This poem is presented in its rough draft form for the PAD 2022 challenge and will be revised.
PAD Prompt: Response
Poetic Form: Golden Shovel
“The Last Note”
- after Marianas Trench “Ever After”
The last note is the hardest to let go, I
lean my head into the final verse. We could
sing this song as we run yellow lights. Be
one heart, laughing until I get lost in your
smile. Stealing kisses between the chords. A perfect
note that strikes relentlessly, leaving me a disaster.
This poem is presented in its rough draft form for the PAD 2022 challenge and will be revised.
PAD Prompt: Sound
Poetic Form: Irregular Ode
“Ode to Music”
A minivan filled with voices,
Singing about Bruno
Smiles and laughter
As I hit a bad note
For decades music has filled my ears
And comforted my soul
As a child living with the other parent
bedroom in the unfinished basement
My little radio gave me lyrics
to dream about
instead of the darkness that filled the space
outside the doorway
The moon walk took me to another parent
While I learned to express myself
On cardboard
I felt like there was no stopping me
The break in the beats made me dance
My coin drop was word
I made poetry with my toprock verses
But I was known for my own suicide
Coming out of a windmill
to fall as if on a cross
It never hurt as bad as my unanswered questions of life
Another step-dad
Another genre of music
Grunge filled my college dorm
I knew why I never went home
Even as I screamed the question
“Why go home?”
New friends
Shared that we all have unanswered prayers
In all genres
I found love songs
and had to hit repeat on heartbroken lyrics
Until someone found me
and we had our song
had our dance
Then wrote a new family musical
My playlists are like photo albums
that bring tears to my mind.
Snap shots of all this life has given
and taken from me
After fifty years music is a landslide
that is music to my soul.
The morning session for Martha's Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing Writers' Conference was centered on love and loss. Again, these poems were done during the open writing time, so they will probably be revised later.
The first part of the session was looking at how love is displayed through ordinary moments. It made me think about a somewhat joke that my wife thinks I'm sexy when I clean, so I went with that idea to a degree with the following poem.
“20 Years”
After 20 years together
She’s heard every line I’ve used in college
We’ve danced in bars
And around the kitchen island
I still play my CDs loud in the minivan
My six offspring
Moan as I sing to the 80s on 8
But we are all silent when she sings
Her first name is odd on my tongue
Her hairstyle changes
With the time left in the morning
We fall asleep too early
Yet stay awake until the teens come home
This love was built on late night whispers
But it is sustained
In the clean rows left on the carpet
After I vacuum.
The second part of the session was diving into loss through those ordinary moments. The poem I wrote is based from something my half-brother said after he lost his partner.
"Silence"
The hallway
Our pictures in your favorite frames
The kitchen
Too much coffee sitting in the carafe
The patio
Sunlight reflecting off the flower pots
All is silent
It feels like it will stay this way forever
Just yesterday your voice echoed off of the picture frames
Bounced on the table settings
And sank onto my skin like the sun
As we sat drinking lemonade
I feel the air
Still and unwavering
An emptiness
Filling the space we shared
I am drowning in it
Lungs burning
My heart in a panic
I am blinded by more than tears
If I open the door I know the world will be swamped
By this silence
I move slowly through the aching silenced
of all the times I won’t hear you say
“I love you.”
The afternoon session was an ode to joy, but was broken into different elements, like food, a body part, a moment. This poem isn't joyful, but that is OK.
“My Shoulders”
My shoulders hurt almost all the time
A quick movement
A different angle
Will bring a jolt of age to my teeth
I’ve carried so much over the years
Thousands of circles soothing my children
Father and daughter in orbit with the moonlight on the floor
Moved my whole home into a house overnight
Piggybacks
Parental expectations
I’ve shouldered for decades
My shoulder hurt almost all the time
The world seems to have lodged a spur
Into my collarbone
I can’t lift my arms up
To hold back the onslaught of its icons
I cry tears of pain
Of frustration
Holding myself up against the door frame
Fearful of the weight my children
Already carry on their shoulders
As they dart down
The front steps
No pen, no brush, has to touch paper in
this life. Nothing will be missed from art not
created from pain, joy, or any of
the heart’s languages spoken. Don’t begin
to believe a song moves a lover’s thought.
We can live a digital life, tic-tock
the only music that counts. Spending time
like our pockets are filled with enough clot
to have our name shine in the stars above.
Ignore the muse, don’t search for the end rhyme
with love.
Poetic Form #82: Curtal Sonnet
The curtal sonnet was invented in the 19th century by Gerard Manley Hopkins. The poem has 10 lines written in iambic pentameter and then a final single spondee line (a foot consisting of two long or stressed syllables).
