Showing posts with label Poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poetry. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 21, 2024

Ruthlessly Pruning My First Sonnet


One interesting assignment in a recent poetry class was to take a poem I've written before and pare it down by focusing on the economy of language.

I'm all for economy of language. As a journalist and editor in my past life, I let hardly any adjective or adverb survive.

But life has changed. At recent readings, I've been captivated by the performance aspect of poetry, less so with classical poetic form.

So I took this opportunity to take the first sonnet I ever wrote... for a girl... in college... when I thought I was so smart... and ruthlessly prune it to reflect my current life... for anyone who might care... right here... when I simply crave relevance and connection.

This is...

Sonnet 1

There's something in the air, or so they say. 

It's certainly not magic or the heat. 

It's just the moon, white-full and young -- the way, 

like water, people splash and spill beneath. 

 

And you and I remind me of the tides. 

We hate and love; we rise and fall. It scares 

me that I don't know why or that I find 

no fault in us, just something in the air. 

 

So still above us rests the moon, content 

and seemingly unmoved. It doesn't hate 

or love; it doesn't care -- without relent, 

without a passing judgment of our fate. 

 

The moonlight falls like smoke between the mist. 

What fools we are compared to such as this. 


---------

And this is...

Sonnet Unbound

You and I are tides 

under a faithless light. 

 

We rise and fall, 

splash and spill. 

 

Helpless, 

in the mist. 

 

Reckless, 

in our love and hate. 

 

The moon, 

relentless and immutable, 

 

casts indifferent shadows 

on our foolish fate. 

 

 

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Poem: 'Ja Cie Kocham'

Mary Baron, 1897-1974

Ja Cie Kocham

When I was a boy,
JFK was president in Washington, DC,
And all the words were Polish in Garfield, New Jersey.

All the words were Polish
As I held my grandmother’s sandpaper hand,
And we walked to Sunday Mass at St. Stan’s.

All the prayers were Polish.
All greetings were Polish on the east side of Lanza Avenue.
Everyone around us, an immigrant.

Returning from church with Babci,
We stop to pick a chicken to slaughter.
She haggles with the butcher in Polish.

At dinner, I devour tender slivers of the chosen chicken,
Mixed in a soup with chunks of rice,
As pots of boiled cabbage simmer on her oven top.

I catch her eye in the changing colors of the kitchen window:
A flickering glow from the outline of a neon bottle
Above the door of the neighborhood liquor store.

Babci knows me, although we don’t speak the same language.
She knows I hate the smell of cabbage.
She knows I won’t, I can’t, complain.

English words were never spoken in Babci’s house.
English words were elitist and foreign.
They confused and intimidated her.

Her child, my mother, spoke English rebelliously when she was young,
Loving all the English words she needed for survival,
Instilling that love in me.

Now I am my mother’s keeeper.
We have both grown old.
My grandmother died long ago.

I sometimes catch Babci’s daughter
staring at ghosts outside her kitchen window.
So I whisper in her ear, although I know she can’t hear me.

I whisper the only three words I remember in Polish.

Friday, February 9, 2024

Thank Yous From Newlyweds to My Grandmother (an unrhymed sonnet)

Mary and Jimmy, wearing a white tux.

He has giant hands; she, a slender waist.


Pat and Bill sincerely appreciate

their world in color, freed from black and white.


Rosalie and Rudy peek playfully,

retreating to their honeymoon cabin.

 
Mary and Hugo, dancing center stage,

hands tightly clasped, casting nervous smiles.



Norma and Emil, wearing Clark Kent glasses.

She has dangerous beauty, kryptonite.


Dolores and Libbie’s getaway car.

She stole his heart; he has a dark secret.

Florence and Uncle Charlie, now both dead.
When my aunt smiled, she made the bright world dim.


Sunday, January 28, 2024

Poem: '11 Roses'

The streetlights of my hometown

Project Write Now is a wonderful arts organization based in Red Bank, NJ. If you are interested in writing, or in supporting young writers, check it out.

I'm currently enrolled in an adult intensive poetry course, and below is my first poem from that class. I want to share it here, just because.

"11 Roses" is based on three prompts inspired by lines from the poetry of Eduardo C. Corral, and a discussion of his work, including "The Autobiography of My Hungers" (accounting for "my" poetic phrase in one of the couplets below)...

---------

11 Roses

I stared at the deer
Because it stared back at me.

I walked my hometown streets at dusk,
Invisible to schoolboys on careless bicycles,

The women in the nail salon, and the families outside the Dairy Queen.
My reflection in store windows, the only evidence of me.

I held my breath as I passed the cemetery at the edge of town.
Where my father lies.

On the recent anniversary of his death,
I had placed a rock on his gravestone.

It wasn’t there.

I walked further, into the woods,
Hiding an autobiography of my secrets.

How my heart is easily broken.
How I never stopped loving you.

How I am a glint of light now.
Not even a ghost.

