Says Laura Boggess:

I started this little story as I waited for Maureen Doallas’s Neruda’s Memoirs: Poems. I had been so looking forward to the release of the book, had ordered it the second I heard it was available–and then was frustrated by what seemed like a terribly long delivery (it was only a few days, but felt much longer). It was very windy that week–I watched religiously for the mailman each day amidst flying little bits of this world–leaves, papers, my neighbor’s flag. As I waited, I entertained myself with the story of Amy Pinkleberry–a young divorcee who struggles with depression. Amy’s depression is characterized by auditory hallucinations–destructive voices that prevent her from finding the happiness she so longs for. Only one thing stops the voices and that is…well, you’ll just have to read on to find out…

Waiting on Neruda’s Memoirs, Part 4

She thought she would never see him again and shame burned her cheeks as she remembered their last encounter. The bank manager she had fled from last week.

All eyes were on her and Amy wanted to run. The Watchers began their laughter and she felt her defenses start the slow rise.

“What are you doing here, Ms. Pinkleberry?” He asked again.

“I-I came to get my book,” she said, hotly.

She turned to Justine, intending to forcefully remove the manuscript from the woman’s hands if necessary. Those milky eyes were studying her intently and Amy saw comprehension dawn on the old woman’s face. Slowly, Justine unwound her hands from her chest and held the book out to Amy.

Amy didn’t know why she felt so guilty all of a sudden. I mean, the book belonged to her, right? But Justine’s arms were so skinny…and her hands shook as she offered the book. Amy took it gently—and Justine’s fingers only clung for a second.

“Thank you,” she said, softly. “I’ll just be going now.”

But as she turned to go Justine’s voice followed her.

“Amelia?”

There it was again. That tugging. The way the old woman said her given name stirred memory. She turned around.

“Yes?”

“I am wondering…would you like a job? Just a couple hours a day, mind you. My nurse just quit on me and we have been unsuccessful in finding another and…”

“Justine!”

Color was rising in the man’s face. Amy had never seen quite that shade of purple.

“It’s true, Oliver, you can’t keep coming home every two hours to check on me! Alice should not have to bear this…”

The man named Oliver turned to the little girl.

“Alice, would you please take Ms. Pinkleberry to the galley and find our guest something to drink? Your grandmother and I need to talk.”

Amy shook her head and was about to refuse but the girl grabbed her hand and almost skipped her out of the room—through a swinging door with a circular glass window. They entered a long narrow kitchen with a raised bar down the center. The room was all shiny metallic and Amy was reminded of a fifties malt shop.

“I just made some orange Kool-aid this morning!”

Amy started to respond but voices drifted through the swinging door–agitated voices of the two adults they left behind.

“Justine, are you out of your mind? You don’t know anything about this woman!”

“I know she recognizes good poetry when she sees it and that’s a darn sight better than these bobble-headed girls you have paraded through here these months…”

“Those girls were trained to take care of people. This girl has an MBA from Stanford! What in the world makes you think…Besides, she seems a bit…”

But Amy missed the last word because Alice started giggling.

“I love your socks.”

Amy looked down. In her haste to get to Neruda’s Memoirs she hadn’t even considered her appearance. To her horror she saw that she hadn’t even managed to match up her socks—one brightly colored striped variety paired with yellow and green polka dots. To make matters worse, her pajama bottoms were haphazardly tucked down in the things, giving her legs a clown-like appearance.

She smiled weakly at Alice.

“Thank you.”

She readjusted her leggings, shifting them over the brightly colored socks.

Alice opened the refrigerator door, talking all the while.

“We have the orange Kool-aid, there’s some soda in here, and Justine’s tomato juice. What’s yer poison.”

She dimpled just so that Amy was speechless for a second.

“Oh—um…I’m not really thirsty. And I really need to get back.”

Amy clutched Neruda’s Memoirs to her chest and made a movement to go.

“Wait!”

Amy sighed. Would she never escape?

“Don’t you want to hear Gram’s offer? We really do need someone to help. Someone…” she groped around for the right word. “Someone that Gram likes.”

Such a solemn tone from so young a girl pulled at Amy’s heart. Despite her anxiety, she wondered about Alice’s story. Where was her mother? Why wasn’t she in school? And what was wrong with her grandmother?

Amy sat down on one of the bar stools and bellied up to the counter.

“I’d love some tomato juice, please.”

Alice smiled wide. She pulled a glass jar from the fridge.

“It wouldn’t be for very long, you know. Dad says Gram is not long for this world. Her time is coming soon, he says. He just wants me to be prepared, he says. It’s always been just the three of us. And I don’t know what I’ll do without Gram. But she’s been sick for so long now. Dad says we should be glad when she’s not suffering…”

The girl bubbled on, barely taking a breath between words. Amy felt dizzy.

“Alice. I haven’t said yes. It sounds to me like your father does not want to hire me. I don’t want to cause any problems. Besides…I’ve been looking for a real job.”

She took a sip of the thick red juice the child placed before her. Alice climbed onto the stool beside hers and leaned elbows on the counter.

“Don’t worry. Gram always gets what she wants. Dad talks a lot, but in the end, it’s Gram who figures everything out.”

Just then the door opened and a dark head peeked through.

