Poetry Gong - Poem 30

After Hosing the Last of the Dead Rabbit From the End of Her Driveway, June Cleaver Writes God a Letter


Here’s what I think—
you created reflection
for your own amusement.
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This should be a happy occassion: the last poem of poetry gong. 30 poems in 30 days! But, it is with sadness that I post this last poem. I have really enjoyed the discipline of the gong. And the surprises of what poems may arise when I force myself to sit down and write--no matter what.

My plan is to continue a 5 day gong. Or maybe...60? Nah! Hmmm................

Poetry Gong - Poem 29

Without My Glasses

The supermodel fallen to the floor
on the All Things Glamorous
sampler card looks like Jesus.
I wonder whose funeral
I have been to recently.

My mother keeps mass cards
in her bible. Tiny prayers bearing
dead people's names, dates on earth.
Even though she is a Methodist,
the Catholic cards fall to the floor--
death will speak to anyone--
each time she opens the book.

The blond bombshell has no name
scrawled on her four-by-six,
just her label, Mary Kay, wound
through her wind-blown hair.
When she dies, some near-sighted
everywoman will remember her elegance,
say a prayer for her gold sequined gloss,
losing its luster in the papery folds.


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Here's Something You Might Not Know About The King

Elvis loves Santana. That Latin guitar. That soul sacrifice, each time the Spanish man lays hands on his Brazilian rosewood. Like glass. Timbalas. Congas. Words to roll on the floor with, to roll in your mouth and tremble with. Two sides to each of us. In each of us, a king. Steel drum, sex between the bass beats king. Knitting wool underwear with Jesus king. It doesn’t matter what side of the bed. Just that you sleep. Just that you wake.

(a prose poem I am not sure of...)

Poetry Gong - Poem 28

What Are You Afraid Of?


Socks with no mates
Belts that uncoil like snakes
Hats with strands of hair hanging inside
Underwear on the sidewalk
Wet sidewalks on otherwise dry days
Days that end before the sun goes down
Going down dark stairs
Staring for too long--
making a deal with your eyes for them to move
Moving too fast
Moving too slow
Never moving
Treading water in a bed of milfoil
Losing your socks in bed
Socks with no mates, rising up
walking down the aisle
together.

Poetry Gong - Poem 27

Miss Manners Cannot Think of a More Succinct Definition of a Lady Than “Someone Who Wants To Punch Another Person in the Nose, But Doesn’t,” or: Taking Your Clothes Off While Hanging Laundry Will Not Get You Invited to the Neighborhood Party - A Found Poem From Miss Manners' Guide to Rearing Perfect Children


Consider instead, the likely results
of your acting like a lady.
You see her in the neighborhood
you give her a friendly wave.
See how easy it is.
You have made her feel terrible
and remorseful—and all by behaving
like a perfect lady.

Now Miss Manners asks you
to listen to a small lecture on the rights
and obligations of friendship.
Even the closest of married couples
have social engagements
in which they see people separately—
one cannot always have the same guest list,
and your friend cannot be expected
to hire another house
to spare your feelings. A lady finds
as she sails through life,
that she can spare herself
a great deal of anguish by not taking
notice of unpleasant occurrences
that were not
intended for her notice.

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I know it's a terribly long title. I kind of like it.

Poetry Gong - Poem 26

Sometimes, Nothing At All Happens


Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.” Isaiah 55.1-2.

Jesus delivered the milk today.
I was expecting the mailman,
tromping through the fallen

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Alternative title:

June Cleaver Considers an Affair, Decides, Instead, to Whip Up a Devil's Food Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting

Alternative endings: Must be written...

A question: The first three lines each have a "the" I could take out the fallen, and leave it as "fallen leaves" but I like the idea of "the fallen" as in us, the people Jesus is supposed to save. What to do?

Poetry Gong - Poem 25

Origin of the Marriage (The Origin of Marriage) *Someone help me pick a title!

(After Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s Origin of the Mango)

Of course my parents have never agreed.

Poetry Gong - Poem 24

Let’s Be Blood Sisters


No sweeter words
will ever pour
from the porcelain cup
of third grades’ most popular girl.
In her perfectly pleated plaid pants
and J.C. Penney sweater vest
she is a tea party with tiny cakes,
the slight hole in the piñata,
the first lick
up the cold side
of an Eskimo pie.

You have no fear
of knives,
..........(Friends for life.)
scissors,
..........(Just you and me.)
needles
or pins.
..........(Our secret club.)
You do not cry
..........(Do you want to?)
when you scrape your knee,
when the bike skids
out from under you,
when the swing kicks
you flat on your back.
..........(Yes or no?)

You’d never be caught
dead in a plaid skirt.
Your sweaters wrap
round you like a blanket,
hang past your knobby wrists.
You can’t remember today
if she spoke your name yesterday.
Has she ever breathed
your whole name through
lips thin as spun sugar?

You love the pouch of her cheeks
the gaze of her too-wide eyes
more than the sting of hot lunch
alone at the empty lunch table,
more than the weight of
a whisper on your flaming ears.

