The Conversation

BEN: God, I’m livid. the house caught on fire,

GOD: I know-

BEN: SHUT UP!

GOD: DO NOT TELL GOD TO SHUT UP!

BEN: As I was saying.

GOD: (crossing his arms) Continue.

BEN: The house caught on fire, Nancy has cancer, Amy is sick with whooping cough, James is broke, and Daniel still doesn’t have a girlfriend-

GOD: Figures

BEN: HEY! he was my friend, okay?

GOD: I’m just saying he could have asked for my help!

BEN: Well, you know he’s atheist, I’m sorry. I’m sorry he offended your compassionate little heart there, but uh, yeah, no use convincing him…(winces) ..like I said God, we’re not all that clear in our heads… I mean, I just really want some peace and quiet. Something that will let me know that this  string of horrors is going to be over and I can reassure myself that you exist.

GOD: but you never needed reassuring, Benjamin.

BEN: I know, I know. but I’m older now and…I mean..I think everyone gets doubtful once in a while.

GOD: What’s there to doubt?

BEN: I don’t think you’d understand it, God. it’s a…it’s a mortal thing. We- cling to our senses and what our mind tells us and nothing else. It’s why I’d still like it if you helped us out more…

GOD: Son, have you ever heard the phrase “everything happens for a reason” ?

BEN: (long pause) really?

GOD: I’m just saying, maybe you should start thinking about the divine purpose behind everything that goes on in your life.

BEN: Arrrgk, stop with all the philosophy! I just wanted to complain, just wanted some answers- I didn’t want a lecture. But, of course, I knew I wasn’t going to get it anyway, so what was I thinking?

GOD: (smiles) have a good day, Benjamin

BEN: Yeah, have a great one.

Copyright 2013 Golden Star Poetry

 

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Stream of Consciousness #10

the armory-

god, it’s this banging

the trodden are down on their heads and are spinning

and their spindly arms are touching the spout of where the sun should be

they are clamoring up on their tip toes and shouting

like bunions on my feet are like the road smelling sweet

what a treat to hear and to eat meet and to feel beat

like it’s nothing to know no one and to feel the nothing I’ve known all along

what was the air like in December morning

in the winters and evening sun and summers you took me and kissed my flowering mouth

like a soft petal of rain in the ornery bushes?

that singing…

what is the name of my gods?

they are changing

what is the name of my god, for Pete’s sake?

you churn butter and you tore the street apart but you never listen to me when i speak,

I am just lifting my arms and my spindly legs and I am crawling out of the earth whispering like a madman

you don’t need to call me that

you can just call me mother or darling

or kiss me like you did when the world was new and we had nothing to do and I was only three (or was I two?)

and you saw the stars as they shone through

and we were too young to know why I wasn’t me and you weren’t you

we were just satisfied to be fully ourselves

but the knob on the door was mine always

and I knew that love was never just around the corner.

Copyright 2013 Golden Star Poetry

the Scorching Blue Sun

His love carried it’s way

through the waterside

and i found myself broken up on the sand

and looked to the edge of the water

that was nearing,

fearing that the sea moss was clearing

knowing he was never as endearing

as the sea moss that cradles my breath.

it is like a tangled up teal bed frame

that i cannot sleep on,

(but oh, so sweet!)

 

love carried it’s way

into an unshakable hurdle.

would i keep hold of the

balancing I had done

on one leg in the water

when seeing his gray body bloodied

through an invisible glass

that could not shatter?

It’s impossible,

when thought of mechanically

through metal.

 

“It’s all for the best”

i whisper

(smiling till my teeth grind)

 

We do not exchange farewell glances

even though that’s what i want to do

we just touch the scorching blue sun

with the tips of our bare fingertips,

like slippery wet crayfish not colliding

but swimming visibly close if seen from above.

 

the sea moss leaves me now,

in a huddle of whispers,

and i do not know where to go

and there is nothing here that breathes

and there is nothing here in sight

only dark penetrating trees.

Copyright 2013 Golden Star Poetry

Lone Castle

Sylvie left this note

Sylvie left this note

Sylvie left this note

In the August fog:

The bearded poet reeks

of mud, and dry leaves.

He has been

fashioned to recite,

line by line,

only skipping

sentences

when the task

is too tiresome.

We will wait,

and we will wait again,

and  all these soft and silent waiting evenings are being

ironed out on the porch

in the August fog.

We wait, and we wait

(an abandoned curtain is playing on the cornfields)

waiting to be seen.

still burning, love?

take care then,

to put me back onto that Great Stage

and give me a shove.

you’ll see-

ma, look! no, hands!

as proud as me!

