Tag Archives: Verse

The Brick Throwers

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The Prompt: Reviving Bricks—You just inherited a dilapidated, crumbling-down grand mansion in the countryside. Assuming money is no issue, what do you do with it?

The Brick Throwers

They were five in a chain from truck to rooftop,
each throwing the piles of adobe bricks
in stacks of four, from hand to hand
up from the bottom of the truckload
now nearly emptied.
Two of them waved me on
when I tried to park near,
my trunk full of heavy wall sculptures
to deliver to a gallery just half a block away.

And when I tried to park farther along the block,
again and again, they waved me away
until I was a block away and safe, I guess,
from straying bricks or errant cars that swerved
too far to the right to avoid the bricks or truck that held them.
They were a cheerful lot, and when I passed,
walking towards the gallery
carrying one sculpture after another,
they waved, and on my final trip back to the car,
again, the man second in the chain
who stood balanced on the highest level of the brick pyramid
that remained within the truckbed,
seemed to intuit my purpose, waving from me to them
as I drew my camera from my purse.
They all posed for minutes, miming their labor
as I tried to get them to actually throw, as before,
those piles of bricks, hoping to catch them
flying through the air between two pairs of hands.

Finally understanding, they threw and threw,
asking me for a prompt to help me catch that flight
I feared I’d never catch.

(more)

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Minutes later, I turned to leave
and they, cheering and smiling in their fame,
turned back to that labor which is an art in Mexico:
giving bricks wings before mortaring them
into a permanency that holds them rigid for lifetimes
until they crumble back into that soil that was their nativity.

This poem should be a metaphor for something
and probably is.
Some future day, when I am moldering in my grave
like some lesser Ozymandius,
some graduate student or scholar of mediocre
Twenty-First-Century poetry might publish a treatise
revealing it.
And they will dig this website from the rubble
of the Internet and find
I wrote it as a daily prompt
and if such records still exist,
find how I hired those men to build a monument
from that crumbling manse of brick
that was my prompt on the Daily Post
and tell how they spent their lifetimes restoring it
and how their children and their children’s children
have benefited from catcalls
and instructions to move on down the line
and the clicking of a camera lens
and from one who follows blindly
where each prompt leads her.

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BLOG HOP

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I am so honored that I was asked to participate in this blog hop by Linda Crosfield, a poet whose work I admire greatly. Please see her blog to learn more about her and to read her wonderful poetry at Purple Mountain Poetry.

I met Linda in March in a writing group in La Manzanilla, Mexico—a beach community that most of us in the group visit for a month or two each year. It was a wonderful experience to meet so many excellent writers and I learned from every one. Hopefully, I’ll reconnect with some of them when I go back to the beach for a 2 month stint November-January of this year.

I would also like to introduce two excellent writers who are new acquaintances I’ve met through their blogs. Although their work presents opposite ends of the writing spectrum, they are similar in that neither takes the easy way out. I laud each of them because they both take such care in presenting original ideas and imagery. Please read their blogs to see what I mean.

Laura MacDonald has always dabbled in writing of many sorts. She is a very occasional contributor to the Bard Brawl blog (reviewing film adaptations of Shakespeare plays) and writes sketch comedy and wordy rants at Notes on a Napkin: What were they thinking? (though, much like herself, it was largely inactive throughout her pregnancy). She is currently channeling the ecstasy and delirium of motherhood into her poetry at Purple Toothed Grin and is pretty much making sleeplessness her bitch(/muse).

Robert Okaji lives in Texas with his wife and two dogs. He holds a degree in history but serves as a business officer in higher education and has at various times worked in a library, owned a bookstore and even sold cheese for a living. Much to his surprise and delight, three of his poems were featured in Boston Review’s National Poetry Month Celebration this past April. His work has also appeared in such publications as Clade Song, Prime Number Magazine, Middle Grey, Otoliths, Vayavya, Extract(s) and Lightning’d Press, among others. You may read his work at O at the Edges.

