Someone wrote a poem about me.

Someone wrote a poem for me. About me.
It's true.
My poems have made someone think + be inspired and this has made me whole.
I am more than honored.

Charlotte wrote:

For Amy

I know a woman who writes poems
The way other people
sell cars
... Or close deals.
She fixes meals
From words; she turns on light
With them.
They are her trade
And her keep.

 

Thank you Charlotte xo

poem repost

TALKING SIDEWALKS


In my neighborhood where all the trees touch in the middle of the street

and old people shuffle smile dandy looking with very small dogs

and the world seems slow and stretchy like taffy

the blind come on weekdays to our sidewalks to practice navigating the world



there is a blind school about a mile up the road

and at some point the school scouted our little block for white cane utopia

a few days a week when we walk our sidewalks slowly

we see people of all ages with canes and teachers

and they point the white tipped canes to the curb and tap

hard

like

listen

this is important

and the blind put their heads back and feel the breeze and listen to the world

to the most important thing they know



and I tell Blaise about what I know when he asks me

why do eyes break and are they dead mom

and I tell him that that they cannot see

that things do happen

all the time

that babies are born into the dark

and people lose things



and I used to be afraid that something terrible and awful was going to happen to me

or all the people that I love

one perfect day

just like that

like you are walking around a pretty town and it would all go dark

all go dead



and I know that

now more than anything I am afraid to not see

see everything that is going on around me

and the blind can hear me all the way over here inside of the house by the sidewalk they travel

they can hear me type words and bake cakes

and bath babies and scream

with my windows open wide all summer



they can hear me and I can see them

and I can see everything that is beautiful in my life

and it is my job to find my own religion now

the spirituality of this is what it is

I need to see my life

really see it

and have devotion to it



and I whisper the smallest sounds when we walk by the blind

pushing the stroller

carrying the library books

like a game

like a test

I whisper out






i love you


and thank you


and this is all going to be ok


for everyone


and you are important


and the world is beautiful


because we are all in it



and sometimes I think they hear me

even though I whisper like a tiny ant

and sometimes they smile

Poems are like crack

http://suicideblonde.tumblr.com/

In New Orleans, a Bed and Breakfast in a seamy part of
town. Dentist's chair the seat of honor in the living room.
Dark, the drapes closed, a lamp's three-way bulb clicked just
once. I'm inside someone's version of inside. All the guests
looking like they belong. Muffled hilarity coming from one
of the other rooms. Paintings everywhere, on the walls, the
floor. Painted by the proprietress who, on the side, reads the
Tarot. In her long black gown she doesn't mind telling me
things look rather dismal. Something about the Queen of
Swords and the Hanged Man. I wake early the next morning
for a flight. 5 A.M. She's sitting in the dentist's chair, reading a
book about the end of the century. Says a man like me needs
a proper breakfast. Wants to know everything I dreamed.
This, I tell her, I think I dreamed this.

-Stephen Dunn

Anne Sexton famously said, "Poetry led me by the hand out of madness."

She did kill herself though.
No bother. I think I will keep doing poetry here every Friday.
I think it seems like a good idea because there are so many more little poems inside of me.
How about you? I will touch base Friday with all the lovely poems from the people last week and then we shall just see what happens.

We could start a renaissance of lovely with our morning poems. We could.

photo via GoodReads

Five Minute Breakfast Poems #5 {last one}

This is the last poetry month breakfast poem.
I think it's been a great exercise to keep writing.

Poetry is something that is like currency to me. If I have enough really good lines saved up then I can buy one hot damn good poem. And it can buy happiness or sadness or sexy looks across a crowded someplace.

It doesn't matter if the poem sucks because in each poem there is a moment or a line or even a couple of words standing together that mean everything.
Everything. Keep writing? I will.


