Language usage

(World AIDS Day Poem '10)

Celebrate seems an odd word
for a disease that that has stolen
so many so young so often.

Instead, today I:
honor, memorialize, remember,
renew, decide

to fight
another hour, day, week, month,
year, lifetime.

Words Absent

What do you say to a 14-girl
who lost on of her moms
the Friday after Thanksgiving
when she’d only been “officially” her child
since the 2lst of June.

I’m afraid
they don’t cover
that in honorary auntie school
and even someone who earns
her living making letters fit together
lacks ability.

Lesson Learned from a Bad Week

Theme: Lessons learned

1. Chocolate really does make things better (at least a little bit)
2. Death is often unexpected and random
3. Words, friends, and favorite movies help
4. Take out food and organic pies are comforting
5. Not getting one job doesn’t mean you’re a failure.
6. There is no way a sympathy card can replace a sympathy hug
no matter how much love it’s sent with.

Steps

Theme: stairs

Being a wheelchair user
the bane of being,
especially absent accompanying ramp.

Source of only happy bio-dad memory;
he rubs my sore skull in his
lazy weekend morning attire
of maroon silk bathrobe after weak muscles
wouldn’t follow brain’s desire
to pull 50 pound body stair by stair,
up.

The reason Brian
now has a rod in his femur,
necessitating unwelcome break
from basketball and hockey.

Occasional source
of fight.

Reasons to write

(a list poem)

1. to memorialize
2. to inform self and others
3. to be able to talk to myself without being called crazy
4. to maintain a grip on this thing called sanity
5. for money (I must admit)
6. because spilled ink has always helped create justice
7. because it passes time when waiting for bureaucrats if you have a speaker phone
8. Words last centuries!
9. It’s a better tool for self expression than an Uzi, and more legal.

Super Powers

Theme: rite a "what really happened" poem. Use a real event (or an event from a popular movie) and spin it in another direction

(for Laura Hershey)

People pour out pent up Laura love
in poems, in e-mail. on Facebook,
on blogs, in newspapers,
wherever/however they find the space.

If granted the ability, I’d will
you back among the breathing
to your partner and not so little girl
in less time than it takes to
undergo one of my teacher’s
long, slow yoga breaths.

Upon Learning of Your Passing

(for Laura Hershey)

I stared hard at the computer screen,
trying to decide if this was someone’s idea
of a very sick Facebook joke.

Then I make no sense for a few minutes,
as I tried to find the right number of verys
to express my heart's aching.
“Very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, ver…”
until my assistant insists I stop and tell her
exactly what happening.

Suddenly winning Nanowrimo in 3 and a half days
doesn’t seem so important,
especially when my characters mundane, everyday, basic actions
seem to have hit an abrupt pause.

I eat
assistant bought Chinese dinner,
watch Something’s Gotta Give for the thousandth time,
and take a 90 minute nap
after failing to add even on meaningful sentence
to my tale of a young ballerina’s journey
toward self discovery.

I venture to my local mega-grocery
hoping chocolate, which I buy with change only,
will recall the muse to mind.

After one-third of bag of Reese’s
I’m no happier or more motivated
just a little stomach sick.

But,
somehow I find the focus
to write this poem
and decide- perhaps cruelly-
to make one of characters endure
a death, too.

I decide
these are fitting
literary tributes
to a genius lost
even if it's only a rough draft.