“Ms. Pinkleberry? Would you mind coming back in her for a moment?”

Amy slid off the stool and pushed through the swinging door once again.

Justine sat upright in the hospital bed, cheeks flushed. There was a sparkle in her eye that was not there before. Triumph.

Amy couldn’t help smiling at the accuracy of Alice’s prediction.

“Ms. Pinkleberry, I know…” Oliver began.

“Amelia,” Justine interrupted. “When can you start? I just need three hours a day. The home health nurse will come for the hard parts. All that I want you to do is read to me. Are you interested?”

The watcher’s started.

…Stupidest thing I’ve ever heard…You can’t get a real job…You can’t make it on three hours a week…

“I’m not sure…I’ve been looking for a job—full-time, with benefits…”

“Why don’t we agree that you’ll work for me until you find one?”

What could it hurt? Amy hesitated. Justine saw her chance.

“Come tomorrow at ten. You will lunch with us. Oliver will discuss pay.”

She yawned.

“And now, I’m so sorry, dear, but I must get some rest. Oliver, will you show Amelia to the door?”

“Yes, of course. Just follow me.”

He turned and headed toward the front hall. Amy followed his wrinkled back through the yawning archway.

“Amelia?”

Amy turned.

“Yes?”

“Bring Neruda’s Memoirs with you tomorrow, will you?”

To be continued…

Story by Laura Boggess. Reprinted with permission.

Read Part 1
Read Part 2
Read Part 3
Read Part 5
Read Part 6
Read Part 7
Read Part 8
Read Part 9
Read Part 10
Read Part 11
Read Part 12
___________

Subscribe to Every Day Poems— Read a poem a day, become a better poet. In October we’re exploring the question “Why Poetry?”

I hadn’t read Rodney Jones’s previous books of poetry (this one is his ninth), but I will now that I’ve read Imaginary Logic: Poems. It a collection full of the familiar and the everyday but described in unexpected and precise ways, and with an eye that is focused and accurate.

The poems cover a wide terrain – recollections of youth and childhood, prayers, family relationships, the stories houses tell, and, among others, driving at night through St. Louis (Jones is a professor of English at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, about 90 minutes southeast of St. Louis). The poems vary in length from a few stanzas to several pages, but they are all written in distinctly readable and approachable language; this is not so much the poetry of academia as it is the poetry of recognizable life.

One of his longer poems in the collection, “The Previous Tenants,” is about the couple who lived in the house previously to the teller of the story:

The couple who built our house had great plans
for this lot where they would live out their days:
he in dedicated husbandry, priming a garden
with sludge from the sewage plant, hauling stones
from the condemned homesteads by the new lake
to buttress the terraces; and she reading Aquinas
or pouring Pinot Noir for predinner conversations
after her work as a counselor at the women’s center…

But plans don’t work out; he gets Alzheimer’s or something like it while she becomes enraged at what he’s turning into. Jones turns the story into a poetic meditation on death, relationships, and what we leave behind us.

We know them from the colors they left more than their words.
We know them more from the marks they left on the wood
than the pulses that quickened when they entered rooms.
We know the four flower beds. We do not know their love…

These poems are quiet works, reflective, provoking the reader’s own memories of growing up and growing old. It’s a fine collection.

In August, poet and writer L.L. Barkat published Rumors of Water: Thoughts on Creativity & Writing. It is extraordinary, and not the usual book you find about writing. It is filled with sound counsel, perceptive observations and stories about daughters coming of age. Check out this interview with L.L. at The High Calling, and get writing tips and more of the inside story…

Says Laura Boggess:

I started this little story as I waited for Maureen Doallas’s Neruda’s Memoirs: Poems. I had been so looking forward to the release of the book, had ordered it the second I heard it was available–and then was frustrated by what seemed like a terribly long delivery (it was only a few days, but felt much longer). It was very windy that week–I watched religiously for the mailman each day amidst flying little bits of this world–leaves, papers, my neighbor’s flag. As I waited, I entertained myself with the story of Amy Pinkleberry–a young divorcee who struggles with depression. Amy’s depression is characterized by auditory hallucinations–destructive voices that prevent her from finding the happiness she so longs for. Only one thing stops the voices and that is…well, you’ll just have to read on to find out…

Waiting on Neruda’s Memoirs, Part 3

The gate was open. Just a little.

Even the watchers were scared into silence as Amy gingerly pushed the big iron structure open just enough so she could squeeze through. Once inside, however, she was seized with sudden uncertainty. The house was not as large as she’d expected. It was only one story, for starters–a pale brick that seemed to wind around the property. The landscaping was immaculate. There was a ramp that curved around from the side of the house.

She looked up and waited for the watchers to tell her what to do. The wind had died down, leaving a gentle breeze that tickled her skin. Not a cloud in the sky and the words tumbled about in her head–

A sky dyed
deep in indigo…

A line from one of Maureen’s poems she had read on her blog that morning.

She needed that book.

Sighing heavily, Amy marched forward. She climbed the steps determinedly, but before she could put finger to bell, the door opened.

“Oh, good, you’re here. Follow me.”

The girl couldn’t have been more than ten years old. Her heart-shaped face and blonde ringlets were shockingly cute. But right now she was moving quickly and there seemed some sense of urgency. Amy ducked through the door and followed the girl, quickening her pace to match.

