Joe

Old poetry: I began this in spring 2006, about a family who was a neighbor at the time.

Joe

Pat, pat, pat.
Of an average height,
an average guy
with an average life
plays coach for one tonight.

Leathery pat, pat, pat.
‘You gotta move, Joe.’

Part of the pack,
the puppy races
between the boy of eight
and the boy of twenty-eight,
keeping missed catches for herself.

Gravel rumbles with traction.
After    the   ball,  ball, ball.

Joe’s voice is his mother’s yet,
unaware, intentional.
He narrows his eyes,
throws himself into the air
and through the   b   a    l     l.

‘There you go!
Perfect throw, Joe.’

©Sandra Davidson 03 Feb 2008

Off Theme: Response to Poetry and Social Media

I’ll cut away from the April A to Z theme for a hmmer I’ve just had. Join me?

I read Fox Chase Review’s entry Poetry and Social Media:

“How does a well-crafted poem fit into social media? …poets write poetry because it is who they are and no matter what changes there are…the poet will always write.”

You don’t have to be a hermit to know how the social habit of publishing is seemingly counter to the cocoon of writing. I’ve asked myself similar questions and considered how reclusive the writing/publishing process was a hundred years ago compared with today. If your feet aren’t pounding it out to the public, it won’t fly.

Okay. I dragged my heels on creating a blog. What is one more web page out of millions? Who hasn’t said what there is to say in one format or another? (I am adept at talking myself out of just about any form of “public,” aren’t I?)

A few of my favorite poets plopped their poems right to the public online, in their blogs. My jaw hit the floor. I questioned existence as I knew it and wondered if we as a species could ever go back to non-instantaneous pleasure. The “I want it for free!” decades. Give it to them once and they don’t want to pay for it, which means seiving an ocean of practiced communication to gather pebbles of poetry.

More than a few conversations with writers and readers. All the same considerations of “will physical books disappear?” We’re still wringing our hands and trying things both ways.

You decide. No, really, you will decide with your dollars and participation.

I have switched from clicking private or friends-only on everything I post or email. If I have something to say, I must want to make sound.

Our words are finite. Our lives are finite. The days of capability dwindle. It is difficult to find your calling, which I haven’t, only after the primary skill it requires no longer functions well. Model making and needlework, those fine motor skills evaporate with arthritis and macular degeneration.

Three good friends routinely remind me: Whatever you have to give, you give it.

Writing anything well is serious work though the treatment of a subject and the intended response needn’t be bleached-bone still.

I hope not. If so, I’ve bored someone to death. Not much could be worse.

©2014 Sandra R. Davidson (<<I always forget this part. Is it even necessary??)

One Art

I have been haunted for many years by Elizabeth Bishop’s villanelle ‘One Art’.  Elizabeth Bishop chose a confining poem structure, the villanelle, to approach such a life-consuming event.

“The art of losing isn’t hard to master;” begins the poem.

I can’t find my glasses. I misplace keys then a wallet. I loan a book never returned. One starts early in life losing things. Some are of lesser value. Some seem devastating.

Read it. Find it in yourself and read it once more.

©2014 Sandra R. Davidson

The Farther Star

It is simple to be a bright star in a dark sky.

The rarer success is to be a bright star in a blue sky, able to withstand the nearer sun and still reach a beholder, should there be any who will lift their attention from the paths at their feet and the surround of distraction.

There then a reward to lay lightly to a touch and reveal your truth: Resourcefulness is the seed set upon the wind, freedom is offering up everything you are to the risks, and tenacity is finding purchase wherever you next set to ground.

©2013 Sandra R. Davidson—photo and text.

Inagural Inspiration

“One sky, toward which we sometimes lift our eyes
tired from work: some days guessing at the weather
of our lives…”
From the inaugural poet Richard Blanco’s poem

Soldier On

An army of one
stiffly uniformed in black
marches precisely across
the muddied profile
of our sixteenth president

Poetry is…

I listen to a lot of NPR on errands in the car. Thursday nights at 8 is Philosophy Talk. Because it’s National Poetry Month, the topic was poetry and philosophy, and I caught most of the show.

I have journaled most of my life, and my life hasn’t been rosy or well-lit at times. Digging through an old journal file I found my opinion (whose else would I find?) on poetry and philosophy from a letter written to my brother:

Someone asked me what poetry had to do with philosophy. Poetry=personal philosophy, doesn’t it? It is a sorting through…or it is for me. It is the darkness of our lives and minds that we choose to illuminate instead of ignore.

I wish I could say something of significance, something more.

©2006 Sandra Davidson

Tools of the Trade

Since the early 2000’s I have used a voice recorder to capture sleepy moments, time behind the wheel and walking about. Invaluable. The toughest part for me is listening and transcribing the tape, yet if I wait long enough it all seems vague though familiar.

What a pleasure it is to watch the cat wash his face, his ears. Watch his pupils constrict to slits in the sunny window, his angular face a fraction of an inch away from the glass until he forgets himself, talking and chattering to the birds and adds another nose print. To feel him drop from the window sill onto the bed to lie beside me, to purr into my hair and knead the pillow, sun filtering onto us, comforting me in my sickness.

©2005 Sandra Davidson

On this first day of National Poetry Month

Man of Stained Glass

Part of him shatters.
In the darkness, on his knees,
he seeks to find peace,
and each piece.

Tears wash from his thoughts
the stains of circumstance
to pool with the blood of
his quilted hands.

By touch, he collects
shards of self and soul
large enough to salvage,
semblances of the whole.

Within his consciousness,
sharp edges tumble smooth.
The final fragment he settles
by touch, coarse and loose.

He blindly glazes this
fragile puzzle of glass,
leading each free form
to meld with the last.

To the twilit dawn
he uplifts the pane;
radiant hues kaleidoscope
through fissured stains.

©2008 Sandra Davidson

Mending Poetry

My niece, age 14; me, age 40.

Nothings built to last </3
Time will outlast it all.
Ik/:
I just hope it doesn’t take long/:
Don’t you know? Time takes its time, and time has forever.
I do that’s the problem!
Exactly. You’re so wise.
A little too wise for my age!(:
Never too wise. Wisdom prevents you from having to live through every one of life’s painful lessons, if you can live through observation instead of experience.
Now, a little too wise-@ss, maybe. 😉
Haha!