Tag Archives: poem

#562: Watermelon in Easter Hay

I have friends who don’t like the summer, who are intolerant of even mildly hot weather, absolutely miserable above 80 degrees. I had a professor once, a poet, Vern Rutsala, who absolutely loved the rain and he’d dressfor it even if the skies were perfectly clear. On a day like this the sun is out,Continue reading “#562: Watermelon in Easter Hay”

#560: No Birds

It’s good to be home. Alone for a few dayswhile my wife and sondrive back from SoCal. Imagine a housewith no one in it. Imagine a back yardwith no people in it. The music back there. Bees buzz now that Springhas sprung, and that thingwe bought, chimes in the wind. I’m lying. There may beContinue reading “#560: No Birds”

#559: There is something odd and possibly wrong

(Here’s a poem loosely modeled after a formal structure invented by Donald Justice. It was yesterday’s prompt from NaPoWriMo, but I found it especially challenging. This one took me two days) I There is something odd and possibly wrong about writing a poem with the Notes app, at a gate in the Atlanta airport, no less.FewerContinue reading “#559: There is something odd and possibly wrong”

#558: Xenia, Ohio in Four Movements

I We’re in Ohio, outside of Daytonin a town called Xenia, stayingat a Hampton Hotel, where theideal of the mythic guest-friendship is somewhat wanting.  All the fixturesare installed off-kilter or crooked,the bathroom door came off itsglider, trapped my wife in there,I almost lost myfingers trying to free her,and the toilet seat is broken. No oneContinue reading “#558: Xenia, Ohio in Four Movements”

#557: Hotel Breakfast (a loose villanelle)

“I was poor in love, I was poor in wealth,”But breakfast is complimentary here, and“I was okay in everything else there was.”  In my free associations between Young,Bejar, and Dylan, over bad hotel eggs,“I was poor in love, I was poor in wealth,”  The refrain from a song on Destroyer’sKaput keeps rattling inside my head,“IContinue reading “#557: Hotel Breakfast (a loose villanelle)”

#556: Dylan

Dylan The night before the trip, visiting with a dear friend, I drink a beer after 60 days without alcohol. I have another beer when I get home. I feel like a million bucks. It’s a question of when to stop, which seems like a revelation.  At the newly refurbished and beautified Portland airport lobby, weContinue reading “#556: Dylan”

#555: Dan’s Boogie (A Record Review Sonnet Pair)

1 “That’s life,” Dan Bejar sings in the first song of the new Destroyer album. “It’s the same thing as nothing at all.” Listening toBejar, I remember hearing Neil Youngsing for the first time, thinking at first he was a woman, and then thinking that he really wasn’t very good at singing, until I beganContinue reading “#555: Dan’s Boogie (A Record Review Sonnet Pair)”

#554: A Friendship Ghazal

All my best friends are musicians, it seems, which is no surprise, Cool cats who sing, strum, pluck, pound, mix, and write, not a surprise. I married one some 39 years ago and we’re still together, drumming. I did the easy part, but she gave birth to one, a great drummer, surprise. Guitar players, whoContinue reading “#554: A Friendship Ghazal”

#553: A History of Drumming

Today’s poem is very loosely a poem. It’s a little essay broken into lines so as to imitate a poem, a pretty standard technique of mine. I tend to be pretty liberal about what constitutes a poem and what does not. Like most discussions around genre and form, it’s really only interesting if one findsContinue reading “#553: A History of Drumming”