It’s POETRY TIME. Here’s some poetry based on the poetry of Reginald Gibbons and Marie Howe.
Poetry by Chrissy Schreiber in the style of Reginald Gibbons:
Older
Once I
thought you were kind.
We went
together like
cocoa
and vanilla,
tune and
lyrics. You were
the best.
Easy laughter,
safety,
sweet music. I
blossomed,
cocoon into
butter-
fly, bud to rose.
A train,
once broken down
on a
bridge, now moving.
Now I
am me, you are
you, we
are not us. I
am me,
but you are not
you. Once
you were a hymn,
full of
praise and glory,
hope for
something more, but
now I
am minuscule.
But I
am not an ant.
And you,
not a giant.
Human.
Buzz
Here danger lies
– Pindar
After fighting, screaming to be heard
over the din of kitchen pots
and pans, a cacophony of
metal and the confusion
of multiple people laughing – all at the
same time – and the rustle
of your sheets – silence is loud.
All you have left are thoughts
thoughts in your head in your head
echoing echoing. Nothing is louder than
the thoughts that bounce around in this
prison cage made of me. No,
that can’t be right – I’m not the cage,
I’m in the cage. All I can hear are the bees buzzing around in my brain, this tiny
monkey thing that is definitely a cage.
Once second I’m hearing bees and then
I’m thinking about the bees, and then
I’m thinking I am the bees – what if they’re
really there? The swarm would
splatter against my skull. My brain
would swell to numbness – oblivion, sleep.
Sweet, like honey.
The Rainbow Bridge
There is a tunnel that curves
through every color on the spectrum.
Green to blue to purple,
eventually to black, because
that’s really what you see
when you die. Not light but darkness.
You don’t see memories, you see
color – every color contained in
light, every shade you could not see,
it’s all light and color and light.
Like a shrimp, curled into its shell,
you harden into a crust but for the
light your mortal self could not see.
Dying is not like falling asleep –
it is not like dreaming, or like a light
at the end of the tunnel. It is darkness,
an eventually, light again, after
your triumphant return into the arms
of another set of loving parents. Or
not loving parents. Light is not
always a good thing.
Your heartbeat is your soul
scratching away at its prison, trapped here.
Out-of-body experiences are when your soul
escapes for a moment or two, but
all souls escape, if only fleetingly; plucking and
snipping heartstrings until the shell is broken,
finally, on a cold metal table in the dark.
Poetry by Jacquie Burckley in the style of Marie Howe:
My Nighttime Routine
I peel the skin off my hands and set the pieces on the table.
They lay translucent in the orange, nightlight glow.
Next I untie my tongue and hang it over the armoire
to remind myself not to forget it, because fewer words
are used when living alone, my throat cloudy. My nose is snipped
by kitchen shears, stained from years of nights like these,
my ears unhooked from their clasps, hung next to my rubies.
The covers neatly tucked, some semblance of uniformity and
finally I pry my eyeballs from their cavities, place them
on the bedside table, and wait for the warmth of the sun
to tell me it’s time to go.
Copper Buttons
I like to run my fingers through the button drawer
that my father
kept
away in his dresser
some are plastic and others copper
and some are even tweed.
they feel cold against my skin like black beetles
crawling, but
these bugs will not bite me.
My Bedroom Mirror
Light, but not light enough,
but black is far too bright.
My sleeves drip with contempt as I tear them off me;
I try a second wear but this one shimmers with
submission, and that doesn’t fit quite right either.
I tried to build my own armor, but the metal is too soft
and the fabric cuts deep.
This one is too small and that one is too composed,
and when the churning ceases and the sand settles,
I’m reminded that the mirror has three faces.
(Read) Between the Vines 