Tag Archives: dVerse Poets

Someday, for Open Link Night

Someday

Shout in a barrel
to awaken the frog
who lives inside,
drinking your root beer
like it’s his job.

Someday, you’ll roll
that barrel down
a hill—bumps, jolts,
hillocks dislodging
that blasted frog,

the foam on his
silly frog lips;
his eyes will be
the size of pennies,
and you will know

you’ve startled him,
made him think
the barrel times are
over, no more
stolen root beer days.

For Open Link Night at dVerse Poets. Please go visit some of the many other fine poet bloggers there!

Standard

Reader Appreciation Award

 

Many, many thanks to Mohana at insanebloom for the Reader Appreciation Award nomination. Mohana is a poet whose work I’ve really been enjoying over the past few weeks, so this means a lot. Here are the poets I’m nominating for that same award:

http://inthecornerofmyeye.blogspot.com
http://flipsiderecords.wordpress.com
http://the-tenth-muse.com
http://repressedsoul.wordpress.com

Please check them out! Also, be sure to visit dVerse Poets each Tuesday afternoon/evening/night for Open Link Night. I decided to choose my nominees by clicking on many, many of the links there and selecting a few that really struck a chord with me.

One of them even uses the same WordPress theme as mine … bonus points for that.

Standard

Let Memory Be a Paneled Room, for Open Link Night

Let Memory Be a Paneled Room

Let us now be gracious
and thank our humble homes.
From shag carpet we arose;
the ugly couch was always
more comfortable before
it was reupholstered,
made more acceptable
to our changing eyes. Let us
now love Linoleum, warm
underfoot, forgiving of stains,
those accidents of carelessness
and time. How the years passed.
Let memory be a paneled room
with heavy curtains. Let it keep
every word we ever spoke.

 

 

For Open Link Night at dVerse Poets.

Standard

My Super Sweet Nomination

 

Mary Ann of mypenandme nominated me for a Super Sweet Blogging Award, and I could not be more thrilled! I am in great company with her other nominees, and I feel so honored to be recognized in this way. Please check out Mary Ann’s blog, after you’re done admiring these beautiful cupcakes.

The Super Sweet Blogging Award requires responses to a few questions, as follows:

1) Cookies or cake? Cake, and preferably a piece of real cake, not a cupcake.

2) Chocolate or vanilla? Chocolate, but as I get older, I appreciate the subtleties of vanilla more than I used to. In a restaurant, I will almost never order the boring chocolate thing if there’s a more interesting nonchocolate option available.

3) What is your favorite sweet treat? Because it’s summer and there are Red Haven peaches at the farmer’s market, I am thinking of peach shortcakes. I use the recipe on the Bisquick box. I think I cut the amount of sugar I use on the fruit, and I add some orange or lemon juice so the peaches don’t turn quite so brown. I whip cream, which is always fun because there’s that moment where if you go a step too far, you’ve made butter instead.

4) When do you crave sweet things the most? At the end of the workday or after dinner.

5) If you had a sweet nickname, what would it be? My late mother used to call me Biddy, or Bid for short. It would be sweet to hear her call me that again.

And finally, I need to nominate some others whose blogs I enjoy:

http://insanebloom.wordpress.com/
http://www.waystationone.com/
http://whimsygizmo.wordpress.com/
http://susanspoetry.blogspot.com/2012/08/thirst.html
http://immortalmuse.wordpress.com/
http://hollyannegetspoetic.wordpress.com/
http://the-tenth-muse.com/

That was hard … I enjoy so many, particularly on Open Link Night at dVerse Poets. Please go visit all my nominees, and thanks again, Mary Ann from mypenandme!

Standard

Cliff Dwelling, for Open Link Night

Cliff Dwelling

In a niche,
dust,
flowers
battered
by wind,
visited
only by
the bravest
of bees.

Everything
ages,
bakes
like brick.

Sun
through
metal
window
frames.
Dirty glass.
There are

children
squirreled
into nests
of softness,
park visits,
admonishments
not to touch
windowsills,
wiped daily
for lead.
This is not

poverty.
This is a
certain
vertical
choice,
lives
stacked
high.

At night,
a soft crumble
of concrete
in the walls,
a whisper
now and then.

Some lights
on;
some lights
off,

dreams,
thoughts
humming.

 

 

For Open Link Night at dVerse Poets.

Standard

Cosmology, for Open Link Night

Image

 

 

Cosmology

The saltshaker disagrees 
with the notion that there is
anything beyond the tabletop,
any substance more important

than salt. It breathes the sharp air
inside its belly. It sighs in the
humidity; two grains of white rice
rattle in the depths, helping its

thoughts flow more clearly.
This heat. In this heat, who would
begrudge it two grains of rice?
The saltshaker pretends they are

salt, too—though oblong, not
crystalline. It is the only way to
hold a world together sometimes,
this pretending. These breaths.

 

 

For Open Link Night at dVerse Poets.

Standard

Thumper, for Open Link Night

Thumper

Hum hum hum like the
grinding of a mechanical
cicada; he is a machine
designed to bite my
husband’s leg, a sign
of affection, a tremendous
cross-species urge that
drives him around ankles,
between feet, hop hop
hop, pause to lick, then
to bite. What can be done
when the rabbit purrs,
bunches himself into
a moving picture of
desire, a heartfelt
connection meeting
at the teeth?

 

 

For Open Link Night at dVerse Poets.

Standard

Back Porch, for Open Link Night

Back Porch

In this place of breezes
and naps, the spot where
birds begin, nothing can be
wrong, not when power
scampers harmlessly
through the line

and the cardinal
sharps out his message
about finding food,
protecting children.

His song pervades
everything; all the
leaves turn over
once, twice,

as our beach towels
flap where we draped
them, out here where
the phone doesn’t ring.

 

 

For Open Link Night at dVerse Poets.

Standard

If you Google “Solitary Breeze,” for Open Link Night

If you Google “solitary breeze”

Bees, that is. I meant bees;
the breeze is never lonely,
how it cuddles your ear,
whispers into it, something

about flowers, pollen,
the baskets on your legs,
you. You, who live in a
nest by yourself,

no need to make honey,
just nectar in your veins.
Sun shines through your
wings; you are the sun,

the only one,
the only song
you know.

 

For Open Link Night at dVerse Poets. Also, I got my contributor’s copy of Cider Press Review today! It’s their last print issue, and I really like how my poem pairs with the one on the page next to it.

Standard