“She’s been sleeping in the Great Room for a couple weeks now. It was the only place we could fit the hospital bed. It’s worked out good, though, there’s a full bath right close and here she has all her books she loves.”

As she talked, they entered a large, circular room. The ceiling arched up into a glass dome and sunlight cascaded down, coloring everything in golden hues. The circular walls were ensconced with shelves and Amy felt dizzy as she turned in place to take in all the books. She recognized this giddy, lifting feeling. This was how she had felt the first time she visited the library as a girl. Paradise.

Her gaze circled round until it landed on a peculiar sight. At the far arc was a hospital bed and in the bed was a very small, very old, very angry woman. Her white hair was carefully coiffed and lipstick amply applied. She sat bolt upright, arms crossed and steely eyes fixed defiantly on Amy.

Amy was bemused. Just then she noticed the small red and black book on a table beside the hospital bed. She could only just make out the sensuous colors of Randall David Tipton’s The Assumption of the Virgin in the middle of the cover. Without thinking, she moved forward.

“Granny, this is your new nurse,” the little girl was saying. “Now you be nice to her! Dad had a lot of trouble convincing the company to send another…”

The elderly woman was watching Amy approach. Say something, the watchers said, but she couldn’t seem to form the words. She had her eye on that book and that was all that mattered. She had found it. It was hers. She would take it and go home. It was that simple.

Say something, the watchers repeated.

“I’m sorry, but you are mistaken,” she nodded at the little girl and offered a quivering smile to the old woman. “I live up the street and just came to collect my book. It seems it was delivered here by mistake.”

She reached out a shaky hand to pluck the book from the table.

But the old woman beat her to it. Before Amy knew what had happened, skinny fingers had grabbed Neruda’s Memoirs right out from under hers.

Amy looked up in disbelief. The old woman had the book pressed to her emaciated chest, holding it in both hands like a prayer. The scowl on her face had disappeared and there was fear in her eyes. Amy watched as she struggled for composure.

“I—I…well, you must be Amelia.”

She gave Amy a watery smile. The way the woman said her given name awoke a memory deep inside Amy’s body and she felt herself responding physically to this frail creature. She began to relax.

“My name is Justine,” the woman smiled again. “I fear I owe you an apology…Alice opened the package by mistake and before we could return the book to you, I sort of…well, I fell right into it.”

She laughed nervously and glanced at Amy.

“Yes, yes, I understand. Maureen Doallas writes beautifully, doesn’t she? Now if you don’t mind…”

Amy reached out her hand to receive the book.

But Justine continued to clutch those bound pages and her eyes filled with tears.

“It’s just that…” she lowered her voice and locked eyes with Amy. “These words are the only thing that makes the pain stop.”

This sudden admission took Amy aback, but before she could respond, a voice boomed down the hall.

“What is the gate doing open? Alice, how many times do I have to tell you to make sure it latches when…”

He stopped speaking when he saw Amy. Amy felt her knees grow weak as his eyes burned into her.

“Miss Pinkleberry,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

She thought she would never see him again and shame burned her cheeks as she remembered their last encounter. The bank manager she had fled from last week was her neighbor..

To be continued…

Story by Laura Boggess. Reprinted with permission.

Read Part 1
Read Part 2
Read Part 4
Read Part 5
Read Part 6
Read Part 7
Read Part 8
Read Part 9
Read Part 10
Read Part 11
Read Part 12
___________

Subscribe to Every Day Poems— Read a poem a day, become a better poet. In October we’re exploring the question “Why Poetry?”

Says Laura Boggess:

I started this little story as I waited for Maureen Doallas’s Neruda’s Memoirs: Poems. I had been so looking forward to the release of the book, had ordered it the second I heard it was available–and then was frustrated by what seemed like a terribly long delivery (it was only a few days, but felt much longer). It was very windy that week–I watched religiously for the mailman each day amidst flying little bits of this world–leaves, papers, my neighbor’s flag. As I waited, I entertained myself with the story of Amy Pinkleberry–a young divorcee who struggles with depression. Amy’s depression is characterized by auditory hallucinations–destructive voices that prevent her from finding the happiness she so longs for. Only one thing stops the voices and that is…well, you’ll just have to read on to find out…

Waiting on Neruda’s Memoirs, Part 2

She reached her hand inside the yawning mailbox and felt around deep inside. Nothing. Where could it be? She had been waiting for Neruda’ Memoirs for two weeks. Usually, Amazon only took three days to get her order to her. She needed that book.

Poetry was the only thing that stopped the voices.

And not just any poetry. It had to be Maureen’s. Her doctor called it obsessive-compulsive traits. Once she set her mind on something, nothing else would do. Last year it was Emily Dickinson. Steven had told her to take a class. Do something with your life, he had said. It was just on a whim that she signed up for the American Lit class at the campus downtown. Just to make him happy. She’d always loved poetry, but never felt it was practical. There weren’t very many literature courses in the business track she took as a young co-ed. And later, when she was working on her MBA, there wasn’t time for things like that. She’d worked a full-time administrative job and taken classes in the evening. It was what was necessary to get Steven through medical school. The plan was, she would run his office when he started his OB/GYN practice. That’s what she did too. For ten years. But…Steven had said find something you love, for Pete’s sake.It was after they decided to stop with the in vitro–after she had descended as deep as she’d ever been in the blackness. Poetry was the only thing that made sense. And Dickinson?

