June Poetry, Week 2

Day 8

Quicksilver

Ballet shoes scuffed up fine —

toes at a patina, ribbons frayed 

and shiny. On stage she is all

anyone ever wanted, lithe

grace swooping like a bird of prey

over the hearts of every man

in the audience. In her mirror,

the swan returns to the pond

to its awkward start as someone

else’s cast-off. No manner 

of applause can undo the sobs that bubble 

from where the dancing ends. Lace

edged handkerchief at her bodice, 

monogram of her mother in one worn corner.

The music fades into a farmhouse kitchen

radio where, at the four o’clock hour, 

Momma would twirl, pirouette 

and hold in position, where chicken pies

cooled on the stove and the men 

had not yet brought their rough music 

to supper. A suitcase packed and hidden

behind the bedroom door, moon 

rising in the uncurtained window.

On her dressing table, 

a silver lipstick, opened for luck

at the five-minute call. Scent 

of Momma and courage, like quicksilver.

Day 9 

Deaf Girl

You slide into the driver’s side,

pop on the radio. A blast of music

shocks your very functional ears.

Deaf girl in car. My car, the one I drive,

blares in decibels my ears can find

on the scale. Neil Diamond shouts

to you, or Josh Groban, Madeleine Peyroux. 

To me, normal. Music is grander, bigger, 

crescendoes to a finish every time, 

not just in the symphony hall, under the baton 

of the Maestro. But what of night music,

the thrilling frogs, the cheep of birds

saying fare thee well to day? What sounds

come with darkness, to an ear shut down 

dead in a singular blast of head-splitting noise?

A ringing, a low whistle, a silver siren. These 

are my sounds when all is silent for you. 

Slide into my head if you can,

and tell me I live in a soundless world.

Day 10

Love Deeds

—after Henri-Frédéric Amiel

Oh, be swift to love, make hast to be kind

keep the heart of your beloved in care

when you speak of him. Oh be slow

to call foul when he forgets to tell you

of his devotion. It is not kind to remember

any wine left corked, any candle unlit,

the rose still on the bramble at your window. 

It is better to recall the tea he brewed 

for you each day & quietly left there

at your elbow while your head was bent 

in concentration over a word for love.

Day 11

After Little Black Sambo*

When the tiger comes, 

Close your eyes and follow him

into the magical forest of sleep. 

Give him your beautiful purple shoes

with the crimson soles, 

your handsome blue coat,

your green umbrella,  

feed him something sweet: 

ginger beer poured 

over homemade ginger ice cream 

or golden pancakes with lakes of syrup. 

Turn and face into his roar, 

make him accept your gifts.

Teach him to file his teeth, forget

the taste of blood on his tongue.

Show him the garden, the berry patch,

help him learn to sow and reap,

to gather in baskets, to run around

and around and around until he turns to butter.

*In the days before we were aware of the racist nature in some literature for children, Little Black Sambo was a popular children’s story. It was written in 1899 by Helen Bannerman to amuse and entertain her children on a train journey across India. 

Day 12

Suitcases of the Insane

Willard Asylum, NY 1800-1995

No part of this is pretty,

suitcases stacked & wrapped,

contents carefully packed

for the moment when asylum doors

might let in sunlight, inmates 

flooding out like dust motes 

into sweet morning air. Long gone 

these travelers: promiscuous

girls whose only defect was financial,

mommies whose grief lingered

beyond what society deemed normal

after losing a baby, men who preferred men,

girls whose lovers were other girls,

soldiers shell-shocked into catatonia.

abandon all hope, ye who enter here

No part of this is fair,

treasures of lives in leather boxes,

valises. Flora T, epileptic,

packed her vials of strychnine sulfate,

her needles and syringes, a silver teaspoon,

her party shoes. Charles, a musical man, 

brought his zither. Did he play tunes

to keep himself calm?

In so many cases clocks, stopped

like so many futures here.

