With the new year approaching, I'm thinking of what will be left behind in 2009, as well as the fresh start offered by 2010. It seems particularly appropriate then to focus on endings and/or beginnings for our stretch.
Leave me a note about your poem and I'll post the results here later this week.
Leave me a note about your poem and I'll post the results here later this week.
Left Behind: 2009
ReplyDeleteThirty-six pounds,
a lust for chocolate,
regrets,
a heavy pocketbook,
five pairs of size 16 pants,
several boxes of books
I will never read again
or use for research,
the word awesome,
anger at friends,
boots that are pointed
and not water-tight,
an ice cream maker
with missing parts,
a jealous nature,
fifteen glass vases from the florist
that held funeral flowers
from almost four years ago,
the man who stuck his tongue
down my throat on our only date.
c2009 by Jane Yolen,
A Song for New Year's Eve
ReplyDelete1. Endings
Tail of a horse, flapping
like a slow flag. Last page
of a book, its surge of words
vanished. His back as he walks
away, smaller and smaller.
Song's final note, hovering
like a dragonfly, then suddenly
gone. Sunset kiss at the end
of a movie. December 31st,
dry as a spent Christmas tree,
fallen needles brushed away
by the broom of the wind.
2. Beginnings
Horse's face, large eyes asking
a question. First sentence
of a book, tugging you into
the story with both hands.
Familiar striding shape
of a friend coming closer,
smile growing. First note
of a song, rising like a sun.
Establishing shot: a town
one morning, a house, a porch,
an opening door. January 1st,
fresh and white as new snow.
--Kate Coombs (Book Aunt), 2009
Birth (Beginnings)
ReplyDeleteBy K. Thomas Slesarik
Aww diaper, bib, and baby bottle,
a newborn girl to hold and coddle.
Trouble comes when they start to toddle;
at first a little, then a lot’ll.
c2009 by K. Thomas Slesarik
Re-tirement (Endings)
By K. Thomas Slesarik
Grandpa is re-tired.
It’s really kind of sad.
I’ve been tired once
but twice is really bad.
He must be exhausted
to be tired and re-tired.
It happened once to grandma
and soon after she expired.
c2009 by K. Thomas Slesarik
SOMEDAY
ReplyDeleteSomeday, my friend, you will find yourself smack
dab in the middle of a bow. You'll be encircled by
the light. Embraced by it. Move, and you'll still be
centermost. You are the proverbial right person
in the right place at the right time--rain before you,
sun behind you. The angle is right. The reflection
is right. The rainbow both begins and ends with you.
YOU.
I am LOVING these poems. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteJane
I also am enjoying these poems as they make me want to try writing a free verse poem. Thanks
ReplyDeleteKen
A New Year Begins
ReplyDeleteLike a field of fresh fallen snow
a new year sparkles
with possibility
unblemished, unspoiled, unbroken—
a magical moment
gone too soon.
**on the beginning of winter...**
ReplyDeleteFIRST SNOW AT THE NEW HOUSE
Shoveling snow at the curb, I
trade heaven for earth weight—
the high convergence
of stratocumulus
that ribs the sky like a scroll
is lost to digging and lifting;
it is only later, at my desk,
under an easeful lamp,
that I climb to reach winter’s roof.
Three steps up a ladder now, I
chip spikes of ice from frosted
gutters, drop each white knife
into a mogul of snowdrift
that melts in the drip
from my boots; it is only
later, awake in the dark,
I feel how cold this ground
grows without its fresh cover
of cloud.
**and on the beginning of a life...**
THE FINE TILT
(for Lesley, weeks before; with a nod to Mark Strand)
Even at night, in voiceless sleep,
a trust, like tug of earth to moon,
converses between us in bonds of gravitation,
held weightless in the weight of kept promises,
pulled into greater orbit by that third body,
yet eclipsed by your own, but even now arranging
the fine tilt and flat spin of its arrival flight path,
the coming of its love, the coming of light.
©2009 by Steven Withrow
(Hope the format holds! and Happy New Year, everyone!
ReplyDeleteJulie
***
A STORY FOR THE NEW YEAR
She spent last year's ending
in a muddle, meaning to begin again,
but began mid-way unraveling,
began traveling to foreign places
but found the language – well - foreign,
the pacing off, the setting wrong, soon longed
for home's familiar adjectives and prepositions,
its overstuffed with nothing-new old chair.
Now home, the New Year almost knocking,
she hears the kettle whistle, hears
the front door’s been-there done-that sigh
hears the toast pop up, sits down each night
for supper, gets up later every morning
and begins again - or tries - to figure out the ending.
Forgot to say wow! nice work this week! Thanks, as usual, Tricia.
ReplyDeleteBeen meaning to say, I'm glad you've joined in, Steven--I really like your poems.
ReplyDeleteAnd Julie, nice line about the "familiar adjectives and prepositions."
Jane, I'm still trying to figure out how to leave my lust for chocolate behind!
Thank you Tricia! And Happy New Year to all the wonderful poets who gather here.
ReplyDeleteVIRGIN EMBRACE
A new year
beckons
with arms
spread
amply
inviting me
into
its virgin
embrace.
© Carol Weis