How to find my heart after I’ve disappointed myself
Dig under any oak tree, between its two largest roots.
Dig with just your hands, let the twigs and pebbles harm you,
Dig deeper past large stones, earth worms, cut worms,
potato bugs, ear wigs, the white eggs of fire ants.
Dig past the smaller roots, cut them if they get in the way.
Go further under this heathen loam until you can’t find your breath.
Take a left into your body, download the data for breathing.
Let your sweat drip numbers down into the widening hole.
Take a right into lost, narrow your hands into claws.
Dig further until you become an animal that you don’t find in the wild.
Become an animal grown from a lab of test tubes, beakers, and regret.
Grow scales on your back and broken beer bottles for toenails,
long lost candy wrappers for skin, rusted car parts for hips and femurs.
Dig further and you’ll find me under a membrane of resin and plastic.
Open the skin of my rib cage, root between my computer wire veins
and the audio files of my diaphragm and speech. Under motor oil,
slit open my cardiac sack and you’ll find my heart,
cowering like a mole that’s just surfaced into broad daylight.
Friday, April 30, 2021
Day 29 NaPoWriMo - Paper and Honey
Paper and Honey
Some poets write with ink
others with their blood.
I write with honey
to invite ants to march
through my sentences,
twitch and leave
their footprints
along the page.
I write with honey
to attract
the unnoticed things,
the small ones
no one looks for.
I write with honey
as if it were my finger
guiding your eye to see,
look at the world,
its sweet details.
Some poets write with ink
others with their blood.
I write with honey
to invite ants to march
through my sentences,
twitch and leave
their footprints
along the page.
I write with honey
to attract
the unnoticed things,
the small ones
no one looks for.
I write with honey
as if it were my finger
guiding your eye to see,
look at the world,
its sweet details.
Wednesday, April 28, 2021
Day 28 NaPoWriMo - Disturbia
Disturbia
Can I have another life?
Can I have another wife?
Can I wish for a knife?
Can I wait to make it right?
Can I pause and roll the dice?
Can I count to one, two, thrice?
Should I give her more time?
Or should I sing her to sleep with a nursery rhyme?
Can it be ashes to ashes, dust to dust?
Can I sign her grave in iron and rust?
Can I have another life?
Can I have another wife?
Can I wish for a knife?
Can I wait to make it right?
Can I pause and roll the dice?
Can I count to one, two, thrice?
Should I give her more time?
Or should I sing her to sleep with a nursery rhyme?
Can it be ashes to ashes, dust to dust?
Can I sign her grave in iron and rust?
Tuesday, April 27, 2021
Day 27 NaPoWriMo - Occhiolism
Occhiolism
I am a worm, a flea
a fly on the wall
a mote of dust
floating in a sun beam.
I am a singleton
one brain one body.
I have two eyes,
but I only see
through me.
I can’t walk
in someone
else’s shoes
and I can’t borrow
someone’s body
for a day.
I am me and me, alone.
and that is a sorrow
to only exist as one,
never able to dip
a toe into someone
else’s world,
never to pull back
their curtain, look in,
see.
Day 26 NaPoWriMo - A day in April
A day in April
The whirligigs of wind’s delight twirl,
their fans, jingle, chime and chung night and day.
Flowers push themselves through soil’s tight fist,
sun willows the clouds away blue, blue, blue,
sky like an ocean to set sail on
and the lilacs reveal their purples.
They smell sweeter than lavender, grow tall,
clusters of button sized flowers open
their breath tastes like violets candied in honey.
I will take everything from this spring day,
create a girl with a name made of spring.
She will smell of lilacs when they first open,
her hands will dig into the earth and loam
and find the treasures of bug, root, and stone.
She will make whirligigs to catch the wind
and weave it into her own blue blue sky.
She’ll wear her name like tulips wear petals
with rain and sunlight, she will bloom, bloom.
Sunday, April 25, 2021
Day 25 NaPoWriMo - NaPoWriMo
Today's prompt was to write an "occasional" poem. I chose to write a poem about National Poetry Writing Month!
NaPoWriMo
NaPoWriMo
Crocuses are out, cherry blossoms, tulips,
daffodils, dandelions, and rhododendrons.
April opens its curtain of rain to let the sun
and poetry shine through. Sidewalk chalk
hasn’t washed away and there are words
everywhere in the air, verse and stanzas
clouds and stars. This is the month of poetry
the time of propagation, creation. A time
to gather your words into spring, write them,
read them aloud to invoke the weather to change
and bring on the heat and berries of summer.
daffodils, dandelions, and rhododendrons.
April opens its curtain of rain to let the sun
and poetry shine through. Sidewalk chalk
hasn’t washed away and there are words
everywhere in the air, verse and stanzas
clouds and stars. This is the month of poetry
the time of propagation, creation. A time
to gather your words into spring, write them,
read them aloud to invoke the weather to change
and bring on the heat and berries of summer.
Day 24 NaPoWriMo - Curtain Fox
Curtain Fox
The curtains dig burrows in the sand
And adjoin to other curtains in tunnels.
The curtain’s fabric is prized in the world
with 32 chromosome pairs of exotic.
Curtains live in packs among the window rods.
They are straw-colored with a black hem,
tapered tassels like a dog’s wagging tail.
Curtains explore sand dunes and vast treeless areas
and prey on lizards, skinks, birds, eggs, and tubers.
They have the spine of a vertebrae.
Captive curtains drape themselves over one another
in a mating ritual when windows are open.
Their young are made from the weaving of sand
and air and the beige fur of foxes. Turning fabric
wild and exotic, trapped in the spinning wheel
of breeders, capture and disappearance.
The curtains dig burrows in the sand
And adjoin to other curtains in tunnels.
The curtain’s fabric is prized in the world
with 32 chromosome pairs of exotic.
Curtains live in packs among the window rods.
They are straw-colored with a black hem,
tapered tassels like a dog’s wagging tail.
Curtains explore sand dunes and vast treeless areas
and prey on lizards, skinks, birds, eggs, and tubers.
They have the spine of a vertebrae.
Captive curtains drape themselves over one another
in a mating ritual when windows are open.
Their young are made from the weaving of sand
and air and the beige fur of foxes. Turning fabric
wild and exotic, trapped in the spinning wheel
of breeders, capture and disappearance.
Day 23 NaPoWriMo - Cut in the butter
I followed the Prompt and chose to respond to Ellen Bass's poem "Marriage". This prompt took me on a journey through my immediate morning and the feelings that I was having. I've chosen not to share this poem as it is one that I plan to submit.
Day 22 NaPoWriMo - Himalayan Blackberry
I wrote this poem in my notebook on day 22, but just got around to typing it up.