In the aurora of distant streetlights,
I blend into the ramble and the thorns.

So I stared at the deer
Because it stared back at me.

Thursday, December 21, 2023

A Toast to Frank O'Hara

Lately, I've been haunted by the ghost of Frank O'Hara.

I found many references to the poet on the website and recent event invites from The Poetry Society of New York. They even sell a Frank O'Hara t-shirt.

Then, last night, I participated in an online workshop, led by New Jersey poet Michael Paul Thomas (you can find information about his future workshops... highly recommended... at his LinkedIn or by following him on Eventbrite).

Out of nowhere, Frank appeared.

Michael read from O'Hara's New York City "Lunch Poems," as he led us through writing and revision exercises. He based the discussion around how we develop a consistent practice in creative work.

"Do we always have to wait for lightning to bolt down our arm to the pen?" he asked, then answered with a description of O'Hara's practice of writing a poem a day during his lunch hours in the city. He simply described the world around him, then leveled it up with a poetic twist.

Michael urged us to write what we saw around us last night. So I did, and I've revised it a bit today.

I offer this poem to you, Frank, in Blogger's best typewriter font. I beg you to accept it.

Now, please stop haunting me.

---------

A Toast to Frank O'Hara on This Winter’s Solstice 

I’m sitting in a house that would otherwise be abandoned.

It’s my grandparents’ old home,

Which is still oddly filled with warmth

On this cold night in western New Jersey.

 

When I was a boy I would walk to the open field in the side yard

And gaze at the stars: the only source of light,

Save for the glow of the house and the headlights

Of a lone, lost, angry traveler bound for Pennsylvania.

Tonight, that sleepy country road is a four-lane highway.

From the upstairs bedroom window, I see spotlit car dealerships

Displaying comically large American flags across what is now Route 46.

 

The back road used to border acres of farmland.

Now, it provides access to the busy warehouses that replaced the farms,

And to the back entrance of TD Bank, whose garish green signage glows

Past the bones of the barn where Nonno used to keep chickens and a cow.

In the backyard, a cell tower looms over the ghost of a small orchard,

Which Nonna used to tend to make homemade wine.

Now, there’s a holiday-lit brewery among the back-road warehouses.

 

The hour is too late to talk to the Sun. When I look to the heavens,

Now, I am surrounded by ever-changing, earthbound constellations.

The stars have fallen from the sky,

And darkness envelops me from above.


Wednesday, October 18, 2023

Rain Won't Stop Saturday's Paterson Poetry Festival; See You There?


Rain won't dampen the conclusion of the annual Paterson Poetry Festival, scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 21.

I just heard that due to the inclement weather, the venue has been moved from the steps of Court House Plaza to International High School, at 200 Grand St. in Paterson... where there will still be vendors and food trucks and poetry from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

It's a resilient bunch, and Allen Ginsberg would be proud.

You can read more about the festival by following Word Seed Inc. on social media. It's a great organization, led by Talena Lachelle Queen, Paterson's Poet Laureate since 2018.

At last year's event, I met some wonderful people, including poet Dimitri Reyes, representing CavanKerry Press. Since January, I've been trying -- "trying" being the operative word -- to write poems following weekly prompts from him.

Dimitri is encouraging and supportive. I love the music in his poetry and his readings, and I look forward to hearing and meeting more poets on Saturday.

The past two prompts from Dimitri this October have been:

1. "Spend some time thinking about 2 poems and 1 song that you really enjoy. Read the three of them together and see what conversation they're creating. Try your hand and putting these different lines together into one poem."

2. "Read this wonderful essay by Franchesca Melendez about Sami Miranda. Listen to his poem as well. Write a poem about any of the faces illustrated by Miranda."

See my attempts below. Anyone can be a poet!

Kinda. 🙂

See you in Paterson on Saturday?


---------

Annabel Brightside Alone

From childhood’s hour,

I have never been as others were.



I never, I never

understood the destiny

calling me.


This mystery that binds me still.



The sick lullabies

I intoned, reciting the poetry of Poe

to our children.


As if I were a child too.



My all-consuming jealousy,

this demon in my view,

has taken control.


Even now, as I approach my tomb.



Eyes open, seeing the price I paid,

I covet the angels.

They remind me of you.


My darling, my life, my bride.



It started out as a kiss.

How did it end up like this?



---------




Illustration by Sami Miranda

Greetings From Budd Lake

It’s Taco Tuesday at Buccaboo’s Burritos,

where poetry isn’t for sale.


It must be prompted,

summoned from the ordinary.


It must be earned.

So I consider your face:


Your eyes closed,

allowing me to see your pain.


The fluorescent highlights in your golden hair

mocking this red October.


Your exasperated expression

trivializing my attempt at transcendence.


Forgive me, Senora.

Forgive these lunatic scribblings,


freezing time on the margins of this receipt,

conjuring your apotheosis.