NPM: Practice

A poem written in the moment, for my husband, this 23rd day of March  April. National Poetry Month is quickly ending. I feel like it was swept away from me, and it seems like it lasted so much longer last year. I also believe I'm challenging myself with a higher quantity of "rhyming" poems this year, which is something I can be a little proud of. Joey probably won't read this poem (because he hardly ever reads my blog) but if you read it and you think it's awesome, go pester him on Facebook and tell him to read it. :)

Practice.

From the open bedroom door,

hum my husband's hands at his guitar,

deep and a little low,

soft and a little high,

and the sound drifts into me 

not too shallow, not too far.

My fingers at the keys here,

hands hard at work but heart hearing,

breathing deep and low,

feeling soft and high,

and patience grows within me

where anxiety left a clearing.

We will live from wall to wall,

hearth to hearth and heart to heart,

loving deep and singing low,

speaking soft and laughing high,

and time will weave inside us

until we can't be told apart.

NPM: At home.

4/20/14
Carry Me Up

When the storm overcomes me,
when with the wind I bend,
when lightning strikes my heart
and thunder is my friend
carry me up,
carry me up to you.

When the stillness is too much,
when the silence is at hand,
when my patience won't persist
and I feel I cannot stand
carry me up,
carry me up to you.

When my soul is heavy,
when my spirit stops its sighs,
when my heart gives way
and that drumbeat dies
carry me up,
carry me up to you.


4/21/14
Teababy

Teababies drink tea
where they're wandering at
in the morning dew
with wide white hats.
Teababies drink tea
when the sun comes up
and they sip up their hours
from chippy coffee cups.
They drink with straws
from tiny paper glasses
and from shiny bottles
sittin in the tall grasses.
Teababies drink tea
when the moon hangs down
and they gulp from the sky
when stars come around.
They drink away trouble
and drink away care
because a teababy knows
all the world some tea can bear.


4/22/14
Big Paper

For an artist the blank page can seem
quite in surmountable, untouchable.
The empty white sheet is both
power and weakness.
It is the whole day looming ahead,
all work and responsibility and
convoluted obligations,
or the trouble to be made--
which could be daunting, or exhilarating
but I am dauntless, and always
in the middle of an exhilaration.
And you can cut it up into small pieces
or paint the entire sheet
with one color, if that pleases you,
and I suppose that's where
an artist gets satisfaction.
God gives out the big paper
but he also hands you the brush.

NPM: Scattered, a Haiku, and some Easter poems

4/16/14
Scattered

The ocean wave is a coiled fist
which tosses its thoughts
across the abiding shore.
From its fingers they fly like
diamonds, sapphires and rubies,
all polished and glistening
among the seashells and sand.
The ocean abandons them
like common pebbles and rocks,
flings them away for
some fool to grasp tightly,
some soul to make their treasure,
some other who has no thoughts.


4/17/14
Untitled Haiku

Listen to the sun.
It is making us lazy.
Summer sleep is near.


4/18/14
Hero

You are not unsung
but what are you to me
with two thousand years
between your death and mine.
You are not outspoken
but passion seems to be
what binds us here
across space and time.
You are not invoked
but come for the great and small,
still you hold them within
your righteous embrace.
You are not illicit
but we hesitate at your call
to forsake other heroes
and follow you from this place.


4/19/14
The Second Day

A silence black
props us up
between the darkness
and tomorrow's glory.
When silence breaks
my heart will sing
and my mouth
will tell
your story.



I'm all caught up now. :)

NPM: A lost week.

I dropped the ball this week because I won the lottery and I've been gallivanting around the world in hot air balloons and private jets, and while I was off on many adventures I adopted three children and got my hair permed and my husband and I now own a lighthouse on the Atlantic coast of Canada.

But in reality, the only thing that matters is that if I got paid to make up glamorous stories about my mundane life, I would be horribly rich. Rich enough to do those glamorous things instead of just lie about them.

The truth is that I've been busy. Busy teaching, busy stressing, busy feeling things. I've had half-written poems in my head all week but not a spare minute to write. I owe this blog 5 poems, so we'll see what we can do tonight.

4/14/14

Secret-Stealer

The shuddering wind 

owns no windows or doors

but howls them all open, just the same.

It is a secret-stealer

and a whispering danger

occasionally stopped by strong walls.

You can bundle in coats,

seal your house up tight

to keep yourself safe from its grasp.

But the beggars and lawyers,

prayers and cheaters,

all have words they wish would blow away.

4/15/14

Demands

Cinnamon sunrise, reddish brown

cracks the edges of our morning.

Sharp and distinct, a rusted blade

that crumbles without warning.

It falls on feather pillows and

coffee black as an ache.

We should not let this be.

We cannot make this break.

Our wounds won't heal

but they still make demands.

If you drink my poison

I will bandage your hands.

The war is a dusty cradle

that holds us as we fight

against the heartbeats inside us

forcing us see the light.

How hard could it be

to admit we won't win,

unless we're too tired to fight

and decide to love again?

Our wounds won't heal

but they still make demands.

If you drink my poison

I will bandage your hands.

I think that's all I can manage for now. I am seriously exhausted. More tomorrow, I promise.

NPM: Three.

4/11/14

Glass

You bend your knees,

you say a prayer,

but you can't say

what happened there

between the window pane
and the streaks of rain.
The glass never knows
if it's broken or wet
and if you become glass
you too will forget.


4/12/14
Holiday Special

In t.v. land jolly men walk
up around the streets of Christmas
carrying carols in their mittens
and swinging from one tradition
to another, taking for granted
that this will happen again next year,
next season, next boxed set,
next primetime holiday special.
But over the wall of wires and lights
it is an uncertain springtime
in which it seems always winter.
Nobody opens presents,
angels do not appear,
Santa never comes,
and somebody cries.

4/13/14
Sunday

Sunshine, cloudshine, moonshine.
Dewdrops, raindrops, nightdrops.
Wakefulness, achefulness, thankfulness.

NPM: Lingering

I hold a quiet jealousy,
reticent and proud.
It lingers in my heart
like a fragile, browning leaf
from a brittle-branched tree.
Lingering,
but never falling.
It possesses no power,
sways neither direction.
It is a wish, and a curse.
It pines for a love
to last for all eternity,
but knows in my whispers
that there is no marriage
in heaven.
It wants beyond reason,
it abandons understanding,
hoping that by wanting
I will keep it alive.
And I must.
By letting go of this desire
I might let go completely.
So I will hold my quiet jealousy
in silence and compliance
and make for me and my love
a seasonal heaven on earth
which will one day wither
like the autumn leaf.

NPM: Ride, ride, ride.

We met in the west
with capguns in hand,
took a wandering walk
from the edge of the land.
We had cream in our coffee,
dust on our shoes,
and on a midsummer morning
sang each other's blues.
I'm a person, you said.
I said I was one too.
We've been back and forth,
all up and down,
discarded and wanted,
then lost, then found,
all before
we could count
to me and you.
So we put the past in our pockets
with our sorrows and sighs,
saluted the sunrise
as a final goodbye.
You told me to be Bonnie,
I told you to be Clyde,
and like modern vagrants
we will ride, ride, ride.