Metrical Friday: ‘Totally like whatever, you know?’ No comments yet
Totally like whatever, you know?
By Taylor Mali
(Thanks, Phil!)
Metrical Friday: ‘Fifteen’ No comments yet
Fifteen
By Leslie Monsour
The boys who fled my father’s house in fear
Of what his wrath would cost them if he found
Them nibbling slowly at his daughter’s ear,
Would vanish out the back without a sound,
And glide just like the shadow of a crow,
To wait beside the elm tree in the snow.
Something quite deadly rumbled in his voice.
He sniffed the air as if he knew the scent
Of teenage boys, and asked, “What was that noise?”
Then I’d pretend to not know what he meant,
Stand mutely by, my heart immense with dread,
As Father set the traps and went to bed.
Metrical Friday: ‘At Becky’s Piano Recital’ No comments yet
At Becky’s Piano Recital
By Carl Dennis
She screws her face up as she nears the hard parts,
Then beams with relief as she makes it through,
Just as she did listening on the edge of her chair
To the children who played before her,
Wincing and smiling for them
As if she doesn’t regard them as competitors
And is free of the need to be first
That vexes many all their lives.
I hope she stays like this,
Her windows open on all sides to a breeze
Pungent with sea spray or meadow pollen.
Maybe her patience this morning at the pond
Was another good sign,
The way she waited for the frog to croak again
So she could find its hiding place and admire it.
There it was, in the reeds, to any casual passerby
Only a fist-sized speckled stone.
All the way home she wondered out loud
What kind of enemies a frog must have
To make it live so hidden, so disguised.
Whatever enemies follow her when she’s grown,
Whatever worry or anger drives her at night from her room
To walk in the gusty rain past the town edge,
Her spirit, after an hour, will do what it can
To be distracted by the light of a farmhouse.
What are they doing up there so late,
She’ll wonder, then watch in her mind’s eye
As the family huddles in the kitchen
To worry if the bank will be satisfied
This month with only half a payment,
If the letter from the wandering son
Really means he’s coming home soon.
Even old age won’t cramp her
If she loses herself on her evening walk
In piano music drifting from a house
And imagines the upright in the parlor
And the girl working up the same hard passages.
Metrical Friday: ‘Child on top of a Greenhouse’ No comments yet
Child on top of a Greenhouse
By Theodore Roethke
The wind billowing out the seat of my britches,
My feet crackling splinters of glass and dried putty,
The half-grown chrysanthemums staring up like accusers,
Up through the streaked glass, flashing with sunlight,
A few white clouds all rushing eastward,
A line of elms plunging and tossing like horses,
And everyone, everyone pointing up and shouting!
Metrical Friday ‘Some Boys are Born to Wander’ 1 comment
Some Boys are Born to Wander
By Walt McDonald
From Michigan our son writes, How many elk?
How many big horn sheep? It’s spring,
and soon they’ll be gone above timberline,
climbing to tundra by summer. Some boys
are born to wander, my wife says, but rocky slopes
with spruce and Douglas fir are home.
He tried the navy, the marines, but even the army
wouldn’t take him, not with a foot like that.
Maybe it’s in the genes. I think of wild-eyed years
till I was twenty, and cringe. I loved motorcycles,
too dumb to say no to our son—too many switchbacks
in mountains, too many icy spots in spring.
Doctors stitched back his scalp, hoisted him in traction
like a twisted frame. I sold the motorbike to a junkyard,
but half his foot was gone. Last month, he cashed
his paycheck at the Harley house, roared off
with nothing but a backpack, waving his headband,
leaning into a downhill curve and gone.
Shovelful No comments yet
sweating, struggling, we’re lugging
the bin over grass and gravel,
sticks and stones
to the mound of broken trees,
the earth hot and dry like
Hemingway or Steinbeck;
man and boy toiling through
the fading sunlight.
you wait at the edge, eager,
forward and back again as
i shovel and grunt.
your fingers twitch.
dust rises and you cough,
shielding your face
from the grit and sun;
still, you watch
and finally ask, ‘can I?’
of course, though you can’t,
possibly, lift even the blade.
i pass the handle, and you grin.
i wait at the edge, eager,
forward and back again as
you place your hands and grunt,
frowning but not asking for help.
your hands slide forward, seeking
the physics you don’t understand,
and you do, lift. and more, you
shove and lift again,
over your waist, shoulder, head,
blade full by anyone’s measure,
and tip the chips into (mostly)
the bin.
the blade drops with your hands,
clanging on the hard-packed dirt.
you breathe heavy and sigh.
‘I think I’m too little.’
Metrical Friday: ‘[if mama / could see]‘ No comments yet
[if mama / could see]
By Lucille Clifton
if mama
could see
she would see
lucy sprawling
limbs of lucy
decorating the
backs of chairs
lucy hair
holding the mirrors up
that reflect odd
aspects of lucy.
if mama
could hear
she would hear
lucysong rolled in the
corners like lint
exotic webs of lucysighs
long lucy spiders explaining
to obscure gods.
if mama
could talk
she would talk
good girl
good girl
good girl
clean up your room.
Metrical Friday: ‘The Cut’ No comments yet
The Cut
By Ann and Jane Taylor
WELL, what’s the matter ? there’s a face
What ! has it cut a vein ?
And is it quite a shocking place ?
Come, let us look again.
I see it bleeds, but never mind
That tiny little drop ;
I don’t believe you’ll ever find
That crying makes it stop.
‘Tis sad indeed to cry at pain,
For any but a baby ;
If that should chance to cut a vein,
We should not wonder, may be.
But such a man as you should try
To bear a little sorrow :
So run along, and wipe your eye,
’Twill all be well to-morrow.
Metrical Friday: ‘Words for Worry’ No comments yet
[I featured Li-Young Lee last year (The Gift), and Tony leads me back again. Thanks, Tony!]
Words for Worry
By Li-Young Lee
Metrical Friday: ‘Boy and Egg’ No comments yet
Boy and Egg
By Naomi Shihab Nye
Every few minutes, he wants
to march the trail of flattened rye grass
back to the house of muttering
hens. He too could make
a bed in hay. Yesterday the egg so fresh
it felt hot in his hand and he pressed it
to his ear while the other children
laughed and ran with a ball, leaving him,
so little yet, too forgetful in games,
ready to cry if the ball brushed him,
riveted to the secret of birds
caught up inside his fist,
not ready to give it over
to the refrigerator
or the rest of the day.