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Open Write June Day 2 with Margaret Simon – Duplex Poems

Photo by dhiraj jain on Pexels.com

Margaret Simon of New Iberia, Louisiana is our host today at http://www.ethicalela.com for Day 2 of the June Open Write. You can read her full prompt here. Margaret inspires us to write Duplex poems in the style of Jericho Brown, using this process:

A duplex poem is 14 lines, 7 couplets, 9-11 syllables per line. 

The second line from each stanza repeats as a first line for the next stanza. 

The first line is echoed back in the last line. 

My poem is inspired by a daughter’s new puppy, a dappled Dachshund named Jackson (after Jackson Pollock, for his spots). I used the Duplex form and thought of one of his famous paintings entitled Convergence and how his abstract art reminds me of things – – like these catastrophic chicken tacos that have no business being served in a shell that is only going to break and create food art under the first bite. Photo of Jackson below.

Catastrophic Chicken Tacos

catastrophic chicken tacos happen

always at lunch on taco Tuesdays

always at lunch on taco Tuesdays

shells break, insides spill onto the plate

shells break, insides spill on to the plate

revealing shredded lettuce, tomatoes, chicken

revealing shredded lettuce, tomatoes, chicken

all my cheese splatters broken taco art

all my cheese splatters broken taco art

like a Jackson Pollock painting: Convergence

like a Jackson Pollock painting: Convergence

a speckled canvas of confetti’ed food

a speckled canvas of confetti’ed food

catastrophic chicken tacos happen

Welcome to the family, dappled Jackson Pollock dachshund! May you paint the world with smiles and laughter and joy and leave your paw prints on every heart you meet!

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Open Write June Day 1 with Sarah Donovan at www.ethicalela.com in the style of June Jordan

Photo by Susanne Jutzeler, suju-foto on Pexels.com

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

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Mosaic

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

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Going Bananas

Photo by Rachel Claire on Pexels.com

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

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Night Bloom

two summers ago

I bought a

night-blooming

Cereus for

ten dollars

thinking of

Dennis the Menace

getting in the way

of that plant that

blooms every 100

years and wondering

whether I’d be up

late enough to ever

see it bloom or

whether some

distraction would

forever keep me

from seeing it

but this very week

as a friend lost her

husband, this flower

bloomed in the dead

of night

like a smile from

Heaven

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Crisis in the Manhole

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

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Pet Rock

Photo by Peter Du00f6pper on Pexels.com

after she died

this all

become a

pet rock

relationship

a biding

of time

a hermit

in his paper

kennel

speaking

only of

those who

bid their dogs

farewell

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The Edge of Grief

Photo by Mikhail Nilov on Pexels.com

approaching the

edge of grief

alongside a friend

and the blur of the

numbing steals all

sense of time

and place and memory

of sequence of order

of hunger and thirst

of exhaustion in the

energy of fumes

we’d just returned

from lunch Tuesday

when her call came.

I’d missed it, called her

back to learn her

husband had fallen

from his chair at

work and she was

hospital bound.

I let our boss know.

A friend and I

arrived to a

room full of people

we did not know.

And just like that,

a lunch special

slice of pizza and

salad with lemon

water later, the

world is changed

forevermore

just hours

before she

broke down

in the waiting

room with the

declaration

we weren’t finished.