Sparks, Suburban, Vacation from Alissa
------------------
Gary's going to Sun 'N' Fun today.
He'll be gone overnight so that means
a vacation for me. Not that our life
isn't a permanent vacation now that
we're retired. But, it will be nice
to be alone for a change. He's like
a Suburban filled with noisy teenagers
on their way to a ski meet with music
blasting and equipment everywhere.
The minute he gets up, he turns the radio
on in the bathroom to shower. Then he
walks into the living room to grab the remote
and tune the TV to The Morning Express
with Robin Meade on CNN to hear the news.
But it's not enough just to listen. No. He
has to make comments about everything.
I'm trying to listen to her and him and make
breakfast and write a poem and check my email
and he's blabbering away. But, today, after
he leaves, I'll turn everything off, I'll bask
in solitude, I'll swim through my day in quiet
underwater buoyancy. Shhhhh. And, then, I'll
get bored and even enjoy that for a bit until
I remember that cars need spark plugs to run.
Thursday, April 23, 2015
Wednesday, April 22, 2015
Day 22 National Poetry Month 2015
Motorcycle, music and marbles from Donna
------------
Tiny marbles of rain are making our canal dance
this morning. I watch it kicking its legs up
in exuberance and marvel at its happiness
on a cloudy day. Or am I projecting my own
feelings onto this inanimate living thing? Okay
I know that doesn't make sense but that's
how it seems. Like a motorcycle isn't alive
but it is, you know? We enjoy an occasional
ride on Gary's '67 Harley Panhead. Listen to me,
like I know what I'm talking about! Last summer
we and some friends rode down route 1 in Maine
to Ogunquit and had Flo's hotdogs for lunch.
Have you been there? It's an institution. You have
to have their house special: mayo, Flo's relish,
and celery salt. So, so good! Afterwards we went
to the top of Mt. Agamenticus and the bike never
complained all day. She's a sweetheart. See what
I mean? The music from the raindrops is lulling
me into a fantasy land and making me mumble
about improbabilities, about happy canals and motorcycles
with feelings. But you know I'm really talking about myself,
right? About how raindrops carve smiles into the water.
------------
Tiny marbles of rain are making our canal dance
this morning. I watch it kicking its legs up
in exuberance and marvel at its happiness
on a cloudy day. Or am I projecting my own
feelings onto this inanimate living thing? Okay
I know that doesn't make sense but that's
how it seems. Like a motorcycle isn't alive
but it is, you know? We enjoy an occasional
ride on Gary's '67 Harley Panhead. Listen to me,
like I know what I'm talking about! Last summer
we and some friends rode down route 1 in Maine
to Ogunquit and had Flo's hotdogs for lunch.
Have you been there? It's an institution. You have
to have their house special: mayo, Flo's relish,
and celery salt. So, so good! Afterwards we went
to the top of Mt. Agamenticus and the bike never
complained all day. She's a sweetheart. See what
I mean? The music from the raindrops is lulling
me into a fantasy land and making me mumble
about improbabilities, about happy canals and motorcycles
with feelings. But you know I'm really talking about myself,
right? About how raindrops carve smiles into the water.
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
Day 21 National Poetry Month 2015
*Ice cream cone, sauerkraut, spoon. from Anne
----------------
It wasn't so much for an ice cream cone,
although that was always a delicious benefit,
that we'd drive up and down Main Street
from Norm's Drive-In to the Dairy Bar
looking for our friends and cute boys.
I'd ask my dad to use the car, we'd pool
our money, buy as much 29 cents
per gallon gas as we could afford, then
begin our journey through the sauerkraut
air of that paper mill town. But, the smell
didn't bother us; we were too busy gawking
in all the cars driving by, gossiping about
this person and that one and what they'd done
or hadn't done or might do. Through Green
Square, by the stores, checking who
was hanging out in front of Woolworth's,
and all along the Androscoggin River, we were
this bubble of chatter and music and hope.
Life was a bowl of maple walnut ice cream
and we were savoring it one spoonful at a time.
Monday, April 20, 2015
Day 20 National Poetry Month 2015
arms, eyes, & tears from Sherrie
---------------
It's a reverse sunrise this morning,
poking its nose around
the trees, blinding my eyes for a second,
then letting the gray mouth
of the clouds devour it. Some days
are like that, huge monsters
that eat us up, that suck all the life
out of us, then burp.
I'm trying to get Erin's arms into her
jacket but she's too sleepy
to help. Nathan is teasing her.
If we don't leave now
I'll be late for school. On the way
to the babysitter's I speed
through a puddle that splashes on the clean
suit of a man walking to his car.
I should stop, apologize, offer to pay
for his dry cleaning but, if
I do, my classroom will be filled with kids
and I won't be there. So I don't.
All day I feel terrible. I bark at students;
my voice has that edge
only regret can produce. I'm mad at myself
so I yell at them, instead.
And, that's how the beast thrives,
how he rubs his tummy
with satisfaction, chomping on the tears
of others, consuming their sunshine.
---------------
It's a reverse sunrise this morning,
poking its nose around
the trees, blinding my eyes for a second,
then letting the gray mouth
of the clouds devour it. Some days
are like that, huge monsters
that eat us up, that suck all the life
out of us, then burp.
I'm trying to get Erin's arms into her
jacket but she's too sleepy
to help. Nathan is teasing her.
