This is a team effort by the Alta poetry club. We were writing in the mode of Wallace Stevens' "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird." I claim numbers 13-18.
I.
II.
Bright light reflecting on retina
Dots dance before
And glaucoma waits
For another day
III.
A circle of black ink
In a field of white
Looks back at me
IV.
So close your eyelash catches mine
So close the veins wind like a maze
Surrounding your eyes
With fitting mystery
V.
The plate slides,
Revealing a hole
Through which photons pour
Like sand down an hourglass
And the silver halide crystals
Remember forever
VI.
Substitute eyes
He promised he’d bring us his eyes in a box.
All 30 of them rolling and clanking into each other as he walked around the classroom.
Worse than having eyes in the back of his head. I felt sorry for him.
VII.
Make up
Pulling, curling, darkening, lining,
Covering, sort-of lying eying
VIII.
Feet
Tired sunburned working man
Life as purposeful as a crow,
and traces of pain in his Eyes.
IX.
The optometrist lights up my eye
And I behold the network
Feeding my vision
My flowing blood
X.
His pupils narrowed in the light
And his ears laid back
As he saw the glassy cat's eyes
Shine to him
Calling him to fight
XI.
A man and a woman are one
A woman and a man with wandering eyes
Soon two
XII.
In my mind I wait for spinning thoughts
To alight on this paper
Each one a decision
And Megan in my peripheral vision.
XIII.
Little hearts of brown
Sprout green when it's time to plant
The potato's eyes.
XIV.
Green as summer,
Green as glass,
Your eyes warm my world
And tint everything I see
Into green
XV.
Glass marbles
Rolling in a glass of water
On top of the piano
Of a blind musician.
Her students grimace, but play on
XVI.
Something about gravity
Weighs down these eyes
And pulls them earthward.
Strain! Lift!
Look up and see the world
XVII.
Glinting in the night,
A predator looks back
From behind the eyes
Of every cat.
XVIII.
Cross my heart and hope to die,
Stick a finger in my eye;
Cross my eyes and poke my heart
I swear that we will never part.
XIX.
Darting back and forth
Twinkling
Unstable as an untrue heart
XX.
Open, close, open, close
I don't know which to prefer
XXI.
My eyes water
Not with feeling
Sad and happy emotions
Are nothing to the potency
Of an onion
May 14, 2010
Sunday, August 29, 2010
The Nurse
Her scrubs are three shades lighter
than inky midnight blue
prepared for an all-nighter
in a bold and helpful hue.
This evening her breakfast was
a cold-cut club on rye,
courage for the next lost cause,
and a sip of questions "Why?"
And in the bleary weary noon
she smiles and laughs and prays
before a shift that comes too soon
where she will do the same.
than inky midnight blue
prepared for an all-nighter
in a bold and helpful hue.
This evening her breakfast was
a cold-cut club on rye,
courage for the next lost cause,
and a sip of questions "Why?"
And in the bleary weary noon
she smiles and laughs and prays
before a shift that comes too soon
where she will do the same.
Apr 30, 2010
Yellow Blossoms
Narcissus blooms bow to themselves,
those beauties by the pond,
radiantly rippling
a lovely watery song.
Daffodils in hosts and crowds
all nod the elegance
of flowers smiling all around
and all together dance.
The sunflower looks up instead,
gazing at the sky
and following the glory of
the sun as she glides by.
those beauties by the pond,
radiantly rippling
a lovely watery song.
Daffodils in hosts and crowds
all nod the elegance
of flowers smiling all around
and all together dance.
The sunflower looks up instead,
gazing at the sky
and following the glory of
the sun as she glides by.
Apr 27, 2010
The Tale of Princess Dragonbreath
Young Princess D, a little waif,
wandered off where it's not safe.
She chased a kitten, with giggling laughter,
into a cellar where from the rafters
strings and strings of garlic hung.
She blinked at them, then tasted one.
Before you could have blinked once more
she'd eaten clove seventy-four.
Where e're she went the castle knew it
'cause she carried garlic with her--to chew it.
The smell knocked out the Queen's prize goat
and would not wash off in the moat.
The courtiers fainted, the knights were mad
and took her to the King (her dad)
with clothespins clamped about their noses.
The sentence, just as you suppose, is
Princess D must hitch a wagon
and drive to live out with the dragons.
Their breath is just as bad as hers,
or in some cases even worse.
This fate, a life of dread and horror,
had passed on garlic-eaters before her,
and was a law throughout the land
for any whose breath you couldn't stand.
But Princess D, whom I admire,
found that it was not her desire
to trundle off, like so much meat, and
find the dragons, then be eaten.
"I shall not be a meal," she reasoned,
"for dragons, though I am well-seasoned."
She ran away, and before they caught her
she'd found a stream of running water
with which she scrubbed and rinsed and wrung
the garlic smell from off her tongue.
Her sentence was commuted then,
and none were sent to the dragons again,
for the law was changed that very day.
The kingdom's favorite tale, they say,
is this of Princess Dragonbreath
who brushed her teeth and cheated death.
wandered off where it's not safe.
She chased a kitten, with giggling laughter,
into a cellar where from the rafters
strings and strings of garlic hung.
She blinked at them, then tasted one.
Before you could have blinked once more
she'd eaten clove seventy-four.
Where e're she went the castle knew it
'cause she carried garlic with her--to chew it.
The smell knocked out the Queen's prize goat
and would not wash off in the moat.
The courtiers fainted, the knights were mad
and took her to the King (her dad)
with clothespins clamped about their noses.
The sentence, just as you suppose, is
Princess D must hitch a wagon
and drive to live out with the dragons.
Their breath is just as bad as hers,
or in some cases even worse.
This fate, a life of dread and horror,
had passed on garlic-eaters before her,
and was a law throughout the land
for any whose breath you couldn't stand.
But Princess D, whom I admire,
found that it was not her desire
to trundle off, like so much meat, and
find the dragons, then be eaten.
"I shall not be a meal," she reasoned,
"for dragons, though I am well-seasoned."
She ran away, and before they caught her
she'd found a stream of running water
with which she scrubbed and rinsed and wrung
the garlic smell from off her tongue.
Her sentence was commuted then,
and none were sent to the dragons again,
for the law was changed that very day.
The kingdom's favorite tale, they say,
is this of Princess Dragonbreath
who brushed her teeth and cheated death.
Apr 16, 2010
Subtitles
Why doesn't the world come with labels?
They would tell you in convenient closed caption:
"Here is a pinecone,"and
"This is your dog Charlie,"and
"North is that way."
Door hinges would
hinting of [ominous music]
to warn of the unexplored, whispering,
"Here there be dragons."
Apr 16, 2010
Nursery Rap
I had help from my FHE sisters both in composing and performing this one
Da alley cat be jammin' on da fidizzle.
Da heifer she jumpin' so high, so high,
She jump right over da moon, da sky!
Snoop dog be laughin', say "gimme a what what"
He laughin' so hard he almost bust a gut.
Da dish be pickin' up what da spoon be layin' down,
So peace out wi' dis nursery rap P-town!
Mar 23, 2010
Blinking Together
The difference between a wink
and a blink
is a matter of arithmetic:
a single blink is a double wink,
or rather,
one wink is only half the other.
One eye alone can't blink, you see
but longs to.
So it winks away its halfway blinks
until eventually it spies
another eye
that winks back, and two become one.
and a blink
is a matter of arithmetic:
a single blink is a double wink,
or rather,
one wink is only half the other.
One eye alone can't blink, you see
but longs to.
So it winks away its halfway blinks
until eventually it spies
another eye
that winks back, and two become one.
Mar 14, 2010
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