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This is not part of the November poem-a-day thing. I wrote it at the basketball game tonight.
Cheerleader
I am waving.
I am waving.
I am waving.
No one is waving back.
Category: Audio Poems
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Poem #15 for the November Poem-A-Day challenge. Today’s prompt was to write a “just when you thought it was safe” poem.
You can’t talk your way out of this
said the counselor, so I took the pills
let them dissolve into my bloodstream
within a few weeks, the sun
shone outside my bedroom window
and I lost 23 pounds, all from my psyche
I think we’re going to be OK, I told my wife.
I think this time we’re going to be OK.
On the dining room table, my teacup
started shaking. Do you feel that? she asked.
Feel what? I said.
I read my poetry today as the featured speaker at the Hudson (NY) Rotary Club. Once again, reading to Rotarians proved to be a ton of fun. They were a very attentive and appreciative audience, and they bought all but one of the books I brought. Amazing!
Click on the PLAY button above to hear a complete recording of this 22-minute reading. This is the first time I’ve read exclusively from my book, Unexpected Sunlight. Well, almost exclusively — I did toss in one new poem at the end.
Side note: Charlie, one of the members of the club, came up to me before I read and said, “Have you heard of John Ashbery? He goes to my church and lives here in town.” No pressure!
2 CommentsListen to this poem using the player above.
This is poem #14 for the November Poem-A-Day challenge. Today’s prompt was to write a “crossroads” poem.
Pennsylvania or bust
five hours from anywhere
he stares out the bus window
wipes off the occasional
condensation, sign of life
the big buildings of the city
give way to the small towns
on the border then to the
trees and trees and trees
there are still pastures here
acres and acres of land
given over to cows and sheep
he falls asleep as the sun sets
head resting against the window
dreams traveling
in the opposite direction
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Poem #13 for the November Poem-A-Day challenge. Today’s prompt was to write a question-and-answer poem.
What is loneliness?
10:30 p.m.
34 degrees
corner of Western & Tryon
waiting for the #10 bus
with two drunks
& a dead phone battery
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Poem #12 for the November Poem-A-Day challenge. Today’s prompt is to turn some common wisdom, or a common saying, on its head.
Stitch
I kept sewing, frantically,
feeling the cool smooth metal
of the needle between my fingers.
The water was rising – already
at my ankles, then my shins –
and I knew I didn’t have much time.
I could here them crying in the other room,
calling out for me to save them.
I sewed faster.
Normally I would have taken more time,
been more careful, but this time
I was going as fast as possible,
occasionally pricking my finger,
drawing blood that stained the rough cloth
or dripped into the water that was now
at my waist. Faster, faster
my fingers flew, pushing and pulling the
thread through the ripped fabric of time.
To calm myself, I recited their names.
Even in such a stressful situation, I could
remember all nine of them.
The little ones didn’t even know
what was happening. They just sensed
the fear in their brother and sisters.
I knew if I could just finish stitching,
repair the breach in our chronology,
I could stop the merciless water
and we could leave this place.
Waist high. Chest high. At my
shoulders. I held the fabric above my head,
my arms extended toward the bare light bulb.
But it was too late. The water closed over
my head. The crying ceased.
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Fun with science
You are my superheated ball of gas
in the center of the solar system
My only superheated ball of gas
in the center of the solar system
You cause endorphins to be released
into my brain
When the refractive properties of water in the air
are overcome by cloud cover
You’ll never know, dear, how much certain
visual, olfactory and auditory cues
suggest you as a suitable mate
Please don’t remove my superheated ball of gas
in the center of the solar system
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bullet train
faster than a decision
more powerful than a kiss
able to leap tall buildings
in a moment of clarity
the bullet train flies down the track
you can’t jump off
but you can choose a different station
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Estonia
at this time of year
the sun can’t make up its mind
holding off the night like a spurned lover
confused bees circle the petals
of flowers that reach for the dusky sky
pining for light
this is the season when all lovers tremble
when every park bench is an altar
and hearts are laid bare for the taking
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Another poem written on the Tennessee River in Chattanooga.
