Friday (not original) Poem

Like I said, im noguris.

So today I share a poem that I relate to because I can't.  I just can't be creative.  There is dinner to make, vacuuming and laundry, planning activities, showers to encourage, and an endless sea of clothes to put away and counters to wipe.

Recall the Carousel

BY LAURA KASISCHKE

Recall the carousel. Its round and round.

Its pink lights blinking off and on.

The children’s faces painted garish colors against

an institutional wall. And the genetics. The

We won’t be here too long  ...    Do not step off  ...

The carousel? Do you recall? As if

we were our own young parents suffering again

after so many hundreds of hours of bliss.

And even the startling fact that

what had always been feared might come to pass:

A familiar sweater in a garbage can.

A surgeon bent over our baby, wearing a mask.

But surely you recall

how happily and for how long

we watched our pretty hostages go round.

They waved at us too many times to count.

Their dancing foals. Their lacquered mares. Even

a blue-eyed hunting hound

was still allowed back then.

Friday Original Poem

Latvians

Next week

Next week they come

With bone-thin arms that wrap

Around our necks

Warm smiles and wicked grins

We cannot wait

Friday Original Poem

One more cinquain...

Ghosts

Old house
Clanking fingers
Outside the trees wave hands
Of brittle leaves, bark fingernails
Empty

Friday Original Poem: Somonka

In keeping with National Poetry Month, here's a fun poetic form to try...


A somonka is a ten line Japanese poetic form where one poet creates the first stanza and another poet completes the poem by writing a second stanza.

Both stanzas follow the "tanka" form by writing five lines with designated syllable lengths in each. The pattern is 5/7/5/7/7.

Here is my first stanza:

Cautious spiders roam
The silver tinted living-room
Sly fingers gossip
Sip smoky teas and secrets
Dry-eyed sea dragons set ablaze


Please respond by completing the poem!

Friday Original Poem

Almost

Here is something new

Cold, grey pools of water pulling away from the curbs

Zig-zagged black edges of melting snow

A clear path to my car for the first time in light years

Of endless winter

Bird songs poking fingers through the clouds

A whisper of hot breeze that would chill any summer moment

But today, I turn my face to the sky and inhale this reprieve

Friday Original Poem

Chicago in late February,
The town still dimmed with snow
Unrelenting weight of black-tinged ice
And endless potholes missing bottoms

Sidewalks twisted into new slick paths
Blueish knuckles roughened and swollen
In the crust-dry radiator heat
And grey runnels of earth somewhere underneath it all

Above, a wisp of blue shines through blades of cloud
And Rina demands, "What is that?"
Scattered reflections and remembrances
Of a city still bandaged by winter

Friday Original Poem

Year of Green Jello

In that year of green Jello

And frosted hair

Of hairspray and the polyester-brown, miniature apron you wore to work

Thick with the scent of eggy grease.

You woke us up.

Warm, thin bodies curled against each other at the end of your bed.

Petite sisters, awed in the stifling night air of your bedroom argument.

I remember the tannish, yellow of your sheets,

The tiny dotted daisies,

and lack of headboard.

“Choose,” you said to us.

Our small heads bent like end-of-spring flowers.

Ashamed of your question.

Our answers.

I wonder why he agreed to this.

He must have known.

Oh, that was why.

He wanted it.

Of course we chose you. 

Our pointed knees crawled across those sheets,

Snuggled into your lap.
Whispered nothing aloud.

Gave you your victory.

Then you sent us back to bed.

Friday Original Poem

A nature lesson

By Regina Gort

 

Follow two raccoons, their furry bodies scrambling

down the impossible side of a sandstone cliff

into the slide of rock where

they disappear into a burrow.

Undisturbed by the barrel waves crash

as the North wind blows

over the birches in a howl

as the colored leaves fall.

Notice, really take notice of

the lichen beds that flower in red hues

heads popped open deep and bright.

Acknowledge a hemlock

full of Flicker’s fodder.

Enter the conversation

flowing in the Garlic River silt

past white pines.

Allow yourself to take

the little Blue Heron feather,

clutch it to your chest knowing

you are one. 

Friday Original Poem

Teenage Dream

Belly flop on the bed
Peering through a swoop of peanut-butter colored hair
Neon-orange crackers nearby
In a bowl dotted with roses
Fingers dusty with crumbs
Radiant
Like red candy in an open hand

By Juliet Bond

Friday Poem

"What goes through your head
when you stare at a blank space?
Nothing to write about, you may say.
Nothing to write for.
If you think, you can write.
If you live, you can write.
If you think nothing, write nothing.
If you do live, then spell with your heart."

-Paul Slattery, from Salting the Ocean: 100 Poems by Young Poets

Heart Spell

It's a reset day 

when a north east wind

brings in barrel waves, 

crash, roar.

When after a walk 

down a dirt path

leads to a peer 

into an abandoned home

where we see our future, 

our dreams and allow

ourselves a chance 

to hope.

 -Regina Gort