Poetry from Julie Jordan Scott

Forbidden by law

I spent quite a bit of time this morning researching the etymology of TRESPASSING as any word-geek poet might do... perhaps.

I was fascinated as soon as I learned the word came into the lexicon in the 13th Century. I wondered how it got to be used in the Lord's Prayer, even if my church used "debts" rather than "trespasses"...

It bordered on ridiculous because I was supposed to be writing grimey and gritty poetry, not word-research poetry.

So, back to the drawing board and here is my (meager) offering.

Not wanted

Not remembered

Bewildered

Corpse cradle

canal prohibe nadar

no joke?

stay out

no harm

no trespass

no sin

gone, gone

Tomorrow:

 

 

B is for Blend (ABC Wednesday Poetry)

My initial choice for ABC Wednesday was BOUNTIFUL but that seemed so trite and expected, following my adventures in flight of the penny and abundance last week. I chose BLEND, instead. I realize after the writing was over, that this BLENDS in several ways....

What do you think of

Blends

It had a ramp for saddle shoes
and deck sneakers and loafers
to descend upon entry as well as
hooks on the wall to hang our
father's oversized shirts now smocks
the art classroom at Linden Avenue
School was tucked into
the corner, Northeast
in the basement, below
fourteen steps from the
hissing, perpetually angry
boiler room whose door was
the backdrop for a particularly brutal
third-grade testosterone injected fist-fight
but the art room was where I remember
the first chapter of The Chronicles of
Doug Wright Rubs My Nose in Blather
Primary lessons in blending colors from
faceless, nameless, once-a-week
art teachers whose ghost-voices
still roam there, this room which
in future days would double as

a cafeteria blending sandwiches
and sack lunches with clay and
scissors and that unmistakeable
institutional glue smell

(Not the Stuff) #Poem born thanks to #3WW

When I saw the word offering from Three Word Wednesday I was a bit perturbed. I didn't feel compelled to be bullied into a negative word space. I rolled my eyes at my poetic compadres who see the world as bleak and ugly. And then... as I wrote into the words something happened. I didn't have any gritty photos to accompany this poem which isn't even truly gritty either, but this feels somewhat like a transition into a week of intentional grimeyness. Perhaps a bit of an Oscar-the-Grouch phase.

To borrow a phrase from a friend, I am molto grateful today for these particular words:

abuse, cramp, hatred

and the poem they helped midwife.

(Not the Stuff)

(this is not the stuff I normally write of)
My shoulders reach to my ears
muscles cramp at the reality of
hatred, thwarting efforts to focus
on good, right, holy, loved
I prefer bumper stickers
that proclaim "Shift happens"
and "Love wins" to the semi
abusive "My loser student beat
up your honor student"

(this is not the stuff I normally write of)
and why not, for once, stretch into
degradation, filth, chaotic and
flashingly romantic disarray?
wouldn't it be better to soak
in the stench of maggot laced garbage
than the unbelievable rainbows and
butterflies of blinder wearing  ice
skaters who refuse to experience
the all which this life offers?

(this is not the stuff I normally write of)
so this week, I will
 

Dappled Whatevers Normal

From my friends at We Write Poems:

>>>> Write a poem of three stanzas.  Begin the firrst stanza with the word “Yesterday,” the second stanza with the word “Today,” and the third stanza with the word “Tomorrow.”

Yesterday I felt full

of sycamore leaves and

dappled sunlight and
faint buzzing of some
indistinguishable flying
creature, too small to
make clear as the darkness
fell and the bzzzz grew

Today I seep in worry
stuck in pre-penance
draped in the angsty
"whatevers but don'ts"
of early adolescent sobbing
she is done with but
I still hear from my
insides to her outsides

Tomorrow I wonder
what surveys will be spent
under the guise of usefulness
fizzling hope and perhaps
rising reality, optimistic
will greet my downcast eyes
and echoes of her gulping
for air or maybe my
voice will be back to

normal

===

Fruit Bursts, Take Two (#Poem inspired from Carry on Tuesday)

I took on this “Carry on Tuesday” prompt a little bit differently. I can’t tell you it was any sort of strategy, I came instead from a playful space of “what if….” which always feels like an opening. I had to return, since I revised the poem which didn't sit right between my shoulder blades. It is more pleasing but tweaks shall more than likely continue.

 

I hadn’t noticed I missed several weeks of prompting.

 

It was bugging me and that bugging me could have very easily turned into a door closing.

 

Instead, I let the “bugging” turn into a door opening through approaching this prompt differently. I took each word as the beginning of the next line.

 

It worked, not famously, but it worked.

 

I enjoy pieces of this poem… and like the fruit, I am going to allow it space to burst to life rather than squelch it with my opinion.

 

What do you think?

