mapping the nest
Willow, the Wonderdog, aka the Wrath of Lizards . Today is a dash-about day, so here's something quick before I dash to the woods with my patient, long-suffering dog. Yes, Willow, I love you more than poetry. You know why? Because despite what they say about dogs and prose, you ARE poetry. Today's prompt challenges... Continue Reading →
Photo by Philip Brown via Unsplash . So how barbaric is it to write poetry during a pandemic? How wrong to suppress a pang of guilt at the thought that there are people dying out there, while I'm fiddling with words? And if I need to keep fiddling to stay sane, should I perhaps hide... Continue Reading →
Photo by Annie Spratt via Unsplash : Midnight Jasmine : I blame myself. The years that keep going by, the countries between us, the many hands that have touched you since, the many lips. You, who were so new. They say you love what you’ve lost. My loss is a desert of books, furniture, people.... Continue Reading →
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez via Unsplash: Aftermath : . The storm hit the house—a car at 70 miles per hour. . I saw the tree in front rush toward the window . ... Continue Reading →
Photo by Randy Tarampi via Unsplash : The Riddle : A book is a set of dead symbols. And then, the right reader comes along and the words—or rather the poetry behind the words—spring into life and we have a resurrection of the word. ... Continue Reading →
Photo by Daniele Levis Pelusi via Unsplash : Genesis : I walk slowly with my father. . We match our steps . to the tick of the clock. I walk slowly with my daddy. . ... Continue Reading →
Photo by Alexander Sinn via Unsplash : Portrait with Crows : This evening turned the day’s blaze into rain. Crows beside the window, harsh caws carving a space in my stomach. The bright spot of orange hue in front of me stays. My daughter’s painting, untouched yet by artifice, nor willed into shape. So abstract... Continue Reading →
Photo by Stanislava Stanchy via Unsplash : Out of Eden : Eve What is the meaning . of this love . loaded with words? Doesn’t he know . ... Continue Reading →
Photo by Erik Mclean via Unsplash : Finger-wagging : Do it in pairs. If there’s no one left in the world, wag at yourself. The rules are simple: find something to wag about. Reading too much. Cheating. Bad eating habits. Lack of exercise. Exorcisms. Out of body experiences. Politics, money, religion. Seriousness or frivolity. Sleeping.... Continue Reading →
Photo by Laurence Demaison : That Poem You Wrote : : is only half of something unsaid hold it next to the mirror : so that it looks whole do you... Continue Reading →
Photo by Laurence Demaison : A Woman Made Entirely of Air : these days I worry about percentages : who knows how much fear is enough to inflict irreversible : damage who knows if merely by passing through someone’s life : ... Continue Reading →
Photo by Federico Bottos via Unsplash : The Photograph : It doesn’t matter what we should have argued about. Talking was something we couldn’t or wouldn’t do. We walked through a meadow instead, you slightly ahead and I taking pictures of things I wanted to remember, including that bloody sunset. The flowers parted before... Continue Reading →
Photo by Harry Quan via Unsplash : Alter Ego : I didn’t know what she was: that brittle, reed-like, human-like riddle. A paper whisper. A burn. She made an ark for a language the color of loneliness. Words rushed to her. So did the clouds. It was hard to watch her drown in... Continue Reading →
Photo by Denys Argyriou via Unsplash : This bruised shadow of a promise : This bruised shadow . of a promise. I made it. It was meant . ... Continue Reading →
Photo by Tertia van Rensburg via Unsplash : The Snare : A mind like a ring Sliding shut on some quick thing. ~ Sylvia Plath, “The Rabbit-Catcher” Had it been you, all along. Had it been you. Or my fear of telling the truth. Of telling the fear. How do I know. ... Continue Reading →
Leonora Carrington Self-Portrait: The Inn of the Dawn Horse : Family Lore : 1. Wrath During lightning storms, my father rows out to sea. The villagers hide behind closed shutters, while the man they once hated lures the thunderclouds away from the shore. From the hill tower, my siblings and I watch the fireworks:... Continue Reading →
Vincent Van Gogh Enclosed Field in the Rain : Conversation : It’s frivolous, this rain, with its . unreasonable claims . on our silence. You stalk the hallway, I crush . tears in my fist.... Continue Reading →
Photo by Dominik VO via Unsplash : A Poet Is : 1. An eel, open-mouthed at the mouth of its burrow, borrowing time until the right prey comes along. Fish glide by with their frivolous tails of who kissed whom in the seaweed and who got in trouble with the shark. 2. An owl, morose... Continue Reading →