Someday We Won't Remember This

what do you really remember
about being this little kid
photographs and smells
and the stories
little myths
that the big ones tell us until they become
deep grooves across our cortex


but the tiny days of a 4 years old
there is a sadness in this age
if you think too long
about him not recalling
all this
and that
and this particular day in the Spring
of a year
when the stars all aligned
and we talked like people
in love
and in sync
and yes you lived inside of me once
and yes the world is so big
and inside of your eyes like fire
bursting out to me
I am warmed by this moment
music dumped into the background
I teach you about Lindsey Buckingham and we eat biscuits
and I am as important as Copernicus to you
I make sense of everything for you
I tell you that yes
we revolve around the sun

but only so many times

and we only remember

so many of them

Poetry Responses from 5MBP

It's been a crazy stretch of days.
I am ill. Boo hoo hoo.
I won't screw it up this last FRIDAY of Poetry Month.
Please go visit these gorgeous people.

Sizzle

Schmutzie

Amy

Tara

kaply

Dani

Me

{and we are missing some of you sweet poets? Can you play again this week? Let's not be poetry weenies}

Did we forget anyone? xo

Friday is #5
One thing I want to stress about this poetry writing is that we are not in search of perfection. We are in draft mode. We want to reach into our minds and find themes or thoughts that have been with us and just start something. JUST GO! We aim to find a perfect sentence or a perfect line that can make us want to write more. This is what we need....words that lead us.

Five Minute Breakfast Poems #4 {OK. I know it's like dinner time sorry}

I am late today. Sorry!

Soccer Mom Tweedy Daydreams

In the car I like to sing
turn the radio up loud enough to make me sound brilliant
and sing to my children
it is one of the things I want them to remember 
that I  sang to them
that I always let them see me sing out
words that sometimes made me cry and go far away in the eyes


I am thinking of all of the beautiful songs that I mouth everyday
when I fly past buildings and bricks
down highways and tiny town alleys
while sitting in school zones and
when I dance alone
in my underwear in the basement
they think I am doing laundry

I have thirty thousand different love affairs
buried within melodies
stuck on old Memorex
bright with beat

and sometimes I think about calling up my old college roommate who is still in the music scene
who is my neighbor oddly enough now
and we have tiny children
and sometimes meet at parks
instead of bars
and bongs
I think of calling him up and having him shake our mutual friend


the one from which I drifted
down the Mississippi of far away friendship

take those two boys
who are now men and write songs with them
scribble scrabble all the words down because
I know they want me to
I know we can't recreate the early 90's
because that is the frozen tundra of love
but we could make this time
sound so amazing

look at all 

we know 


right now





Yr turn. Go! xo

poetry month :: Faith Shearin

Shopping

My husband and I stood together in the new mall
which was clean and white and full of possibility.
We were poor so we liked to walk through the stores
since this was like walking through our dreams.
In one we admired coffee makers, blue pottery
bowls, toaster ovens as big as televisions. In another,

we eased into a leather couch and imagined
cocktails in a room overlooking the sea. When we
sniffed scented candles we saw our future faces,
softly lit, over a dinner of pasta and wine. When
we touched thick bathrobes we saw midnight

swims and bathtubs so vast they might be
mistaken for lakes. My husband's glasses hurt
his face and his shoes were full of holes.
There was a space in our living room where
a couch should have been. We longed for

fancy shower curtains, flannel sheets,
shiny silverware, expensive winter coats.
Sometimes, at night, we sat up and made lists.
We pressed our heads together and wrote
our wants all over torn notebook pages.
Nearly everyone we loved was alive and we

were in love but we liked wanting. Nothing
was ever as nice when we brought it home.
The objects in stores looked best in stores.
The stores were possible futures and, young
and poor, we went shopping. It was nice
then: we didn't know we already had everything.

-Faith Shearin



{This line- Nearly everyone we loved was alive and we

were in love but we liked wanting is like a dagger.}

poetry month :: Eleanor Lerman

I find this poem captivating.


