Posts for June 1, 2018 (page 7)

Category
Poem

Time

 
 
I think about time often. 
Its passing akin to the restless creek beyond our house
 constantly flowing.
 
 I meditate upon the grace that love welded into my heart 
the countless souls that left their mark 
as a blaze along the overgrown trail at dark. 
 
I think about you often. 

Category
Poem

No plan for this year?

Strangely unpalatable to consider I know
Dear reader,
And my many fans
Who might feel anxious, disturbed
Or angry like a mob
That I could be wrong
I admit

Knowing you remember my very first poem
Posted here way back when
Where I more than suggested
Poetry was powerless, worthless, effete
I might have said:
“Prose is to poetry as great sex is to thinking about masturbating”
Sorry I misled you

Stalin was a poet esteemed
Mao and Mussolini wrote many
People read them
And believed

We tyrants are all romantics
Blood lust power cash
Death is cool, too
Someone else’s – wheels need grease
We deign to celebrate your sacrifice
But what have you done for us today?

So we
Even accidentally
Might change the world
Thus I’ll begin as I ended last year
“Be careful”


Category
Poem

Good Mourning, Satan!

I just saw an old Volkswagen
that was driven by a clown.
She had the face of a demon. 
She was going through my town.
I said, “Come on demon, baby!
Gotta get out of this place!
I don’t wanna read no stickers!
Or look at your ugly face!”
She just flashed those eyes of Satan,
and gave me an evil grin,
and I knew I’d be in trouble
with the bossman once again.
I said, “Give it hell old demon,
cause I know that’s where your from,
and I know that you can drive that
faster than a shooting gun!”
And she said, “You got that right boy!
I’m  a demon through and through!
And the Devil sent me here from hell
to torment all of you!
I drive slow in front of workers,
never reaching 45,
and I weave behind the travelers
in a pickup truck I drive!
I’m always in the left lane
with a big Ohio plate,
driving you slowly insane,
driving you toward your fate
of a very tight white jacket
and some pills at Eastern State.”

And I give up.


Category
Poem

The Descent

aging, take a turn
everything tastes like fear
gravel scatter driveway
my shadow before me
familiar handfuls of rust
beneath the patina
of eyes crinkled against
the morn
[i’ll waste another year]


Susan M. Stephens
Category
Poem

Before they wake up

say a quick prayer
today your heart will heal
hull stoppered up and smoothed over
flood them with your gushing wholeness
crash over and float them up to find laughter
lurking just below the surface as its own
life preserver


Category
Poem

And

And
my favorites
are you and
next would be hummingbirds or
daffodils in spring
and let’s not forget poetry,
written suspended on invisible wings
in
lines across, then down the page,
lines repeating
in the following stanza, but not
all lines, not one, not
many, but
some.

And
my favorites
are you and
next would be hummingbirds or
daffodils in spring,
and always poetry.


Category
Poem

Georgia O’Keeffe’s “Evening Star No. V,” 1917

I

Volcanic Venus, a spiral unraveling in a long tail,
consumes the deep blue tie-dyed sky.
Outlined in livid white—negative space.

II

A red eyelid cradles a yellow eyeball.

III

A gyre of fire. A centrifuge.

IV

In a heavy red bowl, a yellow eggyolk.

V

An incandescent wrench cinched
around a molten nugget of gold.

          Karen George


Category
Poem

Calling

The forest is calling
and I must go
but,
the forest is hard to find
now.
By the roadside are
scraggles of honeysuckle
and swaying young locust
but,
the towering oaks that
colored the horizon
in my dreams
are lonely columns in collapsed temples.
So,
I run my hand along long grasses
and
long for where I cannot be.


Category
Poem

untitled

Someone told me the other day,
I couldn’t be a therapist
because I will always need one.
I told my therapist in our next session.
She asked how it made me feel.
“Mostly like I could’ve asked myself that same question without the copay.”
I didn’t really say that..
but I thought it.

I thought of this painful gift;
intuition and empathy.
All the internal chatter.
The analytical voice that monitors it all.
Guides everyone to their appropriate position.
Let’s them speak as needed.
Validates.
Listens.
Repeats and reaffirms.

I thought of all the times,
I’ve been in crowded rooms and
felt too much.
-Bright orange resentment-
-Heavy purple sadness-
Went home drenched in feelings
from that emotional rainbow hangover.
Washed myself clean with white light.

I thought of all the times
I could feel things before
they were spoken.
So raw and open to those channels,
I’d like to close some days.
We all need someone to soak it up
and let it go.
I am a sponge.
The saddest thing about messes,
we all hope someone will clean it up before we have to.

I look at my therapist,
then change the subject.
I make it half way home before I realize I never answered her question.
I know instead she felt all of my muddy brown
and knew exactly what I meant.


Category
Poem

It’s, Like, Incredible

He loomed like a reckoning

students looked the other way

I can take your lunch money, he said

and you can’t stop me

 

He grabbed her crotch

looked her in the eye

I can take your body, he said

and you won’t stop me

 

He pointed his finger like a gun

pulled the trigger at the camera

I could shoot you on 5th Avenue, he said

and I wouldn’t lose a vote