Tag Archives: poetry

Day 30: Fighting in Vapors

To burn everything that touches you
char all that nestles inside of you
again and again, pretend in silence
until they walk away, until they walk
– is one way to fight.

Measure they all say. So I awaken to confront
thermometer in hand, resolve to find your
heat, see just how much you throw in battle,
discover how to approach with 6-decades
old defiance, some uber-heated wisdom.

Measure they all said. But as soon as
your porcelain door shuts tight, silent-
you bite, glass fragments thick and old
scatter across the midnight black
speckled floor, scatter to all invisible spaces
somewhere beyond US steel door
– patent pending c. 1952.

I search, look hard for quicksilver beads,
scavenge shards, the spoils of loss
like missing teeth after one deciding right hook,
but find only space, a pungent metal smell
inescapable, everywhere
saturating senses, now racing

To fight with vapor, fill all spaces
blind to the eye, deceive with combustion, drive
your heat to recombine with that (O2) which can
never (air) dilute (destabilize) your toxin
– is one way to fight.

I close my mouth, too late
feel you move from nose to lungs to brain,
mercury fumes slamming me hard
against all the walls inside my brain

You win.

So this is the very last poem for National Poetry Month. I’ve enjoyed the challenge of writing daily- but posting daily was the toughest part.  I think I did better than last year, but there were times, days – when i just couldn’t fit it in before or after a gig or traveling.  Anyone else have a tough time with their monthly commitment to write?  Thanks to the sponsors! I look forward to next year ;)

Day 18: Becoming Poetry

Someone said to me yesterday “poetry becomes you.”  I wondered what that meant as he walked away.  If I were to think that about another poet, here is what it might mean.

Poetry becomes you
when spaces inside find daylight
mixed with motion, a faint swirl
like when dressing, how your shirt
falls in a slow ripple cascade
as if a window just opened, moves
grace in folds, sheer and delicate
down your back.

Poetry becomes you
when nuance wells up between
thoughts, like leaves in wind most
won’t see, but one catches your eye
as it twirls over and over to the earth,
cat calling and whistling at you
all the way to your feet.

Poetry becomes you
when words hidden from air
in books, lost in time archaic
float back languid past pen over paper
liquid in language from a dream
triggered by a lyric, how she signed her name
swirls of L and J- all captured in your net
for later, held close behind your back
as he walks toward you, smiling.

Poetry becomes you
when the hairy ogre in the pink hat
red shoes too small for his feet, the one
no one will admit, but is sitting right there
confessing, or lying and smelly, says
something about his pain, starts to scream
or is that you actually screaming
mute button on, pen dipping the well
hand who’s muscles have forgotten
hieroglyphics but who find the words
just a few, for the one thing
everyone is thinking but
won’t say.

© 2012 Tara Linda  V.3

Day 15: Child Poet

He is standing in my path
when I round the corner
10 years in his sweet brown eyes
shifting from one foot then the other.

His medusa long hair, tendrils
matted and wriggling at the waist
might snag me if I fail to stop
so I stop.

Hi-my-name-is-Myles-and-
I’m-raising-money-for-my-school-and
I write poetry… would you like to see one?
Confident, he places the page
in my open hand, 8 stanzas long,
and Xeroxed. Did you write this?
Yes & my brother types them
for me. His words about hope and

a pain he knows…and games, and how
words help him “see through” … he is
looking past me now, maybe counting
minutes until he can join his brother.

Did you know it’s national poetry month?
I ask fishing in my pockets, no he says.
Sell your poetry, $1.00/poem.
He looks up intent. And the next person you meet
tell them that you are a Poet
with a capital “P” and that your words
will change the world.

Day 14: One Staggering Memory

Dusk arrives in the marrow       the way

sun rises in the blood                   heart

beats a story in grooves on a disc    

blowing drapes            photos of Lola          

faded lace       Majorca pearls.     

Paint peels its history in songs             a sin, or many

(tell the story)                   she sways to forget-

 some vintage regret             this                our unspoken    

(tell the story)    un(buried)             lineage.

“So Addiction walks into a bar                meets

Lonely…”            scattered sorrows         

cracked watch glass            spills sand back   

to its black sand beach      pearl folds into its un(broken) shell-

Do you believe in destiny?

 One staggering memory.

 

Day 8: Waiting Fuse

Nothing kills Muses like taxes.

But there were so many great things about this week. Like making it 8 days into the poetry challenge, unscathed;). The Europe tour is coming together nicely; we’re working on videos. My garden is growing; and the hunter moon is lighting the skies.

This time last year when I was challenged to finish a song, and a poem for the same 30 poems/30 days challenge, Muses gave me this:

“Jealous Muse                                                    

Time for a million
& none for me- gives zero
to the bossa waiting patiently.
We could sip wine & light a fuse
taxes & death are no excuse.”

 

 

I can’t stop playing this song. Infectious joy.  It’s like Humboldt all over again…. ;)

National Poetry Month- 30 Poems/30 days

Yay for April!  National Poetry Month, and Day 2 of NaPoWriMo’s 30 poems in 30 days challenge.  So I have 2 poems for today. And a wee macro. ;)

I love that Spring is the kick-off for National Poetry Month; and that our hosts continue to kindly host; and that the poetry community is growing.  I like how NaPoWriMo formalizes a daily commitment to write, & for me, to take those daily scribbles into an actual post ^..^  .  I love discovering other poets work from all over the world.