 

Today’s prompt:

 

“Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.” Kahlil Gibran

 

Fruit Bursts

 

Life meets me wherever I am

Without judgment or criticism

Love is like that if it

Is the way it was intended

Like the water flowing in

A river, a current, over rocks

Tree settles alongside it, watching

Without worry of a flood or trauma

Blossoms come from fearlessness

Or focus on what is instead of future ifs

Fruit, light purple, bursts on my tongue

(not pleased with the first versions more generic nature, I tried again.)

 

Life meets me standing at the bus stop

Without judgment of my destination

Love is like that, it comes alongside and

Is a supporter, handing me gloves and a scarf

Like a good best friend, for me – a notebook

A pencil, a gift of massage, the river, karaoke pine

Tree flavors and scents guide my next choice

Without a care we collect boughs and cones,

Blossoms and cones-yet-to-be are left behind

Or allowed to grow on their own time for fecundity

Fruit, light purple, bursts on my tongue

© 2010 by Julie Jordan Scott

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Withered (Big Tent Prompted Poem)

The folks at Big Tent Poetry have done it again. First, they asked me to write a poem somehow reflected, related to, reminiscent of my favorite poem which means, today, I need to claim a favorite poem.

 

Great. Fabulous.  Who has one favorite poem?

 

After much thought, I landed with Messenger by Mary Oliver. It is the first poem in Thirst, a poetry collection that belongs on every shelf. Read Messenger here.

I wrote this poem in a moment of woeful inadequacy. Ever have moments like this one?

 Withered

Today I have failed

I wipe away the ethereal spider webs

I pull away the withered leaves that

Once thrived and held their greenness high

My work is to love the world and

I failed at loving a plant

How on Earth can I love

The world when I forget

To water a plant, how did

God dare trust me with a child

A dog a home a lawn a poem?

 

To See

Another prompt from Thom at ThreeWordWednesday.

This week's words?

Bait, Jump, Victim 

My offering:

To See

Circles widen with

Metaphor’s invitation

I jump inside

Baited by my pencil

The victim’s eyes

Moisten at the reading

Water circles

Did their work

A is for Abundance: The Flight

I have never participated in one of the Alphabet challenges so I am delighted to start at the very beginning… and somehow my poem seems to be matching that “very beginning” theme.

 Thank you, as always, for the creators of these challenges. I look so forward to getting to know you! This poem was prompted by the folks from ABC Wednesday.

A is for Abundance:

The Flight

 

First, the mindful inhale

Before the “Yes” is

Whispered the smalled

Splash, the surrender

Of the penny to the

Air – falling

Landing – splashing

Leaving shadow circles

Ripples widening

Deeper repeatable

Widening depths of

Awareness, sage, hope

All abundance starts

With the inhale

The surrender

The flight of

The penny

Golden Ta-Da!

Like a giant ta-da

Enchanted’s Prince Charming

Self absorbed doofus

Discounting the non-language choices

Attempts at the poetic

He croons, “Please pardon the nausea”

Elemental writing

Typewriter scribing

Pound the key destruction

Pinky finger still held high

 

Curiosity asks:

Has that always been present

The spot of tea ever ready

Phalange aiming for luminescence

Chuckle, not guffaw – fills

The xenophobic space

On its way to Xanadu

Or Nirvana or the jar

Of Xanax and who knew

The Xanthic jukebox was

A sunny shade of yellow?

(Today's poem was prompted by the folks at We Write Poems - Today, it was an automatic writing/poetry prompt combined. Interesting... results.)

Ten Seconds of Silence (A Poem for Sunday Scribblings)

 

Ten seconds of silence or perhaps a tenth

Of a second of silence afforded all -

An unnamed log my pillow and the red

Soil my mattress

 

My eyes surveyed

The towering sentient Sequoia, nearly

As old as Christ, I am guessing,

Too tall for me to see its upper rooms

Tears tickled my belly

Tears shuffled their feet under my eye-lids

Plenty of time to tune into

The source this tree provided

 

I would have loved more time

nestled by its side,

feeling its history meet mine - relating,

somehow, to this tree

This day, though, was about and for

Them. And Me. Not for me alone.

My notebook pages barren this day

No turning to pencil and paper

My notebooks and words would wait

For translation, later.  I want to wrap my

Children in experience which spans beyond

My readers right now.

 

“I'll be back, be right back..." and

focus on creating memories my children

will carry as I carry my view from the

picture window in the rented cabin

 

My dad, out on the family canoe,

alone on a lake in the middle of dawn. 

Little me labeled this moment “lonely”

Grown me labels this moment delicious

 

I understand the need for solitude and

Know he was holding his sweet

Moments (slightly more than a tenth

Of a second) before family experience

And making memories alongside us

He didn’t know as he praised the quiet

Water underneath the canoe and the

Blessed smells of a lake offering nothing

 

and everything he was also

unknowingly making a memory

for me which has lasted this lifetime

and now stretches into yours

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