PENS
Look at them!
Spread out on my pushed together
office desk, including a rusty metal table
Scott lugged into his car in Ocean City
with old-fashioned red and black spools
in the mottled grey drawer
from someone's typewriter and Correct-o-Tape
They, too, made mistakes, whomever these
personages were.
If I've got ten working fingers
At least forty pens rest on my desk,
happily, ready at a moment, to spring
into service, the last one I used
was a Bic Ultra Round Stic Grip
grey as a pigeon trimmed in black
and the ink a self-confident black
like Poe's Raven.
At our Writer's Group, I reach
into my back pack for a pen.
My hand comes up empty
Never will I remember
my great idea, words that
remain choked like a cherry in my throat
as the night wears thin.
Look at them!
Spread out on my pushed together
office desk, including a rusty metal table
Scott lugged into his car in Ocean City
with old-fashioned red and black spools
in the mottled grey drawer
from someone's typewriter and Correct-o-Tape
They, too, made mistakes, whomever these
personages were.
If I've got ten working fingers
At least forty pens rest on my desk,
happily, ready at a moment, to spring
into service, the last one I used
was a Bic Ultra Round Stic Grip
grey as a pigeon trimmed in black
and the ink a self-confident black
like Poe's Raven.
At our Writer's Group, I reach
into my back pack for a pen.
My hand comes up empty
Never will I remember
my great idea, words that
remain choked like a cherry in my throat
as the night wears thin.
* * *
This morning I am watching BIRGIT NILSSON, a league of her own.
Watch here.
Listening at 8 in the am, drinking delicious Giant coffee, two cups.
* * *
Last night at Lynn Levin's Poetry Class at the Huntingdon Valley Library, there were five of us - Linda Barrett, her mom Jane, Nadine, and Lynn.
We wrote a couple types of poems.
The Thank You Poem - Reach deep within yourself to write a poem of gratitude... It might even be peppery, painful, and ironic depending on the situation and who is being thanked.
She also handed out books of poetry or prose. She wanted all of them to be taken. I got Sow's Ear with poems by Lynn. She's even gotten her poetry into The New Yorker. That magazine I refused to take.
UNTITLED
Never in my life had I met a man like you,
Your checkered shirt, your dungarees,
your quick smiles.
If only I could hold you.
Never is an empty word. I frightened you
wearing my purple silk dress at Amy's wedding,
and knew you were seeing someone else, a woman
named Deirdre.
Tell me the truth, you bastard, you deceiver,
you holier than Thou, written up in
the newspaper.
And then you had the temerity to die!
I hate you, my Love.
* * *
THANK YOU FOR THE NIGHT
The black sky with its
shadow of clouds
allows me to perceive
the world anew.
Sometimes I get frightened
as if I were a child wondering
when Mommy and Daddy would die.
I put my hand on my soft cheeks
feel my thick eyebrows and
laughing tongue.
Who will I be when I grow up?
Last night at Lynn Levin's Poetry Class at the Huntingdon Valley Library, there were five of us - Linda Barrett, her mom Jane, Nadine, and Lynn.
We wrote a couple types of poems.
The Thank You Poem - Reach deep within yourself to write a poem of gratitude... It might even be peppery, painful, and ironic depending on the situation and who is being thanked.
She also handed out books of poetry or prose. She wanted all of them to be taken. I got Sow's Ear with poems by Lynn. She's even gotten her poetry into The New Yorker. That magazine I refused to take.
UNTITLED
Never in my life had I met a man like you,
Your checkered shirt, your dungarees,
your quick smiles.
If only I could hold you.
Never is an empty word. I frightened you
wearing my purple silk dress at Amy's wedding,
and knew you were seeing someone else, a woman
named Deirdre.
Tell me the truth, you bastard, you deceiver,
you holier than Thou, written up in
the newspaper.
And then you had the temerity to die!
I hate you, my Love.
* * *
THANK YOU FOR THE NIGHT
The black sky with its
shadow of clouds
allows me to perceive
the world anew.
Sometimes I get frightened
as if I were a child wondering
when Mommy and Daddy would die.
I put my hand on my soft cheeks
feel my thick eyebrows and
laughing tongue.
Who will I be when I grow up?
* * *
Lynn mentioned how fearful children are.
* * *
BETRAYAL
I read a mystery novel
but cannot concentrate
Money is my problem
If I were a weeper instead
of a worrier, tears would
soak my sheets
My bank has changed its rules
and I cannot withdraw a cent
in twenty-four hours
I must produce nearly three-
thousand dollars for my
credit card or the usury fees
will stain my heart, my lungs
and the justice side of my brain
Pray for me, if you wish
I try to picture God
Where? Beyond the moon
or the stars.
He lets me not feel his
presence. I am alone
and stumbling in this
unimaginably vast universe
tumbling toward the Black Hole.
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