tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5409519305033642895.post100071531709713585..comments2023-06-24T14:21:13.094+02:00Comments on AppleHouse Poetry Workshop: ChangesLynne Reeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11852192697142140025noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5409519305033642895.post-70765180987793169672011-10-15T03:43:02.684+02:002011-10-15T03:43:02.684+02:00The Year Behind
In the last two months,
that feel...The Year Behind<br /><br />In the last two months,<br />that feel like four<br />or six,<br />I've smiled more<br />exposed more skin,<br />enjoyed more visceral fruit<br />torn up more pavement <br />in buffalo sandals than<br /><br />in the seven months before that when,<br />my mouth was set in a line<br />until like clockwork<br />the face opened,<br />the room closed in,<br />people paid some attention to me.<br /><br />I deflated slowly,<br />like tall tomato plants<br />with rotten roots<br />that start to wilt<br />just when you think the hard green orbs of fruit<br />should start to ripen.<br /><br />I forgot about language,<br />stumbled through my own and others,<br />tripping over grammar<br />and mime.<br /><br />I could order food<br />if I wanted to speak<br />or ask for a discount.<br />Otherwise,<br />I smiled until my face hurt<br />mouth set in a line underneath.<br /><br />In March,<br />I watched a surge of water<br />engulf people,<br />towns,<br />houses floating like leaves<br />on the churning waters<br />black like the cloak of death.<br /><br />My students who were<br />regular people<br />at first felt that it was deserved,<br />a just punishment<br />for the enslavement of their own<br />people years ago.<br /><br />That night,<br />is separate from all the others because<br />I had to pull the corners of my mouth up<br />with great strength<br />and a will that came from my toes,<br />to please,<br />to be congenial.<br />I wasn't paid to confront their beliefs,<br />nor my own.<br /><br />Standing, I couldn't look them in the eye,<br />could only face the board, back turned,<br />to explain the difference between<br />“be going to” and “will”.<br /><br />If only I could've explained the difference <br />between life and death or,<br />empathy and ignorance.<br /><br />That black water<br />full of bricks, sticks, shingles, plants, plastic, boats, shovels, livlihoods<br />every manner of domestic, modern lives,<br />doling out punishment<br />like the hand of God<br />sweeping down<br />to cleanse everything.<br /><br />With time,<br />they admitted they'd been too harsh<br />too quick to judge,<br />no one deserved such an erasure,<br />such a flat expanse <br />of debris.<br /><br />Then the rains came,<br />a thing I love,<br />the season,<br />the words,<br />the action of forgetting an umbrella<br />and walking home, wet and happy.<br /><br />But the rains came with unspeakable,<br />invisible particles,<br />that are hard to spell like,<br />cesium<br />strontium<br />with numbers lagging behind to show<br />half lives,<br />exposure levels,<br />or the year it was discovered.<br /><br />I read popular slogans like,<br />no immediate health affects or,<br />harmful only to breastfeeding mothers<br />and children under two.<br /><br />When there was time to think,<br />I began to worry about thyroid problems,<br />the mutation of flowers,<br />or how easily moss can retain <br />these strange weapons.<br /><br />And then apathy<br />laid her sweet hands over everything<br />and denial<br />had his hands in it too.<br /><br />People laughed at fear<br />while they nursed their unborn children.<br />I can't blame them, I guess<br />to deny the air in your lungs,<br />the seaweed in your soup,<br />the crops in your country,<br />the rain in your sky,<br />the baby in your womb,<br /><br />is not a choice.<br /><br />Where to run,<br />when what you run from is as solid<br />and shiftless as<br />wind, air, or photosynthesis.<br /><br />Where to hide when<br />whole families rely on how you speak to your boss,<br />your clients,<br />your customers,<br />and not, god forbid,<br />what you fear,<br />what is essentially<br />life-taking.<br /><br />Responsibility escaped me,<br />so I took my life and fled<br />homewards,<br />westwards,<br />south.<br /><br />I swept down below the equator<br />with glee,<br />and almost wept,<br />for those who couldn't.anne basquinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13825500930351972297noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5409519305033642895.post-63598691807531403702011-10-13T20:26:51.126+02:002011-10-13T20:26:51.126+02:00Cherry Blossom
The cherry blossom is early
this y...Cherry Blossom<br /><br />The cherry blossom is early<br />this year and the house is quiet, <br />waits now they have gone.<br />Lives slow time <br />with the birds<br />nesting in the eaves.Jimhttp://www.notyethere.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5409519305033642895.post-54762413019709488232011-09-28T19:05:40.736+02:002011-09-28T19:05:40.736+02:00Explorers