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—
Success in Cirrcuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightening to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind—

The first time she read it, she read her life. Tell it slant. Wasn’t this how it had always been for her?

Amy shivered and walked back inside woodenly, securing the door against the wind behind her.

Steven was afraid of the voices. For as long as she could remember, the voices had been her constant companion. But when she was younger, they weren’t quite so real…they weren’t quite so loud.

As she grew older, they became more powerful. Dr. Larinsky called them auditory hallucinations. But Amy wasn’t so sure. If they were, how could poetry make them go away? How could Emily Dickinson speak them into silence?

And now, it was Maureen Doallas. She had followed Maureen’s blog for over a year—gobbling up every bit of poetry the woman laid down. Her work was simply brilliant. It was smart and fluid and echoed with deep loss and the incomparable joy of transcending it. When she’d heard there was a book coming out, she was ecstatic. That was when Dickinson had stopped working.

She needed that poetry book.

Suddenly, she had a thought. She could get online and track the order.

Putting the mismatched envelopes on the kitchen counter and shedding her shoes in steps, she ran to the living room couch—her office. She pulled her laptop out from under the sofa and unfolded it into her lap.

“Come on, come on.”

The two minute boot up never seemed so long. Finally! She pulled up her favorites and clicked on the Amazon link.

“There it is: Track you’re order.”

It took some clicking around but she finally found it.

“Delivered!”

How could that be? There was no way she could have missed it. She’d been holding vigil for days. Ever since that dreadful bank interview.

At the memory of her most recent failure, Amy was flooded with self-loathing.But before it could find a voice her eyes landed on the problem.

Delivered to: 108 Taylor Drive.

Why, that wasn’t her address! That was the house down the street. The big one, with the gate that closed and locked at night.

Well. Gate or no gate, she needed that book. Amy grabbed her puffy down coat, plunged her feet into the clogs she’d abandoned in the kitchen, and headed out into the wind and down the street.

To be continued…

Story by Laura Boggess. Reprinted with permission.

Read Part 1
Read Part 3
Read Part 4
Read Part 5
Read Part 6
Read Part 7
Read Part 8
Read Part 9
Read Part 10
Read Part 11
Read Part 12
___________

Subscribe to Every Day Poems— Read a poem a day, become a better poet. In October we’re exploring the question “Why Poetry?”

Says Laura Boggess:

I started this little story as I waited for Maureen Doallas’s Neruda’s Memoirs: Poems. I had been so looking forward to the release of the book, had ordered it the second I heard it was available–and then was frustrated by what seemed like a terribly long delivery (it was only a few days, but felt much longer). It was very windy that week–I watched religiously for the mailman each day amidst flying little bits of this world–leaves, papers, my neighbor’s flag. As I waited, I entertained myself with the story of Amy Pinkleberry–a young divorcee who struggles with depression. Amy’s depression is characterized by auditory hallucinations–destructive voices that prevent her from finding the happiness she so longs for. Only one thing stops the voices and that is…well, you’ll just have to read on to find out…

Waiting on Neruda’s Memoirs

She stared up at the ceiling as he studied the paper. Swung her feet back and forth under the desk. She could barely reach the gleaming tile floor with her tiptoes. Who made these chairs anyway? The Jolly Green Giant?

She tried breathing deeply…slowly and quietly gulping up the atmosphere. But something about the way he raised his eyebrow as he read niggled. She knew what was coming.

The voices of the watchers hissed in her ear. Who does he think he is? That he could sit there and read about her—about her, for heaven’s sake—without saying one word? As if she wasn’t sitting there right in front of him. And now this: A raised eyebrow?

She tried ignoring the voice. But the more she resisted, the more insistent it grew—dividing into multiple echoes until a cacophony filled her head. Panic welled inside her as the voices reached a crescendo. She glanced frantically at the man studying her resume.

“Those aren’t the best pieces of me, you know.”

As soon as she spoke, the voices quieted and she felt immediate gratitude.

He lifted his eyes and looked at her over his glasses—eyebrows raised again.

“Pardon me?”

“Those aren’t the best pieces of me.”

He looked absolutely baffled.

“I’m sorry, I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”

“Well, you can’t expect me to bring the best parts, can you? Not to a perfect stranger. Not to someone I don’t even know.”

His mouth was hanging open now and he dropped the resume on his desk in front of him.

“I’m sorry…I don’t…”

She was feeling quite indignant now and The watchers’ pleasure heated up her cheeks. But just as quickly as the triumph umphed, the reality of the situation dropped hard between them. Amy looked at the bank manager looking at her. He wasn’t much older than she—probably mid-forties. He had taken his suit jacket off when they entered his office and as she walked through the door behind him she noticed that his white shirt was terribly wrinkled in the back—he had only pressed the front. A practical man. How could he possibly understand?

And yet…he had been kind to her–had smiled with his whole face—even his eyes. If he noticed her dress was too large, he hadn’t let on—as if he frequently interviewed malnourished neurotic women. He had inquired about her life with genuine interest—was she from around here? What brought her to these parts of Virginia?

