bellhollowpoetry

[bellhollowpoetry]

Waiting for the Fall-Out in the Foothills of Appalachia

Waiting for the Fall-Out in the Foothills of Appalachia

Climate change

is our retirement plan.

He works part-time

at the local V.F.W.

in this small-town

holy-land of rolling hills

just beyond the furthest woods of the Bible belt.

He serves his fellow veterans

beer and truths.

They mostly refuse the latter.

  I mostly shelter myself

in place, to escape

the propaganda that permeates

this wasteland.

I stake claims of poetry & art to our walls

in sheer…

[bellhollowpoetry]

bukowski said it was a circus

bukowski said it was a circus

for all the misfits & the misanthropes,

the great-mistake-makers, the second-

(or-tenth-or-last-)

chance-takers,

the late bloomers & the revolutionaries,

for the bartenders & the bar-flies,

for the good guys that never finish,

for the addicts & the survivors

of all the violences

of this gorging,

greedy, gluttonous world,

for the childless mothers & the orphans

of injustice,

for the…

[bellhollowpoetry]

excerpt from “When You Mean to Write a Poem”

It is impossible to write poetry

after you’ve spent the morning drinking

over-compensated, half-decaffeinated coffee

&  held in your breath for three Bukowski poems

in succession;

even when the air & your lungs

are sticky-thick with prose & Cannabis

and your disconnected fingers

scratch all the falling words

onto Post-It-Notes —

(You know they’ve already forgotten

how to become poems.)

[bellhollowpoetry]

excerpt from “No Expectations”

we don’t achieve open-mouthed kisses

much these days; your teeth need skin

to leave their deep impressions —

I comply with

flesh of thigh & shouldered tendons

& a tongue that’s always been

too uncomfortable with its own softness

to offer itself

anyway — —

[bellhollowpoetry]

No Expectations

we don’t achieve open-mouthed kisses

much these days; your teeth need skin

to leave their deep impressions —

I comply with

flesh of thigh & shouldered tendons

& a tongue that’s always been too uncomfortable

with its own softness

to offer itself

anyway — —

I wouldn’t know what to make of us

on paper . . . . . . a case study?

with which offered hypothesis?

A conclusion of Misogamy? Probably.

The…

[bellhollowpoetry]

I Have Not Slept Well (a poem)

Each morning, you ask, "How did you sleep last night?" Each morning, I have given you, "Fine." But what I really meant to say, in all these years of days was: best while you were cocooned around me . . . but mostly restlessly, through fret & far-off dreams that fell away to fuzzy shadows & puzzle pieces come each morning. best while the thunder & rain played chaos upstairs . . . but mostly…

[bellhollowpoetry]

When You Mean to Write a Poem

When You Mean to Write a Poem

It is impossible to write poetry

after you’ve spent the morning drinking

over-compensated, half-decaffeinated coffee

&  held in your breath for three Bukowski poems

in succession;

  even when the air & your lungs

are sticky-thick with prose & cannabis

and your disconnected fingers

scratch all the falling words

onto Post-It-Notes —

(You know they’ve already forgotten

how to become poems.)

  It is…

[bellhollowpoetry]

Mother and Daughter (a poem by Anne Sexton)

Mother and Daughter (a poem by Anne Sexton)

Today, I am sharing another poem on the subject of children growing up / leaving home.  I debated on whether or not to share this particular poem because it isn’t comforting. In fact, it is discomforting . . . troubling . . . distant.  In the end, I decided that is exactly why it should be shared. No relationship is perfect; no love is either – even between a parent and child there will be times…

[bellhollowpoetry]

Legend of the Bee Queen (a poem)

Apis Mellifera

-- grafted during the first instar,

the bee queen emerges from her piping season,

seizing back her marking pen . . . . . . then

October, 1962 -- she marks 25 commemorations.

Sovereign to the worms & the dirt

ever before the flowers --

the (falling) matriarch pledges her fertility

-- the ripe decay of thirty summers -- and all of her sustenance,

down to her last drop of bee bread . . . . . . when

grave-digging season sets in -- --

the wintering winds advance their fury,

only to fall powerless to her excellency's own --

she, the ruler of  perpetual oblivion from birth;

she, the hemolymph, possessing all the warmth of a winter cluster, alone.

