Confession Tuesday

This is going to be a quick one…

• I am thoroughly excited about the fact that Law & Order: Criminal Intent is back on the air tonight.  I’m a little disgruntled over the fact that Goren and Eames are going to be out as characters this season, but I am trying to maintain an open mind. 
• I am also excited that national poetry month is just days away.  :D  I’m going to participate in FaBoStaMe tomorrow at 5:00 pm.  I believe it stands for “Facebook status message” but FaBoStaMe is a poetry-writing challenge in which participants write one poem every minute for 30 consecutive minutes, posting the poems as their status messages. 
• This morning I was listening to Sage Cohen on the Inkwell. I was in a workshop with her back in October. Now I can’t stop daydreaming about poetry.  I am also thinking a lot about how words are power and we need to choose them carefully. 
• With that said, I totally want to create a vision board.  We were supposed to do that at a Speakeasy meeting, and I’d taken supplies to do it, but there were too many “business” items so we didn’t get to it.  I need to get that on the calendar.
• And speaking of calendars, I’m totally tired of physical therapy.  I feel soooo much better now, and I really don’t like to take the time to go and submit myself to torture.  I’m trying to figure out how I can just stop going without having them get on my case about it.  Isn’t it stupid to be afraid to tell your PT that you don’t want to come back?  I just feel like they would have me come forever if I don’t stop soon.
• I’ve been on a garlic kick the past week and a half.  It is kind of scary.  Last night, I even ate some fries just so I had a vehicle for eating the raw garlic.  It seems crazy.  I’m sure Tim is quite tired of it at this point.
• Readwritepoem is going to be having a prompt a day during the month of April.  Get your poem on! 
• I love being a “gran” and snuggling with Kennedy on a daily basis.  *sigh*  He’s growing and changing every day.  Totally amazing. 

Games Poets Play: A Lie and a Truth

Dana, at Read Write Poem came up with a great idea… write bits of essay.  One should be a lie, and one a truth.  So, in the spirit of fun, here are mine.  Can you guess?
#1
My fingers traced a deep line in the faux-wood surface of the table. The fork and spoon were out of alignment on the thin tri-fold napkin. I nudged the napkin and slid the flatware so they were parallel. Roger sat on the booth bench next to me, his denim-clad leg inches from mine. Miriam, the waitress, kneeled in the booth opposite us. She smiled her usual pixie smile, ready to take our beverage order. Black coffee for him. A Coke for me. She hustled away to get us our drinks. Roger seemed nervous. I didn’t want to look directly at him, which was okay, since we were sitting side-by-side. To really look at him, I’d have to crane my neck or shift in the booth. I didn’t want to do either. I wondered if I’d made a mistake.
“Do you know where the restrooms are?” Roger asked, even though he knew I knew.
I pointed him in the right direction and let him out of the booth. He walked down the hall. Miriam returned with the coffee and Coke.
“Is that your new step-dad?” she asked.
I flushed in response, but she continued to look at me.
“No,” I answered a little too slowly. A look of confusion crossed her face for a half a second; then a different look entirely.
“Oh,” was all she could say.

#2
The heat in the room had to be close to 96 degrees. The small grey fan in the corner worked its hardest, but could not circulate enough air to make a meaningful difference.
Roger sat across the room from me on my grandma’s new custom-made floral-covered sofa. The woman in the lime-green pantsuit sat next to him, her mouth opening and closing like a huge fish caught on a line. She was talking, but I had lost all sense of direction in the conversation. I was distracted by Roger.
His kind brown eyes met mine and he gave me that look.
I stood and smoothed my skirt, waiting for a break in her dialogue.
She finally took a breath.
“Can I get you something cool to drink?” I asked her.
“Lemonade,” she replied and then started back on another tangent.
Roger followed me to the kitchen.
“How can you be married to that woman?” I asked as his arms circled around my waist.

Virtual Book Tour - Apologies to an Apple

For some reason... Blogger didn't post my scheduled post earlier in the day (was supposed to post shortly after midnight), and the blog police at work blocked our access to Blogger so I couldn't tell until just now.  Grrrr. Without further ado...

