Poems of the Week ~ with Audrey and Annell

Today, my friends, we are featuring three wonderful poems by Audrey Howitt, of Audrey Howitt Poetry, Alive and Well, and Annell Livingston of Somethings I Think About.  Pour yourself a piping hot cup of tea, and settle in to enjoy the words of your fellow poets.

This poem from Audrey  really took my breath away when I first read it. Let's take a look:

Audrey Howitt photo

THE POET'S BREATH

i met you in the sun

you wrote your poetry
on clouds
blue on white
a daisy, your pen

until grey streaks pushed
your kind aside
deeper and deeper
into the edges
pulling petals apart
a litany to tiny ends

the wilt of a berry
on your breast
rebirth it's red
this new ink
the leaves your pages

poetry, your breath.

September 16, 2016

Sherry: Wow! So beautiful! Tell us about it, Audrey.

Audrey: I am honored and thrilled to be featured---I feel like my poetry is shifting right now--or I as a poet am shifting--one or the other or both--anyway, something of the old is being left behind as the new starts to take more focus--this piece was about that process for me--it feels like a loss of some kind, and I am uncertain right now where this shift is taking me--but I am trusting that it will be a good place for me--

Sherry: It is always interesting, when things start shifting within. Would you tell us a bit about this inner shift?

Audrey: So as much as I understand this shift, and I am not really sure that I do, I sense a kind of deepening or maturing that is starting to happen in my writing. I think I have been writing for 5 or 6 years now. When I first started writing, I was always trying to make my pieces poetic--make them beautiful by putting the words together in a way that pleased me--they were pretty I think--and then I started running out of things to say in that way--I would sit for long periods of time with blank paper in front of me, or worse, start writing and then hating it, just tearing up my work--I began to think that maybe that was all there was to my writing--and that maybe I was done --I had never really thought much about what I wrote--I wrote it and very seldom edited anything.

Now, I feel as though I am waking up a bit more in my writing. I am paying more attention to metaphor and the emotional content that underlies the writing.  I am also sitting with my pieces longer than I used to before I post them. I am trying to understand where they come from and what they mean to me on a deeper level --all of that means that I am posting less often--and working and re-working my pieces more than I used to.

I want my pieces to be good--really good--and I think for that to happen, I have to tell the truth in my writing--and as I move more toward truth, I find that making my pieces pretty is less interesting--that is the story behind this piece--

I feel a bit adrift--

Sherry: Sometimes these shifts can feel discombobulating, but I view them as very positive, personally, as it means growth is happening. And I think the most authentic poems, the ones we respond to most strongly, are the ones that speak the poet's truth.

We will watch where your work takes you with interest, Audrey. You posted another poem recently that I found a very positive response to the political climate we are struggling with these days.  Let's take a look:

Audrey Howitt photo

A Reweaving

i awoke to a world gone mad

hatred its main bargaining chip
and though i didn't want to,
i cried with each step this morning,
picked up worn linen
woven in youth's innocence
its nubs a part of its landscape

i will reweave it
over time
make it stronger
though you may shout your imprecations
loudly in my ear
i will not falter
i will not halt
i will not hate

so that our children
need not fear

Audrey: I was stunned at the election results. I am still stunned and trying to find words to put to the feelings that not only I, but so many people are experiencing now. So many people are really terrified at what this election will mean for this country, the world, the planet---so many people will suffer I fear. Since the election, hate crimes have skyrocketed here--even at the local elementary school, racist graffiti was found this last Friday. And I think we are just seeing the beginning--

I had not been to a protest since the Vietnam War era--but I went to one Sunday, and held hands and sang the old songs--We Shall Overcome seems so appropriate right now. 

Sherry: We are being set back 50 years. At my age, I feel very tired, from all the overcoming. Sigh. 

I love "I will not hate so our children need not fear." That really speaks to me, my friend. But it is hard to hold onto hope.  I find your work strong and powerful; you seem to be tapping into a deep well these days. Thanks so much  for sharing your poem and your thoughts with us today, and where you are at on your journey.

This fall, Annell shared a pensive poem about memories of past summers, that I think you will find very moving.

