Skip to content

Poetry by JC Snyder

About
Contact

Search

Dancer First on the Floor, Debi

Back then, we had sunburned tips of noses,

sand permanently stuck to feet.

Dinner, a pig pulled and dressed,

Sat abandoned on paper plates.

Sacrifice meant nothing as waves

Crashed near, and the skim of the pool

Wobbled gently.

A standing speaker lept alive.

Soulful beats familiar thanks to dad.

But I was afraid.

Afraid of my height, of my body and how it would

Move wrong or freeze. Afraid of an empty, chlorinated

Dance floor that could swallow me whole.

Did you know this fear? We never saw.

Instead, you charged ahead.

A dancer first on the floor,

celebrity in style, grace and light.

You the heartbeat and we now rushing cells.

How we danced! Your bronzed arms

Swinging front to back. Legs in rhythmic

Steps side to side. Husband across

Matching each joyful bounce. Your ever-widening

Smile an invitation to join

a life of frequency spun open like a feast.

Each song was a gift

and I suddenly lifted from the puddles.

There in North Carolina,

You taught me to be free.

How to harness a deep energy and then, pass it along.

We like ripples danced

until music became goodbye.

Us cousins, tired and sated, followed

like ducklings back over the boards

to a home temporarily by the sea.

written 4.1.20

April 1, 2020
Ripples Settle Out Across the Sky

i’m with the fishing people.
the big clouds didn’t scare us tonight
instead they blushed graciously at our compliments,
such a nice day!
below the harbor water is black and
waxed fine like a waiting ballroom floor
i have no watch, no phone, no one knows i’m here
one man catches a small one,
throws it back
to skid along the surface
soft Latin music brings on a deepening,
blues and reds,
i watch him catch the same fish again
it dances this time, dies,
one star brightens to accept it, ripples settle out across the sky.

written 10.8.13

March 17, 2020
yours is an elegant death

one time your green energy
was so vibrant it sang straight to
heaven in a summery heat
then, as chill settled in your bones,
you gracefully
blushed, embarrassed by this new
weakness in your spine,
until a capricious wind,
sudden,
one grey November day,
gave you the push to let go, and you did
oh so gently making your way
to a shallow grave
on the wet pavement, reflecting back
to your roots.

written 11.23.11

March 15, 2020
white flowers in the harbor

White flowers floating on their faces
in a green-scaled harbor, they are
searching for a bottom they’ll never find.

Fish them out with childish hands
leave to dry on a scorching brick walk,
their petals disintegrated but volant.

written 7.31.12

March 12, 2020
summer city steeped in promise

the smell of Old Bay blue crabs
fizzles down the spine
of an electric storm cloud
and humidity
seeps up around the ankles
of a city steeped in promise:

he reluctantly pulls back a broken screen door
and lets it shut with a bang.

inside another door a pool table is a
vivid green
field of dreams
spiked by whiskey breath
as each man leans close to take a shot.

written 6.29.11

March 10, 2020
untitled (winds and Whitman)

outside
winds rattle in their Song

glory to themselves
basking in their chill, their roar,
their natural state
of movement —

We- the page- the vessel
the form that gives
the winds their form
as they move

rattle, dance,
their self-assured
Songs of them-selves.

oh wind,
you fearsome friend,
always with the
troubling advice:
“move, keep moving”

written 4.12.11

March 7, 2020
but the potential is there

This man i passed in his street level window
in his old-man blue and white striped underpants
plays guitar to sheet music propped up by useless
paper stacks. In my world flowers overstay their welcome
and die, casually, a little bit every day
and i swim among the petals, like beautiful regrets,
among the art and the lies …
but the potential is there
like the smell of garlic wafting from an overcrowded
kitchen pot … this man finds a chord, i hear it from
a mile away and cry.

written 2.25.13

March 4, 2020
lunch with my great aunt Alice

The Milton Inn has this blue room
draped heavy in the past –
silver forks and knives
and glassware I used to polish
in early mornings when I learned
to drink my coffee black.

My great aunt Alice and I
used to take our lunches there
sipping diet coke and lemon our
three course meal a time
to talk of lives alike. Her handwriting in
pencil saying, “lovely, lovely.”

[author’s note: my great aunt Alice was an incredible woman and I really miss our lunches. They were a time to talk about writing and grammar and all the things we were geeky for. I still have her edits on my college work. I still can hear her telling me to go west on a trip that she could never take.]

written 11.20.10

March 3, 2020
Drop leaves Faucet

Drop leaves Faucet
carefully –
slyly looking both ways
like a prisoner in a daring escape,
takes a breath
closes eyes,

Launches!

free falling bliss
to desperate reconsideration
wind pulls delicate skin
and all is quiet

Drop shatters into
a million shining sparks on a stainless steel
tundra,
Transforms into something infinitely soft.

Take one last look, Drop, at a cold grey world and
drain toward something
altogether new

written 4.23.13

March 2, 2020
35

35 is
of the world
and not,
a stew of overjoyed
and discontent.

Maybe when I’m older
the balance changes?

I know when I was younger,
the scale slid far below
the line of happy; Things were so
dramatic then.

35 forms a crossroad,
a slow settling into your own bones.

Possibilities shine in the distance,
dirt glows under our feet

written 6.6.15

March 1, 2020

conceptual, growing older, poem, poetry

Previous Page Next Page

Blog at WordPress.com.

Subscribe Subscribed
- Poetry by JC Snyder
- Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.