Laughing Dove Poetry

Old Poems Find New Homes

Tamra — Sat, 22 May 2010 16:45:46 +0000

Two of my poems have found new homes. Both Sides of the Tracks now resides at Duke City Fix’s Sunday Poem, and Paradise can be found in A Handful of Stones. Pay them a housewarming call!

Sin Fronteras

Tamra — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 17:57:53 +0000

I have a poem, The Hakawati, in the latest issue of Sin Fronteras, Writers without Borders, Volume 14. Unfortunately for six of the poets included in the issue, our names are attributed to the wrong poems. The editors have done everything they can to make amends, so don’t let that stop you from ordering your copy from the website or, if you are in New Mexico, from buying it in your local bookstore. It will contain an errata so that you can find my poem.

Pie

Tamra — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 06:57:05 +0000

This is my response to two Read Write Poem prompts, #117 and #118. I began with Zachary Schomberg’s Create A Hinge prompt, but couldn’t get the poem finished. This week’s Wordle prompt helped me to edit the poem. I’m still not happy with the ending, but it’s all I’ve got.

Pie

888

Summers we drank iced tea while the pies cooled,

and winters we sipped sweet milky coffee

from turquoise cups at the modern table,

round, black and white. A fern in the corner,

a starburst clock and an overhead lamp

that rose and fell on an elastic cord.

888

We played rum, and you told family tales

full of caution and fumbled metaphors.

Of the cooling pies, there were always two,

always one with meringue, and the meringue,

whipped into shape by the cook, never fell,

although it sometimes wept. While the pies cooled,

888

I grew up and went away to college

where, one day in the bookstore among piles

of books in dark solid hues and supplies

spilling like nonpareils over counters,

I stole a twenty-five cent pencil, bright

and unblemished, as pointed as your wit.

888

But theft, it turned out, was a furtive thrill

that failed to restore our afternoons, our pie.

The Resting Step

Tamra — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 12:37:28 +0000

Read Write Poem Prompt #105 was a Wordle. I used some of the words and some synonyms for some of the words, but I didn’t use all of the words. For instance, wind shows up as breath and sigh. Meteors became falling stars, pulled became hoisting. Backs morphed onto backpackers. The only thing left of the trees is their fallen fruit. and the stars are only implied by the sky. The moon led me to minaret. You get the idea.

The Resting Step

Backpackers don’t neglect the tiny rest that lies
between two steps, a rest the space of a breath.
In that moment, they gain strength from shells
that pierce and mosses that curl around stone.
They taught me that the way to climb was not
by hoisting myself up, but by setting one foot
before me and straightening my leg, moving
forward and upward with a syncopated sway.

Near the top of this hill lies, almost like a sigh,
a clearing with a view of the water, the bridges,
the minarets, where once in spring orchids flared
like falling stars, and once in autumn silent crows
feasted on the fallen fruit before lifting skyward,
and in between the two, a point of abiding rest.

Southwest

Tamra — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 11:05:23 +0000

Read Write Poem Prompt #104 was called How to Write the Sex Poem Right. That’s right. The Sex Poem. Two of my favorite sex poems are Pattiann Rogers’ The Hummingbird: A Seduction and Billy Collins’ Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes. I modeled my poem, perhaps too literally, on Pattiann Rogers’ poem. I don’t like the last line, but it is stuck in my head like a drumbeat.

Southwest
with appreciation and apologies to Pattiann Rogers

If I were a solitary alcove

in a parched sandstone cliff,

my angles worn away by age,
empty and hollowed like a drum,

my history open and faded

to pale rose and gold, tinged

with purple like an old map,

and if you were a cloud on my horizon,

a white spot in the brilliant blue sky,

gray shadows on your jowls,

And if I watched you pull away

from the thundering mass and sail

my way, billowing and expansive

with every scrap of moisture

you could pull into your sudden desire,

And if I saw the way you held true

to your intention, did not release

your rain too soon or too high,

but drove straight across the plain,

bristling and alive with electricity,

Then when you came to me, I would

call you my own sky, my turquoise stone,

my storm; I would touch the million prisms

caught in your nimbus, and I would

taste the sparks in each furrow; I would

give thanks for the whirling center of you,

and I would take you into any kind
of drum and dance you desired.

Just Michal

Tamra — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 07:29:39 +0000

Michal at Gran Quivira

It looks like a love of words runs in the family. My 9-year old grandson, Michal, wrote this “I am from” poem for a school assignment. Here is an interview with Michal followed by his poem.

