his 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. We've even been so generous to accept poets from other parts of the USA and the entire country of Canada!
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 or Yahoo or AOL account to post in the comments section. Most of you do have Gmail or Yahoo or AOL, but for those of you that don't, it's extremely worthwhile to open up one of these email accounts now! This way you've got a chance to get your work out there in the world.
What I See When I Close My Eyes
ReplyDeleteI stared at the back of your head
The side of your face
Your body as it sat in our father's favorite chair
The one that he didn't leave you
You fought like mad with your brother to drag it home
I stared at your red hair
Your freckles that trailed on your skin
That if you weren't Irish might have been cause for alarm
I stared at your blue eyes
That blue that was not so much bright
As illuminated by light from behind
When eyes are this shade of blue
They tend to frighten more than invite
I stared at your six-foot five body as you outgrew me
It was a very few years that I, your older sister
Had the advantage of greater height
So when you died I had thousands of images of you saved up
And as if by magic when I closed my eyes and concentrated
I could conjure up another image of you
Sitting or playing cards or drinking beer or telling stories
Or bragging on your latest accomplishment
Or falling asleep in the bathroom after a night out
Or marrying a beautiful Italian girl
Or holding your hours old daughter in your arms
This phenomena may be like that optical illusion
Whereby you stare at the negative
All black and white and in outline
For at least fifteen seconds
Then you stare at a white space
And the full-color image of that person
Appears right before your eyes
This works in life, too
I suppose it's so strong
That it works if you loved or hated the person
But in your case
It was love
Catherine Powers
October 30, 2013
Copyright 2013
AT DENNIS'S PLACE
ReplyDeletePerfect concentric circles
measure each hill and valley
of the map the bass player is creating
My feet make strange shuffling sounds
on the grey concrete floor
stripped bare of the presses
and the lathes and the drills
that made Detroit famous
My feet bring me closer to the walls
Who leaned up against these to smoke cigarettes
and tell dirty jokes
during the hard-won "2 breaks a day"?
With my eyes closed,
I can almost hear,
between the guitar and drums,
the sound of acceptance
"don't paint it over,
they'll just tag it again"
The colors are bright
but chilly to my fingertips
I don't know gang signs from calligraphy
so I just look at the shapes of the letters
This is not my world.
I came unescorted.
People stare.
- Mike Fedel
November, 2013