(and I was likened to the scent of darkness

for as we passed the  gray stone towers

I was fully fine to listen to

the songs they chanted after me

“STILL BURNING, LOVE?”

‘STILL BURNING LOVE?”

“STILL BURNING LOVE?”

“STILL BURNING AS WE WAIT?”)

But still we wait, and wait again,

and all these silent waiting evenings are being

ironed out on the porch in the August fog.

Copyright 2013 Golden Star Poetry

Another Long Breath, Another Long day

Not my usual style, but it’s cool. I wanted to experiment with repeating ideas, images, or lines in a poem. I think it’s pretty cool, even if the meaning is kind of obscure. Tell me how you interpreted it!

 

Another Long Breath, Another Long day

her capacity for silence

was admirable. The cobblestone

streets spin like unwound essays about

unexpected pleasures, words spinning.

 

She draws out another long breath

from her lungs. Another long day,

she feels, she knows,

she knows it without ever thinking it.

 

And beneath the dark steps to her

shotgun house, mirror to mirror

a box encrusted in diamonds

is broken and the ghost knows that he broke it.

 

Her capacity for silence is haunting

she has been still for several days, feeling the minutes

crawl like lovejuice up and down her spine,

feeling and knowing without ever thinking  it.

 

She draws out another lung from her breast.

the shapes of the farmyards blur into

green and pink mesh when she tries to remember

because she looks down at her shoes when she walks.

 

And beneath the dark steps to her shotgun house,

mirror to mirror,a box encrusted of fairy breaths

breathes in her perfume-from-a-jar, and only

the ghost who broke it knows that he did it.

 

her capacity for silence

and ghost ships

was hauntingly breathless

thrilling

no, no, says the poet

don’t leave me Susanna.

 

Stay until my typewriter resets

and the sun repeats it’s hanging

and the moon repeats her execution

while waking

we will dismiss the countryside

half of the time forgetting that it is there.

Copyright 2013 Golden Star Poetry

Stream of Consciousness #9

I don’t think my hands have ever typed so fast! the rhymes literally poured out at a rate I was not sure to keep up at. i was possessed. utterly possessed. And I have just finished reading Joan Baez’s first autobiography, I don’t know if that helps…

 

Stream of Consciousness #9

who was who was pooh was greatly appreciatledy do

like whispers in summer

you were my love

like bouncing balloons on a string

you were my everything

like balls on bells on a summer day

you were my grass to my hay

my laugh to my chuckle,

my seat to my buckle

my trough to my stream

my laugh to my scream

my tie to myshirt

to my button

to my skirt

seam

you are were is my everything

like free lancing on the street

selling things so you can have food to eat

like strings on ropes and cords and strings

like my heart that constantly sings

whatever you do

you know you is my everything

like money in your pocket

like a chain of golden locket

like springs on balloons

and like the harvest moon

and like the trepidation s

or our silent meditations

and like the wind blowing at your feet and like having the stars to meet

like the wind blowing through the dust

like your mind saying, no , you must, you must

like this itch in my head that says you might prefer me instead

like this shallow of sorrow

that says there is no tomorrow

what’s the point of living,

I find myself saying

when everyone is already dead?

Copyright 2013 Golden Star Poetry

two short reverso poems!

OH MY GOODNESS THESE ARE SO HARD TO MAKE BUT I DID IT!!!! Basically the poem reads one way forewords, and has an opposite meaning when read backwards. the form was started by a woman named Marilyn Singer, who has written two books of these poems for children. Her husband suggested they be called “reverso” poems, and that is exactly what she did. The books are  absolutely genius-check them out! The first book is called “mirror, mirror” and the second is called “follow follow”. 

Two Reverso Poems

gods,

the

sunrises

make

me

overcome

dark.

dark,

come

over

me.

make

sunrises

the

gods.

x x x x x x x x x

crying,

I’m

beautiful,

not

just

homely.

I’m

me.

Me:

I’m

homely,

just

not

beautiful.

I’m

crying.

Copyright 2013 Golden Star Poetry

Prometheus

I am a cave among dwellings
surrounded by boulders.

Watch
as they sauntered down
jauntily
(I might fall)
falling like an dusty angels

I want to stutter and shake in defiance
but I am forced into silence.
The rocks drop on me, birds fly Jauntily
lifting me vainly
back to the ledge where I have fallen over thousands of times with the rocks.
Birds,
are you still trying to help?

Might I ask, birds, if the wind has ever lifted you up on bubbles
and you heard a swift voice through the air
or felt the angels ?
I’m just wondering
just wondering if maybe the rocks aren’t really falling.
Maybe I’m just being reborn,
again and again.

Copyright 2013 Golden Star Poetry