Welcome back...

I need to get writing again, and I need your creative input. Assignments will be given in the weeks to come....sharpen your pencils, poets. I've missed you.

Friday school

My Town
by Gabrielle


My town
has a meatpacking plant
on one end
and a doughnut factory
on the other.
So,
depending
which way
the wind blows,
any day
will smell like
either shit
or sugar.

*************

Misty Eyed Memories

I blossomed near a Mangrove Bay.
My roots grew down where branches stray.

With tides and time and glistening sand,
Palm trees sway as hurricanes land.

Sun burns the wind and stings my skin,
Saltwater ripples reveal dolphin fins.

Ospreys soar as egrets sail,
And misty fog our secrets veil.

They float in rivers, bays and sea,
The great majestic manatee.

Sunsets flow through thunder clouds,
As sails are set for a westward bows.

Then east I turn to sunrise find,
Pelicans launch from a Mangrove Blind.

No further proof of God I seek,
Than where the sky and Mangrove meet.

Marianne Fuchs
June 16, 2008

************

Breaking down the House
by Andrea

We all wanted the silver

The oldest got the China
boxed up with confrontation and mistrust
Over in the corner I spy the crate of neglect
next to the carefully rolled up abandonment issues

who will take the trunk of verbal abuse
the set of not feeling worthy enough
the matching tears nobody wiped away

There is a hole in the box of attention
small bits escaping through the years
pounced on and secreted away-
afraid they will be taken again and stored
on an ever higher shelf

New old stuff...

I mentioned before that I find poems with very short lines - no more than 3 or 4 words - very appealling. That compactness of communication seems very tightly controlled and beautiful to me. I also like an ambiguity with grammar that leaves a line open to personal interpretation.




Untitled
(late 80's)

Broken,
boundless,
faithless,
few.
Forget today
and seek the new.
Sorrowful,
regretful,
seen
the beauty of
what could have been.
Silence,
promise,
fractured,
true.
And see
the damage
done to you.
To others
woe,
the things the same.
Disregard the number
and the name.
Irrelevant
to you
the cost.
Goodbye to what
we all have lost.

Friday School

Next Friday's assignment: A poem about where you live - be it either state, town, structure or room. Any format. See you then!

Shortness...

I wish I was a turtle
with my house upon my back.
Then, when I had to move away
I'd never have to pack.

Cleaning out the closet...

Ok, so, as I said when all this started, I had absolutely years of poetry to climb through, and wanted to throw it out there. Here's another from my days in the 80's, when I considered myself bad company, indeed.

Untitled
(late 80's)

I live in a world
I could be sorry for,
but that is the last thing I'll say.

I incur a price
that some find extreme,
but that is the one I won't pay.

I choose
my reality,
make my own dreams.
I refuse
to succomb
to desire
it seems.

My life
is the bait
and my heart
is the trap
and love
is the head
that I find
in my lap.

Breathing again...

Hello, friends. Back again, finally able to catch my breath a little. Posting some old ones again, will post a new assignment soon. Thanks for giving me some time, it was one of the most profound experiences of my life to see CR accomplish what so many did not believe possible.


Too Much to Carry
(late 80's)

Once again
we pack up our lives,
wrap our memories
in old newspaper
to be tucked away
in anonymous brown boxes.

Every time
we shed a little more,
leave behind a few more tears and smiles.
Our days reduced to belongings
which we must decide are
too painful to leave
or too heavy to carry.

It always hurts to leave.
The things we know
packed away from our touch,
unable to assure us
that we are really real.

All we need to know
is that this place
is no longer ours to use.

Never certain of
which direction we are moving,
only that it is
away.