If we don't leave now
I'll be late for school. On the way
to the babysitter's I speed
through a puddle that splashes on the clean
suit of a man walking to his car.
I should stop, apologize, offer to pay
for his dry cleaning but, if
I do, my classroom will be filled with kids
and I won't be there. So I don't.
All day I feel terrible. I bark at students;
my voice has that edge
only regret can produce. I'm mad at myself
so I yell at them, instead.
And, that's how the beast thrives,
how he rubs his tummy
with satisfaction, chomping on the tears
of others, consuming their sunshine.
Sunday, April 19, 2015
Day 19 National Poetry Month 2015
a moment that made a difference in your life...from Sally (opening, lingering, song)
---------------
I'm sitting here marveling at two simple words:
yes and no and what lingering effects they have
and how sometimes we don't even know we're
making a decision that will change our lives.
Sleep was a dreamless song, a waltz, soft
and undulating. I was swaying back and forth
in it's gauzy, foggy embrace that morning in1967
three days after Christmas when the phone rang.
I was in no state of mind to make an important
decision, nor did I even know it was momentous.
I cleared my throat a few times so the caller
wouldn't know I'd just awoken then picked up
the receiver. My mom's voice from the bank she worked
at trilled into my ear. "Lee's going skiing. Do you
want to go? He'll pick you up in twenty minutes."
Lee was her coworker's son. I loved to ski. I said
yes and that tiny word was the opening to the rest
of my life. I got ready. Lee arrived. And, also sitting
in the front seat was a blonde guy I'd never met,
who, on our second date, asked me to marry him.
---------------
I'm sitting here marveling at two simple words:
yes and no and what lingering effects they have
and how sometimes we don't even know we're
making a decision that will change our lives.
Sleep was a dreamless song, a waltz, soft
and undulating. I was swaying back and forth
in it's gauzy, foggy embrace that morning in1967
three days after Christmas when the phone rang.
I was in no state of mind to make an important
decision, nor did I even know it was momentous.
I cleared my throat a few times so the caller
wouldn't know I'd just awoken then picked up
the receiver. My mom's voice from the bank she worked
at trilled into my ear. "Lee's going skiing. Do you
want to go? He'll pick you up in twenty minutes."
Lee was her coworker's son. I loved to ski. I said
yes and that tiny word was the opening to the rest
of my life. I got ready. Lee arrived. And, also sitting
in the front seat was a blonde guy I'd never met,
who, on our second date, asked me to marry him.
Saturday, April 18, 2015
Day 18 National Poetry Month 2015
iPad, cinnamon stick, vitamin from Anne
--------------
My iPad is on my lap.
I've picked three words.
I typed them at the top.
Now, I sit waiting for birds
of inspiration to fly into my
head. Some days those
ideas stand up like cinnamon
sticks. Others, they doze.
Today they are fast asleep
hiding under a heavy rock.
Not even vitamin D from
the sun can help unlock
them. So, I sit watching
real birds flit around the sky,
watching real words appear
on my screen then die.
--------------
My iPad is on my lap.
I've picked three words.
I typed them at the top.
Now, I sit waiting for birds
of inspiration to fly into my
head. Some days those
ideas stand up like cinnamon
sticks. Others, they doze.
Today they are fast asleep
hiding under a heavy rock.
Not even vitamin D from
the sun can help unlock
them. So, I sit watching
real birds flit around the sky,
watching real words appear
on my screen then die.
Friday, April 17, 2015
Day 17 National Poetry Month 2015
Whiskers, Saloon and Haystack from Lisa Ryan
------------
Finding That Needle in a Haystack
The show is starting, again, as it does every morning
and I'm out here to see it because it's April. I'd be sleeping
otherwise. Pink whiskers fan out from where the sun
will rise. Some are clouds, some are jet contrails. All
are beautiful. Three birds flutter by in formation. Lilac
sky gives way to the pale yellow of some marigolds
which in turn becomes the golden glow from saloon lights
in a lonely desert. And, that's what poetry is for me,
a place alive with noisy chatter, beer glasses clinking,
soft laughter, and a home away from home. I placed
one foot in front of another and just kept trudging through
the sand and scrub grass of life until a tiny pinprick
of light started growing on the horizon. Oh, and the thirst!
I imagined the feel of that cold whiskey turning hot as it quenched
my throat, until I picked up a pencil and started writing
my first poem when I was forty years old. One word, one simile,
one rhyme at a time I staggered to the door, opened it,
and, like Norm walking into Cheers, it shouted my name.
------------
Finding That Needle in a Haystack
The show is starting, again, as it does every morning
and I'm out here to see it because it's April. I'd be sleeping
otherwise. Pink whiskers fan out from where the sun
will rise. Some are clouds, some are jet contrails. All
are beautiful. Three birds flutter by in formation. Lilac
sky gives way to the pale yellow of some marigolds
which in turn becomes the golden glow from saloon lights
in a lonely desert. And, that's what poetry is for me,
a place alive with noisy chatter, beer glasses clinking,
soft laughter, and a home away from home. I placed
one foot in front of another and just kept trudging through
the sand and scrub grass of life until a tiny pinprick
of light started growing on the horizon. Oh, and the thirst!
I imagined the feel of that cold whiskey turning hot as it quenched
my throat, until I picked up a pencil and started writing
my first poem when I was forty years old. One word, one simile,
one rhyme at a time I staggered to the door, opened it,
and, like Norm walking into Cheers, it shouted my name.
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