4th, 5th, 6th November

I'm not gonna lie. I didn't write a poem each day this last weekend.

I did think about it. Think about topics for poems, think about all the emotions raging inside of me, think about the commitment to myself to write a poem for each twenty-four hours I live on this earth during this 30 day month.

I started one about mint sneezes. But all I could visualize was a field of mint in someone's nose. (I'm not prone to limericks myself...)

I imagined writing one about holiness during a secular christening, and of wearing my great-grandmother's onyx and pearl cross whenever I attend something sacred. I invoked her and all my grandmothers of faith as a lit a candle for the little one, newly named.

I could have even thought of something clever about the gun powder plot or Guy Fawkes or at least emulated V for Vendetta in poetry form. I didn't. Obviously.

And yet you were never far from my mind: the poetry, and whomever might be reading it.

Travel Buddy

We could chase the sun, you tell me.

Sleep for two nights on the Nile.

See all the stars in the Sahara.

You would take me to a remote island, you say.

Visit all the bars you once danced in.

Charter a boat for the clear blue waters.

We would walk on the beaches til we couldn't anymore

Sip endless margaritas by the pool, you dream.

Revel all day in the sheets and the heat.

You promise the only cruise we'll take

will be to see the Northern Lights, and we can

eat our way across Italy. We'll jump in a car,

drive across the South West and love

even more than the miles can count.

High School Days

I went to get a massage this evening because my neck and back hurt. I mean hurt-ache-twinge-pain-ouch-hurt. It's the second time they've told me I have a "trigger point" along my spine that seizes up when stressed/sit-too-long/insert-relative-menial-labor-task-here. The only thing I ever remember like that was being trigger-happy enough to knock opposing players off the field with my hip while playing for the ball...

I am starting to reminisce --

those days when defense was my stance:

on the court, on the field, off the field.

I can taste the metallic sweat

of not-giving-in, still.

My body is the same me it was, but

I know the muscles have shape-shifted.

The memory retained but they'd mock

my daily performances;

the repetitive plays of "phone, email, desk";

the nylon, polyester, mascara of my new uniform.

Poems in November Month

Howdy y'all...

November's back again, and so is the poetry! Join me, if you would be so kind, as I muddle through another 30 poems (this time, hopefully, with friends j and cissy alongside me offline/online) and see what this construction of my perception comes up with.

A haiku, simple and sweet to start:

So today begins

another journey into

a vast poetic...

Until tomorrow...

xErica

Just One More Time...

As Addonizio is prolific in form poems, I thought I'd try again at the love sonnet. Not nearly as juicy, but what can I say...I'm just a big softie...

Just One More Time

It's one more time that I get to kiss you.
One more time to count all of your freckles.
One more time to wake up and remember
that your nose is incredibly special.

One more time watching you walk down the hall.
Just one more time to be thinking in twos.
One more time whispering nothing at all,
except I love you, I love you, I do.

Each time you climb out of bed or each time
doors close behind you as a chance to say
Whoever you are, please give me a sign,
blessed on my lips, just one more time today.

Because no matter how long we are one
I'll have one more time on the tip of my tongue.

When Poetry is So Good

I had the pleasure and privilege of supporting a course today and one of the participants chose to take more time for herself and do things that she enjoyed just for her. One of these things was to write poetry.

I couldn't resist at the break asking her about the poets she read, and when she asked for recommendations I couldn't resist talking about Kim Addonizio. Multiple poems came to mind-- "Fuck," "Bugdom," "Miniatures"--but this one is so good I had to type it up for you:

You Don't Know What Love Is

but you know how to raise it in me

like a dead girl winched up from a river. How to

wash off the sludge, the stench of our past.

How to start clean. This love even sits up

and blinks; amazed, she takes a few shaky steps.

Any day now she'll try to eat solid food. She'll want

to get into a fast car, one low to the ground, and drive

to some cinderblock shithole in the desert

where she can drink and get sick and then

dance in nothing but her underwear. You know

where she's headed, you know she'll wake up

with an ache she can't locate and no money

and a terrible thirst. So to hell

with your warm hands sliding inside my shirt

and your tongue down my throat

like an oxygen tube. Cover me

in black plastic. Let the mourners through.

- Kim Addonizio, What is This Thing Called Love

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I want to make words do this....

Haikus for Mom's Birthday

She spoke the truth when

she said: Here's to the mother

who let her do it.

Like the brown groundhog,

you're my brunette cautionary

for not fucking up.

No one makes breakfast

--waffles, bacon, scrambled eggs--

like you do, at noon.

For each of your gifts,

you are thoughtful of your theme:

mostly, it's called love.

I can talk a lot

of nothing of consequence;

thank you for listenin'.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAMA....