Poet's Corner
Read the EPIC Poetry Group's latest installment of Poet’s Corner, featured in My Edmonds News.
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Bill of Rights
I reserve the right to swim naked Or to drown fully clothed The right to a healthy breakfast Or to bowlfuls of jelly bellies To purple mountains’ majesty above my fruited cereal To the pursuit of happiness and The American Scheme The right to bare arms And to bare feet and to unlotioned skin in the blazing sun To right-mindedness And left-handedness To wellness and hell-raising Bell ringing and bell bottoms To “Bottoms Up!” and “Up your alley!” To toasts and boast and marshmallow roasts And coasting downhill with no hands To the right to remain silent Or very very loud when drunk The right to hop into that classic ’93 Cayman green T-bird convertible And drive like hell to Coeur d’Alene With or without two beautiful women Tom Fortin ~ ~ ~ ~ Turning in my keys No longer mine That still, abandoned classroom, its door closed behind This well-waxed route to the office smells familiar Clean-up crews will strike tomorrow Liberating moldy oranges, green baloney, curdled milk boxes Sprung lockers soon as empty as this Senior Wing Silence fills my footprints, not so much as a single squeaky sole Eerie in this space so often clamorous No bantered laughter, no one shouting “Asshole!” Noisy decibels will rule again come September Within my head a steady vivid stream expands Decades of roll lists memorized, faces recognized, friendships forged Sweet individual legacies of day by day growing Riotous tales of masses being educated Old bronze keys soon clatter onto a polished counter Cold office shadows shift then grow dark Blue main doors burst open into welcoming sunlight New roads whisper, “Travel on, travel on…” Tom Fortin ~ ~ ~ ~ S’posed to be her valentine S’posed to be her valentine Just for her Me so nervous in The Hitching Post (Little one-horse town’s Only variety story) Such a tiny candy department So hard to find something That my scraped-together handful Of nickels, dimes, a couple of quarters Could cover She eyed me That vicious, suspicious Cranky old frizzy-headed clerk Never trusting for a second This little would-be shoplifter Desperate in a way She’d never understand So much worse though When that fateful day arrived Me on the bus, red heart hidden in a small brown sack My faint heart ticking, tighter and tighter Stomach sick by lunch recess My mind was clear though I’d sneak into Room 17 Drop that box Slink back out undetected Catch my fevered breath And Plan A worked smoothly until That box-dropping moment Became the heart-stopping part A huge 10-pound chocolate monster Scarlet, sparkling Overflowed her sacred desk Crushed my 10-year-old heart My valentine’s dinner that night? Barely touched Mom just had to notice, had to ask So how did it go today? OK, I lied and moped off to my room My gut still aching Like I’d been punched (It probably didn’t help That I’d eaten all her chocolates Riding back home on the bus…) Tom Fortin
The Poet’s Canvas
Paint a picture with words. Apply the oil paints of adjectives, the acrylics of verbs and adverbs. Create colors of music for the hearer, for the reader. Apply vibrating palettes of color, flaming, energizing, vowels and consonants to stimulate imagination. Spread the water colors of metaphor and allegory over the canvas of your soul. Intensity to nurture spirit, embellishing the mind with texture, fibers of synonyms and antonyms, expressing eccentricity and giftedness. You are the artist and author of your life. You are poetry! Donna Rudiger ~ ~ ~ ~ SHADOW We are traveling along the periphery of light while simultaneously wandering the minute edge of darkness, the precipice where shadow is birthed. Shadow illuminates the form of our constricted humanity, the evidence of divinity within us often unacknowledged or unconfessed. Daybreak transcends to twilight, evening transforms to morning, quiet moments of timelessness reflect shadow in the windows and mirrors of our mind. Burdened by cultural expectations, we are pregnant with unfulfilled possibilities and undiscovered destinies. Shadow exposes sacred spaces where insight, revelation and musings congeal. Hidden treasures of darkness emerge as unlikely teachers, heart-breaking, soul-splitting situations and circumstances