It was the blackberry that Eve ate,
not the tame apple. She wove her hand,
cut it on the thorns to reach the sun
warmed morsel. She didn’t bite it,
no. With tongue and roof of mouth,
she pressed it, gushing out into a nectar,
filling her mouth with wild revolution.
Purple dribbled out her mouth,
and like an animal, she licked it up
quickly, not to waste a single drop.
She plucked more, each one like
a string on an instrument, music
of her hunger, collecting them
in the palm of her hand. She wanted
to give them to Adam, have him try
their violent flavor, but she ate
every one of them herself.
When all the berries picked,
she found him sleeping under
the shade of a willow tree;
she kissed him. He licked his lips
tasted sweetness and it was enough.
Tuesday, April 20, 2021
Day 21 NaPoWriMo - Filling
Filling
Blood can fill a vial.
Vials can fill a hospital.
Hospitals fill up with sick people.
Sick people fill up the beds.
Full beds and not enough workers to fill their needs.
Workers can fill an emergency room.
An emergency room can fill anyone with dread.
Dread can fill the halls of hospitals with our dead.
Blood can fill a vial.
Vials can fill a hospital.
Hospitals fill up with sick people.
Sick people fill up the beds.
Full beds and not enough workers to fill their needs.
Workers can fill an emergency room.
An emergency room can fill anyone with dread.
Dread can fill the halls of hospitals with our dead.
Day 20 NaPoWriMo - Sijo to Spring
Sijo to Spring
I slipped on my sandals to take the garbage out to the curb.
There, on the stoop, sat a fat bumblebee, powdered in pollen.
It groomed itself with spring, I too wanted a taste of yellow.
I slipped on my sandals to take the garbage out to the curb.
There, on the stoop, sat a fat bumblebee, powdered in pollen.
It groomed itself with spring, I too wanted a taste of yellow.
Day 19 NaPoWriMo - How can I help you today?
How can I help you today?
I dread calling customer service,
dialing through the menu options
taking time out of my day to listen
to a robot tell me all of the selections
that do not fit what I need help with.
A robot that thinks it knows what I need,
a know-it-all robot that is too happy
and tells me that it can’t take me
to an agent until it has more info,
and when I yell at it, it doesn’t react.
Instead, it tells me it didn’t understand,
can you please repeat your service request?
After the third attempt, the phone disconnects
and I never actually talk to a human.
I dread calling customer service,
dialing through the menu options
taking time out of my day to listen
to a robot tell me all of the selections
that do not fit what I need help with.
A robot that thinks it knows what I need,
a know-it-all robot that is too happy
and tells me that it can’t take me
to an agent until it has more info,
and when I yell at it, it doesn’t react.
Instead, it tells me it didn’t understand,
can you please repeat your service request?
After the third attempt, the phone disconnects
and I never actually talk to a human.
Sunday, April 18, 2021
Day 18 NaPoWriMo - Poemfish
I can't believe we're already on day 18 of NaPoWriMo. This month always seems to fly by. It's been a gorgeous week here in the Seattle area, plenty of much needed sun.
For day 18, we had to take a chapter heading from PoemCrazy by and use the heading as a title of our poem. I chose the header Poemfish and ended up writing a poem about Pacific salmon, Coho and Chinook, and their life cycles in the tributaries of the pacific rivers. They're whole survival and lifecycle is poetry.
Poemfish
I can write its mouth to speak and eat
and take a pebble from the river bed
and suck on it like hard candy or place
it in a quiet eddy next to more pebbles
next to the bring orange globes, suns,
like clusters of berries lying deep
in the water, no stems to pluck,
no branch or leaf, just the branch
of the cool river, like clear milk.
The shadows in the globes move,
fins and large eyes, they swim
in their capsules, moving, moving
their strong bodies against a current
of orange. The large fish comes back
with another pebble, then another,
labor after labor, its once bright scales
dull as the gray rocks of the river.
Its fins lined with scars, but like one muscle
it powered against whitewater, jumped
over waterfalls, bashed against the concrete
of every single dam and fish ladder,
to finally make it here, in this tributary
of a tributary, to spawn, to build its wall
of pebbles around the roe of its body,
to gather, create, protect, and send
forth downstream as its own body decays,
dies, floats belly up in the gentle current.
Its death feeds the roots of trees and
they open their leaves a little wider
to shade the banks of the river
to give safe passage to the young fish
as they move like rain clouds in the water,
as they move like poetry in the water.
For day 18, we had to take a chapter heading from PoemCrazy by and use the heading as a title of our poem. I chose the header Poemfish and ended up writing a poem about Pacific salmon, Coho and Chinook, and their life cycles in the tributaries of the pacific rivers. They're whole survival and lifecycle is poetry.
Poemfish
I can write its mouth to speak and eat
and take a pebble from the river bed
and suck on it like hard candy or place
it in a quiet eddy next to more pebbles
next to the bring orange globes, suns,
like clusters of berries lying deep
in the water, no stems to pluck,
no branch or leaf, just the branch
of the cool river, like clear milk.
The shadows in the globes move,
fins and large eyes, they swim
in their capsules, moving, moving
their strong bodies against a current
of orange. The large fish comes back
with another pebble, then another,
labor after labor, its once bright scales
dull as the gray rocks of the river.
Its fins lined with scars, but like one muscle
it powered against whitewater, jumped
over waterfalls, bashed against the concrete
of every single dam and fish ladder,
to finally make it here, in this tributary
of a tributary, to spawn, to build its wall
of pebbles around the roe of its body,
to gather, create, protect, and send
forth downstream as its own body decays,
dies, floats belly up in the gentle current.
Its death feeds the roots of trees and
they open their leaves a little wider
to shade the banks of the river
to give safe passage to the young fish
as they move like rain clouds in the water,
as they move like poetry in the water.
Day 17 NaPoWriMo - Lodestone
For Day 17, I followed the NaPoWriMo prompt to write about the moon. Alas, the moon is one of my many inspirations, and I tend to write about it too many times, but I also can't resist. I wrote the poem "Lodestone" in honor of the moon and it turned into a 14 line sonnet. I won't be posting here, but I hope to publish it eventually.
Thanks and happy writing!
Day 16 NaPoWriMo - Memory
Hello all,
I'm not behind in NaPoWriMo. Instead, I've been writing each day and making poems. For Day 16 I wrote a poem to Rattle Magazines monthly ekphrastic prompt and decided not to post here on the blog because I will be submitting it. Currently, it's going through revision processes.
Happy writing!
Thursday, April 15, 2021
Day 15 NaPoWriMo - The Stubborn in Our Mouths
Today's prompt asked us to think about a small habit you picked up from one of your parents, and then to write a piece that explores an early memory of your parent engaged in that habit, before shifting into writing about yourself engaging in the same habit.