Now, he stared openly at her with the expression of someone who had just discovered mold on a piece of bread already half eaten. She watched as the slightly shocked expression faded into one of concern. He leaned closer to her over the top of his desk.

“Ms. Pinkleberry…are you ok?”

He knit his brows together and reached over to touch her arm tentatively. As if touching her might bring her to her senses. The kindness was more than she could bear.

“Oh, nevermind!”

She stood up abruptly as tears welled, grabbed the resume from his desk, and fled the office. She didn’t stop running until she was two blocks away…then she leaned up against an old gray brick office building and sobbed uncontrollably.

So. Steven was right. She really was crazy.

She needed that poetry book.

She stared out the window at her empty mailbox. A few frail flakes skitted manically in the rushing currents. Thirty mile an hour wind gusts, the radio said. She watched her neighbor’s garbage can pick up speed as it rolled down the street.

I should be nice and go get that.

Then: a loud crashing noise from the back deck. She would have to break the vigil. More rumbling and tumbling sounds greeted her ears as she approached the back doors, mustering the ability to care. One quick peek through the glass, however, lent the urgency required. As soon as she opened the door the wind plucked it from her flaccid fingers, slamming it against the condo’s siding.

Why didn’t I put this stuff in storage?

The deck furniture had taken flight. The umbrella—neatly rolled up and tied—had nevertheless served as sail to the patio table ship and now the two hung like Siamese twins, dangling over the deck rail. When she stepped forward to rescue the twins, a chair came sliding toward her. She sidestepped, grabbed her attacker by the arms from behind and wrangled the thing through the door. Five more chairs and the set of twins later, Amy sat panting in her living room floor. Her slippers were soaking wet and the wind had cut cold straight through to her bones. She stared out the French doors at the snow falling down and burst into tears.

You’re never going to make it.

The watchers were back. After Steven left, the voices stopped for a time. Dr. Larinsky though it was due to the new medication. Amy did too. And then winter came.

You’ll never make it on your own. You can’t even find a job. The money he gave you is about to run out. How will you pay for this place? How will you survive? You might as well give up now. Just do it. Quit. Quit this thing. There’s no use trying.

“Shut up!”

But they refused to be quiet–watching her every move, berating her every action and decision for the past ten years until she was curled up on the floor—a quivering, leaky mess. She must have fallen asleep because when she opened her eyes it was dark outside. She straightened out her body and let the cold of the wood floor melt through her PJs and into her skin. She listened to the wind continue its wreckage outside. The cold of the floor made her tingle, awakened forgotten nerve endings and called them to move.

You’ll never make it.

She buried her face in her hands, heaved a sigh and tried to wipe it all away.

Just let that thought float by like a boat passing you on the river, Amy.

She took three deep breaths with her eyes closed and on the third exhale rose to her feet. She peered through the glass doors, flipped on the deck light, and surveyed the damage. All of her terra cotta pots had been tipped; little piles of dirt now swirling atop remnants of snow. The railing had been knocked loose by the weight of the table, and she would have to repaint the white boards the splintering planters had gouged.

And her living room was full of deck furniture.

She could feel the despair trying to take hold and she knew that only one thing would alleviate that looming darkness. She scuttled to the front door where she had been keeping watch for days now. Maybe she had missed him during her nap. Maybe he brought the package today.

She left the door open behind her and ran out to the mailbox. The wind used her hair as a weapon, she smoothed the long lashing tendrils back with her hands and held them there in a temporary ponytail. She looked in the box.

Nothing. Just a few ads and the water bill.

Where could it be? She had been waiting for Neruda’ Memoirs for two weeks. Usually, Amazon only took three days to get her order to her. She needed that book.

Poetry was the only thing that stopped the voices.

To be continued…

Story by Laura Boggess. Reprinted with permission.

Read Part 2
Read Part 3
Read Part 4
Read Part 5
Read Part 6
Read Part 7
Read Part 8
Read Part 9
Read Part 10
Read Part 11
Read Part 12
___________

Subscribe to Every Day Poems— Read a poem a day, become a better poet. In October we’re exploring the question “Why Poetry?”

Just a few weeks ago, two things happened.

I went to the Laity Lodge retreat and was “baptized” with a freedom I still long to recapture. And one of my Team members who I care about very much did not go, because things got in the way.

Maybe this is why I was drawn to Glynn’s poem, for the “triggers writing prompt.” Baptism is an event that marks a moment, but it doesn’t mean things won’t get in the way in the future. We may still face absence, and it may still propel us to further baptisms of a sort.

Anyway, from Glynn then— the poem I’m featuring for our last RAP…

Baptism

Unwrapped from its swaddling
of brown paper, it sits rather
knowingly, a smile on its surface
shining blue and brown and green
and sand, the colors of its origin,
the colors of its impetus,
an impetus born of absence
that propelled it northward
from the hills. I baptized it today
with coffee.

All Random Acts of Poetry Participants

Maureen’s Odds Are

Monica’s Poured and Shaped

Erin’s Speaking of Fractions

Karin’s No Boasting Here and Ready to Run

Glynn’s Bowl of Fortunes

Sandra’s It Will Not End Up Here

Rosanne’s Straws of a New Order

Mug photo by Kelly Sauer. Used with permission. Post by L.L. Barkat. Visit L.L. at Seedlings in Stone, for more on writing, poetry, art and life.

