PAD 04/15/10

Day 15 of the Poem a Day Challenge.  Prompt:  deadline

Rushed Elegies

imagine if Rilke
had written them
according to a deadline
if he'd shrunk himself
to fit a ring
he'd already inhabited
written them from
the perspective of a life
going backwards
into the already known

one must come to the world
like the first human being
Eden was timeless
and the first ones
got to name the animals

and now we are
the homeland of Things
which would be invisible without us

the elegies were written
going slowly forward
going through the labyrinth
without thread

angels are not so terrible
when you've already seen them
face to face

PAD 04/14/10

Two weeks into the Poem a Day Challenge.  Prompt:  ______ Island

BLENNERHASSETT ISLAND

This is where Margaret
and Harman had it all
and lost it all:
house, servants, the library
filled floor to ceiling
with leather bound books.
I take off my shoes and
wade into the river.
The bottom is slick.
The shore is peppered with lumps of clay.
Margaret's grave is over there.
On arrival to the new world
she was an exotic jewel. 
Trying to get up a steep bank, I slip.
My hands land in stinging nettles.
 
 

PAD 04/13/10

Day 13 of the Poem a Day Challenge.  Prompt:  an anti-love poem

IT WASN'T LOVE

Herbie was such a child
I wore his ring
it wasn't love

kissing him was like
kissing a balloon
one night

in the parking lot
waiting for my mother
another one called Ken

gave me his tongue
my mouth tickled all night

PAD 07/12/10

Day twelve of the Poem a Day challenge.  Prompt:  City poem.

Martins Ferry

continue
to James Wright Avenue
pass the church
with the open doors
where the congregation
sings Ave Maria
continue
a few steps more
to the bar
with the open doors
the maid is cleaning tables
continue
to the river
where the willows drink
and the mountain on the other side
is blue with shade

PAD 04/11/10

Day eleven of the Poem a Day Challenge.  Prompt:  The Last _________

THE LAST PETS


A day comes when you realize
you have the last pets you will ever have

you remember what happened
to other people's pets

like Bowillie the cat
who'd crouched loyally

under old Charles' death bed
all the long days and nights

the day old Charles went
out like a gas light

he pet the covers
thinking they were Bo

good ole Bo he said
in his fevered death-dream

good ole Bo
the oldest stepson took Bo

for the long trek home to Florida
conveniently lost him along the way

Bo whom old Charles had
fed the tenderest food in the mornings

and then let out to play
stroked his fur with soft sponges

the day comes and you realize
that you're going to have to be satisfied

with the birds in the yard
the groundhogs in the field

the dying baby rabbit that some stray
has dragged onto the porch