Fragments Geometry and Change

by Annell Livingston (2015)  

#204  11�x11�  gouache on w/c paper  

MEMORIES OF SUMMER

regrets        lie around       like dead flowers in the garden

the season for fresh blooms     is gone    i prepare for winter

leaving wet suits    on the line      summer's laughter fleeting

yet my heart is filled   with the warm cargo of summer   beach parties

picnics      hold the shell to your ear       gentle breezes heard

waves pound the shore   seagulls scream   the sun sets in the west                                                                                          

regrets left behind     to return another season      with thoughts of you

hearts entwined with silver thread        there is no danger we will forget

our tongues lap warm milk from the bowl            you were torn from me

years gobbled up                     your brindled coat thrown over the chair

your presence remains            memories of summer        fill my heart

from the bridge             i see the ship               leaving shore  

mist settles in       the view becomes obscure      the afternoon light

lingers                  still, i try to follow the ship         until out of sight          

there is a trail across the water      white foam       reflections of sky

with a tiny needle    i make small stitches     to hold memories together

bind pages into the book    whisper words           hoping you will hear 

October 7, 2016

Sherry: This pings at my heart, Annell, the loss, the golden memories, the stitching together and, especially "hoping you will hear." Sigh.

Annell: Thanks for asking for this poem, and for giving me the opportunity to talk about it, and what I was thinking.

regrets       lie around                like dead flowers in the garden

(so many things I wish I had done differently�..)

the season for fresh blooms  (spring)     is gone    i prepare for winter

leaving wet suits           on the line 

(children leave their wet swim suits on the line, and at the end of summer,
you will often find them there)   
          

summer's laughter fleeting     yet my heart is filled

(though my heart is filled with regrets, it is also filled with the fun we had)                                       

with the warm cargo of summer        beach parties

picnics             hold the shell to your ear  

(when summer is over, that one precious shell, found at the beach is there on the shelf, 
when you hold it to your ear, you can still hear the sounds of summer)           

gentle breezes heard

waves pound the shore       seagulls scream            the sun sets in the west 

(the idea of the setting sun, end of day, end of summer�
there is a certain sadness  in this idea)                                                                                

 regrets left behind (sometimes we forget the regrets)      

to return another season         with thoughts of you 

(yet when I think of you, the regrets return)

hearts entwined with silver thread 

(I have an image that I carry, my heart entwined with the ones I love 
with silver thread  that cannot be broken)    

there is no danger we will forget  

(we can never forget the ones we love�the love remains)

our tongues lap warm milk from the bowl 

(I am thinking of my precious kitty here, the beauty of his being)             

you were torn from me (and quickly my thoughts change, your death,
which came too soon)

years gobbled up (the years you were lost to me) 
                       

your brindled coat thrown over the chair imagining it was the coat you wore

your presence remains  (and even when a person is gone, they are still there,
they pop up unexpected anytime)             

memories of summer     fill my heart (still I think about the time
we did have together)

from the bridge   i see the ship  (again imaging, when you died, you left in a ship)              

leaving shore    

mist settles in      the view becomes obscure (I follow the ship with my eyes,
until I can see it no more, you have gone to a place I cannot follow�.yet)  
the afternoon light

lingers       still, I try to follow the ship          until out of sight 

there is a trail across the water      white foam        reflections of sky

(perhaps it is the silver thread, that is wound around our hearts�
that creates that line to you)

with a tiny needle          i make small stitches        to hold memories together

(I imagine myself, sewing, making stitches, holding memories together)

bind pages into the book (a book of memories)   whisper words
(perhaps I speak to myself, or maybe to  you)

(I hold you close, and in some mysterious way, I hope you will hear
what I say to you, you will know how much I loved you)  hoping you will hear

Note:  It has been two years and five months since my Son died, in some ways it happened yesterday, and in other ways it has been a lifetime.  The shock has softened, and I am glad he no longer suffers the pain of his illness, (here it comes) but I still miss him so.  Wish he had not died.  Wish I could have known he would die so soon�.wish it could have been different�.he was who he was, and I am who I am�.I suppose it was as it was, and could not have been another way.  I wonder�.what makes us think it would have been better if it had been �my way?�   I am grateful I was there when he died.  To be with him, to comfort him, to hold him�it all happened so quickly, the healing takes time, an important element in the healing.

This poem could have been called a �Mother�s Lament.�  There are some things in life that are hard, and over time, they do not fade away, they crystallize into marble.  Some regrets will always be there.  We will live with them for as long as we live.                       

October 7, 2016 

Sherry: I think every mother's heart is filled with regrets, things we wish we had done differently. But we know we did our best. Thank you for this very moving poem, Annell, and for sharing your thoughts behind and between the lines.

