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)

Day 22: ONE OF A KIND

ECHOES OF ONE THREE DOG NIGHT

one
is
the lone-
liest, the
number one is the
loneliest, the number one is



THE HORIZON (a shadorma)

Horizons
Frame every point of
View, none the
Same, but one
Outer limit of earth to
Hold all perspectives.

Day 21: SECOND THOUGHTS

Second thoughts on the story of my birth

MIRIAM, THE GODMOTHER OF SECOND THOUGHTS

My grandmother, my mother’s mother, died
of a massive stroke when I was two weeks
old. Conceived the first month of my parents’
marriage, born on North Broad Street in Philly
while my dad was in Temple Med School, I
always wondered how really welcome I
was in the world. And then this death. My mom
was the oldest of three daughters. She went
home to make all the arrangements. Got a
breast infection. Weaned me. And then came back

to North Broad to grieve and take care of me.
And my dad. When I was old enough to
understand this story I asked her, “How
did you do this? It sounds so terrible.”
She would smile and say, “Oh, but I had you.”
That was not consoling. There I was, a
weaned newborn, taking care of her mother-
less sorrow. When I was forty I heard
the “adopted aunt” of the family was
dying. My Mom let out an aside. “It

was so wonderful when Miriam would
come and get you in the middle of the
night when you were just born. She would let me
sleep and take you to sleep in bed with her.”
How had this great comforter been left out
of the first take on the story? It was
like my fairy Godmother had arrived,
in retrospect, and instantly taken
all my abandonment away. How can
a second thought, a second story, change

everything?

(Poetic form: ten lines, ten syllables to each line)

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Day 20: MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE


PROMPT: "Note in a bottle"

ORIGAMI CRANE IN A BOTTLE

In Japan we fold 1000 cranes for our deepest dream.
I have leukemia from radiation.
I will not survive Hiroshima.
I only folded 644 cranes.
Now it is your turn.
Follow the pattern.
Keep folding.
This crane
Came to
You.

Peace,
Your friend, Sadako
(October 25,1955)




POOHSTICKS IN A BOTTLE

This is the Pooh Sticks in a Bottle Battle!
My stupid brother always wins when we play Poohsticks
on the bridge that we are not supposed to be climbing on.
How does his darn stick always come out the other side first?
So this is the Real Test! Once and for all. And I am going to win!
My stick is in the bottle, see? And his is in another one.
SO, if you find MY bottle, THIS ONE, CALL ME FIRST AND I WIN!
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE CALL ME!
Help out a little brother.
Even if you were a big brother once upon a time,
you can make up for all that crap you did.

Bobby @ 999-888-7777

PS If you have to leave a message, just say, “Bobby Rules!”

PPSS If mom answers, don’t say anything about the bridge.


Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Day 19: LOVE

ANTI LOVE POEM RULES love poem rules

IF COLOR, DULL, ground details down to common scents. tempt
NO MOONS OR STARS the reader, no more than a voyeur, but
FRAGRANCE THEM NEITHER MUSKY NOR SWEET. one whose bed is also
EMOTION: WORDS ARE OUT LIKE TENDER OR EMBRACED. disheveled.
USING WELL DEFINED TERMS, FORGET HEART AND SOUL. encounter
THE “OTHER?” WITH NAMES, JUST FACTS, PLEASE, myths with legs, thick,
LEAVING NOTHING TO IMAGINATION, no lips for licking the heart,
KEEPING IT IN BROAD DAYLIGHT no orgasms or eyes to melt. create intrigue,
GET TO THE POINT. a minor mystery without knowing who dies, who slays.


What
if,
in truth,
love stinks, love is heart-
less, cold, selfish, boring, mean and
love ends, is not blind,
feeling
all
things.

There
is,
in truth,
love more than all the
opposites: sweetness, light, never-
ending kindness, found
nowhere
al-
ways.

Monday, April 18, 2011

Day 18: LIKE...


April 18, 2011

PROMPT: Write a poem that begins with "Like..."