The Stubborn in Our Mouths
She sets her jaw, the two parentheses
on the left side of her mouth, open,
facing the same pathway.
She thinks hard and her lips move
to the side, crooked, concentrating.
The passage between her eyebrows
narrows like the Suez Canal.
Nostrils flare as if she were a dragon,
ready to flame the world.
In study, discontent, or anger.
It always starts with her mandible,
the mountain peaks of her teeth grit.
Sometimes there is no anger or thought,
she just stares out the window
watching the rain pour over the gutters
as if her body was not there,
just her soul reaching outward,
escaping the mortal weight of being.
I too hold my feelings crooked in my mouth.
My parentheses like the moon shapes of fingernails,
lips offset as I stare at her staring out the window.
Together our shoulders and bodies
curve and slump like parentheses,
pointing in the same direction.
Both of us cannot face the other,
an endless wound of space between us,
we won’t close ourselves with forgiveness.
The Stubborn in Our Mouths
She sets her jaw, the two parentheses
on the left side of her mouth, open,
facing the same pathway.
She thinks hard and her lips move
to the side, crooked, concentrating.
The passage between her eyebrows
narrows like the Suez Canal.
Nostrils flare as if she were a dragon,
ready to flame the world.
In study, discontent, or anger.
It always starts with her mandible,
the mountain peaks of her teeth grit.
Sometimes there is no anger or thought,
she just stares out the window
watching the rain pour over the gutters
as if her body was not there,
just her soul reaching outward,
escaping the mortal weight of being.
I too hold my feelings crooked in my mouth.
My parentheses like the moon shapes of fingernails,
lips offset as I stare at her staring out the window.
Together our shoulders and bodies
curve and slump like parentheses,
pointing in the same direction.
Both of us cannot face the other,
an endless wound of space between us,
we won’t close ourselves with forgiveness.
Tuesday, April 13, 2021
Day 14 NaPoWriMo - Brittany, What’s in a Name?
Today's prompt asks to write a poem that delves into the meaning of my first or last name. I chose to write about my first name Brittany.
Brittany, What’s in a Name?
I am a region, Breton or Briton,
it mattered in the past, but it doesn’t
matter anymore. I am a name and
nothing else, Brit-tah-niy, an ermine,
soft fur, black and white against the sea.
I am a dialect and language, not yet dead.
Tristan and Iseult took a love potion,
inside of me, they sometimes live,
sometimes they die of their own grief
depending on which version you read.
Brittany, What’s in a Name?
I am a region, Breton or Briton,
it mattered in the past, but it doesn’t
matter anymore. I am a name and
nothing else, Brit-tah-niy, an ermine,
soft fur, black and white against the sea.
I am a dialect and language, not yet dead.
Tristan and Iseult took a love potion,
inside of me, they sometimes live,
sometimes they die of their own grief
depending on which version you read.
Brit-tah-niy, in all its variations,
There is only one Brittany in France.
As poetic as that may seem,
the paparazzi still fight for pictures
of Britney, or Britni, or Brittnie.
Nothing matters in a name anymore,
only the camera, lights, and action.
Lovers do not take their poison
and women do not shave their head
without the whole world watching.
There is only one Brittany in France.
As poetic as that may seem,
the paparazzi still fight for pictures
of Britney, or Britni, or Brittnie.
Nothing matters in a name anymore,
only the camera, lights, and action.
Lovers do not take their poison
and women do not shave their head
without the whole world watching.
Day 13 NaPoWriMo - Fields of Tulips Refuse to Stop Blooming
Today's prompt instructed us to write a poem in the form of a news article you wish would come out tomorrow. I wrote about tulips that will not stop blooming. Because we all need a little spring in our life, no matter what season.
Fields of Tulips Refuse to Stop Blooming
The tulips won’t close.
Their petals haven’t fallen
two months after blooming.
They collect dew and sun.
They hold the moon.
Tulips in salmon, lipstick,
velvet, cloud, butter yellows.
Their stems won’t droop,
their leaves won’t brown.
They won’t return to the earth
instead they are open like eyes,
watching the sky for a sign.
We don’t know how long they’ll last,
through the heat of summer
or the chill of autumn.
Through the seasons, their flowers
will hold so much sun and moon light,
they will be pregnant with sky.
The flowers will not die,
we need them in constant prime.
We need them to hold up the earth,
keep the sky from falling around us,
the fires from torching our ignorance.
We need them to keep watch
as the seas rise and threaten to drown us.
We need them to watch
for the next era of our passing,
witness our souls moving upwards.
Our guardians, they will not close, they watch.
Fields of Tulips Refuse to Stop Blooming
The tulips won’t close.
Their petals haven’t fallen
two months after blooming.
They collect dew and sun.
They hold the moon.
Tulips in salmon, lipstick,
velvet, cloud, butter yellows.
Their stems won’t droop,
their leaves won’t brown.
They won’t return to the earth
instead they are open like eyes,
watching the sky for a sign.
We don’t know how long they’ll last,
through the heat of summer
or the chill of autumn.
Through the seasons, their flowers
will hold so much sun and moon light,
they will be pregnant with sky.
The flowers will not die,
we need them in constant prime.
We need them to hold up the earth,
keep the sky from falling around us,
the fires from torching our ignorance.
We need them to keep watch
as the seas rise and threaten to drown us.
We need them to watch
for the next era of our passing,
witness our souls moving upwards.
Our guardians, they will not close, they watch.
Day 12 NaPoWriMo - The Story of Antiope
The Story of Antiope
Zeus arrived on earth in the form of an android,
titanium & recycled plastic, face molded
in the shape of a man. How cold his hands,
his touch like ice. She felt inside of her ice.
& she exiled herself from her kingdom
as her belly grew with his strange twins.
She grew & grew, wandering the countryside
consuming bitumen & berries, hunger
never satiated. She chewed on the asphalt of roads
& the unskinned meat of the deer.
She ate the world, natural & manmade.
She stripped plastic chords of wires,
ate them like strings of licorice or noodles.
She collected grocery bags caught
in the branches of trees. She fished in the rivers
for salmon, fishing line, & bottle caps.
She could feel her twins, metal & plastic,
resinous & moving, sharp elbows &
titanium toes. Made of the materials of Zeus
& the within the body of her time.
They tapped inside as if she were a ripe watermelon.
& so, Antiope found an abandoned car lot,
& labored into the early morning pushing out
the amalgamates of her children, their newborn
bodies like so many small parts of a machine.
She took a wrench to them & put them together,
Her hands making form & shape, mold & tool.
& when the last screw & nut was placed,
they screamed aluminum, tinny & sharp.
