The night is a poem
with verbs of shadow
and nouns of deep,
a poem I never tire
of reading, a poem
that writes itself
into my thoughts,
enters my imagination
like a Trojan Horse—
when its dark ink
overcomes me,
you’d almost think
I was happy
for the ambush,
you’d almost think
I flung wide the gates
on purpose
knowing full well
how the story
would end.
Posts Tagged ‘ars poetica’
Solstice Surrender
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, solstice, surrender, trojan horse on December 21, 2020| Leave a Comment »
One Long Story
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, blank, writing on September 13, 2020| 2 Comments »
hovering over
the generous blank
the pen wonders how to improve
on all that potential—
oasis without a trail
Wanting to Get It Right
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, journey, path, perspective, walking on August 24, 2020| 2 Comments »
Who is this woman so concerned with arrivals?
Doesn’t she know we are writing about paths?
What is her rush to get to the meadow?
What does she think she will find there?
She missed the sunflowers in the garden,
a whole row of luscious bright yellow bloom.
She missed the chatter of the chipmunk,
the hot scent of rabbit brush almost like sage,
the mica glistening like crushed starlight beneath her feet.
She is like one of those trucks on the highway,
a blur, a roar, an impersonal thundering.
Oh, see, now that she thinks she’s arrived somewhere,
now she starts noticing the field,
the crunch of dry grass, the dirt, her own short shadow.
Funny, she looks lost, standing there with her pen and paper,
her longing to find something worthwhile to say.
Should we tell her it’s okay,
that the lack of arrival could be her new point A?
And everywhere she looks, a new path.
Ars Poetica
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged answer, ars poetica, blank, question, truth on August 11, 2020| 6 Comments »
All these years of wandering,
toward what? On a blank page,
where are the secrets hidden?
How many mysterious paths?
If there is a truth, perhaps it, too, is blank.
If there is way, perhaps it, too, is wandering.
Sometimes I just want the answer.
Always it comes back to this:
An orbit. A spiral. A mobius trip.
A boundary curve where the question
is its own topology, where the question
is its own astonishing arrival.
Proxy
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, despair, news, writing on July 13, 2020| 9 Comments »
The woman who knows what to write
did not show up today. Perhaps she’s gone
hiking amongst the blue larkspur, or
maybe she’s pulling weeds in the garden.
Perhaps she got a job as a counselor or a priest,
or decided to run for political office.
I wish she’d show up again. Sometimes
it’s not easy to face the blank, to believe
there are any words worth writing. Like today,
when I read about how the abandoned fracking wells
are leaking pollutants. How today will be
the first federal execution in seventeen years.
How there are still children at the border
still crying, “¡Mami!” and “¡Papá!”
Perhaps she was simply so sad
that she went to sit in a corner, quietly,
not to forget, but to find the strength to meet it.
Perhaps she is, even now, trying to conjure
the words that might actually make a difference.
Once Upon A
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, friendship, relationships, story on May 28, 2020| 4 Comments »
Because you are the porch,
I am the rocking chair.
Because you are the pen,
I am the unfinished poem.
In the conversation of what happens next,
I am always the pause.
I am always the pause
and you the verb.
And if there should be a run on sentence
that jogged right through the
end of the story, way past the end,
well, I would not be the period.
But I would be ever after.
And I would be the one still listening after that.
Bouquet from the Utah Border
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, camping, haiku on May 25, 2020| 2 Comments »
making up songs
as I set up the tent—
or a song making up me?
*
beside the lake
rowing the memory
of a blue boat
*
bald eagle dives into the lake
then rises quickly
in its beak, a heavy poem
*
sitting with a blade of grass
until it reads me a story—
once upon this morning
*
laughter in darkness—
this, too,
a kind of campfire
*
hiking through ponderosa
a subplot wonders
if it could become the main story
*
cold, clear night—
spiking my tea
with Cassiopeia
*
third morning camping—
waking up in a chapter
written before this one
But It Took Over an Hour to Get There
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, cat, ideas, writer's block on January 24, 2020| 7 Comments »
This morning the new kitten played with a hair tie
for twenty minutes, kicking it under the table,
swatting it across the room, catching it on a nail
and tossing it into the air. Meanwhile, I tried
to do the same thing with an idea—tried
to bat at it, swipe at it, fling it across the room
and then chase it and pounce on it again.
But that’s not what happened. The idea
sat dead on the desk. I barely even looked at it.
I let my paws make tea instead. And then
went to Facebook. Then vacuumed the room.
Then stared at the idea and wondered why
it hadn’t moved. Boring idea. Dumb idea.
Why did it just sit there, lifeless as a hair tie?
Eventually the kitten, exhausted from frolic,
curled down for a nap. I sat back in the chair,
wondered at what I might learn from the cat.
Picked up the idea again. Gave it a whack. And darned
if it didn’t take on some life as my nose
nudged it into new places. Curious, my whole body
readied to pounce, my tail swishing behind my back.
*Yes, friends, we’ve gotten a new kitten, Tamale.
The Girl Who Sat and Read in the Weeping Willow Tree
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, becoming, poem, poetry, reading, tree on January 9, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Even then she was becoming
a dreamer, a lover of bark,
a student of solitude. Even then
she noticed how there were places
and moods that words couldn’t touch—
even then she felt the joy in trying anyway.
The Poem Tries
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Alabama, ars poetica, augusta kantra, meditation, poem, poetry on December 9, 2019| 2 Comments »
Let yourself be danced.
—Augusta Kantra
The poem sits down to be written.
Instead, it stares at the bay.
There’s a highway in the distance
that could take it all the way to California.
The poem doesn’t want to go to California.
It wants to be present, just here,
on the sandy bank beside the driftwood.
It wants to find its inner poem.
It wants to get out of its own way,
to obey its emerging form.
Instead, it watches the tall grass
getting danced by the wind.
It sighs. The poem wants to know
what it doesn’t know yet.
And the poem wants to be good.
Dammit. It tries to lower its standards,
then judges, compares and tries to fix itself.
It lists. It sits cross legged till its legs
fall asleep. It is a book of sorrows,
a tree of anxiety, a wave of failure.
It’s a cage of empty lines. How
did it get into this straight jacket?
The poem gives up. It stares at the bay.
Watches the grasses sway. Notices
how the wind blows its hair,
lifts its hands. The poem doesn’t know
why it’s weeping. In that moment,
the poem is danced.