Burned Cookies

[Donner]

Hi, Barbara Jean,

"Fill in the Blanks" uses those to great advantage. I've never figured out why people think carrying around the evidence in their wallet (or on their phone, for that matter) is a good idea. The ending shows the value some place on "love".

"Trash Talk Walk" is an interesting perspective as told through the eyes of a garbage man who sees beauty in a decomposing banana peel, in cherry blossoms wilting on the cement, in one rhody flower turned brown, in dandelions that will soon go to seed so they can reproduce.

"What Comes to You" - I thought you captured some of the aspects of dementia so well with While the kettle boils you can walk away....What matters / comes to you.

Donna

[Barbara Jean]

Kristalynn, thank you so much. I am glad the dementia aspect came through. Glad you liked the sparrow poem too. Donner so good to see you here. Exactly on wallets. How dumb. Thanks for confirming those aspects that came through on dementia.

Now I am behind and have to catch up!

[Dunc]

Barbara

Ah, now you say 'dementia' I see I missed all the hints. But not the gentleness, the tenderness of the picture.

What We Owe the Sparrow and an aubade that swirls birds and time and weather and the sounds both in and of the poem together as a feeling for the world out of sleep. Very sensual.


Ma'am, you have the power!

Regards / Dunc

[Barbara Jean]

Dunc! Nothing missed. I like that it can be read in more than one way! Glad you liked my sparrows. But I think I am going over to the nutty/dark side this late in the month! Thank you for your visits!

[Barbara Jean]

.............Things we think are imaginary
frolic in the margins. All the best beasts—
dromedary, horned owls and the unicorns
we don’t believe in, graze somewhere
in our periphery. Magic careens past us in the air,
in a meadow, in shades of green so deep
that we have long since lost its descriptor—
our language so highborn it stoppers up
meaning. And yet, one space remains
in the doodler’s waiting room where tails
may swish and warm breath nuzzle your neck
............................ on a quiet afternoon.

[Jee Leong]

Barbara, "What Comes to You" is as soothing as a cup of tea. The important-looking teacup and the curtain-like leaves are outstanding images. "Sparrow and Sorrow / change places on the tongue" is a terrific line, embedded in suitably concrete and abstract language. "Where to Find a Unicorn" moves persuasively from the margins to a doodler's room. A stroke of magic.

[Barbara Jean]

Jee thank you so much. I am so happy to see you in my thread to keep me going��

[Barbara Jean]

Many tragedies may befall you. Lovers could leave
inexplicably. Did you see the bitter cherry

growing in clumps near the black knot-weed?
You may get into an accident and lose a foot.

Those bluebells go nice with the purple
bleeding heart. Someone could steal

everything you own or everything could burn
in a fire. A red flowering currant weeps

above an english daisy’s sun-yellow
center. Your sister, brother or aunt could die

of a terrible, terrible disease. Who knew
that a Cassiope Mertensiana White

mountain heather had little bell flowers ringing
and ringing? You could lose all faith

just when the dogwood rose bloomed
riotously down your own lane. Honeysuckle

grows alongside larkspur. Collect motley bouquets.
Fairy slipper, forget-me-nots in blue— salvation.

[Barbara Jean]

When you can’t think please wash the dishes.
That cup is the heart of the kitchen.
It keeps tea steeping with wishes.
When you can’t think please wash the dishes—
that fork’s half bent, please, please fix it.
Everything’s fine. You need not mention
when you can’t think you break the dishes.
That cup was the heart of the kitchen.

[Barbara Jean]

..............Sometimes it is of a kind
that comes without a messenger
as it rushes to consume the red
markers of dusk. Tonight it strikes the oak’s
green canopy silent. Candles, stolen
from the little chapels and tall cathedrals
are never lit. In the churchyard, every creature
hurrying home passes the gravestones. Even owls,
startled from their nests, suddenly suddenly
..............................fly into shadow.

[lauriene]

Ooh..I was in the mood for a moody noir poem and I didn't even know it. I really like Nightfall. I feel like it's a metaphor for something and I can't quite place it but, either way, it's spooky and dreamy.

[Barbara Jean]

Thank you lauriene! I am still stuck today. But we are in the home stretch. Yay!

[Crashed_Pilot]

Hi Barbara Jean!

'Nightfall' is beautiful - I love that 'suddenly, suddenly'. I'm also really taken with the litany of plants in 'Picking Wildflowers at the Beginning of Things'. In fact, all of the poems of yours I've read so far are very carefully controlled and wonderfully well shaped.

'Triolet' also uses a clever line variation to mimic the feeling of a routine or procedure interrupted by a mishap - a skilful subversion of the form.

[kristalynn]

I really love Where to Find a Unicorn. Great words like "frolic" and "nuzzle" and "careens", so many great images.

[Dunc]

Barbara

Where to Find a Unicorn ─ Well, as I understand the instructions on the box, that rather depends on whether you're young, female and virginal; which means the best I can hope for is a shadow on a satellite photo. Still, if I have to settle for a two-horned owl, I won't complain. Lovely images swirled into your lines there, a gentle finish (if you qualify).

Picking Wild Flowers ─ A most artful blending of blackest black, and all the colours of the spring, until the black no long dominates. The run of disasters is nicely provocative and the run of plant names is gorgeous in effect.

Triolet ─ Ho ho, a broken triolet! More remarkable craftsmanship.

Nightfall ─ Fine waxing tide of omens! The old oak, the unlit candles, the owls ambushed by the fall of darkness, the steady tone of the advance. It sketches itself in my mind, in formidable detail.

Fine reading, as ever.

Regards / Dunc