Tag: Child-like Poetry

How To Read A Poem, If You Please, And Thank You

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 2 Comments

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Rules would be ridiculous
So there are none
But there are crumbs
Leave them, please
For the next connoisseur
Of words
Traveller rambling line by crooked line
Wanderer down the poetic way
She’ll
Turn the page and walk this way
Past lines, and rhymes and such
Into the labyrinth, around each
Turn of phrase.

Tempting it would be
To stumble on a word you love
Place it to your lips
Smell and see
How it tastes, all salt and peppered up
Rolling round your
Pink and bumpy tongue
Sliding up against
Your wet red gums
Salivating now are you
Tempted by words of poetry
Imagine now
And
Chew on a hearty simile or metaphor
Worry not, they’re gluten free
But stay away from rhyme
They’re high in calories.

But resist the urge to take the words

Leave them there
Wrapped
In love
Placed  by design
For those who come
After us
Signposts, mini compasses
We left our words
A banquet for the generations
The next one and the next one after that
Napkin in your lap
Not necessary, inhale the poems
Laying there
Rules would be dumb
So there are none

Relax and breathe
You have all you need
To ingest
Each conceit
Metaphorically I speak

Oh but won’t you be courteous
Please
And be gentle with the poetry
Whittled by the hands of writers
Verse by fragile verse
Poured from dripping sweat and blood
Literally I speak

Turn around and go back home
Following the trail, the way you came
But
Go back through a second time
You missed a lot on that first pass
And please tell others that they are
There
Waiting
Patiently in the dark and lonely woods

If a poem speaks
In the forest dark and deep
With no one there to hear
Don’t interrupt
That would be quite rude

It is alright with both
The poet
And the poem
If no one’s there to hear
This has happened at least once
Or twice before
But, a
Thank you would be nice

There are no rules
Just manners
Crumbs
And meaning hidden nicely there
Within
And this is how you read a poem
If you please, and thank you.

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Joining the creative folks over at Tweetspeak Poetry with this poem inspired by the prompt #howtoreadapoem. Celebrating the release of Tania Runyan’s new book “How To Read A Poem” published by TSPoetry Press.

Why I Chose Go And Other Unanswered Questions

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 1 Comment

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wpid-20140118_161227.jpgGo doesn’t appear
As the opposite of stay
Always

Somedays it is synonymous with
Life and yes
Sometimes it is on the flip side
Stagnate

Go is brave on days
And it is walking timidity
Other times
Vertical in fact
But longing to be
Horizontal, in a state of quiet repose
Of all the words in all the world
Go chose
me
To walk out 365
Sleeps
To go dreaming and go waking
To go running and go crawling

Go said let’s say yes more
And no less
Take a chance and take a turn
Pull up to the banquet table
With a fork and knife
Dig right in to life
Cut it to the quick

Go says yes
Start with desert some days
Ride into the wind
Tears burning the cheek
Swim against currents
Against the howling wind
And walk in the rain
Even the thunder
Without a bumpershoot and galoshes
Now and again
Write a song
And sing along to the song
On the radio, loud and off-key

Eat with a friend
And not alone

When you are but two
Letters in a sea of verbosity
You risk being over simplified
And when you back up and go in reverse
OG
You sound like a caveman, man

Go can
B
Complicated too
Going out on a limb
Now and again

But don’t get me wrong
We are getting along
So far
Just fine
Me and Go
Go and I

We’re linked arm in arm
Side by side
Shadow and friend
Going this road
Together
Not alone

Even when we go
Nowhere at all
Anchored in our
Going nowhere state
Up to our elbows in
Pluff mud like
Quicksand
Sinking
Going nowhere fast

Go sings a melody
Backup
Sweet harmony
Happy as a sidekick

Go and I
Tandem diving
Into the teacup
From the high-dive
I had no chose but to
Go
Chose me.

