This
blog is devoted to a select group of poets. We're starting with poets
from the Ann Arbor area, but, hey, if you're from Detroit, Grand Rapids,
Saginaw or the Upper Peninsula, then that is okay, too.
Our goal is to provide you with a prompt every day from which you are to garner inspiration and submit a poem. How to submit will be very easy. Just put your poem or short story in the comments section and hit post. You may not immediately see your post, but it is there under the "Comments" section. You may need to click on "Comments" to see your poem. It is there on another page.
Today's poem or short story prompt is the word "pillow"
(note: this week's posts by Mike are dedicated to the Harry Potter Alliance http://thehpalliance.org/ a group of dedicated mostly-Muggles doing good in the world. See you at Misti Con this weekend.)
Our goal is to provide you with a prompt every day from which you are to garner inspiration and submit a poem. How to submit will be very easy. Just put your poem or short story in the comments section and hit post. You may not immediately see your post, but it is there under the "Comments" section. You may need to click on "Comments" to see your poem. It is there on another page.
You
may need to have a Gmail account to post in the comments section. Most
of you do have Gmail, but for those of you that don't it's extremely
worthwhile to open up one now! That way you've got a chance to get your
work out there in the world.
(note: this week's posts by Mike are dedicated to the Harry Potter Alliance http://thehpalliance.org/ a group of dedicated mostly-Muggles doing good in the world. See you at Misti Con this weekend.)
When I was a little girl. Five or six. I lived with my grandmother for year. There was no Catholic school where my parents had moved (twenty miles away) and it was important enough for me to receive a Catholic education, so I stayed with my grandmother Monday through Friday, visiting my parents on the weekend.
ReplyDeleteI loved my grandmother. Most grandchildren do. I loved her as a child and even as an adult I love her ghost. I have pieces of her furniture. A desk (she called a secretary), her kitchen table (the first piece of furniture her mother bought after she landed in Boston from Ireland) and a hope chest. Occassionally, I think I can still smell her. It might not be my imagination either as she did leaves scraps of things tucked away--lace from a blouse, checkbook receipts, small hotel soaps.
I hear her in my voice, too.
When I lived with her, at night, after she had worked all day as a proofreader for the Hampshire Gazette, she would lay in bed and say this prayer: "Thank you, God, for these clean sheets and this wonderful bed and this soft pillow."
I'd be in the next room, a small side room off her bedroom and she'd say "Isn't it just wonderful?" I would always agree it was even though I didn't understand why it was. I do understand now and I will say to my husband after an especially grueling day, "God, isn't it wonderful? Isn't wonderful to have this bed and clean sheets?"
It is wonderful, isn't it?
ON A DIRT ROAD
ReplyDeleteIN THE ORIENT
A VERY LONG TIME AGO
He stood outside the tent for a long time before anyone came out. The man who came out was well dressed, though his clothes were now rumpled and his hair disheveled. He was sliding a gold bracelet back into place on his wrist. When he saw the man standing outside, he quickly averted his eyes. Then, just as quickly, he turned his head again. Their eyes locked.
One man's eyes were defiant. Who did this man think he was? Judging him? Walking around the countryside talking about his "great insights" and "new vision" of how things were and how they should be. He knew the type. Nietzsche would write about them over a thousand years later. they were failures. they blamed the Others for their failure. The Ones who had the Will to go after what They wanted from life. The Ones who didn't shrink from what had to be done. The Ones who defined the language, who made the rules, who decided what could and couldn't be done. What was and what wasn't valuable.
The other man's eyes were different. He didn't judge. There was no point. He wasn't angry. He wasn't jealous or upset. He saw a man coming out of a tent. Everything else was construct. For years, he'd grown up being told to believe this and that. But something came to him and explained it all differently. He had been looking for something but it wasn't clear what. The answer came. And now that he had it, it was his duty to share it. Nothing more, nothing less.
The flap of the tent opened again. The woman looked out and up at him. She smiled. He looked behind her and saw the red pillow.
- Mike Fedel
May, 2013