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:
- My spoken voice
- 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 Retouch They take me And blot away all the flaws. A sun spot becomes plain flesh. A wrinkle vanishes. The eraser moves over my whole image. Sometimes I wonder if there is any me left. In college, a poetry teacher insisted We could not write about baseball hats Or dolphins and I still wonder if manatees Are allowed, poems about commodity cheese, Trailers, dog farts. Or is still only proper subjects? Why is it that we all try to erase The deepest parts of our hidden centers, Hardnesses that refuse to be blurred out In image or word.
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 Eric Van der Westen and the track is called “A Feather” and off the album The Crown Lobster Trilogy.