Peter L, that dapper gent, packed up his toilette,

Vitalis, Yardley, Peterson’s soap, 

silver-backed brushes, morning newspaper,

dated March 22, 1941, no war yet

save for the one inside Peter.

abandon all hope, ye who enter here

Eleanor G brought several cases,

no trans-Atlantic cruise for her, confinement

forever, and a grave with a number

her final destination. What was she told?

Take everything, dear. It will be an adventure.

Ration books, perfume vials, crystal 

paperweights, a toy pistol. Playing cards

and Henry L’s prosthetic leg, handmade 

and pricey for the day, unhinged to fit

the valise he brought. Letters, stamped 

& never on their ways to lovers or friends,

a lucky rabbit’s foot with no luck at all. 

WWII military uniform, 

in mint condition, springs from a suitcase

with no name attached. MIA. No 

booze can hotel for the suffering, 

no cardboard beds in doorways, just suitcases 

packed for journeys into dark forever. 

abandon all hope, ye who enter here

Day 13

Book Hangover

8 friends have read it:

3 put it down after 6 chapters

citing a lack of plot 

or poor character development,

5 are waxing eloquent about how

the ending made them cry.

What’s wrong with me? 

I can’t leave the last book: 

the characters’ lives, the setting,

keep me unable to move 

on to the new book. Oh those 4 girls

and their loves, the mother

who doesn’t let them date

so they have to slide down

the trellis at night for a little 

romance at the back of the garden.

It’s 1 o’clock in the morning,

book group is a mere 12 hours

from now and I’m awake

contemplating reading the synopsis

of this new book, all the while

re-reading page 134 of the last book

just to feel how Janet felt 

when Marcus slipped his hand

under her blouse. What’s wrong with me?

Day 14     This poem is a fractured sonnet, 2 stanzas of 7 lines each, with each followed by a rhymed couplet (nearly the same wording). The rhyme scheme for the 2 main stanzas is unique. 

NOTE: Willard Asylum was the final home for many women who lost babies, did not recover from their grief in three months time. 

Day 14

The Day the Poem Disappeared

This mother could not lose her grief, 
could only cry and write herself to sleep. 
The poem vanished in her brown valise, 
babies’ crying in the walls did not cease
at night; came like ghosts in swaddling sheets
to drive away her sleep. This mournful state
that would not leave her, sealed her fate.

Beneath my breast, my baby’s heart beat on
‘til it lost its will to stay, and then was gone.

At the Willard Asylum, creased 
into a suitcase, owner long deceased,
a sonnet. Fourteen sorrowed lines 
a careful scrawl, a mother’s unsigned 
masterpiece of mania, rhymed
couplet at the end a telling testimony
to loss that conquered all sanity. 

Beneath her breast, her baby’s heart beat on
‘til it lost its will to stay, and then was gone.

June Poetry, Week 1

This first week of June the poems are all located on Monhegan Island, off the coast of Maine (Port Clyde). I spent a week there with four members of my poetry group, the High Tide Poets. One huge learning came about there: the word for where sky and sea meet is NOT horizon, it is offing. You will find that referenced here.

June Poetry, Week 1

Day 1

Monhegan #1

There is chop on the water, a high breeze

and surf bawdy against the hull. 

The mail for Monhegan is strapped 

to the deck in a Rubbermaid tub: bills, 

maybe a few billets doux 

from a soldier serving in Kabul

to his beloved, local girl dreaming 

of getting away from the snuggery of island life.

Tourists with too many bags

teeter on the ramp in city shoes, hope 

for something primal, maybe an artifact 

from the shipwreck of the Sheridan 

at Lobster Cove. The man in the red ball cap, 

camera lens longer than his forearm, leaps 

to capture the eagle fishing off starboard, loses 

his shoe over the side. It’s not real life, it’s bird life. 

Day 2

Monhegan # 1.5 

Cottage

Long trudge up a rutty road

or a hitch from the luggage truck,

red velvet cat on the tv cabinet —

left behind from last season.

Romantically cut the veggies 

for chowda, lost thyme discovered 

in a bag within a bag just in time to season, 

haddock, celery — just the right amount of cream

et voila!

dueling poems in a cottage by the sea —

how long does it take 

an email to fly from one side 

of the room to the other? With a whoosh

it goes, ricocheting off the sky light,

zeroing in on the leather divan, near miss

of the lamp and clock 

et voila!

