March, Week 5

Here are the final March poems. They range from something pseudo-traditonal ( a response to Shakespeare's sonnet #88) to fanciful experiments such as the nothing poem and the riff on "flow"

Enjoy.

Day 27

The Bard’s Sonnet # 088 (excerpted)

When thou shalt be disposed to set me light... For bending all my loving thoughts on thee, The injuries that to my self I do, Doing thee vantage, double-vantage me. Such is my love, to thee I so belong, That for thy right, my self will bear all wrong.

My #88 (formatted in a nonce form)

If you think I’m taking all the blame,

despite my love for you, my fascinated

glance on you day long, night long,

think about the injuries suffered to my name

if I admit to what you’ve wrought as wrong.

I cannot help but wound myself for you

though others say I ought to run.

Perhaps I see you clearer than they see

the crimes that you so blithely do

and so unlovingly heap on me.

Shall I be now disposed to see the truth

when all around shout you’re no good for me?

Shall I now gather strength to cut and fly?

Or will I  be ruined for your lack of ruth,

thinking without you I might die.

If you think I’m taking all the blame

because I am weakened by your love,

it’s been true. But so help me, God,

I’m done this time. I hope.

Day 28

Maple Sunday

Drive into the woods, agog

with buckets and lines leading 

back in a crisscross to the sugar 

shack. Enter at your own risk,

steam rising in maple haze

might straighten the hair you curled

this morning, or open the pores

you closed with astringent last night.

Beware of cold ice cream

with sweet syrup, just boiled off.

Maple Sunday is the most dangerous

of days in Maine... calories galore.

But then, when else does loyalty

to industry taste so good?

Day 29

She tenderly kissed me,
She fondly caressed,
And then I fell gently
To sleep on her breast-
Deeply to sleep
From the heaven of her breast.

When the light was extinguished,
She covered me warm,
And she prayed to the angels
To keep me from harm-
To the queen of the angels
To shield me from harm.     Excerpt from "For Annie" by EA Poe

for Bill

The light is out, we are abed

in the quiet space so splendid

where nightly we rest, 

where all that’s ill is softly mended

‘til all that’s left is heavenly breath.

From time to time we up from sleep

to watch the other’s sleeping face,

touch so gently a sleeping cheek.

It is the gift we’re pleased to tend,

love we’ve planted and grown over time

A love we pray will never end,

a pure and blessed state, divine.

The light is out, we are abed.

Day 30  

Nothing Poem

If this is a poem, 

fuzz is too. Gathering lint 

that sticks to the navel 

    (how?)

or words that gather on paper

words that never knew each other

(before, somehow)

get all tangled up and written;

they make no sense at all 

(except)

they came flooding from the pen

today, and washed up on the shore 

(seaweed)

wrapped around driftwood like ribbons

(therefore, thus, and so forth)

nothing I can do will stop them

nothing I can do but pick them

like lint from the belly button (fuzz)

and flick them to the ground

or into the wind.  Nothing. I say. Nothing

(more than) I ever wanted to happen

(other than) this:

Poems and Fuzz. Nothing is more special.

Day 31

Flow Chart

Water, heat

air, tears

steam from the surface of the sea

goosebumps

temper

feelings of being lost

feelings of being found

scientific principle

chart of activity

time of the month

or something out there in the universe

what comes over me

what goes by me

ruining the ceiling

what, interrupted, gets angry.

streaming, move along, discharge, catamenia

flood on, tsunami over, 

rise up and smother.