Category: Poetry

Categories
Living Love Poetry Writing

Measuring Water by Sound

I want to know the color of your eyes, not just the browns and greens of them, but by the specific Pantone colors of their constellations.

I want to know by rote how your tongue forms the syllables of my name, the way your lips make words in the dark.

I want to know your skin like I know these sheets, how they caress my shoulders, hug my hips…where they rest against my belly.

I want to know you by sound, the way I know I’ve poured enough water in the pot for coffee we’ll drink by moonlight at 3.

HAPPY NATIONAL COFFEE DAY!
This poem appeared in the anthology Coffee Poems: Reflections on Life with Coffee published by World Enough Writers, 2019.

Words ©2015, Jen Payne. Image: Monhegan’s Schoolteacher, Jamie Wyeth
Categories
Creativity Poetry

Friends 2020

FRIENDS 2020

I miss the taken-for-granted pleasure of soft butter spread on another piece of bread at my favorite restaurant,

how it complements the white wine served in a chilled glass so well I could have a meal of just that: bread, butter, wine.

I miss the face of my friend across the table from me, less than six feet for sure, her uncovered smile,

the back and forth of gestures, nods, hands-in-the-air exclamations about all of those things:

making art! writing! travel!
a heron, hummingbird, bee!
life and love…and that bread, can you believe it!

I miss our slow, slow pace that lasts longer than a meal, almost sometimes longer than a shift,

as we nod our gratitude to the waitress who knows us by smiles and gestures that say

yes, pour more wine
yes, leave more butter, please
yes, yes more bread of course, more bread

when the only thing that covers our face is the brief glance at a menu

or the swipe of a linen napkin to wipe a crumb from a smile never again taken for granted.

©2020, Jen Payne. Photo by Carolyn S. on Yelp. Thanks Mary O’Connor and Friends and Company.
Categories
Creativity Poetry

And so it goes.

And so it goes.

I once left a man because he used my toothbrush.

I was young of course, but it wasn’t the face value indiscretion that caused the sudden severing,

it was the implications: swerving across lines of trust, respect, kindness.

We wonder where love goes, how friendships end, how communities falter and countries fail.

It’s in the small and everyday: the one false move that tips the scale too far, too much.

In the blink of an eye we’re careening across the median, crashing into something hard and unyielding,

spitting what’s left down the drain, and praying the tap still works to wash away the betrayal.

And so it goes. Like that. Just as complicatedly simple as that.

©2020, Jen Payne
Categories
Creativity Poetry

Projecting

Projecting

It’s OK, I reassure her.

You’re alright.

Seemingly all day

I talk out loud

Where are you?

Are you OK?

Yesterday, she startled

when I walked into the room

both of us unaware of the other

It’s OK I reassure her

and You’re alright

but I wonder sometimes

at this grand projection,

is she in possible peril

or am I?

©2020, Jen Payne, with assistance from Lola.
Categories
Poetry Writing

Sims 2020

Sims 2020

If one if familiar
with the virtual world
of the Sims,
then one well knows
how task = reward.

One must
work work work
to earn money,
and
read read read
to gain intelligence (points).

Don’t forget to
talk talk talk
and
smile smile smile
to make friends.

It’s important to
wash wash wash
to keep healthy (points),
and
exercise exercise, too.

All of this, this, this
to maintain the house you
built, built, built,
the relationship
for which you
kissed, kissed, kissed,

and your
happy happy mood.

So if one is familiar
with the world
of the Sims,
then one well knows
how virtually similar

these 2020 days
feel, feel, feel.

©2020, Jen Payne.
Categories
Community Poetry

What the World Needs Now is a Little Freddie Mercury

I’ve seen this video before…have you?…60,000 fans at a Green Day concert in London erupt into a spontaneous and enthusiastic rendition of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. I get a little teary-eyed, truth be told. Maybe you will, too.

Because this isn’t just a bunch of rock fans and groupies singing a song. This is a sea of humanity — the yous and mes, the reds and blues, the this sides and that sides — joining together in a shared experience of JOY and HARMONY.

Indeed, what the world needs now is a little Freddie Mercury, don’t cha think?

Categories
Poetry Writing

Poetry is…

Poetry is a fresh morning spider-web telling a story of moonlit hours of weaving and waiting during a night. — Carl Sandburg

Photo ©2020, Jen Payne.
Categories
Poetry Writing

Found Senryū

Testing 1 2 3

To Live Alone in the Woods

and Write, Wild She Goes

©2020, Jen Payne, senryū based on email subject lines.
Categories
Poetry Writing

Sunday Reading

for Nan

I rise up from my Sunday recline
long enough to select a proper bookmark

for surely this story deserves better
than a torn and tattered scrap
from the used bookstore, used

deserves, perhaps, a bookmark
made by an artist friend
from cut paper instead —
attended, intricate, precious

intended for just this…
this intricate story cut
from words and time
from memory and nerve

cut from the heart

©2020, Jen Payne, while reading Simple Absence: Poems & Reflections by Nancy Fitz-Hugh Meneely.
Categories
Poetry Writing

Dream 072220

There was snow
and she was her usual
ornery self about the matter —
I don’t like snow
in a sweet huffy fit
mirroring her petulant
I don’t like trees
when she’d sneeze.
How I miss all of that,
but I digress…

There was snow
and she was her usual:
the smile-and-laugh
approach to hard hard life,
a big and bold disguise
a wink even, I think,
and then she left.

She left and then
the living room light
turned on by itself
lit from a beam of sun
she never saw coming
coming through the window
then the radio lit for morning…

Tell me all your thoughts on God
‘Cause I’m on my way to see her

©2020, Jen Payne for Mary Anne, with thanks to Dishwalla and Counting Blue Cars.
Categories
Memoir Poetry Writing

Memoir

In the pieces of memory
and scraps of conversations
transcribed in situ
I will tell you about
the headless groom
and the dead dog,
about the failure of Saint Raphael
and the irony of the phrase
“you could get hit by a bus.”
I’ll tell you the 15,000 words that broke me
and the ones that almost put me back together
until I realized my heart was better
cracked wide-open like that anyhow.
Now all I need to do is type

Happy Ending.

on the last page
and hope it will suffice.