We hope you enjoyed these beautiful offerings, friends, each one straight from the poet's loving heart. Do come back and see who we talk to next. Who knows? It might be you!

POEMS OF THE WEEK BY THREE REAL TOADS

Today, my friends,  we have poems written by, in my humble opinion,  three of the most electrifying poets writing in the blogosphere today, Shay Simmons of Shay's Word Garden, Kelli Simpson, of another damn poetry blog, and Joy  Jones, of Verse Escape. I am sure most of you are familiar with these dynamic women from either Poets United or our sister site, Imaginary Garden With Real Toads. Draw up a chair and enjoy these poems, which just might leave you as breathless as they did me.

Train

The train that I took out of London seven years ago
appeared in my dream last night.
It had dinner plate wheels and hung on a chain that hoisted it up to a mailbox
where letters spread their wings to dry.

The train that I took out of London seven years ago 
only moves in one direction: away, and yet there it was,
undeparted, filling like a lung.
I have sung everything into the parish poor box--

those things I loved most, first to go.
I have sung until I am mute, and as unsentimental as an oxygen tank.
The priest cut off his ears and put them in my pocket
like coins. I told him his wish is dust, and he turned into Jericho's wall.

The train that I took out of London seven years ago
took off its clothes and reported my movements from memory.
The tracks only go in one direction: away, and yet there I was;
I woke up in love, a stone in flight, a letter with no address,

a dove that left its light down a well, yet sings in the dark when I'm gone. 

Shay Simmons, August 18, 2016

Sherry: Where to start, with how much I love this poem. I can feel it, the having-given-it-everything-I've got, that which "only moves in one direction, away", the "things I loved most, the first to go." I love the letters spreading their wings to dry.

Your closing lines leave me with tight chest, no air to breathe. I have so been there, and perhaps am there still. Sigh.

Shay: The poem is about a dream I had, but it had nothing to do with the train, which was something that actually happened. it represents giving up on love, and then i dreamed i was in love with someone, and when i woke up I was thinking, wow, I had forgotten ever feeling that way.

Sherry: Love is glorious, but when we lose it, it hurts. We are not always up for risking that much pain again. I  know the feeling of giving up on love.

Shay: Except for doggy love!

Sherry: Of course! Doggy love is the truest kind; it never fails us.

Shay: I had the Fleetwood Mac song "Sara" going through my head. Also, the person I was in love with in the dream was not anyone i know in waking life. 

Sherry: Thanks, Shay, for sharing this poem with us. That "dove with its light down the well, yet sings in the dark when I'm gone" will stay with me a long time. 

Now let's hear from Kelli, with a beautiful poem called  "Stars", written by someone who clearly still feels the full breadth and flight of loving.

STARS

I will write my love in stars;

let every letter burn and fall

bright - my wishes where you are.

My want is strong enough by far

to shrink the world between us small.

I will write my love in stars.

Need is wild within my heart,

beating thunder at the walls

tonight - my wishes where you are.

I love with every piece and part;

my skin, my cells - you have it all.

I will write my love in stars.

So let a longing for me start.

A want, a need, a love; call -

don't fight - my wishes where you are.

I'll split the earth that keeps us apart

if you give me any hope at all.

I will write my love in stars -

light - my wishes where you are.

Kelli Simpson, August 3, 2016

Sherry: This is so beautiful, Kelli. I adore "I will write my love in stars." Tell us about this poem.

Kelli: "Stars" is a villanelle, a form that should probably have died with Dylan Thomas. Oh, I'm kidding! Well, mostly. I find the villanelle an almost impossibly difficult form, and I generally avoid it like the plague. But in this case it felt right, and I'm actually not completely embarrassed by the result.

Sherry: I should hope not! I, too, find the villanelle very difficult. It is odd, as I love the pantoum, but somehow the leap from pantoum to villanelle just floors me. You employed it to perfection though. You inspire me to try again.

In closing,  let us enjoy a wonderful poem of Joy's, about one of my favourite creatures, the wise old elephant. Let's take a look.

THUNDER IN MOURNING

Thunder mumbled all night,
thunder subdued, a cello played
by a sobbing storm,
or the beat of a drum: an elephant's steps
on the following walk, trunk to tail through
the wrong end of the kaleidoscope
up the curved wall and
down down again toward the moving end.

As the stained-glass lights blind,
she shows me the way
to balance my bulk
up on a ball, on one oak-like foot,
small eyes sunk and kind
too old for my mind.

