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 |   Poetry in April -- in celebration |
 This is my Second Book of poems. I may not have eaten the plums from the icebox, but I am guilty of writing poetry without thinking too much, without laboring over words and lines. This Is Just to Say I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold by William Carlos Williams You, too, forgive me for I only love the writing process; the result is secondary...And please never mind that I am also aping William Carlos Williams's false apology.    From where does the title Beetlebung and Kettlehorn come from? The name Beetlebung and Kettlehorn has to do with ancient whaling practices and Martha’s Vineyard and Cape Cod. During the nineteenth century, because of its dense white wood, the tupelo tree was used in whale oil casks made of copper. Beetle was the mallet made from the Tupelo tree and bung was the stopper in the cask hole. In Martha’s vineyard, the Tupelo tree is still known as the Beetlebung tree, and at Chilmark there, is a Beetlebung Corner, with shops at Chilmark Center, from where roads lead to other interesting points. Kettlehorn, as well as being an ancient surname, refers to a piece of equipment resembling to but much bigger than a shoe-horn, used to stir the hot blubber and separate the fine oil from the denser particles. Whale oil was a popular commodity and, as a fuel, was used for lighting the dark, burning to provide heat and as an aid in cooking. After the whale was hunted, men in a boat cut strips of blubber from the whale's back, tied them together and rowed ashore. There the fat was cut into smaller pieces to be boiled into oil in large copper kettles. In addition there exists kettle corn in Cape Cod which are corn chips fried in kettles and sometimes mistakenly called kettlehorns. For some reason, way back when, the words Beetlebung and Kettlehorn were used together and, at one time or another, were given to shops and other things that go together as titles. I adopted the name for my on-the-spot poetry in reference to the idea of blubber. "Poetry the shortest distance between two humans" Lawrence Ferlinghetti |
| ”Don’t you want to see your daughter? Wait, I’ll get her.” ”I don’t need to. Just give me my things.” But there I was, so tiny, when Papa didn’t see me hiding behind the large colorful ruffles of Altagracia’s dirndl skirt. The cruelest month when all of us lost, its name I can’t recall. It was in summer sometime. . Prompt: the cruelest month |
| on a heart-shaped plot a lilac-tinted lily with soft-scented grace Prompt: Easter |
| "Busy giddy minds / with foreign quarrels,” a perception like a present of prophecy, as when time comes, Prince Hal obliges toward France, for battalions to march quietly at night and swords to rattle to keep folks occupied at all costs. Good advice from a dying king still heeded in our time of no blades but drones and exploding gifts from the sky, as it must be why three wars are keeping us engaged to make us forget long shadows falling on wheels sunk in a mud hole. Prompt: Shakespeare’s birthday |
| So many freeways… Going away, coming home, feelings leaking from tire traces, as I sip from cans, eat out of paper bags, curl around pillows, and write free verse the way I wish, in my free-flow life. Prompt: freedom, free with purchase, or other irony of the word “free” |
| Chance, the solitary tyrant, unwraps his cloak after passing me by, while I, in my current repose open one indifferent eyelid and shrug my shoulders, but as my public duty, I have brought him to court, today. My deposition is: chance stalks to bump off desperate victims fearing insignificance as they wait for him, sleepless, to vanish inside the echo of his footsteps. Chance, I declare, deserves lifetime incarceration to free Liberum Arbitrium from its spell. Note: Liberum Arbitrium: free will (in philosophy) Prompt: justice or a gavel |
| Yesterday, my neighbor snuffled, in tears, on bad news, her son in an accident in a faraway land. She wept quietly in acceptance, asking nothing. Next, my car did not start for conked-out battery. I screamed. Such injustice my canceled appointments! Battery, replaced; son, impossible. Scream, the bigger noise, hump on my back. prompt: hump of the week |
| It flourishes suspended, hanging no water, no roots, just air... Such hideous independence... Not the same for me. Poems don't come from the air, and I covet kudzu. Prompt: well gone dry Kudzu is air fern, as in the photo   |
| Junk science: steroids for golden gloves Making faces: politicians for votes Food innovation: chocolate pastrami... Following the trend, I kid you not, at my age, I'm out to learn plumbing and auto mechanics after butting heads with my daily life. prompt: you've got to be kidding! |
| Class mother, 1982, in other words, chaperone to those half my size with tiny dramas and shouts of glee sighting big waves made for surfers, not us. Kids ask to wet their feet One teacher says yes, the other no. They turn to the least likely judge, me. I nod yes for twinkles on small faces. A shriek...and they're all in brine... My son, leading, as if by accident, falls in the water, his uniform and all, followed by the majority. Wasn't this field trip meant to be a search for whelk and clam shells? Such stage show, picking off, stripping, laying on the sand to dry kids and clothes... The teachers discuss PTA reaction, but my head is down as I write on wet sand my thanks to open ocean and whitening waves, for the thaw of ice in living. By the way, my son is still the same as years and joys amass. Prompt: free-choice or take a field trip somewhere and respond to that in a poem |
