APRIL—WHAT’S LEFT OF IT—IS STILL POETRY MONTH.
Whether or not you like/don’t like/understand poetry…or not (even we don’t always “get it”), it’s okay to have an annual, albeit arbitrary reminder that poetry exists. So…we start here—somewhat in memory of the Ol’ Mess poetry contests of late—but it’s not where we stop because Topanga and its surroundings harbor poets who dedicate themselves to their art and our pages remain open year-round to the variety of literary forms that, like a wellspring, run through these mountains that we call home. Illustrations are by former Topangan Dan Mazur.
In Her Name
The ninety-year-old woman in 2A
is having an out-of-body day.
The nurses can’t stop her
from undressing and crying
for big, fat fig leaves
to cover her tree-bark skin.
When the caretakers
grab their patient,
her white hair turns black,
and her skin grows supple,
as if possessing powers
to become an early version of herself.
But this woman is Eve.
She’s not young, old, naked or dressed.
No longer attached to a self,
she belongs to future generations
who’ll spend eons punishing women
in her name.
—Jean Colonomos
Rebirth
On the day
the past
flies out of him
he slides his body
into mine
and I hear
breath unmeasured
feel air depart
in momentary
isolation
and then reenter
in shapeless
yet stirring genesis
I am no longer myself
He is no longer himself
Neither are we
each other
His heart beats
within mine
strong rhythmic twaps
and it is good
—Ellen Reich
Topanga Nomad
I see her only
Once or twice a year
Is she real?
A tall, skirted figure
Striding forward
Kerchiefed head
Layered tops
Taut backpack
A modern Gleaner
An urban nomad
Always near the woods
Never a sideways glance
She goes her way
Seems to have a destination
Appears and disappears
Like a migratory bird
Did fate push her
Force a choice to either
Scrabble along freeways
And hide in vacant lots
Or wrest dignity from humiliation
Defy cruel reality
Follow a vagabond path
Of mendicant solitude
In a woodland hermitage
—Judy Brow
A friend is someone who teaches you
something
—William, a grandson
it was never my life
and you were never my dog.
we were both penned by,
belonged to, another hand,
the I Am hand.
I Am, afoot in the cosmos,
gnarling us with a verse,
twisting out the pattern
of promise, heaving us,
bleating and barking,
onto the road.
you were never mine,
but you, friend, filled my blanks,
scored a ring, a duty into me.
I Am turns the cosmos
with syllables death could never
tarnish, with light death
could never erase.
I Am brings us, through dust
and bramble, to that intimacy
where flower and flesh fuse,
where we all, canine and human
remember, paw to petal to hand,
where we, finally, can love enough
—Ann Buxie
As Prepared for Delivery
(“Erasure” poem of Presidential Inauguration Speech 2017)
Because today we are not,
for too long, a small group,
the citizens of our country.
That all changes –
Everyone gathered here,
this, is your country.
What truly matters is
the forgotten,
the tens of millions
of Americans
across the landscape of our country,
of so much potential.
We share
the oath, an oath of
decades,
subsidized for the very sad
horizon.
One by one,
the past.
Now, looking
in every city
for
America:
our jobs, our borders, our dreams.
When you open your heart to
people,
we must, but always,
there should be no fear –
The time for empty talk is over.
Now arrives
the heart of America:
voice, hopes, dreams, destiny.
Love will forever guide us,
America.
—Millicent Borges Accardi
Erasure poems offer a way to take existing text and pull forth poetry. The ERASE-TRANSFORM Poetry Project is a platform for transforming the language issuing from the White House in the hopes that it will encourage and inspire other transformative actions.Erasure is a form of found poetry or found art created by erasing words from an existing text in prose or verse and framing the result on the page as a poem (Wikipedia). Mary Ruefle is probably one of the most well-known contemporary erasure poets. One of the tenants is that you need to erase more than 50% of the original text, to re-invent the work (otherwise it would be plagiarism).
This poem was part of The Erase-Transform Poetry Project: erase-transform.ink/blog/2017/03/19/as-prepared-for-delivery/