Laughing Dove: What was your inspiration for this poem?

Michal: The poem is about who I am and where I came from.

LD: What is your favorite part of the poem?

M: I like the last stanza about who I ended up.

LD: Where do you go to school?

M: Desert Willow Family School in Albuquerque, NM.

LD: What is your favorite subject at school?

M: I love science and my science teacher Mrs Devon.

LD: Do you ever read poetry? What poems do you like?

M: Yes, my favorite poetry comes from music. I like poems that rhyme and sound like a song.

LD: What book are you reading now?

M: I am rereading Eragon. It is all about dragons. I like fantasy books.

Just Michal

I am from nuts and bolts
and ratchets too.
I am from anything
that racers do.

I am from bits and bytes
and computer noise
and organized rooms
with lots of toys.

I am from strong people
with helping hands
making big changes
across the lands.

I am from orange balls
that shoot through hoops
and tennis shoes
where I can’t seem to tie loops.

I am from hope and love
that comes straight from above.
I am from dragons and fantasy
Just close your eyes and imagine me.

Pomegranate

Tamra — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 06:08:15 +0000

The prompt for Read Write Poem #101 included a whole bunch of p-words. I added some of my own.

Pomegranate

Its small prickly crown, more like a jester’s hat,
lies on the cutting board. Even now, it gives me pause,
this rough-skinned fruit that looks as if
it has been too long in the wind and sun.

Like Persephone, I split my time between two worlds.
Did she know, I wonder, the trick of opening
a pomegranate in a basin of water so that juice
doesn’t splatter the wall or pool beneath the knife?

I plunge my thumbs through the rind, and break
the fruit apart, dislodging seeds – a plethora of seeds -
each surrounded by its own ruby sheath. This is,
after all, what I want, and enough to last the winter.

Pieces of white pith float on the water, and cling
to my cold fingers, but seeds sink to the bottom
of the basin where I will retrieve four, or seven,
or eight, and place them on my ready tongue.

In the Quad

Tamra — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 11:31:22 +0000

In Read Write Poem prompt #100, Bruce Covey invites us to play with our dreams. Visit the site for complete instructions on this one.

In the Quad

Three women meet
beneath the yellow leaf-light
of an autumn campus.
There may or may not be a fountain,
water dribbling from its tip;
it may or may not be important.

Their destination is numerical,
symbolic. 35.11º N 106.64º W.
Their destination is molecular,
precisely C12H22O11,
and biological, Populus wislizeni.
The women move at 3 mph.

A familiar drama unfolds
in the Palace of Reason.
From which character
do you draw strength?
Which one devours you?

Quills sprout from my fingers.
I rub them out, and more emerge.
With feathered hands, I move on.

Things that have left

Tamra — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:30:10 +0000

Read Write Poem prompt #99: Setting the Scene.

“This week, write a poem that tells a narrowly focused story — a “scene” — without telling the story. Instead, convey the essence of the scene through your description of the world in which it takes place and the “characters” (who don’t have to be human or even “alive”) that inhabit it.”

Things that have left

The leaves have left the trees,
leaving behind the trunks
and branches of their families.
The leaves have left the trees.
They have landed on the doorstep
where prints of our soles remain
after we have entered the house,
where we have left our wet boots
beside the door.

The leaves have left the doorstep,
leaving behind the damp stains
of their midribs and serrated edges.
The leaves have left the doorstep.
They stowaway on cuffs and socks
to new lands. There is one in the kitchen
and one on the stairs. They swirl
in eddies and sneak beneath
the closet door.

The leaves have left,
leaving behind memories
of earth, of woods, of rain.
The leaves have left.

Tuesday Market

Tamra — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:14:50 +0000

Read Write Poem prompt #98 – Whee! – got me thinking about spinning and whirling, and because I live in Turkey, that led to the dervishes, to Rumi, and to this ghazal. I’ve never tried to write one before, and I’m not sure I completely understand the form. This article – What Is a Ghazal and How to Write It - was the most helpful resource I found.

Fair Fireworks by auburnxc

Tuesday Market

Canvas tents unfurl today.
The market crowds swirl today.

Braided ropes of new garlic
festoon stalls like pearls today.

I stand at the edge afraid
to enter that whirl today.

Bright colors, big noise, sharp smells
around me they curl today.

Will I learn, at last, what words
the fishmongers hurl today?

Cold wind blusters through the tents.
Scarves and aprons twirl today.

Into the fray, Laughing Dove,
or go hungry, girl, today.