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Go see what other poets contributed to the Totally Optional Prompt: Laundry. As for me, I didn't write anything about laundry and am sharing something completely different.
The Bars
We went to the bars.
We went to the bars, but not to drink.
We went out of our way to get to the bars,
squeezing too many into a car, or hopping from bus to train to bus.
We paid the cover charge or the membership fee,
and squeezed into the dark, loud, crowded spaces.
The bars smelled like beer and clove cigarettes and patchouli.
They were always too warm, even if you found
a winter breeze from a side door, propped open a little.
There were too many bodies there, moving bodies.
We went to the bars to dance.
We went to the bars to dance with each other,
without men to hit on us.
Some woman was always trying to impress the DJs,
with a song request calculated to prove
superior knowledge of the latest releases, or
a dance move practiced to look casual-but-sexy.
We held hands at the bar,
in the open. And we danced.
We danced close to one another.
Our bodies moved in rhythm to the music and each other.
Our hands and hips talked even when it was too noisy for conversation.
We went to the bars to play pool.
There was more space to breathe by the pool tables
but you had to pay attention and move out of the way
as the players tried to out-butch each other
in their efforts to impress someone special.
We could sometimes nab a just-vacated seat near the windows,
out of the way and cozy, a good place to sit close, lean in close;
a good place to kiss and be kissed.
We went to the bars to hear live music.
We listened to singers on the tiny first-floor stage:
a woman playing an acoustic guitar with heart-on-her-sleeve political lyrics;
two women with love songs about women;
or a baby-dyke with a rock edge.
We crowded at the tiny tables and watched,
some drooling at the guitars, more at the singers.
We stood in line at the bars to get in.
We stood in line at the bars to order drinks.
We stood in line at the bars to go to pee,
a long line on the basement stairs to rooms
marked "Women" and "Men,"
not caring which was which because we used them both,
as if we owned the place.
We went to the bars because that's where the women were.
Women like us.
Totally Options Prompts encouraged us to think "horoscopes" for poetry this week. I dove in and looked up my horoscope for Wednesday on nearly a dozen different websites. I didn't know what I was going to do with all of them, but I then thought about putting them in a Wordle.
So a cut-and-paste later, I had a massive Worldle that was too hard to read. So then I used one of the Wordle tools to restrict the number of words and got something that I thought might inspire me.
But now I find it too distracting all in itself. I trace words around and around. And so I decided that sharing this word-picture will be my contribution this week. Enjoy, and let me know if you find a poem in it!
(click on the image to see it bigger)
I haven't been writing, but now that my spring concerts are over, I should gain a bit of time to myself again. I also have some vacation days to sneak in before the end of the month, so here's hoping the muse will work with my limited time.
Totally Optional Prompts this week was "Unexpected Visitors" and that fit in nicely with my first foray into the world of Facebook.
Unexpected Guest
I'm sitting pretty in my p.j.'s,
comfy on my couch,
watching the world from the window
of my little laptop.
Then another singer sells me
on the plan of a page
for our chorus fans to adore us,
a focus on Facebook,
another window to the world.
So I sign up,
join forces on Facebook,
post some particulars,
sweep open the shutters,
cast open the curtains
of my world window,
and I wait.
Just two-days time
passes by and Pop!
a blast from the past casts a query,
"be my friend," she extends
a once-familiar wave wandering
toward my open window.
I cringe and cram coverlets in the way,
heaving heaps of unknowing
into the chasm of change
built in separate states,
wincing away from the wide-open window.
I click ("don't be sick!"), and
tick, tick, tick, the time
rolls back, and I'm smack
dab in the long-ago days,
with a faded photo from
there and I recognize the "then"
in us both, our backstories bridge
the welcoming at the window.
I greet my guest with a grin.
[This week Totally Optional Prompts encouraged us to rewrite. I looked for something I could stand to look at again and my heart wasn't in it.
Last spring I took a challenge to try my hand at the clerihew. I posted a couple then and decided that for my "rewrite" I would write another. It's late, but I did come up with one. I should try more of these when I'm awake.]
Jay Leno (host),
seen coast to coast,
competed with sleep and yawns (ours)
so will soon be on earlier by hours.
[Totally Optional Prompts encouraged us to write about "Firsts." First anything, actually. I'm late writing one this week, but decided to do it anyway.]
The Pallbearer
I missed my grandmother's funeral when I was off at school.
