Final Poem List

I have more than 10 listed because I have included some image poems as well and thought that they should probably be considered as less compared to the others.

Flight
To Nurture
Untitled- Image 4
Fishing
After Christy's poem- RI
Mauthausen, Austria
Second Chances- Revision 1
Looking Glass Graveyard- Sonnet
Valentine House
Boston Aquarium
The Work of Your Hands
Secretary 1960

Secretary, 1960

Each morning
in the fractured
shafts of sunlight she woke.
Then, powdering the rubber girdle
would slip it over the thickness
of her hips
abundant curves like a ripening pear.
Her body swayed
with the morning streams
of buses and trains.
The other women too,
their coarse fingertips
fashioned by hours of typing
tight in their laps.


She told me of this
years later.
Her stiff knuckles,
swollen with time.

The Work of Your Hands

after Jane Stairs' ceramics

Your piece,
sat with a wide
and jagged lip,
deep belly
balanced on a white pillar.

Age left wrinkles,
cracking skin
where your
your fingers
held lightly.

Boston Aquarium

The glass was smudged
with once hot
and sticky breath
now turned stale,
the grooves
of fingerprints
stuck sloppy
small ripples
 left in our passing.

I sat quiet
in the dark shadow
of blue light
laid smooth
over my pale skin,
and watched
as you uncurled
your muscular arms
one by one,
probing.
Each fleshy
pink mouth
kissing the barrier
between us.

Valentine House

My mother grew up
in the basement of a retirement home.
Tired, the residents shuffled to dinner.
One man
stood every night
at the head of the table without clothes
years of gravity
evident in his sagging,
translucent skin.

The yard of fruit trees bled sweet
in the summer, tender and dripping
on the melting asphalt.
Each plum had a worm
and my grandmother
with the succulent heart
in the curve of her palm
would cut
out the tainted square
 of dark flesh.

Adam and Eve

I let my feet sink
into the cool mud.
It reminds me of my cheek
sliding past yours,
familiar.
Winter air
engulfed us.
Your station wagon coughed exhaust.

I wonder of life, wide and cyclic.
How many times
will I watch the same roads pass
before finding
my true destination?

Following the weaving path
to the highway,
our soles stamped
quietly into the earth.
Heavy with the knowledge
that cars still moved
blurry
onward,
and we, stumbling
searching
for things we did not know.

Looking Glass Graveyard - A Sonnet

Our distance was measured by passing fields
slipping from open window picture frames.
Back roads unfold over a wet windshield
marked by rusty signs that once bore their names.
Skeleton trees lay silent by the shore
as thick water lapped their dense flesh away.
The horizon line met the grassland moor
muffled with sunken tones of bleak, ash grey.

My eyes settled on the rib cages, stripped
and honest in their sweeping curves.  I tried
holding these memories before they slipped
wet with time into the abyss cold, wide.

The world lay just beyond this haunting place,
fast and large, another facet of space.

"Second Chances" Revision 1

  

I will carry you 

curled in my bulbous stomach

for months.

Darling,
I still wont know you.

What if I can't love you?

In those fast moments 

after I hear your voice for the first time

I will wonder if you, 

with half my genetic code

can escape my demons.

Homeward Bound

I could feel our fragility
as the vinyl record cracked
and fell into a valley.

I joked,
"If you get any closer
I'll kiss you"
"No you wont," he said
I have known him
since third grade.

I focused on the size
of his hand over mine,
sweeping gently
over the life lines
love lines.
how they mirrored each other
how it wouldn't change a thing.


Tomorrow, I would be on a bus
to nowhere
and he would approach the skyline.

Second Chances

Darling,

what if I can't love you?

After carrying you 

curled in my bulbous stomach

for months,

I still wont know you.

And in those fast moments

after I hear your voice for the first time

I will wonder if you,

with half my genetic code

can escape my demons.

February

They sat plainly
with cardboard cups
that gave off wisps of steam,
boats on the wooden sea
between them.

I pretended to read
a tale told by an idiot,
as she slipped her
small and wandering pinky
over his;
just the brief glancing
of flesh.

I became suddenly
aware of our ever
approaching deaths,
that I had never witnessed
honest love until this moment.
Only written pages
remain as our shadows.
  

Linger

You gave your innocence
and he took it greedily
malleable in his hands
thick and sticky on his lips.

For years
I have seen him stare
dark and knowingly at
the grooves of your body.
We cannot escape temptations of the flesh.

I know you think constantly
of that night
under the stale light by the kitchen sink.
I don't know if you regret the way it felt
when he held you.

You call this feeling love,
and maybe it is.
I wouldn't know
anything of the sort.

