In comments here Reader sidereal said:
Obsidian Wings poetry slam impending.
After reading up on the subject… sure, why not?
Rules:
1) Do your own work;
2) Keep it… hmm, thirty lines or so maximum;
3) If you’re looking for a topic, Spring is almost here.
I’ll create an actual Poetry Slam entry page that’ll autoload at 8 PM on Tuesday. Under the gun, sure, but what the heck. Stretch you folks a bit.
up too late, should be working, but dammit, here goes…
while smiling
My fingers creep across the unconquered table
trying to eat the last inch, the last centimeter, then to touch
easiest thing in the world and hardest, too
I know you so well, I should be effortlessly able
to cross this distance, an effort not much
to speak of, I know, or, at least, I knew
before I tried, while smiling, to reach you.
Anarchy Now
And so the law was passed,
That on the count of “three,”
The world would revert
To total Anarchy.
There were, of course,
Balloons and cheers galore.
But the official counter
Sort of jumped the gun
And, well, after having
Calmly shouted “ONE!”
He mumbled “two” and
Quickly lept to “FOUR!”
I think this is a line or two over 30, but what the heck. I deleted people’s names.
Autobiography through Geography
More than anything else, she writes of the places she has known.
She lists the names of cities and streets, of neighborhoods
and baseball stadiums and national parks. She describes
the steel cables of the bridges, or the rain on asphalt, or the
late afternoon light, or the fog over fir forests and low cliffs.
She could claim this came from the same impulse that led her
six-year-old self to memorize, for fun, all fifty states’ capitals,
but she knows the real reason is that it is easier to speak of
houses and brownstones and high-rises than the people in them;
safer and less embarrassing to write about the man playing
soft hits of the seventies on Andean pipes in Downtown Crossing
than the friends walking beside her. She can describe
a part of Brooklyn or of Somerville without resorting
to hopeless cliché, or so she would like to believe, but
how does one describe true love or true friendship,
without using phrases like “true love” or “true friendship”?
If she ever learns that, she will become a real writer.
As it is she will have to keep saying “the footpath over
the Brooklyn Bridge” or “the Jackie Robinson Parkway”
when she means J—— L——-; “the Mister Softee truck
in Union Square” when she means R—- L—-;
“the Alewife bound track at Downtown Crossing” when she means S—- W—-;
“the Cambridgeport Saloon” when she means J—’s friends from school.
She will say “North Lake Campgrounds” when
she means her father; and “the Hudson Guild book fair”
when she means her mother; “the dogwood tree in Uniondale”
when she means her grandmother; “the pool in Kent” or “the
Snowy Express” when she means V—-, E—- and P——.
truly lovely sentiment, Katherine…
and the footsteps of fleeting interests
wear grooves like fingerprints
into her mind, three weeks at a time;
(the other trace a menagerie of bookbindings lent
old against the wall)
and by their pattern she leaves tiny traces
on mountains bit by titans
and by their map she is led to heavy elms
in the bark of which she drafts a moratorium
on poems with birds
or about snow
Is haiku acceptable?
*ahem*
Was that the sound
Of an unbalanced centrifuge?
More holes in the wall.
gazing at someone else’s cattle
the connecticut cowboy
manages the appearance of action
on his stage prop ranch
Thanks for the impetus, Moe.
Tied To Time
March, and spring is working its way
up the north side of the valley. At the top
of the street the cherry tree has chosen to hope
that the sun has broken winter’s back.
Its blossoms bud coral and ripen
white over the hill’s crest and should
dominate the sky and the thriving city below,
but in front of it someone has placed a sign:
No parking Mondays 8-10 AM,
mostly red on white but white on red for the NO.
At its base the cherry petals have started to snow.
Lovely poem, Katherine. I’d sacrifice a few of the repetitions at the end myself, but you can probably get it published as is.
You may be right about the repetitions. I have a weakness for lists, and of course try explaining that to the friends and relatives you deleted that it’s aesthetic, not personal…
I also should change the first appearance of “Downtown Crossing” to “Winter Street”.
Katherine, I find that asking the question “can the poem survive without this line or word (esp. adjs and advs)” is useful. If necessary, write a version for the public (perhaps with the names blank, as you’ve done), one for those who know. Most of my attributions are to A or b etc.
Long as I’m being editorial, “fog over fir forests and low cliffs” might be say “fog over the pines and bluffs” – a bit more specific, fewer adjs, fewer bunched “f”s, arguably better rhythm.
And I’d consider changing the title to Biography or switch to first person.
Let me know if you can fix my title above.