This bell is ringing quiet

http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/121

Erika sent me this. I have been going through all my notebooks and I am having a very hard time finding 50 pages, let alone 100. To be honest, I don't have that many good poems. It's always interesting how age and experience changes everything. Some of these are downright embarrassing. I thought they were so very good and insightful and moving when I was 20. Oh, how I was full of pain and love and fear and it was all really really really important. I understand now why I was not not popular at poetry readings with my peers. Sheesh. When I read some love poetry with my mom's friends, they said they were beautiful devotionals to God. I didn't take that well at the time because I was sooooooo in love with the boy I wrote them for. God had nothing to do with it, and if they didn't get my poems, well I don't know what's wrong with them. Kids are goofy. Half my life later, I see where they were coming from, and they are right.

I have a bit more time before the deadline for the poetry contest. We'll see if I can get my soul moving enough to be poetic. It's been a rough couple weeks and I haven't had the focus to write, edit, even reread recently. It'll come.

Water 3

*a tiny mention of some really important water*

Introduction

I am a dandelion
growing alone in a field of roses
with nothing to do
but indulge myself
with the uniqueness of being a weed.

My oneness makes me whole
'cause I have a driven soul
a determination
that can build a bonfire
from a bucket of water
And I intend to set the world alight
with kaleidoscopic flame-

You can't kill a weed
Cut off their heads
poison their hearts
trample their core
They will always return
more alive from the learning
A weed will always survive-

June 22, 2004, revised June 21, 2010

Water 2

I'm glad to be here in Boggs' Creek
to be here with the '-ures' all around me-
the stature of salamanders
the ligature of vines
in the texture of tree bark.
The lecture of water
the future of me
throwing rocks in the water
leaning on trees
to see a salamander on a vine

May 2010

Water

Dare #1 water


Rain to wash me clean
that is not cold
Rain that has a purpose

Rain to wash me clean
of the sickly, smoldering embers
who waste their heart

Rain to wash me clean
to polish the hearth
with drops of thunder

why come in from the rain