LIKE A DUST DEVIL

Like a dust devil, nothing’s storm
arises in the mind’s waste
to pick up words, dry as dust,
and lift them as if to go somewhere,
only to spin them around enough
to mesmerize, and then suddenly
drop each mote,
and disappear,
still
without
a sound.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Day 17: CRUMBS (Shadorma)


PROMPT: a big picture poem

SACRED CRUMBS (a Shadorma)

Can
words
become
rituals --
small, subliminal
tongues -- tasting bread, blessed and broken
without leaven so
fetters fall
from
all?

Day 16: SNAPSHOT


PROMPT: A snapshot poem

Young’s Mountain North Carolina Window Frame – April 2011 (revised)

Endlessly slender poplars and hickories stretch and
sway before a sky’s pale backdrop. Adroitly
crowned dancers they balance leaves like
petite neon umbrellas on their fingertips,
unfolding them gradually. They spin
the sun and seize the rain
for us as the curtain
of dawn
rises

Friday, April 15, 2011

Day 15: PROFILE

NINA B LANCTOT

INGREDIENTS: PASTOR (SPRITUAL GUIDE, PREACHER, LITURGICAL ARTIST, RURAL NETWORKER, CONGO ADVOCATE, ADMINISTRATOR), ARTIST (PHOTOGRAPHER, BLOGGER, PAINTER, POET), CONTEMPLATIVE (SILENCE, SOLITUDE, SCREAMING, KNITTING, SABBATH KEEPING), FAMILY COMPLEX (WIFE, MOTHER, MOTHER-IN LAW, GRANDMOTHER OF LILY, DAUGHTER, SISTER, WITH TRACES BARTELT-FOWLE-LANCTOT-LEPANNAN), SOULMATE (CONVERSATION MIXED WITH COFFEE, ESPECIALMENTE EN ESPANOL CON CHOCOLATE, OR CHINESE FOOD), FOODIE (BAKER, CHEF, LOCAL AGRICULTURE ADVOCATE), COUCH POTATO AND/OR SLEEPER (WITH TRACES OF PLOTTY NOVELS, “SLINGS AND ARROWS,” “SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE,” AND DREAMING)

WARNING! CONTAINS ANABAPTISM AND JUNG

DISTRIBUTED BY
FLORENCE CHURCH OF THE BRETHREN MENNONITE,
CONSTANTINE, MI 49042

PROCESSED AT
ASSOCIATED MENNONITE BIBLICAL SEMINARY,
ELKHART, IN 46517

AVAILABLE AT
56027 COUNTY ROAD 23,
BRISTOL, IN 46507

MADE IN
JENKINTOWN, PA 19046
USA

Thursday, April 14, 2011

April 14: AIN'T NONE OF MY BUSINESS


PROMPT: write an "ain't none of my business" poem.

CELL PHONE BLUES

Ain’t no body’s business but your own.
Ain’t no body’s business but your own.
When you talkin loudly on your damn cell phone, sista,
Ain’t no body’s business by your own!

Day 13: REMEMBER A PERSON


PROMPT: remembering a person…

JOHN ARMSTRONG

Eighth grade is not a good time
to be serving hot chicken mashed potato and gravy
dinners on flimsy cardboard plates in the Grace
Church Fellowship Hall only to have one extra full extra
hot plate crack right over the lap, yes, the unmentionably tender
part, of a seventy year old man.

So who knew that in eighth grade there would also be
a dance in the Grace Church Fellowship Hall and that John
Armstrong, a ninth grader, who had never spoken, would ask
me to slow dance, and take my right hand in his, enfolding
it romantically just over his heart, touching unmentionably tender
dreams of a fourteen year old young woman.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Day 12: LUNE & SESTINA

PROMPT: Two for Tuesday: Either write a poem with a set form, or write a free form poem about what it is like writing poetry in a set form. I choose the first.

LUNAR (first lune)

bella luna! strong;
full or new:
life without periods!



A BEASTLY ROMANCE (first YIKES! sestina)

A woman works as hard as she is able
to gather nectar and surpass the bee.
But when the honey’s poured onto the cut-
lery she dare not share it for ‘tis dear.
The wiser man observes her anxious eye
and savors her desserts, for he is frank.

