Monthly Archives: September 2014

Princess of Thoughts

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drawing of an 1800s woman

totally flaked out on shading all her hair, now instead, she looks a bit like an Aubrey Beardsley drawing

10 Poems in 20 Minutes (Day Fifty-Six)

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I wrote some poems under a time limit again. To see if I could. I did.

I Wrote 10 Poems in 20 Minutes
Day 56

Poem 1:
Once I’m married
She’ll worry about if he’s good enough
And when we’ll have children,
If they’re being raised right,
Then how happy we are.
If I move out, and away,
On my own with my own money,
I won’t ever be able to stop them,
Fussing.

Poem 2:
If I drove a truck,
I would think
I get this far, then I can go home.
Then I get to see her.
If I finish doing this,
I get to sleep.
And in a couple days it will be the weekend.

Poem 3:
He sent me new jobs over email.
If I told him off
The worst he could do
Would be stop talking
Because he doesn’t help
In any other way
And I only talk to him
From kindness.

Poem 4:
I find it
And I remember thinking
What I thought when I left it there
It should have been so easy to find.
I put it right there
Somewhere different
So I remembered.

Poem 5:
He told me he’d take more melatonin
It’s the natural stuff
So he can sleep
When he can’t get booze.
Natural.

Poem 6:
I think I’ve seen so much
Then someone tells me a story
And my house becomes a stable
Full of sheltered me
Who’s never seen this sun.

Poem 7:
His name was Patrick
And he wore SpongeBob t-shirts
He helped me count all the countries in Africa
But he got in the way of my work.

Poem 8:
With blonde hair and a wide nose
She told me I laughed so much, must be why I’m skinny
It works out muscles to laugh. She’d read.
Should I be worried about how skinny I am?
I hadn’t noticed if she wasn’t shaped like me.

Poem 9:
He won’t see it from another way.
Told, look at it from her perspective.
Sigh that hides the anger.
Anger to show that why couldn’t they just
See it his way.

Poem 10:
I swam at the Y with a class
To get a certificate.
He watched, because Mom wasn’t there.
The girl I swam with got bumped up
And I didn’t.
He yelled at the black suited instructor
She’s just as good as the other girl
Followed her stroke for stroke.
No it’s ok, stop, please, she was better than me
Don’t get angry at her
Anger is private and you’re at the pool.
I would have gone on to swim more if hadn’t shamed me
For being less than the best.

10 Poems in 20 Minutes (Day Fifty-Five)

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I’m sleepy today. I would like to petition to the dwarves for a permanent place. We’ll make eight.

I Wrote 10 Poems in 20 Minutes
Day 55

Poem 1:
He wanted an extra garlic roll,
If his son got one,
He deserved it.
No one else should have more than him.
After all the work he did today.
He paid for this house you know.
They would leave soon.
Then it would be quieter.

Poem 2:
Someone to talk to
I’d like that I think
But if I go imagining
Just exactly what I want out of my sounding board
I’ll reject anyone I might find

Poem 3:
Because he cares
His heart’s in the right place.
He gives me new open job applications
Available around town.
Like he’s scouring the globe looking for
Daughter redemption with a position.
This is how I help. He thinks.
I am helping. If she won’t look,
I’ll look for her.
See how great I am.
I will solve all your problems if you just listen to me.

Poem 4:
I had an opportunity to talk
Just today
Conversing about what I knew
But I said nothing
Trite and turned
You don’t like to talk after all this.

Poem 5:
I read the same part of the book again
Waiting to feel the way it will
Like the song I use to cheer me up
I know how I’ll react
Think the same thoughts
See the same words
And only I’ll change.

Poem 6:
C’mon then
Hurry up.
Everyday someone tells him
You’re going too slow
Slow enough
Slow enough to still end

Poem 7:
My hours collect to months
My days to weeks
Then the year
The whole year
I’ve been thinking this way
This same way.

Poem 8:
I knocked over the lamp I have at edge of the stand
Glass broke on the carpet
But I keep stepping over it
I haven’t cleaned it up
Because I told myself I should clean it up
Now I don’t take orders
The rational ‘I should do this’
Doesn’t listen to I can do it later

Poem 9:
I opened the window
The dead bugs in the sill got some air
My view, a graveyard
The some who never got in

Poem 10:
I didn’t know the answer I thought was right
Was the right one to give, frozen
Staring, she knew I should know this
But I blubbered my lips up and down
With the straight confidence of controlling silence
And she called on someone else.

Little Last of the Petals

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photo of flowers with few petals

all falling off and away

10 Poems in 20 Minutes (Day Fifty-Four)

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Sunday poetry written just for you. For Sundays. To be read with a sundae in hand.

I Wrote 10 Poems in 20 Minutes
Day 54

Poem 1:
He got the car.
Jobless in my parent’s house, back again.
Newly minted, carded, brother
Has the car keys.
I, who invade the space,
That should rightfully be the next king’s.
Leecher, me, wants the way to get out.
But I’m not drivable.

Poem 2:
I switched to a new school
Where I’d been, you found the popular one
Made friends with her,
And golden to fly.
But this one had girls with makeup
Who thought I was odd,
And odd meant unsure.
Couldn’t be unsure.
So I made friends with the girls,
Who put up with me,
Hoping I’d find someone new.

Poem 3:
I never got any adventures
Everything went by a book
Never found me
With a ‘don’t ask’ chicken or wheelbarrow
And I didn’t know how to look.
I was always too smart to go to
Those parties.
Here’s to wishing I was stupider.
Self-pity over that one thing I don’t have.
If I got it, it’d come with something new
Some new, I wish I hadn’t.

Poem 4:
She left for high school
Three years of friends who matched shirt colors
I said, don’t change
Don’t start cussing
She said I won’t.
And we saw each other one more time
She looked, like, was different.

Poem 5:
I find myself there again
Living for the new week of the show
Saying if I get through this set of days
I’ll have new characters to watch
And I’ve been waiting all summer.
Then when it comes on.
Finally.
I don’t watch it.
But say, I’ll see it next week.
When the new one comes out.
I’ll live for that.

Poem 6:
I’m cemented in
Cycled to say
I can’t start
Too late to start
Should’ve started sooner
Can’t start now
It’s all wrong.
I’m all wrong.

Poem 7:
Dad said, ok
In his pastor voice
The one he uses when making speeches
Or saying something grand
It’s the mode for all business
Filled with phrases I’ve heard before
And amens and all rights
But he speaks with it when
He talks to me on the phone.
The daughter, me, not
To be treated with rote perfunctory set rules.

Poem 8:
A girl wore a blue shirt with a deep v
She would pull over her chest so it made a u
I watched the boy I liked watch her.
So I bought brown v-necks
But when I pulled them down
There was nothing to go over
Stuck to my skinny hands.
By the time there was something there
I thought I was wrong for being so late
And had eaten my way through too many
Caterpillar lunches.

Poem 9:
I came into the room to work on a project for Mom
So I put on my music
Ray Charles, early, loud, call and response
He got angry in the next room
Muttered, here I was just sitting, it was all quiet.
She’s doing me the favor, honey.
But he had wrathed and stalked and stormed upstairs.
So I turned the sound off.
You can turn it back on, he won’t come back down.
He hadn’t said, please turn that down.
Only, I’m angry for what you’ve done.
And what I haven’t asked you to fix.

Poem 10:
I want him to like me
In that silly way
So that I can say,
Look someone likes me.
Means that I can like me
If someone else does
First.