There is blood enough for everyone,
pour yours in a tea cup,
toast your good fortune.

Poetry Gong - Poem 23

What Will You Be Wearing While the World Around You Grows Old
- After Winter Trees Cough Like Old Men by Eugenio Montejo


Birch trees in late fall are naked
like pale old women in bathing suits
sunning on a canvas covered dock.

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I know I was supposed to type up my pantoum from yesterday, but the purpose of this particular gong is to write a NEW poem every day, so I had to write something new!

I turned to Poetry Daily, read the daily poem, and this poem came to me!

Poetry Gong - Poem 22

My Son Considers a Fallen Tree

I wrote this poem today. With my Poetry Gong partner, Carolee, on our weekly/semi-weekly writing date. Stay tuned for the next (read without a magnifying glass) version!

Halloween Haiku: Poetry Gong 20

Zen in loud darkness
filling an empty pumpkin
with stranger’s candy.

Standing on the stoop
quick glimpse into stranger’s lives
smell their dryer sheets.

It is not chocolate
not the pleasure of disguise
door-to-door is treat.

Pray for lone pumpkins
run through chill autumn shadows
be open to ghosts.

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It's all I've got. Well, four haiku and a chocolate high. I'm trick-or-treated out! Happy Halloween!

Poetry Gong - Poem 19: A Found Poem

June Cleaver Explains Sex to a Group of Future Homemakers: A Found Poem from Adventures in Good Cooking and the Art of Carving in the Home


An empty stomach is not conducive to beauty.


When long, slow cooking
is required
it is often
best to use a double

boiler. The dishes
most popular are not those complicated
with a vast number
of ingredients. Instead, those remembered
with pleasure and desired
often are the simple,
easily prepared
recipes. Put solid

fresh whole
tomatoes
in boiling water for just a minute—
then into cold
water to have them
peel easily—then
chill
in refrigerator.

Poetry Gong - Poem 18

Halloween Costume


Days later I am still at her thighs
black satin
ragged edges
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Another one of those nights wherein I fell asleep after reading with my son, then stumbled to the computer, vowing to just find a half-poem already written, one I could post to keep the gong going. But my new-found poet heart wouldn't let me.

I chose a poem at random to read for inspiration (Elizabeth Spires, "Nightgown"), then began to imagine what would happen if a Halloween costume turned evil.

Note to self: the last two stanzas need work.

Poetry Gong - Poem 17

Still Life: Umbrella Blown Inside Out

At night, the Perfect Rain becomes Rain that Lets the Farmer Sleep Deeply, knowing that the good work is done, and that tomorrow brings rest because the fields will be drinking deeply.
..............................- - - Chris Blanchard, Rock Spring Farm, Iowa


The wind whistles through chinks
in our armor. Not one of us can carry

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Every once in a while a poem arrives with no return address, no note from weary relatives saying, "Please take this poem in and give it a home," no luggage, no name tag. Nothing. It just shows up. And I guess it is to me to make sense of it.

Number 16: Scary Poetry Gong

The House Begs to Speak


Soffits grant permission,
gutters open the floor
pitched roof provides a platform.

Draped in black towels
days after Halloween
the children tumble
from heaving orange pumpkins
treats and wrappers caught
in their teeth, a low crackle
creeping between stained lips.

An empty apron slides
out the open front door
boney skeleton close behind.

Broom handle pokes,
prods words refusing to stand
at attention. No crowd
gathers under the chimney’s
panicked smoke. Neighbors
char dinner in backyards
knee-deep in soft root
vegetables and dripping leaves.

Glinting silver spatula curled
in long-stemmed hand—
a wicked knuckle microphone
shoved through cob-webbed window--
when will someone speak?
Bats hang right-side up
in anticipation. Witches
dressed as church-ladies
drop from the sky.
Snow begins to fall.

If the mailman leaves
a match, flames will lick
our faces, draw our tongues
out in the haunted open.

A Sad Poem to Match the Weather: Poetry Gong #14

Some of Us Are Lucky Enough to Fly


I thought of birds and
their luck, how they rise…
- Karen Chase

When you said I was sad
I didn’t speak. The voice
I had been using all these years
had flown
out of the room.

Behind the feathers
I was a bird.
You didn’t see
because you were speaking
setting down in syllables
that which I know
that which I see
that which has eluded
me all along.

The sad girl is flying
now, winged, not free
enough to build a nest
but catching enough air
to call out.

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I could write more, but really, I hate sad poems. Maybe after the gong, I will revisit this. Think more about birds, becoming a bird, flying like a bird, dreaming of flying, growing feathers, replacing my heavy bones with tiny, hollow bones, choosing what kind of bird I want to be, researching what type of birds do not mate for life.