We need ginger beer and coffee filters,

need running water in the tub,

and bread for toast (at $6 a loaf —

we don’t care) The needy don’t care

the cost of a hitch to the store or crusty loaves.

We need to work on poems today, 

get a good line from somewhere, 

from a cedar waxwing’s throat will do.

et voila!

from the open window, a six-pack of notes.

Day 3

Monhegan #2

Bird chatter in the brush, the horse

chestnut, fog horn bleating against the sky,

a cough from downstairs

where she tries to sleep off the incident,

the race of her engine against her chest wall.

Sounds of island life do the job, calm

seas know to lie flat against the offing

tonight when what she needs is revved

up like her own body, a counterpoint.

Over the trees, an eagle with a message:

this is the way poetry happens sometimes,

with a clatter of muscle against bone — or with a sigh.

Day 4

Monhegan #3

... somewhere a bird 

who is bound he'll be heard,

is throwing his heart at the sky!

— partial lyrics from State Fair, 1945

Somewhere in the dark, a charm of finches

huddles in the snuggery of branches still wet

from fog that slid in and out all day

like a promise. Sunlight has given up,

shied from every hollow where at noon

it took up the songs thrown at the sky,

echoing melodies off every erratic boulder. 

If you look now, no matter how you squeeze

your eyes against the shadows, 

you will not find them. No matter how

you cup your ear, you will not discover

their night language, hear stories

they spin from beak to beak. It’s a grand 

and hushed burlesque played out in the dark.

Day 5

Monhegan #4

The Monhegan Sky

is fickle, sometimes purple-black as a bruise, 

shapeshifting into storm-grey. Just yesterday

it went into hiding behind Oz’s smoky curtain,

pulling the levers, making sharp

sizzles of light over Port Clyde. 

Duck and cover, hide 

under the schoolhouse desks,

wait for the zap of incandescents

overhead, bare as babies. Peek

through your fingers, watch the filaments

curl to ash as smoke fill the bulbs. 

On a morning like this, blue and tight

against the offing, it seduces us from sleep,

calls us by the names we only dream of.

Day 6

Monhegan #5

38 chickens have run of the place, Jamie Wyeth’s 

Wet Dream no longer anchored here, the Hermit

no longer on Manana, pestery foxes eradicated 

in early 1900s, a coon cat is pals with the black hen 

down the road by Carina’s. On the rutty drive 

to the Murdock House, a Tardis doubles as a garden shed. 

Waxwings swish into the trees, disappear of a sudden 

like chameleons, their songs trilling from every leaf. 

Gladness is in the air, and everywhere you look is island. 

A one-legged pink plastic flamingo

keeps his stance over the rhubarb; at night, up on Lookout,

a flash of white light that turns and turns in the fog.

Day 7

Monhegan #6

Island Traffic

Geese vee overhead, honk

like interstate rushers,

19 Manana goats amble 

like Saturday gamboling at a picnic.

On Monhegan, the rule is

no cars, so only beater trucks

down at the dock to scoop

tourist bags, haul supplies

to the Black Duck or Carina’s:

ginger brew, wine, peanut butter jars

from Port Clyde. So much island

made: lemon verbena soap, ice cream,

so much trouble to keep the place

clear of debris, recycle, take trash, 

dog poop away on the Laura B

when she leaves for Port Clyde.

Island paths unpaved save by feet

in Keens or Bean boots, Birkenstocks,

watch out for the beaters heading

back to the dock with outflow luggage.

Geese vee overhead, waxwings retreat

into the trees, Manana nubiles graze

and race each other to the edge, bleat

hello or farewell to Island traffic.

May Poetry, Week 3

Day 15

Sleep Study

Dear Pôgwas Kisos, 

Alnôbaskwagia. You walk

in dreams of grandmothers’

stories and of tomorrows

that are on the horizon. 

