Undeveloped

 

This is where the house would have gone, 

if they'd expanded this direction.

Bulldozed, sun-dazed, gritty 

with suburban litter; leaves, paper bags, clay.

We come early, chain our bikes to the bars

of the metal fence by the coyote trail,

gathering what we can--feathers,

bones, Cheetos bags; and bring them here.

I stretch and grasp each one, asking 

for a journey that brings me

back to the houses I knew,

even if only to be poisoned by them.

This is where we would have lived.

This is where we would have seen

hawks wheel, mockingbirds scream,

and dewberry thickets turning green.

-- C. Sandlin, for The Sunday Muse

NaPoWriMo April!

 

I was inspired by an unexpected comment to participate in NaPoWriMo this April. For me, this means writing a (short!) poem a day, every day, this April inspired by our backyard. This April will mark a year of staying at home and I was looking at photos earlier and realized that I'm not sure how I feel about that. 

Last year made home more of a haven that it's been in some time--it forced me to think about what I wasn't doing, to evaluate what I've been doing, and to consider what part of that I want back, and what I just don't. There's also the part where I completely lost trust in the social system. 

So...this year, I'm going to consider the dandelions, the clover, the cardinals, the roses, the bees, the rips and the tears and see what poems sneak through. I've already selected the notebook that matches my poetryasaur and we'll see how it goes. 

Also--I'm working on a Camp NaNo project at the same time, but that's a topic for another post. 

-- Chrissa

WordCrafters Wednesday (3/17/2021): St. Patrick's Day

 Carrie's prompt for today is Luck/Rainbow/Irish/Pot-a-Gold and a lovely green bird. While my heart is with the green bird (and birds along the fence have been keeping me sane during this time of sheltering at home), the poem that came was different.

Luck

Luck hummed from his cauldron,

Leprechaun offering this bargain:

Take this gold and spend it fine

In your yard and by your vines.

All the gold has devoured the green--

these prettiest of beetles I've ever seen.

I took the pot of gilded wings,

misled by their shimmering.

Spent it all among the leaves

as it hied itself into the weeds.

All the gold has devoured the green--

these prettiest of beetles I've ever seen.

He needed his coins well-fed;

elf-folk spend only the living lead

which gilds itself by our dreams

melted in the heat of greed.

All the gold has devoured the green--

these prettiest of beetles I've ever seen.

The End (of Some Things)

 So...change. 

Over the past year or so I've been asking myself several questions, chief among which is why am I carrying around all these failed projects? Why do I have a plastic bin of cross-stitch projects started decades ago? Why do I have this stack of scrapbook paper? Why this file drawer of half-completed stories? Why do I have all these unread books? I might have argued that these were in reserve against just such a time as this, when I was continually at home and unable/unwilling to go out into the world at large. 

But really...they're beginning to function as a reminder that things can't/haven't/won't be able to go back to "normal."  The person who started that story or began that book had no idea what the next few years would bring and the story that was started is completely irrelevant to now. I can barely read three chapters at this point, much less create and organize a narrative. 

It's time to stop. 

I've enjoyed having this blog (until very recently) and it seemed weird to just leave it without a goodbye. It's been a great project and let me, for a time, be a poet, which was pretty cool.

Goodbye and best wishes,

Chrissa

Sabbatical

 

Spending the month drafting. This blog will return the second weekend in April with weekly poetry and possibly reading-related content. Hope that your spring is bright and creative!

-- Chrissa

WordCrafters Wednesday Prompts

 Sharing today for WordCrafters Wednesday prompts. Hope your week is going well!

-- Chrissa

One Chance to Pull the Words

inspired by Grover Lewis

Devotion; more than speed:

Hung up tight in art

the fight while fate spins

hanging days, hanging cities; 

it's all spiders, careful.

Fate, an 80's child:

Vectors slice graphic webs

stretched thin as dimensions

worn through to empty space 

to show off their thin knees.

She opens the page

as if a warm, well-lit den

welcomed our words' rest.

dedicated to Carrie VH 

Tightness

Sharing with The Sunday Muse

Dark runs with the imps, the river, and the ions

all together in the fall, over and over and down;

space expands. It was meant to be a hole

but there are crumbs in the empty.

Dark swerves from the backsplash of atoms

combining behind, above, right through--

every explosion reminds it of the light,

the tightness, then the shove away.

tl;dr: taking an extended break & good luck in the new year :)

Well. The yard is looking much less dead than I expected. Dandelions are super hearty, at least for freakish Texas weather. However, there are still several pots that didn't make it or need refurbishing and, as I look around the office, I feel the same way about so many of my projects from the last several years. They've been potted (in notebooks & on the computer) but, for (possibly freakish) reasons, they've failed to thrive. Maybe I've gone out and gotten too many adorable starts that are now leggy or crispy or sort of staring listlessly out a window wondering what happened.  Maybe that's just me. Only round instead of leggy.

Not unlike my backyard--or my crazy provisional Kindle list (reading the first few chapters of a random lot of books should count for something)--my writing has become starts, random notes, and what happened earlier in the day when _[insert noun here]___  pissed me off. Projects aren't thriving and neither am I. I'm not even sure what the question is--is it how to finish? Whether to finish? What new direction to pursue? After the storm, I know that the plants need a little extra care. Maybe then it'll be time for the stories.

Best wishes for your own projects!

-- Chrissa