CASTLE
I am a child, rebirthed into ruin,
remembering thrills and thrones
which whisper your once-glorious name.
Castle
3
Category Archives: poetry
a poem for Good Friday
Cross, Holy Week
by Luci Shaw
On my chest this Friday afternoon,
the elegant small signature
of violent death
swings on my neck as I walk,
gold tapping my deep heart,
telling me I was there.
(I did not mean to do it; I did
not know.) I slump under
the weight of it; my pulse
echoes the beat of hammers.
the power of one poem
My best friend Erica is four years younger than me, so I was already done with college before she even started it– and when the time came, she headed off to school in Chicago, leaving me behind in the Twin Cities to carve my way without her. Our friendship had never been tested by distance before– who were we to know if it could withstand all those miles?
About a month into the school year, I drove out to Chicago to spend the weekend with her, and one night, we ended up sitting alone in a lounge, share our hearts and secrets and fears, our prayer requests, our tears. And that’s when I knew our friendship was a lasting one.
I wrote a poem about it, about three years after college graduation. It was actually a big deal because– surprise, surprise– I actually didn’t write for the first three years after I got my writing degree. My creativity was sapped, my OCD was out of control, and I hadn’t experienced enough of life yet to really have much to say.
So this poem was important. Not only did it get my creative juices flowing again, but when I stumbled upon a girl from my writing program in a stairwell one day, I mentioned to her that I had been working on this poem and asked if she’d take a look. Anna and I started to meet together to talk about writing and soon decided to invite others to join us. That is the start of my writing group, which is still going strong in our seventh year.
All that to say, the following is not the best work I have ever produced– but it is one of the most important poems I have written because of all that transpired after. Seven years later, I am working hard on my second manuscript, maintain a daily blog, and Can. Not. Stop. Writing.
Enjoy!
KNIT
for eir
This September day is costumed in summer’s silly charm,
and wonder itself walks the streets of Chicago, a gentleman
bidding good day to friends drunk on the festive flavor of reunion.
Distance, an unfamiliar bully, tests their untried alliance but
is curbed by a charming exchange in a dormitory lounge; Chicago lights
and dirty street sounds don’t breach the quiet dark of this room
to bother best friends who sit and weep together
for the near or distant future.
With juvenile delight, they grasp hands (and their friendship)
and hold tight. A wild disclosure of laughter, tears, and stories,
all exposed to the eavesdropping couch that’s received them
and to the mural on the far wall featuring an old hymn’s lyrics:
“Come, Ye Sinners,” and they do. Come.
To the throne of their able King, whose steady hands,
cupped and strong, award solid and abundant support.
Rallied in aggressive prayer, the girls are shored for survival
while joy rises and falls: offering and receipt.
Their celebrated plans could not conceive this conversation
and the beautiful crux: forever exists for them,
but it seems more important that
now they are here.
eir and me!
four of the early writing group members … all four are still in it!
Which Education?
WHICH EDUCATION?
Wind-burned face, knit cap,
flannel shirt, Beckham beard.
He looks like a damn demigod,
smells like jack pine and fresh water,
like snow and soot and sky.
So much sky.
He has heard the secrets that trees tell,
the gossip of salmon, the poetry of the stars.
My notebooks full of dates and progress,
Appomattox and the Rosenbergs,
seem silly in the cool shade of this hero.
I could love him again; I know it.
He pulls a Moleskine from his back pocket, says he’s
published a little here and there, no big names.
Can I read them? I ask, terrified he’ll say yes.
Scenery Matters, a poem
SCENERY MATTERS
Loneliness would seem more agreeable
in hill country so green that it snaps,
or beneath a canopy
of pink that bites your eyes.
Jerk, a poem about a real boy who won’t read my blog in a million years
JERK
You walk backward,
flashing a powerful success
that wears vintage jackets
and not business suits.
You raise a finger and command the stars, and I
once loved you for the mighty stoicism your life preached.
Children
melt your bricks like ice,
and sometimes a pretty girl, for one week at a time.
I pity you for the power that provokes adoration
without affection.
I once thought you so strong for the way your hands
could hold so much power without spilling.
Now I name you Selfish and am annoyed
when blonde-haired children make you smile.
Pimp the Guilt, a poem & why I wrote it
My former co-worker Micah once instigated a challenge with me, saying that he would give the title for a poem, and we would each interpret it as we chose, each write a poem with that title, and see which one was better. I actually wrote one. I don’t think he ever did. (He owes me!)
The title he chose was “Pimp the Guilt,” which we thought was kinda funny sounding– but OCD was in its hey-day in my life, and the title actually reminded me of the way my disorder made me feel guilty all the time.
This is what I wrote:
PIMP THE GUILT
The smallest thing, a trigger,
a rooster. Casual words
look like pointed fingers,
wagging in accusation,
and me, unable to process
advice for what it is,
feeling shame rip my heart
the way you’d tear a valentine.
deviantART by ~ginny1441
Pentecost
What a peculiar badge—a curl of flame like a blazing crown—making promises to the crowd that they were filled.
But today I settle for an unseen signet, vague as emotion, invisible as wind.
Roses and Janie “mash-up”
Turn this song on and read the poem below it for the most deliciously melancholy experience.
(Am I weird for liking sad songs and poems? I love them!)
Roses
by Billy Collins
In those weeks of midsummer
when the roses in gardens begin to give up,
the big red, white, and pink ones—
the inner, enfolded petals growing cankerous,
the ones at the edges turning brown
or fallen already, down on their girlish backs
in the rough beds of turned-over soil,
then how terrible the expressions on their faces,
a kind of was it all really worth it? look,
to die here slowly in front of everyone
in the garden of a bed-and-breakfast
in a provincial English market town,
to expire by degrees of corruption
in plain sight of all the neighbors passing by,
the thin mail carrier, the stocky butcher
(thank God the children pay no attention),
the swiveling faces in the windows of the buses,
and now this stranger staring over the wall,
his hair disheveled, a scarf loose around his neck,
writing in a notebook, writing about us no doubt,
about how terrible we look under the punishing sun.
welcome to 2013
I wanted to find and post a poem about the start of a new year, but what actually jumped out in my mind was this, much more beautiful than any other poem I could have found for this occasion.
JACKIE LEA SOMMERS 