He rarely listened to what I taught
but that is the way. A true teacher learns
early that insisting the student listen
is the surest way to uninsure it.
I would be deep into Lao Tze’s treatise
on warfare, and he would be drawing crude
pictures of what he imagined women dreamt he
might do to them. Fart jokes besides Poetics,
impromptu themes justifying the ways of God
to amoeba in terms only amoeba would understand. Continue reading
Tag Archives: poetry
The Necessary
When I was a little girl,
We had houses of shade
Spaced along the road
Where the sycamores
And elms waved to us,
Their branches longer
Than time, leaves wider
Than space, our hearts
Scary with sunshine
Too explosive to contain. Continue reading
Elaine
As a girl I gathered the gooseberries
effortlessly and helped my mother bake the pies.
I knew just how much sugar was needed
for the berries—and I could sense
their taste by lightly squeezing them
and measure the tautness or softness
against the sugar. I was always right.
Women paid my mother to have me
make the pies for their festival
offerings or weddings or homecoming feasts. Continue reading
Little Town Life
At a Main Street 1970s LG cheerleader rockathon
The downside of growing up in a small town is that everyone knows you and your business. The beauty of growing up in a small town is that everyone knows you and your business.
I grew up in Locust Grove, a northeastern Oklahoma town of around 1200 people, and when I graduated high school in 1980, and left for OSU, I was ecstatic. Though Stillwater was only a few hours away, it might as well have been another country. No one knew me there. No one knew my family. No one knew where I was going on Friday night or where I had been Saturday morning or what my dog’s name was or what car I drove or how often my mom went to the beauty shop and my uncle visited the liquor store. Continue reading
Morgeuse Without Silence
Stone walls and the shouting of men
Flibberty flibberty flibberty
Into this starved air
Bells thudding hollow cracking
He is waiting
She is sure
Low rumbling dogs unsure
Paws clicking fish bones
Flibberty
Coming back
Place of never was Continue reading
Listen to May
The cruelty of April which lingers
In a late deadening frost, in the fragile
Breaking of stem, the flood that uproots,
Is finally no match for that herald
Of warm wildflower season—May.
May says to you, Wind this bright ribbon
Around the pole, hang this flower basket
From your neighbor’s doorknob, toast
Your mother’s life and remember the dead,
Celebrate cinco-style all birth and burial. Continue reading
After the Storm
Crooked driftwood in the skinny tree,
Debris like veils shrouding broken branches,
Small ground gourds from the previous summer
Tumbling to artful rest on piles of small trees,
Spring Creek after the seasonal storm. Continue reading
I Share Cookies With You
Cookies! I have cookies. I will share. I will not eat them all. Come see me and I will give you one. Or two. Or three. Cookies! Here is my poem about cookies:
Me want cookie.
You want cookie?
I got cookie.
You want cookie?
We got poems.
You want poem?
Cookie or poem.
We got both.
You eat one.
You eat both.
Come to the Cruelest Month Celebration. Cookies. Lemonade. Treasure Hunt. Poems. Nature. Good people. Good weather. Need more info.? Call or email: 918-864-9152 or rompoetry@gmail.com.
Saturday, April 20, 2013
2-6 p.m.
Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry
Locust Grove OK
Open Pocket: Insert Poem
I will always love paper. Paper of any kind—in books, newspapers, letters, postcards, cardboard, playing cards, wadded up paper, paper made into origami figures and footballs and those little fortune-teller things you used to make in junior high during history class, notes, grocery lists, wrapping paper. Yeah, you get the idea.
April 18, Poem in Your Pocket Day, is about paper. And more specifically about poetry on paper. I know you can “cheat” and carry a poem on your phone or some other electronic device or in your head or some such. But I prefer old school Poem in Your Pocket Day. A poem on a piece of paper folded and inserted in your pocket. Not in your purse or your backpack or your car or in your lunch. In your actual pocket. Continue reading
Cruelest Month Celebration: Treasure Hunting!
Poem clues, map, and treasures
The Cruelest Month Celebration scheduled for April 20, Saturday, at the museum is coming very soon. I am working on the poem treasure/cache hunt that will be the new activity for the day. Thirteen poem-clues will guide you around the property to a treasure that awaits you. Continue reading
