Waiting for Billy Collins

Billy nearly made us miss the famous Willow Manor Ball. Seems he's after those mice again!

Waiting for Billy Collins

Somewhere in the house
He is chasing a blind mouse
With a carving knife.

He'll mince it into words
And the pauses he has heard
In his head.

The caesuras, he would say
In his professeuric way,
Tell us how it should be read.

Still, he's flying round the room,
Chasing mice without a broom
Trading verses with the dead

Till he leaves this worthy cause,
Takes a breath and takes a pause,

Fills the silences we've heard
With a poet's every word.

Missing

This is for this week's Poetry Jam prompt to write a love poem.




MISSING

You have slipped
between the creases

in my brain.
Most days,

if I even think at all,
there is no pain --

just you,
and the everyday things

you would do
everywhere,

the signs unseen
by anyone but me.

But today,
just the closing

of a door,
and you are

missing like you
never were before.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

On the Fence

You can't be
on the fence
with Jesus;


you gotta stand
on either side.
It's either/or;
it's neither/nor.


It's cherubs
on the ceiling,
or it's fire
beneath your feet.


It's morning's
shining glories,
or it's nightshade's
deadly vines.


Stay put,
you forfeit
heaven;


don't stay,
you tumble
either way.

These Eyes

     The Poetry Jam asks that we write about something that we once thought was a flaw but have come to understand as an asset. When I was younger, I hated that I was cursed with the ability to see all sides of an issue. I felt wishy-washy and weak. Today, I recognize my ability as an asset in working with people and mediating problems.
     I grew to trust my inner sight and understand that as long as I am true to myself, "I cannot then be false to any man."



These eyes

Argus had them,
Unblinking
Wakeful watch.

They curse me,
Stumbling,
Two faced Janus.

I pluck them,
Lull them,
Scratch them out,

For only two,
Can move
In straight Lines.

These many eyes,
Plot all
The ground around.

Phases

Phases

Like that old moon,
We wax and wane;
Just now, we're at the full --
A quiet night,
A glass of wine,
A story shared,
A happy life--
We glow and shine
In one another's light.
We wax, and then we wane.
At times, we're total dark--
A silent house,
What if, what now,
A distant look,
We wonder how
Light disappears;
We orbit separate spheres.

Last Supper

Last Supper

I found Jesus
in a corner
on a crooked wall
beside a locked door.
That is not to say
I hadn't found him before;
you know,
He's everywhere:
in every room
on every floor
in gilded glory,

but finding Him
in watery benediction
for friends and betrayers
like me,
stopped my feet
and caught my breath
and turned me sideways
as the wall
on which he hangs.


using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:National Gallery of Art, Washinton, DC

War, Remembrance

War, Remembrance

So this is how it begins:
A rain of rubble
From the sky,

A field seeded
with grief,
A five sided fire.

Ten years and still
We strain to understand
A rain from high aeries,

Covering the country
In the silence of sadness
And grief.

How does it end, and when?
We turn again inward,
Searching our hearts

To discern how hatred
Rains like feathers
From the sky.

Blue Heron

Blue Heron

Every year, he returns, the old man,
Solitary, silent.
Just when you've forgotten he exists,
He's in the corner of your eye,
Houdini in grey cape,
Somber, regal, and forbidding.
He appears and we hold our breath,
Whisper to the children,
"Come and see."
A day or two he lingers by the water,
Head down, arms behind his back,
Lost in thought or memory
Of glory in the sun.
Sometimes, his long neck leads
As if he's moving toward the finale
And wherever it is he goes
When he lifts his cape and disappears.

Buttercup Sun Day

The prompt at the Poetry Jam is to write about things looking up. This instantly came to mind:















Buttercup Sun Day

When things look down,
Look up;

That's a yellow buttercup
Hanging in the sky,

A welcome to an eye
Attuned to looking down,

Where every smile's a frown,
And every lifted brow

Becomes a worried scowl.
Better up, my friend,

Than down, for in the end,
It's up where solace lies --

It's hanging in the skies.





- Posted by Karen