Poem ©2017, Jen Payne. Image: Woman writing, Edouard Manet.
Categories
Nature Poetry Spirituality Writing

Everything is connected…

The new white tuft in my hair
reminds me of the rabbit
who lived in my yard last spring.

I called her Idiom,
soft brown fur, also white tufted,
she taking time to smell roses
when I could not.

Now there is all the time in the world
to smell roses,
to smell daffodils, tulips, lilacs, iris, peonies
each in succession, not waiting for us
or virus or waves or protests or
the great collective consciousness to
wake the fuck up and see how it’s all connected
the microscopic virus,
the pandemics of greed and hate,
the white tuft in my hair,
the small new rabbit,
the small new baby, even
who mews like all new creatures
white, black, furred, feathered
who may or may not outrun the fox
to meet the multiflora rose next June
introduce themselves to the clover
its bumble and honey companions
I step softly over so as not to disturb
their humble prayers or mine
to a god who needs no standard,
requires no bloodletting,
asks no more than sweet, simple reverence

for everything.

©2020, Jen Payne.

Categories
Memoir Poetry Writing

Reading Mary Oliver in a Pandemic

I’m reading Mary Oliver again
and for the first time, too, it seems,
meeting once more my kindred
in these quieter, solitary days —
only she likes dogs and I’m allergic, so
I think of the love I’ve shared with cats
and superimpose that over
what she so easily offers on the page,
allowing me to sink my feet
deep into the sand of beaches we love,
find borrowed respite and fresh salt air
as she walks and they walk and we walk.

This is not unlike my general effort of late,
translating dogs into cats,
crumbs into cake, lemons into aid,
finding devotion somewhere
in the twists and turns of what is,
of here and now, of no I don’t love dogs but I do love you,
and damn it someone should write that down
to remember before it’s too late.

Like Mary did:
gathered up all of her words
her favorite words, her treasured words
her words so precious and important
they required devotion
in this heavy record
of everything she wanted to say
and everything she held in silence

which

sometimes

is all we can offer each other.

Poem ©2020, Jen Payne upon reading Devotions by Mary Oliver. Photo from Pexels.

Categories
Memoir Poetry Writing

The Afghan

For Dorothy Reitbauer

“This,” my friend says, “is lovely.”
Lovely is never a word
I use to describe the ugly afghan
crocheted by my grandmother
and dragged out of storage
when guests sleep on the sofa.

It is avocado green and orange,
milk chocolate brown,
and amber gold,
like the gold my parents
painted the kitchen
of our new house back then.

“She picked each color herself,”
my friend explains,
as she carefully runs her fingers
up and over the zigzag pattern
with awe and affection,
though she never
met my grandmother.

It is the color palette
of my seventies family,
when Mom and Dad
were almost-happy still,
my sister played with Barbie
by the sliding glass window,
and my bangs were
appropriately feathered
away from my face.

“She thought about
you and your family
with each stitch.”

I could see her then,
sitting in her green recliner,
counting stitches like
the beads on her Rosary.
Love Boat on the Sylvania,
drinking instant iced tea
while a cigarette smokes
from the ashtray.

It was after her husband died,
and she traveled with her dog Coco,
bringing Shoo Fly Pie and
Moravian Sugar Cake from
Pennsylvania to our house
in Connecticut.

That Christmas,
she crocheted ponchos for us, too,
and took me to Hawaii
to see my Grandfather’s name
carved in marble at the
Pearl Harbor Memorial,
watch as she traced his name
with her fingers, slowly.

The same deft hands
that crafted this blanket
raised a son and daughter
independently in the fifties;
folded in prayer
for neighbors and friends;
prepared feasts
with love
for grandchildren.

“So much thought went into this,”
my friend continues,
as we carefully fold the afghan
and place it on top
of the antique hope chest
in the corner.

“Each stitch, each row,
holds love and memories.”

 

©2009, Jen Payne. Written for my grandmother, Dorothy Reitbauer. Seen here in 1943/44.
Categories
Nature Poetry

Thursday Rain

The contrast of
misty gray
against
May green
in the treetops
out the window
tells me it’s raining
before I even hear
the gentle tapping
on leaves
and grass
and spring flowers
bowed in gratitude
for the veil of quiet
descending

even poets bow
for the respite
stay inside
the rain says,
there’s a poem waiting

Photo and Poem ©2020, Jen Payne
Categories
Poetry Travel

Heist

I drove the get-away car that day,
left it on idle in the parking space
closest to the electronic OUT door
of Porter’s Grocery there in Alpine.

It was a bright Texas day, hot,
the car angled in shade enough
for a clear-on view of the lobby,
bulletin board, handbills, and tacks.

We’d scoped out the joint before,
cased the aisles for jerky
and a bottle of wine for dinner
back in Marfa at the Thunderbird.

There was a nice patio
outside our room with blue lights
like the alien spaceships
you could see there sometimes?

Funny things in that part of Texas:
spaceships and meteors,
a roadside Prada shoe outlet,
Chinati’s take on art, and ours.

Ours was her, Viva Terlingua!
in her sunset-red cowboy hat,
hand-strung turquoise beads, and
that witty West Texas smile.

It’s a smile that says just about all
you want to say about West Texas,
about the wild Trans-Pecos
and its wide expanse of stars.

It’s a promise of whiskey at La Kiva,
or hot coffee while the sun rises
over Terlingua and Study Butte
over Big Bend and the Rio Grande.

It’s a smile that remembers solitude,
the promise of oddity and isolation,
of community, maybe, companionship —
two friends on the road laughing.

It’s the awesome sound a car makes solo
on a nighttime desert highway,
or peeling out from the Porter’s,
Viva Terlingua! rolled up in the back seat.

