Week 4

My daughter Allison is trying to help me make it possible to put comments on this blog. I am sorry it has not worked yet. You can send any comments to savaspoems@gmail.com and I will post them.

-- Note on 23 Jan 2010: Comments works!

From Judith Hutchinson (22 Jan 2010):

Keeping it Going

In spite of everything,
uneasy dreams, inertia, self doubt-
it's one foot in front of the other.
No choice, we're here.

Readiness is all, I think;
not ready to quit yet.

From me (22 Jan 2010):

I have been thinking about my poem for this week on and off. I worried that I would not have time to get it on paper.

Then I had to have a filling fixed and found myself at the dentist being fitted for a new cap. So I wrote this in the waiting room and, literally, in the dental chair. I held my note pad and pencil while he drilled and numbed, then took it up when he left the room for any reason.

I hope it works.

Rhythms

Why do I have to count money
On days that my rhythms are fey?

Why do I have to play soccer
On days when my pace is sluggish and my head lead?

Why do I need to edit data
On days when my tempos are bouncing?

Why am I required to talk to people
On days of rhythmetic fog, gooey tongue and visual smog?

Why must I read for INFORMATION
When my mind vibrates from the flag to the window, to stove, carpet, TV, barrette, woodpile?

Why must I shovel snow
On days when my rhythms are driving me to shift margins, dot i’s, count pixels, set fonts at eleven-point-five and column widths at fifty-seven-point-thirty-four?

Why must I sit and stare
On days when my cadence is singing and dancing and flowing and speaking?

Why do the words come
When there is no paper or pen?

Why must I make out a quiz
When my hands long for the pattern of sweeping, my ears for vacuuming, my eyes for a sponge crossing a gleaming countertop?

Why must I sit in meetings
When my heart is humming and my arms yearn for affection?

Why must I paint
When my muscles are spastic?

Would I know I had rhythms
If I did not have to fight-fool-force the pulse into contrary paths?

Some days, my skin wears an armor of forks pointed out
Or in
When the work and the rhythm collide.

Ahhh the bliss
when work and rhythm
rumba and waltz and foxtrot and swing…