Starfish

This is what life does. It lets you walk up to
the store to buy breakfast and the paper, on a
stiff knee. It lets you choose the way you have
your eggs, your coffee. Then it sits a fisherman
down beside you at the counter who say, Last night,
the channel was full of starfish. And you wonder,
is this a message, finally, or just another day?

Life lets you take the dog for a walk down to the
pond, where whole generations of biological
processes are boiling beneath the mud. Reeds
speak to you of the natural world: they whisper,
they sing. And herons pass by. Are you old
enough to appreciate the moment? Too old?
There is movement beneath the water, but it
may be nothing. There may be nothing going on.

And then life suggests that you remember the
years you ran around, the years you developed
a shocking lifestyle, advocated careless abandon,
owned a chilly heart. Upon reflection, you are
genuinely surprised to find how quiet you have
become. And then life lets you go home to think
about all this. Which you do, for quite a long time.

Later, you wake up beside your old love, the one
who never had any conditions, the one who waited
you out. This is life’s way of letting you know that
you are lucky. (It won’t give you smart or brave,
so you’ll have to settle for lucky.) Because you
were born at a good time. Because you were able
to listen when people spoke to you. Because you
stopped when you should have and started again.

So life lets you have a sandwich, and pie for your
late night dessert. (Pie for the dog, as well.) And
then life sends you back to bed, to dreamland,
while outside, the starfish drift through the channel,
with smiles on their starry faces as they head
out to deep water, to the far and boundless sea.

 -Eleanor Lerman


photo source *

Poetry Responses from 5MBP

Here are some of the gorgeous excerpts:


from Sizzle:

She can’t name why
and even if you asked, she wouldn’t tell
because good girls know
you don’t speak of such things.

from Kaply:

Letting go is
counterintuitive
but once done
relief finds me
like a breeze in the midst
of a humid day.
And I exhale.

from Robin:

challenges me with ancient words,

opens her veins and splashes blood mixed with tears,

from Schmutzie:


Me and this couch I'm sitting on?
We could just up and disappear, just sucked up into an errant pocket,
and time would fold over that spot where I was and move on,


from Mishelle:

he buds were barely on trees
Making way for green
from Dani:

as she stalked off, he was obviously upset

i told him to shrug it off and chalk it up to crazy

no need to sweat

from Tara:


Floating on the breeze
Silhouettes rice paper thin
A song without words

from me:

I traced the Mississippi river with my finger from the sky
and the people here have kind eyes
and hero hands
and I am a voodoo love machine
hurricane gangster
in New Orleans

Did we forget anyone? xo

Friday is #4

One thing I want to stress about this poetry writing is that we are not in search of perfection. We are in draft mode. We want to reach into our minds and find themes or thoughts that have been with us and just start something. JUST GO! We aim to find a perfect sentence or a perfect line that can make us want to write more. This is what we need....words that lead us.

Five Minute Breakfast Poems #3

I am away {mom2summit} right now but PLEASE still play today. xoxo

I traced the Mississippi river with my finger from the sky
and the people here have kind eyes
and hero hands
and I am a voodoo love machine
hurricane gangster
in New Orleans

and the air hangs thick
with heat
and sex
and hope

and not so long ago
underwater
sadness broken
things fall apart

and then I sat on the concrete stoop
outside of the bar that I never knew existed
and I reframed my mind


GO! xoxo

Poetry Responses from 5MBP

Thanks so much for all that joined in on the Five Minute Breakfast poems. 

Here are some of the gorgeous excerpts:

from Helen Jane:

I’m left with crumbs.
Posy pocket crumbs.

from Sizzle:

the way you holler “hola!” when I walk in the door
even though you do not speak any Spanish,
the way you insist on saying “I love you” and kissing me goodnight.

from Robin:

he is master craftsman.
and we share lifeblood,


from Amy:

behind a curtain of my own sadness.
Two years is plenty long enough
to wallow there,

from Schmutzie:


I ate a penny last week.
I've told no one.
It was nearly black on one side,


from Mishelle:

like fresh-cut grass
and chlorine
…of sounds
big canon ball
water splashes
and cheerful cries
with belly aching laughter

from Dani:

something strong enough to never be destroyed

bruised, sometimes

dented, maybe

but we know each other too well

we push each other away

from Tara:


Not mom, nor wife
But child again, transformed along the path
Dreams take flight
If only for this hour


from me:

but right now in the before of today
in the dark dark morning
where mothers live

 

Friday is #3!

