Posted in Uncategorized, tagged choice, life, poem, poetry on March 31, 2015| 1 Comment »
standing on the unstable
edge of the life raft—
choosing to fall in
*
between one wave
and the next, writing
love poems to breath
*
everything that hasn’t
happened yet—
the end
*
the urge to take control—
by controlling
the urge to take control
*
finding a life raft
on the inside—
resting there
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Headwaters Poetry Festival, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Western Slope Poetry on March 31, 2015| Leave a Comment »
Poems, Politics and Pretty Places … that’s the theme of this weekend extravaganza filled with workshops, panels, performances, food and parties. I hope you can join me and some of Western Colorado’s finest poets: Art Goodtimes, David J. Rothman, Kyle Harvey, Wendy Videlock, Alan Wartes, Mark Todd and more!
For more information, check out the link below:
http://www.gunnisonartscenter.org/events/headwaters-poetry-festival
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged interdependence, intimacy, poem, poetry, time on March 30, 2015| 1 Comment »
Only a moment, I thought,
just a moment of pulling your breath
into mine would buoy me
through whole oceans of days,
days I would otherwise drown in
save for a single shared moment.
But here I am, beneath the surface,
near out of air, gasping, longing for
hours, no, days, no, whole epochs of closeness
with no sense of starting or ending.
How soon a woman wants more.
I try to fill my pockets with things
that float—the clean scent of spring
and the song of whatever bird that is
outside the window. I try to find
my own lightness I have found before.
I tell myself, this is only a story,
as I sink further down, as the blue deepens.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged figure of speech, poem, poetry, pun, trope on March 29, 2015| 6 Comments »
“What’ll be, boys?” the bartender says.
The three aren’t thirsty, just looking for love.
“A rose,” says the metaphor.
“But you better not pick it,” says the cliché.
“It only grows when it’s on the vine,” says the allusion.
The bartender starts to moan,
when a simile in a short red dress walks up to them.
She is quite the figure of speech.
Her dress is cut down real low,
her breasts are like two perfect feminine rhymes
straining against the cranberry silk.
“A red, red rose,” sighs the metaphor.
“With thorns,” says the cliché.
“That’s newly sprung in June,” adds the allusion.
“I’m, like, thirsty,” she says.
The bartender groans, makes a noose
of his dishrags and belt.
Just goes to show,
give someone enough tropes
and he’ll hang himself.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged apricot, longing, poem, poetry, possibility on March 28, 2015| 2 Comments »
I would like to find you
in the shade of an apricot tree
with rounded white petals
caught in your hair
and the hypnotic humming
of bees in our ears,
and we would lie there
draped in the scent
of warm sage and sweet bloom
and stare up at the blue
through the flowering limbs
and forget who we are
for just long enough, perhaps,
that anything could happen.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged apricot blossom, poem, poetry, transcience, vulnerability on March 28, 2015| 2 Comments »
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged carpe diem, poem, poetry, spring on March 26, 2015| 4 Comments »
You can’t tell tulips
to unbloom,
you can’t unsing
last evening’s tune,
the shadow can’t undark
the moon,
you can’t unlove,
unbreathe, unswoon,
but wishes can be
ever wished
new bridges can be
ever crossed
so many kisses
still to kiss
before you unlive
unlaugh, dust.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged a cappella, Heartbeat, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, singing, Telluride on March 25, 2015| 1 Comment »
It’s poetry set to music … come hear Heartbeat in concert. Seven women singing all genres of music, a cappella.
Here’s a link to an article about our group and what one might expect at the concert.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged breath, intimacy, poem, poetry, wind on March 24, 2015| 2 Comments »
The wind
transfers sand
and the breeze
snatches kites
and the squalls
displace leaves
and the gusts
topple signs,
and forever
yes, even
after I’m dust,
your breath
laced
into mine.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bridge, connection, poem, poetry, separation on March 23, 2015| 2 Comments »
It could be as simple as a log placed over the distance
that separates me from you. A fallen cottonwood tree.
But it’s never that simple, is it. That was not really a question.
Look, I have my shovel, my level, my concrete blocks.
I have support beams and metal straps, planks and nails.
I am ready to do whatever it takes to build this bridge. But it doesn’t
take an engineer to know that foundations need firm, fixed
dry ground. And you and I, we are moving targets.
Whatever I think I know about bridges is not serving me now.