___________

Subscribe to Every Day Poems— Read a poem a day, become a better poet. In October we’re exploring the question “Why Poetry?”

If you’ve experienced the power of a word, you’ve experienced the power of poetry.

If you’ve thrilled to discover a new connection, you’ve experienced the power of poetry.

Poetry is the power of language in concentrated form. A poem suggests more than its words say through the power of connections. A rush of meaning overspills its banks to be scooped up by a reader’s pitiful little cup. But oh, what fresh, life-giving waters can be drunk even from the sorriest of vessels.

The tools of poetry forge links: comparisons are made with similes and metaphors; patterns are established with rhythms, meters and sounds; associations are offered through rhymes, repetitions, and images. Poetry relates eye to word, sense to sound, mind to matter, mystery to manner.

Here’s one example, taken from the famous opening lines from a traditional poem by Robert Burns:

My love is like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June:
My love is like the melody
That’s sweetly played in tune.

The density of the simple language and imagery in this poem, once released, reveals a treasure hoard of connections: my love can mean both my emotion and the person I love; the rose is not just any rose, but a red rose, and not just any red rose, but a red, red rose (and, oh, what a difference!); June connects this love to both the freshness of spring (as does the word sprung) and the matrimonial season; the rhyming of June and tune bring harmony to the melody that is so like this love, a song not only played in tune, but sweetly so; the fact that the meter of the entire stanza forms in itself a sweet tune, reinforces the whole sense of the passage. And there there are so many more connections that might be made—even with such simple lines.

Now here’s a stanza from a much more complex and difficult poem, T. S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men”:

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

On the surface, this poem appears much more cryptic, its meanings much more “hidden.” Yet, just as in the lines from Burns’ poems, the meaning arises from the connections: connections between and among the poem’s sounds, rhythms, and rhymes as well as those connections we make from our own world of experience and knowledge—just as with the simpler poem.

Poetry is the tie that binds. Binds likeness to likeness, word to music, image to sensation. While the rest of the world divides and derides, pushes away and pushes apart, confronts and affronts, poetry brings together. While the world spots differences, poetry seeks semblances.

It is a ministry of reconciliation. Of weaving a fractured, fallen world back together, word by word. Of gathering up scattered pieces of brokenness and gluing them back together again like a cracked china cup in which meaning is served to overflowing.

Post by Karen Swallow Prior.
___

Further Resources, for Teachers or Writer’s Groups:

Subscribe to Every Day Poems— Read a poem a day, become a better poet. In October we’re exploring the theme Why Poetry?.

From bees, our recent Twitter poetry party began to transition to swans (that’s how these things can go). Here are next five poems. All of the prompts were taken from Anne Overstreet’s Delicate Machinery Suspended: Poems.

Stories of the Bees 2

By @mmerubies, @llbarkat, @AnneDOvers, @Jeff_Overstreet, @Doallas, @SandraheskaKing, @lindachontos, @gyoung9751, @poetryinabottle, @rosanneosborne, @togetherforgood, @LoveLifeLitGod, @strangejkp, @quietlybananas, @mrsmetaphor and @dthaase. Edited by @gyoung9751.

Swans

The swans, serene, glide across the water, glass.
The swans, their necks of silk fingered softly,
shimmer their wings frosted by spun sunlight;
drift, leaving a trail of memories;
hiss thundering their wings like horses.

Swans in love

The slick of her neck in the bee-fingered sun
sang of summer, summer sweet as honey,
summer soft as a swan’s neck.
Her hand touched his cygnet ring.

The swan girl picked bees from the air,
rescued the ale boy from a sure gold drowning.
The seventh swan-boy, she loved him best.
Spin me a honey tree; kiss my signet ring,

Ring around a tree, golden dance of honeyed autumn;
ring around a stone thrown in.
The swan grays; the temper of that muscle
in the neck the back a ridge of brokenness.

The leaves turn into the gold of honey;
the afternoons cool with the flutter
of swans’ wings. We are past the season
of milk and honey: the swans sleep.

Forgotten are the swans of summer,
the bees floating through the heat.

A story told

A story told in a tracing of palm against palm,
she combed the nettles from her silken hair;
he combed the honey from the hive, he said
wipe the sting of nettles from my hand.

Wipe the memories too and the shadows
and the sour trace of raveled silk. I try to leave
the rind of summer fermenting into harder months
and dreams that begin on soon-dark afternoons.

Let me trace your palm in silver sunlight,
in golden moonlight; let me trace the lines
that lead to hope and leave behind
the memories trailing paths of grief.

The black cat

There is a black cat at my door,
jingling his collar, telling me
summer is gone, and he’d like
to come inside. The black cat
is not the only thing that tells
of winter’s coming.

And the black swan sang and
the black cat wound her tail
around the silver birch.
The cat is made of black silk,
cut from one special bolt
of cloth, lightening bolt, snap!

Snap! went the birch and
the lines and Snap! went
the taut silk. Winter comes
but first, autumn spills
honeyed sunlight upon
the trees, upon the ground.

Eat my rind

Eat my rinds, too,
there is still some
sweetness left in me.
Even the core has
value. Taste it, spit it
out if you must.