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Wink, Blink, Nod and Noticing

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 2 Comments

Today is Day 16

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Wink, Blink, Nod and Noticing

She noticed between blinks
And after she wiped the sleep
From her eyes, deposited in the dead of night
By the one who comes when she dreams
The same one who deposits poetry on her pillow
Or so it seems

She added a second to her gaze
Stared long enough to penetrate the foggy haze
Caught with her net the moments and minutes
The instants worth saving suddenly seem infinite.

She felt it in breathes,  found more in between beats of her heart
They slipped from the shadows, these new moments she now
Noticed, every
Wink, blink and stare
Time floats through the air
Sails with the greatest of ease
While we are sleeping and eating and saying our prayers.

She noticed that it was the smallest of things
That she held  both tight with all her might
And had carelessly missed, they slipped
Through  her fingers and into the cracks
This new realignment, adjusted her heart
To see all that was precious, tiny and small

The voice on the phone reminded her of this
And she, the detester of cliche and worn weary phrase
Adopted the words in heart  that day
Anyway
As she travelled half blind down the highway
Shrouded in worry, dwelling on things she had missed.

This is not a dress rehearsal
This is for real
Do-overs are rarely part of the plan
This is it, this is all, this is the real deal.
This side of heaven, it’s gift to hold loose in our hand

For all the grace and forgiveness
She soaks in like a dry rag
She’s comes to know
In the blink of an eye
And  a wink of her soul
As she nods her head at the truth
Of what she’d been told.

This is your life
Don’t blink
Act One
Act Two
And the final one too
What you are doing and saying
From New York, to Paris, to Kalamazoo
It is true

It is  now
This minute
Though paved with His goodness and  oodles of  grace

She was reminded
She is breathing and living
These days of her life
So she vows to renew
Her vows
To soak in and notice it all
Including not excluding the pain
And suffering
Disappointment and shame

And that makes the road
The one paved with grace
More important than ever
As
She recalls the valuable

Advise of a sage
Who told her repeatedly
This life, it  isn’t a race

We are winners
Sojourners, journeymen
Fellow travellers here

Noticing
Noticing
Noticing it all
From the moment the sun breaks
Until nightfall
And more important than anything else, the middle
The moments, the center, the time in between
These are the greatest, the smallest
The most important
Small things.
The repetitions of extraordinary
Ordinary
Daily routines.
The cream of an Oreo
The jelly in a jelly doughnut

Wink and its over
Blink and its gone
She’ll lay her head down
On soft goose down
And nod off tonight like she does every one
Knowing tomorrow she’ll vow yet again
To go forth from slumber
A new song she’ll sing
A song filled with promise and hope
Into the land that has a new name
Wink, Blink and Nod
And now
Noticing.
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Ready, Set, Go Notice

One Day

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 3 Comments

Clock at C of C

Today is Day 12 and 13. I hope you don’t mind. I am compressing time, two days into one. As I think about the days behind. And dream about the ones to come. This is quite a journey we are on.

Thank you for being on the 31 Days of Noticing Journey with me. You are a gift.
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One Day

At one  o’clock I looked up and asked the world to stop
As if I were the only one
Who’d ever tried to stop a day
Or seasons of a life
As they go racing quickly by
Quite a selfish soul am I
Who wants to take control
Of rates of speed by which they go

One day at one o’clock I looked up and asked the world to stop
It had been my deep desire
To freeze the quickly passing hours
For me the moments had become nothing but
A dizzy blur
I do not need to tell you here
That I did not succeed, I’ll make that clear

One day at one o’clock I made peace and let the world go on
And chose instead to notice all
To go with it and not be left
Not stop the whirling, twirling spinning ball
As if I had that power at all

I will tell you once again
As plain as I know how
That there is such a  sweet release
In letting go
And giving in to Him
Who created, loves and holds
Mercifully
Every single minute, day and hour

Amen
And amen again
Time and time again

Lord give me grace
To passionately embrace
The one o’clocks and also the two o’clocks

If I were in charge of  time, the speed, the rate

We’d all be chronically
Chronologically backwards, sideways and
Running perpetually five minutes  late.

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( You may click here to read the previous posts in this series, The Art of Noticing)