 

Viva Terlingua! was featured on a 2010 poster from the Original Terlingua Chili Championship. The artwork is by Texas-based artist Frank X. Tolbert 2. You can see more of his amazing work on his website, here. The Original Terlingua Chili Championship ( link ) was started in 1967 by his father Frank X. Tolbert Sr. and a group of local men. Special thanks to his daughter, Kathleen Ryan, for filling in these details on a recent serendipitous Saturday.

Serendipity Part 2: While searching for the artist who created the original for this poster, I emailed the folks at the Original Terlingua Chili Championship. The woman I contacted was Kathleen Ryan, who turned out to be the daughter of the one of the event’s founders, and sister of the artist. Now I just found out she is also THE WOMAN IN THE PAINTING! Unbelievable!

Poem ©2020, Jen Payne. For DeLinda, of course, road trip partner in crime. Written as part of the Guilford Poets Guild’s month-long celebration ekphrastic poetry, see here.
Categories
Poetry

Ever Effervescent

For Mary Anne Siok

 

Is it the stylish air that draws you?

The sexy, bold sashay?

Perhaps her warm, broad smile

and the laugh that is her way?

 

Do you wonder what beguiles you?

Enchants you to draw near?

As if gifted by the Graces.

Sweet Splendor, Mirth and Cheer.

 

But we know what draws us close to her.

What sets her far above.

A spirit filled with joy and

a heart that brims with love.

 

She asked me once to write her a poem. Probably not my best, but Mary Anne Siok in every word. The world is not the same, my friend. I miss you…daily.

©2020, Jen Payne. Photo: Mary Anne circa 1990.
Categories
Creativity Poetry

A Pandemic Reflection

It’s hard to hide from yourself
in a pandemic, day in day out
living without distractions,
your reflection suddenly more real
reveals the things you forgot,
like age
or your grandmother
stooped over the sink too,
her familiar refrain
your familiar refrain
Oh god, you wake one morning
realize this is the same day, again
day in day out day in day out
and not just because of some virus
but because you, YOU have
worn down a path from the bed
to the bath to the sink
where you stoop now
see your reflections in the mirror
as the sun rises and the birds sing
and trickster fox laughs from the yard
laughs at you, your bucket list,
your not-now-someday-maybe,
that wisp of gray descending
so long you can’t ignore.

Poem ©2020, Jen Payne. Image: Mirror II, George Tooker. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.
Categories
Creativity Poetry

Oh for this company of a cat

She assumes the thin space
between me and the keyboard,
in front of anything I had to do right now,
her tail swooped against my hand resting
on the mouse that does all of the work.

I think to push her away but
her fur is soft and comforting
something to hold and touch,
her breath is purry and hypnotic,
and she is patient in her morning
meditation or prayer, insistence

here, this next day in the series of days
we keep together in this space
she in her routine and I in mine
like yesterday and its day before
or tomorrow and its day after
we assume, god and virus willing,
oh, for the company of this cat

So I just let go of my things to do,
wrap both arms around and
lean into her small warm body
as it expands and contracts
gently against my chest,
snuggle my face into the sweet
spot she loves between her ears
at the top her head, close my eyes
and listen to her breath, and mine
this singular hug of the day.

Photo and Poem ©2020, Jen Payne. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.
Categories
Creativity Poetry Travel

Retreat by Proxy

If not the respite
of the ocean now,
the Cape,
her wide wild shore
then this

this
sun rising here
and gulls,
not the same but
still

but still a sky, brilliant
and breeze
maybe even waves
if I wait

and if

if I am quite enough

the buoy offshore
rings

the ocean in a shell
marks time

Photo and Poem ©2020, Jen Payne. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.
Categories
Creativity Poetry Travel

30 – It’s a Hell of a Town

She wasn’t my first choice.
noisy, aggressive, imposing.
Arrogant with a funny accent.

I preferred her eastern cousin —
classic New England stock,
refined, not nearly as chaotic.

She was my first home, afterall,
where I earned my degree —
and my love of all things Boston.

But that other City
(spelled with a capital C)
captured my heart and ran with it…

through the corridors of Grand Central,
along the paths in Central Park,
and down old Broadway.

Each visit with her was a moment,
etched in my memory:
the foods, the sounds, the smells,

I remember the museums, the bridge,
the brunch, the parade, the lights
the trains, the crowds,

the people who shared the ride:
best friends, new friends, boyfriends,
my very first trip and my last.

My last for a while,
but not forever, I know.
She’s a tough broad and she’ll be back.

Photo by Photo by Roberto Vivancos. Poem ©2020, Jen Payne. National #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Writing Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Creativity Nature Poetry

29 – Getting Out

I’m in the woods.
Grandgirl says
as she steps her
wee self off the trail
and into the leaves
then gallops
ahead to chase
the butterfly
see the meadow
I’m in the woods!

he says, too,
as Nephew leaps
from the inside
breathes the outside
and careens
down a path
in front of us
climbing rocks
light saber at the ready
running
running
running

I’m in the woods!

Poem ©2020, Jen Payne. For Max and Lia. National #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Writing Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Books Creativity Poetry

28 – There was something I wanted to say but…

my thoughts these days
are like cormorants.

Do you know cormorants?

Now you see ‘em
Now you don’t

Sometimes in reverent prayer
sometimes flying high
then swimming, diving and

GONE!

So you sit back against a rock
and wait for them to resurface
come back

one Mississippi
two Mississippi

three or four or ten Mississippies later
they show back up

rise to the surface
so you can go back to your day.

 

Poem ©2020, Jen Payne. National #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Writing Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Books Creativity Poetry

27 – Little Blessings

She won’t remember
these days I didn’t play,
didn’t get down on the floor
with Abby and Coda
to rock the babies,
didn’t bark like a dog,
hide her from Grandpa lion,
or make the earth quake
Boom Boom Boom!

