Category: poem

Spring

best poetry podcast by poet
Carrie Does Poems
Spring
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Hi! This year (2023), I’m continuing my quest to share a poem on my blog and podcast and read it aloud. It’s all a part of my quest to be brave and apparently the things that I’m scared about still include:

  1. My spoken voice
  2. My raw poems.

Thanks for being here with me and cheering me on, and I hope that you can become braver this year, too!

For Anne & Maxine

Why is it that the dead

Never listen to my pillow talk?

I am tired, but can’t sleep

Again and again and again.

You snore next to me

And occasionally twitch

As the dog snuggles in between us,

Released from her crate

Because she cries so much.

Again and again and again,

Why is that my whines

Never wake anyone up?

Not even myself.

This poem is (I think) part of me delving into a character of a young adult novel work in progress.

Spring

My nerves are jangled, frayed.

Panic touches the under layers

of all my skin, and I take off,

breezing past Jackie and Joe

in as fast a walk as I’m capable of

without actually running.

“I’m out of here.”

            I announce this

like I’m some kind of bad ass.

Spoiler: I am not a bad ass.

If I was a bad ass, I wouldn’t write poems under a pseudonym;

I’d be able to pass a damn driver’s test.

“How are you going to get home?” Jackie calls after me.

“I’ll walk.”

“It’s five miles,” she yells.

“Just go to work. I’m fine.”

And that’s it; that’s as much yelling back through the halls that I’m capable of. I’ve turned a corner and am pounding down the stairs, hanging onto the handrail as I go down, down, down even though the bannister is probably covered in germs from everyone else hanging onto it. I let go and unbalance hits me.

This world is pain.

This world is me

lacking balance.

This…

I am two seconds away from crying as I move past people and push through the doors. The outside air is a little cold. Spring has barely sprung. But it’s full of promise, normally, the smell of dirt losing its frozen solid nature, the buds on the trees popping through the tiniest twiggy limbs.

Branches.

They aren’t limbs.

They are branches.

“I don’t know how to exist,” I whisper as I start walking.

“I don’t know how to exist in all this life.”

There you go. That’s the thing.

            I don’t know how to exist in this life.

            I don’t know how to survive in this life.

            How do I spring?

Hey, thanks for listening to Carrie Does Poems.

The music you hear is made available through the creative commons and it’s a bit of a shortened track from the fantastic Summer Spliff by Broke for Free.

The Apple

best poetry podcast by poet
Dogs Are Smarter Than People: Writing Life, Marriage and Motivation
The Apple
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Hi! This year (2023), I’m continuing my quest to share a poem on my blog and podcast and read it aloud. It’s all a part of my quest to be brave and apparently the things that I’m scared about still include:

  1. My spoken voice
  2. My raw poems.

Thanks for being here with me and cheering me on, and I hope that you can become braver this year, too!

For Anne & Maxine

Why is it that the dead

Never listen to my pillow talk?

I am tired, but can’t sleep

Again and again and again.

You snore next to me

And occasionally twitch

As the dog snuggles in between us,

Released from her crate

Because she cries so much.

Again and again and again,

Why is that my whines

Never wake anyone up?

Not even myself.

The apple fell to the ground
joining the others; rotting
had already begun the way it does.
We all fall and crack. 

On the wire a squirrel ran to the right,
green apple in her mouth, prized
obviously, bigger than her head. Another
fell before a second squirrel appeared, apple
in mouth, bounding on the wire to the left this time. 

I know I’m not the squirrels. I know
I am not an apple (though I feel round lately), 
but I gather things too big to hold and drop 
so many, bringing them to the road 
where they’ll be carried off 
by others or maybe smooshed under 
wheels of cars or just left to rot. 
I know. I’m not the apple 
rolling aimlessly 
until I can’t move anymore.
I know.

Hey, thanks for listening to Carrie Does Poems.

The music you hear is made available through the creative commons and it’s a bit of a shortened track from the fantastic Summer Spliff by Broke for Free.

Parent Not Expected

best poetry podcast by poet
Carrie Does Poems
Parent Not Expected
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Hi! This year (2023), I’m continuing my quest to share a poem on my blog and podcast and read it aloud. It’s all a part of my quest to be brave and apparently the things that I’m scared about still include:

  1. My spoken voice
  2. My raw poems.

Thanks for being here with me and cheering me on, and I hope that you can become braver this year, too!

For Anne & Maxine

Why is it that the dead

Never listen to my pillow talk?

I am tired, but can’t sleep

Again and again and again.

You snore next to me

And occasionally twitch

As the dog snuggles in between us,

Released from her crate

Because she cries so much.

