Most of the items for our poetry museum (planned opening–September 2012: stay tuned) could probably come from my house. I’ve been wandering around lately looking through old notebooks (I have way too many of them) and inside dusty suitcases and boxes and under beds and such and keep finding poetry. Go try it yourself–inside your closet, in the kitchen junk drawer, mixed with the dryer lint . . . I know you have some poetry. Continue reading “Then and Now”
Author: ROMPoetry
The Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry is an interactive museum where the common person and poetry meld. ROMP is a 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization.
Art
Could I have gone on forever in the
shadows with you, in the mosaic of
night broken with our desires, jagged
with blind care and the work of twin dreamers? Continue reading “Art”
Always With
Always with the words, always with the pen,
Always with the fingers upon the keyboard,
Always with the thoughts, always with the clang
Of time on the kettle on the stove, always
With the conversation held back, always with calls
Across rooms deserted and full, always with
The nonsense of rain in the background to enter Continue reading “Always With”
Poet Products
Another museum display we will have besides Marginalia and Doors is one devoted to Poet Products. In fact, we will have a little store stuffed with their items. I’m thinking Emily’s Earplugs because a soul must have them to “select her own society” and for “staying at home” on Sabbath days. Continue reading “Poet Products”
Sticks and Stones
I learned yesterday that I am a finalist in this competition. Here is the poem I sent in. I will be sending the rest of the manuscript now.
She was reminded of the aphorisms from childhood:
“This is for your own good” and also,
“This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you.”
He never wanted to spurn her. There was something
Uncontrollable in him, a world of the parent
That enabled him to decide that making his world
Disappear from her was for her own good.
He let her grip on his thighs slide down
To his knees and then to his calves and then
She fell to earth as he continued to fly.
He was so sure he was hurting more.
Ending with “Life”
Yesterday morning, I realized a lot of poems I like end with the word “life.” I even have one I wrote years ago that ends, “and hurriedly—so I wouldn’t be caught—I began to make my life.” There is an innate appeal to a poem that ends with “life.”
Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry 