drown in
the power
of a
field,
a creek.
Latch
to want,
a
bird, blue
blur,
hovering
solitude.
* An erasure of Ada Limón’s poem “Drowning Creek” in her collection, The Hurting Kind
More than just a photogenic face,
and you will need to work to know her
after you first earn her trust, patiently,
waiting for her to feel comfortable,
to want to spend more time with you
then safe enough to speak with you.
More than a woman, though that
will never be unimportant to her,
and should always matter to you,
she is a person, carrying her past
while being reshaped by now
and pondering future secrets.
This moment in candlelight,
yesterday at the beach,
tomorrow at the green grocers,
flashing eternities in her arms:
Learn what she feels of them.
Be worthy of their repetition.
(after the 1943 photograph by Olive Cotton)
“You ain’t gotta seduce me (Uh uh),
I’m interested.”
— Babyface Ray
You keep sayin I need to loosen up–
well, it’s time to loosen up.
You’ve shown me all I need to know,
all I’ve needed to see, all I’ve needed
to feel
falling short of all the rest we need
to feel.
you ain’t gotta seduce me (uh uh)
Come closer. Lean into this.
Lean into Me (not what others see,
what you can see).
Sometimes the trainer needs
to be trained.
The whites of those eyes are widening—
the browns expanding—so let me
curl up in the lashes
I have planned…
or better yet, let’s start to forget
all the plans, the planning, all those shared & awkward
tendencies–to drift
somewhere south of cerebral,
some place lateral & limbic,
leaving literal for rhythmic,
what’s logical for kismet,
simply ride
past anyone’s standards,
your hands, my words,
our brains
on manual—backseat our protestations—
stretching what is rigid into shapes
of greater
flexibility.
I’m interested.
I’m interested.
We do not expect people to be deeply moved by what is not unusual.
That element of tragedy which lies in the very fact of frequency,
has not yet wrought itself into the coarse emotion of mankind; and perhaps
our frames could hardly bear much of it. If we had a keen vision and feeling
of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and
the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies
on the other side of silence. –George Eliot, Middlemarch
The Old Bamboo Pearl Colored Car
Not a single light flashes
on the old car’s dashes
relief washes over me
I can drive worry free
until it’s age catches up
and another sensor malfunctions.
Good Bye LexPoMo until we meet for our 2022 Anthology Coming Out Party!
It has been such a joy to read everyone’s poems and an even bigger joy to be a very small ink stain in this grand group of writers. Thank you everyone!