Do we live only in this moment,
during ...Explorers<br /><br />Do we live only in this moment,<br />during this breath, and all else<br />is memory or conjecture?<br /><br />Is my life your dream, or yours mine,<br />or are we merely busy parasites<br />between the toes of God?<br /><br />We struggle with reason,<br />search for meaning, conjure up<br />beauteous myths regarding past lives,<br />pre-life, afterlife, life between lives,<br />and love to postulate that we never<br />are victims, but captains of every<br />tragedy, every honor, every shame,<br />existentially responsible for every shred<br />of decency or decadence in our scenarios,<br />empowered architects of some Bardoian<br />boiler plate outline for each incarnation,<br /><br />yet the media distracts us, libraries do not<br />beckon to us, book stores lack the literary<br />luster of our youth, and we constantly<br />find ourselves plugged into an instantaneous <br />cyberland, with the entire world now<br />at our fingertips, bathed in awareness of<br />every event occurring each minute,<br />the planet shrunken to the size of a<br />regulation basketball, growing impatient<br />during any wait that exceed ten seconds,<br /><br />being seduced by the fetching sirens<br />of technology, begging the machines<br />to pilot our way, park our vehicles, lift<br />our labors, craft our leisure, and allowing<br />the zap and whir of our computers to<br />begin to sound like children’s laughter;<br /><br />only vaguely wondering where does it lead,<br />becoming loquacious lemming marching<br />blindly toward some distant sea cliff,<br />billions on queue, back to back,<br />belly to belly, immersed, dissuaded, driven,<br />with itunes in our ear buds, Avatar on our<br />smart phones, and a stuporous grin etched<br />permanently upon the jaw of our journey<br />to a blind new world.<br /><br />Glenn Buttkus<br /><br />September 2011Glenn Buttkushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10680725814199700692noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5409519305033642895.post-17095826496227872692011-09-27T22:12:43.037+02:002011-09-27T22:12:43.037+02:00CHANGES
What goes through a caterpillars mind
wh...CHANGES<br /><br />What goes through a caterpillars mind <br />when it awakens as a humble moth, <br />or maybe, like a mother, after giving birth, <br />nature dilutes the memories of such pain!<br /><br />How helpless is a falling apple, torn - <br />by gravity’s rage, how dark is a toadstool <br />in the shadow of charcoal trees? Can you <br />remember being a toddler, recall the time <br /><br />your bones stretched into adulthood? How <br />frustrated is a frog chasing the pond moon?<br />On leaving the lair; what fear <br />does a cub feel or a grown-up, vaguely aware <br /><br />of its old persona shrinking back <br />into that of an innocent brat!Martin Cordreynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5409519305033642895.post-43070937729210749452011-09-27T21:27:56.270+02:002011-09-27T21:27:56.270+02:00Life moves on,
its spanning pace outstrides me -
b...Life moves on,<br />its spanning pace outstrides me -<br />breathless I wonder<br />if I take a rest will I catch up<br />or fondle into dust.<br />Life moves on,<br />it takes me in its slipstream<br />into its mountains<br />the gradient steepening with age.<br />Life moves on<br />and its cacophony gets louder<br />with each cascade of changes.<br />I long for the silent words,<br />the still-crisp air of the mountain top<br />and the smile on the face of a child.Keith Wallishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04780087068444798682noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5409519305033642895.post-82297134539225786422011-09-27T17:49:34.177+02:002011-09-27T17:49:34.177+02:00Absence
Rooms backlit with maternal longing,
mem...Absence<br /><br /><br />Rooms backlit with maternal longing,<br />memories zipped into every corner, <br />cupboards once choc a bloc <br />with childhood. <br />The dog’s bark echoes in the hall.<br /><br />A swing tilts on frayed ropes.<br /> Grass thrives where the wicket stood,<br /> bald balls nestle in the undergrowth. <br />Tennis racquets warp snapped strings.<br /><br />Sheets lie fallow on the shelves,<br />waiting<br /> for their next unfurling; <br />puffed up pillows <br /> pert against the headboards,<br />for adult heads to dent them like a dish,<br /><br /> by those<br />who no longer call it home. <br />Just a weekend break.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5409519305033642895.post-58250872403064120532011-09-27T17:44:00.983+02:002011-09-27T17:44:00.983+02:00This comment has been removed by the author.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com