I spent the day after she died with my cousin,
learning about claddagh rings and candlepin bowling in Southie.
I was a summer trip chaperone when my granddad died.
They didn't tell me until I got home from constantly watching
5 stragglers in identical blue shirts to make sure they
stayed with the group when we crossed 5th Avenue or
entered the restaurant or left the museum.
But I came home for my great aunt's funeral,
even though it was one of the coldest Januarys on record.
I had never been a pallbearer before but the
funeral director was kind and clear.
There had been more people at the visitation
during the ice storm the night before.
In the morning everything sparkled
except us, bundled in the darkest,
warmest clothes we could find.
After the second time through
"The Old Rugged Cross on the Hill"
Mom said a few words.
She was now the matriarch.
We were all big, strong people:
my sister, niece, mom, one brother and an uncle.
But lifting the coffin by my hand-hold
I was surprised at how little it weighed.
Shouldn't 90 years of life feel heavier?
They reminded us to walk slowly,
even though the trip to the hearse was a short one
and under cover so there was no ice to slip on.
I later wondered how often there were more
women than men as pallbearers.
And I wondered if it would feel less awkward
the next time I was tapped for the job.
[I don't know if this is prose poetry or maybe something else, but it started out with a prompt from the Monday Poetry Stretch at The Miss Rumphius Effect (to use cup, gate, and sea) but it also seemed to satisfy the Totally Optionally Prompt to write about "discoveries." ]
Treasure
She found the once-white cup, chipped and dirty, dull red rust peaking through where the enamel gave way long ago. Full of dirt and dead leaves and sticks, and probably a bug or two, but its handle was still solid and it wanted to be found. From the hole at the base of the tree, she took it to the creek and washed away years of abandonment and promptly filled it with big, fat acorns that littered the path.
Her steps carried her away from the trees at a stately, measured pace. With her eyes closed she saw the aisle of the church, decorated with flowers to match those her sister had pinned in her hair. She replayed her movements, slow and careful, following the instructions to drop just one petal at a time from her basket. One by one the acorns fell, bouncing on the pavement, rolling to one side or the other, and one wobbled its way into a pothole in the street.
When her fingers brushed the bottom of the cup, she pulled out the last two acorns and rolled them around in her hand, like the silver Chinese balls that her grandmother kept in a red silk box on the shelf by her bed. They were awkward to hold and so big that she nearly dropped them.
The old wooden bridge, just wide enough for one car to cross at a time, had gaps where you could look through into the water below. She dropped one of the acorns through one of the holes and watched for the splash, but she couldn't see if it sank to the bottom or bobbled its way toward the sea.
Cup in one hand and the last acorn in the other, she skipped toward the big houses. The grand Victorians seemed palatial, but maybe not as nice as they might once have been. Like the cup, they were neglected, with weeds and bushes taking over, with paint peeling from the siding (where there was any left at all), and lopsided shutters hanging on out of habit. The wrought iron fencing was rusty and showed only a passing acquaintance with paint. The clanking rattle was tremendously satisfying as she raked the cup across the iron rails until she got to the empty space where the gate yawned permanently open, sagging deep into the soil of the yard.
She tucked the remaining acorn in her pocket and raced herself down the sidewalk to the beach where autumn's chill had finally chased away the summerfolk. The cup was perfect for digging in the dunes, and for carrying water to newly-minted moats, and moving a pile of mussel shells to the back of the castle.
Eventually she headed back home, to the secret place in her yard where she kept her treasures safe from the growups who would call them junk. She tucked the cup and acorn in next to the pieces of beach-glass and the yellow feather, beside the coin with a hole in the center and the green plastic turtle, inside the blue pottery saucer that was only chipped in one place.
[Totally Options Prompts challenged us to revisit a place, person, or idea that was once familiar and that you haven't seen in a long time. This is what came to my mind.]
Camp Iroquois
He saw it clear and sunny,
fresh as honeysuckle vines.
The fresh air of New Hampshire
lighter than a Brooklyn summer,
even with trips to Coney Island.
Color wars and war canoes,
camp crafts and camp fires,
swimming in the lake and
hiking the nearby mountains.
And, oh! those wild strawberries
and low-bush blueberries!
The summer we looked
at colleges for me we plotted
our trip to take us nearby,
thinking we'd stop by and see
the camp, ask politely at the office
to look around, for old time's sake.
