Some Fun with Magnetic Poetry!

Thanks to Catherine K. for a dose of inspiration! Here goes...

The Human Heart

sometimes in need of a stunt double
a sidewalk - busy, then empty
shy like a new campfire
noisy and sweating: a playground
a backyard, partially weeded
a chalkboard (filled and erased, filled and erased)

***************

Poetry

puddles
and cliffhangers -
sometimes feels like spring,
sometimes, a heavy body.
maybe a beautiful black angel,
a glimpse of a perfumed hand,
the tree you loved best
captured by
thin, gray lines.
a survivor,
a slave, escaping from apathy
teaching people
how to notice:
how to tell a secret
and keep it breathing.

Ice Berg (for JB)

She is tough
and I am not.

I am the teacher, but
she sits in the second seat of the first row
being tough.

I want to tell her that her
edges are all wasted on me.

She doesn’t like any of the assignments.
She doesn’t believe in “structure.”
She asks for help, and then, says, “No.”

“Why?”

“I like it better my way.”

I smile a lot at her.

I think she hates that.

I would hate it, too, if I were seventeen,
trying my hardest to be angry
from the second seat of the first row –

and my teacher smiled at me
and said, “It’s okay. I’m glad you’re here.”

I will smile at her for a hundred and sixty-eight more days.

Viscosity

Complicated explanations of my car’s guts:
my father knew about these things.

10W-30,
10W-40.

Regular oil changes were a must
for ’85 Cavaliers
that leaked everything.

“They’re different thicknesses,” he said.
“Parkas and sweaters –
one for winter, the opposite for warmer months.”

His voice was prepared, comfortable with the lesson –
like he had been practicing giving his little girl
“The Viscosity Talk”
for quite some time now.

Three years ago, I bought a new car –
show-room finish, foreign engine, computerized this and that.

I miss the smell of oil on my hands.
I miss the thickness of these moments with my father.

My attempt at a one-syallable prose piece

She did not know that one cell would start a sick fight - a blood and flesh war - that would take each bright bit of her life by force. It would be wrenched right from her bones, her veins, her laugh. She could not know as she placed her dad in his fall grave that she would be there soon, too. She would join him in three years and eight months.

She knew the facts. They scared her, but she tried to find hope: a small, red bird perched on the branch of this news. Hope stayed and stayed, but blood and flesh failed. She cried for me, for her song-and-dance son, for the next round of kids she would not get to hold and spoil with toys and tales of Grand Ave. She would still love them, but not from this place.

The walls of her new room were stroked with fake cheer: pink and green hues that said, “You will be fine,” but meant, “You will die here in this sad bed that is not yours.” No more hair, or speech, or pulse. We saved her wig for the wake to cut down on the shock for those who had not seen her in years. Her tongue had dried up in her mouth. Lips cracked and bled, pulled back from gray teeth. She matched them: a gray form on bleached sheets that moaned and could not find peace.

I sat by her bed, all day and night – could not stand to leave her. We held hands all the time. I touched her face, I watched for breath, heard the ghosts of pain seep from her mouth. My skin hurt, flesh tensed by the tilt of death in this room. I slept in bits, curled next to her, thought of what she used to be: a mom with sweet curls for my hands to find and squeeze, a big lap built for more than one, blue eyes in a soft face. She smiled good. She held hands. She saw all sides of me with love. I thought of what I used to be: her small child, pride and joy, blonde girl who played hard with all the boys on the street, and came in full of dirt and grass for a drink and a kiss on the head.

I was right there next to her when she moved on. I saw her thin chest rise and fall one last time. I was there with her when she left, but I was forced by the breath in my lungs to stay and try my best. She was still so young, but her skin was cold now - just like that. I did not know this would be true so soon. I had seen things like this in films, but thought her warmth would stay in her face and hands for a long time. No - I was left to touch this smooth, chilled mask that was not my mom.

I did not have the words for this – still do not – just some wrecked tears. I spoke through them to tell her that I loved her, that I would keep her with me all the time. I prayed for her, too. I still pray for her now, though my bond with god has changed. I am not so sure where he and I stand these days. I hope he does not hate me for it. He is Love, right? He and my mom should do fine, then.

Things I Learned in School

And this is the part that no one ever wants to talk about: the part where I am the girl who stutters and I know you have been her, too. Tortured by m’s and s’s that would go on for hours, as M-M-Matthew, who skipped a grade, pinned you with fifth grade eyes and said, “What is wrong with you? Just spit it out!” And even though the teacher made him stop, your cheeks still burned and so did your chest, and your eyes did, too – later on when you let the tears come out of their hiding places. Maybe you were the fat kid or the short kid or the Native American kindergartener whose speech was just different enough to make him the target of Brian, who sat at the Mickey Mouse table and was so mean. In the jingling silence of the high school study hall, maybe you were the one the note was about: the one with the garage sale jeans and the sneakers that used to be your brother’s, the one with the funny hair or the braces or the crooked teeth. Maybe you were the one with no friends, always sitting in the back, pretending to be busy, praying that your desk was enough camouflage, that the wall behind you matched your face. It is not easy being the nerd, the jock, the misfit, the brainiac, the scholarship winner, the kid behind the gas pump, the kid behind the wheel of the new car, the gay kid, the too-tall kid, the kid who leaves the room for speech. Why can’t we see ourselves in each other? We are there all the time, waving simple white flags.

Here, a Confession

I think I will be shy forever.

I stutter when I answer the phone -
Sister Ann’s fifth grade classroom all over again.

I sweat a lot.

I believe I will catch something dangerous from the front row.

