on elk neck road
those lonely
or pretending otherwise
men
watch the
naked
woman
addicted to eyes
play pool
great grandmother (written by my great grandmother Alice B Johnson)
This poem was written by my great grandmother Alice B. Johnson and is taken from her book, Where Children Live (1958). While not the style I write in, I think it’s beautiful and sweet, and I’m happy to post it here. For more from Alice B. Johnson, click on her name under categories.
Great Grandmother
The years rest like a diadem
Upon your silver hair —
Serenity is like a cloak
That you gently wear.
Years of loving kindness show
Upon your furrowed brow,
Like promised harvest that has known
The earth, the sun, the plow.
Life’s burdens have not passed you by,
Nor sorrow’s parting loss —
Yours the constant faith that sees
The crown beyond the cross.
No bitterness or fear has left
Upon your heart its trace —
Love is the mirrored beauty seen
Reflected in your face.
Tenderly and lovingly
With your arms you hold
Your precious great-grandaughter,
Less than one year old.
She doesn’t see the marks of time,
Where age has sifted through —
She only knows the comfort and
The blessedness of you.
hurricane irene
to all my peeps in the East, stay safe! i am currently hunked down with some M&Ms, beer, and beef jerkey awaiting the storm, watching too many hours of Weather Channel…..
earthquake to hurricane!? what could possibly be next?!
selfishly i’ll say to you, a good time to catch up on your poetry? yes, i think so!
stay safe!
baby eyes peekaboo (on a plane)
baby eyes
peekaboo
white clear
intensely blue
peering over
the seat in
front, all eyes
searching,
finding mine
plunged into a
bluest sky
floating oh so
casually by.
what it feels to write
mine is the underbelly
soft
vulnerable
i can rake
my broken fingernails
light at first
then…
strike a line
clear across and
spill
those guts.
earthquake: the end is near
what if there is
no human around
to see the
glasses shake
right off their
neglected shelves
no one
living to
witness the walls
shiver up
from their drunken legs
what if there is
only the quietest
sounds
of destruction
–
is the end the end
if no one
notices?
nomads
if love
means
taking a pause
still in the arms
quiet with another
nomads
like us
will surely
suffer
a poem called spontaneity
http://presssend.blogspot.com/2010/02/spontaneity.html
Spontaneity — def worth re-sharing tonight….
the pressure of a modern girl’s life
prick a finger
watch the blood flow
everywhere but there
oh treacherous game
fall swift into a liminal
state: here or not?
oh the pressure of
a modern girl’s life
the vixen, the vulpine,
lick your bloody paw
absently
till a virgin weeps –
none can know
till they wake.
untitled (fifty years go by)
the quiet takes form,
slips by unannounced, settles,
fifty years go by.