Day 47 of #the100dayproject - Gatherings

Gatherings

Even in the heat of summer,

With its abundance of sunshine

promise of flowers and fruit,

the squirrels still gather

Their food into themselves

As if winter were a close

Companion, waiting behind

The evergreens, the essence

Left deep in the squirrel’s nests.

The grip of it so tight on them

That they would eat themselves

Dead, rather that feel the bite

Of the tundra or the emptiness

of a body without the warmth of food.

Day 46 of #the100dayproject - Ritual

Ritual

And so he prays behind me,

Completely bare, naked,

In his purest form

A statue of vulnerability.

His skin itself a prayer

His body the body of god.

Elevated by the vermillion

And the nutmeg nuts

Painted with grains of rice.

Each one of them a planet

Orbiting his body, his nakedness

The center of a humble husk

Of bone and blood, his hair

Curling outward, a universe

In each inky strand.

Day 45 of #the100dayproject - Sight

Sight 

The scent of flowers would hold a soft tone,

A music, a humming that captures color

Behind my eyelids.

Even when I am blind,

The world will be visible in flashes of light,

An aura that is beyond sight, only seen

When I close my eyes.

Day 44 of #the100dayproject - Shame, Shame

Shame, Shame

The weather is titanium, clouds unbreakable,

the tops of the evergreens cannot puncture through

the day’s armor. The monotony of sleep and breath,

building up like the scales of soap scum on

the brushed nickel faucet. Everything can be made

into a guise of protection. My words can move around

you as if to keep you safe, but they are the horse

outside of Troy, a mane made of driftwood and nails.

I am not what I say, I am what is inside, a sword

that hungers for so much undoing.

Day 43 of #the100dayproject - Old Flames

Old Flames

I am wheat leaning with the wind, the untouched earth, waiting to be opened like a zipper.

Root and burrow, the tunnels and network maps of creatures inside of me.

My scent like the big sky, tastes a cold glass of water;

I am all of these things. I never had old flames

that fanned out to torch the prairies of my body, scar me burnt or sad.

I want only one man to wonder my vast spaces and move through

my endless fields, his hands touching each tassel of grass

gentle, coaxing as if to draw me out and tame my infinite fervor,

to quench my wild thirst.

Day 42 of #the100dayproject - Moon as Aged Cheese

Moon as Aged Cheese

The moon is milk curdled with a couple

drops of lemon. It once sprawled

like the milky way; a spilled bucket

of milk across the sky. A squirt of citrus

brought it together into the shape

of a curdled globe, a head of cheese.

I raise it out of the vast vat

of space, that black ink brine

of salt and meteorite. I take a bite

from it, ripe with gravity. The mass of its

flavor, floral, ribboned with silver mold,

bitter, creamy. I will pair it with andromeda

in my stemmed wine glass, swirl the galaxy

and sip its aroma, the taste of black holes and

rolling the fragrance of deepest space, silence

casked and barreled, the universe a cellar,

cool and damp, storing away the flavors

of earth, planet, and shooting star.

Day 41 of #the100dayproject - Internal Labor

Internal Labor

I am a stethoscope of hearing,

My ear curved internally to listen

To the sound of my neck muscles

Stretching, relaxing, creaking

Like the sound of evergreens

As the wind sends them listing

Against themselves. I can hear

The sound of ear wax as it cracks

And pops, the pressure like

A release of a soda can tab,

Suction and bubbles, or plastic

Packaging, taking a whole mass

Of it in hand and wringing

Until every cell bursts at once.

All the sounds move to the rhythm

Of my blood, pulsing. My heart

Beat overshadows any other sound,

Even the engulfing wave of vibration

From my throat swallowing, the ripple

Effect of my vertebrae clicking

In my neck. My internal motions

How red and endearing, to listen

To my body glisten through its

Daily work, expanding and contracting

Itself in a routine of janitorial work

The cleaning and healing,

The endless hours of upkeep.

Day 40 of #the100dayproject - When I Take Another Form

When I Take Another Form

I am baking in my kitchen,

the heat from the oven pinching

my face into a sourdough loaf.

This day is a type of lynching

where the hot element glows,

a brand that can alter my skin.

Written words are too much

some ingredients are missing

inside of me, inside this body.

I am comprised of fiction

and if proofed and baked

I will turn to stone,

my heart encased

in my body’s prison.

Day 39 of #the100dayproject - Matunuck Beach

Matunuck Beach

Any time I walk towards the ocean

I feel the sand buff and

peel away the layers

of my armor. I want to be raw

from the salt in my wounds

taste the grit in my teeth.

When I lay myself down onto

the beach, my body is a letter

written to the ocean, tucked away

into an envelope of sand,

stamped by a beach towel,

addressed to the tide, sea foam

and conical shells that house

a body of a creature, not unlike myself.

Day 38 of #the100dayproject - Road Work

Road Work

They ripped up the road, but the road was still good.

A long crack had formed a fissure where small tufts

Of grass rooted themselves between the asphalt.

The steel grates, rusted well, held up to every foot,

Tire and storm. The water drains painted sky blue,

The paint peeled and chipping. It grew cracks,

Just like my eyes started to show lines like start bursts.

A sign of experience, the middling age, hints of pain

And gray come subtle, but can still be hidden

as if old age can be tucked away, dyed, stuffed

in a drawer, forgotten until an earthquake sections

a road like how a surgeon cracks open a sternum.

It’s better to bare a white flag of surrender,

Relieve ourselves of our weapons and useless armor.

Day 37 of #the100dayproject - Spring

Spring

The diaphanous lives of plant

and tree, their desires,

their pleasures, mysteries.