From one of her breasts leaked amber gasoline,
& from the other, tar oozed. Her children
ravenous, latched & drank her. Oil on their lips,
she looked down at them, her manmade creations,
gods & monsters, product of her hunger.
Zeus arrived on earth in the form of an android,
titanium & recycled plastic, face molded
in the shape of a man. How cold his hands,
his touch like ice. She felt inside of her ice.
& she exiled herself from her kingdom
as her belly grew with his strange twins.
She grew & grew, wandering the countryside
consuming bitumen & berries, hunger
never satiated. She chewed on the asphalt of roads
& the unskinned meat of the deer.
She ate the world, natural & manmade.
She stripped plastic chords of wires,
ate them like strings of licorice or noodles.
She collected grocery bags caught
in the branches of trees. She fished in the rivers
for salmon, fishing line, & bottle caps.
She could feel her twins, metal & plastic,
resinous & moving, sharp elbows &
titanium toes. Made of the materials of Zeus
& the within the body of her time.
They tapped inside as if she were a ripe watermelon.
& so, Antiope found an abandoned car lot,
& labored into the early morning pushing out
the amalgamates of her children, their newborn
bodies like so many small parts of a machine.
She took a wrench to them & put them together,
Her hands making form & shape, mold & tool.
& when the last screw & nut was placed,
they screamed aluminum, tinny & sharp.
From one of her breasts leaked amber gasoline,
& from the other, tar oozed. Her children
ravenous, latched & drank her. Oil on their lips,
she looked down at them, her manmade creations,
gods & monsters, product of her hunger.
Sunday, April 11, 2021
Day 11 NaPoWriMo - Epistolary
Emily,
The wind blows like a tapestry through the power lines; they crackle like a blanket with static and I am without direction. I sit on a rock contemplating time, the commodity I have so less of and soon will have none. If I spend my life giving to others, I will diminish like a chord, fraying. I will be undone, unwoven.
What advice can you give me except to live? Stop living in a
future that is not here. I can only give it a voice here with you on these
pages and hope that you have some words, poetry or not, that can bring me to
the present and braid me back into place, maybe a chord looser than before, but
in some semblance of order and balance.
I hope you are well and are finding peace and contemplation
among your things.
With Love & Poetry,
Britt M.
Britt,
I cannot say the future nor divine it with cards, tarot,
dice, or tea leaves. The wind blows here as well, but it blows past daffodil petals,
crocus, and cherry. Spring did not want to come, but it came. Slow, dragging its
feet. I think of you as the spring. You are so in love with the dark and the cold
of winter, that you must be coaxed out of your cave, reassured again and again.
When spring finally arrives, slow and hesitant, you never understand why you
resisted at all in the first place. Especially when you feel the sun on your
face.
I am not one to change, nor are you. All poets, I fear, are
always trying to stop time, close our hands around it, make it small, so we can
have some certainty. And yet, poetry feeds on change and the state of ambiguity,
poetry rests within and outside of time.
Our grappling and struggles, our fruitless endeavors, make
poetry poetry. Whatever the future brings, whatever events and changes, they
will make great poetry. And in that, rest assured, that is the giving you must
give yourself, when you feel you have given all yourself away. You are a well, deeper
than you think. There are many buckets that can be taken, but the rain always will
come to fill you up again.
I have my own fears and insecurities. My own lonely treading
heart. I envy you, your family, your adventures, the noise of children. Life is
simpler than we let ourselves believe. Poetry helps me see this, and I know
poetry does the same for you.
With Love & Poetry,
Emily D.
Saturday, April 10, 2021
Day 10 NaPoWriMo - Your Bag of Wonders
I followed the prompt today and used Gnossienne No. 1 by Eric Satie for my song and riffled through my parents junk drawer which made me think, what if my body is a junk drawer, containing so many pieces that must be put together, to be riffled through and upended. Am I an endless bag of useful things or do I need any use, just that I'm there in all of my pieces wandering through time and space? The poem ended up into the shape of a sonnet...
Your Bag of Wonders
The smell of rain settling dust into ozone,
bringing the air down into the earth to mingle.
The hyacinths opening their pink and blue towers.
You, your scent of jasmine, climbing through your hair
like a green vine with star shaped flowers.
I lay with you in our tent and I wander with you,
always. You have the pieces of my mouth, my ear,
my breast, rib and the butterfly wings of my hips.
You collect them like you collect my scent,
sweat and citrus, the smell of cut limes and lemons,
You hold my brightest parts and keep them
in your bag of wonders and adventures.
The smell of rain settling dust into ozone,
bringing the air down into the earth to mingle.
The hyacinths opening their pink and blue towers.
You, your scent of jasmine, climbing through your hair
like a green vine with star shaped flowers.
I lay with you in our tent and I wander with you,
always. You have the pieces of my mouth, my ear,
my breast, rib and the butterfly wings of my hips.
You collect them like you collect my scent,
sweat and citrus, the smell of cut limes and lemons,
You hold my brightest parts and keep them
in your bag of wonders and adventures.
And, I must confess, I never wish to be completed.
Please do not finish me.
Friday, April 9, 2021
Day 9 NaPoWriMo - Preparing the poison apple
Preparing the poison apple
1. Pick up the elm sticks.
2. Find the apple.
3. Buy a copper pot.
4. Weave the white string.
5. Tap the side of the pot.
6.Circle around the pot three times counter clockwise
7. Fill pot with water.
8. Put sticks inside of copper pot.
9. Tie string to apple stem.
10. Dip apple in pot.
11. Leave in for three breaths. Remove.
12. Give apple to a young woman
13. Watch.
14. Wait.
1. Pick up the elm sticks.
2. Find the apple.
3. Buy a copper pot.
4. Weave the white string.
5. Tap the side of the pot.
6.Circle around the pot three times counter clockwise
7. Fill pot with water.
8. Put sticks inside of copper pot.
9. Tie string to apple stem.
10. Dip apple in pot.
11. Leave in for three breaths. Remove.
12. Give apple to a young woman
13. Watch.
14. Wait.
Wednesday, April 7, 2021
Day 8 NaPoWriMo - Laura
Laura
The Stellar’s jays came to me every summer
and I listened to them each year.
I maneuvered through and around
my many pots of gardenias and daphnes
to reach the bird feeder. I fed them well.
Their breasts plump and royal blue.
Their tassels on their heads like hats.
Similar to the one I wore at our wedding.
I had our pictures in the back room,
but when I looked at them, I saw
The Gerald I remember is the one
with his hair falling out, wearing
the wool hat with the black tassels.
Every night, I listened to him rasp
trying to remember everything he could.
When he got tired, he would hum notes
of a Sousa march before he fell asleep.
The Stellar’s jays came to me every summer
and I listened to them each year.
