Watermark

the bubbling place | Poetry Thursday

This week's prompt was Utopia, and I just happen to have a poem that suits:

the bubbling place

I have been here
on the shore
all night

the channel is filled
with sea creatures

dolphins
whales
manatee

they call to me

I grow wings
& the angel
shows me how to use them

I have been lost
swimming
for a long time

flamingos & fire lizards
play together in a forest
stripped of leaves

they lose their ball
& look for it
in the pelican's mouth

gulls & eagles & ravens fly
together in a great swarm
like bees

to the sea

  From Liz Elayne:

Please note that this will be the last organized edition of the Thursday "Traveling Poetry Show." A big thank you to Delia, Carolee, Jillypoet, and Tracie Lyn who hosted Thursday posts these last few weeks.

At this time, a new project will not be taking its place (though I have this secret dream that the traveling project will just keep going and going all by itself).  

This saddens me greatly. I hope that someone with the energy and skills will step forward, and that Liz Elayne will pass the site and the responsibility on. The site -- and the passion -- that she generated is too important to allow to fade --  and it has, inevitably, faded these past few weeks, in the absence of a place and a person to  shepherd us.

BloggersUnite | Poetry Thursday

Today is Blogging Against Abuse day, a Community Challenge from Blog Catalog. I have a poem that is appropriate for this challenge: The Therapist.

I am linking rather than posting for two reasons:

• This poem is written in long lines, and that format works much better at Oratory than it does here at Watermark.
• This poem deals graphically with the subject of sexual abuse/assault.  It is important that the reader be warned -- this can be a difficult and painful read for some folks.

This is also my Poetry Thursday post. Sadly, the topic for this week was Utopia, and my piece is anything but. Still, there it is.

From the Poetry Thursday site:

For the next few weeks, several Poetry Thursday participants will take turns hosting the Thursday post on their blogs. This week, please visit The Red Door Studio where you will be able to a) leave your comment linking to your Thursday post about poetry, b) find out next week’s prompt. Next Thursday's host will be Liz Elayne.

Poetry Thursday/ Secrets

From the Poetry Thursday site:

For the next few weeks, several Poetry Thursday participants will take turns hosting the Thursday post on their blogs. This week, please visit jillypoet where you will be able to a) leave your comment linking to your Thursday post about poetry, b) find out next week’s prompt. Next Thursday's host will be The Red Door Studio.

I'm still working on The Love Series, but have nothing new from it to post. I do, however, have an old poem that is in line with the prompt for this week. It's one of my best poems, too.

   

Secrets

Listen. I will tell you everything. The weather is turning. 
Soon it will be time to unroll the Persian rugs and lay them
on the polished floors. 

I will hold nothing back. I am brittle, like glass; like leaves
of a tree too long without water; a cocoon, untenanted,
exposed to the sun. 

This morning I wore a jacket to walk the river path. Two crows,
in their black robes, pecked at the body of a thick green snake. 
My mother was a northerner.

She carried me across thin ice. Many times I slipped beneath
the frozen water. I never knew my father. Tomatoes are laid
on the kitchen counter,

red bulbs on the maple wood. I prepare the knife:  steel blade,
sharpening stone. I want to slice to the seedy centers without
bruising the skin. 

I loved my father. He had perfect, beautiful hands. He kept
them manicured and clean. There are reasons you must not
touch me. My grandmother

lived with God in her garden. She fed me carrots and peas,
she put white lilies by my bed. I am telling you everything. 
It is cold here. 

Birch trees bend in their white sleeves, leaves hissing in the wind. 
A blade of sun slants down, casting serrated shadows on the hard
ground. Are you listening? 

Do you understand? The dog waits, and waits, at the door. 
Yesterday, I dropped the Murano vase. It cannot be repaired. 
I cut myself on sharp, thin air.

 

Love 6

6.

Love is a married man.
He is strong and lean; he's a tree.
He carries his son on his shoulders.
Love is a tunnel of laughter.

We lie together, chastely.
The bed is on fire. When I send
him away, we kiss forever.
I send him away, though my skin

is sloughing, my bones are cracking,
little fractures, one by one. When
he leaves, the walls fall down.
I sleep in the burning wreckage.

