Cuba by Paul Muldoon My eldest sister arrived home that morning In her white muslin evening dress. ‘Who the hell do you think you are Running out to dances in next to nothing? As though we hadn’t enough bother With the world at war, if not at an end.’ My father was pounding the […]
MoreI’m still a schoolgirl when it comes to summer’s end. I dread the fall. Pumpkins and football games make me anxious. Give me hot, humid weather, a little body odor, and a good book every time. Speaking of good books, there’s still a few weeks to enjoy summer reading. On a friend’s recommendation, I’ve […]
MoreIn spite of the name on the window, this cafe makes me sad. Laptop and thesaurus in hand, I had stopped by Jolly’s in northern Michigan the other day and found the door locked, the tables gone, and a sign on the door saying thanks for three great years. Jolly’s Cafe is […]
MoreSeven people–or rather, six people and one group–sent me poems for the “Ultraconserved Words” challenge. The prompt was to write a poem using ten or more words from a group of twenty-three words that some linguists believe have been in use since the end of the last ice age. Congratulations to all the participants! […]
MoreLove Poem With Toast by Miller Williams Some of what we do, we do to make things happen, the alarm to wake us up, the coffee to perc, the car to start. The rest of what we do, we do trying to keep something from doing something, the skin from aging, the hoe from rusting, […]
MoreExpect Nothing by Alice Walker Expect nothing. Live frugally On surprise. become a stranger To need of pity Or, if compassion be freely Given out Take only enough Stop short of urge to plead Then purge away the need. Wish for nothing larger Than your own small heart Or greater than a […]
MoreA controversial study just released by a group of historical linguists proposes that twenty-three words still in use today have survived mostly unchanged from the end of the last ice age. Using statistics, the researchers have tried to prove that these 15,000-year old “ultraconserved” words come from one mother tongue. That language, which they […]
MoreSo We’ll Go No More a Roving By Lord Byron (George Gordon) So, we’ll go no more a roving So late into the night, Though the heart be still as loving, And the moon be still as bright. For the sword outwears its sheath, And the soul wears out the breast, And […]
MoreI was stepping out the door into a thunderstorm with a shoebox of poems when my husband asked where I was going. “An errand for my blog,” I said. He looked at the weather and looked at the poems bundled in a protective garbage bag and said, “Sometimes I think you’re a […]
MoreThis Morning by Javier Galvez This morning The sun broke my window and came in laughing Along the same path: Gift by Czeslaw Milosz A day so happy. Fog lifted early, I worked in the garden. Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers. There was no thing on earth […]
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