. Spinning .

With the first half of National Poetry Month gone by, thought I’d check in with the folks at Poemaddiction among my picking up poetic inspiration at fictionaut and at other spots along the way together with some of my favorite poets off the shelf.

Here are a few lines from Morning by Nick Rego that were so alive with image and meaning:

Standing still, observing
grey fabric flapping as she moves
while underneath a color is bursting to
break free (…)

And from Odd Man Out by Bianca, these opening lines set the tone of movement and sensuality:

love swings her hips
and saunters by

Neha brings past memories of a different lifestyle into the present in her poetry and that produces some lovely imagery, as in Frosted Feet:

remember how we loved and lived then?
and how we would link our arms through
each others, dancing our way
through the darkness at midnight?”

Evan writes some heavy duty poetry, and most of his work is heavy with metaphor and simile that evokes images of great intensity. Here, in Along the Way:

the little raindrops
spun around the street drain
like little boys in firemen suits
pretending to be grown-up
as they jump to their death,

And a man who works in many mediums, many forms, Steve Ersinghaus, offers some beautiful images in April 8th:

like the sun going down
shadowed like a warm
canyon that echoes
whispers, old songs,
memories of soft touches
now and to come, under blankets,
in back seats, on couches

As well as some straight talk simple and relative to our lives, here in its entirety, April 7th:

I don’t remember april 7
nobody really does
like water we stepped
through years before
that’s long dried
and colorless.

Great stuff, no? Check out poemaddiction to catch up on what’s been posted and what’s yet to be conceived and written down.

Day #8 of Poem Addiction Enjoy a new poem each day of April by each of several talented poets!

As I’ve said on Facebook and twitter, “write a poem, read a poem, live a piece of poetry every day.” Not just in April, but every day as the mood strikes.

Visit the poetry blogs of your lyrical friends, take to heart what they say. Here’s another dedicated to celebrate at Poem Addiction.

Maybe it’s the warm breeze that breathes new life into the soul and comes out in poetical form.

Beyond the white cotton wings at the window
over the sink where I stand, like a heron
single-legged, balanced,
the lawn rolls away
in a tangled grass sea.

Last autumn’s yellow dry
skeleton fingers protecting the new,
the green, the dumb young blades
fresh with March rains
pulling at the earth to be free.

Dish in hand, dripping bubbles of
whorling spring colors I watch,
breathing in a day unhampered
by panes, loose and free as the sunlight,
the sweet scent of a grassfire.

The time before I turned twelve,
useful and eager as a boy,
burning the lawn, father and child,
rakes and matches, a garden snake
hose watching nearby.

Before the time claimed by gender,
mother-daughter fingering silks and
Vogue patterns, sewing French seams;
that short wondrous time of sharing,
of father and daughter and spring.

And so I would have expected a more creative approach from the Academy of American Poets in their search for gold (that’s metaphor for offering membership to get funding).

Dear Friend,

Today it gives me great pleasure to invite you to become an Associate Member of the Academy of American Poets.

Wow. They must read my weblog, they must like my poems even if damn few of my friends do. I read on:

In joining us now, you will enter into a new and exciting relationship with the best American poets of today and tomorrow. You will receive public recognition for your role in nurturing the art of poetry. And you will receive a number of material benefits which will bring you closer to the center of the American poetry world.

Here, the first mention of material benefits and it’s going to possibly be me as the recipient! More blah-blah-blah, name-dropping, and then towards the bottom of the first page we get to the real reason they’re contacting me:

By joining us today, you will become an important financial patron of this great national tradition–and an art form which, without your help, cannot be self-sustaining. As a member you will give strength and life to a wide variety of Academy programs which touch the lives of literally millions of Americans each year.

So they’ve more or less dropped the b.s. to come out and praise me for what they really want from me: money. Poetry is an art form that is not self-sustaining? Since when? Do we not get pleasure from the writing and the sharing of the words that is worth more in human experience than a $45 membership commitment?

I find it rather inappropriate for the letter writer to be so damned pleased with herself for asking me for money. Or rather, “inviting” me to give it to her cause. I also find it rather pathetic that she’s singled me (and millions of others) out as a soft tap for poetry–likely because of my web presence though I guess she didn’t think much of my poems either after all.

Poetry is a nice way of saying things, a better way, a more creative way. However, I think I would have preferred a simple and straightforward request.

I count the years again
on fingers she can cling to
and tell her, though
the answer is the same
it was an empty space
of time ago.

She asks about
the children
“Whose?” I ask
“I don’t know,” she says
So like an echo I repeat
her children’s names.

My name, my sisters’
my dad’s;
children, husband that
she’s forgotten and I cry
for too soon she’ll forget
to breathe.

aka “Who put a quarter in the machine?”

Hush! Wait,
did a poet just die?
slipping into my soul
ink bleeding on paper
as a last chance attempt
to sing?

Does the Muse
who handles
mishandling of words
shake in despair
and cry to the Gods
at this thief?

What then
the reason
the
sorting
of sounds
the
the
inspiration.

How do you say goodbye in Spanish?
Seeking from the rolling r’s
a pillow for the words,
syllables that trill and spill
like petals falling
from a rose.

How do you say goodbye en español?
or for that matter,
French?

No wonder not even friends will comment on my posted poetry; I’m just not with the program of contemporary tastes: Poem for Randy Prunty by James Saunders. The next one, Sports, Part I, by Ken Goldsmith started while I’m writing this post and I’ll withhold comment because what the hell do I know.

The idea of the site, textsound, is a wonderfully creative idea and I’m exploring some of the other poetry available here and maybe learn something.

This article in the The Chronicle Review on Poets’ Puffery is just too funny and maybe too sadly true. Worse however, it seems to extend beyond poetry and literature to all areas of man’s life and accomplishments. I particularly liked this:

Most poets today are magnificently oppressed, lashing out fearlessly against the “mainstream,” which consists of everyone except the poet in question. Their biographies make them seem to jockey for the best of both worlds: Gerald Locklin (1941-), for example, is “an outlaw, underground poet, and college professor who has published more than 100 books of poetry and prose.” How underground can he be?

Bad relationships
are made of opposites
of nature

The way the sun
smiles shining on an
ice crystal

Who sparkles with
reflected love but
soon weeps

And lost in
Sun’s embrace,
disappears.

Wherefrom comes love?
On ballerina satin toes
or earthy lumberjack boots
dazzling as the snowflake
on a sunny day
or heated up to blaze
the forest black;

However is an answer
but the question still:
Wherefrom comes love?

I hate it; that clouds control the day even
as the fiery sun burns just beyond.
Grey tulle shares more than color
with ice cold steel.
Yet which is stronger
to the touch of fingertips?
I hate it; that clouds control the day.