Similar to last year, for the month, my poems may be buried in a post, or disguised as lyrics and verse. Other times, they are what I call “poetry pebbles”: small bits written fast, without rules, form, or destination…

Poem #1: inspired by Jaya King’s watercolor, “Cheep”.

Tiny bird
tangerine teal
I see that worm shimmy
glitter up your hat as if
Spring
is here     or your birthday
or a song you can’t stop
singing… “I’m No. 1, I’m No.1, I’m No. 1″

in Joy major.

Poem #2: Last week’s Wordle #49

Junk Yard Romance

Was it witchcraft or high art-

some quantum physical proof of
attraction in action, unbidden joy brewing
tender under a desert night sky?

Mechanical you, the alchemist under my
64-Chevy, roll out to say, how you miss
the South~ pecan pie and pralines~  just having
tightened the axle, replaced a hose~ cracked for supple~
tapped a gauge, and sprinkled white powder
over oiled juices.  The clean sweep         we both

needed, busy work behind a score of softly said
words…change, destruction, loss.       Desertion
is like the Pecos wind, we both agree;     covers dreams
with a fine, constant dust.             Endless.

“Remove those acids?” your deep blue eyes move
from chalk white battery to my new dress… No need,
I’ve some acumen, we joke. You set up appointments,
one next week, “to make sure” you say quietly.
I nod yes, seeing the store on the way home
with the best pecans, vanilla, brown sugar.

© 2012 Tara Linda. VS6

from artist Michael C. McMillen.

The Three Muses

I find the early mythology about the Muses compelling; little else acknowledges the human spirit and it’s everyday need to thrive by creative expression.  By the early mythologies, it is wholly natural to be  opened up and filled with transcendent qualities; wonder, knowledge, beauty, inspiration- starting points for all arts.  Most have heard of the seven or nine Muses, (epic poetry, history, love poetry, music, tragedy, hymms,  dance, comedy, astronomy).  These may seem archaic, but we could easily replace the terms with our own contemporary art forms. What fascinates me are the first accounts of the earliest three Muses.

“Three ancient Muses were also reported in Plutarch’s Quaestiones Conviviviales (9.I4.2-4).[5] The Roman scholar Varro relates that there are only three Muses: one who is born from the movement of water, another who makes sound by striking the air, and a third who is embodied only in the human voice. They were Melete or Practice, Mneme or Memory and Aoide or Song.”  wikipedia.

Mneme was the Muse of thought and meditation.

Melete literally means “ponder” and “contemplation” in Greek.

Aoidē means “song” or “voice”.

In my poem below, a conversation by the sea, about these first Muses. The Wordle below gave more words to use.

Three Muses

First there were three, and three men to argue by firelight, what form, what need bore them to be. 

Space,  the tallest said. Piercing all darkness, filling the void to reignite the stars, its air the first to hold all form and fluid, tension and spark. The first to carry dream into wonder.

Water, said the small one.  And the stirring, strident life that dove,
mixing water with air, a dappled swish of her tail. She who rippled the night’s delirium, crossed the threshold.  Gave Memory its motion.  Imagination traveling beyond itself to tell a story.  The first.

Nay, said the third. Seems She that swam from a nautilus shell, would be the first to pleat the sea with waves of sound. Transcend mere ears with mystery.  Carry the divine spark rippling and remembered, to the longing Soul.  Quicksilver mirror, tone on pitch, the waiting voice.  Heart spills over in song.

Tara Linda   Copyright 2011. vs. 5

Hewn Heart

Poem for Wordle #24

I always wanted to follow, secretly see what “off to work” meant.
Straining from the sofa, mother holding me still to comb my hair,
your silent face turned from a kiss, leaving, no expression, tan
overalls fading down our cobbled street.  Fearfully watching, “why can’t I go?”  whispered in steam on the window pane, your truck disappears
in a rumble of shifting gears, adventure, blue-black smoke.

But at night, with the 8 O’clock church bell, in your big chair, in blue glow,
it became clear. I sat in your lap and knew, by the hard hewn hands
that held me, what it all meant. Clued by the myriad white lines of your nails,
my fingers traced the cracks and cuts of your fingers, followed
the roadmap into your day. “Construction” you would say, for maybe
the thousandth time, “rough on the hands.” I looked into your eyes to see
the color of truth. Brown. “What did you make today, daddy?”    Silence. Another sip. “10-story building.  Downtown.”

Aah! All the color a 5-year-old needed to fill in logic, to join the dots of distance! All as you steadied beams, alone in a crew, the strongest,  eyes protected from sparks, a half circle of plastic shielding your sun-scorched face.  And again, you, the bravest, caution signs all around, moving
fearlessly, boring the orange-white flame through blue steel shanks,
another floor, a dozen grey beams, pouring white concrete mid-air,
building stories to remember what was lost.

TaraLinda 2011. version 4.