I Used To...

I used to tell stories.

Sleepy little boy bedtime stories.
Silly passing time on boring train ride stories.
Scary vampire monster bat stories.
Sexy pillow talk lover stories.

I used to tell stories.
I used to write poems.

Now,
every so often,
I capture a story
by clicking a button.

But mostly
I fumble
silently
in the dark.

Children's Poetry: Marriage Edition

As some of you may know, I'm a big fan of children's poetry.  In fact "children's poems about dirt" and "children's poems about rocks" are common search terms for my blog traffic.  (Welcome all those brought inadvertently to this post.)  I have a nice little collection of children's poetry in my library.  However when I went searching through my books for a particular poem today, it was nowhere in sight.

I have the poem stuck in my head because of an incident that occurred last night.  Pupzilla has a peculiar habit of needing to be let out as soon as both b and I are cozy and comfy in bed.  She also occasionally wakes up from a deep sleep in the middle of the night and will insist on going out to "bark it up."  A middle of the night request is almost always handled by b, since I will sleep right through it.  However when we are both awake and lying on our respective sides of the bed it really should be any one's call.  Often we will both lie there, as she huffs and clicks by the kitchen door, trying to pretend that nothing is happening.  Nine times out of ten b will get up to let her out and then back in again.  Last night he asked how it came to be his job and I told him he was just lucky that way.

But the exchange made me think of this poem that my sister and I always enjoyed (and used to recite to each other) as children. Since I couldn't find it in my collection I searched the internets and also found this lovely print.  The original page is here.

Get Up and Bar The Door

It fell about the Martinmas time
And a gay time it was then,
When our goodwife got puddings to make,
And she's boil'd them in the pan.

The wind sae cauld both south and north,
And blew into the floor,
Quoth our goodman to our goodwife,
'Gae out and bar the door.'

'My hand is in my hussyskap,
Goodman, as ye may see,
And it shou'dna be barr'd this hundred year,
It's no be barr'd for me.'

They made a paction 'tween them twa,
They made it firm and sure,
That the first word whae'er shou'd speak,
Shou'd rise and bar the door.

Then by there came two gentlemen,
At twelve o'clock at night,
And they could neither see house nor hall,
Nor coal or candlelight.

'Now whether is this a rich man's house,
Or whether is it a poor?'
But ne'er a word wad ane o' them speak,
For barring of the door.

And first they ate the white pudding,
And then they ate the black.
Tho' muckle thought the goodwife to hersel',
Yet ne'er a word she spake.

Then said the one unto the other,
'Here man tak ye my knife,
Do ye tak aff the auld man's beard,
And I'll kiss the goodwife.'

O up then started our goodman,
An angry man was he;
'Will ye kiss my wife before my e'en,
And sca'd me wi' pudding'bree'?'

Then up and start our goodwife,
Gied three steps on the floor:
'Goodman, you've spoken the foremost word,
Get up and bar the door.'

The moral of this story being: wives don't give in.

Playing In The Snow

I spent the morning playing with snow words and snow images.

Snow Day

What for others is crisp, clean,

even sparkly,

for me is barren and cold.

Waking up to an altered landscape,
your ice-laden purity,
fails to bring the allure of promise.


Instead I see a future with
streets dressed in black, brown and grey-hued
mounds of solidified exhaust

I'll build no snowmen;
I'll forgo an icy descent
belly-down on plastic,
face inches from the
slushy cold.

But you'll mock me nonetheless,
your pristine sameness interrupted
by a parade of turquoise and fuchsia wool.

I too once believed
long ago
your myths of home and hearth
of exploration and adventure
of endless beauty and wonder

But now I know you can only
blanket
the luscious pain and beauty
I've see every day.

Posted with Permission from the Author

Trek Back to 187th

That day in middle school a bully

joked about airplanes hitting buildings.

I couldn’t believe

When we sat spaced out in homeroom,

Staring at the fluorescent lights

And clock, towering over the intercom.

My name was called and father appeared

Standing outside the sunlit streets of New York.

He took my hand and pointed to

The steel smoking across the sky.

He said, this is the sight I never want you to see.

The sight of war.

We walked the streets of the city that never sleeps

And witnessed its bi-polar depression.

A women in a red dress, face wrinkled from tears,

Broken in the middle

Of the intersection. Like

A car accident, She collided with

Pavement and waited for help.

A man wedged his car door

Open blasting victims with news updates.

A couple stopped with us and

Stood around. Grim faced, crossed arms

We knew,

There was nothing we could do.

We joined a crowd.

And waited for a bus on 63rd and Lex.

Taxi’s sped past like angry

Yellow-jackets. One stopped

And a black man was first to reach it.

The driver argued against the man

And my father cried for justice

As it flew off.

That day I was afraid of sticks and stones

And towering buildings falling down on me.

-Angel, 2009

Text Message

From: Angel

Hey have you ever read Sylvia Plath. Morning song reminded me of Your poem.

Aug 13, 9:37 pm

How cool is that?

Children's Poetry

When my sisters and I were young we had a favorite book of poems: Piping Down the Valleys Wild (edited by Nancy Larrick). I was lucky enough to come across this book at a garage sale several years ago. Some of my favorites include:

Get Up and Bar the Door (Anonymous)
The Owl and the Pussycat (Edward Lear)
Cats (Eleanor Farjeon)
Every Time I Climb a Tree (David McCord)
My Shadow (Robert Louis Stevenson)
Daddy Fell Into the Pond (Alfred Noyes)
Father William (Lewis Carroll)

It was that collection and A.A. Milne that I believe fostered my love of poetry. To this day I make sure I always have a copy of When We Were Very Young in the house. Favorites from that include:

Buckingham Palace
The Four Friends
Disobedience
Rice Pudding
The King's Breakfast
Halfway Down

Poetry is meant to be read outloud. I read these and many others to Boy in his youngest years but, alas, he finally asked me to stop. Since then I've read them to the cats.

Now I know everyone loves Shel Silverstein, and I do too, but the other children's poet I adore is Jack Prelutsky. I am especially fond of his book The Dragons are Singing Tonight.