I love the hilariously dark turn this took here, David! đ I'm grateful for you humor . . . but I'll try to resist the temptation to float off in a gratitude balloon.
Thanks Larry! I was hoping I wouldn't put a damper on the levity. It's interesting how such a happy poem generates comments about monsters and fiery crashes.
Oh that middle stanza, Margaret Ann! Itâs so beautiful (incandescent beings! A constellation of children!) but also drives home the unfairness and absurdity and your justified rage - as if being a factory (input stardust, output children) was your only value, and now it doesnât matter what happens to your body. I am 42 so not yet in the throes of this, but I suspect itâs not far off, and many of my friends are either in the thick of it or barely on the other side, so it comes up a lot in conversation. But how has it not been something Iâve heard and known about my whole life???
EXACTLY!!!! Or is just this ha ha joke about cranky middle-aged women. Iâm almost a quarter of the way through the book now and I think it would be valuable to own it (or something similar). Thereâs so much good information but I canât grab it fast enough. Also, âinput stardust, output childrenâ is gorgeous đ.
I LOVE your poetry about middle age and perimenopause. It feels so raw and refreshing because it's something I'm only recently starting to hear more about, and as someone who is experiencing PMDD, I worry about what my experience with it will be. I would love to know the books title, if you don't mind sharing!
Thank you, A! And of course. Keep in mind that Iâm only a little ways in (I have to take research-y non-fiction slowly or I zone out), so if this book turns out to be horrible, I will tell you! Itâs âHot and Bothered: What No One Tells You About Menopause and How to Feel Like Yourself Againâ by Jancee Dunn.
What a searing poem, Margaret. Honest and raw, piercing and true. Do not go gently into the goodnight, rage on, and keep pounding at the darkness with your poems and witness.
I know enough not to apologize for not writing a more cheerful poem, but I wish I could've come to the prompt today with a less sinister feeling to shaređ
.
I don't believe in monsters
yet I can feel the heavy breath on my neck as I back myself against a wall,
A. thank you for this poem. Like Margaret, I know this monster, and in one way or another, cionfront them every day. Sometimes it just feels like too much. My sense, also, is your poem speaks for millions of us whose inner fear and doubt collide with a world full of fear and doubt, a calamitous confrontation. I am so grateful for you being you.
âI don't willingly / feed it, but it doesn't require flesh./ It feasts instead on my fearâ - I wish I didnât know what youâre talking about, but I do!! Your poem catches the darkness and toil of anxiety and rumination so well, A.
Your poem is lovely, and though many emotions and feelings came through this day, I kept coming back to gratitude. And somehow, after I first posted this, a second poem emerged!
It's amazing how fleeting even the most intense feelings can be, isn't it? Your poems have me appreciating the transience of every emotion - the ones we enjoy and the ones we don't! It also seems to me that certain emotions leave a trail behind them (like gratitude and joy) so that even when they seem suddenly vanished, you can find your way back to them, and the more you walk that trail, the clearer the path becomes. Both of your poems seemed to speak to this . . . and they are both lovely, Larry!
Everyone seems to have a different process to create their poems. For me, I have no process. My words may be inspired by a thought or sight or experience but if a poem is created it just springs out like Athena from the head of Zeus.
That often feels like how it goes for me, too, Jim! For a while, a poem had to happen pour out from start to finish within a few minutes, or it wouldnât get written at all. Itâs been interesting to try being more deliberate about the whole thing - sometimes it works for me and sometimes it doesnât. Itâs rare that I write a poem based on a formal prompt - instead I just come up with relevant prompts to share after Iâve already written a poem!
This is lovely, Lisa. I too love the Substack poetry community. It was so unexpected, to find something like this, with such generosity of spirit, online. This is a precious place.
Thank you for this lovely, lyrical tribute to the community. And moreover, thank you for bringing it into existence last January...what a gift it has been. I went to the sea shore yesterday, the first time in several years. So, your offering of a blank canvas on which to paint a grateful heart was perfectly timed.
I'm so glad you got your day on the coast, friend!!! And I'm so glad we get to be treated to the poem that emerged from it. I love the sudden and powerful wave of your ending - "it all crests and crashes over me / recklessly swelling my senses until / gratitude rushes to join the surf."
Study in Gratitude
David Angel
Soaring, grateful, waving hi
From my balloon up in the sky
A power trestle floated by
Sadly, now I'm waving bye
Flipped around high tension wires
The whole contraption caught on fire
Unlike birds, I cannot fly
My etude, practicing to die
My wife will need a lawyer
My car will need a buyer
I hear an angel singing flat
Hope she won't be in the choir
Copyright Šī¸ 2024, David Angel, All Rights Reserved
I love the hilariously dark turn this took here, David! đ I'm grateful for you humor . . . but I'll try to resist the temptation to float off in a gratitude balloon.
