Poetry from Julie Jordan Scott

Love Takes Form: A Final Poem of 2010

Love takes form here
at the end of my purple pen
abondanza for me, just
being me ~ just loving
that I am the one people
think of when they see
sunrises and sunsets,
the full moon kissing
misty clouds, when
they see kit foxes
or hear coyotes or
smell moonblossoms
because Love takes
form. Here.
I am the one
who expects much,
loves well, laughs
and cries
hard and loud
and with stomach
dancing the tango
Love takes form here

Waiting for Kathryn (A Poem Prompted by Big Tent Poetry)

Sometimes we write poetry as a calming device, which is what I did when I wrote the bones of this poem ~ a list of what I was experiencing in the precise moment I was experiencing it, a list of what I was hearing, feeling, saying to myself.

I love how it ended in my writing, at the moment I was dreading, with... well, you will see when you read.

Thank you, BigTentPoetry.org for the prompt.

 

What words will I use

to describe this experience?

This meeting I never expected

to have when this day

began?

I comb through my thoughts,

ricocheting back and forth.

Am I ugly?

Will she hate me?

Will my presence

lunge her into

morry (more worry) ~

Will her presence

lunge me into

morry?

"Pray" it came to me

"Pray, this is a sacred moment."

Fruition, finally

The infinite loop de loop

of the feminine

Engorged promise

forever waiting until now

My fingers calm

my thoughts as

I write, write, write

Breathe into this.

Realities are unknown

Trust the.....

= = = = = = = =

follow me on twitter: @juliejordanscot

 

Poet's Manifesto (a work in Progress)

This theme of Manifesto has been popping up across the blogosphere so I am believing I am meant to write one. This is the beginning, thanks to Sunday Scribblings pushing me over the edge.

My manifesto will hold words like LOVE.
The dead woman's manifesto is framed with love
and has love in the center.
The dead woman is being born. Every day, more
born than the day before.
But how can that be so, she wonders.
I am dead woman.
I am born woman.
I am woman.
The poet smiles.
She is getting it.
It isn't about death.
It isn't about birth.
It is about is.
It is about am.
It is about love.
Loving being born.
Loving dying.
Loving the moments in between.
The manifesto is love
crafted into word form.
Meaning art.
Heart art.
Art being born.
Art never dying.
Poetry as ammunition.
Words as poetry.
Hand grenades, incendiary.
The poet smiles.
The poet is getting it.
Love is the ammunition.
Love is the art.
The born woman loves the poet, loves
the dead woman, loves the snoring man.
Forgives. More than she knew she could.
Loves the screaming children.
Forgives them. More than she knew she could.
The poet's manifesto is framed with love.
And has love at the center.
I am dead woman.
I am born woman.
I am woman.
The poet smiles.
She is getting it.

Follow me on Twitter: @juliejordanscot

Today's Poem: "You May Not Write the Sweetness Upon Imitation Formica"

 
There are no poetry rule books

that say "You may not write

the sweetness of sharing a

breakfast platter with Samuel

at Burger King; black against

the turquoise-blue

imitation formica table with

dried up gum pressed

furtively on its underside."

Listen as Stevie Wonder sings

muzak that "sounds hip hoppish"

says the nine-and-a-half year old

happily devouring conveyer belt pancakes

while Mommy writes it all down

She carefully documents the

circles of compressed potatoes

masquerading as Hashed Browns

The dried up bisquit and peppery

sausage patty soon-to-be made

into a Sam-of-a-kind sandwhich

"Numero Ocho" from the

counter microphone

A pregnant teen's belly

reminds me of Bethlehem

here in Bakersfield when on

Christmas Eve morning I am grateful

there is no poetry rules book that says

"You can't write that."

 
Follow me on Twitter: @juliejordanscot

 

Dangling Chairs: A Big Tent Inspired Poem

This week's prompt from Big Tent Poetry was... a Wordle.

 

Dangling Chairs

Her heart squeezes
when she immerses herself
in her performance
emotions hoarse from
spirited engines racing
within her blood
She vanishes into
character, dangling
her own past on ropes
outside of whichever
name+words  inhabit her skin
Swift she goes, topples
down, head over heels
or ankles crowding scalp
she meets the basement
with her forehead first
forgetting she was blind
for a moment, sight
not able to be translated
into anything other
than pain

Dead Woman Poem #2 (Prompted thanks to Big Tent Poetry)

I still don't know if I have figured out this form AND I have enjoyed the process. I find myself writing these in my head all the time, my inner narrator becoming the voice of The Dead Woman. Perhaps it is because I have lost another friend to cancer so recently.

Big Tent prompted me. You may see other poems from this prompt at their blog beginning on Friday.

