lowly river stone,
slowly days rub my shoulder
lightly smooth and dull
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some love poems… or my version of love at least
Elton John for Valentine’s Day
Happy Valentine’s Day my lovely readers 🙂 love love love…. la la la…..
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American Life in Poetry: Moment by Gloor
Another brilliant recommendation by Mr. Ted Kooser. Take a look at Carol Gloor’s poem below and enjoy!BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE
Carol L. Gloor is an attorney living in Chicago and Savanna, Illinois. I especially like this poem of hers for its powerful ending, which fittingly uses the legal language of trusts and estates.
Moment
At the moment of my mother’s deathI am rinsing frozen chicken.No vision, no rendingof the temple curtain, onlythe soft give of meat.I had not seen her in four days.I thought her better,and the hospital did not call,so I am fresh froman office Christmas party,scotch on my breathas I answer the phone.And in one moment all my past actsbecome irrevocable.American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2010 by Carol L. Gloor, whose chapbook is Giving Death the Raspberries, Thorntree Press, 1991. Poem reprinted from Calyx: A Journal of Art and Literature by Women, Vol. 25, no. 3, Winter 2010, by permission of Carol L. Gloor and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2012 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
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from pupil to widening pupil
and the wolf man looks in my direction and
we share a conversation through our eyes
the way it is when you have oceans to cross
before morning the way light takes its sweet time
from pupil to widening pupil and i know you’re
with her but the possibilities linger like so many
silent proclamations of could it be that love comes
in so many ways? could it be that we in another time
would have been queen and king of this rotten
bar this rotten dirt patch that clings to our rooted feet……
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Published – EveryDayPoets.com "Let Us Return"
Hi!
Check out my latest piece on @EveryDayPoets ~ “Let Us Return“.Written for a friend’s wedding, this poem seeks to conceptualize the arc of love from a shaky beginning in a bar, to the streets of Paris, and back to the arms of comfortable old age… enjoy 🙂
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"Eight Ball" by Claudi Emerson [American Life in Poetry]
Hi friends! Below is another interesting feature from the American Life in Poetry column, hosted by Ted Kooser. As I always, I highly encourage you to sign up~ it’s a happy bit of email in your day!American Life in Poetry: Column 359BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE
At a time when a relationship is falling apart, sometimes the news of its failure doesn’t come out of a mouth but from gestures. Claudia Emerson, who lives in Virginia, here captures a telling moment.
Eight Ball
It was fifty cents a gamebeneath exhausted ceiling fans,the smoke’s old spiral. Hooded lightsburned distant, dull. I was tired, but youinsisted on one more, so I chalkedthe cue—the bored blue—broke, scratched.It was always possiblefor you to run the table, leave menothing. But I recall the easyshot you missed, and then the waywe both studied, circling—keepingwhat you had left me between us.American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2005 by Claudia Emerson, whose most recent book of poetry is Figure Studies, Louisiana State University Press, 2008. Poem reprinted from Late Wife, Louisiana State University Press, 2005, by permission of Claudia Emerson and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2012 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.
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and outside the planes
and in a sky powdered blue
it appears a child has fingerpainted
a relief of lines breathed into life
by those traveling
like the eyes still blue of a doll baby
looking for those leaving and
those coming screaming back to
the arms of their lovers
waiting outside looking up and up
lines powered white like lips smacking
sugary and sure, guilty
like a child caught painting on the walls.
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in the details [Emerson and his circles]
[the patterns of fur, just around the nose
or the way the one blue brick brushes up towards the heavens
while one tall parsley plant pushes strong through the blinds]reading, on yellowed pages, how Emerson believes in circles
yet it seems to us, young, impatient, only one line
we’re forced to follow straight
like accountants in green visors squinting
patiently close
while the numbers so dutifully march.we’ll realize sometime, later, that lines never end,
and some, if they start over again, mean Emerson
may have known better all along.
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evaporation
no longer even a specter,
your memory has lost edges the way
a dried tear evaporates back into nothing
edges become a mist
elemental, invisible, and
while i no longer recognize you
icy hands move the hair from my eyes
while sleep alone steals time.
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alone in a crowd
Empty… yet the room full
of chatter lengthened like so
many shadows running, like how a cacaphony
creates a vaccum to float weightless in.
Poetry by JC Snyder 