April 16-22
April 16-22
I have decided to write a little intro to some of these poems to put them in perspective and to introduce some interesting paths I have taken.
April 16 Never Give In
I wrote this with the Friday lunch break prompt Warrior Writers. The prompt was about letting go of something or giving up something and it took me down a contrary path of not letting go or giving up. C’est la vie. It’s a little bit preachy (as is the last poem of this week), but maybe it will fit someone’s bill.
“Never give in,”
Churchill says, “Never, never, never,” he said,
Allowing for convictions or good sense.
“Rage, rage, against the dying of the light,”
Dylan said, allowing for nothing.
My wife let the dog outside,
And now she is barking,
Incessantly without giving in--
The dog, that is,
And I have to take my feet off the desk, put them on the floor, walk them down the stairs, open up the door and let her in--
The dog, that is.
Some Syro-Phoenician woman told the Messiah,
“Heal my daughter.”
But Jesus said, “No, that’s for the Tribes of Israel.”
And she pinned him down in rabbinical rasslin’
Winning the final round.
Give in? Give in?
What is this giving in?
“The difficult we do at once,
The impossible will take a little longer.”
How can I possibly write about giving in?
What with all the injustice and the insanity and the work that needs to be done.
Only think about giving--not giving in.
Never, never, never!
Rage! Rage!
Bark! Bark!
Even little doggies get the crumbs. . .
The impossible will take a little longer.
Never give in.
Also April 16 Segment from Another Poem I Wrote Because I Thought the First One Was too Serious
. . . I hate it when I am not me,
Tie and sport coat, Christmas tree.
Moustache, not long nasal hairs,
Funny, nostrils come in pairs.
Why not one hole, why are there two?
Two ears--direction,
Two eyes--depth.
But dual nostrils, what the heck?
Sometimes, when I am plugged at night,
If it’s the left, I’ll lay on right,
And as I’m dreaming, counting sheeps
The mucous gravitates and seeps
Until my right’s full, left is clear.
I’ll lay on left, turn from my Dear.
And slowly toss and turn all night
As boogers tumble left to right
As long as consistency is thin
They flow from left to right again.
But if I had a cyclops nose,
There’s no way I could clear my hose,
Thank God for giving me a pair
Of nostrils so I can breathe air.
April 17 Mid-Spring
Mid-spring, post early damp and blackened birth;
Dank scents, manure, turned up earth.
The worm moon was too soon.
The turtle’s lying low.
But now most every day
Turtle lovers swim and coast
And sun on logs like slow brown toast.
Lawn mower motors awkward blare
Off in a distant yard somewhere
A block or so away.
Mr. Frog mowed his lawn today.
Clowner too, in his ninth decade,
Still pushing the lawnmower, keeping it trim.
I mowed mine today, just to be like him.
Add to the lawnmowers’ blip-blapping sounds
A motorcycle putts a different sort of beat,
Judging from the gurgle, must be a Harley.
But, oh, there’s the sound of ringing ears,
That always brings me back in here,
And so, my tour of spring’s dismissed,
by the ringing ring that won’t desist.
April 18 Bumble Bee
Are you the hairiest bug?
Can’t count the wooly worm black and rust.
She’ll be looking different next year, I trust.
But that buzzy bumble bee,
Black and yellow,
Fuzzy body, buzzy fellow.
Her mood changes quite a bit--
Last night she zoomed and flit
Back and forth,
South and North,
In evening’s darkening Westward sky.
This afternoon more slowly,
A bee was on patrol; she
Slowly grazed the stubble
Of the grass I mowed.
Then, floating on an updraft
Above the deck, starboard and aft,
She lumbered up a shady stucco wall.
I didn’t want her to land on me,
But otherwise, the bumblebee
Is a fine companion, afterall.
April 19 Noojimo (Ojibway for healing)
Even sitting in my attic study
I know the healing that comes
From a walk in the woods,
A stroll in the park,
A dig in the garden,
A breath of fresh air.