I maneuvered through and around
my many pots of gardenias and daphnes
to reach the bird feeder. I fed them well.
Their breasts plump and royal blue.
Their tassels on their heads like hats.
Similar to the one I wore at our wedding.
I had our pictures in the back room,
but when I looked at them, I saw
two strangers in black and white.
Gerald didn’t look like Gerald.
The Gerald I remember is the one
with his hair falling out, wearing
the wool hat with the black tassels.
Every night, I listened to him rasp
trying to remember everything he could.
When he got tired, he would hum notes
of a Sousa march before he fell asleep.
And I would always wake before him
to the sound of the Stellar’s jays
scratching at the earth, fluttering their wings.
to the sound of the Stellar’s jays
scratching at the earth, fluttering their wings.
When I fed them, I swear they sang louder,
but no matter what, they always flew away.
Day 7 NaPoWriMo - A Shadorma and Fib
Shadorma
Traffic lights
Reflect in the rain
Stretch like stars
On the dark
Concrete streets, green, yellow. Red.
Some stop, some speed up.
Fib
A
Muse
Opens
A white door
And leaves it ajar
For any to waltz in and sing.
Fib 2
I
Have
Been there
On every
Time zone, living through
A redefining of clock work.
Tuesday, April 6, 2021
Day 6 NaPoWriMo - Risks in their Form
I grabbed a few words from the book A God in the House Edited by Ilya Kaminsky and Katherine Towler. The words are “Risks in their form.” I started my poem assuming that would be the title, and I still feel like that title fits the poem, even though I wasn’t trying to keep it.
I see these crocuses, their petals
like the streaks of light that make
a star a star, tendrils of yellow
stretched by distance, space, time.
Crocuses are stars at their turning.
The flowers will wilt, petals curling
like the fingers of a paralyzed hand.
Just as every star is in a new phase of dying.
Even when root and bulb are buried white
in the earth, death is there. Stars are not immune.
They find darkness, the black holes they form
a tearing apart, an upending of their form,
similar to the dilated pupils of the dead
widening up like a toothless maw
to swallow all the light in the universe.
Sunday, April 4, 2021
Day 5 NaPoWriMo - Flowering Cherry
I used Robert Frost's "Nothing Gold Can Stay" as my model poem to use each line's first letter and the syllable count.
Never am I winter,
half of me bare branches
half of me deepest roots in frost.
Don’t pity my bark or buds,
they fold in on themselves,
stay tight with my warm trunk.
Spring takes its time to come,
name me first, I blossom.
Saturday, April 3, 2021
Day 3 NaPoWriMo - In Harmony
For day 3, we were tasked to write 100 different words using the "Personal Universal Deck" method by Michael McClure. I found the whole exercise thought provoking. There were words that I love and use everyday and others that took more time to come, but each one was rewarding. After I wrote all 100 words on small slips of paper, I put them in a hat and drew out 8 words. The ones I chose are highlighted below:
In Harmony
Camping in the gulch, I look up and shuffle my hands to my sternum
and beat them against my chest, rhythmic, in time to my heart beat, in time to
my gait. I swim through the music as if it were a river, rapids and roar. I can
hear whitewater drowning my ears in sound just as the echoes in slot canyons
have their own voices, their own stories, bodies of melody, each one with a
mouth, a nose, and eyes. Sometimes moving forward feels like moving through mud
and mush, but music comes through like the silhouettes of hoodoos and arches. They
hum in the night, outlined in starlight, the milky way like whip cream and silence.
It slides away into every horizon and the moon quiets its glow, its soft vibration
like the sound of an ending chord of a song extending out its hand to the dawn.
Friday, April 2, 2021
Poetry is a collaborative effort!
Hello all!
It's day two of NaPoWriMo and I've already written two poems. It's always so great to write with a community of writers. It's inspiring and helps all of us to stay on task and show up for our writing and ourselves.
Writing with others in workshops, virtual or in person, can push us beyond our own boundaries and make us better writers. My own writing has benefited from a friendship with my fellow poet Kathy Szpekman. We have written and critiqued our writing since 2015. My writing never would have made it this far without her. And she is writing this NaPoWriMo on her blog hot coffee and warm laundry.
You can follow her poems and mine this month of April as we both respond and write to the inspiring prompts on the NaPoWriMo website. Join us in our community of writing as we discover more of ourselves and our world.
With love and poetry,
Britt
Day 2 NaPoWriMo - Melancholia
Today's prompt we were tasked to make our own poem similar to Robert Frost's “The Road Not Taken.” This is my story.
I had a sadness that spoke with its own voice.
It ate food, wore clothes, brushed its teeth beside me.
Sometimes it would lift my hand to feed me.
Sometimes it would talk for me. I was relieved
to have someone to do the hard things,
say the hard things. And then my sadness
started doing my job and talking to my friends.
It would take long walks and it would take me for a walk.
It would take me out to eat at restaurants and it would pay.
It would shop for groceries and take my medications and vitamins.
It slept in my bed and it was good.
If I woke from nightmares, my sadness held me.
One day it wanted to take us for a drive east along the river
that winds below the great basalt cliffs. I said yes, of course.
It was a warm 70 degrees, just a couple of clouds.
I sat in the passenger seat as it drove.
It rolled down the windows and with its pale hands,
gripped the maroon steering wheel. The wind blew my hair,
tangled it around my face and neck. The river glittered navy blue
and white like a mirror left out in the sun. Evergreens dotted the shore.
My sadness, wove between the double yellow line
and hugged the solid white so close to the shoulder.
We drove in silence as it began to turn through the tight curves
with sheer drop offs into the valley, a thousand feet below.
I saw the tire touch the gravel of the shoulder. I glanced at my sadness.
It had no face, just blank, and I knew why it had driven me here.
Before it swerved, I grabbed the wheel from it.
I turned a sharp left into a gravel parking lot of an art shop.
My sadness slammed on the brakes. I was breathing hard,
but it didn’t breathe, so calm, so sure, so unafraid.
I cried and cried, slammed the dashboard with my palms.
It sat there like a mannequin, no words to be said.
I touched its shoulder and its skin was like winter.
I touched my own skin and it was warm and dry.
I got out and walked to the driver’s side,
opened the door, “Get out. It’s my time to drive.”
Thursday, April 1, 2021
Day 1 NaPoWriMo - Caterwauling
Caterwauling
In a universe that has no universe,
a planet without planet,
human without human,
blood without blood,
the plants and animals
ate each other talked
over each other shouted
like trumpets over each other;
the planet was LOUD.
But a human that wasn’t human
was a whisper, a breeze
coming through the LOUD trees,
and the bones that were not bones
stayed put in the human spine,
mandible, clavicle, all the icle and ible bones
stayed put, never lifting an arm
or opening a mouth to make noise
never to be noticed, never to shout.
