Tag Archives: Open Link Night

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

Beach Glass, for Open Link Night

Beach Glass

Not very tumbled.
Not yet opaque, milky.
Still retaining the clarity
of what they are, or were.

Holding the laughter
or anger, hot romance
of a beach night on the rocks
before bottles smashed.

A fight, or an errant toss;
someone too young, too urgent
to attempt to find a trash can
(to say nothing of recycling).

What words passed between,
among the sweet evening air
as swifts replaced seagulls
and bottle rockets flew?

Drop the bottles where you are.
There are more important things.
Maybe someday, someone will
collect the broken shards,

tossed just enough to no longer
cut. See? She tests each one
on her finger; blunted edges
make treasure out of trash.

 

 

 

For Open Link Night at dVerse Poets.

Standard

A Probably Blasphemous but Well-Intended Persona Poem for Open Link Night

Rest

I am a park ranger for the Lord;
I arrange His trees in concentric circles
so His children can wind embroidery floss
around, under, and through, sing a song

that is just enough about Him
that He’ll know it’s about Him; He
likes to hear His own name as much
as any of the rest of us do, I guess

(maybe more). He likes puns,
as long as they’re good ones;

lambs and trees go over well,
but He’s kind of tired of loaves
and fishes. No one knows how
exhausting that miracle was,

how few people thanked Him,
and He had to rest afterwards
and wondered why it is He
even bothers sometimes.

By His hand, we are fed, so
it seems like the least I can do,

to set up His crafts, and to pour
tiny cups of juice (apple—
goes with the week’s theme:
Gifts from His Trees) so He can
rest a while longer, and wonder.

 

 

 

I wrote this because it’s Tuesday, which means it’s time for another Open Link Night at dVerse Poets. The first line came to me out of nowhere, and then a persona and scenario built themselves around it. Oh, Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood …

Standard

From Not Entering any Chapbook Contests, to Two in One Month …

… in zero easy steps.

A funny thing happened today while contemplating sealing the deal on a travel-themed chapbook (entries are due June 15 — yikes, I just rediscovered that fact yesterday). Well, the first funny thing is that I don’t at all consider myself to be a writer of travel poetry … but when I sifted through the 60-some poems I wrote in April, I found that many of my favorites were about travel in general or about specific locations.

But what happened today is that I found myself reaching back to a previous idea, which was a chapbook of persona poems. I entered it in one contest last fall, it didn’t win, and I promptly shelved it. But I love persona poems and the energy of writing as someone else for a while. By now, a lot of those poems feel a little stale, and I’ve since written other persona poems that I like better — and that I was sorry to cut because they didn’t fit my travel theme.

Sooooo … now I’m planning to do the one that’s due June 15 and another that’s due June 30. Two things: 1) I believe this gives me a handy carte blanche not to write anything new for a while, other than for Open Link Night, which I enjoy each Tuesday, and 2) I am going to have to speed up my usual process considerably.

What’s my usual process? 1) Print everything — everything — out. 2) Sift through it many, many times to choose the best ones. 3) Look for a theme and regretfully pull out any that don’t fit. 4) Find an order that makes sense. 5) Put the pages together in “spread” fashion — facing each other, that is — so I can see how they might pair in book form. 6) Carry the pages around with me for days on end, rereading, making tiny changes, reprinting, rereading — until I’m so sick of the whole thing that I have to get it out of my house … now.

For my travel-themed one, I added a little something extra to step 6, which was to set aside the whole thing for a few days, only to come back to it and find that my order was all messed up and I had a mixed pile of drafts from various stages. And … this was right before I’d planned to consolidate the whole thing from many files into one. So the order only existed in that hard copy. The good news is, I’m quite sure I didn’t duplicate the previous order — but I actually like the new one better.

What remains for the travel chapbook, which (blessedly) seems to fit the June 15 contest better than the June 30 one, is to pull out two poems that I don’t think work very well and put back in a two-pager that I think is very strong but also very personal and perhaps dangerously honest. I *mostly* think that’s a good decision — and it’s a type of decision I find myself making more and more often.

As for the persona poem one, I suspect I might be surprised by how much work remains. I think there’s a lot that will need to come out — and a lot of new ones to put in. 

So, the travel one is tooth-wigglingly close (my daughter turned 7 yesterday, so this metaphor is very relevant these days), and I have to get it out of my house … if not now, then pretty close to now.

There goes my June … What are you up to?

Standard

I Bear Fruit, for Open Link Night

For Open Link Night at dVerse Poets … In other news, I got a contributor’s copy in the mail today, which is always a happy time. But then my husband is reading my poem and says, “Umm, did you mean to spell yeast roll r-o-l-e?” No. No, I didn’t. For the record — since I’m billing myself as a poetry editor and all — the gremlin was at the other end. Oh, well. I know these things happen, and it’s still exciting to have the copy in hand, and it looks great other than that. I think I’ll let it go.

 

I Bear Fruit

Then I discovered that
everything I was carrying
was useless and heavy,

and I’d dropped all the
right, light things along
the way somewhere.

I didn’t know where
I was going, so I decided
to stand still for a while,

but then I became a
pear tree, one of those
stunted little pear trees

that grows around a
fence, as if the wound
has become integral,

the fence a new heart,
xylem and phloem
beating in chain link.

Standard