Rose, lilac, magnolia, cherry;

they mingle with one another

their cocktails of pollen,

fibers and molecules of sex,

genitalia and fragrance.

Of course it’s all a dance,

a language; the wind

a carriage to give them

speech. Attempt

to reach out, touch

one another, entangle

their branches and bodies

as if they could lift

themselves and be free.

Day 36 of #the100dayproject - Hive

Hive

A paper brown bag stuck in the branches of a tree

                                                                                      Or

Old bark curling off into muslin pearls

                                                                        Maybe

Dead leaves gathered into a bunch, stuck

                             In the intersection of trunk and branch

Instead

The fine walled architecture of a wasp’s nest

                             Blending in with the bark of the tree

The wasp, with its segmented head, drank

                                           From puddles and mud,

Spit its nest into a thin form, paper clay

                             Such craft from its mouth

The entrance to the hive like a gaping hole

                                                            O, surprised

                                                            O, humming

                                                            O, screaming

O, mouth that licks the hole, the buzz, tongue and mandible,

O, chews the meat of the earth, carnivorous

                                                                       

Day 35 of #the100dayproject - A Poetry Reading

For my day 35, I was working on reading three of my poems for a video. I uploaded this as a request from The Heartland Review to share with their poetry community. "Black Hills Gold" won first place of the 2020 Joy Bale Boone Poetry Prize and "Portrait in Gray" was a finalist.

Day 34 of #the100dayproject - Just a Thought

Just a Thought

I want to be forgiven

For the parts of me

That continue to unspool

And fray. I want to be

Forgiven for the raggedness

Of my edges, the imperfections.

Sometimes I want to be

Forgiven for being me.

But I sometimes want

To be the one forgiving;

I’m not the only one

That is on this earth

struggling to find my way.

Day 33 of #the100dayproject - Skykomish

Skykomish

The snowmelt river

Submerged boulders,

Funneled into

The depths of the

River bed. White

Is the color of its

Rage and what

Else can I do

But attempt to ride

Its anger, kayak through

Its emotions,

Move along its surface

Like and oak leaf,

And break through

Its rapid heartbeat,

Deposited in the smooth

Glass of its calm waters.

Day 32 of #the100dayproject - Antiquity

Antiquity

a person thins to a point

where even their bones

move beneath the flesh,

strange animals, dolphins

and monsters under

the ocean of skin until

the person winnows away

and all that is left are

the animals picked clean,

butterfly and fish, beautiful

collections, the museums

hidden within us.

Day 31 of #the100dayproject - Silhouette

Silhouette

a crow lands outside my window,

insect in its beak, swallows and parts

the morning with its caw, caw, caw.

a crow never wants to be a rooster.

a crow is what it is, it never dreams

of anything else. all of our striving

we are hungry for the carrion

of our bodies, to bring us closer

to our untimely death, and the crow

will be there, not to wake us like

a rooster, but to crow as a crow crows,

to warn that worms will bite,

that even the flies will sting.

a crow knows what we taste like

without pecking our bones clean;

we taste like a grub, those cut-worms

that burrow into squash roots then

shed their old body into a new body

leaving the remains mixed in the earth.

a crow knows the smell of us

when we are close to that border,

the in between when we are

no longer a body, but not yet its food,

but when we are moving from human

to ylem, our atoms shifting into

our next phase.

Poetry Prompt Thursdays

I am beginning a new tradition of poetry prompt Thursdays where I will list a poetry prompt for anyone to use and respond to. This is a great way to promote daily writing practice.

Writing even a couple of paragraphs each day can help organize your thoughts and concerns and help you start afresh and focused for the day’s work.

After the prompt, I will write my own response to get the ball rolling and hopefully coax anybody out of their shell.

In regards to your own response, feel free to use any form you wish, whether it be poetry or prose and don’t feel pressured to share your work. I encourage sharing, but everyone has their own comfort level and I respect that. Please keep your response between 0 to 500 words; a little more that 500 is ok.

If you choose to post your response, please remember, this is a judgment free zone. I encourage discussion about each other’s response, but I expect positive support from everyone who comments. No haters, flamers, etc.

Please be respectful of each other.

Writing Time

Write about a place that quieted your soul. A place that made you feel small and made you feel a part of something bigger than yourself.

I decided to write about the time I was in India. I was in my husband’s home town Gwalior and he and his sister took me to the Sikh temple near Gwalior Fort. The sun had set and yet the white marble temple shone like a beacon in the night. A refuge of quiet amid the chaos of Gwalior.

Sikh Temple in Gwalior India. 123rf.com

A line of bronze oil lamps

Flicker obscure
Over red carpet
Leading into the mouth
Of the temple.
Outside the line of light
All is loud and dark.
I reach for you beside me,
But you are not there.
Your dark hand not present
Among the sacred marble.
I turn to you, there behind
The water moat among the shadows.
You stand by the line of empty shoes
Your feet fully clad in the
Day’s toil and grind.
Hands interlaced
Cradle your black hair
Behind your head.
The space between your arms
Sharp triangles of night.
Your eyes search
For answers among
The budding stars
Outside this temple
No longer yours.
Star by star
No wish whispered,
Instead every fiber of you
Reaches for answers to
The whys and hows
Formed on your lips,
But silence shimmers down
Cold as marble below your feet.

Thank you for writing, reading and responding. If you are interested in more prompts or daily writing practice, I also subscribe to the Poets and Writers free and weekly newsletter “The Time is Now.” They send out a weekly email with three writing prompts one poetry, creative nonfiction, and fiction. They also give book recommendations and inspiration.