Image courtesy of Alien Covenant : Fine, Then : No one wants to touch the skin of this poem, its unhatched enigma. The words sit in rows like alien pods, oozing deceit. Truth is rarely the destination to begin with, but it helps to know where you’re going. Or so I’ve been told. Perhaps there’s... Continue Reading →
Gian Lorenzo Bernini The Ecstasy of St. Theresa, detail :: Why I Like Hot Showers : Forgive me, for I have sinned. It’s been more than a day since my last confession. I am engulfed and ablaze, arms outstretched to embrace this liquid fire, my face thrown upward in rapture, serene as St.... Continue Reading →
Photo by Christin Hume via Unsplash : Salt Marsh : Someday she will start writing, leaving her fear behind— a coat on the doorstep. Words, rusty in their hinges, will blow against the old barn, will whistle in the thin rain. She’ll hear a door close with a bang, a dog howl at... Continue Reading →
Félix Vallotton La Valse : Death As a New Language : You learn to speak it sooner or later. Sooner or later you succumb to its charm, ready to waltz as it leads you across dimly lit floors. Slender flutes of champagne flash their similes from darkened mirrors. People are gathered by the walls,... Continue Reading →
Photo by Hilthart Pedersen via Unsplash : Compromise : A flask empty of wine on the table. The table wanting for food in a house missing its people. Things are meant to be filled with other things. The sky, empty of birds, has clouds, at least. They carry no rain. Far below, the earth... Continue Reading →
Photo by Taylor Ann Wright via Unsplash : Count Your Blessings : Sneer, counting the moments touched by joy, the ones currently marching like mad across your front lawn. You clearly see them for what they are—frauds, counterfeit, foolish impostors, because, let’s be real, no way in hell do you deserve what brushed by with... Continue Reading →
Photo by Gaelle Marcel via Unsplash :: Amnesia : 1. We’re alone on the brink of this tabletop. . We rub air between our palms, sweat . between our bellies. . Our voices drop like ripe fruit.... Continue Reading →
St. John the Theologian : : The Icon : We crouched in the dirt behind the empty church and watered dry lumpy clods with our piss. We laughed at the yellow jets running between our feet, twin rivulets rushing to meet and flood a colony of ants. Disaster, perhaps, on a miniature scale, but not... Continue Reading →
Image courtesy of incandescenttarrot.com : The Fool : The fool pauses on the precipice of a word. He surveys the great blue. It’s cloudy today. Perhaps tomorrow he’ll write a poem about flying. Today must be rooted in dirt. Step after step after step, the fool descends. It’s been eons since he left the summit.... Continue Reading →
Image courtesy of the historical archive AGERPRESS : Bread : My father stands with his back to the wall, clutching his fists. The boys are tall. They lower their shaved heads. Show us your hands, they say. If you're not hiding anything. My father knows he'll cry soon. He calls grandma, but she can't hear... Continue Reading →
I’m ecstatic to join an amazing group of writers for the fall session of AWP’s Writer to Writer Mentorship Program! My mentor is the wonderfully gifted poet Erin Hoover, whose poetry collection “Barnburner” won the Elixir Press’s 2017 Antivenom Award. I’m still in arm-pinching mode and immensely grateful to Erin and AWP for picking my... Continue Reading →
Photo by Fabrice Villard via Unsplash : Winter : A woman writes a line in the snow and leaves. Nothing else is new in that quiet field. Large snowflakes seal in her words, an envelope, closing. Next summer, she won't remember what she has written, or why. In the wake of retreating steps, silence keeps the... Continue Reading →
Keith Haring's wolves : The Wolves and the Crucifix : Based on Keith Haring’s “Suite of Five Prints,”—(“Two Animal Images Falling/Jumping”; “Two Figures with Crucifix”), screenprint on paper, 1982. : The wolves keep coming to my door, they keep coming. Today they hold a cross like a trophy. Ink drips from their paws onto the... Continue Reading →
Photo by Dan Rowden via Unsplash : Small Truths, You Said : We never have enough of them. Open your palm, hold this one. See how fragile it is? Even your breath could kill it. Don't breathe. The light on the water drew back, the tide came in. Your voice was a litany of shadows.... Continue Reading →
Image courtesy of Solitude Lake Management : The Pond : Writing is like fishing in that silt-choked pond behind your grandfather’s farm, where you knew you were unlikely to catch anything, since there were no fish left, only frogs, and maybe the occasional cottonmouth, which wasn’t something you hoped to reel in, and yet, here... Continue Reading →
Photo by Linus Nylund on Unsplash : Happy to see my March post Dreaming in Swiss appear on the Ruminate Blog today! "For people feeling overwhelmed by life's frantic pace," says the Ruminate website, "a contemplative and imaginative space changes everything. Join our community, and let's practice staying awake together." Check them out. You won't regret it.