She is the solitary swarm & the numb-lipped lone-ness

stinging & streaming out her black-death ribbons

all at once --  mad & buzzing for a legacy,

with her ink-stamped honeycomb of grave goods

she migrates to a last December

where Yeats' ghost has been commissioned

for the blessing of her coffin hive

on Fitzroy, in Primrose

-- the Fates' parting pittance

& the royal clock snow-stopped to mourn

the coming of her majesty's farewell year

(how sticky with pride she must have been)

1963 . . . . . . February --

the death season;  she is abdicating

nothing; the queen propolizes her throne

& with permanent assemblage -- --

She remains entombed & numinous

to reign in the 4 a.m. phosphorescence

of her fever-hazed confession room -- --

She, the immortal & malevolent

nebulous with the brooding antennae

& a brimming pollen basket; she remains.

Not of country; not of colony

but surely of a realm preceding America . . .

She, the mother tongue, spoon-fed of royal jelly --

with her London death -- the old smoke --

and the headstone to prove it.

-B.

[bellhollowpoetry]

Children Leaving Home & a Poem by Sharon Olds

Children Leaving Home & a Poem by Sharon Olds

This week, I will be sharing poems on the subject of children leaving home. I did consider other topics that I know would be quite fitting for this month and time of year; however, this is the subject that is speaking with the loudest voice for me, at the moment.

Although this particular poem is about a child leaving for summer camp, it resonates with me, as a parent, the feeling of an adult…

[bellhollowpoetry]

O Captain! My Captain! (a poem by Walt Whitman)

O Captain! My Captain! (a poem by Walt Whitman)

Over a decade ago, and when I was still fairly new to reading and writing poetry, I bought Walt Whitman's final edition of Leaves of Grass, which contains his full life's work. It is still one of the most cherished books on my shelf. Though to be honest, I found some of it a little difficult to read at the time and I didn't have a lot of patience with his longer pieces. A number of his poems do…

[bellhollowpoetry]

The Shape of Us ( a poem )

Like you, I too,

am bell-like & ascetic;

made hollowed-through --  an instrument

of stunning emptied-emptiness

to be coupled; to be symphony.

We become two trapeze in mourning;

a lonesome grace; a melody

of balancing momentum -- --

You chime, as I echo,

while, you echo, as I chime

and our tintinnabulations linger . . .

linger . . . long . . .

our song tolls on

past the vast and present voices;

even, & especially, past

our own.

-B

[bellhollowpoetry]

Another Ode to Plath, With My Apologies

For Lady Lazarus

Ariel, Restored --

it was a thirtieth birthday gift,

gift like manna is a gift -- --

and there was a charge, a very large charge

(I mistook it for an offering) but there was a charge -

it came from the vibration in the currents

of her frequency, her tendency

to roar, where I was assuaged by the tracing

and re-tracing of her tongue,  before

I could even think to contemplate of suicide-watching --

and there was, of course, the great coincidence

(or the cause for my great concern)

in our same marching ages, crossing time - to intersect

at a thirtieth birth & forty-four years of a successful thirtieth suicide;

a morbid serendipity. . . for the one still

living, still.  breathing, still

contemplating. . .

the significance of an ancient history

written into ancient poems. They've gone

quiescent again these days, but

I am . . .   I am . . .

and she is always stasis

in the same place; still

while I have moved twelve years apart . . .

I do return, though not as often,

to her third-charm death-door

to poke and stir the ashes of the Lady Lazarus

when I am restless

( so don't believe her when she tells you

there is nothing there. )

because I cannot quit helping myself to her.

( I never could )

but I am learning to quit begging my apologies . . .

I just needed one more poem to say

I only wish she could have been present

for the unveiling of her fortieth birthday

gift; gift of shedding a skin that was too-long constrictive;

a fourth go-around to make self-amends . . .

There are some gifts, I know, that can make every difference.

-B.

[bellhollowpoetry]

It Was My Favorite Necklace

Until you so loosened me with insignificance, then with the half-moon of stars dangling, barely daring to glimmer about my neck; about to fall madly, again closed those blue, blue darkroom hands with your inked veins, pulsing about my neck; You kept me throat-tight in silence for years. I won't wear any necklaces now. -B.

[bellhollowpoetry]

Unwritten Poetry

Hell-bent on repentance

I dug up my past

-a stack of confessions

in black ink and metaphors-

my religion,

true and false,

unstructured and incomplete.

Forgotten in the pages was

a decade-old whispered poem

to a future lover,

the writer of words and dreamer of dreams

who could make me believe

his theories of history and heaven

and me.

I wanted to write him poetry while the world burned

through its tribulation

but you only like poems that rhyme.

-B.