Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry
Poetry of the People
Spin me into the story resting in your bones,
Whirl the stormy past into sea foam until
The moon appears inside your home.
Spin me into life where memories are made.
Put your pen to paper and your paper
To my heart. Sign the oath of salt water
Arising from my birth. Tempt the maker
Of the times that lie within your grasp. Continue reading “From the Water”
She used to hate laundry days, the acrid
smell of boiled water poured in rough tin pans,
the cheap soap peeling away her red skin,
and the clothes less than spic and half of span.
The washing machine, a wedding present
From a rich aunt, transformed the shade of brown
In the diapers and left them a clean scent
But couldn’t take sweat rings on John’s shirts out. Continue reading “Wash”
I wrote an earlier musing on poems ending with the word “life,” so I thought I would also consider poems beginning with the word “death.” The most famous of these is probably John Donne’s “Death Be Not Proud,” which John Gunther took for the title of the biography of his son’s illness and death—a book from my childhood that I remember quite clearly (along with Robby Benson, my teenage crush, in the TV movie role). Continue reading “Beginning with Death”
When I see blank signs along the roadway, I usually think of a poem that would fit on them. That one would be just perfect for a Yeats’ line or that one could fit an entire Dickinson. I like signs that were once something and the writing has all faded out so that they are signs about nothing now. Continue reading “Poetry Where We Are”
The way of this life is a tenuous one.
My son flirts with joy at a cherry popsicle
in the afternoon and that evening
must stand his ground in the backyard,
when he tells his new friend Stuart,
I am not a baby. You think I’m a baby.
The way of this life is a tenuous one. Continue reading “Blind in the Hall”
One of my occasional gigs is taking my Montgomery Ward typewriter to a festival or conference and setting up to write poems in a minute. You give me three words, and I will make a poem for you with them in it. Today, I am snowed in and could use some practice. If you put your name (or a fake name) in the comments box along with three words, I will write you a custom poem and post it on this page. You can see samples of the poems I’ve written in the past. It’s what I do. Continue reading “Poem in a Minute”
Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry 