Tag: poetryasmemoir

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Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

18 – What if La La La Is My Superpower?



When the former lover said

he never understood how I could LA LA LA about things

I thought, now that’s ironic

because I was never very LA LA LA about him

I was more OH MY GOD and OH NO! and WHAT NOW?

But OH NO! always has a way of morphing into OH WELL…

when the adrenaline wears off, fiddle-dee-dee,

and there’s no choice but to change pace,

switch things up

MAKE LEMONADE NOT WAR

paint the dining room blue

sing Give Me Novocaine until the pain wears off

then get right back on the proverbial horse

and ride off into the sunset,

hope and optimism in a pocket

red cape fluttering in the wind

singing

LA      LA       LA



With thanks to Scarlett O’Hara and Green Day. Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

16 – Double-Dutch

They make it seem easy
two ropes turning
jumpers jumping
into the mix

clockwork
enthusiasm

everyone even
knows the words

laughter carries
across the green
where people mingle
call out
come play!
come jump!
come join in!

But my feet get tangled
most of the time
no rhythm
not even rhyme
on those days
when I’m nothing but

out of sync

out of step

out of the loop

out of my depth


While we think of Double-Dutch as a playground game, in some circles the term means “language that cannot be understood. As in: It was all double Dutch [=nonsense, gibberish] to me.” Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

15 – Long Weekend

It was New Hampshire
for God’s sake
and I hoped it would imprint us
how could it not?
those ridiculous mountains
their shock of snow
and sharp air so fresh
your lungs get greedy —
But you were miles away
ghosts on your lead line
climbing summits of regret
a backpack full of memories
bitter and sweet
stuck to the roof of your mouth —
which explains the dead silence
yours and mine
as we watched the snow fall
covering over our footprints
on the path outside.



Photo & Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

14 – The Face of Waiting

This here, when I see you,

it’s not longing or love

it’s just the remnants of waiting

waiting for someone to return

the shadow puppets dance

as headlights come home

or the flutter of eyes

after a long night of sleep

there you are, I’ve missed you

memory keen and vivid

how you used to be

photos flip past, the reeling

that feeling so sharp

I can sometimes still feel the cut

smell the mettle’s wound


I WAITED FOR YOU TO COME BACK


Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

13 – 50-Word Classified Ad: Rose Colored Glasses


The future’s so bright,

you gotta wear…

vintage ROSE COLORED GLASSES

FOR SALE, b/o

well maintained,

working condition

despite numerous scratches

and brushes with reality;

good for filtering out

red flags and fair warnings;

useful in fruitless pursuits,

flights of fancy,

and hopeless causes

you have yet to see coming


Illustration & Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

12 – In which the poet considers the half-life of love by way of nuclear reaction


The half-life of Uranium
is either 4.5 billion years,
700 million years,
or 250 thousand years
depending on how you examine
its primordial isotopes,
that which remains of its interstellar medium
its stardust —
like us,
formed inside of stars
when stars collide
so what then is the half-life of love?
its biochemical chain of events
a Big Bang complex interplay
of pheromones, dopamine, and oxytocin
elemental
does it decay more or less quickly
than that which lights up the sky?
does it leave traces?
its luminescence still seen
sometimes
its volatility, too
rapid and unpredictable change
just another reaction,
expected meltdown,
its core damage

Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Memoir National Poetry Month Nature Poetry Writing

8 – Trauma Theory

From the fascia that constricts —
wants my body fetal some days —
I cannot extract the kamikaze pilot,
tweeze him from his destructive path
save those who drowned
or the family of survivors
who struggle, still, some days,
to keep their heads above water.

I cannot extract the boy in the photo
unawares and smiling
while sea battles raged
and mothers wept
eyes blind to the
the hard fist of the drunk
who pounded on doors
and broke happy spirits.

Some things float, you see,
carry on despite the damage.

 

Poem ©2023, Jen Payne. Photo of her father, taken 1945, around the time his father was considered missing in action. He was aboard the destroyer U.S.S. Twiggs, just offshore from Okinawa when it was torpedoed then hit by a suicide bomber. #NaPoWriMo, National Poetry Month. If you like this poem, you can read similar in my books and zines, available from Three Chairs Publishing on my ETSY SHOP. They come autographed, with gratitude and a small gift.

Categories
Memoir Poetry

Narrative Arc

We blurred the shape of time,
bent it forwards and back,
twisted it enough to find common ground
there in those early fairy tale days
when I was so astonished by Us I wept

Our movements so in sync
it seemed we were cut from one bolt of cloth
only one stored for a decade or more in a castle
full of favorite old books and songs
and endless stories — his and mine
and the ones we tell ourselves about Love
and who we are IN Love

But I never thought to look up
see the turrets and towers along the wall,
pay note to the bunker safely guarded,
the pock marks in that common ground,
the mortally wounded specters
who watched their watches
betting on our time
our precious, precious time

I thought the enemy was age
that Loss would come as natural cause and effect, expected
a well-roundedness to its execution
but I was wrong

Loss seeped slowly between the cracks I didn’t know at first were there
forced itself into the weakest places of Us
the way ivy overtakes mortar in a wall
until all that was left was the evidence of time we call Memory.

©2023, Jen Payne

Categories
Memoir Poetry

Breath Counting

When sleeping with a bear
it is critical to pay attention to the breath —
his and yours.

His will tell you when it is safe
to muck about in dreams
and when it is time
to curl up and play dead.

Death
     in this case: to feign sleep
is a practiced thing

slow     deep     breath     in

slow     deep     breath     out

slow     deep     breath     in

slow     deep     breath     out

Most nights, he’ll forget his hunger
and roll over — you pray
hands clasped around your knees
making yourself small
a burr in the blanket and of far less importance
than himself and his sleep.

©2022, Jen Payne