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Tag: napowrimo

Stockholm Syndrome for the Early Pandemic

April 9, 2021 • • Leave a comment

the silver bass guitar hangs on the wall 
a life preserver on a transport ship

I remember notes so low unplugged
the mic on Zoom & Google Classroom 

couldn’t pick up La Grange, Ceremony,
endless runs through scales & permutations 

our cats crossed keyboards and kids
passed waving through backgrounds

but when we show only heads & shoulders
we could be rock stars, could’ve been

dying, afloat and silent behind our screens
clutching life preservers just off camera

I strum grateful fingers over thick strings
a warm and friendly rumble fading as I leave

to go back to work, begin the long uncertain
swim back to newly strange familiar shores

Oceans

April 6, 2021 • • 2 Comments

my head is full of oceans
full of plastic

sea foam memories
pass for wisdom

sea green trees
whisper like grey waves

come home come home

trickle down through chest
and lungs and drown and drown
where plastic bits break down

where seabirds soar
and drift beneath the sea-
glass shards of stars

If I only had a brain (Thanks, Carolee!)

Return to Sender

April 5, 2021 • • Leave a comment

over there’s a rusted pipe
a candy cane in an open field

is it a searching periscope eye
or gaping mouth accusing?

barn swallows weave the sky
questions unfolding

you say stay still
we don’t need to answer

I wish I was the static
invisible between your stations

This is the end of this series that I started posting in 2019. The series originated in 2018 as sample poems I wrote with my students at school. I didn’t like any of them so in early 2019, I cut them up by line, by stanza, by phrase and collaged them back together into 10 poems most of which have titles related in some way or other to the history of the US Postal service.

Of course, I stopped writing for almost 2 years when I hit a snag on “Facer Canceller.” Couldn’t figure it out and couldn’t get on with much else writing-wise. Suddenly it was 2 years later. I finished the poem and picked up where I left off.

I’m still not quite sure how it happened. How it went so fast and took so long.

Ode to a Cheap Blue Guitar

April 18, 2016 • • Leave a comment

Give you twenty bucks
for that old Ko-RE-an thang,
the pawn shop man drawled.

Horrified, I walked out. Tried to
hold tight to you, beautiful
blue first love stratclone guitar.

But the Ford’s tires were flat,
the bills were due, and you
never sang in my hands.

We just never connected
like I would with others, later,
with lower actions whose necks

felt better in my fumbling
hands. But beauty stutters
the lips, and you were ocean

midnight neon airport lights,
the color of the sounds I wanted.
But those thintread tires needed

changing. We said goodbye.
Sometimes I still try to find you.
We’ll reconnect on eBay, maybe

Craigslist. I poke my head
in some south Austin pawn shop
hoping you’re still around twenty

years later, that headstock nick
from the ceiling fan a story
only you and I will ever know.

 

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This Is Not a Literary Journal: Ode to a Thing

I guess if you’re going to try to write to your own prompt, you might as well write one of the examples.

Twelve Paper Vessels

April 15, 2016 • • Leave a comment

Twelve paper vessels, lavish in design
floated down the flooded street

the other night. Each one bore the false
teeth of a good lie as they floated past

in the storm’s runoff, singly and in
groups, committees of gnarled words

settling into sentences. What time was it?
When did you leave? Do you remember

that day? These are the things I’d ask
if tongue and teeth and pen were still in sync.

 

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PAD 15: Use 4 of 8 from a Word List | This Is Not a Literary Journal: Visit Peake’s Prompt Generator

Both gave me lists of words. I used some.