We knew we were close and finally
we stopped to buy maple syrup
and ask if they knew
where Camp Iroquois was.
It was closed, they said, but
directed us there anyway, where
we parked and wandered
into the wilderness, grown up
around crumbling foundations.
I think our hearts broke
when we found the skeletons
of the mighty war canoes,
spread wide and bleached in the sun.
[Effective 30-April-2015 I have turned off comments on this post.]
[This weeks Totally Optional Prompt was to write a poem in blank verse, that is a poem with meter with or without rhyme. I toyed around with a the sound of triplets or a waltz. That makes it largely "dactyl" I think, though feel free to correct me. This is less of a work in progress, and more a exercise. Go check out what other folks came up with. Oh, and click here if you want a definition of obbligato.]
Obbligato
cupcakes on weeknights or choc'late chip pancakes
tending to needs of her family and friends
fridge always stocked and the always-clean linens
proof of her love and devotion to home
others came first and she always came after - yet
there she was nearby with smiles and a hug
'til
then she was gone and the melody faltered
weft-less the family fabric was frayed
[This week's Totally Optional Prompts was to write a ghazal. I finally gave it a try and had better luck that I had thought I would. Now I need to write an "up" one since this one is such a downer.]
Lonely Ghazal
On darkened subway platforms, right and left, the crowd was crushed.
Without you, I am all alone; without you I am crushed.
The winter winds blew through my skin, and chilled me to the bone.
I pulled tomatoes from a can; I took each one and crushed.
The sun in springtime showed its strength; the snow banks dwindled down.
The piles of white grew heavier; the grass beneath was crushed.
Hot summer air was full of tears, unshed the dampness was,
I tried to take a lonely breath; but felt my lungs were crushed.
I wandered autumn's paths alone, beheld each barren tree.
My laggard feet scuffed on the ground, and left dead leaves all crushed.
We made our plans together, once, to travel side-by-side.
Now solitary sister moves on freely -- spirit crushed.
[Here is my quickly-written response to this week's Totally Optional Prompts encouragement to write "like summer."]
Like Summer
Since when is summer
mere welcome warmth
enjoyed briefly between
air-conditioned appointments?
the season with weed-whackers
instead of snow shovels?
Summer is that burst of
excitement finally set free from school
to spend entire days in the sun
peddling bicycles around town,
trying to avoid the stinky, sticky
new oil-and-rock roads
and the black bits that would stick
to your tires and white socks,
when refreshment was a race
to finish a grape popsicle before
it melted down your arm.
[Totally Optional Prompts invited us to write about hurricanes or storms or lightning. See the end of this post for a couple of my other poems about storms. See here for other TOP stormy poems.]
Mary Lou’s House
We visited the house on the lake when it was just
a slab and mere suggestion of framing. I fished from
the shore and caught a whale – well, it felt like a whale.
The grown-ups pulled in my carp, said it wasn’t good
to eat and set it free. We grilled hot dogs and ate
“holy” pickles that had mysterious rectangular holes
in the center where the cucumber seeds had been.
The next summer we sat on deep shag carpet (that I was happy
not to vacuum) and we watched the rain. Distant thunder failed
to warn us of the crack that shook our bones.
Blinking away after-images, we watched a giant limb crash to
the lake in slow motion. Sudden and sharp, the night was powerful
and dangerous, and we didn’t sit so close to the window after that.
my other stormy poems:
Ocean Storm
The Transplant
[Writing about an absent friend was this week's Totally Optional Prompt. See what others came up with here. ]
Missing Mr. Herrmann
You are in my consonants,
the ones at the beginnings and ends
of words making a difference
between a good chorus or great.
You are in the vowels I sing,
clear with no dipthongs,
making sure that the audience
can understand the lyrics.
You are in my eyes that watch
the conductor's baton,
ever alert to unexpected changes
in tempo.
You are in my fingers
as I turn pages as quietly
and unobtrusively as possible
just as you taught us.
You are in my confidence,
encouraged by your trust in me,
even though you have been
gone for twenty years.
You are on my mind in December
when I remember how we used
to sing carols at your house
because it was a way for us to say,
"Thank you."
[A poem with something symbolic for Totally Optional Prompts this week.]
Proof
After working in the yard for hours she
stores her worn leather gloves in the garage,
and leaves the muddy shoes by the door.
She takes her work jacket to the closet
and hangs it on a padded hanger before
putting the paint-stained jeans and tired
sweatshirt into the laundry basket.