21 wires teleport streams

of breath and heart and brain

to a room outside, to a woman

who cannot read the streams

of ancestry we send. In her world,

numbers and graphs, data

to analyze. In our world, yours,

it is dreaming and spirit. Trees

outside the window watch

as you sleep, breathe their own

into you. Birds wake you

with songs of happiness, of 

going on, of carrying streams

of stories into the earth. Let others

tell stories from the wires. You say

what you hear in the dreams

we send, sieved through the webs

in the corner of the window.

NOTE: Pôgwas Kisos = Snow Moon

             Alnôbaskwagia = I am an Abenaki woman

Day 16

Dear Relatives,

Alnôbaskwania, I dream

at the riverbank, catch

news from fish, from polliwogs

becoming their new froggy selves,

from pebbles rolling down

the ages with moss tied 

to their waists. 

I wake to birdsong and wind thumps,

like the drum that leads us in dance. 

I wake and walk Ndakinna

with soft feet, singing 

a green corn song in the garden.

I wake with your breath on me,

your blood in me, your eyes open.

I give it all back with chapters added

to the story, make each night

a night of praise. Alôbaskwania.

NOTE: Alôbaskwania = You are an Abenaki woman

Day 17

Dear Embryo,

You of not quite feet and hands,

better off than a blastocyte,

not so safe as a near-term fetus, you

with cells flying off 

the chart in growth, you unnamed

DNA organizing into someone

who might be worshipped

by your family soon enough

or might be terminated 

as an inconvenience.

How is it that you raise

so much controversy

over what to do about you?

How is it that some want you

to be less of a burden

to society, you who cannot feed

yourself for another three years,

cannot buy or grow your own food

for another dozen plus? 

How is it that some will kill

over the right to eliminate you?

What’s up

with all the fuss 

over whether or not you get funded

for college, have to wait in long lines 

to vote, or have the right to marry

that other little boy embryo 

growing down the street in Mrs. James?

Are you nervous? Where is this all leading?

Day 18

Dear Vincent,

I’d write this as a sonnet in iambs

if I could make the rhyme fit nice and neat,

but my meter’s meter seems somewhat jammed

and I can hardly count the doggone feet.

Is it that I am growing tired or old,

or has my poet’s brain come down with flu?

I see my rhyme and meter have gone cold,

and I don’t really know what I should do.

What say you take a break and come to help,

bring me chocolate or something strong to drink,

rub my shoulders or massage my scalp.

Look at this mess; the thing is on the brink

of making me give up poetry for good.

(Go on, tell me now if you think I should.)

Day 19

Dear Poet-in-Training,

Who am I but another trudger

in between publications, thinking

to help you. My right hand

stiffens, my fingers go numb.

My feet tap under my desk 

the same as yours, my eyes burn, 

my energy sputters like the candle 

at midnight, same as yours. 

Who am I to say a phrase is dull,

a line too awkwardly unmetrical,

a metaphor over-used and trite?

Who told you I’d be of help?

Winds will keep soughing

the lilacs out side my window, 

pushing the scent in for comfort,

still I will crumple the pages

and start over a dozen times. Cats

will keep fighting in the street,

my lines too, dying

over and over from the struggle.

It’s a puzzle we do, fitting image

with verb, holding our breaths

for the final picture. 

Who am I and who are you? 

Day 20

The Apology

First

let me say  (to myself) 

it wasn’t my fault,

then let me say I’m sorry,

then I’ll wait for you to say it.

Next

after I’ve apologized, conceded,

you say how right you are (always),

then let me say: you are so sorry.

Finally

let me declare the ritual done,

the game over.

Day 21

The Apology, part deux

I need one,

something heartfelt, 

blood-red words 

from your lips. Say them.

Not too much to ask,

really simple: open 

your mouth and spill it.

Say you were wrong,

not that you were not

entirely right. An apology.

I can hold it, a heart

without an arrow; I can see

it carved into the willow

that shades the yard, that wept 

over every argument. 

The bedroom clock clangs

a bit off key. It won’t keep time.

