Sending poetry to the world
when i hear
blue eyes crying in the rain
i hear my father
say that was his father’s
favorite song.
when i hear
how great thou art
i hear my father’s tears fall
at that first funeral
of my life – his mother’s.
when in between the silence
of a long long night
i hear a heavy sigh, a rustle
drops of salty tears,
“knowing we’ll never meet again.”
sometimes i look at pictures
and i study the faces to see
who has what nose
and who has
what smile
and
sometimes i look
just to say hi all you
relatives who
line my face with genes
and past choices
and
sometimes i look at pictures
to witness
how much has changed –
and
sometimes how little…
as if my face
was made in stone.
[AND btw… on a different topic, way to go team USA world cup soccer!!]
girls
ought to
live a certain way.
I have a book of etiquette
from 1928:
“bobbed hair does not
carry with it the privledge
of using
a comb in public.”
If I’m the woman
wearing diamonds to breakfast
I’m labeled
nouveau riche.
Check it out!! So excited and can’t wait to get my next piece to them. Great poetry on this site, and I’m very happy (and proud) to be a small part of it!!
http://www.everydaypoets.com/rolling-under-a-radio-tower-by-jody-costa/comment-page-1/#comment-6317
along water, bricks
line a path until, whispers
hello soldiers gone.
[running to the Korean war memorial in Canton, MD]
taken from my great-grandmother’s book of poetry, Where Childern Live (1958).
The Yard Spinner
Intent on every word, the small boy hears
A story woven of an old man’s years
That, with the telling, finds a space to grow
In splendor for a boy who wants it so,
And, as the truly wonderous tale unravels,
Along an old world trail a small boy travels —
A boy who hangs upon each chosen word,
As with the spinning yarn the air is stirred,
Until the hero-worshipper is led,
His hand held fast in grandfather’s — to bed.
i wonder
did she ever
edit thoughts
as if to say
“i always think of
garden blooms and
my children
and not of pain
and death
and worse than all
loneliness”
did she ever
write such verse
in mind alone
and then turn around
and type instead,
“how lovely is
this day….”
he looked at her like she was the most beautiful
woman, spotlighted inspiration,
but when she caught him
he looked away fast, averting,
it was then
she pressed her hand
forcefully through air
determined,
long fingers straining for
that fine art of
waving goodbye,
pressed her hand
and let it stain the air
strain the silence of an unspoken
conversation
that always ended so
abruptly… suddenly…
…
crabs steamy with Old Bay
mixed with the scent of heavy
humidity and a wind carrying
a storm from the west
I sit on stairs watching
summer Baltimore languish.
standing alone
outside the office
smoke lingers from
previous breaks
head leaned back
to the sun and
across the way
someone is sailing
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