Old Poems

Here are the poems from my other blog url. I switched because this one is much less complicated and I like it better. All the previous posts are transferred from my other blog, too (hence them all being posted on the same day--no, I'm not some kind of genius that can write that many essays in a 15 minute period. Because I know that's what you were thinking.) This also serves to cover up the fact that I haven't written very many poems as of late. I've been trying to get myself out of the habit of trying to accomplish something with poetry. Ugh, what a surefire way to blow a hole in my desk and stick my sense of inspiration in the freezer. I'm still trying to balance my desire to produce something beautiful and the freedom to be less than perfect. I'm still learning how to let go of being 'good' but still doing the best that I can. Ah, the beautiful freedom of only doing the best that I can and striving for nothing more because I'm already doing the best I can do. It's so simple, but so hard for me.

Some women have trouble looking in the mirror--I have trouble looking at my own work, a different mirror of sorts.

The other thing that's so difficult for me with poems is that I've gotten to the point where prose is so easy for me that I think there's something wrong when poetry is hard. But this is only because I haven't been working at poetry the same way as I have been working with my prose--letting it be critiqued by fellow students and caring professors. I would give my left leg to have the same opportunity to do this with poetry, but it's not in the foreseeable future. Just like running a couple miles for the first time, my poetry muscles are out of shape and I feel like I'm going to die trying to get back to the parking lot of the metro park. But with practice, exercise, and discipline, poetry can slip itself into my DNA so that it becomes easier to write poems than to abstain. I shant be discouraged. I must set myself to the task--but not to the task of accomplishing anything but poetry itself. Especially now that I'm done with school, more will come.

Why I Paint

So maybe I like the color red—
But not hot-stove red
And not stop-sign red
And not Irish-brick-layer-been-out-in-the-sun-too-long red.
No, but wilted strawberry red—
The red they get after five lonely nights
In the door of the fridge with
The last three left growing soggy
And wrinkling, the red deepening.
Even though they went to waste,
I let them taste sweet to my whimsical invisible
Paintbrush set.

Like a big glop stuck on the threads
Spreads thick on the page,
Slowly—
I’m five again—
I paint.

The rubber scent of tempera
Feeds my devious grin.
A grin exposing my cause—
My great occasion
(of red colors and childhood questions)—
In my fruit-that’s-almost-moldy inspired masterpiece.
Because that is all the inspiration I need.

Maybe it’s the same thing
As wanting to get married in the summer rain,
Or wanting to beat your sibling in anything.
Maybe it’s the same thing as wanting to paint
When you blow the white dandelion head
Because you have to—
You’re drawn to—
With childhood questions calling you.

So maybe I'll follow
My childhood questions
Calling...


Keep Planting

Upon the end of spring,
Our hands were only three-quarters big as they would be.
The tops of the trees formed rolling hills
As far as the eye can see—
Every opportunity.
And in our youth we didn’t know these hills were only made of leaves,
So we tried as though we could just step and stand
On the canopy without falling through.

The hills can only be enjoyed with distance.
The hills inspire dreams that seem better as dreams
Once we get closer,
And we are left to tend to the soil’s cold shoulder—
To till to the rumble of its groan.
We are left—having been lured by romantic hills,
Of days promising frolicking in the light of the summer sun—
To the unpleasant smell of sod among the damp of the shaded tree trunks
And stubborn rocks.

But there are no roots without soil,
Or trees without roots
Or leaves without trees or
Hills without leaves.
So here we are, blisters and all, planting dreams—
Dreams our children will dream.
We plant long after fairy tale endings have left
Because we love our kids more than ourselves and
Perhaps they will walk upon the tree leaves
As we tend to the forest floor.

But if, every so often,
We leave our work—stepping
Into the almost liquid summer sunlight in the clearing,
A moment or two without trees blocking the warmth now gently resting
On our now thicker skin—
We see that all this planting
Is living the dream.
This moment in the sunlight, this
Is what joy feels like—
And isn’t joy what we were searching for
Aiming for hills upon the now colored leaves
Crinkling?
So keep planning my dear, keep
Planting. The leaves are falling and winter’s coming
To make way for new beginnings.


Drifting Full-Speed Ahead

It's hard to slow down when
The journey's long ahead,
And I don't want to be later-than--
Though later will be best.
So I sail on drifting full-speed ahead--
Wind gusts coming as they please.
And me?--I'm waiting, or learning how to wait.
I throw some crumbs into the sea
To watch the fish to pass the time.
I wonder how long until they too are eaten,
But the wind is picking up now.

I'm sailing for the Horizon--
My yardstick of success,
My end. Yet,

The Horizon keeps moving.
It didn't while sitting at the shore,
But I'm not at the shore anymore--I'm living.
I'm consumed by the mouth of the Ocean,
By the journey past and the journey always long ahead.
There is no rush, no such thing as success,
Except to know this Ocean--
My God, how could I have missed You in all this?


November Rain

It was supposed to snow by now;
I thought it would cover the ground—
Flakes sticking to my hair
Preparing the air
For adventure like when I was younger.

Instead I am inside
Hearing intermittent gusts batter my windows with rain—
With deflated expectation.
I haven’t a clue when it will snow or
What will happen next, but if
I spend my evening looking for snow,
I’ll miss the singing droplets trickling down my pane
Trying to serenade me;
I will find what I’m looking for if only I stop gazing out my window
Waiting for snow.

Instead I’ll sink deeply in my tired arm chair—
Its squeaky complaints mingling with the sound of heavy rain—
And here I’ll sit,
Slowly sip my tea in the meantime;
And here I'll face
Away from the window and toward where I’m living now--
Listening to the rain.

So tell me, dear, what’s new?


Songbird

I'd rather be a poor little songbird
Who tweets for the sake of singing
Of filling my immediate vicinity
With songs my Father gave me--
My Father, who formed my lungs and
Stretched my vocal chords into being.
I'd rather live in an overlooked pine bush
In an unkept yard on a city street,
Perch upon the grayish packed-in snow heap
When cracker-crumbs are rare on the sidewalk
And the bread dropped by strangers sogs too quickly to eat.
The sun will come out at midday, warm my feathers
Teaching me to sing of simple things
While the woman who filled the feeder foreclosed
Leaving me on my heap
Singing--
I'd rather be.
For what good is a songbird
Who wants for nothing
Sitting pseudo-contented, stuffed, and
Silently?