Mom must have been upstairs
the day I turned on the old TV
and saw a man and a woman
kissing each other.
Not just kissing.
Almost eating each other.
Mouths open, faces angling,
lips slanting to consume each other.
I stared at the hunger
on their faces and wondered
how they managed to hide
the saran wrap that was surely
between them, some thin layer
to keep them separate.
I searched the screen for any trace of it,
certain no one could ever
want to be that unprotected,
that close.
Almost fifty years later,
I sometimes notice invisible layers
that come between us—
thinner than saran wrap,
no less of a barrier.
How I love when they
disappear.
Posts Tagged ‘kissing’
Intimate
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, intimacy, kissing, memory on August 6, 2024| 5 Comments »
Interlude
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, kissing, writing on November 28, 2023| 4 Comments »
Sometimes, waiting for the poem to come,
I lean in, eyes closed, lips parted,
edging wonder, unsure what comes next—
my heart a fluttering and tremblesome thing.
It’s like being seventeen again, wondering
if the boy beside me and I will kiss.
I love this flirty interlude when the poem
barely touches my lips with a brush
so light I wonder if I’m making it up—
and the pleasure center of the brain lights up
and soon I am breathless, dancing atop the labyrinth,
ready to give myself wholly to the kiss,
no longer able to follow the scripts I have known.
And the poem hovers above my lips
whispering, What truths are hiding inside you,
then plunders me until my eyes are open.
*
Well, friends, I can’t promise that when you sit down to write poems it will be like the poem above–but it just might be. Here are a host of fun online events coming up when you, too, might write and wonder what truths are hiding inside you?
“Turning Toward Life with a Pen in Your Hand”: Exploring Poetry of Presence II
TUESDAYS Nov. 28-Dec. 19
“What does it mean to be alive?” Consider this an invitation to join your voice to the big conversation about that question! In this four-week writing series, we’ll converse with poems from Poetry of Presence II: More Mindfulness Poems, an anthology of poems that “crack open the tough stuff and spill out the light.” Every class will consist of reading and unpacking poems, two sessions of original writing, optional sharing, and lots of talk about process. This is a chance to “practice mindfulness smack dab in the middle of our busy lives” through writing—partaking in wonder, embracing paradox, trusting life, and meeting our own lives as living poems. To register or for more information visit here.
Happy Birthday Rilke
Dec. 4
Join me for a birthday salon for Rainer Maria Rilke including of music, story and poetry. I’ll be with renowned Rilke translator Mark Burrows and cultural historian Kayleen Asbo as we trace how the music of Bach re-awakened his imagination after the trauma of World War I, resulting in the astonishing outpouring of poetry that became the Sonnets to Orpheus and Duino Elegies. A joyful exploration of the poems and poet that saved my life and the music that saved him. To register or for more information, visit here.
Sitting in the Midst of It All: A writing & self-care retreat
Dec. 7 & 8
Join Courage & Renewal facilitator Marcia Eames-Sheavly and Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer for a mini-writing retreat—a day and a half of self-care, wonder, quietude, gentleness, acceptance and connection. The wonderful Marcia will be guiding us in Parker Palmer’s Circle of Trust. For more information, visit here.
Stubborn Praise with James Crews
Dec. 18
Join Rosemerry & poetry friend and partner James Crews for an evening of conversing about poetry, change and transformation. This program was originally scheduled for October but had to be rescheduled. If you were previously signed up, you’re in! You should have received your registration info already. Even if you were not previously signed up, you can sign up now! For more information and to register, visit here.
First Love
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged childhood memory, kissing, love, remembering on May 28, 2021| 5 Comments »
Tonight, it comes back, how we’d go for walks
in the tall dry grass behind the old school.
In my memory, the field goes on and on and
it never rains and we have no idea how young
we are. Sun-drunk and heat-starved, twin ripples
of wind. Broken grass in our hair and howl
in our skin. And we believed in forever then—
perhaps we touched it those summer days,
a strand of forever, forgotten for decades,
lost amongst other eternal strands—but oh,
those hands, those parted lips, that tall, trembling grass.
On Eating My First Muscadine Grapes
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged food, fruit, kissing, muscadine grapes, poem, poetry on October 3, 2019| 4 Comments »
I mean, are you kidding me?!
They’re just grapes, sure, but
more like what every kiss wants to be—
surprising and unpredictable.
Intensely sweet, spicy, too,
and tough, unwilling to be summed up,
making me pucker at the same time
I long for more, something
I happened to find in the store,
but the taste, the round essence, is wild,
unable to be tamed.
It’s enough to make a woman wonder
how she’s never tried this before,
as if the world’s been holding out on her—
and if this new thrill is possible, well, then
what else might be out there for a woman to find?
One More Reason to Kiss More Now
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged carpe diem, death, kissing, Michelangelo, poem, poetry, writing on February 10, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Michelangelo wrote his love
forty-eight funeral epigrams—
not one of them brought back
the shoulders like chiseled marble,
the purr of his voice, his lips raw silk
This Was Once a Sad Poem
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged eros, kissing, poem, poetry on June 1, 2018| 2 Comments »
but I would rather write poems about kissing,
beside the wild roses, for instance,
with nothing between us
but perfume and shadow.
Or kissing riverside
with waves frolicking into
our sighs. Or kissing anywhere,
really, a parking lot, a stairwell,
the front step, in a plane.
See how this urge turns
everything into a love poem,
even this, which began
as a poem about loss,
has found gardens inside it
with long rows just perfect
for kissing, slow kisses
both bruising and sweet.
Quantum
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged kissing, poem, poetry on September 17, 2016| 1 Comment »
on a line from Ocean Vuong
The most beautiful part of your body
is the place your lover has just kissed,
how his lips remind you that you are also
orchid and apple and arch.
How easy it is to forget our own holiness.
How sweet when another reminds us of the ocean
still in our blood, the sand in our hair.
Call it communion, the way he touches you
and the way your own tongue leaves
a wet trail on his skin not so different
from those first attempts to crawl onto shore.
The most beautiful part of your body
is your longing to open more, everywhere
he touches, you become door.
Who Knows When Tomorrow Will Arrive?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged kissing, poem, poetry on April 3, 2013| 3 Comments »
It does not matter
if you are right
or wrong. Kiss me.
There are terrible
things we have done.
Yes. Now kiss.
It is snowing.
I’ll kiss you. It is clear.
You kiss me. It is late.
There are so many things
left to do on our list—
such as kiss.
Though we are lost
and the day has fallen off
its chair, there is still
so much kissing
not to miss. Somewhere
there are snakes recoiled.
Somewhere there
are floods rising.
Here is our chance,
right beside the fruit basket,
for lips to find lips
and do for the heart
what a sparkler does
for the moonless night—
it may not go far,
that tiny light, but for
these moments,
it’s shining, it’s
light enough.
A Little Air Poetry
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged air poetry, chairlift, cursing, f word, found poem, kissing, parenting on September 18, 2012| 2 Comments »
check out this website devoted to found poems … today they published a poem of mine overheard on the chairlift last year …