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Poetry by JC Snyder

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  • certain types of looks (fire)

    Greedily exhausting
    all oxygen, the room
    no longer breathing, I

    feel those flames
    leap from organ to organ,
    saving the heart for last.

    April 4, 2011

  • vignette from my grandmother

    she remembers still
    dressing impeccably,
    regally in matching shoes and
    handbag with fringe,
    remembers twirling nervously
    on the way to the city,
    to the theater,
    where the horror movie picture played.

    April 1, 2011

  • Cowards (in case you don’t read comments) – guest post by Bobby Ty

    Guest post tonight by author Bobby Ty. He treats us with a piece left in the comments section of this blog. It (along with some of his other comments in the past) deserves recognition. Enjoy and leave him your thoughts below… Thank you Bobby Ty! Looking forward to more from you. If any of you other readers are interested in guest blogging, please let me know….

    Cowards

    We get to say
    Those things we can’t say
    Out loud

    We cowards
    We poets
    We don’t say it

    Bluster and
    Bravado we “just wrote it that way”
    Only

    We mean it; can’t say it

    Aloud…

    Cowards…

    March 31, 2011

  • there is this cat on the walk

    There is this cat on the walk
    And when I shuffle on by,
    She swishes her tail, she
    Stops to say hi.

    There is this cat on the walk,
    I swear she knows me,
    She looks up with pause,
    She rubs legs with a cause.

    And before she runs off
    This cat seems to say
    “You think it ain’t true
    But I’m one you once knew….”

    March 30, 2011

  • we’re never ready (i went to the piano)

    When they told me
    she had died,

    I went to the piano.

    Mazurka
    by Chopin –
    in the pained
    stutter of
    one who doesn’t
    practice much.

    Again, and again,
    low D to high, hit the
    trill,
    bass chords steady,
    decrescendo leading to a…
    false note.
    Again.

    All the while thinking,
    I should have practiced more.
    I should have…

    March 29, 2011

  • the smell of a brand new book (haiku)

    creak the casebound open
    bury nose deep, inhale more
    tradition old, rich

    pages, each begging
    like American beauties
    perfuming the yard.

    March 25, 2011

  • oh chicago

    aside from some miserable treatment at the W Chicago Lakeshore (don’t stay there), what a beautiful city! even in clouds. reminds me of almost three years ago…

    Sky Cannot Know Ground

    http://presssend.blogspot.com/2010/02/sky-cannot-know-ground.html

    new poetry will return soon. still working on my submission for the Ruth Lily scholarship! until then, enjoy….

    March 23, 2011

  • taking some time off

    Hi blog readers! I’m taking a few days off to relax/recharge and get a poetry submission ready for the Ruth Lily Foundation. So your homework assignment – explore the site! Read! Enjoy! Bye!

    PS: don’t forget our friends at EveryDayPoets – lots of good poetry to read daily:
    http://www.everydaypoets.com/

    March 16, 2011

  • head of the table

    mother and father
    sit at the head
    of the table
    one day I suppose
    they will come
    to my house instead
    and I will
    take their place.

    March 16, 2011

  • wrapping paper (tsunami in 2004)

    I … just … don’t know what to say about Japan. Heart-breaking. I cannot write about it right now, but I did want to share a piece written back in 2004 during the “Christmas tsumani” in Thailand… I’m still not sure about this, so please leave your comments.

    Wrapping Paper (2004):

    There is wrapping paper at my door. In black, the headlines:
    A tsunami in Thailand and a hundred
    thousand lost souls.
    In red are the ads, the last great sale at Sears.

    I crumple the paper to wrap
    red swirl
    martini glasses I’m giving this Christmas;

    We tear the paper, litter the carpet–
    the piles of red and black wrappings, they
    begin to lay like bodies.

           Oh God, the bodies!

           “and the earth quaked mightily and shook down the houses,
           wrapped them in dust.
           and the sea rose and wrapped its mouth round the children,
           swallowed them whole.”

    Flotsam litters the carpet. There is nothing left to do here
    but pick up the pieces. But there,
    there –

    God be with the people in Japan, and all those still dealing with the effects of natural disasters from someone who literally cannot imagine it.

    March 14, 2011

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