Laurie's Junk Drawer

[Angela]

Laurie,

My daughter's Fridge is hilarious! The last line is the clincher! Ha!

The anti cat poem has me laughing, too! I am NOT a cat person and I give your Border Collie props! Good Boy!

Much to like here! Glad I popped in this evening.

Angela~

[Emilio]

PC, No One Speaks of Steve, the voice, pace, it's hauntingly beautiful!

[PClem]

Angela - thanks for stopping by. Glad you found something to enjoy.

Emilio - glad to see you've returned and thank you so much for the compliment on that poem. It is the one that means the most to me and I have wanted to write it for years. Also, special because the visual prompt for it occurred the first day of NaPo and I was finally able to approach the topic. Fading fast this month and can't manage my poems the way I want to. Have tons of ideas and no energy to manage them, so it's likely to be pure crap from about middle of week two till the end, so I especially appreciate the fluff I'm getting now.

Rings

Those days a quarter would earn us
a trip to the five and dime
and my brother would blow
his fortune on baseball card bubblegum
while I went for the bling,
spent it all on those cheap plastic
gems, loaded down every finger,
green, orange and pink,
made my mother cringe at the lack
of good taste. Wait till you're of age
at the altar, she advised. You'll find
one ring will be plenty. How to say
she was wrong, it was more
than enough. I couldn't wait
to take it off.

[Mike M]

Laurie this is a fun thread and I'll be back to read the rest. I liked the border collie herding the man from the bar and getting no respect. The lament for the birds who won't lament themselves, and the oil lobby lawyer with the orange shoes, these were strong and sad and made me want to show people that movie where they set kitchen sinks on fire.

[PClem]

Mike - glad you enjoyed.

How to Learn From Failure

One professor promotes failure
as a learning strategy.
I think this is the best argument
against one child families, though perhaps
it isn't what she means, only

that an endless circle of expectation
ultimately results in defeat; therefore,
best to start from that supposition.

I know containment was the strategy
with my family. Keep your mouth shut
when you chew, shoot the
weakest first, edge the grass close
to the concrete. They loved those
little bonsai trees grown in saucers.

I was hopeless. The only awards:
most illegible lab report, voted
intern with fewest inhibitory neurons.
The best I could do

was grow a tree in a whiskey barrel.
Only I knew those roots
lapped round and round the bottom
searching for a way out. Ten years
and, finally, the barrel gives in.

Took a hatchet to wrestle
that tree, subversively discreet
on top, roots blown feloniously
rampant underneath. We never found
the bottom of that barrel.

[Jee Leong]

I like the smart idea of the oilmen never looking behind, only down. Your Malcontent sounds my sometime inner refrain: nobody likes me, everyone hates me, i'm going to eat some worms. In the last poem, the image of the tree busting the barrel is very strong.

[GreaterMandalaofUselessness]

Hi Laurie,

Good to see that you're still going strong here

Creed of Malcontent made me smile, especially the worms reference at the end.

Rings Nice details work well to set up the ending, and makes me want to hear more of the story.

I loved How to Learn from Failure, definitely one of my faves on you thread, especially from S3 where the containment theme starts (for what it's worth, I think this works better if I start reading at S3). "They loved those / little bonsai trees grown in saucers" works so well to illustrate containment, and I love the way the tree metaphor grows from here, how the best N can do is "grow a tree in a whiskey barrel.", how the roots searching round trying to find a way out. "voted / intern with fewest inhibitory neurons" made me smile, and adds note of wry humour.

Keep on keeping on.

Matt

[Scrow]

Hello,

I love 'The birds don't care' - very simply put, but very effective. Other favourites are the picture of the legal debate, which rings very true, and is a beautifully drawn portrait with a biting finale. 'Rings' I really enjoyed - I sometimes get to read essays that debate ideas of value in jewellery, and I wish I could ask some of them to read your poem! If you publish it, please let me know. 'How to learn from Failure' is great - witty, clever, compact and full of slightly off-centre interesting images. I've really enjoyed my visit here. Thank-you!

Sarah

[delph_ambi]

The little untitled poem with the wood hyacinths is a gem. Beautiful. Much to enjoy in this selection, but that has to be my favourite.

[Andrea345]

The ending of "Rings" was unexpected. I loved the dark turn at the end because I am still a collector of the plastic baubles, so I was ready for "light."

[Steven]

I'm a big fan of 'Rings'.

This is one of those poems that has a great twist, but that's not to overshadow the craft of the carefully chosen, true-to-life (but also metaphorical) details. The ambiguity of 'I couldn't wait to take it off' and the amount of meaning that is loaded on that 'it' makes for a great ending.

'blow his fortune' is also nicely suggestive of the brother's future. But again, it was so nicely buried in that calm everyday beginning that the twist packed so much punch.

I also like the complete difference of the wood hyacinth poem, all intimacy, playfulness, and tactile impressions.

[Alexandrite]

I love the way truth resonates here--- this is especially true in "Steve" (love many many lines in that one) and "Conversation" is just damn good!!
"Rings" is a front-runner in the latest batch-- strong in all ways that make a poem a charm. You are doing an outstanding NaPo!!

[PClem]

Jee, Matt, Sarah, Catherine, Steven, Gaye - thank you all so much for your kind words, especially at this point when it all feels like barrel scrapings.

Preparing to Visit an Aunt and Uncle in Arkansas

My sister suggests I pack a basket
of Oklahoma made products to share
as they've never sampled our state.
The elk sausage is popular, I'm told,
though they say all the elk were bred
from a herd in the Bronx. The pecan
port tastes like moonshine and rattles
in the curve alongside a packet
of Nonni's biscotti. It was difficult to fit
the nodding donkey until I added
a 4.1 earthquake, just enough
to widen a crack in the bottom
and shift the contents.

[PClem]

Two Line Horror Story

A doll should never be discarded
like that – white lace dress, rucked
up, faint blush on porcelain face,
single blond curl over her shoulder,
eyes wide, mouth an O
of surprise or as if ready
to receive, one arm raised
waving goodbye, faint smear
across her thighs. She lies
on top of refuse as the garbage
truck rounds the corner
just like she's the opening
to a two-bit horror story.

[Mimic_Octopus]

Really enjoying the snatches of reportage and the descriptive titles, which allow you to use mystery in the poems themselves. The zooming in from global stories (Lorena Bobbit) to domestic settings (the vegetarian tension, and also the science fridge, which zooms in and out within one piece) actually makes this all sit nicely together as a collection. Some uncanny hints in there - good gothic exploration!