Again and again and again,

Why is that my whines

Never wake anyone up?

Not even myself.

Parent Not Expected

I know nothing about the weather 
I was born in or how the sky whispered 
or stormed. I know nothing 
about the man who helped make me, 
other than his name and he smoked 
cigarettes, constantly, until he got skin 
cancer.  I know his mother had thick, 
dark hair, immigrated here, which was so different 
from the story of my birth certificate
and the ancestors who had been here 
for centuries, taking their time to take 
the land. I know nothing about how 
my mother struggled to hide the secret of me. 
My nose gave me away. My quirky clothes gave me 
away. The way I didn’t fit gave me away. I know nothing 
of the people who came before
me on one side, grandparents, 
great-grandparents, random uncles 
and aunts, their pains. They are unknown 
stories. They are wind that I can’t feel. They are
stars that don’t tell their secrets. 
I am their secret and they are mine.

Hey, thanks for listening to Carrie Does Poems.

The music you hear is made available through the creative commons and it’s a bit of a shortened track from the fantastic Summer Spliff by Broke for Free.

The Lettuce

best poetry podcast by poet
Carrie Does Poems
The Lettuce
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Hi! This year (2023), I’m continuing my quest to share a poem on my blog and podcast and read it aloud. It’s all a part of my quest to be brave and apparently the things that I’m scared about still include:

  1. My spoken voice
  2. My raw poems.

Thanks for being here with me and cheering me on, and I hope that you can become braver this year, too!

For Anne & Maxine

Why is it that the dead

Never listen to my pillow talk?

I am tired, but can’t sleep

Again and again and again.

You snore next to me

And occasionally twitch

As the dog snuggles in between us,

Released from her crate

Because she cries so much.

Again and again and again,

Why is that my whines

Never wake anyone up?

Not even myself.

The Lettuce

Again this summer 
I’ve forgotten to harvest 
the lettuce that we planted
when the ground was barely workable, 
warm enough to support the tenderness 
of seedlings, brown, pale, and white, barely 
opening to the world, the air, the sun. 

We are still human, he tells me, even though I think 
that we may be losing whatever it is that makes humans human? 
Humanity seems a fickle word now that pundits use it 
to talk about the unfurling of threats, bombs, lies. The lettuce,

when you forget to harvest, shoots up 
like it’s trying to reach the sky, but it rots
from the outside and in towards the core, 
slowly taking over the joy of green, crisp leaves.

We are like this. Everything greens and grows and rots 
when we aren’t looking. Democracies,
romaine, bibb, souls, humanities. 
How can I forget to harvest the lettuce? 
Why do we plant it at all?

Hey, thanks for listening to Carrie Does Poems.

The music you hear is made available through the creative commons and it’s a bit of a shortened track from the fantastic Summer Spliff by Broke for Free.

Everything Makes Us Scared

best poetry podcast by poet
Carrie Does Poems
Everything Makes Us Scared
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Hi! This year (2023), I’m continuing my quest to share a poem on my blog and podcast and read it aloud. It’s all a part of my quest to be brave and apparently the things that I’m scared about still include:

  1. My spoken voice
  2. My raw poems.

Thanks for being here with me and cheering me on, and I hope that you can become braver this year, too!

For Anne & Maxine

Why is it that the dead

Never listen to my pillow talk?

I am tired, but can’t sleep

Again and again and again.

You snore next to me

And occasionally twitch

As the dog snuggles in between us,

Released from her crate

Because she cries so much.

Again and again and again,

Why is that my whines

Never wake anyone up?

Not even myself.

Everything Makes Us Scared




The professor and his wife argue about the party though they love 
each other.  Chairs are meant to be where exactly 
on the porch? Burgers pre-made or created on site?

He’s a hippie from the Marines. Everywhere is danger, 
possibilities of pain. He wasn’t in a lot of war, but it was enough,
enough to know that things can become out of control 

if you don’t take care. She just wants people to talk, mingle, to eat 
grilled vegetables and be happy, to have a moment away 
from fears and worries of this year, this country, this culture.

He says he isn’t worried. He’s older. He’s seen worse. And when the first guests
come to the party, he knows no-one. They are the mommies, he says. The daycare people. 
Her friends. He lumbers off to the side. 
The charcoal doesn’t light. Of course. Everyone stares.

The grill’s gas is low. Their daughter, three, twirls in circles, studies 
the people, twirls again, a perfect mix of caring too much, caring too little, 
the joy of being alive and chocolate cupcakes with sprinkles and the worry 

of so many faces in her backyard. The mom, she is decades younger;
she’s cleaned the forest of wood, picking it up in the days leading to 
the party. So many potential weapons. A little boy 
takes a ball, pummels another. 

