Big Tent Poetry #2: Aural Experience

Big Tent Poetry asked us to listen this week to something technical, jot down a few words from it, and see where they take us.

From “Criminal Profiling” come these terms: comfort zone, triggering trauma, brain damage, chemical imbalances, negative parenting
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Trip Out of Life

It’s a shift
chemical imbalance
continuing death
nausea
no comfort zone
legs push covers
sweat pops out
heart races
fan face
brain damage?
menopause
the beginning
of the end.

3WW: Incubate, Nightmare, Vanity

I stumble
into the bathroom,
look at my face
in the mirror
above the vanity,
and scream.

This nightmare
of aging
just goes on and on.
I try to smooth
the wrinkles
but they return.

I wish I could take
the tiny eggs
of youth,
incubate them
for sixty years
then watch them hatch

into a new me.
Instead, I avoid
harsh lights
and brush my teeth
in the glow
of the nightlight.

Poetry Train: So It Has Come To This

So, It Has Come to This

The two of us
sitting in our La-Z-Boys
eating supper
on TV trays
watching the channel 13
“Live at Five” news

Two bubbles
of tiredness
and boredom
floating through our days
occasionally bumping
into each other
but mostly resting
in the curve
of those soft chairs
as evening
fills our lives.

Monday Poetry Train: I Saw Time

I saw time
this July morning
on I 95
between Saco
and Biddeford, Maine.

In the middle
of a bank
of lavender clover,
a clump of brown-eyed-susans

staring at me
through autumn
eyes.

I rolled
my window
up against
the chill.

Fireworks for TOP

I went to ReadWritePoem and used their prompt generator to get 5 five words that I hoped I could produce some sparks with: willow, pell-mell, swerve, pleat, cedar. It didn't really work all that well, but this is what I came up with, anyway.

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As I swerve
into my sixties,
I can feel the steering
wheel of my life
shuddering.

The scenery
is changing:
leaves falling off
the weeping willows,
cedars bending over.

The road feels like
it is pleated, now.
I bounce along,
hoping I never have to
shift into Park.

3WW: Dangerous, Keepsake, Restless

Ants in my muscles~
feels like dangerous spasms,
keepsake of old age.
RESTLESS LEG SYNDROME
Keepsake of old age
feels like dangerous spasms~
Ants in my muscles.

Aging for Sunday Scribblings

I'm recycling this week. I wrote this one a couple years ago.
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If she tilts
her head
just so
in the golden shafts
of sun,
I can see
a lone hair
growing
on her chin.

I consider telling
her about it
but we’re in the middle
of a card game
and she’s winning
so I don’t want
to spoil
this time
we have together.

Later that night
after she has climbed
the stairs
one step at a time
carrying the weight
of eighty-one
years of laughter
and sadness,

I, too get ready
for bed.
I brush my teeth,
wash my face
and apply
a night cream.
The light
catches a glint
on the curve
of my chin
and I stand there
looking in the mirror
at my mother.

To Live at a Different Time in History for Sunday Scribblings

Today

I found a stray
hair on my chin,

noticed that I need
a color soon,

had to suck my tummy
in to fasten my jeans,

dreamed about being
young again

then looked out the window.
Pine needles had made

a brown shag carpet
all around our camp site,

the sun was sifting
through leaves

all mango and cantaloupe.
I heard the siren lure

of a train whistle
and realized

I’d rather stay
right here

in my October
writing this poem.

Acrostic

Here's an acrostic poem for Poem: A Virtual Poetry Group. I'm not even sure what I was writing about but it was fun.
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Little did
I Know that
Normal means
Dancing in the middle of the week
After work to old albums

Listening to
Evening sneak into our lives
Even though outside

Jonquils are
Almost ready to
Cut through frozen soil.
Opposites. Like our salt and pepper marriage
Brimming with
Spices and sneezes.

3WW

breath, scattered, tomorrow

For Three Word Wednesday January 23, 2008
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Tuesday
after school
I was in Rite-aid.

Freshly
colored curls
scattered around my face.

Tall, black
leather boots,
skirt just above my knees.

My son
called me to
talk about the weekend.

I leaned
against a pole
near the end of an aisle.

I saw
a student
from my tenth grade class.

He walked
by, said hi
and checked me out.

Today,
he said I
looked "hot" in my skirt

and boots.
My breath caught
and I had to laugh.

I’ll be
fifty-nine
in six more tomorrows,

TOP prompt for Oct. 25, 2007: If She Tilts

Horse

In its stall stands the 19th century,
its hide a hot shudder of satin,
head stony and willful,
an eye brown as a river and watchful:
a sentry a long way ahead
of a hard, dirty army of hooves.
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If she tilts
her head
just so
in the golden shafts
of sun,
I can see
a lone hair
growing
on her chin.

I consider telling
her about it
but we’re in the middle
of a card game
and she’s winning
so I don’t want
to spoil
this time
we have together.

Later that night
after she has climbed
the stairs
one step at a time
carrying the weight
of eighty-one
years of laughter
and sadness,

I, too get ready
for bed.
I brush my teeth,
wash my face
and apply
a night cream.
The light
catches a glint
on the curve
of my chin
and I stand there
looking in the mirror
at my mother.

~Linda Jacobs
October 26, 2007