Tag Archives: poetry

#24: I Love and Hate You, O Internet

Because I could not find inspiration in today’s prompt from NaPoWriMo (a challenge to make an anagram poem from my name), I submit the following instead.  This is an animal called an apostrophe.  An apostrophe is a figure of speech that addresses an audience that cannot respond, either because it is a dead person, aContinue reading “#24: I Love and Hate You, O Internet”

#23: On Trying to Read Moby Dick Again (A Triolet)

Moby Dick has become my white whale, not that it’s bitten off my leg, but that it haunts me, taunts me, torments me, because this novel by Herman Melville has the distinction of being the ONLY book I truly love that I have not finished reading–after repeated attempts! It baffles me, because every time IContinue reading “#23: On Trying to Read Moby Dick Again (A Triolet)”

#22: It’s Earth Day

It’s Earth Day and I rode my bicycle to work, but that’s a thing I do almost every day. I allow myself a little smugness for making more than the obligatory nod. I can pat myself on the back for making the decision to live in the neighborhood in which I work, so a thingContinue reading “#22: It’s Earth Day”

#18: Let’s Pretend The Schoolhouse Is Broken

Let’s Pretend The Schoolhouse Is Broken I know! I have an idea: Let’s pretend the schoolhouse is broken even though we know it’s not so that a tiny number of thinkers and bureaucrats, of which I am one, can invent and impose new rigorous standards on educators and students (because certainly those educators and studentsContinue reading “#18: Let’s Pretend The Schoolhouse Is Broken”

#17: The American Teenagers Have Theories About The Ancient Chinese Masters

The American Teenagers Have Theories About The Ancient Chinese Masters They’re just making stuff up. Here’s one that says that Li Po was Wang Wei’s evil twin, his doppelgänger, or that the two poets were, in fact, the same guy, a sort of Jeckyl and Hyde affair. Here’s another that says Li Po was drunkContinue reading “#17: The American Teenagers Have Theories About The Ancient Chinese Masters”

#16: 24/7 Good News

Another horrific tragedy right here at home.  To most of us, 99.999% of us, what motivates people to do this kind of evil is incomprehensible–and that’s part of the good news, that we find it incomprehensible.  Another part of the good news is what Fred Rogers has pointed out to us, that there are moreContinue reading “#16: 24/7 Good News”

#15: Weeping At Rock Shows

Weeping At Rock Shows I’ve done it. I have allowed myself to weep at rock shows. Usually, I’m alone, anonymous in a crowd, no social obligations, no company to keep, and I am moved by the music. There’s an upswell that begins in the chest and travels up through the throat, the eyes water–enough,  perhaps,Continue reading “#15: Weeping At Rock Shows”

#14: Tonight

Okay, I didn’t write this. I transcribed it. These are words to a song my seven year old son improvised and sang over a piece of moody music he composed on the keyboard, also, I think, improvised. Listening to the thing, you can barely decipher what he’s singing, so I thought a lyric sheet mightContinue reading “#14: Tonight”

#13: The Walk

The Walk Wandering around in the yard looking up at these gigantic oaks, bare branches, April, too early for new leaves. It may rain. Neighbors getting their mow on, blowing the last vestiges of winter out of their driveways and flowerbeds. My own lawn, freshly mowed. If it were warmer and dry I might beContinue reading “#13: The Walk”