A man says scathing things to his wife, 
cutting her down in warning. 
So many threats. We watch it all. My back 
goes up against the wall of the house, 
spine hitting shingles. They talk about pandemics, 
violence. So many threats. We murmur our agreement. 

Everything. Everything makes us scared.

Hey, thanks for listening to Carrie Does Poems.

The music you hear is made available through the creative commons and it’s a bit of a shortened track from the fantastic Summer Spliff by Broke for Free.

A Wish, a Grammy Barnard Poem

best poetry podcast by poet
Carrie Does Poems
A Wish, a Grammy Barnard Poem
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Hi! This year (2023), I’m continuing my quest to share a poem on my blog and podcast and read it aloud. It’s all a part of my quest to be brave and apparently the things that I’m scared about still include:

  1. My spoken voice
  2. My raw poems.

Thanks for being here with me and cheering me on, and I hope that you can become braver this year, too!

For Anne & Maxine

Why is it that the dead

Never listen to my pillow talk?

I am tired, but can’t sleep

Again and again and again.

You snore next to me

And occasionally twitch

As the dog snuggles in between us,

Released from her crate

Because she cries so much.

Again and again and again,

Why is that my whines

Never wake anyone up?

Not even myself.

So, this week I’ve decided to read one of my grandmother’s poems instead.
Full disclosure: I have a lot of grandmothers and they are all dead and this one was about 4’10 at maximum height and this grandmother was already 75 when I was born.

Luckily, she lived a long time so I got to know her. But her poems? They were hidden away and only brought out when my little hobbit dad begged her to see them. It was rare. She, like me, was pretty fearful about sharing her poems and her art.

But art and communication and thought isn’t meant to be hidden away, is it? So here’s to Grammy and here’s to being brave. 

Grammy Barnard Poem #2 
March 11, 1927

A Wish

Love, she goes hand in hand with spring,
	To thoughts of this girl then you will cling,
Go dear, and to her tell,
	Of the desire you have in her heart to dwell,
Tell her while sweet spring is here,
	Tell her while she still is near,
Tell her of moonlight, tell her of flowers,
	Tell her of love, and its wondrous powers.

Hey, thanks for listening to Carrie Does Poems.

The music you hear is made available through the creative commons and it’s a bit of a shortened track from the fantastic Summer Spliff by Broke for Free.

“You Aren’t Allowed To Write About Me”

best poetry podcast by poet
Carrie Does Poems
"You Aren't Allowed To Write About Me"
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Hi! This year (2023), I’m continuing my quest to share a poem on my blog and podcast and read it aloud. It’s all a part of my quest to be brave and apparently the things that I’m scared about still include:

  1. My spoken voice
  2. My raw poems.

Thanks for being here with me and cheering me on, and I hope that you can become braver this year, too!

For Anne & Maxine

Why is it that the dead

Never listen to my pillow talk?

I am tired, but can’t sleep

Again and again and again.

You snore next to me

And occasionally twitch

As the dog snuggles in between us,

Released from her crate

Because she cries so much.

Again and again and again,

Why is that my whines

Never wake anyone up?

Not even myself.

best poetry podcast by poet
Carrie Does Poems
“You Aren’t Allowed To Write About Me”



If by aren’t allowed, you mean you forbid it, then who are you to forbid?

If by write, you mean think, tell stories, try to understand, to recreate 
you in a way that isn’t such a jackass, 
I’m sorry, but you can only be improved,
and you’re missing out. 

The you on the page is so much better than the you in life. 

If by me you mean just you, I’m sorry, 
but stories (even characters, even real-life 
characters) are bigger than just one me, 
just one you, just one. 

None of us are just one.  

Why don’t you try to imagine what it’s like 
to not have a Lexus and enough money 
to have your back shaved? Why don’t you try 
to imagine what it’s like to listen to you asking someone 
if they are ‘really an American,’ or telling them they look 
like a pumpkin because they’re wearing an orange dress. 
What it’s like to hold a given-to-you bouquet 
and know that it will wilt because you don’t have 
the water to let it survive, to go 
in the shower and pray for warmth? 
Why don’t you imagine what it’s like 
to live bigger than who you are, 
trying to push into who you are meant to be? 
Imagine that’s more than a Lexus. 

Why don’t you imagine? 

I am not allowed to write about you. 

I write about you constantly 
even when you don’t realize. 
You are the grit between my teeth.

Hey, thanks for listening to Carrie Does Poems.

The music you hear is made available through the creative commons and it’s a bit of a shortened track from the fantastic Summer Spliff by Broke for Free.