For our Twitter poetry party in September, poet Anne Overstreet, author of the recently published Delicate Machinery Suspended: Poems, joined us. The prompts all came from her collection. And we got into bees and moons and ants and rosaries and all manner of things. (It was great fun.) The first five poems are below.

Stories of the Bees

By @mmerubies, @llbarkat, @AnneDOvers, @Jeff_Overstreet, @Doallas, @SandraheskaKing, @lindachontos, @gyoung9751, @poetryinabottle, @rosanneosborne, @togetherforgood, @LoveLifeLitGod, @strangejkp, @quietlybananas, @mrsmetaphor and @dthaase. Edited by @gyoung9751.

Honey-braided shadows

The sun braided shadows in my hair;
the shadows braided memories,
memories of slivered light and
honey-baked hair, honey-combed
highlights in my hair, baking
shadows into nets, catching my heart.

The bumbles braid a choir with honey bees.
It is a silly thing, my fear of bees. So small,
couldn’t really hurt me, right? But the bright
yellow buzz scares. They enter, they leave;
I can never keep track of their unlined path,
this unlined path stretching before my feet.

I’m eager yet afraid to follow the hum
of the bees to the braided sunlight.
The bees rise to braided rows of roses
that for the shivering had not even opened
their eyes. The path I left behind me is lined
with broken pieces, where I jumped too soon.

Bees and yellow jackets

Yellow jackets like nets cast
marked each step. The vibration
of the hive enfolded his hand;
the energy, transferred, traced
red lines in his palm, enfolding
his face, hive-warm, light-combed.
The vibration of the bees enfolded
his heart, the lines in his hands
between heaven and hive.
The lines of bees enter the heart
of the flowers, carrying away
the sweetness. These days are
my hive. This man, with his tongue
heavy with honey, wipes a drop
at the corner of his mouth.
He can never love another.
She will smell my scent on his skin,
where the honey-love stained his flesh.

The song of the bees

The song taken up,
his heart fills, keeping
to the beat of wings,
sending messages
of hope they speak
with dance of wings.
The struck strings
of bee hum the path
of nectar to my mouth.
Honey, I strum.

The Queen arrives

The Queen arrives, her throne embellished
with sticky sweetness of love. In the winter
the Queen sleeps; in Spring she wakes
to blossoms, and swans. The workers rush
to serve; she answers with beating wing.
The hive’s a frenzy in the seasons of blossoms,
the Queen’s guard on watch.
If this is my hive am I the Queen Bee or
just a drone mindlessly working?
I choose to be Queen Bee. I will woo
the worker and feed him my honey soft words.
My love will cling to him like syrup.

Is it so bad to be the mindless drone
gathering nectar from flowers braided
with spun sunlight?

Tiny weavers

Tiny weavers of petaled cloth,
The bees’ rhythms are heard only
by petaled ears. My mind touches
the memory of bees at work.
Mindlessly I trace my memories,
shadows silking an amber past.

Today I received so many little love notes, I just had to let you know.

It happened behind the scenes, in my inbox. It was all about today’s Every Day Poem. One person expressed delight over seeing the photo he’d loved in our recent Rust Challenge. Another told me she was surprised and delighted to see that the featured poem had been penned by one of her writing group members, a best friend. And the last love note made me catch my breath; it said…

this morning in my quiet time i wrote to God and asked him to take me to the bottom line.

and then this arrives in my inbox.

View whole poem here.

Why poetry? Because of loves like these.

Signing Rumors photo, by Kelly Sauer. Used with permission. Post by L.L. Barkat. Visit L.L. at Seedlings in Stone, for more on writing, poetry, art and life.

___________

Subscribe to Every Day Poems— Read a poem a day, become a better poet. In October we’re exploring the question “Why Poetry?”

One piece of advice I frequently share with my students is to be a nerd about your passions. Find what you love and geek out about it. The alternative is a bland, uninteresting life. My students know that I’m a poetry geek and often wonder how it’s possible to be any nerdier than a poet. I tell them I want to earn an MFA or a PhD. “In what?” they ask. Poetry of course. The immediate smirks are widespread. The brave ones even laugh out loud. Hysterically.

Why is it so laughable to study poetry? Maybe because Hallmark has turned poetry into trite sentimentalism. Maybe because people see poetry merely as an outlet for teen angst. Maybe because there is pressure to only embark on those journeys our parents and grandparents traveled (somewhat miserably I might add) to put bread on the table, to redo the kitchen or finish the basement, to live a nice comfortable life that hard working men and women are supposed to live. Perhaps because education pundits are calling for thousands of new math and science teachers while eliminating fiction and poetry from language arts curriculum. Or because the only revered Homer is a Simpson and the Odyssey is simply a great minivan.

It’s good to know the cultural status that poetry has (or doesn’t have), and it’s nice to rant about the world needing more poetry readers. But ranting like this fails to recognize the individual. You. Me. I know that it’s in my nature to respond to life, to work through my faith and my doubt, to grieve, to worship, to celebrate through poetry.

Regardless, I often wonder why I bother writing such an “unpopular” genre. And then I get a card in the mail from a family that was encouraged by a poem I wrote for them in a time of severe grief and loss. I get a Facebook message from a friend who relies on the truth found in poetry to keep his head about him. A former professor, who holds a very different world view than me, tells me he’s moved by something in one of my poems. Cultural popularity, laughing students, and a lack of income aren’t enough to dissuade me from being a poet, because the human heart is too valuable to walk away from.