She cleans the dirt from beneath her nails
and sets up the ironing board, ready
to press the wrinkles out of some shirts.
First the collar, then the sleeves, then
the rest; as she moves the iron back and forth
she surveys her domain, pleased at seeing
no dust, no clutter. Picked up and put away,
she knows where everything is.
One shirt finished, she hangs it on a padded
hanger and moves to the next shirt. Collar
and cuffs first, she presses away the imperfections,
controlling the outcome. Her mind wanders
back to her first real job at the lunch counter
and soda fountain. At twelve she didn't control much
but she worked hard anyway and saved her pennies.
Back then she hung her uniform on a wire hanger
in the shared closet. There was plenty of room
for clothes, since no one had many. She dreamed
of padded hangers all lined up in the closet full of clothes,
as she did her homework and counted Depression-Era tips.
Years later wire hangers held her nurse's uniform
including the freshly-starched material waiting to be
folded into the shape unique to her school.
She worked extra shifts for extra cash to support
her girl and boy, living with their grandmother.
Tired enough to sleep through a tornado, she
was frugal and kept planning.
The third cotton shirt finished, she picks up another
padded hanger and takes all three to the closet
where they blend in with all the others,
lined up clean and soft, cushioning the shoulders
of her dresses and jackets and coats,
proof that she was finally somebody.
[Totally Optional Prompts encouraged us to write about transformation.]
The Change
Winter chill hung in the air
refusing to let go,
but the sun warmed up the ground
inviting trees to bloom.
White flowers perfumed the air
oversweet and cloying,
until a sudden snowstorm
of delicate petals
and a warm breeze signaled that
spring had arrived at last.
[So I'm still around and thinking poetry, but I haven't been posting much while I first finished our tax returns, then prepared the house for Passover. Now that I have a weekend before me with no huge project hanging over me, I hope to catch up on a couple of prompts. This poem was inspired by both the Totally Optional Prompt "late spring" and Tricia's Monday Poetry Stretch to write about color (though this doesn't go straight at that challenge - rather a bit sideways). I will likely keep playing with this a little - I think I want to add some more interior rhymes to it, but I thought I'd share this at this stage anyway. (I read somewhere that "golden bells" is another name for forsythia, which had too many syllables for my taste today.)]
Late Spring Color
I turn my back
on the pale, pale green
of the maple tree
in spring.
I shun the bright,
white locust blooms
and the cloying scent
they bring.
Mere memories:
the tender, tiny
crocuses
in snowdrifts.
And yet a dream
the lilac scents
that'll welcome June
with heart lifts.
My late-spring days
are glowing now
with golden cups
of daffodils,
and shining sprays
to greet each morn
a dazzling row
of golden bells.
A brilliant yellow
halo meets
my winter-weary
eyes,
a hug of mellow
sun-like warmth,
a talisman in
disguise.
[I'm busy preparing for a Passover Seder at our house (Sunday night) but I've been thinking about my first piano teacher for days now. It seemed fitting to write a poem about her, since the Totally Optional Prompt this week was A Person.]
Piano Teacher
Her hair was soft grey but her smile was so kind.
Her manner was tender and steady.
She gave to me music from inside her soul,
though her voice was at times somewhat thready.
The ivories were worn and were yellowed a bit,
and a cushion helped pad the old stool.
I remember each street I would walk to her house
when my lesson was set after school.
While waiting my turn on the green davenport,
with the comic books stacked there so neat,
I would eye the glass dish on the table beside me
with its soft peppermints, oh so sweet!
And as sweet as those treats were upon my tongue
the gift of the music was best,
for it came from her heart and was given with love,
and in my heart it came to a rest.
Just as seeds that so lovingly nurtured will grow,
and will blossom and thrive in the world,
she planted in students a musical vine
that eventually thrived and unfurled.
[Totally Optional Prompts asked us to think regionally and the place in my poem is imprinted in my DNA. You can see other regional works here.]
Where Lincoln Walked
Put that bacon back!
We don't need no crawdads
and you'll get filthy down by the branch.
Warsh your hands, now!
We'll go downtown to Cain's Drugstore
for Mrs. Cain's chili.
Don't dawdle and make us late!
You know she only makes chili once a week
and it sells out early.
She never gives out the recipe to no one.
I know there's meat and kidney beans
and elbows, but the rest is a secret.
