HOME ALONE

This is a piece that I am struggling with, quite a bit, because I normally write in free verse. I love free verse. I think that my mind instantly produces non-rhyming poems. One of my classmates encouraged me to take a poetry course and I am toying with the idea but not too much because I took poetry courses for my Bachelor’s and MFA. I would take another one for joy, not for credits. Anyway, the first stanza was part of another poem that I am working on ,but it didn’t fit with the rest of the piece, so I altered it a lot and the second is a piece that I wrote to build onto the poem.

HOME ALONE

Just got the call.
Just reminded that
nothing lasts an eternity.
We all stumble,
at some point.
Of that I’m infinitely
sure.
We all fumble
A heart
We all disjoint
So sometimes love falls flat.
But
Even when it doesn’t work
The memories still have the power to hurt…

Thought we’d have forever;
to fix what man put asunder.
Knew the day would come when we’d
be back together.
Wish I would have called yelled and pled
Now I’m left alone
with regrets and wonder.

The Library Adventures…Short and Sweet

Okay, so last week I learned that my library had a new head librarian. I met her today. One of my favorite (okay, they’re all my favorites) members of the staff was helping someone else and the head librarian checked me out. She also took my four requests in stride and put the books on hold for me. She also paid me a great compliment as she noted the books I checked out and the ones I requested. She said that I have varied interests, and she loved that. She said she thought it was great. I told her that I will read anything as long as it was interesting. Although, I say it a lot I really love my library.

My first love…Poetry

Today, for the first time in quite a while, I came to the blog as a visitor. I read past posts from the beginning stages and was shocked. I’d forgotten some of these pieces and I am ashamed of that. In those moments, I fell in love with poetry all over again; particularly, my poetry. I was reminded of what it means to me which leads to today’s post…

All of my writing is personal and beloved but my poetry is a special little piece of me. I love it differently because I was serious about it first. I can revisit pieces and recall how I felt when I wrote them and they give me a sense of piece because some of my shorter pieces all come in one sitting so I am in essence pouring my feelings out onto paper or the computer screen. It’s the great poetry purge. Many of the pieces I share on the blog are therapeutic and even if they are not based on my personal experience they still touch me in a way that is extremely profound. I love poetry in the way that most people recall their first real love because in so many ways, poetry made me a writer. For me, poetry was the gateway drug to writing fiction and taking non-fiction seriously. I like to think that I have always been a writer (remind me to post about my first story) but poetry just reminded me of the fact.

Intensity

There is nothing but heat in your caress
Your touch is almost more than I can bear
Through your eyes I see me
As you do
See what attracts you
I’ve never felt
More sensual, more beautiful
More wanted.
In this moment, the
Passion is so bright I cannot bear to look at it
It boils over; scalding the sheets, burning the bed
Scarring the hardwood floors
I want to brand you with kisses
So hot they tattoo your skin
Tongue rolling over you
Collecting salt and immense memories

The Library Adventures… 1

I’m Making A List

I love my library! But I especially love it now that summer is (almost) over and I don’t have to deal with the teenagers who normally invade it while school is out for the summer. I like to go and wander the aisles, looking for a book to call out to me. Or I go to the new releases looking for something that I’ve read about. I have recently been picking up at least four books per visit however at least two of them are usually by Michael Connelly. I am an involved reader; I can sit down to read and block out the world. So after last Wednesday’s visit I found myself simultaneously reading two of the books I’d just picked up, a short romance and Jeannette Walls’ The Silver Star (an amazing read by the way). Before I was a third of the way through either book I found myself composing a list of what I wanted to pick up/request on my next visit. Yes, on the same day that I went to the library I had my list for the next visit. In fact, it was probably three hours later. I want to blame it on Amazon for having such great recommendations but…I’m just book crazy. Good book crazy.

The Library Adventures

As always, I’d like to share something new with you. I plan to introduce a new element to the blog. The idea came about because I have been spending quite a lot of time at the library lately. As I’ve said before, I love the library, any library but especially the one in the town where I currently live. All of the librarians know me, they take my many requests (from other branches) in stride and they’re used to seeing me at least twice a week. Every visit to the library brings something new; discovering a new author, a new series, or a weird incident that leaves me wearing a quizzical expression for a few hours. That’s the spirit which I hope to share in this new series. It will not affect my fiction or poetry posts; the segment will just appear when I have something weird, quirky, interesting, informative or entertaining to share. The first post of this new part of the blog should appear soon, perhaps early next week. Thanks for reading!

Meditating

I breathe
Cool, calm, collected.
Exhaling the fear, trepidation and anxiety
that life often produces.
As my mind roams free,
I envision a gardenlike
patch of paradise
where harmony flows over me
like water cleansing away
the day’s
woes.
The Zen like peace produced
in these moments
Remains

“Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.”
-Percy Bysshe Shelley

Last Friday I immersed myself in several episodes of Masterpiece Mystery’s Inspector Lewis. I love British detective shows (immensely) and I really needed to veg out a bit. Well, while watching one episode I heard the above quote and thought about how appropriate it was. As a poet, I like to think that I am cataloging not only human emotion but also current events; as well as history. The Shelley quote has given me some inspiration and I hope to bring more poems to the blog soon. I have been writing more poetry this year than I planned but that’s definitely not a bad thing.

I remember, when I was younger, poetry was not cool. My cohorts thought it was hard to understand and that poets spent their time brooding and spoke in archaic phrases. That they tried to be implicitly difficult to understand, and that they prided themselves on the title of “Poet.” For me poetry has always been soothing, comforting, it has almost always given me a sense of freedom. I often think of it as pouring myself onto the page.

I love being a poet, giving birth to new pieces and I hope that by continuing to grow my blog that I am changing the way that people view poetry. And poets.