Thanks, Lisa. I appreciate it. Thanks for the fun prompt!
Thank you David. This one clearly made me smile and chuckle. I do fully expect lots of out of tune angels in my choir!
Thanks Larry! I was hoping I wouldn't put a damper on the levity. It's interesting how such a happy poem generates comments about monsters and fiery crashes.
Rage in middle age
.
Iâm listening to a book on perimenopause.
Itâs good. Iâm nodding along, mental notes
all that stuff. But I canât listen to it for very long
without getting so angry that I feel like my face
is a red balloon about to pop. Why is this topic
still kept in the dark like a closet skeleton
the thing we cannot say and cannot name
until it hits each of us like a freight train?
.
I gave birth to six incandescent beings
whom I am told all the time
are each made of stardust.
But now that I have provided the world
with a constellation of children
why does the buck stop
right at the doorstep of middle age?
.
Am I going to flounder from here on out
in a maze with no ball of string, and a minotaur
around every corner, drowning in my own dry fire
pursued by invisible bugs biting my skin
haunted by thoughts that I havenât done enough
each month until I give up?
Oh that middle stanza, Margaret Ann! Itâs so beautiful (incandescent beings! A constellation of children!) but also drives home the unfairness and absurdity and your justified rage - as if being a factory (input stardust, output children) was your only value, and now it doesnât matter what happens to your body. I am 42 so not yet in the throes of this, but I suspect itâs not far off, and many of my friends are either in the thick of it or barely on the other side, so it comes up a lot in conversation. But how has it not been something Iâve heard and known about my whole life???
EXACTLY!!!! Or is just this ha ha joke about cranky middle-aged women. Iâm almost a quarter of the way through the book now and I think it would be valuable to own it (or something similar). Thereâs so much good information but I canât grab it fast enough. Also, âinput stardust, output childrenâ is gorgeous đ.
I LOVE your poetry about middle age and perimenopause. It feels so raw and refreshing because it's something I'm only recently starting to hear more about, and as someone who is experiencing PMDD, I worry about what my experience with it will be. I would love to know the books title, if you don't mind sharing!
Thank you, A! And of course. Keep in mind that Iâm only a little ways in (I have to take research-y non-fiction slowly or I zone out), so if this book turns out to be horrible, I will tell you! Itâs âHot and Bothered: What No One Tells You About Menopause and How to Feel Like Yourself Againâ by Jancee Dunn.
Oh, yes, I'd love to hear what you think about it and if you end up finding any others you feel are worth checking out. Thanks so much for sharing!
What a searing poem, Margaret. Honest and raw, piercing and true. Do not go gently into the goodnight, rage on, and keep pounding at the darkness with your poems and witness.
Thank you, Larry. Iâm a late learner but Iâm determined to figure this stuff out as much as I can (and tell my daughters).
That is what sage âeldersâ do! đ
đ
I know enough not to apologize for not writing a more cheerful poem, but I wish I could've come to the prompt today with a less sinister feeling to shaređ
.
I don't believe in monsters
yet I can feel the heavy breath on my neck as I back myself against a wall,
I am trapped, turning my head
from side to side to avoid catching scent of
the putrid remains of every dream
left limping or forgotten in the face of this
looming terror. I don't willingly
feed it, but it doesn't require flesh.
It feasts instead on my fear, which seems
to flow more freely from me than the
marrow that makes my blood.
I can only swallow,
can only breathe, shaky and slow,
only wait for it to move on,
knowing that it will - as it always does -
leaving me tear-streaked and empty.
I don't believe in monsters
except the ones in my head,
which are far harder to slay than
any living beast.
Oh A--I get this monster so much. These lines really got to me:
"It feasts instead on my fear, which seems
to flow more freely from me than the
marrow that makes my blood."
Thank you, Margaret Ann! I'm sorry you can relate. đ§Ą
A. thank you for this poem. Like Margaret, I know this monster, and in one way or another, cionfront them every day. Sometimes it just feels like too much. My sense, also, is your poem speaks for millions of us whose inner fear and doubt collide with a world full of fear and doubt, a calamitous confrontation. I am so grateful for you being you.
Thank you, Larry. I'm so grateful for you being you, too. đ§Ą
âI don't willingly / feed it, but it doesn't require flesh./ It feasts instead on my fearâ - I wish I didnât know what youâre talking about, but I do!! Your poem catches the darkness and toil of anxiety and rumination so well, A.
I agree. I think most of my anger also comes from either fear or pain (or a combination of the two).
It is when I feel
your presence soaring
with me.
with us.
Soaring high.
Soaring magnificently.
Soaring triumphantly.
Over each and every brick wall
showstopper,
no matter how doomy, gloomy
sinister & ominous,
without ever losing a tic on the metronome of the moment.
It is when i feel
that invincible heart full
of confidence
that comes from realizing
you are in the house with me,
and nothing will stop this show.
