Spontaneous Poems

Cola,

I like it.

'Thoughts While Awaiting a Nor' easter'
(For my brother in California)


While Easterners have snow tonight,
Surf City's warm, and blue, and bright,

My brother loves to tell us so,
and tease with talk of 'Hot cocoa',

but each has faults: ours is the snow,
while yours is lurking ......deep below.

jjorge
Nice to see you again.

Igualmente Edgar!

I just popped in quickly this a.m. I'll be back later tonight when the Nor'easter is howling outside.
(at the moment, all is still ) Then I will go back a dozen pages or so and read more of the recent offerings.

Carlotta I liked #82 (p.291 Dec. 11)

especially the last stanza.

jjorge-

Thanks you for your words of encouragement. I really enjoyed "Spring ain't Coming" I read it several times. I enjoyed the one for your brother too, it made me laugh.

I wish I had private message privileges, but I haven't been a good girl long enough, I guess. Thanks again friend

Cola,

If I made you laugh I'm glad.

On the phone yesterday a.m. my brother, told me, (mockingly) how he missed the cold and snow, and lamented that he had to be content with going to the beach... but it was his 'envious' remark about us (his East Coast siblings) 'drinking hot cocoa' that really tickled my funnybone, made me laugh out loud .....and vow to get revenge in a poem.

Not real revenge though... he loved the poem.

(Isn't laughter wonderful!)

PS keep writing

shopping

We use tissues now to catch our tears
and clean our nose and who knows what,
You used to wrap a hankie 'round your finger, wet it
from your mouth, and scrub my ears
(like the way I'd learn to shine marine shoes
in another dozen years)
You'd put money and a list in one and
tie it with a knot, and send me to the store,
then I'd come home with most of it and candy that
your hankie bought
Now, I take you shopping, you can't drive,
your hearing and your memory aren't too good,
you're getting more eccentric
but your just as stubborn
as before.
You don't trust doctors or police,Your birds are all you think of
nowadays,
the house plants that you loved....
no more.
You always sent out birthday cards to
your eight kids and twenty grand ......
no more.
The house deteriorates.


Still, the toughness
remains. I can see
you throwing rocks at cats and squirrels,
'They harrass the birds!'
Eighty six and who can make you put
that snow shovel down.

So why'd you try to call my cell phone with the TV remote?
you looked puzzled as you said, "Nothing Happened"
Now
every sucker game and phony charity
hooks you,
you need the shopping cart to hold you up
and you keep peeing in your bed
since you decided to get old.

slice of life jjorge, very good. Incidentally, I tried to unlock my truck with a pager yesterday.

PS

The above is about as spontaneous as I get. I wrote it last year not long after my mother's death. I spent about 20 minutes just spilling it out,
then just left it in Notepad.
Re-reading and posting it today was therapeutic for me (a grown-up way of saying it made me cry)

I don't think of it as a finished poem yet.

Sometime soon I'll trim and polish it -tighten it up- and see how it comes out.

Walking in the woods,
looking with heads down,
one destination;
got in deeper still,
compass in my head,
broken arrow points
south shadows of north.

The sky on the right,
signalled by the leaves
but mind out of air,
silent anger cut,
confusion too bright,
decisively dumb,
shortcut in the dark.

Tripped on some branches,
fell into a hole,
sight began to fade;
never mind the fall,
thinking of a run,
for the thrill of it,
fell couple more times,
nearly down a 'falls.

run into the dark,
not thought through but done,
crying inside then,
exhausted so what,
so what and so what?
can't get up a while
still impulsed to run,
the trees warned vaguely,
falling leaves held me.

The sun then moved out,
my head punched silly,
I woke up from sleep,
dumb desires dead,
I stood at the start,
I stood at the end,
I stood in the woods,
I've come full circle,
a circle to break,
now to walk out.

why maim the skies
like feathered geese
spitting their flies
at the clouds of fleece
honk with fire
honk with grief
flame a spire
of gross disbelief

Ex-boyfriend/Percolator Thief

I want my italian percolator. i miss the feel of steel
the discomfort of sharp edges, i miss being the whistle blower
waiting for something to happen i want the coils to burn again
to have the water rise, i want to rise up
out of this bitter muck and become something new
make me boil, change my composition
the point of the percolator is not the coffee
its knowing something is happening, the electric red glow
the blue fire. At the optometrist, something happened
to my vision between the letters i must have imagined
how she would undo her blouse, her hair falling.
i left the vision in the exam chair, and left with nothing
someday i will sit squarely and focus on the letters
someday i will dread my hair the skeptical shop
owners will lose a customer, i will write an epic poem
i will quote derrida, i will say nothing.
i will spread my legs for you again
and tell you you're the one-
but i would rather you fed-ex my percolator.



(a bit of editing on this one, but was written to the site)

Cola,

You're generating more fresh images and arresting lines!

keep it up.

hi jjorge-

always good to see you.

thanks. i appreciate your feedback.

I like your stuff too Cola - even though some of your references fly right over my head, (like the reference in your last poem to Derrida) I think I get the general gist of it, and I always find your ability and willingness to express what you're thinking or hoping for honest, straight to the point, and refreshing.

To BFS


Our paths may cross some of these days
in search of separate yearnings,
Yours to the strand and crashing waves,
and mine to mountain turning,

who can fathom our desires
So deep...... beyond discerning,
Each seeks a different paradise
or new, or a returning.

A Predicament Affording No Obvious Escape

A morning without you feels like
Putting my shoes on the wrong feet.
A night without you feels like
Hypnosis in a bottle.

The path to your heart is full of slips
And places to fall,
And yet, I'm here
To the surprise of all.

This is a beautiful nightmare,
Without you by my side,
Although we go, I know not where,
Just know I never lied.


I'm falling into the bottom of this glass,
Trying hard to retain some class.
Would you kiss these selfish lips
Just one last time?
Your path to your heart is full of slips,
But is it such a crime
To be hopeless facing this impasse?

CrazyDiamond,

I particularly like these lines:

Thanks jjorge

By the way, I enjoyed your poem on the previous page, Shopping, very well.