I'm Not A Catholic

I lit a candle for you once,
knelt until my back was sore.
Wax pooled,
but I don't know
that any amount of Hail Marys
will save us.
Most prayers are selfish anyway
and don't have a right to be asked.
Somehow it always comes back
to you
and me.

After Lizzie's Poem

Image Poem #8 [Rib Cage]

This lamp recalls a
twisted, metallic rib cage.
I entwine my fingers with each bone
As if in this way I
Could keep you anchored to me.
----------

Everlasting

We share
the curves of anchors
on our feet,
Holding fast in the tempest.

After Christy's Poem

Brief Image- Christy

Eyelids half-mast
fingertips twitch
as thread
misses needle

 ---------

RI

Lines of white sails
flocking near the shore
Long necks oscillating
with the sea.

Organic

 I put my hands in the earth 

and dug for my heart,

throbbing, dripping of life.

Mauthausen, Austria

For the souls still wandering


Walking the hand carved
stone steps to the valley,
the rain soaked through my umbrella
and I couldn't escape the tears.


Concrete hard on my feet
white walls and snaking slender pipes
wiped clean of sin.
The pungent smell
of urine lingered.


I touched the thin buildings.
Cold and haunting
they pulled life from my fingertips.
A silent prayer stuck to my lips.


I haven't told anyone about this;
hope was just beyond the prickling
barbed wire.
The swaths of green fields
abounding one after another
on sweeping hillsides.

Formally - Image 7

Slippery hands clasped;

lock and key.

Flashes 

of  knobby knees

exposed shoulders.

Our voices,

screaming headlights

in the dark.  

Fishing - Image 6

Gasping,

hooked in the sleek flesh.

I wish I could give you

even my labored breaths.  

After The Storm - Image 5

Shiny tears
slid on your hot cheeks;

eyes puffy, like a child
just out
of the sea.

Fellowship

I wonder
if the stained glass hears me.

They draw crosses of their chests;
I don't bother.

Their knees melt to the ground.
I keep singing.

They don't write in the harmonies, you know?
Deviance is frowned upon.  

Untitled - Image 4

The wheel hums rhythmically.

My cracked fingers
guide the wet earth.

I hold years in my hands.

To Nurture - Image 3

My mother keeps

my baby teeth

hidden in her jewelry box,

pearls nestled in soft tongues of velvet.  

Wasting Away - Image 2

The video cracks as it plays on the wide screen, the colors dulled

 results of age.

In rows

figures sit with convex backs

they too are growing older.

Flight - Image 1

Your heart pumped gently under

the curvature of my ear;

wings beating, low and deep.  

Descriptive Paragraph Poem

Past and Present

The first thing

is the clutter.

Yes, I admit to it.

Condensation clings against the hills and valleys

of dented plastic,

the water bottles

scattered over three puzzle-pieced desks.

Honesty curls over the scuffed wooden dresser

in sculpted forms

haphazardly teetering,

on a grapevine wreath

a backdrop of white-washed walls.

Coffee stained mugs

 sit on once desolate edges.

The monochromatic lengths of brown rug

like the dense earth

under cities of laundry and books.

And then immediately

The pills.

A strict line.

Evidence of a schedule, order.

I will not lie to you.

It is not disturbing,

the prescriptions,

only an acknowledgment of habit. 

 

Descriptive Paragraph

   The first thing evident, I would say, is the clutter.  Plastic water bottles, their sides dented and uneven are scattered here and there over the three puzzle-pieced desks.  Condensation clings against the hills and valleys of the plastic resisting the pull of gravity.  I admit to the coffee stained mugs that sit on once desolate edges and the mismatched socks that wedge seamlessly into the most unsuspecting corners.  Sculpted forms of layered lotions, sprays, fluorescent tubes of soft smelling goop lie carefully over the scuffed wooden dresser.  They teeter silently against a grapevine wreath.  Long and spindly fingers reach out, stiffly grasping at the white-washed walls to keep it upright.  Rising stoically behind the twisted vines, is a poster of Picasso's "Blue Nude".  Sensuous and raw, it stands as a monument to honesty exhibited in the woman's emotional, curled form.  Below, the brown rug, mysterious in its vast, monochromatic lengths is covered with islands composed of laundry and books like the dense earth under cities.  Rainbows of cardigans are heaped haphazardly-like over the boxy chairs that prove to be just as uncomfortable as they look. And the sliding closet doors, overlap in the middle leaving cashmere and lace guts to spill generously over.  Then there are the chords.  They hang from filled power strips, black and menacing.  The wires weave through miscellaneous objects to their lit up and humming destinations.  They creep around shiny metal bed frames where sheets lie mangled and crushed, untouched from the night before.  From there the eye is immediately drawn to the pills.  Medications line the top of bed rest, the regiment of a schedule evident and seemingly the only order to the room.  I will not lie to you.  The scene of numerous prescriptions is not disturbing, it is only a form of silent acknowledgement made from years of habit.  Maybe it is the same with everything though.  Each act is derived from habit.  We clutch the past in one hand and in the other, we struggle to keep hold of the present. 

In writing poems from the prose we were given, I found that there were certain words that I was drawn to.  I think they became important to me in defining the story and I therefore decided to include them in my poems.  The words lent a feeling and a lyrical quality while still remaining centered in the theme or story of the poem.  After defining what words I should keep, the center of the poem became more evident to me.  This chronologically may not make sense because I hadn't surly found the center before the words I would use, but I think the words and their order significantly generate how we react.  For instance, in a poem like “Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll the made-up words create the story through placement and sound. 

When I found the center within my words, I went about interacting them with each other and ultimately tried to find where they made the most sense in regards to sound.  Paying attention to sound also influenced where line breaks would be as well as the length of lines.  By saying different combinations aloud, I attempted to find where the words sat comfortably.  By comfortably, I do not mean complacent; I only mean comfortable in relation to the overall feel and presence the poem took when read, while still remaining engaging.  

Poetry Skills Exercise:

Pine Barrens:
Version 1

The Pine Barrens once had their own particular witch.

Pineys put salt over their doors

to discourage visits from the Witch of the Pines,

Peggy Clevenger.

It was known that she could turn herself into a rabbit,

for a dog was once seen chasing a rabbit

and the rabbit jumped through the window of a house,

and there-

in the same instant,

in the window

- stood Peggy Clevenger.

On another occasion, a man saw a lizard

and tried to kill it by crushing it with a large rock.

When the rock hit the lizard,

the lizard disappeared

and Peggy Clevenger materialized on the spot

and smacked the man in the face. 

Clevenger is a Hessian name.

Peggy lived in Pasadena,

another of the now vanished towns, about five miles east of Mt. Misery.

It was said

that she had a stocking full of gold.

Her remains were found one morning

in the smoking ruins of her cabin,

but there was no trace of the gold. 

Version 2:

It was said that she had a stocking full of gold, 

the Witch of the Pines, Peggy Clevenger.

And on occasion

could turn into a rabbit. 

To discourage visits

she disappeared to a vanished town. 

Windows and doors materialized one morning

the smoking ruins of her cabin,

in Pasadena, five miles east of Mt. Misery

but there was no trace of the gold.

The Blueberry Pickers

Version 1:

We had come to a clearing

where thousands of blueberry bushes grew. 

In the center of it was the packing house-

a small, low building

with open and screenless windows on all sides.

In front of it was a school bus marked “Farm Labor Transport.” 

The driver stood beside his bus. 

He was a tall and amiable-looking man,

with bare feet he wore green trousers and a T-shirt. 

The end of the working day had come. 

Pickers were swarming around a pump-

old women, middle-aged men, a young girl.

 A line was waiting to use an outhouse near the pump.

Inside the packing house,

berries half an inch thick were rolling up a portable conveyor belt

and, eventually, into pint boxes.

Charlie’s sister was packing the boxes. 

Charlie’s daughter –in-law was putting cellophane over them. 

Charlie’s son Jim was supervising the operation.

Charlie picked up a pint box

 in which the berries were mounded high,

and he told me with disgust that

some supermarket chains knock off these mounds of extra berries

 and put them in new boxes, getting three

 or four extra pints per twelve-box tray. 

At one window,

pickers were turning in tickets of various colors, and they were given cash in return. 

One picker,

who appeared to be at least in his sixties,

tapped Charlie on the arm and showed him a thick packet of tickets

 held together with a rubber band.

“I found these,” the man said.  “They must have fallen out of your son’s pocket.” 

He gave the packet to Charlie, who thanked him

and counted the tickets. 

Charlie said,

“These tickets

are worth seventy-five dollars.”

Version 2:

 The end of the working day had come.

 Berries, half an inch thick

were rolling up a portable conveyor belt

and eventually, into pint boxes.

Mounded high

cellophane over them.

Pickers swarmed

in the clearing

where thousands of blueberry bushes grow.

The screenless windows

of the packing house

stood amiable and bare.

Inside Charlie’s sister was packing the boxes.

Pickers turned in

their tickets for cash,

and a man gave Charlie a packet

held together with a rubber band.

“I found these,” the man said. 

The tickets were worth seventy-five dollars.

In the front

A school bus was marked

“Farm Labor Transport”.