These are the questions I was asked to answer and that I hope Robert and Laura will each be answering on their own blogs.

What am I working on?

For the past two months, I’ve been posting a poem a day on my blog, following the prompts given by NaPoWriMo and WordPress Daily Post. I remember when I did NaPoWriMo last year that it seemed impossible that I’d make it through the month without quitting, but I loved it and missed it when it was over; so this year I decided to just keep going. I like having an excuse to make writing a priority each day and then wonder why I need an excuse. Sometimes I think I should be working on more serious work, but I love doing the blog and love writing the silly poems the most. Life is too short to do what you “think” you should do rather than what you want to do—especially at this stage of life.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

Well, not many people have a daily blog that is 99 percent poetry, with most of it rhymed and metered. There is just something about having to write to a pattern that takes me to a different part of my brain. I never really know what the next line is going to be until I write it and I am continually surprised that it actually (for the most part) works out and comes to a conclusion. I never plan in advance. That takes away all the fun. Guess that is why I’ve never written (completed) a novel, although I’ve started a dozen or so.

Why do I write what I do?

I mainly write about things that I am still sorting out in my head. I discovered a long time ago that I don’t think unless I am writing or talking. A student once told me that my tongue sometimes got ahead of my brain and I realized that was true, and that wasn’t a bad thing (unless it was used for evil!) I try to slow down and think first when I’m mad, but just give my writing and my tongue free rein otherwise. It calls for understanding friends. (And kind of silly ones.) Why not just say what you think when you write? It’s safe because at this point, only you can see it lying there (actually, telling the truth there) on the page. You can always tone it down in the edit.

How does my writing practice work?

I love the computer, because it is the only way I can write fast enough to keep up with my thoughts. I write on the computer, always. (Well, almost always. At the beach, I carry a small notebook and pen in my pocket. I once tried a little digital recorder, but it doesn’t work for me. I don’t talk from the same part of the brain I write from.) I remember my first Brother electric typewriter that had a one-line memory. It was paradise, but really slowed me down as it was necessary to edit as I went. I love the freedom of the freight train mode of just writing as fast as possible without consciously thinking of what I am writing. The subconscious is a very interesting place to write from. It’s where we teach ourselves.

Find me online at grieflessons.wordpress.com or on Amazon here and here. (for some reason they can’t seem to get all my books in one location on Amazon.)

Ocean Rental

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Ocean Rental

Her towel is spread out on the beach, the cat is on the stoop.
The housewife sips her coffee while her husband sips his soup.
There are advantages to houses built upon the sand.
You do not have to leave your porch to get expertly tanned.
You dine on tuna every day that never has been canned.
When fishermen jerk in their fish and they happen to land
upon your porch, you eat them either cooked or sushi-raw.
The fisherman cannot complain, you see it is the law.
And that is how you know what hubby shoves into his face
is probably not vichyssoise, but rather bouillabaisse

The Prompt: An Odd Trio—Today, you can write about whatever you what — but your post must include, in whatever role you see fit, a cat, a bowl of soup, and a beach towel.

Obscured Fourth

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Obscured Fourth

In Mexico, it is the rainy season
and so the rain falls down.
The dogs refuse to leave their beds.
They curl instead, and I do, too,
listening to the steady drip of rain from tejas
and Pasiano’s more massive splashes
as he scoops water from the tub
which never empties,
constantly replenished
by the rains.

Now hot water streams
from pipes into the hot tub.
Mineral water heated by volcanic fire
steams as it meets cool water falling
from above and the cool air that carries it.

It is still morning, but even tonight I’ll find
no fireworks in Mexico on the Fourth of July,
for independence was not granted evenly around this world.
And I who love the fertile darkness of night,
but also love surprises
that the fireworks bring,
must patiently wait for independence to find
this new country I found 13 years ago.

No rains ever mar her independence
on September 16.
The rainy season over,
all necks will crane in the churchyard crush
to see the wild castillo
and its corona spinning, spinning
to lift off into the air above—
independence held back until finally
it cannot help but rise
to freedom.

