Patchwork Prose and Verse
Susan Ahlbrand is our host today for the third day of the June Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com, inspiring us to write poems about graduation. You can read her full prompt here. I’ve chosen a nonet, a nine-line syllabic countdown poem.
Graduation Nonet
Teachers all worried about airhorns
beach balls should have been their concern
we learned how to inflate them
under our gowns, then how
to launch them at once
on secret cue
skyward dreams
island
style
For Day 1 of the June Open Write, Dr. Sarah J. Donovan of Stillwater, Oklahoma invites us to write poetry using the mentor poet June Jordan’s poetry. You can read Sarah’s full prompt here.
Now This
these nights
they are
hormonal hot
flash hell ~
flapping bedbirds
fluffing sheets
sleeplessly
in all the heat
and rumble
of the dark
these nightmares
they rage in ~
nocturnal carnage
at the screaming
speed of melatonin
on the yellow
eyes of a
Great Horned
Owl in a
trembling tree hollow
these scarecrows
they lurk now
in apocalyptic meadows
where as children
we found
peaceful slumber
we called
sweet dreams ~
all those sugarplums
that once danced
in our heads
~ now this
a spider built her web in my camp
chair overnight, hoping to catch
something huge, and I can’t help
wondering if it was
my backside she spied
a world record
spider prize
trophy
win
Ollie is upside-down
in the olive chair
chasing rabbits in
his sleep in the quiet
morning whirr of
the fan, coffee
steam rising from
my cup, Boo Radley
curled around my neck
like a fur-fringed coat
on the back of my chair,
Fitz hiding out under
the bed again
while I consider all
the fine porcelain
plates, these
place settings of past
destined to become
somebody’s mosaic
art piece of the
future
when the world
takes on its murky
hue and the heaviness
of the anchor spirals
downward making it
hard to keep my head
above water I wonder
about my age
and whether I’ve
depleted all the
happy chemicals
or whether I
just need to
eat a banana
rarely do I ever
get to see true
hold my beer
moments as I
did last week
we’d just finished
dinner when a
dad waiting for
a table took his
baby on a shoulder
ride through the
parking lot,
stopping over the
grate to pretend
to dump the kid
in the hole
he didn’t dump the
kid, he lost his
air pods ~ the case
fell from his pocket,
one pod from his ear
he took the baby back
to the mama and
returned with a buddy
who set down his
beer and went
in the hole for
the retrieval
the old lady in me
was nervous so
I stood in the road
to warn oncoming
cars that there was
a crisis in the manhole
and just like that
the pods were back
in his ears and their
table was ready
at 4:37 I heard
scrambling of paw
on wood floor
ticky-toe hurried
steps toward
the bedroom door
next the whining,
different from normal
pleas, like someone
stepping full weight
on my Boo Radley
then a return to
the bed, where he
turned in circles
bumping us with
his body to wake
us up, then lay
between our heads
trembling
panting
as if there were
a ghost.
I took them out,
all three,
in the light balmy
mist of the
pitch black
Georgia backwoods
starry skies
thought of the bits
of squirrel tail
over near the tree
line where violent
death hung in the
recent air
we came back
inside, and I turned
off the light to return
to bed.
A flicker after the
switch-off, and I
knew.
Hello, Mom!
every few days
I have the urge
to sell everything
we own and move
into the camper with
two plates, two forks,
and two spoons
and share a knife~
to retire, take to
the highways, see
the changing landscape
of America, pulling
our flatware and
plates from
site to site
no particular place to be
no pressing deadline to meet
then I come to my senses
trying to reckon with the
reality of the silverware
drawer and all those
cabinets.
Visual Vexations
my brother and I
wonder still: were
Mom’s Lewy Body Dementia
confusions visual
distortions or hallucinations?
She saw a little boy in an
orange shirt sitting all alone
at the storefront and worried
about his safety.
We saw a pumpkin.
She saw strange men with
bunches of bananas
under the carport.
We saw family members
building her a wheelchair
ramp with Dewalt power tools.
She heard voices playing
tricks on her. We heard
branches scratching
the shutters in the wind.
Still, we wonder what she
would see now.
Would she know we are
her children, making our
way through this carnival
funhouse with all these
distorting mirrors
of the complex
and the concave,
wondering, too,
what things are?
all this rabbit rabbit
of yesterday to have
good luck all month ~
a maddening superstition
bringing more stress about
the forgetting is bad luck
enough to forego the
continuation
to begin to ask why
we do this to ourselves
why rabbit, rabbit?
Common Threads 