Posts for June 27, 2017 (page 4)

I wish to write with such genuine thought
that I could perhaps inspire others to love
but these thoughts are merely baseless wishes
far too bright for me to diminish
with my angsty spill from every word I write
no inspiration here
just selfish rants about everyday life

Last year I wrote about global warming
In “Perhaps”
Which was chosen for this year’s anthology
I’m bummed they didn’t ask me
I don’t think it was my best one

On the other hand
Maybe I should assume that people who
Publish poetry anthologies
Know more about it than I do  

In that poem I proved that
Increased carbon in the air
Is unstoppable
No matter what we do

Even if we all killed ourselves
Our only moral choice
If we truly believed  

So I had a great idea
Have everybody breathe 20% less
We’re just sitting around typing anyway
It’s only 4 breaths per minute
We could do it if we concentrate  

But it wasn’t a great idea
Human breathing only accounts for 8%
And we’re not adding any
Just recycling
It’s sequestered  
We have to burn stuff
To add more  

So I had a great idea
It wasn’t really me
I’ve probably never had
A great idea but I thought

Solar panels
I ignored all the awful pollution
Produced when making them 
And, like last year, did a little math

Average energy consumption
Average hours of full sunlight
Average panel efficiency
Every person needs a tennis court
Seven billion tennis courts

I owned two pairs of shoes, one black

and another brown, only one pair of boots

for the milking barn and the cows all had better boots

than mine.  Pens and paper were expensive, 

as were school books bought yearly

from wages earned milking morning and night.

I managed to avoid cigarettes, drugs, alcohol.  

I labored so my hands and nails

were clean enough to not draw attention.

No polish, no manicured nails, no complaints 

about washing the dishes, carrying out the trash.

To have what I did was fortunate, although 

even the kids at the orphans’ home seemed to have more.  

Homework and reading all completed 

on the 45 minute school bus route.

Library books—I ate like candy

“but in those days//I was always hungry.”

last line from “Millay’s Hair” by Ann Townsend, poem-a-day@poets.org

I contemplate how to rid
the garden of the chipmunk
that lives in the compost bin.
Rabbits burrow behind
the hostas, eat the pole beans
through the bird netting.  I offer
treats to the neighbor’s cat,
entice her to hunt.  I fill any hole
with dirt and gravel, tamped with my foot.
At least the strawberries are safe:  hardware cloth
domes over their raised beds.  But the blueberries
are stripped from their bush at the first blush
of color.  The peaches are stolen the morning
before the first picking.  The chipmunk
mocks from the shadows, twitchy and fat.

Dorcas been hangin on and makin do
As long as she’s been on this here earth. 
First she thought to fight and stay wind free.
To never care no matter how wild she might be. 
She would run the hills, and laugh at crows
Bedevil old women and curse the preacher. 

We watched her twist and twirl and curl
Her body right there beside some boy. 
She’s laugh whenever Pa tried to stop her. 
Sailing down around, laughing, cry riding the wave
Grabbing passion as her way over the mountain top. 

The she tamed the roar and birthed him, mashed and bound,
The baby who didn’t stop her, he pushed them down a different road.
But another came, then her ties were tight enough to stop the run. 

“Fight again, but fight quiet like. I’ll save a piece here and there,
Enough to find the heart in me.” Her whisper loud as thunder,
The soul pushed them on. She sought to save the need inside. 
Freedom was down deep somewhere in the middle of her,
The road right there buried under flesh and vein, throbbing a tune. 

The ache to breathe, wild and free hid the twinge
Bearing up around and through her side. 
She decided early to pay it no mind. Even old 
Doc said it was not remarkable whatever that might 
Mean to a woman about to run again. 

Part of her left early as she shrank to pencil thin. 
Last night, she couldn’t sleep again, turned on the light
To give herself a right good look. “Why, I’m seeing the 
Last of me. The road will open, I will ride the wind. 
No more stopping. Praise God, I’ll be free.” 

It makes me glad to know a smile played around her eyes
While she stood there facing what we all must face someday. 
Wonder if I will be that brave? Course I won’t be escaping 
The coal camp and that could make all the difference. 

Your bones are in my ribcage
screaming to get out:

Your love, 
the sugar, 
it burns and ruptures
inside my membrane.

The face
of a fair weathered, lover
reaches out
with no fever in tow. 

Starve the poor
Dead people don’t need food stamps
Let the sick die
Dead people don’t need health care
Fill private prisons with first-time drug offenders after confiscating their property
De-regulate everything
Cut funding for disaster relief
Those of us who are left will save money
Hell, we’ll make money!

i am stone
and i am steel,
i rust & i peel

like all humans.

I want to write

stuff that breaks your bones

but ever since

the hysterectomy I

can’t find the ugly words

where has all

the spit spite anger

bee sting revenge

dagger in the heart hurt

poison poetry gone?