iwritemyself

A Bobby Soxer’s First Game by guest poet Ken Walling

iwritemyself — Fri, 24 May 2013 23:20:31 +0000

My husband knows Ken from the dog park. He wrote this for his daughter when she was on her first softball team. Ken is also a ball dude for the SF Giants!

By the luck of the draw I’m assigned a team
It’s not as bad as I thought it would seem
We were given uniforms and told when we should meet
There is so much excitement, everything seems so neat.
Our first practice comes and I’m ready to go
There’s so much about this game I did not know
I’ve got new baseball shoes and a glove to match
I hope it will help when I try to catch.
The manager and coach have a lot to say
I had better listen to what they say this day.

Cover second, back up that throw!
There’s a lot to this game I did not know
We practice and practice, will I ever get it right
When I go home I’m so tired, I’m going to bad early tonight.

We had opening day ceremonies today
Later on is our first game to play.

Now it’s our turn to play our game
This is not like practice, it’s just not the same.
there are butterflies in my stomach, and I’m as nervous as can be
I feel like everyone is staring at me.
The manager calls us in to give us starting position
She had other advice too, so I’d better listen
Oh, my gosh! I’m starting in the right field spot.
Now I know those butterflies won’t ever stop.
The girls look so big on the other team
Or is that just the way that is seems?

Maybe if I’m lucky, they won’t hit my way
Maybe I won’t even have to make a play.
We’ve got the first out, we’re doing OK
They haven’t hit one my way so far today.
Hey, batter, batter, I shout from my position
Do you think she hears me? Do you think she listens?
The next batter hits one toward me and I see where it lands
Why, all of a sudden, does it seem I have a glove on both hands?
I get the ball on one bounce, it was hit kind of low
Now, if I just don’t make an overthrow.

The play is at first, to make the third out
I don’t know how I got it there, and the team gives a shout
“Nice play” they say, “you threw a good ball”
I guess all that practice paid off after all.

I get to bat this inning, my first time at the plate.
I hope I do good, I hope I do great.
The first pitch is a strike, a pitch I look at
Now, what did the coach say about being with my bat?
I still have the butterflies, and I’m weak in the knees
The pitches are a lot faster than I thought they would be
I fouled the next one off, but got a piece of the ball
The manager yells “It was ten feet tall”
The next pitch come in, and I miss it by far
Maybe I’ll wait till next year to be a super-star.

Striking out made me feel so sad.
Everyone on the team said “That’s OK, you didn’t do so bad”
We won the game, finally, and our team was so glad
I can’t help look at the other team, they seem so sad.
each team gives the other team a cheer
We want to make ours loud enough for them to hear
I know why both teams make such a fuss
Underneath it all, the girls on the other team are just like us.

…To all girls who go through their first Bobby Sox game, from Ken Walling

drawing by Frankie Meyers

the rhythm of blue

iwritemyself — Sun, 05 May 2013 19:11:57 +0000

this is one of my favorite pieces by artist Sarah J. Curtiss. An ekphrastic poem I have written for it follows.

lost in the sway of
umpha-tumpha
umpha-tumpha
umpha-tumpha-tat

orion is electrified
the stars never felt so good sizzling into my pores
this twilight solitude is sanctuary

i hitch a ride on the beat
it carries me to that threshold
between sea and celestial
between green and violet
where I fade into the rhapsody

beyond self
beyond material
beyond the blood and the breath

beat
in accordance
tune
to the music

of the ultimate
the sacred
the spiraling deep inside
to the realm
of divinity

proof poetry is importable to politics

iwritemyself — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 17:39:54 +0000

I was cheered by the supervisors this morning who demonstrated they have a genuine love of and interest in poetry. I felt pretty important when I saw that my poem had been printed on County Letterhead and a stack was available for all the audience to take! But I could barely read my poem after Supervisor Warren Slocum surprised me by announcing that two of my poems (I don’t know which ones yet) placed FIRST and SECOND at this year’s County Fair.
I AM SO BLOWN!

i get a mention in the daily journal

iwritemyself — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 04:09:41 +0000

San Mateo County considers a Poet Laureate program!
Tomorrow I will be reading Mendocino in an Eggshell to the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors in support of approving the first-ever Poet Laureate program for our county!
Read Daily Journal article here…

viento…a reprint in honor of the crazy wind today

iwritemyself — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 22:43:14 +0000

i’m watching you
stirring everything to a frenzy
your wires crossed
you don’t know which direction you are going

flinging up dust
and whatever else you can grab onto,
charging skin electric
frazzling nerves with your silent shrieks

everything you touch, you rock
push this way and back
inside you are wailing
wailing tremors of grief
outpouring bellows from some unspeakable blow

until you stop for a moment to get your breath
and everything sucks in the calm
before you roar out again
shaking us up, clanging our fists shut

there’s no one to console you
no prayers or offerings from
we powerless observers
who have lost the art of speaking to you
except to curse your outbursts

we shrink from your emotion
annoyed at your undefined rage
slink away inside
from your venting gusts

your siren only sounds
in the velocity of your pressure
your scream is hidden
inside your force

your howls are vagrant banshees
until maybe in a day
or in a few weeks
your grief will find its resting place

you’ll reach consolation, pull your breath back into yourself
and begin to dance your easy sway again
i will feel your soft breath on my cheek
and i will feel peace is here at last.