I have never given anyone the finger.
Would you believe me if I told you I have never even thought about it?

I am awful at opening presents in front of my aunt.
Suddenly, she has twelve eyes instead of two.

I feel sometimes like the social equivalent of
something
single-celled
and slow-moving.

I concentrate on my plate at dinner.

I may be a stretch of silent pavement, but my insides are the accident scene.

Shy is not a shoe size,
not a souvenir t-shirt for me.

Lime Green

It was the color of her prom dress.
She explained how she bought it
second-hand at the Salvation Army for two dollars.

It was not the color of her high heels
because her feet, her toes, wouldn't be caught dead
in those things.

She complained about the corsage
wilting on her wrist.
Flowers deserve better, she said.

Lime green - the color of her smile somehow:
wide and forgiving,
ready to try her best at being a real person
in this ridiculous world.

Dear English Teacher (with a nod to Maria A.)

I remember sitting in your classroom
wondering how you did it:
how did you become an authority on commas and colons?

How did you spend your nights?

I imagined you sitting alone behind a tray table
in your living room,
TV dinner and essays stacked neatly next to one another,
red pen falling in line next to the fork and knife.

I almost felt awful the next day when I asked
if you had graded my paper.

I apologize for my self-importance.
I wonder if you ever got to eat a meal in peace –
without the incessant hum of run-on sentences,
the frantic motion of fragments.

For Theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven

When I was fourteen,
I found myself
seated in the second row of Room 205
plaid skirt pressed,
white oxford shirt buttoned,
navy knee socks stretched to impossible heights.

This was Theology with Father,
the period after lunch.
This was why I wished each meal of my freshman year could be the Last Supper.

I never spoke his name during confession,
but I thought it
and hoped God would make the leap.
I thought it had to be a sin to dread the presence of a priest.
I wondered, though, why God had hired him in the first place.
He sweat too much,
was always paying too close attention when girls would cross their legs –
or when they wouldn’t.

His classroom was the worst variety of boys’ club:
“I’m all for the women’s movement –
as long as it’s walking in front of me to the rectory” –
and they all laughed, some of them uncomfortably,
growing red all the way to their fresh haircuts,
trying hard to be one of the guys.

Together, they casually violated commandments of decency and trust,
found communion in colorless jokes
about what men did before accepting the stiff, white collar –
about why women shouldn’t be priests:
“too many lipstick stains on the altar cloth.”
They were his disciples,
his podium the burning bush –

as we pushed ourselves into plastic seats,
skirts sweating,
arms crossed against vulnerable new chests,
eyes fastened to a textbook that wasn’t loud enough.

Bless me, Father, for I have survived you.
It’s been fifteen years since you made me regret being a girl.

Because of You, I Don't Throw Like a Girl

My brother learned card tricks
from my grandfather.
My grandfather, a leathery Maine native,
taught him cahd tricks
in the back yahd
around the picnic table.

At the end of the visit,
this slight of hand became one more way
for my brother to inflict
his magical torture.

I couldn’t figure out
how he guessed my card every time:
a two of hearts after a bike ride,
the ace of clubs before lunch,
the jack of spades during a nighttime TV commercial.

I couldn’t figure out his lay-up, his jump shot.
I always lost at checkers and chess.
He always hid where I couldn’t seem to seek.

His Monopoly magic –
motels lining each tree-lined highway –
left me bankrupt and begging for Scrabble.

But soon, I had my own magic to show him.

He would sit across from me
at the kitchen table
and watch me draw lines into a picture.

“You’ll be an artist someday. I’m sure of it.”

And the words felt like magic, too:
praise
from this boy who now shaved
and called girls after dinner
with his door shut.

About this Blog

says, "Hello there, treasured students. A few of you asked me why I don't create a blog for my work, and I didn't have a good reason. When you write, I write, too - soooo... here is a blog that features some of my own creative writing. Thank you for keeping me honest. Thank you for your daily dose of gentle inspiration."

Some Haiku

I Love Winter Because of

Shoveling at night:
a quiet conversation
between scrapes and flakes.


(and just for fun...)

Down from the Pedestal

Sometimes I worry:
what if Walt Whitman was a
big, fat jerky-pants?

(not that he was, but what if...)

:)

Horror Scope

She is ruled by the moon -
a silver handful tossed into the March sky.

From the middle of June to the middle of July,
she gathers followers:
emotional and loving,
intuitive and imaginative,
protective and sympathetic.

But their darkness,
because we all must harbor some,
makes them more like
the cancer
I know:

formidable and detached,
volatile and possessive,
devious and uncompromising.

She -
nocturnal thief and scavenger -
scours the sandy bottom of a life
for something tender:

the uncle who gives silly nicknames,
the girl with braids and one absent tooth,
the mother who forgets what she needs at the grocery store.

In the dry silence of
chemical compounds and waiting rooms,
I search for a different constellation -
maybe the one where God lives?
maybe the one where patient prayers wait their turn? -
and ask one more question to the sky.

Something About Nature

I waited too long to pull the kayak out of the lake. November water is meant for freezing, not for the fishing of hands grappling with firm knots. I remember tying that knot three months earlier thinking, "Security." In November, security means something else. August perceptions are green and warm. Today, I understand Ishmael with the gray November testing his patience. The kayak is red, orange, and yellow: a perpetual sunset bought used from a man at work who didn't have time for it anymore. I took in his orphaned solace and spent my summer growing sunburned and strong on smooth water. This memory lives far away as my hands are gnawed by wind and water, bare branches, bare afternoon. I walk home, lifeless as November, but I am still shaded by a sunset and careful not to drop this moment.