Poem: American Riddle

American Riddle

Flying ferociously, unfurled like feathers

Of a big bird brilliantly braving

The wild winds, wonderful weather

For patriotic peals, princely in a priceless

Land where mad monarchs are marvelously marooned

To islands of an archipelago’s la la land.

I’m colored in crimson, crowned crisply 

With wonderful white stars waving

Brightly in a big beautiful blue.

I represent torn lives, towering strength

Arising from rubble to reign unconquerable.

I flutter on wings, tethered to a task 

Never ending.  What am I?

About This Poem

I wrote this poem with my students a few years ago when we were studying Anglo-Saxon poetry. The Anglo-Saxons were fond of riddles and alliteration, but not rhyme. This is that style. It also seems that the American flag is a bit of a riddle in itself. What does it mean to be American? Do people in one party suddenly become less than American when they disagree with the other, or are they more American? (I don't believe either are possible, but it does seem some people think that.) We Americans have a way of turning the flag into as much of a riddle as it is a symbol, but then, that's who we are. That it is written in the Anglo-Saxon style was just because of my lesson in poetry writing, not a promotion of any sort of identity or any taking away from an identity--not woke or anti-woke, just a style of poem. 😀

 

Poem: Before the students

Before the students

I demonstrate the twist

After reading an Eady poem

about the twist

about his neighborhood

about Rochester, New York

about Cornelius Eady

and it’s turned into

another poem

about me doing the twist

about us

about Potlatch, Idaho

And I nearly crashed into the filing cabinet

When one of the girls wanted to put me

On YouTube doing the twist

And I said, “No way.”

And I stopped doing the twist

because I didn’t want it to be

about anybody else

except us

but it keeps moving

twisting

from Rochester, New York

to Potlatch, Idaho

Whether I’m on YouTube

Or Cornelius Eady is on the page

“Shake it up, Baby!

Twist and Shout!”

2017

About this Poem:

    I wrote this poem during a poetry writing assignment with my students after reading some Cornelius Eady poems and then put it in the archives, making no real connections with myself and Rochester, New York (having never been there) or Cornelius Eady (in spite of what the poem alleges). Now my oldest son lives in Rochester in his second year of his medical residency. So this poem is still twisting between Rochester, New York and Potlatch, Idaho and I'm still shaking it up. 

    And, in case you were wondering about the Twist, well it was the first dance that the couple didn't hold or even touch each other and it happened about the time my parents were teens and I was born. Little tidbits of information keep popping up with this poem! The photo is a street in Rochester. 

 

Poem: August Prayer

August Prayer

Thank you, Lord, for this day,

A day in which I’ll have lots to say.

What, in your plan, needs to make it so hot?

Not gonna lie, I think it’s a lot of rot.

I know it’s not really my place

To complain of the heat in your grace,

But you even named Jacob

“Wrestles with God,” and hot it is, God.

But maybe that is part of your plan

Because in this heat I do sweat, man.

Not likely to get me wrestling well

When I’m slick as grease. Oh hell,

You make it just as hot as you please

And I’ll figure a way to cool a spot. Geeze.

I know you care for the sparrow that falls

And in this heat, you got a lot of gall

To make so many of those little ones fall

And my morning whining is just my call.

Thank you for September when it cools

And you don’t have to hear this whining fool.

August 2022

About this Poem:

I think some people think God doesn't have a sense of humor, so we have to be completely reverential and serious in our prayer. I, obviously, don't think that at all. This is a lament with a humorous bent. And I thought it appropriate for this year. The photo is the sun in its smoky splendor a few years back.

 

Poem: Rimas Disolutas

Rimas Disolutas

At the table we sit

Every morning to eat

Some breakfast or

Drink our coffee.

Our daily routine.

Before thoughts start to flit

Or musing begin to beat

Guilt into us for 

Transgressions that we

Have made, we make pristine

The new day in its way

That will be different—

Different from the previous

So that we can forgive

Ourselves of previous sins.

But sometime that day 

Comes when we rent

From ourselves devious

Ways to guiltily live

Without forgiving within.

December 2022

About This Poem

While I love winter, I do get the typical doldrums and dark thoughts when it's dark. This is a poem that indicates that. I titled the poem after the form. It has rhyme from line to line, but not end rhyme. To me the type of poem looks like a poem, but reads like prose. I think the photo is in San Diego in a restaurant. It might look like morning, but not on the west coast... Still, I found it fitting for the poem.

Poem: Garden Jealousies

Garden Jealousies

I sometimes wonder

If the grass in the yard grows jealous

Of little alyssum in all its blooming glory?

Or if alyssum thinks how grand

It would be to live ceramically

In a pot, or if it would somehow be

Better to be a rose, coming back 

Every year without even worrying

How much he’d bloomed?

Maybe the rose just wished

To be that pumpkin sat

On the porch all jack-o-lanterned out

‘Neath all the falling leaves,

Or little green bean

Picked faithfully and cooked

For a family of four

Or maybe more.

Maybe they all envy

Sunflower, shining in the sun

Beckoning the bees

Hanging on until the freeze.

Clematis clings jealously

To the Trellis—

Or is it just me that is jealous?

October 2022

About This Poem:

Sometimes you just wonder and I like to garden, so I impose human thinking onto plants in this one.

 

Poem: (autumn) (spring) (winter) (summer)

(autumn) (spring) (winter) (summer)

Leaves fall (autumn) and I rake them up,

Placing them on the garden (spring) where

Still standing dead (winter) sunflowers feed birds.

To think just a few weeks ago they were (summer) 

(Green, not) yellow or red (or) falling from the trees 

Sometimes knocked off by pesky squirrels (red)

And picked up by me (green) thinking of all

The work I have to do and (yellow) don’t want to.

But here I am anyway, now white headed (winter)

Raking up all these beautiful leaves (autumn)

And wondering why I ever thought (summer) I 

Had much time to spend (spring) with kids

Who are gone with the leaves (autumn) soon

To be buried beneath the snows (winter)

Like me or some buried ancestor (red)

Taking pride in me out here raking (green) leaves.

I guess that’s what living is all about (yellow)

Never taking time to notice (yellow) things

When you should (green) and getting angry

When you should(n’t) (red).

November 2022

About This Poem

I spend an inordinate amount of time raking leaves in the fall and it never ceases to impress upon me aspects of living, or, in this case, life itself. I titled it after all of the seasons because they are all there in the act of raking and living. The seasons are parenthetical to the act itself, because it's obviously autumn. They are also not in any logical order because life tends to jumble its seasons, at least in our minds. Right now it's in the 90s but I'm recalling autumn winds and raking leaves as if it were happening right now because, in a sense, it is.

 

Poem: Adrift Upon the Lake

Adrift Upon the Lake

Adrift upon the lake in my

canoe, I see cloudbreak make sigh

as glass turns to rings

crashing into things 

as heart sings

here to cry

of isolated beauty here

where I float longing to be near

engulfed in your pools 

of ringlets. Oh fool,

here I cool

as you hear

my aching moan to be right here

swirling into this perfect mere

where you wrap your arms 

about me in charms

where none harms

drowning here.

Adrift upon the lake in my

embrace, clouds of your love are nigh

as glass turns to rings

crashing into things.

My heart sings 

to your sigh.

About This Poem

I love to just drift on a lake in a boat every once in awhile. In rereading this poem it seems dark. Sometimes, I suppose, my thoughts are dark, but generally, near water, I am buoyed up and feel great. There's a little of that here also. I don't actually know when I wrote it. I typed it up in June a couple of years ago. It seems appropriate for summer. I think it could use a little more editing, but here's the draft.