May Poetry, Week 2

Day 8

Ghost Bug
             for Cynthia

There it is, in her sock,
a hitchhiker 
brought in from the garden.
It feels the warmth
of her blood, tastes the sweat
of her shin. Boring deep
without a pinch, it settles,
grows fatter with its meal.

Soon she will grow mysteriously
ill, no signs of the deed
save a circle, like a bullseye,
a spot unnoticed for days.

Tiny intruder, pencil dot small,
and all this disaster. Not long
ago the whole thing maligned:
malingering, laziness, hypo-
chondriasis (accused like fibromyalgia
or chronic fatigue). Lyme.
Destroyer tick, riding 
on those pretty deer we feed,
lurking in the lush of the yard.





Day 9

Radicle

first of roots to grow,

like you from me, stretching

in my belly, attached and 

absorbing. I make food for you,

make a bed well mulched

with everything I have

that will prosper you

and make you ready 

for the day 

when first sunlight

strikes your face. I am yours,

my little radicle: your

terrarium & incubator, lover

of the unseen for 40 weeks,

but part of me I'll recognize:

little budding one, tiny vine

curled around my heart always.

Day 10

Radiotracer

Element 49, soft

fusible, post-transitional 

metal, rare. Useful

for liquid crystal displays,

touch-screens. Thin

blue line on the spectrum,

indigo blue: Indium.

Zinc gives it up, grains

of native metal,

like the people

of Ndakina, dangerous

in contact 

with those who don’t heed

the warning:

not of commercial importance.

Element 49, rare

low melting point.

Day 11

On Nashua Street

At night, tucked in upstairs
not ready to sleep; my eyes followed
the lights from cars passing 
on Nashua Street, beams swooshing
dormer windows, sounds 
like ships’ wakes or wind hushing.

Downstairs adult games, pinochle
or whist, cribbage (fifteen-two,
fifteen-four and two are eight)
and conversation I couldn’t quite hear.
Nana’s footsteps at the door,
milk and brownies for the sleepless.

On Nashua Street, memories
of happy nights under the roof 
that sags now, that soon will tumble 
and fall, a place where only ghosts watch 
the headlights pass, hear the swoosh 
of their own bedclothes.




Day 12

The Dress

In an acid-free box, folded carefully,
Mary Lincoln’s party dress, sprigs
of fading strawberries, green
and purple ruffs at the sleeves,
original lace where it would 
have encircled her neck. 

Oh how she tried
to cheer a nation newly at war, 
strawberry parties a spring answer
to the bloody war of brothers
raging to its grim conclusions. 

Mary, did you shop for hope? Did you go
to the countryside to gather it
in baskets, sweet fruit to quell
the bitter tastes of battle? 

Your husband worried for the nation, 
felt the pains of battle, wanted to hide
the strife, so he decreed to you: 
carry on my dear, cheer us with heart fruit
festivals, that this pain may pass us by. 

So you, Mary Todd, dutiful wife, 
donned blood-red strawberries on a field
of black silk, knowing in your heart
what mourning was to overtake us.





Day 13

The Last Poem

This is it, the last, really,
I mean it this time.

No more words or lines
traipsing across the page,
no more rhymers or metaphors,
no more meter, & for the love of God,
no more syntax. 

I want a rest, a vacation, a hiatus, 
maybe retirement on a porch 
where someone will come 
in the afternoons with chocolate-
covered berries, champagne
in a crystal flute. 

I deserve a poem-free life.
Wait a minute, that makes me think
about the way berries splash open
on the tongue, the way champagne
bubbles fizz the nose, the way a porch
opens memories of that aunt 
who clicked her teeth
to the rhythm of the rocker.

I’ll quit tomorrow 
after I write the actual last poem.
Or maybe next week.





Day 14

On Center Street 

Pulling into the yard —
home again, home again,
jiggedy-jog, suitcases heavier
than when they went 
out. Steps on the porch
a creaky welcome, lock’s familiar
click and turn. Home again,
home again, jiggedy-jig.

Did we leave that light on? 
Was someone here?
Mail piled neatly on the table,
plants perky, upright. Vase
of flowers from the yard.

Back to center, 
back home where 
your neighbor has your key.