She’ll forget the missing
hide-and-seek,
the blanket tent,
the book we didn’t read,
the one of us who wasn’t
stealing blocks
or great little hugs
or selfies……….not again

For now she just remembers
to seek the mask-hid smile
to lean hard in for half a hug,
to blow a kiss, six feet big
to sing a See ya later!
as I turn away to leave
this sweetest little blessing
is the memory I get to keep.

 

Image: Poem ©2020, Jen Payne, for Lia with Love. National #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Writing Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Books Creativity Poetry

26 – Trickster Dreams

The fox who darted just out of eyesight yesterday morning while I poured coffee is screaming

mid-night screaming

so I half-wake, check for the cat, glance at the clock, tumble back into our trip to New York

a brilliant spring day, sunshine and pink trees, a street cafe/coffee shop amalgamation of people

it’s pungent loud, crazy and beautiful

You’re up ahead buying a hand-knit mask, balancing your coffee and flowered purse

I’m pacing by the India-print tunics, on the phone with the ex-lover only you know about, flirting in that way we do so no one overhears

and before I can say I Love You goodbye again to you there in the City on that wonderful city day or to him again on the phone

I’m riding in a pick-up careening through the copse where the screaming fox lives, smashing head-on into a great old beech

its fox-copper leaves jingle like bells to wake me for the day

 

Image: Poem ©2020, Jen Payne, for Mary Anne Siok on her birthday. National #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Writing Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Books Creativity Poetry

25 – Feather Juggler

They never seem heavy
just multiplicitous,
as if she stood
beneath a galaxy
of starlings,
wispy afterthoughts

…………raining

……down

from murmurations

their murmurings
perhaps,
or muses
task masters
EXPECTATIONS…..you say

perhaps

she does
make it look
easy, though
effortless,
effervescent —
bubbling over
like champagne,
watching

….it

……..fall

…………to

……..the

page

giggling

who wouldn’t kiss the rim,
let it tickle
like a feather
against your soul

then juggle
the soft ideas
aloft awhile
until something forms
in midair:

………………ideas

…….dreams

…………a poem

….of feathers

…………….floating

Image: Hand on Feathers, Martial Raysse. Poem ©2020, Jen Payne. National #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Writing Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Books Creativity Poetry

24 – How Do You Know a Heart

To know a heart

you start

at the sweet spot

where two meet

become one,

each fills up with the other

if it’s right, a mirror,

reflection

of fullness

or open arms,

you move closer then

set down new paths

strong enough

to bear the weight,

to hold up

what you’ve set

in motion,

pull in closer

and closer

to get to the point,

the heart of the matter:

it’s the openness

that holds it all together.

Poem ©2020, Jen Payne. National #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Writing Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Books Creativity Poetry

23 – Love thy neighbor as thyself

She worries most, she says
about salvation
— afterlife, eternal life —
rarely this one
this precious one,
except about her
rights and wrongs,
her delicate walk
inside the lines;
says she worries
about me, too,
my wayward path,
its final stop,
but we agree
most days
to disagree,
find comfort in
our common path
of grade school steps
and wonderings,
of nature and of art,
of familiar faces
that look the same —
but probably don’t
now 40 years gone by —
these are the things
that just won’t change
come what may
and never mind.

Poem ©2020, Jen Payne, for Rhonda. National #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Writing Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Books Creativity Poetry

22 – Earth Day 2020

Grandmother Maple
at the eastern corner of my yard
blinks with her feathered yellow lids
into the sparkling blue sky day,
embraces a family of Squirrels this year,
once it was an Owl, and long ago Raccoons.

She watches over the lone Chipmunk
who comes up late mornings to sun himself,
grass waist high and eyes alert
for the Red Tail who soars through less
now that the Osprey have returned,
and nested again nearby.

Also nesting are the pack of Jays
who ruckused all winter by the feeder,
and Mama Robin, her brood-to-be
in the Privet — oh how I try not to startle her
on my way to the mailbox,
she flies so low across the street
and I worry for her safety
most days, these days that blend
one to the next and the next.

Do you think they know?
Wonder why we’re so quiet,
not ruckusing ourselves as much?

Did the Spider who fell on my pillow last night
disregard my weighty self out of pity,
leave her to her deep, deep sleep,
her long, thick dreams,
weave a bit of compassion in her web
or leave to party with the Peepers,
dance in the moonlight under
these quiet, clear skies —
hardly missing us at all,
our heavy, unkind footsteps
upon divine Mother Earth.

IMAGE: The Merrymakers, The Merrymakers Uldene Trippe. Poem ©2020, Jen Payne. National #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Writing Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Books Creativity Poetry

21 – The Logic of Greed

And so returns the machine,
its slow metal grind,
its teeth too hungry to wait,
for there are coffers to fill,
coffins, too, but pay no mind,
sacrifice a percent or two
for the Republic,
tithe your blood and breath
for the common good —
for god’s sake a haircut,
and a chance to worship
your false gods once more
on the courts, the screens,
in the checkout line,
at the pulpit, praise the lord,
get down on your knees
in gratitude to the great, bloated men
who saved you with empty words,
wore down your mettle
with false science,
gave up your many
to jerk off the few —
the few who won’t ever notice
your last vassal breath
as it seeps from the machine,
the sad, foul exhaust
that clouds the skies once more.

Poem ©2020, Jen Payne. National #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Writing Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Books Creativity Poetry

20 – Monday Haiku

Spider in deep thought
above the just-cleaned cat box,
considers desert.

Poem ©2020, Jen Payne. National #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Writing Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Books Creativity Poetry

19 – Not much between despair and ecstasy

Pandemic dreams
are epicurean,
dipped in the lush sleep
of slow surrender,
the deep brew of
spice and dirt,
bowls chin high,
steam rising,
she on our small bed
in Shanghai
pressed tightly
together
in the fearless dark
or he, his
whiskered cheek
against my thigh,
tangled sheets
on his knees,
distracted despite
the warning siren,
the impending
firestorm,
the heat
of the sun
too soon
to interrupt
this delicious
reverie.