which postulate new levels of conscious mindfulness previously resisted. Moreover, when we finally grow weary of being overshadowed by shadow, liberation and self-actualization propel us deeper into the periphery of light. Continuing our pilgrimage there, stolen blessings are recovered and we are gifted by the breath lingering between unshared kisses of our lover, the peaceful rests between notes of music, the unspoken love of children and elders in our life, and the ebb and flow of the journeys of beloved souls who cross over before us as the power of shadow is broken. Donna Rudiger ~ ~ ~ ~ Snowbound Another fourteen inches of snow has fallen in my woods The wind blows gently over snow-draped trees Tickling the snow from their branches The flakes gently float to the ground in a silent dance I walk across the yard to spread fresh bird seed for my feathered friends I roll apples to the edge of the woods for the hungry deer that sleep there I am aware of the silence The profound absence of noise that enshrouds me like one of Nana’s warm quilts I stand under the tall cedars looking up through iced branches I hear only the sound of my heartbeat I am bathed in an enveloping sense of peace This challenges my human understanding I am grateful to be here today To be alive To be alone To have wisdom To feel strengthened To experience miracles To know and receive blessings To be writing from my heart To have clarity of mind once again And to know that I am loved Donna Rudiger
(small town embrace)
We walk down Main Street hands clasped, fingers entwined each shop flaunting its wares the movie theater, one screen showing “Bambi” again never tiring of the themes lost innocence and matricide we step into the café where they know our order two demitasses are placed before us foamy milk hearts hiding a rich dark brew onward past the bookstore we eyeball the offerings, best sellers plotting birthday gifts and book club reads open doors of the travel store lure us in to update our baggage browse adventure: Belize, Tahiti tropical musings to which we easily succumb but we live here in this small town and know nothing of paradise Cynthia Hénon ~ ~ ~ ~ in which the poet becomes a bird I folded my ego into triangles like a flag and laid it down in a ponderous pine box away from prying eyes and crowbars insults and abasements slid off my feathers back into the murky pond pushed deeper by my black webbed feet born again a swan so regally white you’d think it braggadocio but my meals were humbly gathered straight from the slippery mud Cynthia Hénon ~ ~ ~ ~ The Word of the Day is Lark The word of the day is lark I won’t lower myself to rhyme it as the day goes on the wing there’s a stillness- her dawn song shrill yet sweet reminder of rough and tumble summer days which stretch out time a bottomless pitcher of fresh lemonade water fights, music in the shade smell of cut grass and sycamore until night lasts forever and lark song awakens you from the dream Cynthia Hénon
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Letting go
“Please wait while I connect your call,” says the voice that cares not one whit if I speak to the party I wish to speak to. And why do I have to send my social security number out into the ether before I achieve human-to-human status? “It will probably take three weeks before you feel like yourself again.” I’m sorry but that is way past my deadline. “That shelf unit is on back order. We should have it in eight to ten weeks.” I can sprout wings and learn to fly in seven. “let go, let go, let go,” says the sticker on the bumper of the Suburu impeding my progress. Why can I never get to my yoga class on time? Irene Myers ~ ~ ~ ~ Knowing, half-way up the stairs, La Conner I’m sitting on the perfect bench part-way up the hillclimb in La Conner between 1st St. and 2nd St. It’s May. A gentleman in Sunday suit and fedora, descending the steps, wants to know, “Are you going up or going down?” A fellow in shorts, sweatshirt, and mustard-colored baseball cap comes up from below, observes out of nowhere, “Good place to write a poem—half-way up the stairs! You could call it that—‘Half-way up the Stairs’!” “I might do that,” I bounce back. “What made you think I was writing a poem?” A gent in navy blazer, khakis and sunhat recognizes his audience. “Do you know how many steps it is up to here?” “No, how many?” “42.” “I think that’s also the answer to life, the universe, and everything,” I offer. “Oh,” he considers. “How many more steps to the top, do you think?” “I’ll let you know,” he predicts. “ . . . 