Watermark

This is Your Life

 XX by nwolc

MP3 File

A wood. All branches bare, except for the hundreds
of tiny lizards hanging by their tails, crooked legs stretched
out, tiny hands reaching, bodies swaying in the almost
visible breeze, black limbs, white sky, then

a meadow, tall grasses, wildflowers, a wooden chair
standing in the meadow, many-times-painted many
colors, layer after layer, year after year, weather-crackled,
bubbled, chipped and paled. You see him, Weather,

an old craftsman in worn coveralls, bent over the chair,
carefully working away with ancient tools, carving that
valued antique patina, as if it had stood, unprotected
in a grassy meadow, season after season, and

now a vast lawn, green grass thick and mowed and
made for croquet. A man sits in the grass beneath a tattered
useless umbrella, no shield from rain, no guard from sun,
with its broken spines and ribboned cloth. The man sits cross-

legged, the man with the head of a kangaroo sits on the
croquet lawn, he hears the crack! of the mallet, the distant
plummy voices arguing, exclaiming, laughing, and when
you wake you still hear them, laughing.

  

    read write image #17 (now known as read write prompt #81)

    Totally Optional Prompt: Weather

[I sneaked in and did a little editing; will come back later and redo the audio. That gasp you hear was kitten jumping from the bookcase onto my shoulder. I thought I recovered fairly well?]

The House-Bound Ventures Out

she prepares for days hoarding
energy / fireflies in a glass jar /
examines clothing for marks
of wear / a hole in the knee / buttons
cracked or missing / missing / stains
on the embroidered breast / amulets
in the pocket / earrings 
finger rings / key ring

her eyes widen / she can feel the lids
stretch / at the distant horizon / far
mountains / clouds / the river
high dark fast / pulling / at its banks
trees bent down in the water

a drive through the neighborhood
of biography / victorian towered flats
the hall of a bed / bath in three rooms
claw-foot tub / pedestal sink / time
cracked / old porcelain

cottonwood flurries at the windshield
out-of-season seed-storm / wide-winged
dark-tipped osprey / young-one
gliding in the still air

boarded storefronts / bowling alley
gone / in its place modern cantilevered
apartments across from the slumped motel
where once she lived husbanded / loving /
loved / daytime soap operas the drama
of housewifery punctuated by books
physics / philosophy / poetry

she buys new fish for the slaughtered pond
tiny shells & silk cord threading through narrow
street after wide avenue / this old woman /
green maples and ash trees


MP3 File

Dreamer

Somebody came to my door and offered
to give me a child who had been abandoned.
I declined but thought of you.

They say that in dreams, the house is the body.
Or perhaps the psyche. A house of many rooms.
But who is the child?

Who is the offerer? Who the prospective parent?
What is the car, the truck, the train? They are,
each and all, the dreamer.

This is the vehicle, the work, the task. It carries
me where I must go. Me, the child, the parent.
The dreamer. The poem.

    

  Totally Optional Prompt: Sound -- I added the sound player in response to this prompt. More of my poems with audio can be found at Audio Posts. This prompt has nudged me to add sound to more of my poems. The player above is an experiment -- please let me know if you have problems.

     

This poem is already up at Poets Corner -- Thanks, Anny!

Audio

Added audio to:

Blog Action Day: Why Must It Be Beautiful?

Snapshot Poem 10 October 02007

Snapshot Poem 03 October 2007

Blog Action Day: Why Must It Be Beautiful?

MP3 File

What is it for, all this
beauty? The curve
of the spiral

from the laddered
twist of DNA
to the vast wave

of galaxies; the green
luna moth, breath-
taking & ordinary. 

Does the prey see
beauty in its predator?
Do gazelles admire

the leopard? Does
the seal lift
its sleek head

to gaze in wonder
at the bumbling,
lethal polar bear?

Our science tells us 
how. Our science
gives us reason.

