Welcome to this week’s poetry club tea date!
Get your favorite steep (or brew) and join us in writing a quick poem based on the following line, submitted by Every Day Poems reader Sandra Murphy. The line is from the recent poem delivery Kissed by Dave Malone.
You held my name in your coat
Your Pour
Take a moment to write a poem based on the shared line. Then add to the comment box (with a touch of cream and sugar) so other club members can enjoy.
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Looking for more inspiring lines? Check out the Every Day Poems poetry club room, where we feature additional favorite lines submitted by readers.
Helping you get inspired. With poetry & poetic things.
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Maureen says
My Name
You held my name
in your coat, its letters
forming the warp and weft
of love that runs the length
of this life we’ve built,
tensions of its days moved past.
In colors bold and pale
and blended as fill in
a painting, you re-weaved
past wrongs into rights,
tying every thread over
and under your heart,
its constancy your finishing touch.
‘You held my name in your coat’ from ‘Kissed’ by Dave Malone.
1-22-21
Bethany R. says
Maureen, this is just beautiful.
Sandra Fox Murphy says
I did love this line from Dave Malone’s poem … and with his words, I’ve rewritten a December poem that had not quite worked.
Delivered Up
You held the name in your coat
saved it for another time
another son that would not come
and you named me Daryl,
a second son,
carried away in warm hands.
Was I not worthy?
The boy who never saw your eyes
wet with tears,
mulled melancholy hovering
through a family plot in Indiana?
I could never be Thomas—
a family name steadfast and hardy,
unlike me—an unknotted soul pining
to ride in your pocket to your tomorrows.
Bethany R. says
Touching, Sandra. “The boy who never saw your eyes/ wet with tears” Thank you for sharing this here.
Sandra Fox Murphy says
Bethany … Thank you for your kind words. This is a poem that’s been a struggle, and I persist. That was a second rewrite … and still wrong. I’ve rewritten it (again), and now I’m going to just let it go.
Delivered Up
A name is a precious gift
bestowed with tomorrows
to bind the weight of the past—
not to be assigned lightly.
But your fate was not mine
to give—and your bounty
was a name, etched in marble,
once held in my coat—
a name willed to your snugs
as you sprung in my womb
when I knew you—then stilled
where I dug deep in my pocket
and called you loved.
Bethany says
I rewrite poems many times myself. Thank you for sharing this. I was particularly struck by
“etched in marble”
“then stilled
where I dug deep in my pocket
and called you loved.”
Sandra Fox Murphy says
Thank you, Bethany. The poem is done. 🙂
adam Bousteadadam.boustead@icloud.com says
All this poems are beautiful.
You hold my name inside your coat.
Yours is tattooed in
My skin over my heart the
Scar will never heal.
Sandra Fox Murphy says
Stunning in its brevity!
Adam Boustead says
I wasn’t sure it worked I often know if my Haiku work or not thank you so much.