Month: April 2020

Here versus There

lillian6 Comments

Outside my window
another space
another sense of time.

Here, I am nesting
cocooning
mundaning.

I walk slowly
share quiet space,
my spouse smiles at me.

There in that place,
life and death rush through
like katabatic winds.

Patients arrive
fever burned eyes,
gasping, fearful, alone.

Nurses, doctors, attend.
Frenetic patient care,
selfless dedication.

Here. There.
Identical clocks,
hands moving in sync.

But sense of time?
There versus here?
High gear to the extreme.

I live across the street from Massachusetts General Hospital, a major care giver for Covid-19 patients in Boston. Photos taken from our windows. God bless all who are working on the front lines in these challenging times. And may all my readers stay safe and healthy.

Written for day 5, national poetry month. Prompt is given from Imaginary Garden with Toads. We are to write about the intersection of time and space.

Jello

lillian8 Comments

Jello is this.
It has color. Except aspic.
And this.
It has sweet.

It is granular life.
Granular metamorphosis.
It has fear. Shivers afraid.
But laughs in wiggles.

It is granular life.

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TOAD readers: My error! I did not understand how to link days 1, 2, and 3 prompts so here are the links:
Day 1: https://lillianthehomepoet.com/2020/04/01/april-fool-not-i/
Day 2:  https://lillianthehomepoet.com/2020/04/02/chalked-to-you/
Day 3: https://lillianthehomepoet.com/2020/04/03/the-nuts-and-bolts-of-it/

Day 4 of national poetry month. The prompt from Imaginary Garden with Toads is to write a poem in the style of Gertrude Stein’s TENDER BUTTONS.  I’ve chosen to write about jello, attempting to create a metaphor for life while at the same time, writing a factual description of this food. Challenging prompt!

Published in 1914, Stein’s TENDER BUTTONS is divided into three parts: Objects, Food, and Rooms. It avoids any use of gender specific pronouns. It is considered a masterpiece of verbal cubism and a failure at the same time.  Here is an example directly from Stein’s text:

The Nuts and Bolts of It

lillian7 Comments

She spoke to me
among all the junk art
hanging in that gallery.
She spoke to me.

Look at her!
Wine-opener for arms,
I do love Chardonnay.
Sieved-ladle-top face,
my emotions do flow.
Sunflower heart,
that’s Pollyanna me.
Beaded, feathered earring-skirt,
like miniature dream catchers
always at hand.
Glued on wire, forever smiles.
Whimsical socks with moving feet,
will gladly tap dance, to any beat.

Forget all the photos
down through the ages.
I knew it then, and I know it now.
She’s definitely me
and that’s why I bought her.

So I’m thinking this morning
sitting staring at her,
what are we made of
and who really are we?

Haphazardly or carefully,
crazily cobbled together?
Maybe that’s it then . . .
and she smiles down at me.
We’re all cobbled together.
We’re all just junk,
junk art at heart.

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Day 3 of NaPoWriMo, national poetry month, where the challenge is to write a poem every day in April!  Today’s prompt from Imaginary Garden with Toads deals with existentialism, as in anything to do with “what is the meaning of life?” What are we really all about? 
Photo of  junk art bought in Bermuda a number of years ago. She hangs in my study where I see her every day – and she makes me smile.

April Fool? Not I.

lillian3 Comments

Follow a meditative path
out of stress, anxiety, and fear.
Open your heart to blessings,
lean into possibilities.
Serenity is after all, ours to achieve.

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It’s National Poetry Month and across the globe, people will take up the challenge to write one poem every day in the month of April. NAPOWRIMO challenges us to write a self portrait about an action that is a part of who we are. Imaginary Garden with Real Toads gives us the word “fool” as a prompt, since it is April 1.

Thus I’ve written an acrostic poem (first letter of each line spells FOOL) about meditation, which I find particularly helpful in these challenging times. Every morning I am on the yoga mat: meditation, stretches – all to wonderful calming Zen-like music. It is a quieting space I deliberately enter into and treasure. It centers me for the day.

Photo taken last summer in Provincetown, Cape Cod.