apathy:
i don’t care.
nothing matters.
we live, we die.
the dust continues its
domination, another
has the same existential crisis.
then he dies too.
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apathy
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my new year’s resolutions are blue painted plates
My new years’ resolutions are like blue painted plates my grandmother
used to collect with a scene in white and the year in large swooping font,
some (the favorites) hung across the top of the kitchen for display, others
stacked in the cabinets, laden with intentions of one day making it out.When she died, we came in to clean the house and each took a plate,
mine, 1966, now sits growing dusty on a bookshelf.
I clean it every January 2.
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Short Story (Baltimore City Paper Fiction Contest)
Hi lovelies!
Great news to share~ I received Third Place in the Baltimore City Paper Fiction Contest. This was my first go at fiction so I’m especially happy! 🙂 Please take a read… short “teaser” is below.So Much Closer and Far More Brilliant
He is late—and after finding his way up the wooden steps, the upstairs bar unfolds like those 2 A.M. roses handed out by Middle Eastern men for $1—roses that promise so much, then wilt and fall open with the slightest touch.
Still, he must admit, they do manage to bring smiles to pretty women at last call. He’s bought a few here and there—although it hasn’t brought him any closer to a girlfriend. No one seems interested in a paralegal who likes sonnets, much less someone who everyone (since first grade and the moment those thick glasses graced his small nose and magnified his already-big green eyes) calls “Owl”.No one except for maybe Molly, but tonight is her goodbye party……..READ MORE
HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!
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Scandinavian Traditions (on Christmas Eve)
Christmas waits like gift wrap glowing warm beneath welcoming arms
of pine needles hanging heavy –
inside, table set waits by candlelight, and each flame preens
in the eyes of orange and blue Dala horses.Soon, with guided hands, we set the course of helgdad frukt soppa.
Like cinnamon and cardamom from the svenske kringlor in the oven,
knotted just how our grandmother taught us, we breathe.{poem from last year, slightly revised … Merry Christmas poet friends!!}
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Finally (the only truth)
Finally~
you say as night settles
for the progress of the day.as soon as you’re born
you die a littleevery day, with every scraped kneeand every timesomeone disappoints youor you break another heart.all the blood of daily pin pricks pile like so many dried leaves
tossed by a breezy blood orange moon with eyes like a wise old owl.Finally, you say.
Wipe a finger
across a dusty bookshelf full of old photographs
to feel the only truth
known to owls, and moons.
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Christmas 1945 by Alice B. Johnson
Merry Christmas week to those who celebrate it — this poem is from my great-grandmother Alice B. Johnson (from her book Where Children Live (1958))
Christmas 1945
This is the day, the Christmas day,
The world has waited for —
This is the dream men dreamed of home
For four long years and more.This is the dream that brought them through
Bastogne and Bougainville —
Through jungle heat and frozen waste,
Beyond each numbered hill.Hang up the holly, mistletoe,
And light the Christmas tree,
And dream tonight of Bethlehem —
Think not of Calvary.Think not of crosses in a row
Or comrades resting there —
They sleep above the stars tonight,
Safe in a Father’s care.
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time to come together
It is a time to come together. Watch as the lights, even the littlest, show us how to shine –
hug your children, feel smoothness of such skin still without regret, disappointment, and
Know: the world will eventually end, yet we can hold hands with love in a moment
that will shine on and on as surely as moist breath and tears return to heaven as rain.*for all those lost today in CT. our thoughts and love are with you.
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untitled (darkened opportunities)
like the empty hollow
growl of a stomach hungry, i lean into the sound of arms wrapping around me
oh i love how shallow
these men can be when confronted by such shiny darkened opportunities
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"Theater of Shadows" by Derek N. Otsuji
To say that I loved this would be an incredible understatement…. enjoy my friends!
American Life in Poetry: Column 402
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Shadow play is among the few free entertainments left, and it must go on delighting children all around the globe. Derek N. Otsuji lives in Hawaii, and here’s his reminiscence.
Theater of ShadowsNights we could not sleep—
summer insects singing in dry heat,
short-circuiting the nerves—Grandma would light a lamp,
at the center of our narrow room,
whose clean conspiracy of lightwhispered to the tall blank walls,
illuminating them suddenly
like the canvas of a dream.Between the lamp and wall
her arthritic wrists grew pliant
as she molded and castimprobable animal shapes moving
on the wordless screen:
A blackbird, like a mynah, not a crow.A dark horse’s head that could but would not talk.
An ashen rabbit (her elusive self)
triggered in snowthat a quivering touch (like death’s)
sent scampering into the wings
of that little theater of shadowsthat eased us into dreams.
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2011 by Derek N. Otsuji. Reprinted from Descant, 2011, Vol. 50, by permission of Derek N. Otsuji and the publisher. Introduction copyright 2012 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
American Life in Poetry ©2006 The Poetry Foundation
Contact: alp@poetryfoundation.org
This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.
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wearing a dress of the dead
wearing a dress of the dead, lipstick just a shade deeper than yesterday’s
wear, my hair is longer, eyes lined blue, mind sharp, i have never felt such cathexis
for a polyester blend, it is she in my memory choosing this white clutch, she remindingme of such joy in life with each swish of the bell of such brightly flowered dress,
she decorating all of me and preening like a grave site of daisies in fresh morning spring.
Poetry by JC Snyder 