One thing I want to stress about this poetry writing is that we are not in search of perfection. We are in draft mode. We want to reach into our minds and find themes or thoughts that have been with us and just start something. JUST GO! We aim to find a perfect sentence or a perfect line that can make us want to write more. This is what we need....words that lead us.

Five Minute Breakfast Poems #2

{Just a refresher- this is 5 minute breakfast poems- click here}

It means you set an egg timer or oven clock and write. 

JUST write. For FIVE minutes.

Salvage what you can or post it all.

Just write. Don't be a weenie. Write.

 

 

Mine:

I know there is a play date at my home in two hours
full of laughter and limbs and the whole house will shake
with the intensity of them
but right now in the before of today
in the dark dark morning
where mothers live
I am free from old food bits
and spit up caked on collars and
the way we ache and sometimes do cry in the pantry alone because the day has unraveled too much

too far to retrieve
before all of that

                                        I am free like I used to be
                                        free to dream about
                                        swallow tattoos
                                        and far away blues

 

Oh and we missed Secret Agent Mama's poem last week!

Poetry Responses from 5MBP

Thanks so much for all that joined in on the Five Minute Breakfast poems.  

Here are some of the gorgeous excerpts:

from Schmutzie-

Yet I still savour painful things, unhealthy things, unnecessary things
like the soft Drum tobacco I used to pull apart
and press into a paper crease,
how it smelled like bacon and bread,
sometimes threading its way onto my tongue.

from Dani -

but we won’t let ourselves think about

how it’s fifteen days

until four years

and how does four years fly by so fast when it feels like

he was just here

From Kim-

Feels Good
This old-is-new-again wordplay.


April First
Not a fool's day at all,
Just a new day
Full of beginnings.

from Helen Jane-

But then sometimes,
(on Saturdays, mostly)
I let the pinch out.

from Palinode-

“His father in law is Ingmar Bergman,” houseguest says.

Spouse generalizes, pulls a thread out into a balloon,

which is where we go, on a raft that feels like spoons

lashed together from suppositions.

from Amy-

A friend is finding her way in the world, new and old alike

I am holding bravery for her in my heart.

A friend is manifesting joy and working hard on her dreams

Mine-

and the baby brother in the car seat beside of him
babbles the hymn of the ignored
and lifts his arms up and down

MONDAY is #2!

One thing I want to stress about this poetry writing is that we are not in search of perfection. We are in draft mode. We want to reach into our minds and find themes or thoughts that have been with us and just start something. JUST GO! We aim to find a perfect sentence or a perfect line that can make us want to write more. This is what we need....words that lead us.

{Did I miss anyone? Please leave me a link so that we can share it }  xoxoxox

Five Minute Breakfast Poems #1

Today is the DAY.

{Just a refresher- this is 5 minute breakfast poems- click here}

It means you set an egg timer or oven clock and write. 

JUST write. For FIVE minutes.

Salvage what you can or post it all.

Just write. Don't be a weenie. Write.

MINE: 

We drive towards the pediatrician's office
swollen with fever first grade germs
"Have you been kissing girls?" I poke
He does not even try and make noises of disgust
his head back against the seat
hair all splayed out like blond fire

and the baby brother in the car seat beside of him
babbles the hymn of the ignored
and lifts his arms up and down
and pulls at his hand me down sweater
the sweater that at one time went over the head of the big one
and as I sing out to the crap radio station
I can't even believe that the big one ever fit
inside of those threads

and it is crazy that his teeth are falling out
and he has these original thoughts
and motivations
and desires to know everything in the whole world
and I fail him more than ever now
because we live in a new world where we can break each others hearts
we can speak words and make mistakes

but on this sunny day
the day before he turns seven
the magical number
he will let me hold his fever face against my chest
and we will rock down the day
and we will never be this young again

leave yr link in comments so that I can share them!

