Chris

my dear dear uncle
who passed away,
you were so close to me,
now you’re so far away.
you were so sweet to me,
and knew when to lay down the law.
you, who were willing to lay down your life,
yes, your life for your country.
you served 17 years,
sweated, bled, and cried for your home.
you saw comrades fall by your side,
you loved everyone with all your heart,
it killed you to kill on the battlefield.
you knew what you had to do.
I’m happy to be able to say you’re family.
I was happy to see you home.
they were a good three years
but your time was up.
there was one day,
that upsetting day,
that sad day,
the day our family lost you.
but you gave your life as a sheriff,
you did your job well.
I wish I had not been there
to see you shot three times,
once in the shoulder, once in the leg,
and the third bullet in your stomach.
I ran in tears to your body
seeing the crimson blood on the ground.
I remember what you said with your last breath:
don’t be mad, be happy for the time you had with me,
stay strong and don’t stray from who you are.
follow your dreams.
then your hand fell from mine.
your crimson blood on my white shirt.
I kissed your forehead,
then fell back crying.

R

My lover, I always love you. When I dream, that’s the time I see you. That’s when I love you. When I wake, I hate, and it aches so I can’t wait to dream again.

I love your smell, your taste, touch. I wish I could sleep now. So you’re going. Life taking you off to war; war-life where you live now. I waited so long for us to be but you chose good-bye, love.

In my dreams we will be. In my dreams I will always love you. Take care, be safe. Make it home.

Carol: Civil War Letter

Dear President Lincoln,

I rite to asks you yo opinion of this here war goin on. I am a slave livin in ‘tucky wif my chil’en, all three’s of them livin ‘ike me in bondage. I was taken from my beautiful home an brought to desolation, fear, an pain. We’s wantin to know what’s gon’ happen to us. We know you up North there and down here we want to know if we’s gon’ be free. President, sir, we’s needin’ an ans’er.

Yours truly

Jane Smith

Prompt

Write a letter you don’t intend to send. Inspired by Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy” and letters to civil war soldiers.

 

Anonymous

*The first rings when I knew it was finally you, back in the days of cords I could wind through my fingers in the small hours.

*Dialing and counting the rings again and again. Where are you? Why is the night such a black without your voice now?

*Breathless news to tell over so much time, so many days; so slow, this phone is all that holds me.

*Sharp tones, clipped, if you call at all. You’ll be late, you won’t be home again. Your voice on the phone used to mean such a different thing to me.

*Short calls now, or texts. Whose turn for T-ball. Your weekend with the kids. The child support will be late. Keep the talk short or my heart bleeds for what was. I miss what I thought we were.

Carol: The Five Ways to Enter a Room

1. Walk in with shoulders hunched, eyes downcast, fear seeping from every pore.

2. Cartwheel and do handstands into a room.

3. Spend seven hours picking out clothes and glasses so you can wear them to enter a crowded room, only to trip over a slightly torn carpet.

4. Walk into a room as if you just won the lottery, when in reality you just lost your job.

5. Enter a room as if God is carrying you on his shoulders.

May 17

Write a poem that examines one thing many ways. Poems inspired by Wallace Stevens’ Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.

I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.

XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.

XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.

 

Why did the winds of change invade my life this way?

Jostling around the crate the mango

is testing its life.

Inside the box (if you will),

but wanting to get out,

be free;

this juxtaposition of life

with the dark side.

The mango will tell you

he has developed the preponderance of patience.

Anonymous

The graphite pulls through

the space like silk, the thin grey line curving

wantonly across the paper, until shapes form,

and then the shadows.

May 10 Prompt

Imagism and descriptive language–inspired by WCW’s The Red Wheelbarrow and a mango.

Place a mango (or other fruit or interesting looking thing) on the table. Go around the room offering one adjective to describe the mango; everyone should record all the words that get thrown out. Then write a poem about the mango without using the word mango or any of the words the group came up with. Our words: mango, oval, luscious, tropical, sweet, fruit, smooth, green, red.

The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.