Image: Photo by Xi Xi from Pexels. Poem ©2020, Jen Payne. National #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Writing Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Books Creativity Poetry Spirituality

18 – First Teacher

Alexander Molyneux, 1949 – 1988

Last name almost forgotten
but there at the base
of what I believe
of god and faith
and my place
in the Universe,
sits my first teacher,
fits guru — Al.

We met over
midnight coffees,
swapped donut shop
philosophies
on late night shifts,
asked questions
and tested answers
at the boundary between
martial arts, his,
and liberal arts, mine,
until the sun rose,
on the new day,
each day
that long first summer.

Pulling books from
his backseat library
I learned that
god comes in
different shapes
and different colors,
that there is no one way,
no wrong way,
no right way.
God just is,
and Al just was,

and I just was, too,
until the next summer,
when I sought out his grave
under a sinking sun
there by the long, wide river —
left a rose as thanks
and knew my search
had just begun.

Poem ©2020, Jen Payne. National #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Writing Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Books Creativity Poetry

17 – Moonshadow

Goddess eye winks from
a 6am sky, says
you’re not ready to see
what I have to tell you,
hides herself behind
spring-bare branches,
laughs at the folly
of technology which can
only see her as a white something
against the grainy dark,
hardly refelctive at all of
her otherworldly glow,
her unseen strength,
her surprising grace
this morning while I drink coffee,
or yesterday above the Sound,
while I washed dishes,
gazed unthinking to the south.

She, a cloud almost
against the midday sky,
translucent as if vapor,
winking then too or
lid half closed in prayer
for what she sees before her,
this sweet, lonely sphere
grown silent in a shadow
not of her making,
but eclipsed instead
by its sick and dying self.
Yes, yes, now I am sure
she was praying…
for us and for you,
and for me, too,
watching her from a window
this morning transformed.

Poem ©2020, Jen Payne. National #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Writing Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Books Creativity Poetry

16 – Pandemic Perspective

The glass is half full.

The glass is half empty.

The glass is about to break into tiny shards,
fall to the floor, cut up your feet,
and incapacitate you
until April, May, or
possibly September,
could also be next year…

We’re positive we’re not sure.

Poem ©2020, Jen Payne. National #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Writing Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Books Creativity Poetry

15 – Quit Giving Me Gray Hair

If it was last year here,

I’d be so this year, dear —

young women dyed for this

a trend not to miss

they thought gray was dope

pushed that envelope

went silver, ash, smoke and ice

totally willing to pay the price

but mine came free, oh yes it did

my stylist and I, we blame COVID

since this year gray is not so big,

I went and bought myself a wig.

 

Image: Pink Twin, Purple Twin, Walasse Ting. Poem ©2020, Jen Payne. National #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Writing Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Books Creativity Poetry

14 – Pandemic Mechanics

I’m trying to imagine
the giant mechanism
my homunculus
must maneuver each morning,
how enormous the
the weights and counterweights,
the mile-thick ropes and pulleys,
necessary to close off this reality

YOU SHALL NOT PASS

close off this reality
just enough so I get out of bed,
do my hair, make coffee
right-side up instead of
upside down like it feels
when I peer through the crack,
one eye closed or cautious squint
knowing I have the privilege to ask

is it safe to come out?

what’s for dinner today?

do I have time for another poem?

 

Poem ©2020, Jen Payne. National #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Writing Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Books Creativity Poetry

13 – Storm in a Pandemic

Spring storm arrives with wind and rain
that rattles windows and pushes against doors,
huffing and puffing I’ll blow your house down it growls,
but we know how this goes, we’ve done this before,
so we set out candles, search for matches, batteries,
hope the giant maple in the yard can persevere again —
check to make sure the basement doesn’t flood too badly,
that the roof in the kitchen doesn’t leak,
that I remembered to close the bedroom window —
it was warm last night…or was I?…
I wake often now, press palm against my forehead
relax when it’s only a flash and not a fever,
breathe deeply and pray when I still can
because we don’t know how that goes —
that other storm that’s still raging
that doesn’t show on the radar map
and won’t blow out to sea anytime soon,
that will still be here when the sun returns tomorrow,
when I put the candles away in the drawer,
when I look out those windows to the yard,
to the giant maple, her leaves in wait,
and my neighbor in her mask in her garden
moving dirt and planting seeds
that will grow despite the storm,
we know they will.

 

Poem ©2020, Jen Payne. National #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Writing Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Books Creativity Poetry

12 – Grave Tenders

She had promised them
and so each Easter
we gather ourselves
and the pots of
sweet Hyacinths,
the cut wire-hanger hooks,
the glass jars of water
and drive together

to Holy Savior first,
where we clear off the old stone
of her mother and father
secure flowers to the iron red earth
for them first and always
and then for her brother;
we bow our heads,
she prays and crosses herself
once for each of them,
touches the stones before leaving
as if to say, Nice to see you,
and I’ll be back.

It’s a slow and somber drive
then to Memorial Park,
past the fireman statue
to her husband’s grave.
She tends and weeds,
seems not to notice her name
carved in stone by his,
remarks at the well-mowed grass
before we leave,

drive by the place where my Dad
played cowboys and Indians,
riding the headstone
shaped like a stagecoach,
where he left toys guns in the grass
for my grandmother to find
by flashlight and shadows.

We leave hyacinths on his grave, too,
kneel together on the damp ground,
clean red dust from the bronze plaque,
touch-spell his name one more time,
listen to cars passing, and crows,
and weep fresh tears,
for this, the hardest tending.