Reading the introduction to Maya Ganesan’s book Apologies to an Apple, I am impressed and amazed by the fact that so many adults supported and encouraged a young girl’s dream of publication. From Maya’s parents to Katherine Grace Bond, adults were willing to listen, read, and embrace her words. This is huge.

Parents generally tend to be over-protective of their children. They want to keep them from negative comments or criticism. They want them to pursue sensible activities or athletics that could propel them to the NBA or the Major Leagues where they could make millions of dollars (ha-ha). Not many parents push their children to write poetry. And, if you are lucky enough to run across parents who are supportive and encourage their children to pursue dreams of publishing poetry, you would still be hard-pressed to find other adults willing to jump on that bandwagon. Writing is a competitive world. It is hard to find support. But Maya had a wonderfully caring mentor and then found publishers willing to take a chance on a kid. Amazing. It is all amazing. And because these adults believed in Maya, we were able to share in her words, her imagination, her life music.

“We tasted quarrel
Till our hearts burned into fire.”

“… and drinking a hundred vowels each”

Reading those snippets, it is hard to believe those words/phrases came from a 10-11 year old, but she has been writing since she was four!  It is hard to believe Maya could have felt such complexities at a young age, but her skills of observation are obviously tuned in to the world around her. It will be interesting to watch her work as she progresses into her teen years and then adulthood.  Maya's work runs the gamut from conversational to abstract and dreamlike, full of adult-speak and internal wisdom .  She includes lot of rich details and shares interesting observations.

The poems throughout this book treat us to a glimpse into a different perspective.  They also serve as reminders to us all. Read them, then think… are you a parent? A grandparent? An aunt? An uncle? A teacher? A neighbor? A friend? A writer? Look around you. Who can you encourage today? How would that impact the world? 

CHASIN DUST BUNNEHS DISLODGD BY TEH LADDR DURIN YET ANOTHR HOME IMPROOVEMENT PROJECT

U paint me
crazy into teh cornr.
Mah whiskers tippd
wif
Japanees Fern: not
as peaceful as it soundz.
Teh Mt. Dew green
wallz glow into
teh hall
assuring us dat teh paint
marketers dupd u again.

**Photo of Lamont used with permission of Martha Hughes http://dragonflyphotography.etsy.com/

LOLCAT Poem

DAWGS ‘ROLL OVAR’, SCRATCH, CHASE BALLS
AN DON’T SWEAT TEH SMALL
STUFF CUZ THEY DON’T SWEAT.


I RULE TEH BAKYARD JUNGLE.


MAH PREDATORY SKILLS RIVAL
PAYDAI LOANZ AN CREDIT
CARD INTEREST RATEZ.
IM FIERCE.


MICE?
TREMBLE
AS I MAK MAH WAI
DOWN TEH PATH WER TEH GRAS
PARTS, WELL-
WORN BY TEH BLACK PADZ
OV MAH FEROSHUS PAWS.


RAWR


--Giacomo
http://readwritepoem.org/groups/lolcat-poetry

Postcard Poetry: August 1

The Postman Likes

to scan funky postcards

the smell of stamps on a
sunny morning

to stomp on it first.

To keep things simple and dark.

To think of himself as quietly
sexy

to tell stories about jumbo
lump crab cake cookoffs

to go about his business the old-
fashioned way

three words: brown paper wrapper

to see you smile.

Push

Push.
Push.
I've changed my mind.
I don't want to do this.
You have to.
Push.
Tears fall as she enters my world with a wail.

Twenty years and twenty days
spun around a semi-circle
to a difficult place
where letting go is expected
but bittersweet.

Now in a mountain cow-town where
she's sprouted wings, and
I'm supposed to return empty-nested:
I struggle. Not because I want
to keep her from her destiny,
but because I may not know my own.

After my biggest role -
playing mom for half my years
plus two - who am I?
It is time for new discoveries
and paths for each of us.

I stand in her postage stamp
kitchen wanting to help.
I open my mouth to speak
but gape like the open cupboard doors
and swallow my advice so
she will forge ahead.