art, courtesy of janice rocke

in response to flaming inspiration

iwritemyself — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 04:02:55 +0000

Larry Potts, an award-winning singer/songwriter surprised me with his response to my “flaming inspiration” piece. hope you enjoy it

Eros never had it so good.

Flame and desire equal elements
to inspire the artist who unconsciously remembers
what the Muse told him:

pay attention to the woman
pay homage to the woman
without her you are nothing.

Strokes on the canvas only capture
her fleeting after-passions: so very close
to what just happened:

Oh yes, she draws you out like summer heat
and your thirst is quenched
only by her passion and her perfect still union
slumbering in the ecstasy of
her freely given pleasure: what’s left in repose?

just this: color of orange fire

Photo copyright Rodger Helwig

el paso

iwritemyself — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 00:27:58 +0000

her name was Irma

y ella no habla engles

so when i got home from school i would prattle off my pigeon Spanish

and she would make me sopapillas

my brother would blow in with his junky girlfriend and a new puppy

they would fuck on my bed and it would smell like pussys and dicks

he would haul the stolen goods up to our apartment

a mounted deer head, a gold clock, bags of things and stow them

my dad would uselessly protest

Irma would disappear right when we needed her most

leaving us with piles of puppy poop and dirty sheets

then my brother would blow out again

and after dad and i were done cleaning the house

Irma would promptly return and make me sopapillas

pillows of fried flour tortillas sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon

i loved Irma.

courtesy of Ray Lobato, see more of Ray’s art at raylobatoart.com

a tepid bath with jack nicholson

iwritemyself — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 16:03:19 +0000

luke warm water roars into the bath tub
my nerves ache for that shot of relief
only blazing water can give

i release myself to float in the cowardly bath
squirming to keep my skin from making contact with the comfortless air

i bet jack nicholson doesn’t have to take tepid baths
i meditate on the medicine chest poking out like a 1970’s TV
i bet he has a recessed medicine chest and spicy hot water, never ending

i close my eyes to the shower curtain and pretend the water is luxurious enough, brave enough to give me the hot bite i want
and it comes to me that i know jack nicholson doesn’t have to be annoyed at his spouse for turning down the blasted water heater to supposedly save a few dollars

i know this because i read they live in separate houses.
he never has a spouse sneaking around like a gremlin, moving things, but especially turning water heaters down to save money
this, of course, makes me hate jack nicholson because is rich and never has to take a tepid bath

maybe if i wait long enough, the water will be hotter when I turn it on again
but, no, it’s cooler

i am going to kill my husband when he gets home
he is going to wish we lived in separate houses

there’s nothing like a tepid bath to get your blood boiling

courtesy of Sarah Curtiss, see more of Sarah’s art at http://www.graceartgroup.com

phyllis

iwritemyself — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 04:28:39 +0000

your cackle caught me like a fish hook
i was mesmerized by your audacity on that black & white set
your skinny legs
like mine

oh! your wild hair do
how dare you
in a time of Donna Reed and Patty Duke?

was it true we could be like you
stand right there laugh at the world
take the stage in all our girlness?

you were the first in my world
–the first i ever saw–
to stand there waving a cigarette holder
brave enough to be a fool
opening the door for us
didn’t wait for a man
to open it for you

you popped my imagination
awake from captain kangaroo
rubbed my ridiculous side
incited my incredulous side

you gave a few girls like me some guts, phyllis
some notion
that we could grow up
a little broader
than the women before us

you showed us how to walk a crooked line
to begin
to set everything straight

A smile is a crooked line that sets everything straight.–Phyllis Diller

prayer to gaia

iwritemyself — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 22:16:02 +0000

this is exactly
what i should be doing

splayed out on the grass soaking in the green
my toxic week leaks into mother earth
let the bitters dissolve
cajole with the underworld
and relieve the disturbances up here

mother earth sucks me hard against her bumpy surface
into her cosmic tendrils
like a sponge in a centrifuge
compost my sickness, Great Mother Gaia

pull this turmoil out of my cells and into your sacred vastness
hold me tight i surrender
i can feel your thirsty roots
wrap their lovely green arms around me

i am soaking up your green and your brown
your crystalline vibration
your wondrous gaia-ness

i surrender to you, Great Mother
my eyes drink in the green against blue
my skin against your skin

this is exactly
what i should be doing

Courtesy of Carmen Leon