 

Photo Photo by Brett Sayles. Poem ©2020, Jen Payne. National #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Writing Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Books Creativity Poetry

11 – 2 Cups: An Ode to Bisquick

2 cups
then milk, sugar, egg
for sweet batter and
more with
brown sugar, cinnamon, butter
for sweeter topping
layer one onto the next
and bake until
heavenly scent insists
you make coffee for the cake

2 cups
and chopped parsley
milk, salt, pepper
dropped by heaping spoonfuls
into bubbling hot stew —
my granmother’s recipe of
chicken, carrots, celery,
with onions stuck to the underside
of buoyant dumplings, divine

2 cups
add eggs and milk
mix until smooth
smooth enough to pour
round on a griddle
then wait for bubbles
before you FLIP!
to a golden brown,
stack high and drizzle
pour, engulf, drown
with sweet maple elixir

2 cups
and milk
(yes, only milk)
don’t overmix the mix
then drop one by one
the soft, sticky dough
into rounded domes
and dream of jams,
light, creamy butter,
honey or marmalade,
berries and cream
while they rise to
biscuity perfection
before your hungry eyes

2 cups
in a pandemic make
old school coffee cake
dumplings for stew
pancakes, flapjacks, griddle cakes
(call them what you may)
biscuits, waffles…
makes a person wonder
why so many Bisquicks left on the shelf
as she wipes a crumb
from her mask
with her blue-gloved hand.

 

Poem ©2020, Jen Payne. National #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Writing Month. Find coffee cake recipe here. You’re welcome. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Books Creativity Poetry

10 – Like Tinnitus

They call it Angels’ Song,
the ever-present ring,
its high-pitch serenade,
that lulls us to weary sleep,
lulls us too awake at night,
the slow resurface to a day
not yet over, not yet begun

But the company of angels —
these singing angels —
is no more welcome than
the weight of anxious demons
woke by the great pandemic
and dancing on our chests…
……..at three while the angels trill
……..at nine while the angels chant
……..at noon while the angels croon

Demons cast down from the heavens,
their affliction of fearing
like the affliction of hearing,
a gathering of the unseen —
……..at three what we don’t know
……..at nine what we can’t control
……..at noon what we fear comes next
an omnipresent troupe
that dances in the shadows,
hums like a swarm of bees,
and sings their unyielding songs
all the livelong day.

 

Poem ©2020, Jen Payne. National #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Writing Month. Image: Angel Piping to the Souls in Hell, Evelyn De Morgan. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Art Books Creativity Poetry

9 – Mind’s Eye

April

full moon

rises

 

floods

uncertain

landscapes

 

overflows

 

unravels

everything

 

and she alone

sings softly

 

Hmm mmm

Hmm mmm

Hmm Hmm mmm

 

Mind’s Eye

Moon’s Eye

Who Am I?

 

Hmm mmm

Hmm mmm

Hmm Hmm mmm

 

Mixed media collage, Mind’s Eye, and poem ©2020, Jen Payne. National #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Writing Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Books Creativity Poetry

8 – Dream’s Landscape

They were holding umbrellas

made of stone

granite I think, pink

like the kind that seeps

from moss on my walks

by the old quarry.

Umbrellas of stone

but inverted as if

the lion winds of March

caught them off guard,

as if they were vessels now

large stone blossoms

held overhead

in a field of people

frozen in time

and waiting out a storm.

©2020, Jen Payne. National #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Writing Month. For more about the umbrella art installation pictured above, see “Enchanting Cloud of 1,100 Umbrellas Suspend Above a Grand Hall,” By Kristine Mitchell. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Books Creativity Poetry

7 – Imposter Poet

I am no more fit for the poetic form than I was the 9-to-5 work day

I learned that lesson early…by 27 my own task master

with no rhyme or reason to the days since.

They flow as they will or they should — meant to be

whispers the woman beneath the weight anything else.

Meant to be, too, the poems.

Never sonnet or senryu

villanelle or paradelle

rondeau, rispetto, or ode.

They are short and sweet or long and leggy

begging for edits, or begging for more:

I want some more please.

What, you think a free-verse poem doesn’t beg?

Doesn’t hold itself up and ask you to decide

……….half empty or half full?

……….half-baked or baked to perfection?

But how are you to know, really?

Especially if you dance to the beat

of that different drum and the music is so loud

you can’t hear yourself think

never mind rhyme.

 

So, never mind rhyme.

I don’t, and you don’t mind me.

 

©2020, Jen Payne. National #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Writing Month. Photo by Tasha Kamrowski. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Books Creativity Poetry

6 – Star Child

Curled small on the driveway,

only seen for the cruel contrast

black beneath pale pink white skin,

star child, squirrel child no matter

she stayed in the palm of my hand,

nuzzled into the warmth of a thumb

womb, nest, home, heaven

‘til neither of us could bear

that cold, damp morning

that cold, wet pavement

that cold and unforgiving world

©2020, Jen Payne. National #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Writing Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Books Creativity Memoir Poetry

You are braver than you believe & stronger than you seem…

I’ve been walking around barefoot a lot. Outside, in the yard, to the mailbox — no matter the temperature or weather. It reminds me of that opening scene in Die Hard when John McClain’s seatmate tells him “After you get where you’re going, take off your shoes and your socks…walk around on the rug barefoot and make fists with your toes. It’s better than a shower and a hot cup of coffee.”

It turns out, that’s pretty good advice.

In the article “This Die Hard Relaxation Hack Is Actually Brilliant,” podiatrist Ernest Isaacson explains, “Being barefoot is a great way to feel one’s way around new surroundings, and by removing the protective covering of our shoes it also establishes a level of trust to the new digs, which is comforting, relaxing, and just feels good….Walking barefoot takes us back to our primordial roots, and allows the many nerve endings on the bottom of the feet to make contact with the ground, thereby establishing a real tactile connection to our new surroundings.”

New surroundings like these weird, scary, sad, difficult pandemic surroundings? I don’t know about you, but I’ve got anxiety on a constant feedback loop. Adjusting means processing a lot more information, being OK with a change in routine and expectations, and settling down into not know what happens next.

Walking barefoot, wiggling my toes in the wet grass or on the cold pavement, reminds me to be in the moment.

“The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, nor to worry about the future, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly.” — Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai, The Teaching of Buddha

Living wisely and earnestly for me right now translates into surrounding myself with the things that immediately bring me comfort: phone calls with good friends, my cat Lola, homemade meatloaf, living room yoga, walks in the woods, writing, and books.