It is when I feel
my spirit tingle.
Then I know
I have both feet firmly planted
on creator's good road.
Thanks.
"Without ever losing a tic on the metronome of the moment" - how I love this line!!
Hi Lisa,
Your poem is lovely, and though many emotions and feelings came through this day, I kept coming back to gratitude. And somehow, after I first posted this, a second poem emerged!
Gratitude
^
Some days my dancing feet explode,
spirit takes flight,
skin tingles with the rush of joy;
I am so grateful to be alive.
To be here,
Grateful for you and you and you.
For each precious and sacred moment.
Other days the haze is thick and life murky,
hopelessness knocks loudly at the door
despair plays its refrain outside
the windows of my heart.
Often on those days
I am most grateful.
It is then that the blessings that rise from
the smoldering ashes of my misery
shine more clearly,
vision sharpens, clarity unfolds.
It is then
the words âthank youâ
find their way to my soul.
^
Joy
^
Joy
Joy comes easily on the good days,
light and fluffy,
bright and ebullient,
glowing from within
and shining without.
Its absence is a cosmic trickster ploy
ready to convince
there is no reason to hope,
no peace to be found,
no healing in the land.
A soft voice quietly whispers,
âEven in the darkness there are glimmers,
Even in the shadows there is light.
Even in this broken heart, there is love.â
It's amazing how fleeting even the most intense feelings can be, isn't it? Your poems have me appreciating the transience of every emotion - the ones we enjoy and the ones we don't! It also seems to me that certain emotions leave a trail behind them (like gratitude and joy) so that even when they seem suddenly vanished, you can find your way back to them, and the more you walk that trail, the clearer the path becomes. Both of your poems seemed to speak to this . . . and they are both lovely, Larry!
Grateful for you, friend. đ
Everyone seems to have a different process to create their poems. For me, I have no process. My words may be inspired by a thought or sight or experience but if a poem is created it just springs out like Athena from the head of Zeus.
That often feels like how it goes for me, too, Jim! For a while, a poem had to happen pour out from start to finish within a few minutes, or it wouldnât get written at all. Itâs been interesting to try being more deliberate about the whole thing - sometimes it works for me and sometimes it doesnât. Itâs rare that I write a poem based on a formal prompt - instead I just come up with relevant prompts to share after Iâve already written a poem!
This is lovely, Lisa. I too love the Substack poetry community. It was so unexpected, to find something like this, with such generosity of spirit, online. This is a precious place.
So unexpected and so wonderful! Long may it live!
I like the exuberant big old hug feel of all of this
Thank you, Weston! I definitely felt and meant it as an exuberant big old hug!
A huge thank you back, Lisa.
đ§Ąđ§Ąđ§Ą
You've captured gratitude so beautifully here. The last stanza made me teary.
Finally! Revenge for all the times your poems have gotten me all choked up! đ
đ¤Ŗ as if this is even remotely the first time you've made me cry!
I see you waving thanks, Lisa! And a wave back from here--you are welcome and thank you!
đđđ
From the (perceived) perspective of a friend:
.
I picked this path and I wouldnât
walk it back, there is a reason for this
as everything, there is a will
unwalled, as bright as the sun
.
But I packed for a blink
and instead got a gradual dimming
as the canyon stuck me
and the world moved on
.
Now I peck for salvation:
Little signs that I belong to someone,
that all this sweat is blessed,
that I am almost there
I can feel the dimming light in this poem and a sense of loss and yearning - beautiful!
....parachutes of candy......đ....
I mean, what could be better than that?!?
Thank you for this lovely, lyrical tribute to the community. And moreover, thank you for bringing it into existence last January...what a gift it has been. I went to the sea shore yesterday, the first time in several years. So, your offering of a blank canvas on which to paint a grateful heart was perfectly timed.
***
I can barely take it in,
dulled as Iâve become
from decades
of dissociative defense.
But today, I do.
The briny, ionized breeze
cools my sun-kissed skin,
floats up to my nose like
the down of a seagull.
How is this sea breeze not
sulfurous, but sweet
like the perfume that ought
to be, butâs not,
wafting from so many beds
of decadent dahlias,
zaftig zinnias and
sanguine sunflowers?
Bloated bees drunk on pollen
plunder and pillage while
the gardens remain
unbearably generous,
unflappably gracious.
Every molecule of this
plays and sways so easily,
floating above the harbor of blue sequins,
lobster traps and sloops.
Without warning,
it all crests and crashes over me,
recklessly swelling my senses until
gratitude rushes to join the surf.
I'm so glad you got your day on the coast, friend!!! And I'm so glad we get to be treated to the poem that emerged from it. I love the sudden and powerful wave of your ending - "it all crests and crashes over me / recklessly swelling my senses until / gratitude rushes to join the surf."
Oh, I'm so jealous. I miss the sea. It always brings up gratitude for me as well.