59 to here!” comes a report from the next landing. “ . . . 76!” the mad hatter calls down from 2nd St. “Thank you! Got it!” Two summer-talking gals, with chihuahua, stop, inquire, “Are you writing in your journal?” “I’m writing after a festival of poetry.” “We were there last night!” one of them enthuses. The other turns and shows me a beflowered tattoo, new, on her left shoulder -- ‘Life is a balance of holding on and letting go.’ “Two weeks ago,” she shares, “I lost an uncle and an aunt, same family. How did I know two months ago to choose these words?” Sometimes sitting, open, ready, can be just the right move, an invitation for a new way, a new way of listening, to come through. Meant for you, the one who knows to hear. Irene Myers
Hollyhocks
Hollyhocks stood child high all along the hedged driveway made of brown dust as fine as talcum powder, and soft as a kitten under bare feet. Grandad kept his pipes in a rack on a shelf and he smelled of cherry tobacco reaming out the bowls. Mac was named after him, the MacBride’s from Pennsylvania. The wringer washer in the basement sloshed clothes into greying water, then each piece had to be fed through the fascinating rollers that swung over the tub and clicked into place. There stood a big square Victrola down there, that had to be cranked up to play a record. Granddad snored hugely, with a real whistle on the exhale, and napped in the cool basement on a cot with the washer going. Irrigation channels were dug in the cherry orchard, enough to walk in and hoe open as needed. I remember nothing of meals or bedtimes, beds or stories. My mother, who loved me all my life must have been busy doing something, as she was always busy somewhere while Mac and I were building a real house with leftover lumber. Granddad killed chickens with an axe blow across their necks laid on a stump, and we watched in awe as the chicken flopped. The smell of boiling water and feathers must be the plucking that came next, and Grandma’s soft arms and puffy fingers. Fragments remain of canning at a factory, and years of dusty cans of cherries on basement shelves in Massachusetts. Now I feel so curious for that place and that Granddad and Grandma, aproned is all, seldom visited across the country entire between Idaho and our home in the east. Sharon Murfin ~ ~ ~ ~ Neighborhoods The sound of sirens reminds me here at this quiet table looking out on the back yard the hazelnuts broken open squirrels dropping them on the skylight and deck harbingering fall fires, shootings, car accidents aggregate within this bunched up weight of people living together each seeking out our measure of square footage of peace remarkably found between neighbors close on either side and by them between neighbors either side disturbed mostly by children screeching at play or outdoor conversations dinners out back daylight construction work the richer the greater foot-hold of peace care-taken by tenders plants dug and trimmed driveways lengthened views extended while inversely less peace less space fewer plants weight of neighbor din of despair and disparity drives a machine digging away at the foundations although pressed by these thoughts the long arc of time overlays the details let the empire fail and the great wave break over the mammoth coasts this peace is a remnant of an age dying comfort of lawn and tree fragile by dint of every other person who searches for their own good. Sharon Murfin ~ ~ ~ ~ Sitting How poems come. In every object, an awareness. In every light, a pierce. In every living thing, a presence undeniably alert to light and weather growing towards (reaching) filtering down into smallest root a semblance of vessels, and here, also aloft in my once green body, now becoming woody, layering with every observation a new skin, however thin to be counted in years. Isn’t this enough to live one life? To be one shrub? Sharon Murfin Sharon Murfin is a musician, a writer and a music-thanatologist. She received her M.A. in Fine Arts in Education in Missoula, Montana, where she lived before moving to Seattle. “Writing has been a source of living water,” she says.