| In the silence of morning, kitchen door creaks, dishes clang in chorus, coffee pot steams, recall wakes up urged by the cries of David's grandchild next door, and inside me, I hug you just like the time you tumbled into my arms, complaining, "A giant from first grade hit me!" Thinking of you quiets my thoughts, masking the news sounds of TV, visions of bombing raids, incinerated towns, bodies, who kills who, who messes up the president's plan, who puts rotten strawberries in the bottom of supermarket baskets and all missed chances. Oh, once more, this renewed uproar! I focus on the middle of my brows, as Buddhists do, so you to return again, for your quiet face to calm me cell by cell. prompt: being quiet |
No sweetener in this one and numbers grovel, quizzical lines pop up, signs point to additions, equaling nothing I can grasp, and accountant’s pen, without consulting any instruction manual, doodles, drawing traces, right or wrong, as he exposes last year’s past on paper for vampiric voyeurs. I wait with spoon in hand to stir the pot, but fruits fall apart and jam boils over. If I could--instead--I would play the lyre and sing to IRS, setting what I own in words and tunes, but that wouldn’t make much of an impression since my offering would not be the IRS jam. So, by now, I’m taxed all right out of my mind. Still, I muse, someday, I may envy the gallantry of a knight putting a levy on those who squeeze what little’s left, out of me. prompt: your take on taxation this year |
| No sweetener in this one ans numbers grovel, quizzical lines pop up, signs point to additions, equaling nothing I can grasp, and accountant’s pen, without consulting any instruction manual, doodles, drawing traces, right or wrong, as he exposes last year’s past on paper for vampiric voyeurs. I wait with spoon in hand to stir the pot, but fruits fall apart and jam boils over. If I could, instead, I would play the lyre and sing to IRS, setting what I own in words and tunes, but that wouldn’t make much of an impression since my offering would not be the IRS jam. So, by now, I’m taxed all right out of my right mind. Still, I muse, someday, I may envy the gallantry of a knight putting a levy on those who squeeze what little’s left out of me. prompt: your take on taxation this year |
| After clouds exploded with pomp and boom smashing into one another in a chain reaction stretching through an incandescent sky like thousand tongues on fire, one lonely palm with spiked fronds twitched and tottered in the storm. What did the tree feel, seeing that flash the last second before lightning hit? Were it possible, even a skin graft would be useless now. prompt: thunder and lightning |
| An intrepid snake slithered over my feet, then coiling, lifted its head to observe me snapping cloud pictures, palm trees with shredded leaves, and my neighbor David’s pinwheels. Such moments of grace, whirling twirling to the tune of camera clicks… Wasn’t I supposed to scream? Wasn’t it supposed to slink away? Now, how can I call snakes odious after one of them with friendly vibes, radiating gentle curiosity, observed me? And who says forked tongues only spit out poison? the theme of “supposed to” |
| Eyes, two sparkling lanterns with dash and dagger, he clung to the blue plush cookie-monster, exercising his "No"s, exploring tantrums, chases, races, all havoc, and our apprenticeship in surrendering, and he sprang ahead. Hanging behind, we urged him on with quick applause. Yet, we're still outside peeking in, perplexed, same as when he turned twelve or twenty-two and crept past what we hoped he could do or is this the residue of our euphoria from the time Baby held his head up and learned to crawl? prompt: the terrible twos |
| Monday morning... I covet youth, having wings, running loose. Time pours through me. Mirror doesn't fib. What I observe matters like my lips boasting a blue tint Doctor says it's from the heart. Finally, blues inside are bursting on my face. prompt: Blue Monday |
| At the time when women were just learning to breathe and whistle their animated tunes, my friend Ann Bridges, in Northport, rented space on top of Bentley's hardware store with many windows, wafting summer's heat or winter's cold, where three times a week we converted brushstrokes into harmony without polluting the room with words or directives about colors that mix or make mud while we tried to fit countless faces inside the face of a nude who molded herself to a chair in a haphazard pose, causing me to look away, feeling guilty for snooping, and for all the visions touching me inside. Prompt: art by women, women painters in history or now |
| At the ninth hour, you dreaded the thought of entry, reluctant, empty-handed, and with no clue, if only to derive applause from the choreography of flesh and bones. After nine months, you stepped on stage without rehearsal, steeped in hope for a gust of will to enact Ophelia, engaging yourself to break free from the written script. After nine years, or was it ninety-nine, the chain with the nine jewels bruised your neck. Injured, you whispered aside in the bosom of performances and caught a long-traveling ray all the way to the exit door. Prompt: Significance of number nine |
| “I bring an unaccustomed wine” _Emily Dickinson “I bring an unaccustomed wine,” said she. Sneaking in, I peeked at the locked door of her wine cellar. She laughed at me and shook her head, for I’m known to spill my drink--rare, fancy, or cheap. “Taste this one!” She offered me a sip from her own chalice, and ever since, I am smacking my lips. Prompt: the need for wine or beer |
| From the trigger-happy sky, my grandmother hides in belief, her lips twitching with prayers, while Thor hammers clouds, branding ears. We slide down the banister, twisting to rumbles, and ride imagined chariots to land on the stone-surfaced hall. Outside, lightning bolts tilt through silhouetted trees to create the god's gunpowder art. Inside, my grandmother rubs her knees, to let her gestures reveal her private sign language, asking why we are not scared, why we take chances. Yet, we keep at mischief, knowing, in the celestial sense, frolic defeats fear. Thor, Norse god of thunder |
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