Three Minute Poems

The messy results of a timed writing prompt response circle. The basic idea is that you are given both a title and a series of words that you are forced to incorporate. The words that I know I was forced to include are highlighted here. For your giggles and enjoyment.

[A dream about] [my work life] 

The wet morning whispers,
good morning!
Serene mist.
Pull on devoted muck boots in the mudroom,
and slip out into the air.

Love for those inside,
but also energetic motivation for the girls,
in the warm clucking coop,
and the putrid yet productive goat pin.
Love and scraps for the bunnies,
and last night's leftovers,
for the ground turning pigs.

 [A vision for] [my family]

If his nerves can ever be settled, 

we can have our hands devotedly clasped, 

never glancing at his apprehensive "what ifs", 

instead resting our backs, 

trusting, 

against the gnarled surface of the trunk, 

of the old tree in our yard. 

Watching our happy children play, 

my daughter, or son, 

heling their sister climb up the branches, 

of the gnarled but peaceful family tree. 

 [Padlock] 

No fence, 

     no gate,

           no lock. 

My home is a safe, 

     a box. 

           locked tight. 

     locks.

            tightly checked. 

But my garden has no fence. 

No locks. 

Come eat from it. 

Consume handfuls of lettuce. 

Mouthfuls of scrambled eggs with fresh chard. 

He should kneel here. 

She should eat here. 

No war. A garden. 

No bounderies - no locks. 

We should eat here. 

This garden

[Eyeball] 

Look down upon the angsty, 

dilemma ridden mess, 

we have begat ourselves. 

Civilization. 

Do not rock me gentle across your cradle. 

This mess we stand in is appalling, 

choking our live, 

every future impossible. 

Shelters, 

the paranoid hopes of those able bodies watching this, 

mess, 

unfold from the shady sidelines. 

Daily oil-feasting grocery store trips from those,

unnoticing of the impending drama. 

[Cellphone]

A decade ago, 

I craved the phone. 

Electronic communication with cute boys, 

the whole internet lighting up an exciting world, 

into my daily moments, 

of livingroom. 

What now I crave, with anticipation, 

is dark silence. 

No screen. No blue glow. 

Just the world and a single cute boy, 

shivering in the water. 

Dancing on the dark ridge behind the tent,
escaping what,
static noise we can.

[A desire][for my future]

As fall winds blow,
desolate loneliness,
in with the season,
logical contentedness in the present,
is lost.

Wishes for the future,
press so deep into my daily moments,
terrified my fertility is flying by.
Making my own,
fears of abandonment,
the villan.

Sippin' and craftin'.

I have been craving some arts and crafts time lately. For a while I was working the desk shift at work, which involves a lot of sitting and waiting for people to decide to come in. There was a good deal of crochet happening, feeling good on my fingers. But recently I have been having another woman work that job, while I bop around being busy.

I am starting to notice little prompts in my environment, begging me to set up a studio space at my new house.

Today these sort of lame t-shirts caught my eye while I was out. They are clearly inspired by old linoleum block prints, and it made my fingers itch to carve into the soft medium.

But one project at a time. This evenings project involves a glass of Rex-Goliath merlot and a lot of slip knots.

I can't show you the big pictures of my newest project, since it is going to a friend that may read this. But I can tell you you that it involves  3, 300 slip knots. I am 1,977 knots in. Over half way there!

Rex-Goliath and slip knots, here I come.

Syn.

I am struggling with a heavy load of cognitive discomfort this evening.  I am seeking balance between what I believe is the best path for myself and what choices I believe other have to (and need) to make for themselves.

I live and work very near a pawn shop in Springfield that has begun selling "Syn". Syn is one the the K2-like synthetic cannabinoids that has popped up recently. They are legal, for periods of time, but their long-term impacts on the mind and body are unclear. Check out this article for a quick (mainstream media) view of what is going on with these drugs.

My main concern with Syn, compared to marijuana, is that it seems to attract a different group of people. I know pot heads, and the people smoking this drug look less like pot heads and more like junkies. I have also, in the context of my job, seen several people suffering from psychotic breaks or paranoid episodes who recently smoked Syn. Syn worries me, as it seems to bring out the worst in the shufflers of the city streets.

As soon as the neighborhood pawn shop started selling this drug the character of the neighborhood changed dramatically. Cars are lined up to purchase this drug before the shop even opens, and pedestrians loiter near the shop after it is closed. There are always five or ten different people outside the shop, openly smoking this drug (as you would weed, rolled up in cigars or papers) in their cars.

I am responsible for an older warehouse that is across the street from the pawn shop. I have asked dozens, if not hundreds, of people to move when they are parked in our parking spots. I have run off homeless people smoking Syn against our loading dock. I pick up dozens of pieces of trash (Syn wrappers, cigar wrappers, and food wrappers) each day. Our garage doors have been tampered with. The warehouse has been peed on, since the pawn shop does not have a public restroom.

Today the first piece of graffiti showed up on our building.

I painted over the graffiti as soon as it appeared, Broken Window Theory up in this bitch. 

Still, I am at my wits end with this parade of degradation. I have always preached tolerance and legalization, but lately I find myself wishing that the City of Springfield would just hurry up and criminalize this junk. 

No simple answers, no plans. Just an imbalance, an excess of cognitive dissonance. 

Bacon, Blue Cheese, and 'Bama.

Just coming off the mend of a crazy flu. What better to way to spend the evening than gulping down good ol' fashioned comfort food with your baby, and watching two potential Presidents duke it out on Youtube?

I made a blue cheese and bacon casserole. It was mainly potatoes, but tasted wicked good. Served up with green beans and an apple and poppy seed salad it was relatively healthy, too.

Okay, not *that* healthy.

The debates were, well, the debates. Heartlessly depressing because you know ONE of those two men are going to hold all the power of the free world in their claws for the next four years. Slightly reinforcing because Obama is clearly the better choice, and seemed to come out swinging this time around.

At least we had bacon.