She's a thing born for trust
despite what we've seen
from killers and users,
pale abusers who'll never hold
the blowing rose that drops away
as they push close.
She knows
all our possum secrets,

our summer fades,
how we murder our minutes
to buy our day.
She sways, a grey
forest that grows wild and wide;
she blocks the dead light

that increases night.
She'll let my feet slide
down the dodger's paradigm
towards the planet that struggles
to be a star, to the music
womb-warm but
played from so far. She bends
down her great head

to let me ride, for going there
might take a fall, and all
that's left of our lives, drums in the rain,
footsteps patient--cello gone soft
thunder subdued,
thunder in mourning.

Joy Jones August 21, 2016

source

Sherry: Where to start, for it is all wonderful! The cello, the "small eyes, sunk and kind / too old for my mind", and the drums in the rain - such beautiful images. One feels the slow, plodding steps of the elephant.

Joy: Most of my poems start as a thought or a phrase. I scrawl them out and put them in a file to mature till hopefully something comes of them. This one had nothing to do with elephants when it first came to me, but it did have a spirit in it, a somnolent, wise and suffering one, so that when Shay asked us to write about elephants for a prompt, something just clicked and I began to rewrite it. The painting I found to illustrate it added the cello music in the opening. The elephant became part of the soul of the world, and of our own souls in that world, a mirror for both our best and worst selves, and for whatever is greater than each. And in the end, a force to give us strength and comfort.

Sherry: I love the concept of the elephant as part of the soul of the world. We need such mirrors of our best and worst selves, and the treatment of animals on this planet is perhaps one of the most disturbing. Thank you, Joy, for this wonderful poem. 

Kids, these three talented women collaborated on two amazing books : Three Note Howl: The Wild Hunt, and Gemini / Scorpio / Capricorn, both available by clicking on the links. I proudly own both and they are excellent reading.

Thank you, Shay, Kelli and Joy, for stopping by to share these beauties, and your love of poetry, with us. We appreciate it.

Wasn't this wonderful, kids? Three wonderful poems and poets. Do come back and see who we talk to next. Who knows? It might be you!

POEMS OF THE WEEK ~ GRAPELING AND HIS BOYS, JOHNNIE AND SCHOONER

This feature will touch your hearts, my friends, especially those of you who love dogs.  It began as a poem of the week with other poets, but over the course of putting it together, events conspired which told me to honour it with its own feature. We have three heart-catching poems for you today, penned by Michael Phan, whom we know as Grapeling, who writes at his blog of the same name. 

They are tear-jerkers, especially for we dog lovers. Keep some Kleenex handy, and let's take a look at Michael's moving poems about his dogs, Johnnie and Schooner. I always say dogs are Love Buddhas, and these two certainly prove that theory.

Patricia O'Driscoll Photography

Johnnie on the left, Schooner on the right

Michael Phan photo

LOVE DOG

I carried him, black hairs furring my white shirt, into the back yard and sat him down on the grass between the Meyer lemon tree, redolent, and the red delicious apple tree now busting out a hundred pippins, and together in the dark we surveyed his domain.

Over there behind the prickly bush he used to spirit plastic bags, until we finally (large brains and all) figured out where all the bread was going: he was stealing it from high off the counter and sneaking it to gingerly devour in his private dining room, hidden from view, until the detritus of perhaps 40 bags (we�re slow learners) leaked out from behind the bushes and his secret was revealed.

Heads together, we looked at the blackberry brambles now filling the blank spaces between the black fence bars, the slender blueberry stems straining for fall, the tall but not yet productive pear tree. We looked at the bits of birch cones that always found their way onto his fur and into the house. This was his yard, and he sagged into my arms.

Where did those seven years go? Eight nearly, in people years, so for this sweetest black lab, was it fifty? It was a life lived at breakneck speed and long, lounging sleeps on the couch or bed, happily resting his jaw on the sofa arm, or especially as he lay down on his green checked dog bed, he moved his paw and arm over mine while I scratched his chest, and sighed that doggy sigh, heavy enough to flap his lips and make that whinny.

He struggled up, not making it, so I propped his haunches and he stuttered a step, two, resting again until I swept his old bones and blood dotted with something else and tuna-smelling breath and that curly black fur into my arms that can�t hold him enough, and held him, not enough, back inside to his bed, leaving his darkened yard behind.

He won�t be greeting me in the driveway, tearing from lawn to lawn and spinning like a dervish in love and devotion, and I won�t be chasing him back and forth like a six year old, and it�s too much for him to sneak a loaf from the table, he wouldn�t eat the pesto, even, offered like to a gouty Roman senator.