Note: September 16 is Grito de Dolores (Mexico’s Independence Day)

The Prompt: It’s Your Party—Since many are marking their country’s “birthday” in the US today, we wanted to ask: How do you celebrate yours? Are you all for a big bash, or more of a low-key birthday boy/girl?

If Only I Could Play Guitar

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Today’s (Jan. 8, 2015) WordPress Daily Prompt is: I Got Skills – If you could choose to be a master (or mistress) of any skill in the world, which skill would you pick? Oh, to play the guitar! But I already wrote to that subject last July. Here is that post.

If Only I Could Play Guitar

At times when now I only hum,
I’d pull out my guitar and strum;
and by the time that I’d be done,
completing my last pluck and run,
perhaps whoever sees and hears
would be reduced to sobs and tears
by every perfect tone and note,
the sentiments that I emote,
and tender lyrics that they knew
because of course I wrote them, too.

But I would be so humble still,
(my hubris would be less than nil)
that when they laud me at the Grammys,
I’ll be home curled up in my jammies—
still unaffected by my fame,
astonished at my new acclaim!

And when Bob Dylan asks me if
I’d like to come and share a riff,
of course I will not turn him down.
In spite of all my new renown,
I’ll take the time to show him some
new ways I’ve found to pick and strum.

Mick Jagger would hang out with me
(and Leo Kottke, probably.)
We’d get together to talk and jam.
The whole world would know who I am!
My fame would spread to presidents
and queens and Knob Hill residents.
I’d be so busy that I fear
my writing would fall in arrears.
I might forget to feed my dog,
forsake my friends, neglect my blog.

So all things taken to account,
as negatives begin to mount,
and though I know that I’d go far
should I decide to play guitar,
I’ve penned a note unto myself,
“Put that guitar back on the shelf!!!”

The Prompt (from July 3, 2014): Strike a Chord—Do you play an instrument? Is there a musical instrument whose sound you find particularly pleasing? Tell us a story about your experience or relationship with an instrument of your choice.

Lick for Lick

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Lick for Lick

Ice cream is my weakness—my favorite sort of sweet.
A flavor that I don’t adore is one I’ve yet to meet.

Mandarin orange or licorice, tequila or dill pickle?
I am not true to any of them, for I fear I’m fickle.

When choosing ice cream flavors, it’s impossible to pick.
I simply am incapable of choosing which to lick.

And so I’d like a flavor that has a bit of each:
chocolate and vanilla and a little touch of peach,

strawberry and mango and lime and toffee crunch—
why choose just one flavor when you can have a bunch?

Throw some tangerine in and some pineapple sorbet.
Licorice and banana? Who am I to say nay?

This flavor would be popular with those who cannot choose
whether they prefer the flavor of pickles, fruit or booze.

Though some of you may scoff at it and laugh in your derision,
the name of my new flavor? I call it “Indecision.”

The Prompt: Flavor # 32—A local ice cream parlor invites you to create a new wacky flavor. It needs to channel the very essence of your personality. What’s in it?

June 24th

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June 24th

The rain falls
fresh as cucumbers
on cobblestones and tiles,
the dust of summer
washed from crevasses
and curves of stone and clay.

The air is cleansed
of the scent of primavera,
jacaranda
and flamboyant trees
and the whole world
breathes easily again.

Clouds dried up
by sunlight,
the silent birds
are flushed
from their covering leaves
and open in chorus

to the booming crack
of cohetes, splitting the air
in celebration
of Saint John the Baptist
who has baptized all
this day.

The Prompt: Seasonal Scents—S’mores, salty ocean breezes, veggie burgers on the grill, sweaty people on the bus — what’s the smell you associate the most with summer?

 

 

Stepparents Day

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Stepparents Day

She’s the lady who married your father.
He’s the fellow who married your mom.
Not really your actual parent,
like a date that’s set-up for the prom.
In other words, you didn’t choose them;
and also, they didn’t choose you.
But you now have each other as family.
There’s really not much you can do.