It is healing--noojimo--
The blessed sun and clouds,
The dirt underfoot,
Trees, silent witnesses of time,
Purple-flowered Creeping Charlie
Saintly Bloodwort;
Nature’s offbeat rhythms--
Bird calls, tree creek,
Water babbel, winds blow,
Grass cells stretch green cellulose.
Deer hair cuttings carpet the trail.
A common American Robin
Alone on an inviting bluffside drainage,
Bumble and other bees,
Coyote poop, an old lean-to--
That which confounded is forgotten;
That hurt is healed;
That sorrow rejoices,
And writing it down brings me back.
Noo-ji-mo’.
April 19 Uh-oh! Someone Scratched the Cat. (Bonus poem!!!)
Her purrs are not whispers,
But the gentle roll of thunder
And Harleys in the distance.
She approaches on hobnail paws.
She climbs under my leg and with insistence purrs
And looks with eyes frightening green.
So I must scratch the cat.
My thin fingernails press atop
Her thick rusty head.
She presses and purrs,
And all of her furs,
Come out on my fingertips:
Clumps of hair,
As loose strands like spaceships
Float through the air.
She purrs and purrs,
Louder than a cricket,
Louder than a guiro,
She thinks I am her ticket to happiness,
her hero of scratching, and concurs
With no one in particular.
The beat. That part of her ear that makes her right foot beat
As though she were the one doing the scratching.
But now there are eggs of fur hatching,
Balls and mounds of calico hide,
In layers and drifts as I scratch her side.
I’m sitting cross-legged, cat fur up to my knees
And there’s some in the air,
And I let go a sneeze
That scares the cat off as she clumps down the stairs,
And leaves me alone, in a pile of hairs.
April 20 Great Bluff Cliffs
Great bluff cliffs,
Limestone,
Made of shellbone.
I’ve never seen a coral reef,
Colonial remnants,
animal ramparts,
But these towering bluffs will do,
Surrounded by green in their yellow cream hue.
Sentimental, sedimentary shells--
Turned to stone, a statue of themselves.
Someday creatures,
We know not what they’ll be
Will roam among our detritus,
Of what is left that we
Had built up. It’s only a deposit
Or the hollow of a cave,
And they won’t know what cause
It served, or honors gave,
Or wars protected,
Or families cradled.
Just great cliff bluffs of our detritus,
Great cliff bluffs: all that’s left of us.
April 21 Sijo
A Sijo is a Korean poem that works something like a Haiku, but is generally longer. It is usually three lines long, although each line usually has two parts. It is fairly common to split these lines up graphically. The first line sets up the situation, the second line develops, and the third one wraps it all up--something like a sort of haiku. There is not a strict meter, but he poems usually work in 14-16 syllables with even numbered syllable phrasing (i.e. 2-4-4-6).
My faith, grows stronger in spirit,
Weaker in rules, dressed in black.
Formal declarations of earthly lords
With mitered heads--
The violet brocade unravels.
The emperor’s got no clothes.
April 22 Dán Díreach?
Having written a Sijo, I thought about writing a few more, but then I thought I should try my hand at a Ghazal, an ancient Arabic form of poetry. I looked it up, I might write one later. However, as I was reading, I thought about writing something from my own heritage. This is when I discovered the Dán Díreach. It has multiple little tricks in it--I used a couple. Interestingly enough, the form has a few levels of pedigree. A Bruílingeacht is similar to a Dán Díreach, but not as strict. An Óglachas means “apprentice work.” That is probably what this is. They were originally written by monks, so perhaps whatever ancient apprentice monk brought out a little preachiness in me.
With strong resolve, resolve to be resolved,
But by morn, resolution is dissolved,
And back to habits, wearing grey sack cloth;
Despair the loss of hope, the gain of loss.
I’d hoped to see the sunshine of my life
Reflect a golden glow upon my wife,
But sunshine’s covered by the towering weeds
That kept the sun from warming earth and seeds.
Perhaps by next year, die and rot the weed.
With nutrients new life hath got the seed.
The flower grows its bloom because it's fed
And gently reflects groom on her he wed.
So make a resolution day by day,
Though the solution may be years away.
No weedy problem is there you can’t solve.
Roll up your sleeves, strike out, with strong resolve.