Writing
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Cat Pome
I tell her what my boss has done,
and how he’s such a prick.
She blinks and yawns and waits to see
if I brought home catnip.
Categories: Poetry, NaPoWriMo 2006
Code Breaker
I break letters from words for you, rearrange them
in neat rows along the sidewalks.
I am always careful: there is no fear
the neighbors might decipher
my carefully planted anagrams.
Categories: Poetry, NaPoWriMo 2006
Dear Midas
You said we could build a house of soup cans,
that the labels would turn into wallpaper.
We could sleep on newspaper stuffed in plastic,
like pioneers curled around each other
on corn-husk mattresses.
Categories: Poetry, NaPoWriMo 2006
Purple ZephyrUnicorn Responds to a Critique
Dumb critter, if in any of my lines
the language seems too dense or unrefined,
I promise you the fault was never mine.
Categories: Poetry, NaPoWriMo 2006, Variations on Martial
Eve Escapes the Nursing Home
She tests the weight of each bloom in her hand, gauges
color, texture. She never smiles, never pulls a pot
from a table. He would have bought it for her,
brought it home and watered it on the days she can’t
Categories: Poetry, NaPoWriMo 2006
Ariadne Kneels Beside the Slain Minotaur
He looked at me the way you used to
when we were little: See what
our Father makes us do--before
you claimed the labyrinth, before
blood matted your hair into a pelt
and you traded words for screams.
Categories: Poetry, NaPoWriMo 2006
PurpleZephyrUnicorn Joins an Online Forum
You know PurpleZephyrUnicorn: more charming
than anyone--just look at her exclamation marks.
And full of wit and wisdom beyond her years, to judge
by her high post count.
Categories: Poetry, NaPoWriMo 2006, Variations on Martial
Dear Poet,
We expect it’s quite a shock for you
to find us gone. We’re tired
of living within the lines you’ve drawn,
of sketching out a dead man’s life.
Categories: Poetry, NaPoWriMo 2006, Variations on Catullus
Early Winter
I know you are unhappy with the way I closed
the cottage, but you store those words away
for next summer, when we’ll open doors to find
spiders swinging between the pitcher and tea cups,
mold creeping across the floorboards below a shutter
not quite shut.
Categories: Poetry, NaPoWriMo 2006
Guy Calls George and Travis In
Across Mongolia’s endless steppes you say you’ll go,
on ponies wet with sweat. And yet I know you’ve never ridden.
Sumo wrestling in Japan? You weigh 110--you’ll be smushed--
and still you’re keen to squint your eyes and slap your thighs
and step into the ring.
Categories: Poetry, NaPoWriMo 2006, Variations on Catullus