Our wise man’s appetite for life shames Frank-
enstein, a monster piec-ed on a table.
But rather he, with single focused eye,
can spy her soul's inherent pow’r, to be --
become -- the woman’s stronger half, more dear
to her than hive. He guards her honey court.

The queen bee learns her new won man is Curt.
When ill, he hides his hunger, no more frank-
ly speaking truth with womanhood so near.
He now withdraws into his cave like Abel
with no more gentle off’ring than a bear
to win his sweetheart's blessed love-blind eye.

The woman, Bea, confronts his mourning, “I
no more will make a warm and honeyed cup
of comfort. Curt, no more a human being,
you left off our romance, parlance in French.
Our kisses lingered long when we were able.
Come back, my Curt, my strength, my love, so dear.”

Strong souls, when sickened, lick their loins, like deer
who hide in shadows, waiting for the eye
of light to beckon, piercing like a beam.
Returning, hunger stalks, and to the rut
they wander, letting on that flesh is frank-
ly tougher than it never e’er had been.

The way to woo such creatures is by be-
ing strong and wing-ed, hovering endears
the beastlike bent, the longing and a frank-
ness that awaits a queen’s own piercing eye.
Curt’s prowess is abiding love, he courts
a honey maid encombed at her own table.

When honeyed love makes strong all able beings
who crush the comb of carefulness and dare
to open eyes to beastlike power -- don’t freak!

Day 11: MAYBE...


PROMPT: For today's prompt, take the phrase "Maybe (blank);" replace the blank with a word or phrase; make the new phrase the title of your poem; and then, write the poem. Some example titles might be: "Maybe I should've read the instructions first," "Maybe I was wrong," "Maybe the world is flat," or whatever else y'all can muster.

MAYBE THE THREE RED FOXES DEAD ON THE ROAD


Maybe the three red foxes dead on the road are a sign.

Gretchen made us stop on the Chaco road in Argentina, August 2009,
to take a close look at the long legged fox the size of a wolf,
rare, with its eyes already eater out.
We stood and paid vigil.

Gary’s brother told me at the meeting for his mother’s funeral
that he stopped and turned around on US 131 south of Three Rivers
to see the dead fox by the side of the road.
That same March week I had seen the same orange fur, but had not stopped.
I can’t remember why he brought it up, but he made me wish
I had paid respects as well.

Going past the third fox, one mile from my house today,
I took in a sharp breath at beauty and wondered why, again,
this secretive creature, darted into the deadly path.

Is this a suicide pact, a woodland solidarity,
protesting to death so that my heart would un-numb to the handfuls
of raccoons, skunks, squirrels and deer, the crows and vultures who attend them littering my way as I plow through the country in my 95 horse power
Toyota pick-up,
Beast?

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Day 10: NEVER AGAIN


PROMPT: “never again”

NEVER NEVER-NEVER LAND AGAIN

“I won’t grow up!”
I crowed with Pan,
and in my dreams I flew.

I clapped for Tink
with all my heart
professing, “I believe.”

But never nev-
er will I hide
with Wendy in a tree

Where little girls
become the moms
of boys so young and free.

When Wendy’s wed
with Peter, soon
the fairy dust is all.

Never, never,
never, never
again will they live small.

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Day 9: TIME OF DAY


11:13 AM -- GREEN ANOLE 1

10:56 am

The flash dancer appears on the balcony.
I see him as my husband points, fervently, without a word.
Emerald lizard, long tailed, he creeps across the railing, in the sun,
and, FLASH, a vermillion fan, lit from behind,
glows beneath his neck and is gone.
Wow!

10:57 am

I grab my camera, but he has darted
around the corner of the rail, no longer so flashy. Wrong angle
to the sun entirely.

