I try to hurry the stubborn skin off
because there’s a poem I want
to write before I forget—
Every day, every minute,
there is so much to notice and
a poem is a tool, like a spoon,
made to scoop up a moment,
to slow and savor
to step outside
the rush of this world.
And I would, I would savor
if this stubborn peel
was off. Instead, it clings
and slows me down.
Like a toll road
you must pay to travel,
away and back again, or
like the wreath on our front door
built years ago by a little girl–
Apples, cut into circles, dried to
dark brown, glued onto Styrofoam
in overlapping rings.
The little girl is long grown,
but the wreath remains,
disintegrating year by year
as the holidays take their toll.
Now the Styrofoam shows at the edge
a clue to what holds everything together
despite the years and the wearing away.
A found poem, composed from song titles in an old book of traditional Christmas carols.
Dame, get up and bake your pies
Now, light one thousand Christmas lights
Come, mad boys, be glad boys
O, come little children
O, come all ye faithful
Deck the halls
God bless the master of this house
While shepherds watch their flocks
Sleep, Little Jesus
I’d forgotten this Spanish form–remembered, gave it another try. Shadorma is a six-line form of counted syllables, divided as follows: 3/5/3/3/7/5. Go ahead, you try too–everyone has time for 26 syllables.
Colored lights
tacked along white walls
against night
help darkness
set itself on a new path:
To reflect and glow.
Early, fields and trees and sky
all gray. Anchored by fresh snow
crevassed along the hills.
The world feels magical
as if everything is possible
and at peace.
Gray, in this moment,
is not the color of sadness
or of something worn out,
but the color of quiet–
the color of stillness
inside and out.
Another story from NPR and Garrison Keillor that I can’t get out of my head.
The life you were born to
was a box you ran from
as fast and far as you could
and I hope you would laugh
at how this all turned out—-
that we love and romanticize
a gone world,
a world we hold dear,
Little houses on the prairie,
and in the big woods,
Ma and Pa,Laura, Mary, baby Carrie
a world we only know
because of you
who helped her
tell us all about it.
When no poem arrives,
It feels like waking in the night
and reaching for a sip of water—-
You know exactly where you left it,
the glass with a slice of lemon
and an etched decoration of trees
at the edge of a forest,
a forest you were dreaming of
just before you woke,
thirsty for a drink your hand can’t find
though you believe it’s there
just out of reach
breathing quietly in the dark.
Yes, oh yes,
I want to do enormous favors for you,
the kind involving cash, and inconvenience,
and driving long hours, all over the state,
preferably in the rainy dark, on deer-crowded
back roads, in complicated maneuvers
involving your car, your sister’s car,
a mechanic whose garage we can’t find
in the dark, and some guy named Lloyd
who we don’t even know,
but this day wasn’t a big enough mess
so we threw him in,
because you know for certain that
when everyone else says No,
You can ask for help from one person who
may well grumble or write a poem about it,
but will eventually pick up the keys and say
Yes.
Silver glitter and cardboard
tacked to the window frame
suspended from a pale green ribbon
this one star is for the two of you.
For you, I place it forever
in the window, a light
so small you can ignore it
for a long time
but always shining, always,
so you can find it in the dark
and see the path home.
there's a poem in every day
aka: The Happy Bookers
Artist
I came to where you were living, up a stair. There was no one there.--John Ashberry, "The New Higher"
custom poems on vintage typewriters
One Poet's Writing Practice: Poems by Mary Kendall
A Ronka Poetry Practice Since 2014
Living in the moment
Puff Of Smoke Poems 