Push.
Push.
I've changed my mind.
I don't want to do this.
You have to
let go… tears fall and
for a moment I unfurl
as I leave, having delivered
her to her own world.

I busted this draft out during my lunch today. I'm sure I will make some changes, but this is it for now. This was another suggested topic from Read Write Poem. Check it out and see what everyone else did as well.

Draft - Mr. Bates

Mr. Bates

Loneliest number -- not one –
and three is not a crowd
from a watcher’s point of view.

A neighbor peeks through
cracked curtains and
seeks booty-call visuals
in Pottery Barn bedrooms.

He catches a non-missionary glimpse
when the breeze sweeps across
an empty manicured lawn
and creeps into summer-spilled windows.

Soccer mom rides blind
in the night bathed by noisy
blue television light.

With a final grind,
lithe hips slip. Her real
estate husband dips his
Ken doll head, hitting
his numbers for the month
before twitching to sleep.

She sighs – unbridled –
paying no never mind
to Gary Two-Doors-Down.

Mr. V for Voyeur
who, from a distance, can’t see
the thin sheen of passion
glittering her skin but feels
the heat in the palm of his hand.




This is a step outside of the comfort zone for me, but it is based on a prompt given out at Read.Write.Poem, so I just had to give it a try. Check out the others...

Capture Words: doppelganger

Benediction in Sourdough

After a busy grade school week
of whispered secrets, chased
boys and tetherball,
late 70s Sundays arrived
on a northbound passage to church.

Not just any vanilla sanctimony-filled
sermon for our Seattle sojourn.
We heard words
spilled from the lips of a
Doppelganger for Jesus.
The light brown-haired version
of American Christianity
wore white robes and
strapped sandals that filled
the bill. Our Sunday Jesus
held us in awe and spoke
with the gentle certainty
that limited sibling scuffles in pews.

As Jesus spoke, damsel flies
danced in Bible marginalia.
We found our names
on whisper thin pages
of books titled Matthew and
Titus, traced fingers
across red-printed words of the
Son, and counted who begat whom.
We reveled as Samoan hymn songs
sung heaven-rafter-ward bulged
both building and spirit.

After services we towed the line
in exodus: surrendering tentative
hands that disappeared in the
large clasping grasp of Jesus as
he pumped our arms in farewell.

Ceremony concluded:
South Seattle side stop
for final communion. Over
breakfast with family friends,
adults talked Sunday Jesus
while we chased skittish grey
kittens who hid from kids
under skirted beds in empty rooms.

Blessed with sourdough
pancakes, we converted
bites of sharp tang and buttered
bliss into a maple syrup wafer
tying our experience
together in fellowship.

Now, when the Religious Right
singles out Sunday church skippers,
stamping them with a scornful
scarlet “S” for sinner,
they count me among
the bad bunch.
But judge as they may,
they shouldn’t cast stones.
I shared sourdough with Jesus.

Read Write Poetry Prompt #41 Get Your Poem On

I just stumbled across a website filled with coolness… and poetry. :) Check out www.readwritepoem.org. They had a prompt where you took the "bare bones" of someone else's poems and basically fill in the blanks. I used Annamari's "bare bones" and tweaked it a little, but thought that it was a lot of fun to play with. I didn't read her version first, but after I did, I felt totally inadequate. :)

Untitled

Your fingers slide my patience
somewhere between aside and blind,

stop to fiddle in the middle.
"I aim to tease."

To please. To pluck
chords in harmonious ratio

of sunshine days vs. long strong
night songs sung by skin-stung

lips glistening for the moon.
You kissed my falling star

out of the black night fabric of
desire - worn thin at the end

of the giving season. Breaking
point: your wish not frayed

but granted. Trace slow sky lines,
another slide. The end. Sigh.
Patience again, patience.

Here is the "bare bones" format I started with (from Annamari)...

Your fingers ___my ____

between ____ and _____

stop the _____ in the ___

“I ____ to _____”

To _____,

harmonyof ____.

To ____?

was ____for the ______

wearing a _________

at the _____ of the season.

_________:

You wish not

to ____

but ____.

Another ______

you will end

with ____:

“Thy ______ Love,

_______.”