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
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
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
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
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.
out by the tree line
of Loblolly pines
fifty feet from our
front door
where the Great
Horned Owl pair
chats across the
pine branches
at 5 a.m.
Ollie and Fitz
stopped in their tracks
to smell the rotting leaves.
They looked like charcoal,
only fuzzy. More like a
squirrel tail torn to shreds.
Or a rabbit.
I had just told my children
about rabbit, rabbit earlier
on the first day of June.
Was this a harbinger of
death for this poor
creature gone except
for its fur?
This farm holds mysteries
that will never yield answers.
It’s been the Johnson
Funny Farm since 1971
when three farmhands
saw a trio of cross-eyed pigs
but it’s not all funny here.
Sometimes there is
a twinge of horror against
all the laughter and tears.
the closest we
ever got to a
rainbow was a
peacock feather
the day the two
went to Noah’s Ark
to look for things
to discover
to wonder about
I didn’t feel like
that kind of mother
who says a prayer
and leaves it in
the lap of Jesus
without worry
I was more
the warrior type
praying everyday
hoping all the
nickels would add
up to be worth a miracle
I knew in the back
of my mind when I
saw the Cheshire Cat
smile
they were getting
ready for an afternoon
wedding when the
husband stepped out
of the shower, kissed
his wife, said
I love you, Blue Eyes
laid down on the
bed and died of
a heart attack
leaving her and
their four sons
grieving
this is why when
my husband came
to my bedside
this morning before
stepping into his
shower and kissed
me I wondered:
should I give him
an aspirin?
should I take one?
in the sluice
of a Skytrack
crush and run
puddle a gold
shimmer reveals
a tooth
then another
and before I
wonder about
whose teeth
I imagine the
last food
chewed with
these gold
capped jewels ~
a steak?
a pork chop?
a can of
Beanie-Weenies?
a worker ambled
past pointing
at the carnage
explaining how
the fight broke
out between
two men over
his cousin’s girl
(the cheater)
and though I
did not know
who grew
these teeth
I wondered
about the
places
they’d been
before landing
in the puddled
heap all
sparkly like a
sequined dress
never to be
worn again
Common Threads 