Five Minute Breakfast Poems

 

OK Folks! Here is a graphic for the 5MBP!

Let's post each Friday in April.

I will link you all up and share each Monday.

Please- if anyone is a smartie pants- tell me how to make this button html and it will link back to this?

I have no clue. LOL.

But PLEASE swipe this graphic and let's GO!

See ya in the morning over toast and tea?

Set yr oven timer and let's make poetry fun again.

{No pressure and keep writing} xo

Leave me a note if you did not last time so I can come find yr gorgeous words! 

OOO BIG thanks to Mary of The Yellow Door Paperie for giving us some html! Yay! xxxooo

here ya go ::

{5 minute breakfast poems}

I love poetry. You know I would love to stop everything and be a reclusive poet right?
I would. It always sucked all my air out to be around the poetry professors in college.
I could not even get over my jealousy that this was their life.
I was in awe. Novels and essays and so many other writings stay with you for a long time
but I like that poetry assaults you right there in the split second and then it's over.
And then you go all post poetry thoughtful and glum and think about things ever so differently for those moments.

My favorite thing is to really carry a poem in my pocket sometimes.
Pull it out at the market or while pumping gas and read it like a snack.
Like a tiny bite.
And sometimes you have to press yr hand against yr mouth all dramatically
and get back in yr car and cry.
And it is poetry.

Last year I wrote a couple posts with an egg timer during breakfast for National Poetry month and would love to do it again. I know I write in the instant. I always do. I can't stop and ponder and plan or I won't write. I know not everyone feels this way.
I think that this type of exercise is good for all writing though. Just take an egg time out and write for five minutes over yr breakfast. Scribble scrabble.
When it dings you have a poem.
Or at least one damn fine sentence I bet.
And sometimes that is all that a girl needs...

There are days that you just need one fine string of words that can break a heart.




You wanna do this with me in April? I know Helen and Michelle and Sizzle are in. How about you?
Leave a comment and let us know. I will have something for you on 3/31 and we can start on April Fools day and run every Friday. 
xoxox

I read this while in NYC the last time and it has not left my mind

He is reading in Ohio at Kenyon soon. I want to go!


“New York Poem,” by National Book Award winner Terrance Hayes, November 2010 issue of The New Yorker.

Tear it Down

We find out the heart only by dismantling what
the heart knows. By redefining the morning,
we find a morning that comes just after darkness.
We can break through marriage into marriage.
By insisting on love we spoil it, get beyond
affection and wade mouth-deep into love.
We must unlearn the constellations to see the stars.
But going back toward childhood will not help.
The village is not better than Pittsburgh.
Only Pittsburgh is more than Pittsburgh.
Rome is better than Rome in the same way the sound
of raccoon tongues licking the inside walls
of the garbage tub is more than the stir
of them in the muck of the garbage. Love is not
enough. We die and are put into the earth forever.
We should insist while there is still time. We must
eat through the wildness of her sweet body already
in our bed to reach the body within that body.”

-Jack Gilbert, “Tear it Down“

poem

This melancholy is brought to you by the glee of going to go see WS Merwin poet laureate read this fall

When You Go Away


When you go away the wind clicks around to the north
The painters work all day but at sundown the paint falls
Showing the black walls
The clock goes back to striking the same hour
That has no place in the years

And at night wrapped in the bed of ashes
In one breath I wake
It is the time when the beards of the dead get their growth
I remember that I am falling
That I am the reason
And that my words are the garment of what I shall never be
Like the tucked sleeve of a one-armed boy

-ws merwin

image via ffffound