Friday, April 29, 2011

Day 29: AN ODE

ODE TO THE NUMBER TEN

We count the fingers and toes of each new-
born as though this measurable mark of
perfection promises much more than good
balance and tools for arithmetic les-
sons. We start out self rated, most of us
TEN, by our digits. Then tentacles ex-
tend like limbs our existence, not to climb,
but tenderly tend the earth, touch the sky.
Ten below, ten on high, we entangle
tendrils tenaciously. Perhaps we touch.



ODE TO POETS OF WITNESS

(a found poem, read by Garrison Keillor on The Writer’s Almanac,
April 28, 2011)

And today is the birthday of poet Carolyn Forché ,
born in Detroit in 1950. A human rights activist
as well as a poet, she's committed to what she calls "the
poetry of witness," and this has opened her up to
criticism, especially in the United States, from
those who believe poetry and politics should be
separate concerns. She says that, in other countries,
"The poets are more expected to be intellectuals and
to have an active interest in history and politics and
everything going on. They're not expected to be
sequestered in a literary culture. They're not expected to have
no opinions about events in the world. They're expected to have
more seriously considered opinions because they're
poets — and not necessarily predictable
opinions."
Her anthology, Against Forgetting (1993), collects
the work of international poets who had suffered
imprisonment, torture, and exile.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Day 28: THE WORLD WITHOUT --

WORLD WITHOUT AGENCY AGENCY (WWAA)

agency:
the capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power
(merriam-webster.com)

WWAA -- recovery for addicts
deluded with “making a difference.” Through
investigations of despondency,
using the latest technological
means, our military-industrial-
corporate-oil-food-global-climate-change-
fundamentalist-espionage-earth-
natural-disaster-world-politics
powers will convince you, free of charge, to
take One Step: “I let go all illusions

that any choice I make today -- how I
spend my time, money, energy, thoughts, craft,
words, beauty, truth -- will affect in any
significant way the world where I live.
WWAA’s say: “We are powerless
over everything, and though our lives are
unmanageable, it does not matter.
We are purposefully insane." Here at
WWAA we surrender all things
to No Thing. Now Walk Walk Away Away.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Day 27: IN THE --- OF ---

WHEN IN THE COURSE OF HUMAN EVENTS,

WHAT IF WE CHANGE SEVEN WORDS

(a fib)



When

in

the Course

of human

events, it becomes

necessary for one people

to DOMINEER the

OIL-LADEN

bands which

have

con-

nected

them with a-

nother, and to as-

sume among the powers of the

earth, the separate

and BULLY

status

to

which

the Laws

of Nature

and of Nature’s God

PROHIBIT them, decent respect

to the opinions

of mankind

requires

that

they

NOW should

declare the

causes which impel

them to the ABOMINATION.


(adapted from The Declaration of Independence)

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Day 26: LEAD/FOLLOW

LED ASIDE -- AND ASTRAY

You, P A D, have led me astray,

not only aside, but astray, I say.

My husband has lost me to couch and computer.

I stay up all night scrolling names seeking kudos.

He wonders to whom I am talking. "Just laughing

at Andrew in prison or ooo-ing at [enter YOUR PAD name here...].

“Buddha?” he says. "What IS this you are doing?"

Only five more short days! Well worth the stewing.





FALLOW (haiku)

Sometimes it’s best to
neither lead nor follow but
just be. Lie fallow.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Day 25: FALLING

FALLING: WHAT THE BODY WILL NOT DO
FOR LOVE

My husband flies
in hockey skates
around our pond
in January. He has spent
hours, days grooming it, removing
snow with blowers, pushing shovels
for the rest, and then the hosing, smoothing down, and waiting, waiting
until the ice is slick and cruel. Cruel

for me whose knees absorb alone full force
the fall, always, sharp and hard of ice
skatiing. And yet, I gift my love by putting
on the skates again beyond ten years for healing
memories of the last knee cracking fall.(No major
damage, mind you, just
that black mind blanking pain upon
the impact, sporting technicolor legs

for days.) But he, my daring athlete
wants to fly with me. At least to
skate a little, hand in hand. (We live alone. The kids
are gone.) So I perch on a stool
and try to lace the skates. Then, leaning on
his manly arm so heavily, I take such tiny
steps, a baby, which at my age looks more like
a bent decrepit old, old lady

shuffling steps, with skates on. Utter
panic! Right skate slide, six inches
forward. Left skate, slip beside it. Pause,
"You can do it!" Breathe. Regain your courage. Right,
inch left, catch up. Ayyayayayayay…. (You
see the picture.) I can’t get
nearly over my fear of falling on ice with Donald, paired,
romantic. No. Not never. Not even for love.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Day 24: PRAYER

O GOD, GREAT POET

you who hold
all words in your wind,
whom thunder commends,
who sizzles, who slams, toward you I bend
to listen again, yearning for frames
to name the end of all I endeavor
to live. Come wend
your whisper
in me.



IMAGES FOR PRAYING

I pray for my fellow poets this day:
Like stray dogs, take us, each one, in
whimpering, love us to calm again
with good and gentle guiding hands
and soothing voice, GOD, take us in.

I pray for my fellow creatures this day:
Like radiated rice fields farmed by hand
for eighteen generations in Japan,
soak our toxins away and tend,
in Nature’s time, our seeds to spring.



THE POET’S O ANTIPHONS (REVISED)

O Living Word, who speaks all tongues,
I pray that this wrestling I do with words
is worthy.

O Word Living, who remembers all voices,
I pray PAD makes a dent in the world
for good.

O Beauty, who mourns as Green Weeping Willow,
I pray that my prayer may always moan
as poetry.

O Goodness of All, who smiles as Red Tulips,
I pray that my poetry may always laugh
like prayer.

O Unknown One, who hides in all things,
I pray that our verses rise from deep struggles
of living.

O Holy One, who hears all things,
I pray that our voices sound from deep springs
of listening.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Day 23: TIME TO QUIT WHAT YOU ARE DOING

JESUS QUIT WHAT HE WAS DOING

I wonder if Jesus was ready to
quit what he was doing. After raising
Lazarus, he would be the super-freak,
desired and feared by all. Or would there be
a torrent of jealousy? “You raised her
brother from the dead, why not mine?” Not un-
like the super-science dilemma to
name, to choose, who is first in the queue for
the dead human’s liver, a harvested
liver to make one live, Jesus must have

seen it coming. More crowds. More hungry hands.
More sick and demon possessed children. More
women of all rejected nations. More
low-down begging and pleading. More power
struggles between his trainees. Dumb questions.
Suspicions. More misunderstandings. So
maybe, as it is for many, death was
a mercy in the end for Jesus. On
this Jewish Sabbath day in between we
remember him. Just resting. In a stone

silent place. With everyone else at rest.
Except for the guards. And perhaps by sun-
down they also had nodded off. Ready to quit
their hyper-vigilance. His mother sat
somewhere. I don’t believe she could sleep. I
sometimes wonder if Jesus was ready
to quit. I wonder if he felt sure that
stopping was the only next step. He
must have left the rest of the work to God

and us.

(Poetic form: ten lines, ten syllables X 3 + two words)