POEM: the salmon come back every year (November Poem-A-Day 26)

Posted 26 November, 2010 in Audio Poems, My poems, Poetry

Listen to this poem using the player above.

This is poem #26 for the November Poem-A-Day challenge. Today’s prompt was to write an “on the run” poem.

the salmon come back every year

looking for love — or at least life —
in the same place they found it last year

I always thought I was a human
and I’m not all that strong a swimmer

but apparently these are scales
and I am traveling upriver

Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted 25 November, 2010 in Politics & Activism

From You're Welcome, Indians!

POEM: Today I played chess with a turkey (November Poem-A-Day 25)

Posted 25 November, 2010 in Music, My poems, Poetry, Vegan

Listen to this poem using the player above.

This is poem #25 for the November Poem-A-Day challenge. Today’s prompt was to write an animal poem. Given that this is also my first Thanksgiving as a vegan, I decided to write a poem about doing something with a turkey other than eating it.

Today I played chess with a turkey

Rather than eating him, I mean.
His name was Ronald.
I was embarrassed, because I thought
all turkeys were named Tom.
“That’s OK,” he said, “everybody thinks that.”
We played in the park on one of those tables
old men use when the afternoons get too long.
Ronald told me he’d always wanted to play
the saxophone, but his limbs weren’t set up right.
I suggested the koto, a Japanese instrument played
by plucking, something I figured he could easily do
with his beak. “It’s just not the same,” he said.
“You can’t play the blues on a koto.”
Ronald mentioned that he once played a one-string,
jug-band bass with Muddy Waters, during Muddy’s
last gig in Chicago. “But Muddy died in 1983
and turkeys only live for 10 years,” I said.
Ronald said that was another myth.
“I’m 47, and my dad lived to be … well …
I know it was more than 80, at least.”
Ronald said many turkeys only live 10 years
because most of them never develop hobbies.
We played three games of chess and Ronald won
all three. He was very gracious about it.
“It keeps me young,” he said.
After the games, we walked back downtown
to my apartment. The whole way there, Ronald
hummed “Mannish Boy.”

POEM: Atop the midnight mountain

Posted 25 November, 2010 in Audio Poems, My poems, Poetry

Listen to this poem using the player above.

A bit of prose poetry, written in the wee hours.

Atop the midnight mountain

Is there a point at which you can’t lose someone? When they are as lost as they can be? I just wrote a poem — you remember, don’t you? — about the second time I lost you. And here we are, already at the third time. Maybe I imagined all this. Perhaps we never even met that night. I can’t really remember it. I just know the story. Like I know so many stories. We could sit around a campfire, telling tall tales about the ways we met and parted and met and parted again. Accompanied by an acoustic guitar — you could play it — and the soft sigh of the desert wind. Of course, the wind doesn’t really sigh or wail or moan — we do, and the wind carries the news across the flatland to our waiting tribesmen. When the sigh reaches them, one young warrior will stand, look toward the horizon, and step into the night, lost beyond the light of the fire. If he keeps walking, beyond thirst and hunger and doubt, he may arrive at the base of the midnight mountain. And if he can will his legs to take him to the summit, he may find me there. And if he sees me, silhouetted against the rocky ground by a full harvest moon, he may ask me one question. And I will tell him I am waiting for you.

POEM: It’s not me, it’s you (November Poem-A-Day 24)

Posted 24 November, 2010 in Audio Poems, My poems, Poetry

Listen to this poem using the player above.

This is poem #24 for the November Poem-A-Day challenge. Today’s prompt was to write a “spaces” poem.

It’s not me, it’s you

You stay there.
I wish you were here, you said,
but it’s best for all concerned
if you stay where you are
and come no closer.

I have since turned off my phone
because the ringing
sounds like distance.

I bought a special scale
from an old man in Chinatown.
He said it measured regret.
At first I didn’t believe him.
Then he reached into my chest
and pulled out my heart.
Placed it on one side of the scale.
Told me exactly,
to the day,
how long it had been.

My new toy is here, in the kitchen.
I am sitting at the table right now
looking at it.
Next to it, in a small velvet-
covered box,
is my heart. As it turned out,
the man was better at removing
and weighing
than he was at restoration.

It’s OK, I tell myself.
I wasn’t using it anyway.
It’s not me, it’s you, you said.

Before I turned off my phone.

So I am sitting here at the
kitchen table, deciding what to put
in the space where my heart
used to be.

POEM: Can this be how life unfolds? (November Poem-A-Day 23)

Posted 23 November, 2010 in Audio Poems, My poems, Poetry

Listen to this poem using the player above.

First and foremost (and totally unrelated to this poem) — Happy Birthday to my wonderful sister, Gretchen!

This is poem #23 for the November Poem-A-Day challenge. Today’s prompt was to write a poem using a specific poetic form. I’ve done that, and I’ll leave it to you to figure out the form I used. Good luck!

Can this be how life unfolds?

Am I to travel down this
road alone, suitcase in hand?
Or is there some other way? Will
love soften my path,
even as I hang my head and
expect the worst?

Daughters of Odysseus crowd
around me, pulling at my clothes.
Whence come their songs in this
night of all nights?

Seven times seven stars hang above my
head, a crown fit for a king,
even one with no subjects.
Rarely do I consider the alternative,
wish upon one of those distant jewels.
Only you can understand my song,
only you can make sense of the story I have set
down on this tattered, tear-stained parchment.

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