 

This is actually the third poem I have written but since only two have been put on paper, I am titling it:

Dead Woman Poem #2

The dead woman looked at her daughter from inside the mirror.

Her daughter turned her head just slightly, inspecting her green eyes.

Was she looking for non-existent wrinkles?

The dead woman wished she could touch the skin, help her, somehow.

She waited and stared. She stared and waited.

Her daughter turned.

The dead woman would have cried if she had functioning tear ducts.

The dead woman would have chased her daughter if she had feet

The dead woman would have held on to life if she thought it was possible.

The dead woman no longer lived.

The dead woman thought, "I am not writing these poems in the right way."

The dead woman thought, "What is the right way, anyway."

The dead woman watched her daughter turn off the light

as she left for work at a job she hated.

She saw her daughter hesitate and turn, confused,

looking toward the mirror in the bathroom.

Slowly, the daughter shut the door and turned the

key from the outside.

 

+++++

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The Dead Woman Poem #1: A Thursday Poet Rally Poem After All

Hats off to BigTentPoetry who got me started on this path of Dead Man poetry. Naturally I had to write from the feminine perspective. I am sure the father of Dad Man Poetry,  Marvin Bell, won't mind. I am not submitting this for the Big Tent prompt though (I have a second in the works) and am electing to use this, instead, for the Thursday Poet's Rally.

The Dead Woman Poem #1

The dead woman does not grumble when traffic seems to stretch
the distance between her car and her destination.
She rises above the car, the traffic, the grumbling.
She uses the windshields as stepping stones, equal
opportunity Toyota Corolla, Ford Escape, ironic Escalade Hybrid
of glistening garnet red.
The dead woman looks into the faces of the mother and
daughter, ripe from Christmas Shopping.
The Daughter squirms in her seat: bored, listless, filled
with questions she is afraid to ask.
The Mother hears dialogue in her head of disappointments
and dreams unfulfilled until
her mind contorts into prayer, shouting silently to
whatever God will listen.
The dead woman speaks a silent prayer aloud that
only Divinity hears.
The daughter looks into the eyes of the Dead Woman,
seeing her silence in the dark night.

I am a....(Poetry inspired by Teresa, the Razzamadazzler)

I love when people comment on my blog posts, whether they be poetry or prose. I try to follow back and comment. I also try to make plentiful comments on the other creative websites, blogs and communities that support my creative process.

Today at the Jingle Poetry Community, Teresa wrote an "I am" poem and I had to leap in. I couldn't help myself.

 

I

I am

I am a

I am a writer, a poet, a kneader of gingerbread house frosting

I am a skunk whisperer, a lover of wood ducks, a loud laugher

I am an art hoarding, mezzosoprano, aching kneed owner of a Lhasa Apso

I am a sister, a daughter, a mother, a nudger, a cuddler, an inspirer

I am a singer, I am a seamstress, I am a painter, I am a history nut

I am a traveler, I am a watcher, I am a witness, I am a reporter

I am a prodder, I am a weaver, I am a quilter, I am a busy beaver

I am a molder of words, of children, of memories, of paper

I am a

I am

I

Love takes Form in Baking a Poem

The prompt from Jingle Poetry was to write of hobbies and passions. So much of my life work is also passion and I never think of them as hobbies. I dug  into other activities that I love that may be considered hobbies and I remembered... baking.

 

Love takes form from
measuring cups and spoons
and a very tired, inexpensive mixer
which has whipped up more cookies
and cakes and breads and breakfast
delicacies we ever thought it
would when we bought it
so cheaply, years ago

This year, different
as the holiday baking spree began
My champion helper,
the Chairperson of the
Family Excitement for the
Holidays Committee sat
studying under her gabled
college house roof while
we, 3,000 miles west

Measured and sifted and
stirred and whirred and
packaged and mailed and
crossed our fingers sending
love, in food form, to
encourage her, make her
smile, remember her
as her finals and
the end of her first
beginning draws near

Her Marbles (A One Single Impression Poem)

Prompted by One Single Impression. The word? WIN.

 


She was a lusty fifth grader who proclaimed,
"No teams. No winners. No losers!"
oh, so earnestly.

She wonders, decades later, how
she could have thought
her desire would influence the family,
gathered nearby
laughing.

"No teams? No winners? No losers?""
They howled.
They used this mantra-story-telling
for more than thirty years.
Ridiculous. Why play?

No teams.
No winners.
No losers.

Just for fun?
Just because you like it?
Just because feelings are
more important than prooving
how bad ass you are
compared to me?

That day decades before
She, the one with the
too-small hat and the
round belly, went home,
crying, after "making her
team lose again..."

Continuing the longstanding
Still active tradition
of taking her marbles
and going home
to find other playmates
who giggle as they chant:

"No teams! No winners! No losers!"