Greg Spalenka Divinus : Tentative Futures : You try to forgive words their push and pull. In the garden, the cherry tree has sprouted buds, each one enveloping a heartbeat. You lean against the trunk, listening to the hum under its bark, remembering what it was like to carry that same echo deep in the... Continue Reading →
Leonard Myburgh Airbrushed Lion Courtesy of lonehillart.com : The Lion : Every angel is terrifying. ~ Rilke He comes in the dark, breaks doors, muscles his way through windows. His wings wrap around my heart like sin. His words run through my blood... Continue Reading →
Migrating Snow Geese in Pennsylvania Photo courtesy of WabbyTwaxx via Birdshare : Migration : When the season ends, we flock South to the house of unfinished poems. Tired birds, we crowd in its rooms. Though close enough, our wings barely touch. They sweep the dust off the floor, the cobwebs off the ceiling. We have never tasted... Continue Reading →
Salvador Dali Head Exploding : On Solitude : I love my solitude. It’s a presence more than an absence, a place more than a state of being. It’s home. Like a snail carrying its shell, I carry my solitude with me wherever I go. There is a door into my solitude. It has no lock. I... Continue Reading →
Image courtesy of kreuzberged.com : The Mirror : You lie here wide-eyed as if the icon on the wall came alive—the small hand of the woman in red robes resting on your forehead. I wish I could be happy. Tomorrow the squirm in my blood will seem insignificant. The window checkers the bedspread. Meandering sleighs of... Continue Reading →
Dan Thomsett Snow in Minster : The Road : Just above the road there was this pale hand waving at me. Dust and ashes rose in the sun, The trees seemed to be in winter. Their long, crooked limbs poked into my eyes. I stepped on patches of ice. It could have been cotton, hardened... Continue Reading →
Photo courtesy of Flickr : Talcfundi : Talcfundi likes to close windows. When it rains outside he shuts them tight. He keeps the sun in a bottle under his bed. This is the time he pulls out the cork. He lets his prisoner slam its body on wooden shutters. When it snows, Talcfundi shuts the... Continue Reading →
Photograph by Jason Edwards / National Geographic : This Is Not a Poem: Confession : I am afraid. Of this page I keep staring at. Of these words crawling onto the page like a colony of ants. I’m afraid of their power to save me or sink me. I’m afraid of giving them that power,... Continue Reading →
Arturo Asensio "Decorating Altamira Cave" : In Illo Tempore / In Those Days : The splintering happened slowly, one figment of soul at a time. When nothing was left, she took to drinking. It wasn’t all nectar and ambrosia. She enjoyed pain, blood, tears. Fear lay thick upon a world of her making. The creatures... Continue Reading →
Image courtesy of http://www.napowrimo.net/ : The Date (Notes to Self) : Calm, cool, and collected, Poetry knocks at your door. I know you want to let him in. You should--no argument from me. But firstly, there are some things you might want to consider before cracking the door open and gazing into those dreamy eyes. That... Continue Reading →
Nancy Poucher Out of the Fog : I Translation it is that openeth the window to let in the light; that breaketh the shell, that we may eat the kernel. ~ Preface to the King James Bible How does one spin gold into gold? Light into light? How does one avoid fracturing the wings of... Continue Reading →
Image courtesy of Wikipedia.org : “Beauty like that is strength. […] One could turn the world upside down with beauty like that.” ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky “The Idiot” This page is dedicated to the work of human spirit: the things that feed our soul, keep us warm, make us grow. A brooding bird will often pluck its... Continue Reading →
Image courtesy of www.stevegettle.com : A good part of my childhood was spent in my grandmother’s village, where I grew up believing that the mud nests the swallows built under our eaves brought us good luck. More swallow nests meant better luck. I remember the joy when yet another swallow family would choose to raise its young... Continue Reading →
: If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. ~ William Blake My neighbors are temporarily storing a barn door in the hallway of our apartment building. It’s intricately carved, iron-studded, worn by wind, rain, the hands of several generations of farmers. I dare not ask why... Continue Reading →
Photo by Tim Laman : Speaking for the Trees : This page is an homage to things in nature that nourish a poet’s imagination: the roots and moss of poetry that contemplates, accepts, and embraces. So where does one start mapping this nest? Where does the glossary of tangible symbols that permeate a poet’s work... Continue Reading →
Image courtesy of www.littleterns.org : Poets throughout history have turned to animal and mineral being to express their own because from that storehouse a larger vocabulary of being, particularity, and wisdom can emerge. ~ Jane Hirshfield “Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry” Some poems are pebbles and some are sand. This sounds like the beginning... Continue Reading →
Photo source: Nividia Cave : I've always wondered what brings a work of art into being. The creative process is a mysterious one and I approach it with trepidation. There have been times when it seized me and tossed me around like a giant wave—and I've come to define those instances as moments of true inspiration.... Continue Reading →
Pablo Picasso The Dream : To paraphrase the problem of the Taoist philosopher Chuang Tzu, I may be a woman who has dreamed herself a skunk, or a skunk still dreaming she is a woman. ~ Louise Erdrich “The Blue Jay’s Dance” They say you know you've made it in a different language when you start dreaming... Continue Reading →
Photograph by Robbie Shone, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE : Good-bye to NaPoWriMo / GloPoWriMo 2017! : Hello to Jus-Kee-Wri-Poe, or JUST KEEP WRITING POETRY! Every day. For a year. Or more. Hopefully many more. Many thanks to Maureen Thorson of NaPoWriMo for launching this project back in 2003. What a journey this must have been! I’ve... Continue Reading →
NaPoWriMo, the National Poetry Writing Month, begins in three days. Nothing like a deadline to light a fire under the caboose. Thirty poems in thirty days is no joke, but someone's gotta do it. This clayandbranches site has been a mere shadow of a thought for over a year. I may yet reach the conclusion that turning it into... Continue Reading →
