Jeremiah's Hands

Your hands are warm and clammy
scarless and wrinkle-free
they reek of apple-flavored lollipops
but I still hold them close to me
for as long as you can stand it
I know this moment's going to end
with the blink of a teary eye
your hands will transform and expand
ignoring my pleas for slow motion
life's fast forward plagues us one-by-one
So for now, I enjoy the sticky,
apple-scented sensation
between my fingers with my son.

Friday Favorites...

"Writing [a novel] is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way."
-- E.L. Doctorow

Moreover, the Moon ---

By Mina Loy
From The Lost Lunar Baedeker: Poems of Mina Loy, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1996.

Face of the skies
preside
over our wonder.

Fluorescent
truant of heaven
draw us under.

Silver, circular corpse
your decease
infects us with unendurable ease,

touching nerve-terminals
to thermal icicles

Coercive as coma, frail as bloom
innuendoes of your inverse dawn
suffuse the self;
our every corpuscle become an elf.

55 Words, No More, No Less

Over Starbucks coffee, she admitted to her roommate, “I’m confused.”
“Why?” her roommate asked puzzled.
“Yesterday you hugged me. Today you pinched me. Should I be apprehensive about what you will do tomorrow?”
Her roommate looked her square in the eyes and declared, “I am a portmanteau of a friend and enemy...frenemy. Approach me ambivalently.”

Friday Favorites...

The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan


A beautiful story! Learning about one's past often allows us to gain a new understanding of that person's behaviors...

the sonnet-ballad

By Gwendolyn Brooks

Oh mother, mother, where is happiness?
They took my lover's tallness off to war,
Left me lamenting. Now I cannot guess
What I can use an empty heart-cup for.
He won't be coming back here any more.
Some day the war will end, but, oh, I knew
When he went walking grandly out that door
That my sweet love would have to be untrue.
Would have to be untrue. Would have to court
Coquettish death, whose impudent and strange
Possessive arms and beauty (of a sort)
Can make a hard man hesitate--and change.
And he will be the one to stammer, "Yes."
Oh mother, mother, where is happiness?

Not Quite Good Night

Rain falls.
Taps the pane.
Close the blinds.
Flip the switch.
Now it’s dark.
Sleep crawls in.
Soul still stirs.
Brain begs to rest.
Light seeps through
slits of my blinds
taunts my eyes.

Friday Favorites...

Dead Poets Society



One of my favorite movies -- for the love of poetry...seize the day!

Untitled

Sitting next to you, in silence,
I watch your reflection in the mirror
admiring your long, brown-tinted locks
accessorized with small, white seashells.

As you primp, I am intrigued.
Your bronze-colored vanity
is neatly arranged and centered
in your incense and candle-filled room.

The smell of musk-scented oils
aggravates my nose –
potent and concentrated.
And like usual, we begin
our song and dance:

I want to wear red polish.
You say it’s seductive.
I opt for black.
You say it’s demonic.
You suggest nude.
So I wear nothing.

Young and naïve, maybe
but wise enough to know
that the resiliency of our relationship
is faltering. So I continue
to look for ways to bridge the gap.

Poetry in the Park

Camden County Cultural and Heritage Commission presents...

Poetry in the Park
Monday, November 10, 2008
7-9 PM
Featuring Eugene "The Composer" Brown

*Poetry in the Park is held the second Monday of each month

Poetry Analysis

Friday Favorites...

James Patterson's Kiss the Girls is a real page turner - a sitting-on-the-edge-of-your-seat-biting-your-nails-thriller. I also loved the fact that one of the central characters was a no-nonsense, kick-butt young female! Great action thriller.

The Measure of Democracy

What’s left to say after this seemingly endless campaign? The Op-Ed editors asked five poets to answer that question in writing and on audio.

Check out the NY York Times...

Hermit

Fast, loud, dramatic
yet, surprisingly safe and reliable.

When static social inertness surfaces
and my desire to flee manifests
to someplace still, isolated, and familiar
where I can hibernate like a bear,
safe from the dangers of the world
shed my skin like a snake,
ridding my body of discomfort,
or blossom like a lightly-watered, sun-beaten orchid

my Lamborghini Murcielago is my diversion
my vehicle for escape,
even if only temporarily,
I am assuredly, contentedly a recluse.