But why must it be
beautiful? The aero-
nautic miracle

of the bumble bee;
the passing brilliance
of the butterfly. Surely

predators would be
more deterred by
ugliness. The hideous

and the platypus
have their own glory.
Humans have our

own glory. Do other
creatures adore
the useless,

the only gorgeous,
the green wave
of Northern Lights

dimming the stars?
The indented shadow
of the heron's bath

in a snowdrift? Why
must it be beautiful?
When we pass, with

the bee, with
the butterfly,
with the polar bear,

the leopard,
the gazelle,
who will grieve

this deep and terrible
loss? Who will delight
in what comes next?

I wonder if a poem could be like a butterfly?

Snapshot Poem 10 October 02007

This day is too gray
for profundity. I woke
to roofers hammering,
shingles flying past
my window; both dogs

quietly asleep, pressed
against my knees.
The birches are a shower
of gold, with a few
withered brown leaves,

holding, holding on.

   

MP3 File

Snapshot Poem 03 October 2007

I remember how it will
happen. Leaves will fade
and brown, the sky will
grow wider. Snow will
thicken in the mountains.

The news will speak of war,
famine, extinctions. Coasts
will tremble beneath storms
called rare, unusual, brutal.

Widows and mothers will
grieve; fathers will fold flags
on the sideboard. Children
will not understand, but

they will rage. Skies bared
by fallen leaves will close
again with fog and falling
snow. Winter will come.

MP3 File

Poetry Thursday

    . . . this week’s (completely and totally optional) idea is to write or share a poem that incorporates a song.

I am -- again -- using an old post for this one -- I'm still tired, uninspired, and inward. But I do just happen to have a sort-of song poem, from the NaPoWriMo experiment, originally posted on April 19 of this year:

This is what happens when you commit to an impossible poem-a-day for a month, and then listen to the radio in that place between sleep and morning.

EDITED TO ADD: I am told that this is a bit dry on the page, but a kick to hear; so if you feel disappointed, try clicking the audio.

MP3 File

remember what you told me
remember what you said
    you said you'd never leave me
    till the day that you were dead
oh this sky is turning purple
this sky, it's like a bruise
    the sky is turning purple
    and I have got the blues

you swore you'd never leave me
till the day that you were dead
    remember what you told me
    remember what you said
oh you say that she is loving
you say that she is true
    you say that she is loving
    babe, that's no excuse

remember what you told me
remember what you said
    you swore you'd never leave me
    till the day that you were dead
oh the sky is turning purple
this heart, it's like a bruise
    you said you'd never leave me
    but I have got the blues

Bell

[I'm on vacation. This was originally posted Wednesday, 25 August 2004]

MP3 File

once I imagined the bell
all the rest came easily
the young man in the burgundy coat
lilies tolling their scent in the garden
pale moon over narrow streets, it all
dreamt itself into tall dark trees
shivering with sparrows and wind

the wind in the shutters
the nervous courtyard
something sacred at the altar
the pale child in her ghost dress
the book with its gossamer gilded pages
its thin black-pebbled cover
this docile child, butterfly wings

the old man bent into his cane
shuffling, shuffling, the pale moon
it all came quite easily, then
the moon walked into the mountains
the stars fell the old man fell
the lilies dropped their thick petals
the young man became a branch

scratching, scratching the window
the shutters opened their louvers the fan
making its ocean sound it all became
lightness and bright stripes on the wall
morning morning and I step into the garden
thick slow beat of pelican wings
into a cloud of pale moths

Poetry Thursday

 

Quick Muse, via dumbfoundry:

Two poets write a poem in 15 minutes. You can see the letters as they type them in, and if they decide to delete them or change something, you see that too. You can read the 'finished' poem or watch it appear over 15 minutes bit by bit.

This week's suggestion was to read poetry aloud -- which I often do, and here is a link to my audio posts, in case any of you would like to hear my poems.

So two diversions today.

Enjoy.