July Poetry, Week 3

Day 15

You Are Stardust

I see a comet of colors sweeping by 

in my garden, a peacock with a fiery tail; 

I see the glitter of the mollusk’s trail

over blades of grass that once were stars

you longed for when day broke 

the spell of night, its salmon face 

beaming light. This is the history

of our lovely rock, our teeming oceans

that lie upon the shore, running away

then returning like a pensive child

rejects its toy only to miss it sore.

We’re all related: snail & star,

blade of grass & peacock’s tail.

It’s a dialogue between mirrors.

We’re shadow and man come together 

after daylight when the sun is long, then goes

like tide and melody, like you and stardust.

Day 16 

The Room

Whatever it’s called, 

I like sitting there, or seeing it

from another room, frail light seeping

in from behind thin white curtains

to coat everything with itself.

I say it’s my pretty room, my soft

place, my blue cloud room, yet I cannot

name it well enough. I sit in it and feel 

the fizz of tide against my ankles, 

the crush of surf against my waist. If I lose

myself here, I can always find myself

rolling up on a beach like a shell,

filled with something delectable.

If I cup my hands over my ears,

if I blow breath out slowly, if 

I let myself drift on the silence

of the sunset, I am not afraid

to paddle out beyond the offing,

to wait for what might come.

Whatever it’s called, it calls me.

In the company of silence, I hear it.

I’m still thinking about you

when the eighth wave comes 

with its delicate belly, its lip

of foam. I’m still thinking about us

when the roar of the wave pulls

me under the way you always do

when we find love

has no limits or borders. No matter

what it’s called, this room, I sit in it 

and find the beginning of everything.

Day 17

Beached

Up it comes, rising in the storm like a ghost

from under the beach where boys and girls

make castles with pails of wet sand,

where teens learn about magnetism

in bikinis and speedos, where the aroma

of suntan oil and salt reign

over every summer day. Up it comes,

this pincke’s skeleton cared for by the sea

in thanksgiving for its rescues off shore.

That’s a pink, said Captain Dean,

nothin’ like ‘em to nose in and out

of a rocky coast.* The historical society

issues a stay away, itching on its own

to take souvenirs, just a few slivers 

of town history for display. 

Days from now, the pincke will vanish

into the sand again, hiding her secrets, her bones

trembling with every footfall overhead.

* lines from Kenneth Roberts’ novel, Boon Island 
[NOTE: I would not say "rocky coast" in one of my poems if it were not a quote]

Day 18

To a Pair of Old Poets

I’m reading Bly, listening 

like a donkey, ears flapped open,

waiting for a poem. My eyes are closed.

I see Donald Hall, old — with legs 

like a young poet — striding

across New Hampshire, pages

crammed into his pockets, shoved

into the waistband of his old man pants.

No one would confuse Bly with Hall,

mix up their lines, no one but me.

In my donkey state, they become one poet, 

all wood smoke, pine needles, & grump.

I’ll read Hall tonight, summon

ghosts, church singing, farmhouse attic

smells. Off in the woods, Iron John 

will beat a drum, make poems 

for all the wild hairy men who don’t. 

I’ll give up on which poet wins at cribbage,

which poet cares about life after death. I’ll go

on writing until morning, digging ditches

with no hope of treasure. If Ben the librarian

calls to say my book is overdue, I’ll say

it’s due after the last poem in it knows

the difference between Bly and Hall.

Day 19

Dreamland

As the hand vanishes, the child appears

to miss something, can’t recall

the taste in her mouth as milk,

waits for nothing she doesn’t know

she wants. Like me, missing you.

It’s an itch just below my skin, 

the slight feel of a breeze

on my cheek, there a moment

then gone, leaving me 

to wonder if it was there at all. 

It’s your voice not on the phone 

when I swear I heard it ring just now. 

All that’s there is a cold call, request 

to do a survey that will change the world.

It’s the dream I had this morning

beneath my eyelids:

your hand on my breast,

my breast brimming with milk, 

tingling with the pull of your lips. 

Feed me you beg, I’m your baby.

I wake to a wet place on my pillow.

Day 20

Sweet Territory

It plays again this evening:

in the mist of a memory, 

you wander on back to me, breathing 

my name with a sigh —

I feel young with you again, dancing 

in my parents’ living room,

them asleep upstairs, or not. I sing 

along with the music in my head, hear

you humming into my hair, feel 

your hand on the small of my back.

I am comforted by you, this 

younger version of you, 

in the sweet territory 

of silence, broken only by music.

The carrion artist works underground, works 

in darkness, is a thief.

When did you stop dancing? 

When did you stop singing? 

When did we stop?

Day 21

Travel Plans

Go to Holland, forget it isn’t Holland

now; look for fields of tulips

and windmills. Buy a copy 

of Hans Brinker for the trip. Book

a Rhine cruise from Amsterdam

to Basel; be the only one aboard

who speaks English; eat asparagus

with your fingers at the Captains Table; 

play cards until midnight, drink 

strange liquors in crystal glasses.

