Home Repair

April 4, 2022April 5, 20221 Comment

How many times
Can a body be cut open?
How many times
Can that body bounce back?
What is the limit—six times? Seven, eight?

A body is so much more than just a body—
It’s a home.
It can grow other bodies,
Shelter them from harm,
Sustain them.
A body is a temple,
Made sacred by the presence of a soul.

But a body cannot be
Continuously sliced, sampled,
Diced, drilled into.
There is always pain attendant.
A body can only withstand so much.

Some pain never goes entirely away.

Sleep Away

April 3, 2022April 5, 20221 Comment

Sleepytime buds. 🙂

It’s a beautiful day to be curled
Up beneath a cozy blanket with a
Good book in hand
And a mug of tea at my side.

But it’s been the same
Every day this week,
And I am so very tired.

I slip so easily into
Morpheus’ arms,
Regardless of hour,
Regardless of obligations,
And I linger much longer
Than I ought.

I cannot help it.
No matter how long I sleep,
It’s never enough.
Morpheus is impossible to resist,
And I would prefer not to most of the time.

Time to Change

April 2, 2022April 5, 20221 Comment

March might feel more like
Spring if it didn’t cram four
Seasons into one.

I miss the April
Showers of my youth, but not
The more recent floods.

Will these new April
Showers bring Mayflowers? Or
Will they bring more mud?

I long to witness
Springtime fieldwork once again.
Impossible now.

The Zephyr

April 1, 2022April 5, 2022Leave a comment

Well, it sure has been a while, hasn’t it? I can’t believe I’ve taken this long a break from blogging, but it feels like I’ve had so much on my plate lately, whether or not I actually have. Pero, así es la vida, cariño.

So in order to help me get my blogging habit back on track, I’m going to start NaPoWriMo off right with a free verse poem on one of my favorite topics: Iowa’s crazy weather. I hope you like it!

Dying evergreens stand
Tall in the gale outside
My windows, but
Their remaining needles
Pay the price
For decades of fortitude.

Will I have the strength
To withstand the coming storms?
Or will I,
Like my home’s failing windbreak,
One day bow to the Zephyr,
Exhausted and broken-backed
From my struggle?

Throwback Thursday: ’90s Inspiration Edition

November 21, 2019November 22, 20192 Comments

Today’s Throwback Thursday post is going waaaay back. Like, back to the ’90s.

My very first autograph.

Tonight I had the pleasure of attending Final Thursday. It’s a reading series hosted at the Hearst Center for the Arts; there’s an open mic period followed by a featured reader, and it’s a whole lot of fun. I attended a couple of times in college (either because it was mandatory or there was extra credit), and I even managed to read something once (so I wouldn’t have to do a write-up on the event later). For someone who hates public speaking as much as I do, that was a big deal, particularly when it came to the essay I’d decided to read.

Anyway. Even if you’re not reading, Final Thursday is a ton of fun because…

Thirty days

May 1, 20172 Comments

Thirty days of poetry is a heck of a feat. Thirty days of alphabet poetry is something even more.

I can hear it now, the chorus of people asking, “More what?”

But you know something? I don’t know. It’s just more. More of a pain, more of a triumph. More exciting, more maddening. It’s just more, okay?

I wasn’t sure I’d do it. I wasn’t sure I’d make it. But here I am, thirty days later, with a few more poems under my belt and a sense of accomplishment I haven’t felt in a while. It’s a good feeling.

What about you – what have you been up to these last thirty days? How have the last thirty days changed you?