poemcrazy collection – Serendippity

poems are alive

Birds need time to find a new bird feeder.

Say you put up your bird feeder on Sunday.
On Monday, two robins come bobbin’ along.
On Tuesday, these two bring a few friends.
By Wednesday, the whole flock’s partying.

So, too, words gather and poems come alive.

^{Poem title from chapter 25 of poemcrazy by Susan G. Wooldridge.}

Peace to your ♥!

Mojo-squeegie-abacus-del morpho

Posting this in response to a post by Krissy at A Poet’s Vision. The poem is part of a collection I completed several years ago–one poem for each of the 60 chapter titles in Susan G. Wooldridge’s book poemcrazy. I couldn’t have come up with a title like this myself! Peace to your ♥!


Mojo-squeegie-abacus-del morpho

It’s a mantra, it’s a chant
To be chanted when you can’t
Find the words you need to say:

     Mojo, mojo, come my way!

Words you counted on, wiped clean.
Words you need to make a scene.
Do not panic—stop and say,

     Mojo, mojo, don’t delay!

Words you lost can be replaced,
Changed somewhat from those erased.
Every time you need to say,

     Mojo, mojo, make my day!

^{Poem title from chapter 32 of poemcrazy by Susan G. Wooldridge.}

collage

^{Poem title from chapter 40 of poemcrazy by Susan G. Wooldridge.}
^{For an audio description of this poem, click here.}

Playing off the saying “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.” Peace to your ♥!

catching myself

I was thrown for a loop but caught myself
    as I was falling into dread,
Noosed my nagging “what if” thoughts, &
    thought “so what” instead.

^{Poem title from chapter 57 of poemcrazy by Susan G. Wooldridge.}

Peace to your ♥!

Tribute to Walt Whitman / caterpillar poets

Another Walt Whitman poem I wrote can be found here. I’ve read very little of Leaves of Grass but am inspired by Whitman nonetheless! Peace to your ♥!

Tribute to Walt Whitman
^{who revised Leaves of Grass repeatedly until he died}

Sculptors of marble chip and chip away.
Potters knead and shape their lumps of clay.
Poets create, through words alone,
What never cracks, is never set in stone.

caterpillar poets

Oh, to be a Whitman!
   They digest Leaves of Grass.

Living day by daydreams…
   these, too, shall pass.

Eating, dreaming, dying—
   without flying.

^{Poem title from chapter 58 of poemcrazy by Susan G. Wooldridge.}

poems and the body

Poems are lifelines
when you forget how to swim 
   in your skin
and are like a betta fish
treading water in a tank,
and when you want to forget 
how it feels to live without lungs
gasping for air like a hooked trout 
   on a riverbank.

^{Poem title from chapter 24 of poemcrazy by Susan G. Wooldridge.}

Peace to your ♥!

the blue socks

everything depends
upon

the white socks
not being beside

the new
blue jeans

in the washing
machine.

^{Poem title from chapter 54 of poemcrazy by Susan G. Wooldridge.}

This is not the first time I’ve riffed on William Carlos Williams’s “The Red Wheelbarrow.” My thanks to him. Peace to your ♥!

abracadabra

Pick up your wand.
Tap your black hat.
Say the magic word.
Pull out a…cat?

Put away the wand.
Get rid of the hat.
Make Abracadabra
The name of your cat.

^{Poem title from chapter 48 of poemcrazy by Susan G. Wooldridge.}

I now have a grandcat, as my two daughters living in Chicago have adopted a black cat they’ve named Bean. 🐈‍⬛ Peace to your ♥!

a sengsong pot of possibilities

This lump of clay on the wheel—
   Under the thumb of the potter,
Will it become a vase? A cup? 
   An answer begins to take shape.
The wheel hums; the potter hums. 
   Ah…the pleasure of taking pains.

^{Poem title from chapter 59 of poemcrazy by Susan G. Wooldridge.}

“The pleasure of taking pains” is from John Ciardi’s How Does a Poem Mean? and perfectly captures how I feel about writing and revising poems. Peace to your ♥!

bring me magic

1952: 	Sidney Rosenthal’s Magic Marker appears
2003: 	Procter and Gamble’s Magic Eraser appears

1975:	I scrawl my name 
	        On the kitchen wall of shame
	        And try out a few
	        On the guinea pig, too.
	        Like magic, the markers disappear.

^{Poem title from chapter 31 of poemcrazy by Susan G. Wooldridge.}

Of the 60 poems I wrote for my poemcrazy project, this ranks as one of my favorites. Not a true story–I don’t recall ever writing on the wall, and we had hamsters instead of a guinea pig (the first named Tina, and the second named Tina 2, who turned out to be pregnant when we bought her, so we soon had about 7 or 8 baby hamsters we had to give away). Peace to your ♥!