Water Song
how many lives have been lived along this water?
what was here before?
before the condos
before the artificial park
before the riverboats full of tourists
before riverfront revitalization
before speeding cars on one bridge
and Sunday strollers on the other
how many souls has this water collected?
what songs have been sung on its banks?
and if it’s quiet enough, can you still hear them?
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On the Tennessee River
woke up in a Manhattan hi-rise
going to bed a Tennessee riverboat
neither of them is home
home is a carousel horse
I can never quite grab on to
not these lightning strikes
or the rain on this river
home was our shared bed
the sound of little boys wrestling
it’s so quiet now, so very quiet
there are bridges on both sides of me
and I have nowhere to go on either one
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Rough Boys
“Remember when Frankie got taken out?”
Three shop stewards are sitting along a marble wall
on Park Ave near Grand Central
talking about the old days.
“You wouldn’t fuck with Nicky Torres.”
They remember heated words in cramped offices,
big men with tattoos from the war
who didn’t take shit off anyone,
no matter how good a college you went to.
“As soon as they found out you were with Nicky,
their whole attitude changed.”
Men who drove in to the office in nice cars
felt their collars tighten and the sweat on their foreheads
as strap-hanging third-generation laborers
let them know how things stood.
“Nicky would raise his hand
and everybody would stop working
until he put it back down. He got what he wanted.”
There aren’t many places left where men talk about the union
like it was an unpredictable beast.
Like it prowled the shop floor, muscles rippling
under taut skin. Like its hot breath
could cause the boss to think twice before mouthing off.
When Frankie got taken out,
it was because Nicky Torres told the plant manager,
“Either this asshole goes
or you’re not gonna have much to ship out on them trucks.”
Frankie left, and Nicky put his hand down.
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Lights in the night sky
you must understand
there is no limit, no end
I have waited a decade
I would wait decades more
what is the boundary of truth?
how far from the heart
does the blood flow,
bringing life to all it touches?
in truth, there is no line
dividing one from another
no piece that can be removed
for we are all made
of the tiny lights
in the night sky
the distance is vast
and it is nothing, too
I would reach out
but there is no “out”
I would draw you near
but you are already beside me
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For my birthday this year, a friend gave me the book The Best American Travel Writing 2009
. One of the essays is “The Generals In Their Labyrinth” by Patrick Symmes, originally published in Outside. It’s a disturbing essay, and it inspired this poem.
In Burma, San-Zarni Bo Tells The Future
he reads ink-palmed impressions
says good things are coming
but stay away from saffron-colored robes
outside the wind is making a liar
of the junta weatherman
and in the cardboard villages along the Irawaddy
no one is going anywhere
no one has anywhere to go
later tonight a killing wind will extract more blood
from a drained people, leeching them dry
even as their homes and shops
fill with dirty water the color of dead sparrows
children will scream for drowned mothers
frantic fathers will search for lost sons and daughters
entire families will blow away, wash away
hundreds of miles away, in a stone compound
at the end of eight lanes of concrete
a bitter old man will chuckle
as he reaches into the empty place
behind his sternum and stirs the acid
with one yellowed finger
but back in his dimly-lit room
San-Zarni Bo predicts the future
says good things are coming
don’t mind the wind, he shouts
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Another poem written during my recent stay in Chattanooga, TN.
Lights, Camera, Action!
this town is like a Hollywood set
look behind the storefronts
the buildings that line Broad Street
there’s nothing there
the bricks rise to the skies
joggers clot the river bridge
but the heart has been cut out
Walter Cronkite once said
this was the dirtiest town in America
it’s cleaner now – wiped clean of its history
all the people shunted out to the pavement
paradise, never far from a strip mall
there are historical markers
on every downtown street
they are little more than headstones
marking empty graves, the city’s corpse
long ago merged with the soil
covered with the dust of razed landmarks
“Right where Starbucks is, this is where
your granddaddy built tank engines
to fight the Nazis.”