Confessions of a Poetry Blogger

Would one be more prone to stumble upon and stay with my blog if it was less poetry and more prose? On the rare occasion that I have mentioned that I ramble around inside the forest of what are limitless blog panes of nostalgia and blog house decorating tips, blog news of romance and exits from blog homes to new url addresses put to the screen like fine needlepoint, and someone says to me, oh you post poems?, I have to pause.

Still I am encouraged that among the fierce holdouts, women I know who swallow novels whole like savoring the last important paragraphs against the end of the world, even these smart ones are beginning to also dine on poems. I mean let's face it, our insecure midnight diaries penned as girls and the jackknife initialing of picnic tables by brutish almost men, were those torrid entries not haiku? Isn't the graffiti that adorns street signs, Stop War, Speed Hump Me, not a riddle which closely resembles a limerick? And does not a limerick follow a strict meter?

What I'm simply trying to evoke, then, my sole, patient blog follower is that even the step of the stranger in front of you on the lawn of this autumnal day, even that busy pretty head at the stoplight might be singing something softly to himself that closely resembles this open palm of a prose poem that I present to you now as an experiment of sorts sipping double bergamot earl grey in the smock of a undaunted poet who sleeps late into the day so that she might fleece her dreams of metaphor. These are the secret trap doors, the Cheshire cats, the alleyways of prose that share a spliff with the slam artist who sidles up next to your waiter on a break who just wants to drink the last of the chardonnay left by patrons in deep glasses that tastes like, well, dare I say, it, a poem.

Is this easier to enter into then, these blocks of fonts? Come on, don't be shy. Write me a postcard. I have a the perfect line break and a commemorative stamp waiting. I promise to punctuate your paragraphs with Crayola so you spot the sun between the trees. Then I will recall an old diary entry and share that too if it pleases you. Anything to urge you to read between the lines and then go back the actual ones, indented like curved and dotted lines on a road map with no other signposts but their sound.

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Grit and Sunlight

What springs up: insistence in this persistent mother of mine (still breathing) Even busy ashes from a rescued urn float up reconstituted as morning dew She unfolds her tendril arms from shadow (shaking just five days ago as if in temporary surrender) (that moment when I am less certain of her longevity) this woman ever present (anyone’s mother) aging when even the most spindly clover of her fragile skin captures the sunrise light like anticipation’s shower blood underneath all humming bird or spores from her heart and in her mouth inhale (frightened) breath exhale grit inhale (certain) breath exhale grit

Open Mic, Cafe Babar

I remember arriving, not the prettiest but appealing to certain bards in the back room, entering through the Castro Valley corner door, walking the postage stamp sized Cinzano bar curated by a man from Detroit who named his establishment after a certain French elephant in a children’s book I arrive with budding consciousness around politically correct solidarity for disheveled neighbors, entering the cigarette lit night rising to tin siding ceiling to floor thumping insistence Bruce and Joie and David and Laura and John, their ash and sweat accumulating as I waited patiently for my place on the crumpled sign-up sheet Today, three decades later, I sit in a Santa Fe gallery named simply Here, and a poet reads to us of roadrunners and a bear and a continuation of the call for preservation of our environment There is an otherworldly hum outside the window of leaded glass The owner sidles up behind me and pushes the frame down to contain what we came to hear I have applied lipstick

A Matter of Travel

Solstice, 2019, for Tracy 1. And cross borders we do often without leaving our houses. Our bodies dream of gardens. Our hands flutter as feeling exits as we press hard against the solid entry door. I type the names of cities. My search reveals rivers, airfares, temperatures in July. 2. Seeking sleep, I am transported through music piped into tiny earbuds. While on an island my father has two seizures in the night. His ten children fly to one another with cautionary fright, typing. Time zones vary from each cell phone exclamation. Two sisters, you and I, raise questions that barely touch down for others but I witness you. 3. By morning we’re assured was merely fainting, and I reconsider change of plans. No emergency to rush to his quiet side. I walk no farther instead to this table for eggs, an English muffin. Arrive inside my individual conclusions. Concern that happiness, once again, is quickly stymied.

As Mourning Doves Persist

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