"Long Story Short"

The prompt by David Lehman to write a poem about New Year's resolutions led to my effort "Long Story Short," which is featured in his column "Next Line, Please" of The American Scholar: https://theamericanscholar.org/estimated-wait-time/.

This poem has also earned the nickname "Mi Papá." 

The Spread

Thanksgiving with a Vegetarian

When she said , "Would you pass the turkey?", a curtain of belief parted and the foul meat eaters were pardoned. The question wafted over platters of root vegetables and chestnuts, cornbread stuffing with chunked apples and pecans, garlic and parslied mashed potatoes, ginger cranberry sauce, mixed greens and fennel salad. It sweetened the meal, in the great balance of accommodating guests. For I knew that this annual exception to her diet relied on nostalgia for tradition as well as two glasses of wine "as a digestif". At our table, every crystal goblet had been filled with sparkling cider - in solidarity for the one daughter whose daily sustenance is sobriety. It was a good year for cider, robust aftertaste of gratitude, taste after taste.

~ LCMH

Mixing it Up by Cento

A cento is a patching together of lines by other poets into a new poem. Usually the cento has one author and many sources, but in David Lehman's "Next Line, Please" we are seven authors contributing lines. For greater interest, we also alter words from the original source in an "erase and change" directive. It's a quilt that tells a story in this week's The American Scholar:
https://theamericanscholar.org/papa-joins-mama/#.VsyMxseTRBZ

Repast

Iota of Time 

After we shared the smoked mackerel,

olive bread, and wild rice we sautéed

with fresh sweet pepper, 

you played your symphony in four parts

- music strung together while caring for your 

failing mother still sporting a crown.

Her tempestuous majesty plays a little too long,

scoring no surprises. But you orchestrate

a chance that the last second, at least the last,

may kindness be her finale. 

~ LCMH 

Verse

For Lisa

who gave me a poetry box

with no contents

which contains

teacup after teacup

of abiding conversations

~ LCMH

First of More [Moss + Spore]

Without a Crown

He was a lover resurrected

for the mate he recollected

from the bin of shelved weddings.

No photo to display.

The memory had slowly slipped away

of the blooming bride in tow.

Hitched side-by-side,

a knee jerk

broke the stride

and she came bumbling after

(an afterthought

behind the plot

to steal what she had given).

He sees his crime,

retrieves her tattered charity.

Yet she might resuscitate

too late.

And then,

he fears,

he’ll be raked

over the coals

for all the lack

he’s worth.

                                                                

 ~ LCMH

what you will find here

Lost River, West Virginia

Through the frame and the forest is the realm of lyrical poetry –

a wilderland of emotion on a page with margins.

Emotion has rhythm and often seeks rhyme, maybe because it has no reason whatsoever. It seems to like expression more than analysis or dissection.

Beauty trumps anger or tragedy because it seduces with its lovely form, shaping stories that nearly kill you to live but in the lyrical poem there isn’t any permanence anyway. It’s a transport into a state of being like a lyrical dance.

Moss has no roots; it seats and spreads its spores… for more.

For more (or less)

the first spore is coming soon…