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July 10, 2016
Prescott Park 3 by Susan Cole Kelly
We always look for the harbor seal,
The one we saw that one time,
Five or six years ago. She swam
Around the moored fishing boats,
And schools of minnows. Under the shadow
of the Naval Shipyard,
The prison across the bay.
We were high on the visions of flowers,
Reaping ideas from their landscape
For our own cottage garden.
The benches, dotted in bird poop,
Are still welcoming and offer
A place to sit while looking.
Behind us, songstresses
Practice their scales, directors
Block this summer’s musical,
And early arrivals lay blankets
Marking a spot near the stage.
We have not seen the harbor seal
In these last five years, but
We check every time, just in case.
This is Poem #118 from the Poem (almost) Everyday Project. Starting in mid-January 2016, I challenged myself to spend a year in which I’d wake most mornings and write a poem before my first cup of coffee. By the end of the year, I had written 241 poems. Here, I have published second drafts of those pieces copied directly from my journal with minimal editing from their “vomit draft” state.
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July 9, 2016
Cats or Dogs
Fish or Steak
Black or White
Guns or None
Light or Dark
Liberal or Conservative
Equality or Oppression
Red Socks or Yankees
Love or Hate.
This is Poem #117 from the Poem (almost) Everyday Project. Starting in mid-January 2016, I challenged myself to spend a year in which I’d wake most mornings and write a poem before my first cup of coffee. By the end of the year, I had written 241 poems. Here, I have published second drafts of those pieces copied directly from my journal with minimal editing from their “vomit draft” state.
July 8, 2016
With all these guns poking
Out of the backs of jeans
And purses, lounging in glove
Compartments, it is amazing
More of us are not
Caught in the swarm
Of ammo flying. Two
Decades to unravel
Years of progress back
To this bleak time.
A dull house of suspicion, where
Anyone who is different
In the mirror or from the pulpit
Is executed on the spot.
Seems we are always packing up our own toxicity
In wagons heading west –
Taking back what was never
Ours to begin with.
This is Poem #116 from the Poem (almost) Everyday Project. Starting in mid-January 2016, I challenged myself to spend a year in which I’d wake most mornings and write a poem before my first cup of coffee. By the end of the year, I had written 241 poems. Here, I have published second drafts of those pieces copied directly from my journal with minimal editing from their “vomit draft” state.
July 7, 2016
Some spare no law, inconvenience,
to assure their continued existence.
Where were you when the axe
cut the last tree down?
I should be able to drive
my Jeep in the sand over
the nests of fragile eggs
and chains of food I will never
comprehend. How does
that small pepper burn
so big when the microscope
cannot even see its heat?
Eagles came back, you say.
Now vandals shoot them
from the sky in the ultimate
symbolic treason. Open
season on those newly
off the list.
This is Poem #115 from the Poem (almost) Everyday Project. Starting in mid-January 2016, I challenged myself to spend a year in which I’d wake most mornings and write a poem before my first cup of coffee. By the end of the year, I had written 241 poems. Here, I have published second drafts of those pieces copied directly from my journal with minimal editing from their “vomit draft” state.
July 6, 2016
We search for gurus –
Fingers spread in a dark
World – underground, meditating,
Who will lead us to enlightenment.
Some can give you a step
Ladder, make access
To what you think
You want accessible.
Others block the way, always
Gatekeeping a sacred
Other they must protect.
On that plane, connect.
She will grasp your hand
When, and only when, the time
Is right and you
Are ready.
This is Poem #114 from the Poem (almost) Everyday Project. Starting in mid-January 2016, I challenged myself to spend a year in which I’d wake most mornings and write a poem before my first cup of coffee. By the end of the year, I had written 241 poems. Here, I have published second drafts of those pieces copied directly from my journal with minimal editing from their “vomit draft” state.
July 5, 2016
According to record, they
Knew how to party. Women
In bobbed hair and fringed
Dresses, heals. Martinis
Champagne, and the looming
Stock market crash.
Everything’s always better
When the end of things is
Inevitable. (Death comes
eventually, but we fail
to let it spur us on
most days) Glitter falls
From the chandelier and roses –
Well, we know the cliche –
Love, hell, that’s always
Trying to burn itself
To the ground. Fuck,
Gatsby, you thought
You’d have it all in
Your mansion with a view
Of the future you’d reclaimed
For a moment. Dead
In the pool, however, was
All it ever could be.
This is Poem #113 from the Poem (almost) Everyday Project. Starting in mid-January 2016, I challenged myself to spend a year in which I’d wake most mornings and write a poem before my first cup of coffee. By the end of the year, I had written 241 poems. Here, I have published second drafts of those pieces copied directly from my journal with minimal editing from their “vomit draft” state.
July 4, 2016
Grim wall to be built,
The remains of those you have killed.
Heads off to the cause
And boiled for the feast.
Murderers like trophies.
It can be a downfall-
sometimes the ego makes
one lose – Bragging
Of your crimes on the Internet
Is not the wise choice.
But a wall of skulls –
who would mess with such savagery?
A boast and a warning in one.
This is Poem #112 from the Poem (almost) Everyday Project. Starting in mid-January 2016, I challenged myself to spend a year in which I’d wake most mornings and write a poem before my first cup of coffee. By the end of the year, I had written 241 poems. Here, I have published second drafts of those pieces copied directly from my journal with minimal editing from their “vomit draft” state.
July 3, 2016
Everyone expected rain
At the funeral, but we
Got sun, full-on, sunglasses
Blaring rays of light. It did not
Fit the mood of the event.
We had packed our black
And giant umbrellas
In our trunks for the expected
That did not show. Even
If my MOMA souvenir
Has baby blue sky and cotton
Ball clouds to fool me.
He was still gone – the lie
Of good weather
Refused to change that fact.
Do you visit the coral reef
And ancient architecture
When a cremation
On that tropical island
Is inevitable? The people
Would talk. There is always
That.
Photo from the 2010 production of The Laramie Project at the Winnipesaukee Playhouse.
This is Poem #111 from the Poem (almost) Everyday Project. Starting in mid-January 2016, I challenged myself to spend a year in which I’d wake most mornings and write a poem before my first cup of coffee. By the end of the year, I had written 241 poems. Here, I have published second drafts of those pieces copied directly from my journal with minimal editing from their “vomit draft” state.
July 2, 2016
You should expect
An empty page after
Such a proclamation
Of situation in the title;
But, alas, here words
Dot the page and guide
To some unpromised
Conclusion. I have
Not looked at the “real”
work, the pages that exist
In a thick stack,
Printed in months,
And, instead, spend time
With these poems;
Procrastinating.
Feeling non-fictional. One
Hundred and nine poems in
Is not authentic writer’s
Block. Authorship is there
In the poet pen, but
Puts little bread on the table
Or oil in the lamp.
But ignites the heart
And mind for no fee.
This is Poem #110 from the Poem (almost) Everyday Project. Starting in mid-January 2016, I challenged myself to spend a year in which I’d wake most mornings and write a poem before my first cup of coffee. By the end of the year, I had written 241 poems. Here, I have published second drafts of those pieces copied directly from my journal with minimal editing from their “vomit draft” state.
One day you’re jamming out to Rage
Against the Machine in the mosh pit
At the real, non-corporate Lollapalooza.
Blink.
Next day, it seems,
You’re getting a letter,
Urging you to schedule
Your first colonoscopy.
