Karri, I love this because it made me laugh with recognition! The precision of that image at the end (blanching the green beans and bursting into tears) is marvelous.
Karri, this poems feels so real and so true. There is an old saying “some days you eat the bear, and some days the bear eats you!” Now we have “some days you blanch the green beans, and some days the green beans write a poem!”
This made me laugh! Also, it must be a genetic condition because a few days ago, I left a squashed beetle on the floor long enough that ants came and carried his carcass away.
"A long coma sounds like a really nice thing!" Oh my goodness, Lisa! That is funny. I think we've all been there.
It never ceases to amaze me how many spiderwebs I walk through at eye level. I have seriously considered, more than once, that it might be wise for me to hike with chemistry goggles on because it is awfully hard to get webs out of your lashes! Thanks for sharing! XO
I was thining of how I have enjoyed colorful things since I was very ltitle, and how colorful clothing just makes me feel better. And this came from such pondering:
The clothes shout from the closets and drawers
“Wear me!”
Colors galore, rainbow wear
gender burning bubbles of delight
“Wear your love like heaven”
and wear your joy with pride,
Pushing boundaries, expanding normative prisons
that the walls may come cascading down.
Convinced I could run faster, sing more sweetly, dance rhythmically
shine more brightly and melt the universe
In a multicolored floral shirt, orange pants and purple socks.
As the years layered on like paint on walls,
the joy tempered by awareness that not every human
has the latitude to safely move beyond the borders,
and the bursts of insecurity and fear thrown like spears
that piece tender and gentle hearts.
Bury me in shifting shades of jazz inflected hues,
fluid and free and facing sweet release,
so that the sorting hats of heaven
make sure I go where rainbows sparkle in the night.
This is vivid and colorful and a delight to read! “Gender burning bubbles of delight” - yes please! And I’m so intrigued by the notion of “jazz inflected hues.”
Every poem you write sings with compassion, Larry! (Should I credit the purple socks?)
Rainbow revolution! I love imagining you in your multicolored floral, orange, purple exuberance, Larry. May we all marble and sparkle and live our colors out loud. 🌈
So true that one day is joyful and the next, doing the same thing, can seem like it will never end and nothing feels quite right. And then it passes again. I always enjoy reading your poems.
Very enjoyable. It's the connectivity for me, waking feeling disjointed, disconnected versus flowing awake with the light, a soft breeze, some morning bird chorus. It has always been one of my key goals to feel at one with the natural world around me and when that's off kilter, it's just a train wreck all day long. and it feels lonely too. thanks, that month long coma made me smile.
Connectivity is a great word to describe it - that blend of openness and presence that makes connection possible. And without which everything kinda sucks!
(Whitman, not Disney)! 😂 I love that. And because of it, Disney imagery and scenes were weaving themselves together with the remaining lines in my mind. Alice’s tumble down the rabbit hole, large and growing Alice, containing multitudinous characters within her own dreaming mind, legions of playing cards waging war . . . you get the idea. I love this poem, Keith!
Lisa, your poem made me smile and laugh, then ponder and wonder. Then I read your prompt! “Where does this creative wonder get these inspirations” I ask! I expect from many places, including your walk and webs and own wonder! I am so glad Bacon made this first cut, and that you give us encouragement to free fly and to ponder your substantive questions. One day, I’d love to read a poem of the lines left behind in your refining. And, your prompt has me wondering, why do I feel like the spiders and webs are dill on me long after they were swept away? 😄
The following is a true story, lol. I didn't go too deep here.
...
Some days
I can do all of the things
All of the work things
All of the home things
All of the out and about things.
And some days
I blanch the green beans
And then burst into tears.
Karri, I love this because it made me laugh with recognition! The precision of that image at the end (blanching the green beans and bursting into tears) is marvelous.
SO relatable (and funny)...love it.
Karri, this poems feels so real and so true. There is an old saying “some days you eat the bear, and some days the bear eats you!” Now we have “some days you blanch the green beans, and some days the green beans write a poem!”
I love playing trombone.
I hate playing trombone.
Haha, I feel like I could swap out “playing the trombone” with so many things in my life and have it be true!
Everybody's got a trombone or two.
I decided to write about arthropods, too! Let's call this "fly on the wall."
.
Last week’s fly carcass
mounted to living room wall:
world’s tiniest trophy, macabre threat
to all others who would buzz my face,
and kind of funny for a day or two,
at which point it became slovenly,
but still I did not go to the kitchen
for a damp paper towel,
.
even as the black spot winked at me,
pointing out my fly problem
and other deficiencies,
even as it organized a strike
among the dog hair
and dust and extant insects,
the thrust of which was
collective refusal to go away,
.
and by this point I knew I was
not so much slovenly as squalid,
and felt just awful, and sat within inches
of my late foe in the evenings
and could see its splayed legs,
and couldn’t even relax properly,
.
until today, when I inexplicably
felt like cleaning up.
This made me laugh! Also, it must be a genetic condition because a few days ago, I left a squashed beetle on the floor long enough that ants came and carried his carcass away.
The eucalyptus dark skeletons
of blackened bark
No longer watered in this hot landscape
Brought from distant continent
To beautify and shade a home
That no longer exists
In this stream of time
They stand tall among
the many desert mesquites
which effervesce with multiple
green leaves of cyclic growth
on limbs pregnant with pods
from the womb of life’s creation
nourished by fierce monsoon rains
The artistic limbs of eucalyptus death
Provide a viewscape perch
For a red tailed hawk
With one talon on the tree
And the other a razor grip
On young black tailed prairie dog
The prairie dog hangs limp
With a couple of twitches
As the hawk stares at me
Communicating that death
Has no consideration for age
Interesting poem. Thanks for sharing.
Well. Please excuse my language, but holy sh**. What a poem.
