(I am participating in National/Global Poetry Month as I continue to write small poems each morning. – Kevin)
Day Ten: Rather Blustery Days
The Thousand Acre Wood
never had it this rough –
the wind today is tough –
so bear, if you’re there,
take care, you ragged
bag of imaginary fluff
Peace (batten down),
Kevin
(I am participating in National/Global Poetry Month as I continue to write small poems each morning. – Kevin)
Day Nine: Take Time Today
If ever there’s been permission
to stand closer and attentive to the land,
to notice what you didn’t notice before,
consider it todayTake time today
to see the soil in new light,
the way new grass sleeves bend
in twilight, damp with dew
and moonlightTake time today
to inhale the fragrance, the flowers
whose tight winter slumbers turn over
and whose form functions
as unboundTake time today
to eavesdrop on the songs of skies,
bright birds warbling warm symphonies
in tree-top serenades, to each other,
for each otherTake time today
to listen, let it be the world’s love
let it be something stronger than hope,
holding us together, standing today,
in this moment
Peace (awakening in the local),
Kevin
(I am participating in National/Global Poetry Month as I continue to write small poems each morning. – Kevin)
Day Eight: John Prine’s Mind
All the people
populating the mind
of John Prine
will forever linger on,
odd characters like us
seeking balance
on bent lines
Note: Songwriter extraordinaire John Prine died from complications of Covid-19 yesterday. He was always a writer with a guitar, exploring the landscape of characters.
Peace (leaves us vacant),
Kevin
(I am participating in National/Global Poetry Month as I continue to write small poems each morning. – Kevin)
Day Seven: Night Breaks Day
Beneath the Super Moon,
night breaks
morning
into day –
whether hopeful
or hurtful,
it’s too soon to say
Peace (in possibilities),
Kevin
(I am participating in National/Global Poetry Month as I continue to write small poems each morning. – Kevin)
Day Six: Shimmer in the Rust
Like you
I devour the news
searching for
shimmer in the rust,
solid in the dust;
a voice I can trust
Note: I created a small experimental music piece I wrote on thinking of the ways I am drawn as a news junkie into the confusion of the messaging of any given moment these days .. I feel as I am forever reading between what is said, trying to figure out what’s true … Listen: https://some.audio/5e8af43b28d3ee0fa995101c
Peace (is dissonance),
Kevin
(I am participating in National/Global Poetry Month as I continue to write small poems each morning. – Kevin)
Day Five: Until Further Notice
The official notices now say
don’t come in to play –
stay away, for today
and tomorrow, toofrom beyond the chain-link gate
the children turn away –
reluctantly obey, for today,
and tomorrow, too
Peace (needing play),
Kevin
(I am participating in National/Global Poetry Month as I continue to write small poems each morning. – Kevin)
Day Four: Empty Classroom Still Life
I am here
wandering through this Still Life –
this classroom, our community,
this place of connection and caring,
this school, where we gathered together –my eyes catch the vacancy:
a scene, frozen
in abandoned books
in scattered pencils
in forgotten papers
in steel chairs leaning
at odd angles against uneven desks
and in chatter, too, all your words like
ghost images still languishing on airyou should be here, too
All this and more, we left behind
on that Friday, the 13th of March,
in the year of the Great Pandemic,
this visual sculpture before me
just another unlucky reminder
of what our world was
before it was notI leave it behind
Peace (filling in the empty spaces),
Kevin
(I am participating in National/Global Poetry Month as I continue to write small poems each morning. – Kevin)
Day Three: Anxiety Dances
Anxiety’s
dancing with
the data –
swerving left;
shifting right –
we’re forever
in motion, the
arrows forging us
towards night
Peace (looking downward),
Kevin
(I am participating in National/Global Poetry Month as I continue to write small poems each morning. – Kevin)
Day Two: Let the Last Note Linger
Get your anger out
in power chords –
frustration as
fretboard distortion –
but leave the last note
lingering, ringing
with hope’s resonance
Note: I was finishing up a song yesterday and getting into the recording of it — a protest song about the president and the times and how angry and frustrating it makes me to watch him not just spew lies to help himself but to do so and let people die from his inactions. This poem bubbled up from that cathartic songwriting experience, of using the strum of the guitar and some underlying distortion chords as a way to express emotion of the times. I had Woody Guthrie on my mind. Here’s a version of the song, if you’re curious.
Peace (singing it),
Kevin
(I am participating in National/Global Poetry Month as I continue to write small poems each morning. – Kevin)
Day One: Birds Sing to a Morning Sun
The birds know little
of the trouble
the world bringsonly that it’s morning
and with the sun,
time to sing
Peace (hearing it),
Kevin