May Poetry, Week 1

Day 1 

Needed It

I’ve always had it,

last minute luck when I needed it,

the luck that kicks in when dark

times might swamp me.

I’ve always seemed to be right

there where the luck fell

out of the sky, rounded

the next corner, made itself

available for the picking.

No money for shoes

for my kids,

and there was the fifty

blowing across the parking lot

in front of the shoe store.

No job to support myself,

and there was the call

asking me if I’d heard

so and so was hiring

because someone quit.

No food in the cupboard

and there was the bag

of groceries left on the porch,

and a twenty for gas 

in an envelope.

I’ve always had luck,

but now I’m thinking

if I needed so much luck,

maybe my life

was one big pile of disasters.

Day 2

Following

back roads without a map, going 

on when there is no more

road, paying attention

to no map, walking at night

without a flashlight —

swimming without water wings,

diving off a big rock

into a dark pond at midnight.

All of these fraidy-cat moments

are nothing compared to falling

in love. The the beads of sweat

that trickle between my breasts

at the touch of his hand 

when we first danced, the flush

of heat rising on my cheeks

at our first kiss, the little buzz

in my head when he played 

me a song he said was us. 

There’s no map for love. 

Only bravery and foolishness.

Day 3

Profuse and Profane

There, on the side of the road,

orange plastic bags filled with litter,

litter you tossed from your cars

as you whizzed by, heading

to or fro. There they are, bright bundles

growing like weeds along the highways.

Treasures of travel, profuse and profane

evidence of bad manners, there they are.

Gone are the signs,

the warnings of fines and penalties

for dropping onto the byways 

what you’re done using. Litterbugging

seems okay now, so much more to worry

us these days like that text message,

the price of gas at the next exit.

Better speed up, keep ahead of the traffic,

find a motel with a swimming pool.

There, on the side of the road, a sign: 

highway beautification

next 8 miles by the makers

of orange plastic bags.

Day 4 

Made Wrong

for Erin

Her thumb toes face the wrong way

she says at fourteen, wanting pretty

feet and perfect looks. Her nose

is crooked from a pitch into the street

over her handlebars at age nine,

she has cradle cap in her scalp

sometimes, though I tell her shampoo

residue, rinse better please.

She’s too short or too tall,

never just right like the last bed

in Goldilocks’ tale. She’s not pretty

enough, she says, made wrong somehow.

Now, at age forty-two, a little magic:

she’s beautiful, no matter

in what direction her thumb toes go. 

Day 5

Rained In

Rain floods the sill, window 

left open to birdsong last night. 

Tulips open too — wanting a drink, 

wanting bees’ legs

to reassure the future 

in this garden.

No garden for me today,

today filled with chores and desk.

No window open, 

no birdsong,

nothing moving in a breeze

that won’t get felt, no smell

of low tide, no rustle of budding trees

to swish me clear of boredom.

Day 6

Edmund White, Grand Flâneur

It took a dictionary to discover

what White meant, what kind of wanderer

he said was so invisible, a person

of shadow and corners, of doorways

and alleyways. A Flâneur, he said.

Words, little keyholes to strangeness, 

to mysterious folks

with bizarre habits, odd clothing, 

eyes that see what most do not. Words, 

like taxis that take us into holes

in the universe where up is down,

where tiny bottles are labeled 

Eat Me, Drink Me, like Alice. 

White knew, 

as Poe, Tolkien, & Lewis knew,

that the whole world is a map, 

a flâneur’s delight. Take a candle,

a pencil, and a notebook. Wander.

Day 7

Her Majesty, Beatrix

of the Netherlands

abdicated to her son, official

ceremony of stepping down, moving

off to the side, taking a break.

Queen Mother we say now, 

royal matron of her people, dowager

dearly loved, honored by all.

Benedict XVI, abdicated

to Francis, left by helicopter

to a safe house ( Castel Gandalfo,

which has nothing to do with hobbits, 

though there was a ring 

destroyed in the bargain).

Abdication is sometimes a holy thing

to do, sometimes cowardice in flight.

So ask: what’s happening

at Buckingham Palace?