You may be familiar with my Poetry Marathons – I’ve done them since January, 2015. I take a week, several times a year, and devote it to poetry – writing, editing, all poetry-related activities.
This year I have decided to do one segment of a Marathon each week. Two to three hours set aside for poetry, outside my regular life. It’s called the Installment Plan Poetry Marathon.
For more background information, look here. And if you want to read previous posts in this series, search this blog under the term Installment Plan Poetry Marathon 2017.
On August 23, as soon as I got up, I decided on the spur of the moment that I’d marathon today. I’d been thinking tomorrow, but suddenly this morning it seemed that things would be better arranged if I did it today. Plus, I felt like writing and thinking and visiting the library. Sometimes you just have to go with the impulse, don’t you?
After arriving at Chestnut Hill College I checked on the squash. Still there and still alive and growing.
The crepe myrtles have started to let go of blooming and are now on to getting ready for fall and winter as they progress on their annual path through the seasons.
This is the last week before school starts at Chestnut Hill College. There is an air of anticipation and I feel it as I go into Logue Library. Late summer colliding with fall: there has been only one library visitor since I was here last week, as I see from the guest book. In front of the library, a van is filling up to take the girls’ soccer team (I think it was) to an offsite practice field.
On my way upstairs, I looked through the mezzanine on the second-floor stacks to the main reading room. I love this room and especially now with the crepe myrtles crowding the windows.
I took a short walk around, looking at book titles. I chose non-fiction books with intriguing, alluring titles to photograph. And here they are with what I thought about them.
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- I think this is an elegant way to describe how tree shapes fit into the giant pattern of our world. It implies an order to things and also that trees are smart, both of which I believe.
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- In the end, our minds are the most powerful forces on earth, I think.
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- This book isn’t new. So that tells you the topic has been exhilarating or dismaying people for some time. I don’t know which way this book leans, I didn’t look inside. I like to wonder.
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- I need this for when I do find my native land. I don’t mean the US, I know I’m here; I mean that haven I’m looking for, the one where they have a place all set out for me. I might need a guide to keep me from tearing myself into pieces carrying out all my dreams and hopes and long-cherished ambitions, suddenly let loose!
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- The two books side by side: can an unfinished book be considered a book? And what is finished? I understand the idea of something unfinished, but if it stays that way, isn’t it finished? And then it’s a book, not an unfinished book, and all my questions have confused me now. So, what about those confessions, then? Let’s hear’em.
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- Your children want to read. Dangle that book bait in front of them. For me, any book would be bait enough.
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- This is fiction, not non-fiction, but the title just grabbed me. Landlords just don’t get to be the starring role too often, I think.
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- Well, this book is going to set us all straight, as far as science is concerned. Hold on tight.
All right – third floor. My desk was waiting. The air-conditioning was not working, so I opened some windows. The day is cooler than the previous sultry ones this week and a nice breeze was blowing in. It felt nice to be connected to the outdoors today.
I did a lot of short work today. Just in that kind of mood. Hopping and skipping.
But here is a longer poem. I based it on an experience I had this weekend – the scene was next to a park where I ran.
10.
The new houses
lined the street
set close in stark bare yards
summer hot sun finding every detail
and none of them the least bit
unsuitable or soiled
yet. The highway looms
above the new houses
the neighborhood a strip
along the route of thousands of cars
a day. Triumphant
a billboard
enormous
flashes its set of messages
over and over
prescription drug problem treatment
dry your wet basement prevent mold and illness
tickets now for the fall football season
apple orchard picking for all ages plus corn maze
A hawk flies over the new houses
learn to drive a commercial truck in two weeks
Three haiku. The first one is for the recent eclipse; the other one prompted by a brush I accidentally let dry, the third one, well, just from somewhere.
3.
Restless butterfly
wings hollowing out the sky
biting at the sun
4.
Portrait half-finished
inspiration cut off short
paint dry on the brush.
11.
Fed up. Patience gone.
Slap the little snitch silly
and take her ice cream.
I don’t know where this one came from. I do read a lot of crime fiction.
13.
His wife made his lunch
She had a careless hand
hundreds of pills later
the symptoms were very apparent
See here
You haven’t answered my questions
said the police detective
What more is there to explain
she said.
Our family doctor
prescribed all manner of noxious supplements
to help get rid of the extra pounds
of husband. Which it did. A tremendous piece of luck.
She clapped her hands on a mosquito.
Now, some Little Vines.
a.
lying on the carpet
lying on the sidewalk
lying on the floor of the shower
Stop lying.
b.
I know exactly who I am
a symbol of confusion
the innuendos you try to swat away
c.
A very charitable family but
bear in mind that rat poison
can strain ties.
g.
I’m not ignoring you I just don’t like you
I am
a ruined landscape covered in leafless trees
j.
Is he drunk, your uncle
or is this
a homemade therapy session
Thank you for reading! Until next time.