But the birds didn’t like the quiet,
they didn't like the human not human.
They thought human was like a black hole of sound,
the human was like a false wind under their wings,
the human was like falling with no air to catch.
And so they would perch on human’s shoulder
and shout, chirp, chip, chop, spout and spit.
They would hammer their beaks into the trees;
They would pop, tip, top, trumpet, and lumpet
out out out as if their sounds could drown the silence,
but the human absorbed the sound
like shadows blur into night.
Still they would chirp cheep, chip, beep
bop, boop, lip, leep, loop out to the world
that wasn't a world and one LOUD night,
the human grabbed a sparrow by its wing
and threw it to the ground.
All the birds stopped their cacophony and
flapped up into the trees, only the sounds
of their wings shuttering, the trees rustling.
They watched below as the human stood
and scooped up the sparrow.
It wasn't quite dead in a universe
that has no universe and the sparrow
had a soul that had no soul
and the human had no heart to give
the dying bird its breath, heartbeat shallow
tipping tip tipping its way to a death of quiet.
When the sparrow found its final breath,
the other birds saw the bird was like a black hole,
like the absence of wind beneath wings
and they knew the human that wasn't human
was death, the stillness and silence.
Human was the loss of noise, it was darkness,
eyes closed, a complete absence of absence.
In a universe that has no universe,
a planet without planet,
human without human,
blood without blood,
the plants and animals
ate each other talked
over each other shouted
like trumpets over each other;
the planet was LOUD.
But a human that wasn’t human
was a whisper, a breeze
coming through the LOUD trees,
and the bones that were not bones
stayed put in the human spine,
mandible, clavicle, all the icle and ible bones
stayed put, never lifting an arm
or opening a mouth to make noise
never to be noticed, never to shout.
But the birds didn’t like the quiet,
they didn't like the human not human.
They thought human was like a black hole of sound,
the human was like a false wind under their wings,
the human was like falling with no air to catch.
And so they would perch on human’s shoulder
and shout, chirp, chip, chop, spout and spit.
They would hammer their beaks into the trees;
They would pop, tip, top, trumpet, and lumpet
out out out as if their sounds could drown the silence,
but the human absorbed the sound
like shadows blur into night.
Still they would chirp cheep, chip, beep
bop, boop, lip, leep, loop out to the world
that wasn't a world and one LOUD night,
the human grabbed a sparrow by its wing
and threw it to the ground.
All the birds stopped their cacophony and
flapped up into the trees, only the sounds
of their wings shuttering, the trees rustling.
They watched below as the human stood
and scooped up the sparrow.
It wasn't quite dead in a universe
that has no universe and the sparrow
had a soul that had no soul
and the human had no heart to give
the dying bird its breath, heartbeat shallow
tipping tip tipping its way to a death of quiet.
When the sparrow found its final breath,
the other birds saw the bird was like a black hole,
like the absence of wind beneath wings
and they knew the human that wasn't human
was death, the stillness and silence.
Human was the loss of noise, it was darkness,
eyes closed, a complete absence of absence.
Wednesday, March 10, 2021
Day 25 of #the100dayproject
Color in Winter
Red dress, streak of rain,
late winter incantation,
a bare branch maple, silhouette
memory of red, sap, and green.
The cherry blossoms haven’t come.
But there, a woman walking in the grass,
her dress like lipstick red tulips,
each fold of fabric, a petal.
Tulips once drove a country into madness.
In such a dun-colored place,
color can create a hunger for summer,
for the hot sun, respite from the heart of cold.
The woman turns, flourishes her dress,
half gone, it flashes like traffic lights
on wet pavement, stretching
into darkness at midnight.
If only the red could heat the earth,
force the cherries into bloom,
help the crocuses to push up
their spots of color, their docile heads.
Red dress, streak of rain,
late winter incantation,
a bare branch maple, silhouette
memory of red, sap, and green.
The cherry blossoms haven’t come.
But there, a woman walking in the grass,
her dress like lipstick red tulips,
each fold of fabric, a petal.
Tulips once drove a country into madness.
In such a dun-colored place,
color can create a hunger for summer,
for the hot sun, respite from the heart of cold.
The woman turns, flourishes her dress,
half gone, it flashes like traffic lights
on wet pavement, stretching
into darkness at midnight.
If only the red could heat the earth,
force the cherries into bloom,
help the crocuses to push up
their spots of color, their docile heads.
Day 24 of #the100dayproject
The Craft
Writing is a persistent sport.
There is no peak age,
there is no zenith.
Just the day-to-day plodding.
The chair, the pen, the time,
towards an undefined meandering.
Despite the blood and work,
through all the sleepless nights,
there is never a guarantee of words.
Writing is a persistent sport.
There is no peak age,
there is no zenith.
Just the day-to-day plodding.
The chair, the pen, the time,
towards an undefined meandering.
Despite the blood and work,
through all the sleepless nights,
there is never a guarantee of words.
Day 23 of #the100dayproject
I am therefore
I am the paradox
I am the word
The metaphor
The energy within a poem
I am the absent and the obsessed
I am the absence of words
I am the blank space between words
I am also the ink.
I am the pause.
I am the exhale.
I am the inhale.
Day 22 of #the100dayproject
Some thoughts...
The difference between a first draft and a revised draft is passion
and intention. In revision, passion is tempered by intention.
I dreamed that the crown molding had arms reaching, stretching toward another arm. Trying to touch, to make contact. A yearning.
These are the chambers of my mind, wandering through the echoes of memory. Some of the memories are my own, some are not. Some of them are borrowed.
Saturday, March 6, 2021
Day 21 of #the100dayproject
The Boys
The boys used to knock on my window. And I would bask in their
pre-pubescent beauty, dream they would kiss me through the window screen as if
I were Rapunzel. I would let down my hair and follow them through the forest
and eat berries that they handed to me. I would fall under their spell and we
would grab fistfuls of leaves and wear them as clothes, camouflage our growing bodies.
We would play at war and at life. I would sweep the forest floor with branches,
they would bring me their trophies. I would challenge them with my imagination.
We would climb the fir trees and steal cherries from the crows. We said no to
nothing. Always yes yes yes. Until they packed their bags, all the while saying
no no no. I said no no no. And that was the last thing we ever said to each
other.
Monday, February 22, 2021
Day 19 of #the100dayproject - Mirrors
Mirrors
Trees know what we don’t know:
To live fully, they just need to stretch
up to the sun & reach down into bedrock.
Air & anchor, their branches & roots
mirror each other and fan out
like hair on a pillow, extending
towards the sun & the earth’s center;
every inch of growth closer to their temple
is an act of worship, a pilgrimage of living.