Haha, everyone gets unlimited profanity permission slips here! Thank you, Margaret.
"A long coma sounds like a really nice thing!" Oh my goodness, Lisa! That is funny. I think we've all been there.
It never ceases to amaze me how many spiderwebs I walk through at eye level. I have seriously considered, more than once, that it might be wise for me to hike with chemistry goggles on because it is awfully hard to get webs out of your lashes! Thanks for sharing! XO
I think few things would delight me more than encountering a fellow woods walker, garbed in chemistry glasses! 😂
I'll make sure to share a picture, then, should this ever come to pass 😘 XO
I was thining of how I have enjoyed colorful things since I was very ltitle, and how colorful clothing just makes me feel better. And this came from such pondering:
The clothes shout from the closets and drawers
“Wear me!”
Colors galore, rainbow wear
gender burning bubbles of delight
“Wear your love like heaven”
and wear your joy with pride,
Pushing boundaries, expanding normative prisons
that the walls may come cascading down.
Convinced I could run faster, sing more sweetly, dance rhythmically
shine more brightly and melt the universe
In a multicolored floral shirt, orange pants and purple socks.
As the years layered on like paint on walls,
the joy tempered by awareness that not every human
has the latitude to safely move beyond the borders,
and the bursts of insecurity and fear thrown like spears
that piece tender and gentle hearts.
Bury me in shifting shades of jazz inflected hues,
fluid and free and facing sweet release,
so that the sorting hats of heaven
make sure I go where rainbows sparkle in the night.
This is vivid and colorful and a delight to read! “Gender burning bubbles of delight” - yes please! And I’m so intrigued by the notion of “jazz inflected hues.”
Every poem you write sings with compassion, Larry! (Should I credit the purple socks?)
Thank you Lisa! Purple socks and orange 🍊 pants!
Rainbow revolution! I love imagining you in your multicolored floral, orange, purple exuberance, Larry. May we all marble and sparkle and live our colors out loud. 🌈
Thank you Keith! So beautifully said!
So true that one day is joyful and the next, doing the same thing, can seem like it will never end and nothing feels quite right. And then it passes again. I always enjoy reading your poems.
“And then it passes again!” Yes, it does! Even though sometimes I almost convince myself it won’t.
I know exactly what you mean.
"I practice not minding,
then practice not minding that I mind"
Fantastic
Thanks, Matthew!
Very enjoyable. It's the connectivity for me, waking feeling disjointed, disconnected versus flowing awake with the light, a soft breeze, some morning bird chorus. It has always been one of my key goals to feel at one with the natural world around me and when that's off kilter, it's just a train wreck all day long. and it feels lonely too. thanks, that month long coma made me smile.
Connectivity is a great word to describe it - that blend of openness and presence that makes connection possible. And without which everything kinda sucks!
this is so great!
Thank you, Alix!
What is the Message to me by nature
I walk in reality
Recognizing reality releases me
From the burning wax droplets
Falling from the bright lit candles
Of my idealistic fantasies
Scorching micro comments
That stir and agitate
The stormy winds of my discontent
I’m stilled seeing and hearing
The brightly colored wings
Of the butterflies of hope
like the man in Plato’s cave
My reality can be shadows
Two dimensional, devoid of color
Do I understand consciousness
What is life in this universe
consciousness where each believes
in the reality within themselves.
Filled with childlike awe of nature
I rest in my imagination
which ameliorates the turbulence
of everyday life.
That ignites the hope
My ignorance is a big tree stump
Where life-giving branches and leaves
Have been shorn away
Yet the very deep roots
refuse to die.
But on another nearby tree
still alive and growing
a hawk sits and stares at me
whose right eye is the sun
and left eye is the moon.
Is it Horus the father or the son
If the son then maybe Zeus
What does he have to tell me
That I have the thunder and the lightening
And though relationships appear fleeting
like the Mandela existing for a moment
yet looking into the vast night sky
My perception is framed
By stars, planets, and the moon
Which I only know by light
I do not know light
Neither I nor anyone else
Understands the essence of light
So, I can choose to be the stump
or to keep reaching for the sky
I love the notion of imagination as a resting place. That feels true for me, too, especially when I’m in nature! Thank you for sharing your poem, Jim!
One’s imagination can be a very safe place as long as judgement is barred from entry.
Love this poem. And don't we all just have Charlotte, Wilbur and everything in between inside?
***
The thing is,
I don’t have
good days
or bad.
No, it’s more like
Uncle Walt wrote,
(Whitman, not Disney)
perhaps now his most famous quote:
“Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself
(I am large, I contain multitudes)”
And so do I. There are legions inside,
each with the most valid of reasons
for feeling as it does. An ordinary day
contains not hours, but seasons.
The landscape never dulls and
rarely stills and so riotous scenery spills
like water through my mill wheel,
kaleidoscopic.
(Whitman, not Disney)! 😂 I love that. And because of it, Disney imagery and scenes were weaving themselves together with the remaining lines in my mind. Alice’s tumble down the rabbit hole, large and growing Alice, containing multitudinous characters within her own dreaming mind, legions of playing cards waging war . . . you get the idea. I love this poem, Keith!
Lisa, your poem made me smile and laugh, then ponder and wonder. Then I read your prompt! “Where does this creative wonder get these inspirations” I ask! I expect from many places, including your walk and webs and own wonder! I am so glad Bacon made this first cut, and that you give us encouragement to free fly and to ponder your substantive questions. One day, I’d love to read a poem of the lines left behind in your refining. And, your prompt has me wondering, why do I feel like the spiders and webs are dill on me long after they were swept away? 😄
Thank you, Larry! I’ve thought before that it would be fun to try to write a new poem built out of cut lines from old poems. If I do,
I’ll be sure to share it with you!