Time to consider a new kind of span. Something elastic,
adaptable, accommodating, and, is it too much to ask,
durable. Perhaps the problem is that we ourselves are the obstacles
we’re trying to cross. We want and don’t want to be close.
We sabotage our chances to meet. I am going to start thinking
in new metaphors. Like migrations. Like rivers. Like wind that churns
and touches and bends every blade of goldening wheat.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged longing, poem, poetry, recklessness on March 22, 2015| 2 Comments »
these crazy thoughts
cross the center line, play chicken
with all other thoughts
*
in the sun glazed pond
not one sandhill crane—
the beauty of wanting
*
just when the bonfire
is too big to control—
throwing in another stick
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, unlearning on March 21, 2015| 10 Comments »
still unfurling into blossom,
this flower I thought
was fully opened
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, self, wrestling on March 20, 2015| 4 Comments »
I have made of my body a wrestling ring—
in one corner, the defender. She wears
a high turtle neck and her hair in a bun.
She holds up her fists to the world, to anyone
who tries to touch her. On her belt, it says,
I Don’t Need Anything. She fired her trainer
long ago. And she’s staring down the challenger,
who has shown up to the match in a soft
pink dress and bare feet. The challenger
smiles at the champ. It’s a genuine smile.
She holds out a hand to shake, but the
defender glares and starts to circle her. There
is no referee. The challenger, she wants
to be held, to be loved, to share warmth,
and she’s willing to stand in this ring
and take the hits. But after forty some years
of circling each other, they’re both getting tired
and wouldn’t it be something if one day
they took down the ropes and got really curious
about what might happen next. I’d like to think
that ring might become an altar, a place
they might meet and say yes to each other,
a place where everything is offered
and anything might happen.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged courage, love, poem, poetry on March 19, 2015| 3 Comments »
Every day I fall in love again
with the world—with the sweetness
of pears or with green. With
a man or a child or a woman
or a cat or with the way drupes hang
from birch branches in spring.
Every day it overtakes me,
this rush of joy paired with a rush
of sorrow. Always the two together.
Like opening my eyes as wide
as I can, but longing to open them wider.
Like the terrible tingles I feel in my hands
when they return after being numb.
Like the long, terrible silence
after I share the secrets of my heart.
Oh world, don’t let me be deterred.
Let me fall in love always. Let me always
be opening, wide and wider than that.
Look, even now the sun is peeking
through the clouds just enough
to make the whole world,
even the old tires, even the bones shine.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged interview, Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer on March 19, 2015| 1 Comment »
published today in The Watch …
http://www.thewatchmedia.com/mountain-confidential-rosemerry-wahtola-trommer/
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bridge, poem, poetry on March 18, 2015| 4 Comments »
old bridge with missing boards
each gap a window to brown water
frothing and tossing below—
I’ve forgotten what we saw when we crossed
I remember it every day, the crossing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bridge, hope, partnership, poem, poetry, river, stubbornness on March 18, 2015| 3 Comments »
It’s true, sometimes the river can’t be wide enough
between me and you. God knows it’s cold in there.
And deep. And full of secrets I don’t ever want to know.
And that old bridge joining us, sometimes I pray it falls.
Tell myself it’s better that way, what, with you over there
and no way to get over here except to swim—and I know
you won’t do that. Yeah, I say, it’s better that way,
you and me just keeping our distance. In fact,
sometimes I pretend it’s gone already, that old bridge.
But then next thing I know, I’m making up smoke signals
to say hey, there’s a really pretty light on the water tonight,
and hey, I’m wishing you would tell me that story again, the one
your mama used to tell to you when you were scared.
And that’s when I know that if that bridge collapsed,
well, I would build a new one with all my resources—
my stubbornness, my hope, my hands. It is hard
to build a bridge out of stubbornness and hope.
But I would. Sometimes it’s all we have.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged love, poem, poetry on March 16, 2015| 1 Comment »
this crown of thorns—
every time I make you king
I bloody my own hands
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged desire, humanness, longing, poem, poetry, surrender on March 15, 2015| 1 Comment »
and saying yes to the world as it is,
my body craves what it craves.
Oh this terrible, beautiful bright stitch of longing
sewn into my breath
with red, red thread,
it pulls, tighter and tighter,
then catches on something
deep in my core,
and some voice,
is it mine? insists,
more, more, I want more.