Lucky #13: Poetry Gong Bangs On

All Good War Stories Start With a Little Something Landing on the Ground


Leaves are falling in the backyard
yellow maples, green oaks,
sailing down like miniature paratroopers
storming our home.
Surrender! they cry, shaking off
limp parachutes, untangling themselves
from crossed lines. There are no patriots here.
Soon, the house is surrounded
one by one we file out
a legion of wrongdoers toting our sins
in backpacks and ruck sacks,
plush poodle purses and bulging messenger bags
heads lowered, princess pajama tops
and Spongebob sweatshirts pulled over
guilty faces. Father hides beneath the label
of last night’s microbrew. Mother wishes she had sprung


for the full length apron, settles
on a women’s rake--
tiny, preposterous.
Acorns pummel our heads,
brittle leaves crackle in the crisp autumn air.
Where is the hero throwing clichéd body
over the rest of us, taking one for the team?
Who will save the day? Let the history books show
it was not a fine wind blew the leaves away
but a firm slender hand, a rake, a dozen
tan lawn bags, purchased as an afterthought
while shopping for bowties, bread and beer.

Channeling My Inner Plath: Poetry Gong #12

Boarding Up the Bees


"If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would have only four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.”
- Einstein

The bees fill our chimney,
send their dead to the hearth
as a warning: such atonement
could be your reward, dried husks.

The Queen and her minions gaze
on our frail buzzing from papery cells
constructed among cracks
in the smokestack’s entrails.
Tossed Hell-ward, purified
by the absence of smoke
simple drones believe
there is no fire waiting below,
no barbed flames waiting
to lick lazy flight muscles.

Numb as honey-plundering moths
the sacrificial bees can not sting
the enemy within, the soot, ash,
bits of birds’ nest falling, crushing.

Blackened angels, forgive me
this plywood barricade, this dark
tarp blocking your exit. Your sweet
freedom follows the children’s breath.

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Responding to a statement I made, my friend Fred asked me if I was channeling my inner Plath. Fred is funny. He should have a blog. He used to. But he's big-time and can not reveal his wit without sacrificing his career. Not everyone gets Fred.

Thanks to him, I had this great line running through my head. I thought of Plath's bee poems. Then I thought of the time hundreds of half-dead bees were in our house, coming, it finally turned out, from the chimney. Even though I knew it was for the best, I felt bad when my husband boarded up the chimney flue. We don't use the fireplace, but the bees were. They had found a home, and we took it away. I know it was for the best.

Researching bees and sacrifice and cultures that sacrifice others was rife with poetic possibility. This poem, along with many others, does not have the oomph I want it to. Even I don't know exactly what I mean to say. And that is the problem.

Against Desiccation - Poetry Gong #11

Exoskeletons contain rigid and resistant components that fulfil a set of functional roles including protection, excretion, sensing, support, feeding and (for terrestrial organisms) acting as a barrier against desiccation. Exoskeletons have a role in defence from predators, support, and in providing a framework which musculature can attach to.


Skin turned inside out
eyeballs hanging from bloody wire
too gruesome for pancakes, too soft-bodied

to complete even a simple morning routine
though she is flat
as gluten thinned on a griddle.

Like an earthworm ravenous with rain
mothers step from kitchens
hands blistered and peeling

holding out casseroles to ghosts.
Find (dig) the family in the (a) hole
lost in the folds

of an incomplete exoskeleton
pliant, shriveling, gathering in upon
itself—an apron, an artifact, a defense

against burnt offerings, faulty cocoons
entrails refusing to exit. To join,
to crawl under, live among the tissue,

fossilize before the soft parts rot
requires a desire to change, a meeting
of cells, a declaration of kinship.

Enter in your own mouth, see skin
and eyes, hands and hollow bones
molt the unnecessary, feed on what remains.

I Love You - Poetry Gong #10

I love you.
I start small,
speak to the peaches.

No flowers
hiding my face
roses leading

for me. Just three
short syllables, grapes
rolling down a throat

choking the owner,
a girl or a man shopping
for fresh fruit, Sam the Butcher’s

best meat. Grilling
the enemy burns
bridges. Say I love

you to pieces
of beef, veal cutlets.
Chicken kabobs kick

start conversations
daily here at the market.
Aisle of ewe. Olive

juice. Circle an onion
uncover the sweetest
avocado. I love you.

When the fruits,
the meat and the vegetables,
are thrashing in your basket

mating in exotic
combinations, look away.
When the bag boy asks

paper or plastic, say
I love you.
Leave him watching the orgy.

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This poem is in response to this: http://mygorgeoussomewhere.org/2008/10/20/i-love-you-poets-getting-over-themselves/#comment-4311

Note to self: it may be stronger with a "you" instead of an "I." Actually, it kind of shifts perspective. Hmm...

Poetry Gong #9

Hunting Party Line: The Deer Need to Be Killed

First day of hunting
season. I trail a hunter
through the backlit woods,
yellow leaves fall like snow.
I shoot them straight through
to vein, golden blood flowing
like honey through the chill.

I might have brought the (man nor) beast
who pushed me to these limits,
shooting leaves, fashioning quilts
of their skin, but he is a buck now
and I don’t want to share his rotten
meat with anyone, not even a man
smeared with green black bruises,
disguised as a savior with a rifle.

robed like a savior with a rifle.

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I can't decide on the last line. Disguised or robed...