Trees know what we don’t know:
To live fully, they just need to stretch
up to the sun & reach down into bedrock.
Air & anchor, their branches & roots
mirror each other and fan out
like hair on a pillow, extending
towards the sun & the earth’s center;
every inch of growth closer to their temple
is an act of worship, a pilgrimage of living.
Sunday, February 21, 2021
Day 18 of #the100dayproject - The last day I wrote poems in a café
The last day I wrote poems in a café
The café was full of people dripping
from the rain outside. I sat at a long table
flanked by many different people
sipping their coffees and eating pastries.
I talked to the woman across from me,
asked her what she was writing on her laptop.
She wrote content for hospitals and the CDC
and she was writing about this new virus.
She was worried about it, but she nor I
knew that this would be the last time
we would sit down in a café to talk or
strike up a conversation with a stranger.
We didn’t know that it would be the last
time we would see other faces without a mask,
or exchange breath as if the air we breathed
wasn’t shared between everyone in the café,
as if our breath was ours and ours alone,
but just like the long table, our coughs, sneezes,
sighs, laughs; everything was communal, collective.
The café was full of people dripping
from the rain outside. I sat at a long table
flanked by many different people
sipping their coffees and eating pastries.
I talked to the woman across from me,
asked her what she was writing on her laptop.
She wrote content for hospitals and the CDC
and she was writing about this new virus.
She was worried about it, but she nor I
knew that this would be the last time
we would sit down in a café to talk or
strike up a conversation with a stranger.
We didn’t know that it would be the last
time we would see other faces without a mask,
or exchange breath as if the air we breathed
wasn’t shared between everyone in the café,
as if our breath was ours and ours alone,
but just like the long table, our coughs, sneezes,
sighs, laughs; everything was communal, collective.
Friday, February 19, 2021
Day 17 of #the100dayproject
Today I have just a quick bit of wisdom...Photo is at Zion Natl Park in Utah and features my husband Ashish.
Thursday, February 18, 2021
Day 16 of #the100dayproject
Hibernation
It is hard to untangle my limbs from yours.
The morning weighs heavier than our comforter
and the sun is not the sun, but a diffused gray
like fluorescents flickering through shuttered blinds.
I do not want to move, but I move, my feet touch
the floor in a shuffle of warm skin on cold hardwood.
I am always the first up and the heat must be turned on,
the coffee made, the toilet flushed, the naked body
weighed on the scale. I am too much of myself.
I will not relent, but I want to crawl back into bed
and only weigh the same as the air between cover
and sheet, slip my feet beneath the mass of down,
hide my head until like a fever, the clouds break,
until winter breaks, until the world is worthy
of my presence and the sun shines through the window
perspiring my forehead and the slope of my upper lip.
It is hard to untangle my limbs from yours.
The morning weighs heavier than our comforter
and the sun is not the sun, but a diffused gray
like fluorescents flickering through shuttered blinds.
I do not want to move, but I move, my feet touch
the floor in a shuffle of warm skin on cold hardwood.
I am always the first up and the heat must be turned on,
the coffee made, the toilet flushed, the naked body
weighed on the scale. I am too much of myself.
I will not relent, but I want to crawl back into bed
and only weigh the same as the air between cover
and sheet, slip my feet beneath the mass of down,
hide my head until like a fever, the clouds break,
until winter breaks, until the world is worthy
of my presence and the sun shines through the window
perspiring my forehead and the slope of my upper lip.
Wednesday, February 17, 2021
Day 15 of #the100dayproject
Mirrors II
All mirrors are charades, deceptions,
it can show you what you are, a body,
but itself shows a body without volume
a body that doesn’t take up space.
Wafer like or like a waif, my mirror-self
a malnourished doppelganger, a shadow,
never a whole. And I wonder sometimes
how much envy my second self holds
always the mirror, but never the mirrored.
All mirrors are charades, deceptions,
it can show you what you are, a body,
but itself shows a body without volume
a body that doesn’t take up space.
Wafer like or like a waif, my mirror-self
a malnourished doppelganger, a shadow,
never a whole. And I wonder sometimes
how much envy my second self holds
always the mirror, but never the mirrored.
Day 14 of #the100dayproject
Mirrors I
My old house came with an art deco mirror;
spotted with age, losing its silver backing.
It leaned elegantly against the basement
wall, elegant and fragile like a snowflake
that could melt or if cold enough, keep shape.
Each time I descended into the basement,
I would look like a ghost had inherited my body.
My eyes were not mine, my mouth thin,
and my hair flowing as if I held a static charge.
My old house came with an art deco mirror;
spotted with age, losing its silver backing.
It leaned elegantly against the basement
wall, elegant and fragile like a snowflake
that could melt or if cold enough, keep shape.
Each time I descended into the basement,
I would look like a ghost had inherited my body.
My eyes were not mine, my mouth thin,
and my hair flowing as if I held a static charge.
Tuesday, February 16, 2021
Day 13 of #the100dayproject2021
Body Parts II
Having hands is to have purpose
to do, make, destroy, take, give.
Each point of a finger, each flick
or pop of a knuckle. Every hand
contains a universe of skin, bone,
muscle. Bone moves like piano keys
trying to breach the surface of skin.
These fingers like hammers, pens,
spoons, wrenches. All of them dancers
who have rehearsed and rehearsed
and finally ready for the show.
to do, make, destroy, take, give.
Each point of a finger, each flick
or pop of a knuckle. Every hand
contains a universe of skin, bone,
muscle. Bone moves like piano keys
trying to breach the surface of skin.
These fingers like hammers, pens,
spoons, wrenches. All of them dancers
who have rehearsed and rehearsed
and finally ready for the show.
Day 12 of #the100dayproject
Body Parts
My feet, how forgotten they are,
those joints and strange bones.
Crustacean like, born in a paleo-
lithic era, no mouth, eye, nose, or ear;
just creatures carrying all that weight,
like Atlas holding Earth on his shoulders.
My feet, how forgotten they are,
those joints and strange bones.
Crustacean like, born in a paleo-
lithic era, no mouth, eye, nose, or ear;
just creatures carrying all that weight,
like Atlas holding Earth on his shoulders.
Monday, February 15, 2021
Day 11 of #the100dayproject
Grit
I carried three gallons of water
On my back, descending
Into the cradle of Coyote Gulch,
And I carried my blood, sweat,
& tears out, climbed up red sand dunes.
I walked until my feet blistered
& bled, until I thought my body
could not take any more pain.
I kept walking, still I moved.
Night closed around me.
I walked through the desert,
The stars opening the sky
Into a charred lace.
I was not afraid,
I was sure.
