Lovin' Baby Girl

 I was a lovin' baby girl

wrapped in the pages of a million old books.

lonesome as the last day of winter,

bright as a penny on the sill in sunlight.

It took me a long time, wandering midnight walks

solitary as Sunday, blue as a pound dog,

to know I was different inside my head

with its all-night jukebox and pocket poets jam.

I was a lovin' baby girl

who thought love was hearts and flowers

hidden in a busker's guitar case

so I ran out barefoot in the strange streets, looking.

I was just a girl, giving it all away,

even the words that fell from my mind.

and I wore away like sea glass

curled on a Great Lakes beach, inside a bottle.

I was a lovin baby girl

who stopped keeping secrets from herself,

once again the child who couldn't shut up,

the one I was, now with a poem behind every bloom. 

I'm still solitary as Sunday, but I haven't been always,

blue as a pound dog, but not as often. 

If I walk the beach, it's in the morning, with a smile

rolling out poems like waves on shoreline, a natural wonder.

______

for What's Going On? -- What is "it" about poetry?  Poetry and music have always been inextricably linked for me. I notice a number of poets today writing about songs they love. Music was and is integral to my life.  This poem is an homage to several songs I loved when I was young and still do. 

The main one I wrote from here is called Second Story Window, sung by Rita Coolidge. Her first solo album was the second LP I ever bought and I still have that same copy. This song was written by Marc Benno; his version: 

The title and repeated line is from Lovin' Baby Girl by Melanie Safka, a song I have referenced in my tags fairly often.

I was just a girl, giving it all away, is an homage to Leo Sayer's Giving It All Away. An anthem of my early adulthood.  

The song is more joyful these days as one thing has built upon the last. And the poetry is something that has only become more satisfying over time. 

Word Garden Word List--Save Yourself

 

Hello my stylish scaredy cats! It is time once again for your weekly Word List, and this time our source is the novel "Save Yourself" by Kelly Braffet. I read it a few years ago and absolutely loved it. She has such a sharp eye for the nuances of relationships, and is quite good at creating an uneasy atmosphere as well. 

I didn't even know, when I read her novel, that Kelly Braffet is married to Owen King, author son of Stephen King. Don't think for a minute, though, that nepotism got this one published; it's a great read. I purely lucked out in finding it in the local used book kiosk! My copy will never be in the book pound again, though. I'm keeping it in my hot little hands. 

What we do here is to use at least 3 of the 20 words provided in a new original poem of our own. Then just link up, visit others, and then go hide in the dark with a good book. This prompt stays active through Sunday. Enjoy!

Your List:

bandages

bitter

brain

brightly

candy

chick

clean

loathsome

mailers

nonchalant

object

rings

signatures

soap

solace

stereo

urge

vibe

vivid

zombie

Orbit and Waterfowl

 

Here are we, in our clean white smocks

carrying our easels

waddling in flocks

freed by signatures, approved by weasels

with keys to all the locks.

Gone in a group, out to the duck pond

chicks watching chicks

circling around

like the melt around ceremonial wicks

we the lost, them the found.

We who ate bitter oftener than sweet

who had enough

and beat our feet

into shadows where we flicker and huff

sentient suns in setting concrete.

_______

for Word Garden Word List--Save Yourself

Music: Gnarls Barkley Crazy 

Seaside Jump Rope Chant

 

Take me down to ocean side

where sirens work in vending stalls

selling sea glass by the pound

and tide crabs leave their gazing balls.

I was young once, for an instant

and strewed my bones with bright confetti

made myself a red flag flying

as storm surge overtopped the jetty.

I married well, a starfish navvy

who built the seaside park their Ferris

They paid his labor with box jellies

who by their envy made him perish.

I asked the sirens for a chocolate

to hide from gulls who ate the season

when I was halfway into evening

and honey sunset let the bees in.

Take me down to ocean side

bring the digger in common clothes

to move the sand and move me on

in my folded-handed pose.

________

The Vivid Dead

 

I am fascinated by you, the vivid dead

winding wire around every bud in the garden

fearing poison in every innocent bed.

Making olive of jade and maroon of red

mixing invitation with heirloom toxin

I am fascinated by you, the vivid dead.

Staking a world with only frayed gray thread

hoarding every sweet fruit left to harden

fearing poison in every innocent bed.

Mixing sugar and rot into every word said

a borer warden of self without pardon

I am fascinated by you, the vivid dead.

Silence the dust-tongue kept in your head

and lie with your twin the idiot watchman

fearing poison in every innocent bed

I am fascinated by you, the vivid dead.

______

A villanelle. 

Music:  Michael Kiwanuka Cold Little Heart

April Begins In A Graveyard

 

April begins in a graveyard

the stasis of winter broken.

Bold dandelion hold my heart

and everything said and unspoken.

I have done this, and that,

often for the last time.

I go gray as the sun moves over me

arranging my bones in rhyme.

Let the lawn grow long and wild, 

the caretaker drunk on his stool.

The old oaks must scoff at upstart April

and at me, a philosophizing fool.

April begins in a graveyard

with its bees more proud than the dead.

Let me doze on a bench in the half-shade

with my hand on the book still unread.

________

For What's Going On?--"April"

Music: Simon & Garfunkel The Dangling Conversation

Laika

 

Looking up through the trees in my yard at night,

what does it matter that the stars we see are already dead?*

I look to God as my dog looks to me.

Still there? Good. Anything you want me to do?

Sometimes I think about Laika, the Russian space dog,

so happy (as I imagine) to be rescued from a pound,

given a job and a pack. Did she look to them

as my dog looks to me and I look to God?

They sent Laika into space though there were no sticks,

no fields, no soft bed, no pack to go with her.

She must have wondered where everyone went,

and been so bewildered and lonely.

Who's a good dog?  Oh, you were, Laika.

My own dog looks to me as I look up to God

in tears and asking, still there?  

----

*required line written by Amy Woolard

for Dverse Prosery--Amy Woolard, hosted by my friend Dora. I don't normally write prose anymore, but made an exception. 

Music: Tom Rosenthal It's OK