On the return train from Basel 

to Amsterdam, count your money —

save enough to buy tulips.

Open your English/Dutch dictionary;

practice saying, let a hundred flowers

bloom, and only one die.

Laat honderd bloemen bloeien, 

en slechts één bloem sterven

Go to Holland, forget everything else.

July Poetry, Week 2

This week's poems range widely over the landscape of my poet's brain, from simple appreciation of the natural world to a world where human beings mess it up. There is no accounting for where my head goes when I sit down to write. I just sit and consider the prompt each day, waiting and watching for the ink to begin. Hope you find something here to inspire you or to make you think.

Day 8

In the Offing   (Monhegan #15)

See how heat rises

out of the ocean, proof

the sky loves what’s hidden

under moving glass. Origami

birds and fishes do the birdy-fishy

things they do, swept

by currents above, below.

Fire kites, death lanterns 

to celebrate lives extinguished 

by loneliness. Every ocean’s a magnet, 

every river pulled along by the moon

with no particular harbor in mind.

Day 9 

Morning

The heron, arriving 

at a canvas of pure titanium,

lights — an elegant pose,

not unlike you stepping

from the bath, gleaming.

Beads of perfume

fill the steamy air 

as you move into morning.

If a bird or a girl lights

with grace upon white,

then blue begins to burn

away, the peach sun rises

like a smile. The world begins

again, freshened and pure.

Day 10

Swim

The ocean she swims is not blue

or green, is the grey

most people think of as winter.

Its surface bulges over her back, legs

as she pushes out beyond

every frantic person on shore.

No longer a we, she is braver

than moments ago. She fears

nothing where yesterday every sky

felt like wool pressing against her face.

She is free of every part of herself

that was made of lead, of glass.

No moon rising over the lips of sea

will again cast a sad glance 

at her empty eyes, or spread its cold hand 

on the water, palm up to beckon 

her drowning. Safe now, she will swim miles

without fatigue, limbs light as sea smoke. 

Rolling like tide, she becomes new, the kiss, 

the embrace, the old problems bell buoys, 

ringing warnings. She ticks off the markers, 

swims without looking back, 

not hearing his voice faint from shore 

telling her he is sorry, he’ll give it another try.

Day 11 

Favors

There are always people here

asking for favors: cups of sugar

not the thing asked these days. 

The favors are greater

than sugar or quarts of milk,

require parts of me be given: a lock

of hair, a promise of time I’d saved

for you. I’ve been asked to jump

from a waterfall into shallow water,

unsure of my own survival, asked 

to write lies, to ride someone else’s dragon.

When I’ve refused, I’ve been asked 

to capture fireflies in jars, butterflies in nets, 

though I believe in freedom.

I have been caught in jars and nets, have struck 

against the glass until my wings broke. 

Poets should never spin nets of sugar,

but serve their favors plain,

or with cups and cups of rain.

Day 12

Sky

The sky is not a ceiling over my head,

not an umbrella opening or closing with weather.

It is a place where battles rage, where God

wins or loses depending on rough seas

and wind he invented to broom the atmosphere

of debris and mistakes. I heard from an expert

that you could get clobbered by angels

if you presume to fly, if you go 

to the realm they were given as a token

of appreciation for all they do for the world. 

No wonder then, that sometimes planes 

drop out of the sky, just like that. No bird strike 

to the engines, it’s cherubim, seraphim playing tag,

and you’re it. No allee allee in free for you

who dare to go where you are not invited.

The sky is not ceiling, not umbrella

but a place filled with citizens

who have a right to their own place.

Day 13

Gravity

The mask is the center of gravity

a heavy thing that’s grown

as you have. Mask on a mask,

your clown face is peeling, red

painted mouth turning upside down

when you relax or sleep. Under

porcelain cheeks, wet tears

corrode your skin to a kind of rust,

itch and sting. No wonder

you stay in motion, smiling

then going a bit crazy when it’s hot

or cold or someone thinks 

you’re who you’re not. Come

from underneath this thing, 

this grave thing you’re wearing

and see how breezes can turn tears

to lickable salt. Taste your real life,

discover the sun in your eyes

does not blind you. Try on your face,

find out who recognizes you.

Day 14

With Liberty and Justice for ...

The liberty bell stopped ringing

when it cracked, thudded to a dull

note, louder than a headache.

It’s more about the crack 

than liberty when anyone’s freedom 

gets mixed with crazy & out of control.

You can defend liberty to the death

until death comes along 

your street in the dark, until

your child becomes death. 

It’s all about the crack

when we sink back into the oozing fear 

that once split us. Call that fear liberty,

see the split in the bell widen, one

lie at a time. Legislated away

one right at a time, see liberty

(and justice for all) dull and go.

