(after James Schuyler and for Cresslyn Clay) Moss grows on the roofs of the garage and the woodshed and the weather is shitty, again. This April, it’s unseasonably warm and dry with spells that go on for days of rain and clouds, gray spells. We’re in the middle of one of those. We sit atContinue reading “#369: Some Kind of Hymn”
Tag Archives: National Poetry Month
#368: It’s Friday
It’s Friday at the end of the second weirdest teaching week in history and I’m not going to write a poem about a piece of fruit. In my resistance to writing about fruit, in addition to a number of diversions today, I almost neglected to write a poem at all. My impulse today was toContinue reading “#368: It’s Friday”
#366: Ghost School
I saw two human beings in this building that, on a typical school day, houses thirteen-hundred. I saw our head secretary, Dee, spending her Wednesdays from eight to noon on site, and the head custodian, Dan, spending a couple hours a day doing odd jobs until the crew can come back in May, he hears,Continue reading “#366: Ghost School”
#365: Staff Meeting in a Google Hangout
Our principal postponed the official and virtual staff meeting until Thursday, expecting new information about distance learning to come in after our regularly scheduled Tuesday morning Hangout. He held the Tuesday meeting open, though, made it voluntary, invited us to attend for mostly social reasons. I’m guessing about 30 of us showed up at thatContinue reading “#365: Staff Meeting in a Google Hangout”
#364: In Case of Emergency
(for Trisha Wick) Twenty-four years ago I wrote a poem, a sonnet, about the flood of ’96. It described the six feet of river water in my wife’s parent’s basement, that whole devastation, and the kids and families in the neighborhood who came to help restore and repair the house, the home, and hope. AContinue reading “#364: In Case of Emergency”
#363: These Trees
These trees are about to explode. Every year I attempt to catch the moment and every year I miss it. This year, outside in the yard every day, time to kill, I look up to see what’s happening. They’re close to leafing, I can almost hear it. You can see, in some of them, little clusters of stuff beyond branches, not yet leaves, butContinue reading “#363: These Trees”
#362: Small Pleasures: A List
Dogs sleeping together. These birds in the back, from every bird a different song. The “who” of that dove. We’ve never had doves and now we have a dove. Squirrels being squirrels. Animals reclaiming Yosemite, lions asleep in the streets in South Africa. Air that’s good to breathe. The clerk at the liquor store who callsContinue reading “#362: Small Pleasures: A List”
#361: Turn, Turn, Turntable
Some very old things are new again, especially this gem, the turntable. Certainly, you’re not going to see a cassette tape renaissance, or, god-forbid, an 8-track tape revival, or a home stereo reel-to-real reprise, or a digital audio tape come-back, but you are going to see turntables, turn, turn, turntables. Some old technology is deadContinue reading “#361: Turn, Turn, Turntable”
#360: No Image Available (An Insult Poem)
I cannot compliment. I rather insult: You are as orange as the flames of hell, as dimwitted as a bug, as immoral as Satan, as ugly as a turd in the pool, as reckless as a drunkard at a church social, as hateful as Satan again, the mythical Satan, because I don’t believe in Satan,Continue reading “#360: No Image Available (An Insult Poem)”
#359: Yeah
I love it when the word “yeah” shows up in a song lyric, not in the conventional way, as in “she loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah,” but in an informal, conversational way, when the word feels almost like filler, but you know that it’s not. Wayne Coyne uses the word “well” as the very firstContinue reading “#359: Yeah”
michael jarmer 