I realize I’m lucky in that. I’m not on the front lines, working in a hospital, striving to keep our communities safe, managing a houseful of little ones. For each and everyone one of us, these are hard and difficult times, in vastly different ways.

So, how are you spending your pandemic days? Are you safe and healthy? Are you balancing worry with wonder? Getting enough rest, movement, breath, prayer, food? Reaching out and digging deep? Have you found what brings you comfort?

Here is a gentle reminder from one of my go-to comforts, Winnie the Pooh:

“You are braver than you believe, you are stronger than you seem, and you are smarter than you think.”

We will be Okay…and YOU will be Okay.

Take off your shoes. Wiggle your toes. Breathe.

Love, Jen

News from My Living Room

THANK YOU, ALPHA COIRO!

Friends of the Blackstone Memorial Library board member Alpha Coiro recently featured me and my books in the library’s spring newsletter Marble Columns. You can read an advance copy of her article by clicking here.

MEATLOAF

Hankering some comfort food, I looked up recipes by cooking goddess Ina Garten and found her recipe for Meatloaf (click here). I had to ad lib a little: I didn’t have tomato paste, so I used sundried tomatoes in oil; and a crumbled Bisquick biscuit stepped in for bread crumbs. I served it with canned peas and macaroni and cheese and was immediately transported to my grandmother’s kitchen circa 1972. Ahh, comfort.

BOOKS

If you’re looking for something else to read, visit my Etsy Shop where you’ll discover both print and NEW! ebooks for sale.

“Salvation is certainly among the reasons I read. Reading and writing have always pulled me out of the darkest experiences in my life. Stories have given me a place in which to lose myself. They have allowed me to remember. They have allowed me to forget. They have allowed me to imagine different endings and better possible worlds.” – Roxane Gay

Essay ©2020, Jen Payne. Illustration by Ernest Howard Shepard, “Pooh and Piglet walked home thoughtfully together in the golden evening, and for a long time they were silent,” illustration for A. A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh (London: Methuen; New York: E. P. Dutton, 1926. Quotes from This ‘Die Hard’ Relaxation Hack Is Actually Brilliant , by Dan Myers, The Active Times. Winnie the Pooh Quote by Karl Geurs and Carter Crocker, Pooh’s Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin.
Categories
Books Creativity Poetry

5 – Sunday Haiku

the day is quiet

save for the slow, soft hum

of a cat snoring

©2020, Jen Payne. National #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Writing Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Books Creativity Poetry

4 – Pandemic Pause

The construct of time

in our pandemic pause

is such that my computer

now tells me the day —

in small letters the date, too —

and the hours move by

so slowly we seem suspended,

teetering here on trust

that the sun begins the day still,

and the dark is when we rest

and dream of crowds of people

— or that one we adore — before

the sun rises on another day as is

but another day closer, too

and find in that somewhere: Joy.

Right before the world shut down, I was working with photographer Joy Bush to promote her new exhibit at City Gallery in New Haven. We had a phone call scheduled, so I set my phone alarm: 8:50AM, Joy. That’s what inspired today’s poem. You can check out Joy’s thoughtful work on her website: www.joybushphotography.com.

©2020, Jen Payne. National #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Writing Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Creativity Poetry

3 – Useful

It appears they mostly need it

for its usefulness:

can it produce

assist

support

respond

perform the necessary tasks

be present

be invisible

 

but there’s a deficit

in the transaction

that no one seems to notice

except me

 

©2020, Jen Payne. National #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Writing Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Creativity Poetry

2 – Soap

It’s a small bar,
tucks into my hand
smooth and white

I’ve pulled it from
its palm-tree wrapper
the one that tells me
in small letters
Soap – Savon – Jabón

It smells like Cape Cod,
that hotel room
with the view of water,
the southern wind
just off the beach,
the cedar trees,
and fresh-washed towels,

so I sing more than 20 seconds —
maybe 40 or 60 seconds —
long enough to stay until
the sun lifts up
and I recognize the day,
my self maybe too,
in a mirror so far away.

 

This poem was featured as part of POETS OF THE PANDEMIC on the website Headline Poetry & Press, April 16, 2020.

©2020, Jen Payne. National #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Writing Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Creativity Poetry

1 – Level Up!

He was a giant black dog

wooly from toes to eyes

— if he had them —

and every morning

on my way to school

at the end of the street

he would race down his driveway

…..growling

………..non-stop

……………full speed

………………..and full bark

full enough to scare anyone

most especially my 11-year-old self

who hadn’t quite figured out

what to do with her monsters yet

except run, run, run.

 

Then His name is Sam,

a voice yelled from a dark, dusty window

in the gray house set back from the road,

Sam, it rolled down the driveway

and across my path, a magic coin,

a power token, password — SAM

and I knew exactly what to do!

 

The next morning, I bravely stood,

hands on hips and waited

David me for Goliath he

at the end of his driveway

waited and waited and waited

until Sam came out,

…..charging

……….non-stop

……………full speed

………………..and full bark

SAM, SIT! I yelled as loudly as I could

SIT, SAM, SIT!

And then he sat.

And I did too.

First monster vanquished. Level up!

 

©2020, Jen Payne. National #NaPoWriMo. National Poetry Writing Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Creativity Poetry

It’s National Poetry Month!

Happy National Poetry Month! Here at Random Acts of Writing, we’re going to be writing a poem a day — #NaPoWriMo — so check back daily! But did you know that National Poetry Month was inaugurated by the Academy of American Poets in April 1996? Over the years, it has become the largest literary celebration in the world with schools, publishers, libraries, booksellers, and poets celebrating poetry’s vital place in our culture. Here are 30 ways you can participate…

  1. Sign-up for Poem-a-Day and read a poem each morning.

  2. Sign-up to receive a free National Poetry Month poster, or download the PDF, and display it for the occasion.

  3. Read last year’s most-read poem, Naomi Shihab Nye’s “Kindness.”

  4. Record yourself reading a poem, and share why you chose that work online using the hashtag #ShelterinPoems. Be sure to tag @poetsorg on twitter and instagram!

