A Poem & A Picture (Thirst)
Thirst
Laura Cronk
Unclouded third eye and lush
red wings. I’m pouring water
from cup to cup.
This is the water we are meant
to drink with the other animals.
There are daffodils by the water,
a road leading from the water
to the shining crown of the sun.
My white hospital gown—
off-the-rack and totally sane.
My foot unsteady, though,
heel held aloft, missing its stiletto.
Nine months sober emblazoned
on my flat chest in red
below girlish curls and mannish chin.
You can’t see my eyes.
You’ve never seen them.
Go ahead and share this.
A Poem & A Picture (Skeletal Beliefs)
Hard to believe this young poet is barely eighteen years old.
Skeletal Beliefs
by Miranda Krase
This skeletal figure dances in the dark shadows of the night.
Trapped. Waiting for her partner,
She dances in hopes of his return,
Content to be waiting forevermore.
…And waiting she shall remain.
A faithful wife to a dead life,
A future now no more.
I don’t have the heart,
To look upon her brokenness,
Her empty face, same as mine.
An ever flowing river,
Comes from our skeleton eyes.
If only I could tell her the truth,
It won’t save her…
But could it save me?
Go ahead and share this.
A Poem & A Picture (On Meeting Robert Hayden in a Dream)
On Meeting Robert Hayden in a Dream
by Abdul Ali
here among them the dead the others the aliens
I see you without coke bottle glasses a wavy comb over
your nose buried inside a notebook over-
flowing with strange sightings men and women
without a homeland a library to shelve histories
dreams the names of rare flowers fruits baby names
exiled from their villages learning to say hello
with accents thick with nostalgia for their purple planets
here UFO sightings aren’t so spectacular
border crossing is quintessentially american universal
crowds gather in squalid ghettoes where every country is a city
every city is a verse & every verse echoes “Those Winter Sundays”
where a New World opens up where all the martians are welcome
at the writing table with their fountain pens & swollen digits & you
whispering
what took so long?
Go ahead and share this.
A Poem & A Picture (Hungry Eyes)
I said I would try to focus on unknown poets this year, and I will, after this digression.
Merle Haggard passed away yesterday, he was known as “the poet of the common man” but we called him the poor man’s poet. It’s no secret that I grew up poor, and now the fact that I thought the name of this song was My Mama’s Hungry Eyes, is no longer a secret. These lyrics always made me think of my own mother. They make me think of her now, no longer with hungry eyes… her and daddy, no longer struggling.
Rest in Peace & Happy Birthday Merle. Say Hi to Mama & Daddy for me.
Merle Ronald Haggard (April 06, 1937 – April 06, 2016)
Six or seven years ago
Hard times
Better times
Hungry Eyes by Merle Haggard
A canvas-covered cabin in a crowded labor camp
Stand out in this memory I revived
‘Cause my daddy raised a family there, with two hard-working hands
And tried to feed my mama’s hungry eyes
He dreamed of something better, and my mama’s faith was strong
And us kids were just too young to realize
That another class of people put us somewhere just below
One more reason for my mama’s hungry eyes
Mama never had the luxuries she wanted
But it wasn’t ’cause my daddy didn’t try
She only wanted things she really needed
One more reason for my mama’s hungry eyes
I remember daddy praying for a better way of life
But I don’t recall a change of any size
Just a little loss of courage, as their age began to show
And more sadness in my mama’s hungry eyes
Mama never had the luxuries she wanted
But it wasn’t ’cause my daddy didn’t try
She only wanted things she really needed
One more reason for my mama’s hungry eyes
Oh, I still recall my mama’s hungry eyes
Go ahead and share this.
A Poem & A Picture (The Fountain of Youth)
The Fountain of Youth
Photo and poem by Janna Hill
The fountain of youth is a murky pond
Fed by deep springs of optimism
Where no one dares to swim
Doubting toes splash at the shoreline
Mouths turned down like fingernail moons
A nervous frog leaps, we run
Still, the ripple marks the flesh
Go ahead and share this.
A Poem & A Picture (Colorado)
Poem by Carl Adamshick
My dream lives close to my lungs.
Sometimes I feel it as a pen
spilling ink in the dark purse
of my breathing. My body
lives here in Colorado,
in an apartment with a few plants.
I am what the experts refer to
as history, a small totality
making its way to the future.
In the evening, I inherit death
as an idea, as a subject I’ll be tested on.
Mid-afternoons, I take long walks.
I live by myself as the state lives
by itself in borders it had nothing
to do with. I, too, have a river.
If you ask, I’ll tell you all about the light.
Go ahead and share this.
A Poem & A Picture (Meditation for the Silence of Morning)
Poem by Adam Clay
I wake myself imagining the shape
of the day and where I will find
myself within it. Language is not often
in that shape,
but sentences survive somehow
through the islands of dark matter,
the negative space often more important
than the positive.
Imagine finding you look at the world
completely different upon waking one day.
You do not know if this is permanent.
Anything can change, after all,
for how else would you find yourself
in this predicament or this opportunity
depending on the frame? A single thought
can make loneliness seem frighteningly new
We destroy the paths of rivers to make room for the sea.
Go ahead and share this.
A Poem & A Picture (Your Birdhouse)
And we’re off…
Did you hear the gun? It is officially National Poetry Month.
This pretty ditty is by a woman known only as Ariella, I suppose. No last name or links were provided. 😦
Enjoy your weekend off and keep the suggestions coming.
I Used to Be Your Birdhouse
Poem by Ariella
I used to be your birdhouse.
I could coax you out from your seat in the treetops
from behind the camouflaging greens
and watch you edge out shyly with the wind ruffling your blush feathers.
You’d cling to me when the spring showers started falling
and I could keep you safe and dry, I could always do that.
I’d be there to hear your youthful songs, and I’d whisper back in a language just we knew
and then I’d hug you goodbye and watch you step precariously from my perch,
flapping in the wind, unsure, unaccustomed.
and I’d be there for you the next day and the next
because I thought you’d still need me.
I never thought I’d see you, the point of a flying V
soaring with your head held high,
not even glancing down at
my tired wooden walls
and faded empty perch.
Go ahead and share this.
The Agony of Da Feet
The Real Janna Hill in 