Waiting for Inspiration

It's awfully early in the game, but I'm going to pull the trick my students often use and write about not being able to write.  I promise that this will be the only time I play this card.

                                                                

                                    Waiting for Inspiration

                          Is like waiting for the bus,

                           only there are no designated stops

                           and no schedule

                           and what shows up may be

                           a car or a turtle or a skateboard

                           going the wrong way

                           on the other side of the street,

                           and since there are no set routes,

                           you don’t know where you’re going

                           until you get there,

                           if you are able to get on board

                           at all.

                           So waiting for inspiration

                            is nothing like waiting for a bus,

                            except in this poem.

                         

In Vitro Veritas

The title came first with this one.  Thinking of the phrase triggered the poem last night, but I'm not sure it fits what the poem is now, mostly silly. I also don't know if I need the last stanza at all.

                                                               

                                                      In Vitro Veritas

           

 “US clinics have IVF successs rates ranging from 10% to over 60%...”

                                                                           www.advancedfertility.com

            Would these low success rates climb

            if they dimmed the lights in the lab,

            put on some nice make-out music

            (Johnny Mathis or Barry White

            or whatever is played these days),

            dressed the egg in a negligee

            and the male for Saturday Night Fever?

            That might get them in the mood

            and over the first awkwardness

            of  “Do you come here often?”

            and “What’s a nice gamete like

            you doing in a place like this?”

            Soon all the test tubes would steam up

            and jiggle in time to the beat of

            “Staying Alive.”

            But if this failed, at least the lab

            assistant could bend close to the culture

            and whisper, “There, there. It happens

            to everyone sometime” and then

            gently ease the contents

            into the trash.

           

           

 

Wild Kingdom

This new poem is a reaction to the increased presence of wildlife in the suburbs.  I'm not sure that it's a rationally balanced view of things, but I'm also not sure rational balance is what poetry is about.


                                                           

                                                   Wild Kingdom

                         The streets are strewn with one-dimensional squirrels,

                         and orange-clad hunters roam the remaining woods,

                         but coyotes have claimed another Shih Tzu,

                         deer have nibbled the hostas to the nub,

                         and  raccoons have cleaned out the koi pond again.

                        So tonight the SUV’s are circled in the cul de sac,               

                        families huddle closer to the chiminea.

                        and someone is howling at the moon.

                                                                   

Water Travels

There's stain in the ceiling of the downstairs bathroom. This got me thinking about apparent problems and true sources and solutions.  Here's the poem.  I'm not quite sure whether it wants to be a sonnet eventually or not, but it is presently 14 lines long.

                                                  Theories of Displacement

                                  “Water travels,” the roofers remind us,

                                    the plumbers, too.  The spot on the ceiling

                                    may be a sign nowhere near the source.

                                    It takes more looking to find first causes.

                                    “Pain travels,” the physicians declare.

                                    The sore neck may be a heart attack.

                                    The arm that aches may not be there at all.

                                    Like a magician, the body can throw its voice.

                                    “You know I don’t like mayonnaise,” you say

                                     as you reject the lunch I made, but I know

                                     there is something deeper troubling you.

                                    The hurt is hiding under the table.

                                   Our hearts are often like stoic soldiers,

                                   staring down death while whining about the food.

The Natural World (sort of)

Last week our boomerang daughter moved out of the house, a real step forward for her.  Yesterday we moved her pet lizards in their glass terrariums to her new home.  The following poem is based on my limited observations of these animals, especially Monty the Leopard Gekko. (I'm not sure that a gekko is technically a lizard, but this is not the Discovery Channel.) This one made me feel Gary Snyder-ish.

                                              Seven Lessons from the Caged Lizard

                                                                        1.

                                                Not all walls are visible.

                                                                        2.

                                                You can’t have everything you see.

                                                                        3.

                                                You can’t see everything,

                                                but you must keep looking.

                                                                        4.

                                                Sometimes the best exercise is to sit still;

                                                other times it’s stupid.

                                                                        5.

                                                If you wait long enough,

                                                crickets will fall from the sky-

                                                but they still must be caught.

                                                                        6.

                                                Eat the skin you shed;

                                                it helps you grow.

                                                                        7.

                                                Your whole world

                                                can be lifted and moved.

                                               

After the Celebration

This is an old poem, from late January 2009.  The economy seem to be beginning to pick up now, but- unfortunately- the foreclosures continue.

                      Hard Times: January 2009

            The new year and the bubbles have burst.

            Before Christmas, the neighbor’s yard was filled

            with inflated hopes: Santa, Frosty, Rudolph

            and the whole gang, spotlit and swaying

            in their own breezes, towering

            and teetering toward the holidays -

            a homegrown Macy’s parade.

            Now all those luminaries litter the lawn,

            a collection of collapsed dirigibles,

            deflated and dead, like wrinkled corpses

            on a suburban battlefield, as if

            the Grinch never learned to sing

            and pulled the plug on them all.

            They’ve been there for weeks.

            Has that neighbor given up

            and quietly moved out?

            Or is he simply waiting for a miracle,

for Santa to rise again as the Easter Bunny

            with all his eggs in some new basket?

           

           

New Year's Day

  Here is the first new poem.  I have a feeling that this blog may end up more of a private record than a public document since I have no idea how anyone is going to find it. Still, I will pretend I have some readers and include the usual disclaimer.  Since I will be writing a lot of new poems, many of them will be first drafts or dead ends- not polished final products.  (Anne Lamott talks about giving yourself permission to write shitty first drafts. I've given myself that permission but will not burden any possible readers with random jottings. These will have gotten past the quick note in my journal phase. )  Feel free to let me know how the poems here could be improved- or put out of their misery.  Enough apologizing.  Here's the poem (or poems?).

                                                                        

                                                  New Year’s

                                                  1.

                        The young stay up later and later;

                        the old get up earlier and earlier.

                        Once a year they meet at midnight,

                        telling each other what they have forgotten

                        or what they need to know.

                                                2.

                        We reminisce to hold on to the past

                        or drink to let it go,

                        plan how the future will be different

                        or promise it will remain the same.

                        That illuminated ball is always

                        descending, but we only notice it

                        tonight when we turn to kiss

                        a spouse or a stranger with nothing

                        but now, now, now on our lips.

                                                3.

                        Eat less, exercise more.

                        Stop to smell the roses.

                        Write that novel.

                        Some pounds are shed,

                        only to return like the prodigal,

                         welcomed with the fatted calf.

                        Most roses have little fragrance.

                        And instead of a novel,

                        three short poems.