  5. Subscribe to the Poem-a-Day podcast.

  6. Check out an e-book of poetry from your local library.

  7. Begin your virtual meetings or classes by reading a poem.

  8. Talk to the teachers in your life about Teach This Poem.

  9. Learn more about poets and virtual poetry events in your state.

  10. Read about your state poet laureate.

  11. Browse Poems for Kids.

  12. Buy a book of poetry from your local bookstore.

  13. Make a poetry playlist.

  14. Browse the glossary of terms and try your hand at writing a formal poem.

  15. Create an online anthology of your favorite poems on Poets.org.

  16. Organize a poetry reading, open mic, or poetry slam via a video conferencing service.

  17. Sign up for an online poetry class or workshop.

  18. Donate books of poetry to little free libraries and mutual aid networks.

  19. Research and volunteer with poetry organizations in your area.

  20. Take a walk and write a poem outside.

  21. Start a virtual poetry reading group or potluck, inviting friends to share poems.

  22. Write an exquisite corpse or a renga with friends via email or text.

  23. Take on a guerrilla poetry project in your building.

  24. Read essays about poetry like Edward Hirsch’s “How to Read a Poem,” Mary Ruefle’s “Poetry and the Moon,” Mark Doty’s “Tide of Voices: Why Poetry Matters Now,” and Muriel Rukeyser’s “The Life of Poetry.”

  25. Watch a movie, lecture, or video featuring a poet.

  26. Read and share poems about the environment in honor of Earth Day.

  27. Make a poetry chapbook.

  28. Submit your poems to a literary magazine or poetry journal.

  29. Make a poem to share on Poem in Your Pocket Day on April 30, 2020.

  30. Make a gift to support the Academy of American Poets free programs and publications and keep celebrating poetry year-round!

National Poetry Month poster, with permission from the Academy of American Poets. Artwork by Samantha Aikman.
Categories
Books Creativity National Poetry Month Poetry Writing

Finding Inspiration

When I told a friend last spring that I was writing a poem a day for National Poetry Month and NaPoWriMo, she asked me how I found the inspiration for 30 poems.

“It’s like rummaging around in a junk drawer,” I told her. “You’re bound to put your hands on something!”

And sure enough, one April, I found inspiration from a seagull, bugs, a haiku class, a trip to the Dollar Store, and pizza. Among other things. (See the full tally here.)

Now granted, they are not all masterpieces. But that’s not the point. Like any writing challenge — NaNoWriMo, HistNoWriMo, SciFiWriMo — the goal is simply to get into the habit of writing.

“Simply” of course being somewhat of an issue if you are lacking inspiration. Which brings us back to that junk drawer. There are so many things in your junk drawer – think about it!

the first time you rode a bike
your best friend from kindergarten
your mother
what you had for breakfast
your first kiss
last night’s dream
what you saw on a hike last weekend
your favorite painting
the song you can’t get out of your head (and why)
an object sitting on your coffee table

So, GO! Rummage around — see what you can find. Reach way far back if you have to…and then CREATE! Describe, elaborate, enumerate, paint a picture with words (or even paint if you are so inclined). It doesn’t have to be perfect…as Nike says, JUST DO IT!

Here is some evidence of rummaging. This quirky little poem showed up from a post-it note I found on my desk one morning:

(Chinese Food)

The note says (Chinese Food)
but it is random
out of context on a piece of paper
in a stack of papers
at least 2 months passed

my past included (Chinese Food)

but what?
and with whom?
and what is the purpose
of this little clue
set out for me to follow
too early even for General Tso,
though I never met him personally

rumor has it, he was a press man…

as a proponent of the written word
do you think he rose early
to consider form and function,
rhyme, reason and rice —
like this poet now hungry
for the pork fried variety at 6?

But a fair warning about rummaging…you have to be brave. You have to be brave because you never know what you’re going to find in that drawer. Sometimes, it will be as benign as a post-it note about Chinese take-out. Other times, you may pull out a ghost, some long lost memory that needs to see the light of day.

Hans Christian Anderson is credited with saying: “Everything you look at can become a fairy tale, you can get a story from everything you touch.”

Ultimately, isn’t that our job as creatives? Telling the story. No matter our medium — poetry, painting, prose — we are charged with the task of putting our hands on the story and sharing it with others.

So, get in there! Rummage around for the inspiration. Reach way far back if you have to…and then TELL THE STORY!

You can read more of Jen Payne’s poetry in her books Evidence of Flossing: What We Leave Behind and Waiting Out the Storm, available from Three Chairs Publishing.

buynow

Categories
Creativity Poetry

Countdown to NaPoWriMo!

Ready to write?

Sharpen up your pencils. Gather your pens. Dust off the Corona (not that one). And boot up the computer, because National Poetry Month begins next Wednesday, April 1.

No joke!

And National Poetry Month means, among other things, it’s time for NaPoWriMo = National Poetry Writing Month, in which we attempt, once again, to write 30 poems in 30 days! Check it out > www.napowrimo.net!

I sense a little resistance. A bit of “my poems aren’t good enough” or “my poems would never be ready for prime time in one day.” To which I say: Pshaw!

NaPoWriMo is not about perfection or polish. It’s about practice. A daily practice of sitting with your craft and watching what comes up. It’s like practicing yoga and seeing how deep you can go. Or singing scales to tune the instrument of your voice. It’s stretching so your writing muscles don’t seize up and stop working for you.

Besides, let’s be honest, you’ll have plenty of time on your chapped and over-washed hands in the next month — why not spend some of it doing something you love?

Like writing poetry.

Are you with me?

Here’s some more information if you’d like to play along.

• NaPoWriMo FAQs
• Participating Writers
• There’s a contest for that: NaPoWriMo Chapbook Contest
• They’re’ not all winners, but these are my NaPoWriMo archives

Be safe. Take care. And Happy writing!

Categories
Poetry

Spring 2020 Haiku

spring comes, no matter

no matter me or us…or It

hope takes root, we hope

©2020, Jen Payne