   

This is part of a series I'm working on.

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5

   

From the Poetry Thursday site:

For the next few weeks, several Poetry Thursday participants will take turns hosting the Thursday post on their blogs. This week, please visit The Polka Dot Witch where you will be able to a) leave your comment linking to your Thursday post about poetry, b) find out next week’s prompt, and c) find out who will host the next Thursday post. [It will be jillypoet.]

Love 5

5.

Love is bitter and cold, with eyes
of blue fire. He shoves me away
with one arm; pulls me close
with the other. Leave me alone!
he shouts, his lips caressing my ear.

We court with our fists, then comfort
each other with tears. When he leaves,
he takes nothing. He dreams that I
weep in his closet, wrapped
in his clothes.

 

This is part of a series I'm working on.

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4

   

From the Poetry Thursday site:

For the next few weeks, a few Poetry Thursday participants will take turns hosting the Thursday post on their blogs. This Thursday, September 6, please visit Delia’s blog Left-Handed Trees and Other Lies: Writing from the Roots where you will be able to a) leave your comment linking to your Thursday post about poetry, b) find out next week’s prompt, and c) find out who will host the next Thursday post. [It's The Polka Dot Witch]

Cool Cats & Poets

This is the end of Poetry Thursday; my last post with that button. But it's the beginning of:

No, I don't know what this will be. They tell us:

. . . we want to build a vibrant place for readers and writers of poetry to hang out, connect, share ideas, learn more about poetry and get involved in ways they might not otherwise.

So I think it is worth looking forward to. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, a reminder that cats and poetry are intimately related:

And you'll find more cats, though perhaps not poems, here:

• The Carnival of the Cats at Scratching Post
• On Sunday, the new carnival at This Blog is Full of Crap 
• Weekend Cat Blogging at Paulchen’s
• Bad Kitty Cats Festival of Chaos at Snot Face & Rimbaud at The Mad Mirror
• & Friday Ark at Modulator

I've redone categories, and now have a page just for Friday Cat Blogging. For previous Friday Cat Blogging here at Watermark, click this:

 

I've also updated my Cats page -- cleaned out dead links and added a few toys: 

Don't have too much fun!

EDITED to add: Today Dave Pollard posted a cat poem:

carnal

. . .

a life of joy and purposefulness
of grace and imagination
in now time --

where stillness and movement
are one

Poets are Funny

This is the last week for Poetry Thursday, and I've no idea what will come next. Maybe these will cheer you up:

Copyright Robert T. Balder

Want the punchline? Click the image. Via Land Mammal.

poetryfoundation.org has a page of poet poems; these are my favorites [click the image to go to the cartoon]:

     

   

      

Finally, it occurred to me that I might find something at gapingvoid. Sure enough, a quick look unearthed this, somewhat more pointed, cartoon:

True for me.

For you?

Love 4

4.

I find Love in the kitchen.
She is solid and wide.
Her face is a secret, her hair is the sea.
She enters a room and fills it.

I want to drown. I want to know.
Plush and deep and rich, she opens
her arms, she opens her face. I sleep
with my hands on her breasts.

I drown. When I reach for the surface
I swim and swim for shore. When I leave,
I leave honestly. I take everything. I learn
to live in the desert.

   

This is part of a series I'm working on.

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3

Love 3

3.

When Love comes again
he's gentle and kind. He holds
my hand. He brushes my hair.
He stands outside the closed

door, reading me poems.
He speaks in parables
and metaphors. He holds
my breasts when we sleep.

When I leave, I go quietly.
I take nothing. I dream
that he weeps in my closet,
smelling my clothes.

 

This is part of a series I'm working on.

• Part 1
• Part 2

Love 2

2.

Love is a blustery fellow.
He takes me on carnival
rides, swings me through
air like a doll. I'm a doll
with strings; I'm a puppet.
I fly, I fall, I twitch.

Love is tall and thick
and loud. He orders me
about. I obey. I obey
for the joy of it, for
the thrill. Up we go,
and down again. When

Love leaves, he slams
the door. The window crackles
and breaks. For months,
for years, I gather slivers
of glass from the floor. Broken
glass. Yellow, blue. Red.

This is part of a series I'm working on. Part 1 is here.