Looking to the West
We are looking to the west—to the old Smith Tower on the left, to tinted office towers on the right, to the piers and giant cranes of the Port of Seattle, to whitecaps on Elliott Bay, to seagulls in flight, to the Puget Sound, and to the Olympic Mountains range. Breezes are light; the afternoon sun is bright. We gather on the courthouse roof to turn the page on the past. A judge with the matinee-idol look begins to speak. We are present to witness the change. Decision point: there is no turning back. Eyes are brimming wet, but voices are strong. In this moment, old sorrows fade to black. Where do we go from here? As the old song explains, We may lose and we may win, though we will never be here again.We are looking to the west as the sun declines to the haze horizon. Where do we go from here? Will all of us hold, or will our gathering scatter as we grow old? David Baldwin ~ ~ ~ ~ For the Good People of the Village John 2:1-11 The wedding party in Cana was underway! There was music, dancing, laughter, and strong wine for the good people of the village. Suddenly, a sign the wine was running low threatened to ruin the day. The ancient rabbis say, “Without wine, there is no joy!” So Jesus told the servants to fill the stone jars with water, and then take to the steward this fortuitous fruit of the vine. The steward tasted it and thanked the giddy groom for saving the best wine for the very last. Jesus was a man of the people, and this was his crowd. For the good people of the village, there was always room for simple kindness. His love was unsurpassed for the salt of the earth, as much as love allowed. David Baldwin ~ ~ ~ ~ Celebrating Peace 1. Today we gather in this faraway space to celebrate what never took place. Under this cloudless sky the Unknown Soldier did not die. No one was wounded on this spot. Nary a soldier fired a shot. No soldier sang a battle hymn or killed or died or lost a limb. On this our distant grassy field, no corpse was lifted onto a shield. The world at war is far away; let peace begin with us today. 2. Fog is rising from the thawing ground. Birds are soaring without a sound. Cedars shimmer in the morning breeze. Snowy mountains back the trees. For a world at war, where do we start? Peace begins in the human heart. By changing hearts one by one, changed hearts lower the gun. Today we promise to work for peace, changing hearts in the name of peace. The world at war is far away; let peace begin with us today. David Baldwin
Uncle Blue
(In that shadowed moment when wakefulness is fitful and sleep is a hill yet to climb, I think of Uncle Blue.) In my sleepless fog I become a kid, playing in the street, again, listening for “a come on and hear moment,” a pulsating pounding, a boom, boom, boom, da,da,da,da,boom, a captivating beat struck upon two 5 gallon discarded olive oil cans, from the corner of my eye I catch an unmistakable sight, Uncle Blue in full stride, cloaked in the oliy sleeves of a threadbare coat, dreadlocks snapping hobnail boots stepping flailing arms swinging a manila rope snaked through his belt loop, holding together two disparate parts of a man, thoughts swirling off tempo, out of sync, the beats of his drums, right brain left brain a whole man marching, one foot in the past, the other frozen in the air, in a time before the change older folks knew him by his given name, we knew him only as Uncle Blue, he passed away more than 60 years ago, silence filled the void, the rhythmic joy of his existence muffled, gentrification, a modern day raising of the dead, filled the spaces where he once roamed, no more boom, boom, boom, da,da,da,da,boom, the predictable staccatoed voices of crowded streets, now speak for Uncle Blue, “eccentrics no longer welcomed!” boom, boom, boom, da,da,da,da,boom. Gerald M. Bigelow ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Tapping on Cobblestones The stones, much older than I, stiff, unable to move aging in place, standing firm, stoic, defiant to the ravages of time defined by their place in history not by the history of this place my cane,unwanted, not unexpected a relentless tapping on their heads a tapping born to awaken past memories, a tapping, no longer the familiar sounds of wagon wheels clanking, the sound of shepherded sheep passing, just an infernal tap, tap, tapping, do the stones whisper? do they recognize the light steppers from the heavy footed? do they know when I’m coming? “damn stones, stumbling beneath my feet” why don’t they get out of my way! stop spoiling my vacation, if it wasn’t for those stones, I could probably throw my cane away, stop wasting my hard earned money, traveling the world, chasing ancient history, those darn stones are everywhere, trying to make me fal, hell I’m not the Holy Roman Empire! just an old man with a cane, tap, tap, tapping on their heads. Gerald M. Bigelow
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