11:03 am

I am stalking. He dashes
down the stair rail. Now, eight steps
below me, my friend the mini-iguana, baths in the sun,
and I can spy his delicate toes, curling with flair around him, his tail
long and lovely, goes on and on as he poses, poised. Ah!
A turn, (click) a bob
of the head, (click) a pause, (click)
a flash! (click) I got it! Rose red! From a distance. But I
am not satisfied.
Hmmmm…

11:05 am

He allows me to descend,
inch by inch, (click by click), zoom-
ing, adjust-
ing, before he turns, he scampers
back
up the stair rail
in fits and starts
to his former balcony
perch.

11:07 am

I creep more slowly. Silent
feet. Steady now.
Step by step
while he
darts,
stops,
turns his head,
but keeps
his secret
sex appeal,
vermillion
dewlap,
well concealed.

Rats!

11:13 am

Ah!
But wait!
He has taken up
the eastern post of the rail. He stops.
He stands. He raises his head. (click)
Extending over the edge. (click)
Bobs his head up, once, twice. (click)
And there it is!
Vermillion on light beam.
A fan. Bespeckled
in white. Testicle
like. Glowing. Male
prowess. King
of the balconyl!
(click, click, click)

I exhale.

11:15 am

My camera hangs.
He turns the corner.
I see his claws cling
along the side of the rail. He is
disappearing.
His emerald’s glow,
each scale, playing
with the light. His eye
is black. It turns
to me. He is gone.

Morning prayers
are done.

11:17 am


GREEN ANOLE 2 – FOUND POEM

The typical breeding season for green anoles starts
from as early as April and ends
as late as August and lasts even
occasionally into September. It is during
this time that the most brilliant displays
of these creatures can be seen, as the males
must court the females with their elaborate displays
of extending their brightly colored dewlaps
while bobbing up and down, almost
doing a dance for her while she runs
in temptation from the male. The pursuit
will continue until the two successfully mate. Usually, when
the female is ready to mate, she may let the male simply "catch" her and he
will thus grasp a hold of a fold
of her skin above her neck area, or she
will bow her head before him and simply "let" him take his grasp.
At this point, the male will position his tail underneath the female's near her vent and the mating ritual
will take place.

(Wikipedia)

Friday, April 8, 2011

Day 8: CELEBRATION


PROMPT: A celebration poem

I WORK TO CELEBRATE STRUGGLE
(a found poem, quoting Toni Cade Bambara)

I do not think that literature is the primary
instrument for social transformation, but
I do think it has potency. So
I work to tell the truth about people's lives; I work
to celebrate struggle,
to applaud the tradition of struggle in our community,
to bring to center stage all those characters, just ordinary
folks on the block, who've been
waiting in the wings, characters we thought
we had to ignore because they weren't
pimp-flashy or hustler-slick or because they didn't
fit easily into previously acceptable
modes or stock types. I want to lift up some
usable truths ...


Toni Cade Bambara (b. 1939), African American fiction writer.
Black Women Writers at Work, ch. 2, by Claudia Tate (1983).

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Day 7: WHAT IF...

ROMANS 8:10

But if Christ is in you,
though the body is dead
because of sin,
the Spirit is life…


What if, through absolutely no fault nor effort of my own,
wisdom were my voice?
What if, through pure endowment, not my own,
my words rang true the world?
What if I had nothing to fear,
voicelessness beyond death?
What if making love with words only
intimated destiny?

Day 6: DON'T...., ....


LAZARUS – Don’t hold! Release!

A fog of voices filled my house those last days.
Martha left the kitchen.
Mary paced.
And I
faded
away.

My friend
stalled,
placating disciples,
tasting roiling bile.

That was the last I knew.

It is not death,
please, it is the dying I do not want to do
again.

Finally,
a numbness
is grace.

Now, four days gone,
I am clutched back,
called out.
Wailing throttles my ears,
breathing burns,
and each and every hair on my forearm
stands, stinging
from tip to root
as they, by his command,
peel the sodden winding cloths
away.

I cannot stomach my own stench.

My friend weeps now,
tears tainting skin,
condemned by life
to death.

I wince now,
touched by exquisite pain,
condemned by life
to feel
his release.



