova Scotia and read Evangeline aloud in the tents at night. The mosquitos tried to eat us alive. That’s Longfellow, isn’t it?”

He wouldn’t answer but the twinkle in his eye indicated yes.

So our visits were cryptic but fun. I would try to guess the author. He knew acres of poetry, all stored in his brain, no effort. I tried to relate the poems to my questions to see if he was answering indirectly. I wondered if he had schizophrenia and these were answers, but I didn’t think so. I thought he was just stubborn and refusing to answer.

I challenged him. “Ok, you are the right age. Come up with a song with my first name that is from early in the century. My father used to sing it to me when I was little. Can you?”

The next day he sang to me: “K-k-k-katy, beautiful Katy, you’re the only beautiful girl that I adore. When the m-moon shines, over the cow shed, I’ll be waiting by the k-k-k-kitchen door.”

We sat and grinned at each other. Soon afterward I moved on to the next rotation. I don’t remember his medical problems. But I remember him and remember wondering what he had done in his life to have a memory and a store of poetry in his head. A teacher? A professor? A man who loved poetry? I started matching him with my own store of poems, the Walrus and the Carpenter, songs, bits and pieces. I felt blessed and approved of when his eyes twinkled at me, when I recognized an author or even recognized the poem itself. I looked forward to seeing him daily on rounds. And he seemed to look forward to my visits. I was sad when I had to say goodbye and the next rotation was out of town. And since he had never told us his name, no way to stay in touch. Farewell, poetry man, fare thee well.

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We were not doing nothing. He would not tell us his name, so we were awaiting an opinion from neurology. Waiting.

The photograph is not as old as the song. The young man holding the ball is my father, in the 1950s. My Aunt and I think this was at Williston in around 1956.

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Disorientation

Oooo, I put orientation up as the Ragtag Daily Prompt today. Then I wondered if disorientation is a word and it is! A mouthful!

This is a series of poems or meditations or arguments I had with myself last week. I was thinking about love and how to handle people that I love that have stopped behaving in a loving way or have actually been cruel or cut me off. Do I stop loving them and hate them? Do I love them anyhow? What would that love open me to? Abuse? It is disorienting to think about. Here is the series.

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The Fall

I am small. The adults love me and give me away. I grieve each time. It doesn’t matter if I behave well or not: they leave me. I decide that the adults are confused. They do not know how to love. Why don’t they know? I want to understand! Babies should be loved! We are innocent!

All babies should be loved and protected. I do, with my sister. The adults continue their mysterious crazy doings. I recognize that alcohol does not help, nor other choices.

All babies should be loved and protected. All adults were babies once. Sometimes they were not loved and protected and they are damaged. I train and then I doctor them. Healing is slow.

All babies should be loved and protected. All adults were babies once. All adults hold a baby that should be loved and protected: themselves. I try for a long time.

All babies should be loved and protected. All adults were babies once. Each adult makes their own choices, to heal or not. To grow or not. To love themselves and the Beloved or not.

All babies should be loved and protected. All adults make choices. The Beloved loves them all.

I am not the Beloved. Nor an angel. I dream of falling.

I am not the Beloved. I let go. I fall.

I do not love them all.

Rise

Yesterday I fell. I let myself dislike four people that I loved.

But no, I choose not. Angels fall and rise again. I choose love. If that means distance, then I choose distance. For now I will love the cruel ones from a distance. No contact.

The Buddhas laugh at the needy ones, the angry ones, the ones who press. Some will be enlightened, some wait for the next life. The Buddhas laugh because they do not control it. It may be the quiet one who says nothing who rises, while one who wants and wants and wants may have to want for longer. Why, Beloved? Isn’t wanting you enough? Isn’t longing enough? How much must one want? How deeply must one long?

I choose love.

Prayer to Kwan Yin

Kwan Yin, I am sorry. I cannot be a Bodhisattva. I am tired. I grieve. I want to love everyone. They hate it. If I love the small child within they are reminded of the hidden hurts and they lash out. I am tired. I don’t want to be the target of that. Kwan Yin, how to do you return and return again, loving these? I am not strong enough. I give up. I throw myself on your mercy, I bow to your infinite love and strength, I abase myself. Forgive me, I am not strong enough. I give up. I do not have enough love in my heart and I am so tired.

Beloved, I am sorry. I tried.

Every Being (Sonnet 9)

Keep the cruel ones at a distance far.
Hold your enemies close in love’s embrace.
None to hate, yet cruelty glints like stars.
I hide quiet with cats in this home space.
My heart opens like the universe.
Projections batter me from head to toe.
Why tear at me with their deep hurts?
They project their pain: inside they know.
They know, don’t know, choose not to learn.
Dark rooms and texts and staring at the screen.
My skin scalded, heart black with new burns.
I think they’d like me too to turn out mean.
I will hide here with Beloved’s dove.
Each tear I cry sends every being love.

In spite of want

Sol set in my heart and rises again. I can love whoever I want. There are no boundaries to love. But I will not be abused or used, I will love quietly and silently and without letting my love know. And I will love who I want. No, I will love in spite of want, though I do not want to, though it is not deserved. But I honor my stubborn heart that does not let go of love.

Blessings, Beloved.

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Negotiating peace

I spend a long day wrestling with love
arguing with myself back and forth
I am no angel descended from above
Those undeserving of my love make me wroth
yet my core argues that it still loves them
and agrees their cruelty’s beyond the pale
I snarl and cough and choke on bitter phlegm
Defend my self staying far away and hale
My core agrees I shall not tolerate abuse
Forgive yet we despair we’ll ever reconcile
They show no guilt nor shame for their misuse
My core says let them be: she is so mild
Negotiation done: Agreed. I may love those who I love
But I leave contact with them to the angels and Beloved.

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Sonnet 10

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Walk with rabbits

Some days I can’t chuckle
when the news rolls in
my heart could buckle
shootings again

US gun habits
What’s up doc? Dagnabbit.

Shootings on the year of the rabbit
dancers dead as they celebrate
Why are guns such a habit?
I refuse to fill my heart with hate

Gun sales stab it
Year of the rabbit

Forgive but do not reconcile
let my resolve not buckle
mental health takes a while
let no demented chuckle

Fearful gun habits
online snared like rabbits

They argue they must defend their homes
daughter teacher on the line
fearful males online alone
think that guns will make them fine

Fear is a habit
Stop being rabbits

Leave your basement
Help another
Walk the pavement
Earth as mother

Make it a habit
To walk out with rabbits

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For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: chuckle.

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Petty lie

What old deep wound causes you
to hurt me and other friends you’ve had
in past. What terrors hidden in that brew
make you glory in making others sad?
You boast to me of throwing people out
of your life forever, never friend
again. You don’t explain what crimes reroute
your heart to where you never speak again
to him or me. How many people discarded
from your heart and at what interval?
How many “friendships” have you departed?
And yet you boast that others call you spiritual.
“Friends forever,” you said. I wonder why
you tell yourself and me that petty lie.

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Sonnet 8