Author: poetryfest

(After Carolyn Forche)

A stranger knocked at her door and said,

“So, are you going to write about yourself for the rest of your life? Or do you want to come to my country where a war is coming with your fellowship and learn something.”

So, I read her book about how she took him up on his offer.

I read it cover to cover stopping only to go to the kitchen to eat or go to the bathroom to pee or go to the bedroom to sleep while she went to his country (where a war was) coming to learn.

Most people don’t want to read poets, finding us snooty, hob nob, and hoity toity.

Most people find poems obscure, oblique, and difficult, and think poets do it on purpose.

Most people find they have to go slow, have to take time and can’t just buzz through it.

Someone once asked me if I was a poet and I said No, poets have no cred in our country,

And people will think I think too much of myself,

And that I’m going to write about myself for the rest of my life.

Goodbye
My Pumpkin Pie
You sweet delicious friend
I grant you reprieve
My delightful autumn treat
Before your final end

Even though
Im shutting the door slow
And letting the darkness in
Dream of me
As I dream of thee
Yearning to see you again

Try as I might
To make it through the night
Your tasty memory still lingerin’
Cream in my hand
Its three AM
Yet instead of tired, I’m grinnin’

I sit down with my plate
Somewhere between early and late
Listening to the red robin wakin’
Licking my lips
Warm milk I sip
A sinful treat I don’t regret bakin’

Sugar and dopamine
Pie and whipped cream
Happiness in the form of a chemical reaction
As the fluorescent light glows
My loneliness grows
You were just my delicate distraction

As I take the last bite
And wander into the dying night
Pensively pondering if you miss me
I tuck myself in
To a bed I’m not sharin’
Will I always be this lonely

That itch in the middle of your back
you can’t reach. Your grandparents
waving goodbye. One two three four
I declare a genocide. Petrified,
I remove my head so that I can see
over the other side. I don’t trust
my neighbor. We are packed too close.
True war exists in the webbing,
the conduit running at all times.
Greed feeds into anger, flexes once full,
depants itself, insane in the street,
distress, destress, unstressed, colossal.
Curious how the bell still rings
rump pa pa pump. It’s coming
they say. It’s been coming forever.
Curious chaos on childrens’ chests.

In the bar, the girl next door
cute laughing and alone
it works if she never goes home

There’s Water in her shoes
There’s Knots in her hair
but who else sees what’s there?

Chasing the sun
singing the blues
waiting waiting for the cue

Now we’re sitting in the diner
late with decaf and french fries
Why won’t your gaze meet my eyes

Now I’m skipping town
trying not to drown
in the water in my shoes

Your perfect sweetheart
the role only works if we don’t go home
with who we are when we’re alone
To the holes in my pockets
and the crumbs on the counter
all the cracks in my heart–
Will you love me when I falter?

Can I be the girl you choose
with water in my shoes

Laying under the Oklahoma moonlight-
My fingers ache after a long days work
Hauling wood and moving furniture
I can feel the splinters buried beneath my skin
I walk out into the pasture
And listen to the wind whispering through the cornfield
Like a comb brushing soft strands of hair
I find a soft spot in the ground
Like a warm cozy bed
The smell of dirt surrounds me
And I hear the croaks of frogs in the distance
With the buzz of cicadas along its side
I wake up with the sun beaming in my face
The train horn blares from afar
This is the sound of home
Lost –
The crowd cheers wildly
The stadium is rocking
I have a smile on my face
But I look out into the sea of people
And realize
We are all the same