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)

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.

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.

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.

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