Sometimes you wind up as real buddies,
becoming a sort of strange friend.
Other times you feel resentful,
like you wish that their marriage would end;
and your dad would go back to your real mom,
or your mom would go back with your dad.
Then you realize that’s not really happening,
but only a dream that you had.

Then you notice your mom is now smiling
and your dad seems happier, too.
So you think you’ll just go with the flow now
and you give in and finally do.
You now have two happier families—
two places that welcome you in—
and decide that liking stepparents
is really not much of a sin.

Then you wonder why there is no day for
stepparents and grandparents, too,
and decide that this brand-new tradition
might just as well start now with you.
You declare July 1 to be chosen
as National Stepparents Day.
So even though it’s not official,
and the powers that be might say, “Nay,”

you throw on some burgers or hot dogs
and cook up a fresh apple pie
and buy your particular “steppie”
a nice box of candy or tie.
You tell her you know your dad’s happy
and tell her that you’re happy, too;
or tell him you’re glad your mom’s “single”
has turned into a table for two!

Let’s start up a national movement
to honor our stepparents now;
and ask for our step moms and dads and our grands
to come center stage for a bow!
So children all over this nation
can welcome their stepparents in
and acknowledge they’re part of the family,
exactly like regular kin.

 The Prompt : Familial Feasts. Yesterday was Father’s Day in many countries. If you could dedicate a holiday to a more distant relative, who would it be — and why?

Delayed Happy Ending

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Delayed Happy Ending

Chick flicks of old all told about
mistakes that somehow all turned out.
There every moment led to the next.
One day, the thing that had them vexed
inevitably turned and turned.
The swollen nose, the fingers burned,
led to the clinic in the end
where “she” ran into a long-lost friend
who asked her to be wined and fed
along with “the one” she later wed.

This tale, however, is not my own.
For once, my inspiration’s flown.
This is the prompt I cannot take,
for if I’ve made a good mistake,
I find I can’t remember it.
My memory box has up and quit!
Bad ones? Yes. I’ve made them all.
The step that led me to a fall.
The boyfriend stalker, the friend who turned.
The candle lit, the finger burned.

Decisions made can’t be controlled.
Not all straw can be spun to gold.
I’ve drunk the milk and smelled the flower
with the bee inside. The milk? Turned sour.
I can’t remember a single time
when my mistakes have turned sublime,
yet I don’t believe all luck is rotten
I probably have just forgotten.
So if you know me, remind me, please,
of those times my sour milk turned to cheese.

If you do, I’ll write the theme
suggested to me, ream on ream.
(Or at least a stanza or a line.)
But remember, the story must be mine.
I need reminding, I know I do,
of the time fate dropped the other shoe
and turned mistakes into success—
made happy endings out of some mess
or corner I’d painted myself into.
Come on, dear friend, give me a clue!!!

Today’s Prompt: Favorite Mistake. Is there a mistake you’ve made that turned out to be a blessing—or otherwise changed your life for the better? Tell us all about it.

Coiled

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Coiled

She is a quiet girl with hair and clothes in disarray
to match her cluttered room.
She sleeps a lot,
her naked cat atop her chest
in the sweater she has knitted to cover
its shorn coat.

The two of them
sleep in their basement room,
kin to each other.
When the girl awakens,
she paints and draws
and recently,
twists wire into coils and coils
comforting in their regularity
within their wild irregularity.

She takes these straightest of things:
wires extruded mile on mile
then rounded over spools, layer on layer,
and winds them smaller,
then forms these regular coils
into spirals around a cold glass heart.

Fire shines from the coolness when brought to light,
like the girl, emerging, climbing up the steps
and opening the door.

Her hair wild around her
taken from the dreadlocks
that confined it for so long.
The girl emerging,
growing like a wild bromeliad
that gets its nourishment from air.
She breathes, she stretches
and the coils of her unwind
slowly slowly into her life.

Daily Prompt: Right to Brag. Tell us about something you (or a person close to you)
have done recently (or not so recently) that has made you really, unabashedly proud.