Ode to a Dying Leaf

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NaPoWriMo  Day 9:  Write a calligram:  a poem or other text in which the words are arranged into a specific shape or image.

         leaf
                  misshapen
                                          shriveled once green
                                             donned vibrant red disguise
                         to ward off lurking decay
                                            fallen tendon of skeletal oak
                                                       hardened veins stand out from brittle flesh
                                      dull brown age spots on blackened stem
                                                              curled like death’s beckoning finger elasticity gone
                                                           your smallest pieces granular near dust
                                              hearkened back unto your mother soil
                                    tomorrow’s wind will hurl you
                   to another place
                                or unthinking footsteps
                                     will grind you
                           into
                       no-
                              thing-
                                 ness

Prism + Palinode

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NaPoWriMo

Day 8 National Poetry Writing Month Prompt is to write a palinode: defined as when a poet retracts a statment made in an earlier poem.  Prism was previously posted under One Sentence Poems. Posting these just under the wire today.

If you’ve not seen my Sunrise Return to Sweden, published this morning — please do scroll down and take a peek — one of my favorites.

 

Prism
When I’m asked, How do you see the world?
I squint a bit under the bright light
looking for the crimson of her scarf
and answer, Through a kaleidoscope.

Palinode
As she slips through the crowd
 not acknowledging me again,
I clear my throat and add,
But mostly as a labyrinth.

Sunrise Return to Sweden

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Four years ago, we took a Baltic Cruise, including a day in Stockholm. My husbands’ family is very Swedish. His grandfather, Hjalmer Siegfried immigrated in 1906, at age 22. Painter by trade, he decorated the basement walls to look like the USS Sweden, the ship that brought him to Ellis Island — complete with ship railings, sky, and sea gulls. Some visitors actually got seasick after a Yule drink of homemade glog. Well, honestly, I don’t know if it was the simulated ship or the grain alcohol in grampa’s glog!  Criuise highlight?  The VERY early morning glide through the absolutely quiet and rustic archipelago, leading into Stockholm. Island after island….stunning!  NaPoWriMo day 8 entry, without prompt.

     Dawn in the Archipelago, outside Stockholm….just entering Sweden.  IMG_6095      

Sunrise Return to Sweden                                                             

I stand mesmerized.
Dawn awakens serenity’s beauty
rippled patterns glisten on black sea
gulls hover over softly churning wake.

Moving patterns of white wings
against dark greens and grey rock edges
the occasional light house turns its eye
wood frame homes nestle in their woods.

The ship slowly glides in dark waters
through Sweden’s archipelago
guardian isles to myriad lines of ancestry
protector from the city’s growing girth.

A lone call from among the gulls
pierces still air, a stark welcome
primitive in nature, surely heard before
by our grandfather and his and his and his.

IMG_6136

The Table: cherished series, opus 2

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Celebrate National Poetry Writing Month  NaPoWriMo   Writing Prompt Day 7: a poem about something that has value or worth.

Cherished items, people, and places live in our memories. And because we lead transient lives, their meaning and clarity can evolve over time. Old photos call forth recollections. 

 

The Table

She found the table at Marshall Fields
in nineteen forty-nine, and pictured
her family at exactly half-past six each night
four plates, four forks, knives and spoons.

White oak, the Illinois state tree
with tight growth rings
durable, resilient, and
carved with artisan’s care.

Emotions buffed artfully into lustrous patina
over years marred by scratches, chips and burns
tuna-noodle-pea casseroles set forgetfully upon the wood
and forks slammed down in anger.

Keeping up with Rita, Gwen, and Claire
teflon pans and a formica table-topper
emotions erupt on modernity as leftovers
disappear in a single swipe of the hand.

Monday’s Promise

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April is National Poetry Writing Month.  NaPoWriMo 2015 is a challenge to write a poem every day in April.  Today’s prompt:  write an aubade – a morning poem….perhaps about love, perhaps about Monday.  

Monday’s Promise

Last night’s shooting star
carried my wish
streaking across the sky
someone listening
outside our universe
promised me
tranquility and love
in yesterday’s tomorrow.

Phraseology

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The power of words – made into phrases – dependent on circumstances…

Words to a baby small
said with a grin
scooping mashed somethings
from a dripping chin.
All gone.

Long buried
dark transgression
in the almost unreachable
back room of my mind.
All gone.

Brother sudden, father slow,
mother slower still.
My lips whisper:
now – just me.
Almost – all gone

   

Shadow of Mine

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IMG_7243

Shadow of Mine

We walk, you in front of me
one created flesh and bone
the other born of sun
elongated faceless gray.

Seamlessly
we stroll the beach
arms out wide now close in
darkness plays with light.

I stop you stop
your head turns as mine
we follow a gull’s flight
as it rises from the sea.

If I turn and reverse my course
will you dance behind me
like the kite that zigs and zags
when its master loosens his hold?

Uncle Jim – cherished series, opus 1

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A Prose Poem? Never created in this form before — sort of like a short story, but shorter and more musical? And so begins the Cherished Series.

Jim

Uncle Jim

We hadn’t seen each other in more than twenty years. Now, here I am, watching him peer out of a torn screen door in a mobile home park. I feel his thinness in our hug.

He leads me into the kitchenette where a yellow Tupperware pitcher of pink lemonade sits on the table. There are two metal glasses, one red and one purple. The sticky cardboard can, on its side in the sink.

He listens for a while, to the latest stories about my kids. Do you have any pets? Before I can answer his eyes glance down and he starts talking about Cindy, the black lab he had for so many years. You remember Dickie, my second wife? Well, she just didn’t like dogs and so I couldn’t…..  and his voice trails off. This seems like a nice park I say, filling in the silence. Oh I love the dances and the bingo parties. All the ladies want to dance with me since Dickie died. But I’m not up to any of it so much anymore.

It took an hour to walk the small grocery store. We came back with ten cans of soup, applesauce packs, a quart of nonfat milk, some Comet and three chicken pot pies.

On my way to his place I was thinking it would be nice to see Uncle Jim in his twilight years. But it’s dark going home and I never did see any fireflies lighting up the sky.