I could not leave this earth
without sharing the sacred,
my pilgrimage through
our planet’s temple.
I carried three gallons of water
On my back, descending
Into the cradle of Coyote Gulch,
And I carried my blood, sweat,
& tears out, climbed up red sand dunes.
I walked until my feet blistered
& bled, until I thought my body
could not take any more pain.
I kept walking, still I moved.
Night closed around me.
I walked through the desert,
The stars opening the sky
Into a charred lace.
I was not afraid,
I was sure.
I could not leave this earth
without sharing the sacred,
my pilgrimage through
our planet’s temple.
Day 10 of #the100dayproject
Landscapes of the Body
I’ve been to dressing rooms,
tried on bras, dresses, pants,
& blouses. Each article of clothing
like trying on a different self:
Who I could be, what I would be.
If only I could fit this body
into a new self.
I’ve been to dressing rooms,
tried on bras, dresses, pants,
& blouses. Each article of clothing
like trying on a different self:
Who I could be, what I would be.
If only I could fit this body
into a new self.
Sunday, February 14, 2021
Day 9 of #the100dayproject
Late night walk
I walk through the snow
and sit down on a bench,
watch the snowflakes
illuminated by street lamps,
falling like feathers
tossed from a pillow.
and sit down on a bench,
watch the snowflakes
illuminated by street lamps,
falling like feathers
tossed from a pillow.
Day 8 of #the100dayproject
Winter
Snowflakes fall on the city;
powerlines, buildings, cars
and roads paved white, smooth.
Beautiful. And the homeless are cold.
The homeless have nowhere to go.
Monday, February 8, 2021
Day 8 & 9 on hold
Hey all,
I have not been well and will be catching up when I feel better!
With love,
Britt
Saturday, February 6, 2021
Day 7 of #the100dayproject
ingesting the fragments of creatures
I eat flies everyday,
milk and black, their wings
a textured cereal, their legs
the bran, whole wheat.
From my tongue, I can tell
where they lay their young,
where they fly from one
rat infested gutter
to the garbage heaped
outside the front gate.
I guard my mouth
as I guard my body,
but thousands of legs
and wings ingested,
a war field of body parts
shimmering in bags
of rice and flour,
the many eye balls
of sweltering insects.
No matter how hard
I try, I eat the world
and the debris
of its creatures;
I lick my lips, wash
their brine and death
down with wine.
Friday, February 5, 2021
Wednesday, February 3, 2021
Day 4 of #the100dayproject
To Debate a Memory
I was in the field, then I wasn’t in the field
I was in the moss, under the cedar, but
It wasn’t a cedar, but a redwood and
I wasn’t wearing mary-janes, but always
In my mind, I’m wearing mary-janes.
I probably was barefoot, but I cannot
Say for sure. I was there, my skin pale
Against the wet green of the trees,
I was there, but maybe I wasn’t.
Maybe it was a dream, multifaceted.
Reoccurring, maybe I walked there, but
I was naked and it was not daylight
Maybe there was the moon silvering
The dew on the grass blades.
I know I was me, I know I had a body
But I do not know my age, I look back
And my body is like water, flowing
Changing, I am never the same,
And the me that was in the field,
Or in the moss, was that me or
Was that another version of me?
Maybe all this time I am someone
But not myself, only in the present
I am me, but in the past, the person
That was me is not me, only pieces
Of a body and a mind that if put together
Might look like me, but isn’t really me.
I was in the field, then I wasn’t in the field
I was in the moss, under the cedar, but
It wasn’t a cedar, but a redwood and
I wasn’t wearing mary-janes, but always
In my mind, I’m wearing mary-janes.
I probably was barefoot, but I cannot
Say for sure. I was there, my skin pale
Against the wet green of the trees,
I was there, but maybe I wasn’t.
Maybe it was a dream, multifaceted.
Reoccurring, maybe I walked there, but
I was naked and it was not daylight
Maybe there was the moon silvering
The dew on the grass blades.
I know I was me, I know I had a body
But I do not know my age, I look back
And my body is like water, flowing
Changing, I am never the same,
And the me that was in the field,
Or in the moss, was that me or
Was that another version of me?
Maybe all this time I am someone
But not myself, only in the present
I am me, but in the past, the person
That was me is not me, only pieces
Of a body and a mind that if put together
Might look like me, but isn’t really me.
Tuesday, February 2, 2021
Day 3 of #the100dayproject
Rose City
All those years of awe for the city, my city.
Walking down the park blocks,
I watched protesters setting camp in the grass
under the cedars heavy with rain.
Occupy Wallstreet in the Pacific Northwest.
I would take the tram into the Pearl to find
abandoned warehouses turned into shoppes
and five-star bars and restaurants.
The bookstore on Burnside
still rough on the outside, but inside
color and gloss to appeal to Raleigh Hill clientele.
I was a college girl who stopped at the smoke shop
and leafed through the lit mags smelling of tobacco.
I could never afford to buy any of them.
Now that I’m back, the store smells more like e-cigarettes
than cigars, its windows broken by the riots,
boarded up by rain-soaked plywood.
I used to think anything was possible.
I used to find inspiration in the rain
and in the graffiti on the brick buildings.
But now I realize ‘possible’ is anywhere I am; possible is in me.
When I left those years ago, I found what I was capable of.
I found myself to worship, day after day I built myself from the ground up.
Nothing in life is easy, but when I visit an old place
I look back at who I was and who I am,
and I’ve found that I’m always the sum of both parts.
Day 2 of the #the100dayproject
The Riff
Here I lay in my bed
Heart beating out of my chest,
Pulsing outward so deep
That I friction the air
The rain stops,
The clouds part
And a stripe of blue lays
Across the sky like a scarf
Rippling in the wind.
I am not of the kind
To change. I would dig
My heels into the ground
Fight with bloody knuckles
And skinned knees. But every
Raw hurt is a wound to heel
And new skin to grow
Over the old. No matter
How much I fight,
My body always finds
A way to fill in all this blank space.
Monday, February 1, 2021
Thursday, January 14, 2021
#the100dayproject 2021
Dear Reader,
I will be participating in #the100dayproject for 2021. I participated in 2019 and ended up writing all 100 days. In 2020, I reached to day 80. This year, my goal is to reach 100 days. The project begins on 1/31 and will go through the beginning of May, overlapping with National Poetry Month. I hope you can join me in this project and challenge. Whether you are an artist or writer, you can use the project as a means to meet your artistic goals. I will be writing a poem a day with small breaks of doing revisions and other writing activities to keep creativity flowing.
I look forward to writing this year more than ever as there are many changes afoot and the 100 day project will be a great way to reflect on all of these changes.
I wish you all health and happiness in this year!
With love,
Britt
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