AND

PROMPTED ON MY OWN

YOUNG'S MOUNTAIN NORTH CAROLINA WINDOW FRAME
-- APRIL 2011

Endlessly slender poplars and hickories stretch and
sway before a sky’s pale backdrop. Delicately
crowned dancers they balance leaves like
petite neon umbrellas on their fingertips,
unfolding them gradually. They spin
the sun and seize the rain
for us as the curtain
of dawn
rises.

Day 5: VERY SILLY; VERY SERIOUS

DEADLY DELIRIUM

Delirium occasionally strikes my somber self just past my usual
bedtime. My sides heave, I lose my breath
to wheezing guffaws, one spasm of giddiness leading to the next, out of control, fearing
I will pee my pants, laughing until I cry, over nothing, nothing. I can’t remember
a single thing that made me lose it like this.

Is it the unseen underground effect of earthquake plates shifting
tsunami meltdowns of way too many SOMETHINGS that
stupefied
my brain and body and being, no, my breath,
saturated
radioactively by invisible particles,
charged
by death on the other side of the planet, as all day I am,
blasted
long and hard from NPR and PBS and MoveOn, I am,
raped
women in eastern Congo,
bombed
babies in Libya,
dissolved
polar ice caps, and
proliferated
genetically modified corn,
seeded
right here where I live by Contantine, who like the emperor of old,
capitalized

the world,
weeded
out farmers back to Japan where, I
glowed
toxic, a waste, remembered, as
cultivated
by eighteen generations of farmers, now
abandoned
to legislatures who leave over health, immigration and labor, who
excluded
millions of children left behind, so as to be forcibly
improved
overnight in a quantifiable American
dreamed
best way in the world?

Delirium occasionally strikes my somber self just past my usual
bedtime. My sides heave, I lose my breath
to wheezing guffaws, one spasm of giddiness leading to the next, out of control, fearing
I will pee my pants, laughing until I cry, over nothing, nothing. I can’t remember
a single thing that made me lose it like this.

Wish I could remember
a single thing that allows me lose it like this, weeping, too,
grounded
between silly and somber
in solid
just
life.

Day 4: TYPE OF PERSON

VOICELESS BUDDING WOMAN

“Where would you like to go to eat?”
“I don’t know.”

“What is your favorite food?”


“I promised you I would take you out for a snack after the game. I loved watching you play. You were awesome! Give me five!”


“Aren’t you hungry?”
“I guess.”

“What are you hungry for?”
< >



“Well…here are some options: Taco Bell, LA’s Coffee Café, or Meijer.”
“Taco Bell.”

“Okay then… You can get whatever you want if you order it yourself. I’ll go last.”

Day 3: NON-EXISTENCE

AROUND THE WORLD TO PLACES OF THE HEART
WITH NON-EXISTENT HAIKUS OF NON-EXISTENCE

Constantine, MI:

As the center of
the universe I dare not
wake non-existence.

Costa Rica:

Nunca vivo en
la sombra, bailando en
sueños silvestres.

Cambodia:

Lotus flowers open.
I exist. I don’t exist.
Lotus flowers open.

Capernaum:

“Who was and is and
is to…” Wait! Incarnation
depends on return?

Congo:

Forgotten, my song
is silenced. No wailing raised.
Living dead no more.

Königsberg:

I Kant think. I am
not. “To be or not to be?”
Was that the question?

Day 2: POSTCARD

PROMPT: message on a postcard

COUNTY ROAD 23, BRISTOL, IN

The last of the woodpile
simmers in the stove.
The snowdrops
droop in the flower bed
hiding their green hearts.
Daffodils’ tight buds
border the opening
between us
and the Nature Conservancy.
And the chorus frogs
downstream in the swamp
are still
too cold to sing.

When are you coming
home?

Day 1: HOW I GOT HERE

PROMPT: HOW DID YOU GET HERE?

MY MOTHER WAS A BOAT

My mother was a boat.
I floated in her.
When she sailed across the corner at Broad Street and Vine
in northern Philadelphia near Temple University
on July 1, 1952,
a bent woman stopped her
in the middle of the intersection and said,
“You’re going to have an angel.”

I was born on July 16.