The Many Moods of Mary: Body Poems

I have been playing around witht he Rictameter form for awhile now and enjoying it. Here I decided to use the word 'Body' and as I started the poem, I got ideas for others. They are all quite similar, but coujure very different feelings. So, here they are, just a little fun with words:

And a quick review, Rictamenter is a poem with lines consisting of a certain number of syllables per line: 2-4-6-8-10-8-6-4-2 and the first word is the same as the last.

Body - Three Takes

Body
Heat is rising
Beads of sweat are forming
Pulse rate quickens, muscles tense
Ragged breathing builds to a crescendo
Both blood and interest start to drain
As you roll away from
My now useless
Body


Body
Heat is rising
Hearts race and faces flush
Gasping urgently we race on
Frenzied movements build to a crescendo
Gently, dreamily we come back
To ourselves, and savor
One another’s
Body


Body
Heat is rising
Beads of sweat form as my
Heart rate rises, breaths come shallow
Muscles twisting, turning, writhing, pulling
Standing here in this dressing room
As I try to get these
Damn jeans on my
Body

Daughter Ache - Magpie Tales #48

Daughter Ache

I Watch
As my daughter of seventeen
Preens in front of the bathroom mirror
Perfumes and lip glosses
Scattered across the counter
Contact lenses spooning
On her azure eyes
She is an opening flower
Still dewy with the new day of her life

She prepares herself like a sacrifice
Lacquering her lashes
Fitting silver droplets to her ears
Pale curls frustrate her most valiant
Efforts at containment
And erupt over her shoulders
She concentrates, lower lip thrust out
And the ghost of her three-year-old self
Escapes from my heart

And how can I let her go out
Into a hard, jagged world
Already riddled with casualties
When she is as vulnerable as a reed?
Yet, I cannot take this opening bud
And press it under glass
Or stick it in a dried arrangement
On my coffee table
Preserved and safe
And dead

I wrote this for and about my daughter Kate when she graduated from high school. She is an accomplished pianiast, so this week's Magpie prompt made me think of her.

Potluck Poetry - Did You Notice?

Did You Notice?

We are
Rapt
In a cocoon
Of
Miracles

Poets' Rally

Thank you Jingle and everyone who voted fom me!

Magpie #47 - Family

Pulling:
Outside agents
Like centripetal force
Threatening to separate us
Thus we must hold fast to one another
Or else our nuclear family
Will be blown apart by
Outside agents
Pulling

Sunday Scribblings #238 - Progress

This is my entry for the prompt 'Progress' I feel as though it still needs some work, but at this point I'm not sure what to do with it. So, here it is:

So what exactly is my goal?
I’ll be damned if I know
But I know this, it must be deep
A thing not just for show

No increase earned in bank accounts
Or decrease in my waist -
The shallow realm of status,
Is bogus and misplaced

It’s big and it’s ubiquitous,
A hard thing to define
A quest to be more human
And also more divine

It won’t fit on an ordered list
Not linear, more free-form
A plunge into the darkness
To ride the chaos-storm

To learn what lies beneath the mask
In darkness and in light
To separate and yet connect
Within this sacred rite

So what exactly is my goal?
To laugh and cry and grow
And make peace with the paradox
That I can never know.

Random Haikus

Ok, I have resolved to write more in 2011. I woke up early, unable to sleep and wrote a poem about progress and resolutions. At this point it's still crap though, so I won't put it on here yet, but I also have some Haikus of varying quality, with my favorite first. And without further ado I give you Haiku. Ok, that was lame, but anyway, here they are:

The Bowl of my life
Sits empty on the sideboard,
A decoration

Please won't you save me
From becoming one of those
Crazy cat ladies?


Counting syllables
Haiku is both easy math
And complex writing