After dinner lets drive down to
see the folks at Farmer's Cemetery,
and then we can stop and see Leila.
I don't know why she don't fix up her plumbing.
The pump on the kitchen sideboard is alright,
but the outhouse is hard on my old behind.
While we're there we'll drive past our
forty acres. There ain't much to see yet,
but if it stays dry the beans will go in soon.
When we get back I'll make sausage and biscuits for supper.
I'll make cream gravy and I already baked angel
cake this morning. It's resting upside down on the porch.
I'm so glad it's spring. The nekkid ladies are up
in the side yard. The pink is so pretty!
You know after they die down, the greens come up.
Soon the lilacs'll bloom and after that
the piney bushes. Hey! Are you listening?
Climb down out of that redbud tree!
[I played fast and loose with the time line, drawing from what I remember & also from stories I was told so many times. Here's a glossary, for those who need it:
= crawdads are crayfish, a freshwater crustacean that kids were fond of trying to catch
= branch is the "town branch" of a small river, a creek
= warsh is how "wash" was pronounced when I was growing up
= Cain's Drugstore had a lunch counter in it
= Mrs. Cain was famous for her chili that really was a secret recipe for many, many years
= elbows are elbow macaroni
= dinner is the mid-day meal
= "the folks" at the cemetery were all buried
= I think Leila was my grandmother's cousin
= 40 acres is nothing down there, but it was farmland
= the beans to be planed were soybeans
= angel cake is angel food cake. It cooled upside down on a wooden rest someone had knocked together
= nekkid ladies were "naked ladies" a kind of flower with a pale stem and pale pink flowers and the greens really did come up later, as if it was a separate plant
= piney bushes are peony shrubs
= redbud trees are weed trees, but there was one giant one that was great for climbing!]
[Totally Optional Prompts this week encouraged us to be surreal. I'm working on another piece that may or may not turn out, but I couldn't get this out of my mind until I wrote it down. It is largely true and perhaps one of the most surreal experiences of my life. In the footsteps of the surrealists, I ask you to draw your own conclusions.]
Oboe
Yesterday they were inside the blue glacier.
Today one hundred teenagers filled
the aerial trams cars above Chamonix
ascending in the bright morning light of summer.
The girls' smiles flashed bright
above long, formal black dresses.
Warehouses of paisley Victorian sofas
had provided the synthetic material
for the boy's tuxedo jackets,
some in dark blue, some in dark red.
From the tram they walked on
the dusty path carved for skiers, not
black dress shoes. Each person carried
one box: this one for flute; that one
for trumpet; over there one pushed
the giant timpani case on wheels.
By ones and twos they rode
up the chair lift, even the ones with
acrophobia, hands gripping tight
to the saxophone and the frame,
as they rose up the green hillside.
Up and up into the clouds until their feet
touched down near the hut.
Instrument containers littered the grass,
yawning next to the large wooden platform.
In the cold, sunny summer air
the cows looked up in surprise
as the warm-up began.
The brass and players were too cold
to hold tuning as one hundred teenagers
played the concert in the Alps for
thirty or forty hikers and the herd of cows.
[Note: When I was editing this piece, I tried to enhance the dream-like hyper-reality of it. I tried to cut transitions that didn't have impact themselves. I removed or changed every occurrence of the word "a". I often used the word "the" instead. I think doing so added to the immediacy and removed potential ambiguity (what hut? oh, THE hut). What do you think?]
[This week the Totally Optional Prompt was "Smoke and Mirrors" but my brain wouldn't let go of "Smoking Mirror" which is another name for the Aztec god, Tezcatlipoca. You can see what other folks came up with here.]
Tezcatlipoca
Smoking Mirror, Aztec god of night,
of temptation and chaos.
You like to "stir the pot," don't you?
You play your flute and charm.
You tempt. You seduce. You sit back and
watch what your trickery started.
Jaguar that you are, spotted as the night sky,
you see behind things when you gaze
into your obsidian mirror.
Comfortable people sit on the couch all day.
God of the cold north, of hurricanes,
you make people uncomfortable.
You make them twitchy and ill-at-ease.
Uncomfortable folks don't sit still. They restlessly
move around, seeking resolution to the itch.
Is it your influence I feel as I struggle
to create? Is your enmity the
reason I reject word after word,
uneasy in my push to craft, to polish
my own magic mirror that reflects
what I see behind the world?
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