The chemo ended Friday and he was spry, Saturday he aged like clay in the oven, Sunday his right leg stopped working and his eyes sank, and Monday his rear haunches announced they no longer cared to walk. Last week he was sliding up onto the couch like old times, if no longer chasing to meet the neighbor dog at least he�d saunter.

Time is leaking out of his life faster than a bee swarm. The yellow flowers from the pepper tree out front litter the driveway, those bees are relentless, they smile their secrets into the pepper and bring forth pungent and color and a brown stain on the concrete and those yellow florets dropped onto his fur and into the house, and soon there won�t be any more spins of a dog on his lawn or on the brick living room floor and I�ll have to lay down to gather those bee�s lunch remains and pretend Johnnie will be sniffling up to lick my chin and ask for a scratch behind his ears, and these years and moments that swim before us like silvery minnows as we drink up, drink up, drink in the water of our days in the heartbeat of an old black dog.
                                          �..

[Originally posted on my first grapeling blog in February 2012, during Johnnie�s last days. Now it�s Schooner�s turn.]

Sherry: I am awash in tears at your loving and tender description of your boy Johnnie's final days. It is so sad that Schooner will soon be following his brother; heartbreaking that dogs do not live long enough. But such joy they bring us while they are here. Such devoted, unswerving love.

I would love to include the moving poem you wrote two years back about Schooner, if I may. 

Schooner

JANUARY 31, 2014 ~ M

He curls, furry, unfurls
his longest spine
like a sickle, a cup, a busker�s hat
throat rumbling for stretched fingers
stepping with strong claws
on your foot until you scratch.

His black eyes are the last
two leaves on the birch
waiting for winter to end.

Blood, bark, steady heartbeat
are yours
no matter what.

Sherry: Oh, my goodness, Michael, those two last leaves on the tree, waiting for winter! Their hearts are ours, no matter what, as no other being's is, so unconditionally. Thank you for your beautiful, moving poems, with which every dog lover can relate. 

Michael: Maybe it's because they're the better us: love without limits, eyes with no deception, and perfectly ok with eating shit and smiling about it. 

I, or my ex and sons, have had black labs for 20 years - first Bumper, then Johnnie Be Goode, then Schooner - and each of them is, of course, the best boy ever. 

Yours is too, right? 

Maybe I hedge. Maybe I say 'there's no better dog than you.' 

That way, they can all be the best, and I'm not lying. Who could lie to a dog? And if you could - well, I don't want to know you.

Somehow, Schooner has hung on, but this time, it really is the end days. So, as with Bumps and Johnnie, I hold him as tight as he lets me, and scratch his chest, and let him stand on my feet.

I think he's telling me 'Hineni'*. 

Dog speed, Schooner, and every dog I've ever loved.

(*Hineni: "Here I am, I'm ready, my Lord.")

[Note: As I was  putting this feature together, in mid-November, Michael emailed me that dear Schooner was making his way across the Rainbow Bridge to join Johnnie Be Goode.]

A boy and his dog

Schooner, on his last day

Sherry: Oh, Michael, my heart hurts for you. It is so hard to lose these beautiful souls. I found a poem written a while back for Schooner that I would love to include here, if I might.

you, love

you, love

SEPTEMBER 9, 2015 ~ M

Kobe

Schooner

all of us are dogs
even when we forget
to bark.

you, love
with your bright black coat
shedding in my fingers,
your rapid, shallow breathing,
stuttering, betraying legs,
furred head that smells like grape candy,
how you pin my foot with your paw
so I can�t move when I stroke your ears,
your voice a throaty, laughing growl;

how your steps are numbered;
how I will carry you to your final embrace
tomorrow, or the next.

and you, love
who stepped away yesterday
with golden-white fur long as love,
candled eyes, a voice that rarely spoke
except when I came to the door
even after years distant
to rumble greeting,
your snout nosing my knees
and your chuff a purr, as it were,
as much as a dog might;

I will forget our slow walks
when I am dirt.

        *****         *****

Sherry: Oh, my. "With golden-white fur as long as love...." Dog-love, and our love for them, is one of the purest loves around. Thank you for sharing your boys with us, Michael. Such devoted, loving beings, and too soon gone.

I hope you had your hankies handy for this one, kids. Sigh. Do come back to see who we talk to next. Who knows? It might be you!