Post by Joel Jacobson, of A Poetic Matter.

Born in Croatia and raised in Slovenia, Slovenian poet Tomaz Salamun has published 30 collections of poetry in his native language. His poetry has been translated into more than 20 languages, and he’s had nine collection published in English. The Blue Tower: Poems is the tenth in English, and translated with the author by Michael Biggins of the University of Washington; it was first published in Slovenian in 2007.

To read the poems of The Blue Tower is to become disoriented and dislocated, and that is perhaps the point. Here’s a representative example, from the first poem in the collection, “The Bride Wins Both Times:”

To provoke the pasture’s ladder, to wash out the cat’s message,
What you hear through walls is panic coming here.
In Morocco he whipped slaves. First I open the chest.
The ribs turn gray. I saw nomads, women on horseback. The dog days will
     come dressed in a
T-shirt. I’ll show you hand, my hand is your hand…

This is language being used in an unconventional way, simultaneously drawing attention to itself and pushing the reader to the next phrase the next line, seeking the connections or the context and finally realizing there may not be any (in this poem, in a kind of refutation of the title, there isn’t even a mention of a bride).

Another example of this dislocating action is from the poem “Persia.” But here, the word and idea of “jump” helps to knit the poem together, as does a bit a repetition:

When I jumped on the sieve, the sieve
got sick. The word departed from the flesh and
became the fruit of Nicodemus. No one is free
of gentle bonds, buttons and ribbons
excepted. We dug them in pearlike flutters.
From there a short jump to a branch. Johnny Weissmuller,
Such a well-stitched tarp, where do you see these now? We turned
Gristle into myriads. Into mush. Into pharaohs…

This is not stream of consciousness poetry. Each sentence, each phrase is usually so well contained and tightly written that this isn’t a flow of language but indeed a very careful, heavily crafted use of it.

The effect, interestingly enough, is to push the focus of the poems to the reader, trying to make sense of the phrases and sentences and finally evaluating each phrase and sentence on its own merit and personal meaning.

The Blue Tower is full of arresting ideas and language, but a slow and careful reading is a necessity to grasp them.

This past weekend, I spent time with Julia Kasdorf. She was teaching a poetry seminar at the Laity Lodge Writer’s Retreat.

She began the session by having us introduce ourselves. One poet responded by saying that poetry is the thing he can’t stop writing. I followed by saying poetry is the thing I can (and have) stopped writing.

During the break time, Julia told me she was saddened by my intro. She didn’t mean to pressure me by sharing this, she said; it was just how she felt. I didn’t feel pressured by her reaction—just, somehow, loved by this new person standing before me.

I don’t know if Julia modified her second day’s presentation for me (it seems presumptuous to think so, yet possible). I do know that many of the images she used to speak of poetry-thin times seemed to grow directly out of our previous day’s conversation. I felt loved all over again as she spoke of winter images and something called “desire lines” (the paths that both humans and animals cut across landscapes, often circumventing manmade paths). In winter, she noted, you can see the snow-laden desire lines of the deer, crisscrossing the mountains.

After this, she shared a few ideas for how to meet such word-winter days. “If you can’t write anymore,” she said, “lower your standards.” My heart opened the tiniest bit. I can do that, I thought.

“Write a poem every day for a week,” she added. “Or just write a poem every day, as part of your regular practice, and don’t expect it to be good.” Lastly, she suggested, “make your own beauty” and “use triggers.”

Then she offered a simple trigger. A white bowl of fortunes. Mine said, “Flee like a bird to your mountain.”

And that was it. Julia wakened me. I put the slim fortune on the ecru leather couch. I borrowed some of her spoken words (if you write without ceasing; fragments of Psalms; refuse that fortune), and I wrote six tentative poems. I don’t know if I’ll write anymore anytime soon, but here are two I composed near an open window above the Frio River…

1

If you write without ceasing,
you will find fragments of Psalms
on the body, in the hair,
in the brown eyes
imprinted with desire lines.
The lines will take you where you want to go
on the body, in the hair,
in the brown eyes
that blink like beaded pearls,
bird-eye pearls
strung along the body
of a hair-tangled
mountain.

3

If you would lower
your standards,
eat fragments of Psalms,
not require the apertif,
the blackberry on the ridge
of a pastry,
pork pulled in trails
across plates.
If you could
be content with knowing
that an empty glass
is an invitation
to make your own beauty,
you could stop refusing
your fortune.

Random Acts of Poetry Prompt

Make a bowl of fortunes to use as triggers. You can copy phrases from another poet’s work or perhaps from songs, to make your fortunes. If you get really inspired, you could try a fortune a day for three or four days. Post your favorite on our T. S. Poetry Press Facebook Wall by Wednesday, October 12, for links and possible feature here at Tweetspeak or Every Day Poems. Sitting near an open window is optional. ☺

Post by L.L. Barkat. Visit L.L. at Seedlings in Stone, for more on writing, poetry, art and life.

Subscribe to Every Day Poems— Read a poem a day, become a better poet. In October we’re exploring the question “Why Poetry?”