Poetry on Odyssey: One Girl’s Homage To National Poetry Month

The month of April is National Poetry Month, so I decided to take a break from nostalgia and pay homage to this genre of writing. I always wanted to be a writer, no, not a writer, an author. What I found in my ADD ways was that I was drawn particularly to poetry for its quick way it helps your cerebellum to hemorrhage.

Poetry was one of my first loves because I found in the form of music. Discovery the greats like Keats, Dickinson and Neruda was a beautiful bonus. Poetry, like music, was my way out of dark spaces and hollow thoughts. I celebrate poetry month by writing and boring my social media friends with posts and cover changes (sorry, not sorry). I don’t fancy myself a great writer, but this week, I want to celebrate the joy of writing and in particular the beauty of poetry. Read some, get some, write some and let the hairs on your arms tingle. These are just a few poems I’ve written over the years, as a romantic, I write about love experienced or lost, but sometimes I write nonsense, as you will see:

Who Will You Sing To Next?

I wonder who you’ll sing to next,

Sweet, low, encouraging.

Will her husband be in the foreground?

Tempting you with two fingers, daring you to come closer.

Lost on the avenue, will you find the street you so desperately search for?

Somewhere between Camelot and Broadway? Secret lovers tend to leave

Themselves there, some waiting on the helideck for a vacation

That isn’t real.

Those who sing, retract later, to heal their voices with lemon

And hot water, standing and stalking in the wings waiting for the cue

From the lonely girl who knows no direction only attracted to the birdsong

That bounces and echoes off the walls of an empty cave, duplicating over

And over and over. Hollow, painful and distracting.

I hold my ears now, not wanting to hear the caw

My ears will bleed and my hurt will search for a way out

Through the intestines.

Pennypack Girls

-Co-written by Kathleen Kirk

Deep brown eyes like basement doors in a haunted house.

Cobwebs can be sticky.

Resistance real and revolting,

How do we make it clean?

Like Zoey, reach out if even unsure.

Break through gauzy film,

Revealing pain or pleasure;

Down Alice’s rabbit hole

With the Mad Hatter,

To nowhere or tea time

With a man or a mouse.

Why can’t we be like Pennypack girls?

Listening to Bowie with Zoey;

Curls and beer;

Stubbing out cigarettes

Wishing you were here.

Wasted Wishes

Wishes are wasted on me

Like Sundays and summers.

Long and short, ticking too slow

But stretching too long.

Shooting stars are lost

When coming my way

Redirected to another house

Fizzled in the grass.

Hope grows tired in my company

Yawning, bored and listless

Wine glass dangling, eyes rolling

Longing for a worthy opponent.

Prayer tunes out and looks the other way,

Not knowing the truth.

It changes the channel, checking

For other frequencies on the line.

Happy National Poetry Month!