Doors November 28, 2o14

Friday

On a Facebook poetry page we do a lot of picture challenges. It's great fun. This one I posted just few days ago on Facebook. Comments were varied. Most people did say that I had a different point of view than the other writers. See what you think.

Doors
There are too many doors inside my head.
Big doors, thick in varnished mahogany,

shiny doors with gold inlay knobs,

and knockers the size of a gardener’s fist.
Shy doors too, cracked and muddied,
bloody handprints dripping from the frames,
their hinges browned in rust and decay.
For far too long have those doors been closed,
and yet,  I always try the handle, listen to the rattle
of their locks . . . they never let me in.

And the creature dressed in black,
a heavy collar (boney white) around
its turkey neck, he tells me tales
of a magical place where the door’s always  ajar,
always inviting, holy and  just as white and stiff
as that cardboard noose that chokes his throat.
rrw 11-24-14

First Snow (Part 1 & 2) November 26, 2o14

Sorry, been away from the blog for a while exploring life AND writing some new poetry. We had our first snow in Norman Town a couple of weeks ago. Didn't last long, but . . . Well, here's a poem (in two parts) about . . . the weather? By the way, if you want to read the poem on the picture instead of scrolling down to the poem by itself and the print is too small, just click on the picture . . . it will get bigger. {smile}

 



 

 

 

First Snow (parts 1 & 2)

 

(12:30 PM)

The first snow of the season arrived early this morning.

No fanfare, no blast of artic air to signal its appearance

just a thin coat of white greeting me when I finally woke up

and raised the blinds. It was a surprise,

 

a pleasant surprise.

 

I may have actually smiled when I saw it.

Not that I love snow or the cold weather

that accompanies it. I don't like winter at all.

 

It was just—well,

 

I woke up in a sad mood, a bad mood,

and when I opened the blinds there it was,

a thin sheet of absolute white staring back at me . . .

 

for a moment, a very brief moment . . .  I felt . . . happy?

 

Well, let's not get carried away.

I wouldn't know "happy"

if it came up and bite me on the ass!

Let's just say I didn't feel quite as depressed

as I normally am when I first get up,

when I crawl out of sleep

into this uncomfortable reality.

 

Yeah, I may have smiled a bit, but nothing more.

 

(3:00 PM)

The snow still falling.  Again, not raging

in any way just falling, drifting,

swirling gently to the ground

and onto the slanted roof

that covers the front porch

of my makeshift apartment building.

 

A few snowflakes land in the street

and instantly they disintegrate,

and just as quickly reincarnate as water,

a mishmash of runny puddles.

I feel sorry for them, I truly do.

Very little time on this Earth do they have

before they changed into something lesser

than the celestial selves they were born to be.

 

But don't get me wrong, I love rain.

Many of my favorite days are rainy days.

Let's face the harsh truth, though.

There's something regal, refined,

and elegant about snow.

 

Whereas rain?

More working class, rain is.

Rain is sturdier, more utilitarian,

more earthly than heavenly.

 

Rain is something you make love in.

 

When it snows, you snuggle up

with that special one you love

and marvel at all that snowy white

floating majestically to the ground.

 

Yes, rain is useful; snow is pretty to look at.

I play my blues albums when it rains.

When it snows . . . a Christmas carol

or funeral march seems more appropriate.

rrw 11-16-14

 

 

Johnsongrass rewrites November 13, 2o14

Thursday,
Well, this original piece, Johnsongrass, was created in 2oo6! Not the first poem I wrote (I started in 2005), but I was just getting the hang of things. Wrote primarily in monologue style. I've since changed to breaking up my poetry into stanzas. I don't know, feels a little more reader friendly in this structure. That's almost all of the rewriting I did to this piece, change the structure and changed a word here and there. In the picture: Me and Patricia Crespin in The Seahorse.

Johnsongrass

 

A simple heart bleeds slower

than those more complicated ones
which walk the straight and narrow road.

 

Awhile back, when the moon

still had a sense of humor,
I'd quietly laugh her rings around
her pale but ample body
as the blooming stars streaked 'cross her thighs
in blazing colored punch-lines.

 

They enjoyed a good joke as much as me—

as much as we I should say for you were always there,
an important part of my drunken landscape,
the weeping willow of my conspiracy with
your rather mossy side always my faithful guide
pointing me north toward a sacred promise
to live life one touch at a time without
earing any consequence.

 

Do you remember

that ratty old blanket we laid out on in your backyard
so we could watch the fireflies play,
how those sharp blades of evil Johnsongrass
would prick our tender, naked flesh as we
made love beneath the stare of eternal youth?

 

We tried—well as best we could—

to never disturb your Mother as she
watched TV in her kitchen. But no matter
how hard we'd try to stifle those ancient cries
of teenage pleasure, one would always slip-out
at the most inappropriate time—

 

"What are you two doing out there?!"

Mother shouted from behind the open window.
"Nothing, Mom!" you shouted back
much too loud to be believable.
Damn, how we laughed at our own
inability to tell a credible lie.

 

I wonder, did she ever figure it out?

rrw 12-3o-2oo6 (rewrites 11-13-14)

When the Flood Comes November 1o, 2o14

Monday,
Slowly getting back to the writing and posting of my poetry. Still need to write more, think more, experience the poet's life more. But I am getting there. This poem is new and uses a more "formal" form than most of the stuff I write.

 

 When the Floods Come

The weather channel grumbled something

about a thick rain tonight, maybe tomorrow,
with the likely possibility of raging floods.

Afraid I wasn't listening.

Too busy these days mastering

all the weather beaten thoughts

inside my wicker skull that fall
in steady drips and drops—
falling, yes, most times they fall

like snow, crawl like snails,
or crash like hail against my ears
drowning out those puny sounds

I often make when no one’s near
enough to hear
the rusty creaking of my voice.

Why yes, of course, I sometimes mutter
to myself, divide myself up into  
several little things that look just like me,

other weary little things 
that no longer care or fear
what the mirror might reflect.

Is it true that memory’s a ghost
which only haunts late at night
when the rain comes calling?
rrw 11-o6-14

Damn the Dead, November o9, 2o14

Sunday

Yep! A new poem! I wrote it in a couple of days for a poetry challenge on a poetry site. This is the original picture on the left (no, your other left. Hee!).

I'm not totally satisfied with what I wrote. Well, that's always the case with me, isn't it? But challenges force you to write faster than you normally would. However, the key to writing is to write on a dime . . .  that is to say, to write without necessarily being inspired  . . . just write, put something on the page and let inspiration find you busy at work. Nothing coaxes inspiration more than you writing . . . it is always curious to know what the hell you are up to with your pen in hand scratching away at a blank piece of paper, or hunched over your computer board and chicken picking at the keys. Once you got her attention, she's always more than willing to help out . . . most times. So, the new poem is inspired by this picture an as usual I take different take on it than is expected. I even changed the picture a bit. Hope that's not cheating . . .

Damn the Dead

 

I’ll paint an ocean on the floor
Submerge myself within its foam
And hope that someone on the shore

Will pull me out and drag the body home.

 

I hope the loathsome gulls adrift above

My soggy head, I hope they screech prophetic sorrow,

I pray my stoic exes may willfully cry, “Why, oh, why, my only love?”

As the gardener props me up outside his humble burrow.

 

I will not die at sea and let the portly sharks devour me.

I will not die as I have lived alone without a single friend

Alive to mourn my getting on. I wouldn’t like to be
An unknown pauper buried in a massive grave and then pretend

 

It doesn’t matter. No, it doesn’t matter anymore.

He’s so damn dead! It doesn’t matter anymore.

rrw 11-o8-14