We have liberty of course, you say:

ringing like bells, waving like flags, 

marching like parades. 

We sing it, wear it on tee-shirts, 

fly it from porches, visit it at shrines to itself, 

touch its cold metal. But in the crack, 

deep in the crack, it’s still dark, 

growing something 

that looks like a monster.

July Poetry, Week 1

Day 1

Let’s talk a minute

If I could speak to you again,

this is how I’d begin:

I’d declare my independence

not so fiercely

as before, unleash myself

more gently from you

and not completely. A thin line

I’d hold, made of every word

you wanted me to have,

couldn’t get me to hear then.

I’d tether myself, loose

and easy, to your shirt pocket,

the one over your heart.

I’d pay attention

to your eyes this time, watch

for the small lift of the corners

that say I’m just trying to teach you.

I’d avoid being willful, 

wait until you finish your thought,

consider your experience.

No more making a face

when you say no, and trust me, 

little girl, it’s for your own good.

I might even ask for advice

now that I have the grown-up life

you warned me about,

that I felt certain I could handle

without your interference.

Just like when I was two, face

in hands, elbows on the table,

I’d say again let’s talk a minute.

You’d be king of my world

again; I’d be the only thing you loved.

— for my father

Day 2 

How like a winter hath my absence been

From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!

What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!

What old December’s bareness every where!

— from Shakespeare’s Sonnet #97

Longing (variation on a glosa)

What old December’s bareness everywhere

that opens me to love’s abandoned prayers,

for all the drawings on the frosted glass

are code for what could not be made to last.

What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen.

You stole away my heart, then killed its dream

and made me live forever without hope

as ghosts of kisses prickle on my throat.

From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year

has faded me from happiness to drear,

will n’er be more than ashes on the grate

that flutter there as I in vain hope wait

for one who will not utter words of love.

I fade to dawn, hear croonings of the doves.

In sadness on the icy wire they keen:

How like a winter hath my absence been.

Day 3

Strayed

Five bars from a song

wakes me this morning, a melody

that played every day in the 60s,

that reminds me of a night

at the dunes in Perkins Cove. You

with your arms out asking me

to dance; me singing 

over chords the tide played.

It’s a stray thought, a lyrical 

wander through time that wakes me.

Where was I all night that this

should be where I am at dawn,

feeling the spray on my face, 

strayed from time into once upon a time?

Day 4

Ars Poetica # 34

She is the one

who gave birth to his sonnets, 

to the poems of night

he jerked out

like comets from the Milky Way,

bone-naked, bare 

of adverbs, conjunctions

used spare, joining the legs

of stanzas or the beats 

between ventricles. 

She spoke French, easy tongue

and quick fingers, her accent 

purely ballade, gestures stroking 

his lines into melody. So it is: careful 

love and poetry, shame 

and hesitation, points of light 

and the blood of stars 

drenching the page, the final couplet.

Why is the sky so sorrowed overhead?

The white rose dies easily as the red.

Day 5

Held

The sky holds centuries of clouds

in its bowl, like plums ready to burst

for their ripening. There is rain

like sorrow, ready to wash in 

when life seems too cheerful to remain.

The sea holds time too, hidden

in its caverns miles down, guarded

by blind fish and monsters so terrible

they would die of fright if enough light 

cast their shadows on the water.

In every tree there is a lineage

of the Only People, stepping out in twos

or whole families. Some say the sap 

holds the blood of thousands, sweet food 

for those born at every joined branch.

The sky holds centuries

of memories, some fallen down as rain.

Day 6

Monhegan #14

after James Fitzgerald

By night, fisherman snug

their dories, bump together in threes,

light torches to fool the fish

into thinking the sun is out. 

Curiosity deadly, they leap

onto the nets. Over pipe smoke

and lit cigars seiners ply their trade, 

easier than hauling trap in waters

far from home, gentler lapping

in the gut between Monhegan

and Manana, still water fired 

orange, red, & yellow

where tomorrow the mail boat

from Port Clyde will carry away

the catch, traded 

for real dollars and beer.

It’s a life to die for, a place

of fire and water and Saturdays

at the Grange with island women.

Day 7

Dorothy Behind the Curtain of Music

Earbuds pressed in tight, foot tapping 

to an invisible beat, she makes poems 

from shadows in the café. Watching 

moments from lives she doesn’t live yet, 

she finds lines, weaves webs

of story with dreary men drooling in caffeine 

and low intentions, women dressed too young

for real commitment. Her address changes 

with the weather, a kaleidoscope of clouds 

flashes overhead. Behind the curtain

of music no one else hears, she is voyeur

and designer. She dreams in French, 

wakes in lands of wizards singing odes. 

Momentarily out of action, she writes 

on the sidewalk with chalk, taps 

the heels of her ruby slippers, 

hoping to find the secret way home.