Birds of a feather
Sweet Carolina on the fence
Humming ruby throat
Nuthatch scritch and scratch
Patient Swallow keeps watch
My bird takes her song from all of them
to create her identity.
Sweet Carolina on the fence
Humming ruby throat
Nuthatch scritch and scratch
Patient Swallow keeps watch
My bird takes her song from all of them
to create her identity.
When you first told me you loved me, I held my breath
I came into the light and bared my scars
I told you that some had come from the barbed words of other people
I had let their claws sink into me and rip away pieces of me
Other scars had come at the hands of past lovers
Seeking to own me, to break me down into the person that they thought I should be
But other scars had come from me
From seeking atonement for sins I thought I had committed
From emotions that couldn’t be spoken aloud, so instead appeared on my flesh
I showed you the fires I had walked through because I wanted this love to be the final one
And I can still feel your words on my heart as you told me you love me, scars and all
i was at the stoplight
biting the inside of my cheek.
i didn’t know why I was crying,
but the bag of mini oreos and dead
weight in my chest
seemed a good enough reason.
maybe i finally realized
how sad i was.
(after The Sun by Edward Munch)
the sun is a light bulb in my eye,
a searing incandescent idea
leaping over the edge of the world
with a feather cocked
at a rakish angle above one ear,
both smart and sassy
http://adelekenny.blogspot.com/2020/06/prompt-355-painting-to-poem.html
I’ve finished edging our yard with bricks
found in a corner of our garage:
wavy bricks, solid bricks from the 1880s
fired by The Ohio Paving Company.
To complete the job, I’ve stolen bricks
from a construction site, digging
clay slabs lodged in the soil, among tall weeds.
Paying attention as I mined, I imagined
that I was invisible to the neighbors
and removed two bricks to carry home.
Already I’ve forgotten the empty house
–now a hole in the ground–
or how long the bricks lay there.
What I remember are the bricks,
their weight in my canvas bag, and moving
the bag from shoulder to shoulder.
You scare me with the plethora
Of bugs you bring forth when you open
Your closed fist: mud dauber, potato beetle,
The common grasshopper and the one
You say I’m most related to, The Lady Bug
I’m your four-year-old granddaughter and I like
Band-Aids all over my knee, they remind
Me of the raggedy quilts on your outside mattress
i like to say big words
I like to throw up just to see the frothy milk
I like the cruelty of smashing ants, calmly,
With a hammer in your gravel driveway
I watch them carry bits of puffed corn
To their little baby ants, then whamo. Sometimes
I have to hit them several times and I want
To know how many times you have to die
Before you’re dead.
On clear nights we sleep outside under the stars
I can already pick out the bigger dipper
When your alarm for the space station goes off
We see its unblinking path, like a glowing bathtub
With three people washing under their arms, they
Frown down on us because they want their privacy.
I love to catch fireflies in a jar
Are these bugs like shooting stars in the grass?
Bioluminescence you say. I take my shirt off
Smear my belly with their bellies
I want to blink on and off, on and off
I want to light up with their bioluminescence
Doesn’t stop the sudden mental jolt from a snuggly video session on the couch
A horse van on my suburban street,
neighbors crowded around
and sequestered in the two car garage
a menagerie of live animals:
a young camel, soft-eyed llama,
a small donkey and four or five goats,
clean and soft and ready for small hands
but the intended audience–an elderly woman
in a wheelchair, hard to surprise
after all these years, but this gift
she wouldn’t forget.
I tried to introduce myself, say I know
your daughter, who? she said.
