I can't stand it

That's it. I'm done. Giving up the Jam.
I just don't have time. No time for a blog where in one of the comments to the current post, there are 9 spelling or grammatical errors in 26 words. Just an example. Perhaps some people find that normal, even cool, but for me it's not a pleasure to read.
I actually like works that take language in new directions, or use dialect to achieve a particular voice. But it's like violence in movies - if it's an essential part of what there is to learn, ok. If it's just gratuitous, no.
So I'm moving on. The balance has tipped. This phase has run its course. In a year I might find a poetry group that's more my style, and pick it up again. Or maybe not - there will be something else by then!

Ciao!

Out there.

Last week's Poetry Jam poem was something of a dud, I admit. This one at least has the advantage of being shorter. On the theme of Windows:

Out there,
the rain lashes
Out there,
the wind is angry
Out there,
the traffic snarls
I watch,
sipping cocoa.
.

Liftoff

I didn't have anything in particular in mind when I proposed this week's Poetry Jam themes of The Day Before, or Why so Saintly. If I find some minutes to write properly, I'll tell you tomorrow why I prefer All Souls Day to All Saints, but that's another topic. Waiting for the bus, though, I did come up with one about that faraway (maybe) day when humanity steps forth from its birthplace.

Liftoff

There were cheers
and anticipation
Valves were checked
and rosters
itineraries
lists
stocks
Gone over the good old way,
by hand and with eyes
And again in the computers
Backups
doublechecks
double treble backups
lifecraft stowed.
Everything we knew about
we went over again.
Everyone we knew
we hugged and kissed
and shook shaking hands.
We recorded ourselves
and said This is who we are
But who were we convincing?
...
3
2
1
*******!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!********
How were we to know
just how all would be different
with no Earth under our feet?

5-ingredient Jam

and now, for the Poetry Jam...

I heard a laugh, and turned.
A shadow like a ghost
faded hastily behind the edges of the laundry.
Sheets fluttering in the dying breeze.
Was it coming for me?
biding its time,
steeping me in anguish,
Or was it just the beer?

Love II

Another one for the Jam, for once I finish a more or less serious poem before the theme is gone & replaced by another.

Those halcyon days, when it was just me at the bench,
doing my experiments,
trying to get some answers.
Late nights
long coffee conferences
Results
Knowing things nobody knew.
Hopping from one discovery to the next
into the unknown.
The exhaustion
The disappointment
the exhilaration.
Going ahead by the fruit of my labors
and of the days spent thinking.

Then it was decided I was proficient at that.
And instead of doing it all myself I gained
other hands to do it for me.
And then more, and more,
a whole rugby side.
Pushed away from my bench
by this new position of Leadership
I wither in my office
directing, evaluating, but not getting my fingers wet.
How much I love my life of Before.
.

Love poem

A post for the Jam, at last! This week's mission is a love-poem.

.
She's so black!
So fluffy
She allows me to scratch her chin.

image vs flesh

the impact of sunlight on my bare skin
the wind messing my hair
sand between my toes
I want to be there.
No flat photo will do.

This for the Poetry Jam. Join the jelly here!

The comfort of pillows

This weekend's Poetry Jam theme concerned Pharmacology, and just around the same time I read the suggestion that we do a 9/11 theme. So. Normally I wouldn't do either of these, feeling I had nothing to say, or nothing adequate, or just not wanting to go there at all.
Aw, get some courage!
All is not sweetness and light in the world of poetry!
Wasn't I just thinking after the Always Looking Up, and Humor weeks, that that was enough of that?
Just can't be pleased, can I? (reminds me of somebody here at work... the advice is for me to stop trying so hard to accommodate...Might write about that, but some colleagues are readers...) So I've been thinking, in busses and between tasks and suchlike, and here's the (somewhat premature, but it's late Monday already and look what happened to my Looking Up poem - still simmering) result.

The Blue Comforter

The fog is going out
The morning is getting on
and finally the mist starts to disperse
Already the near branches of the oak tree reach out
and become real.
I can see the leaves,
one by one.
Come, Sun!
come shine
come warm the earth from its long night
burn off this thick haze
and let me see my city.

I stretch and yawn and the day makes progress
while I brush my teeth
up & down 100 strokes
and pour my coffee in its usual mug
and pull on my clothes
undies, socks, pants, t-shirt in order.
It's going to be a nice one.
Nice and sunny and I'll take a walk around the park and down to the library.

I look outside
Miraculously! the sky is clear,
the birds are singing.
And a plane
so clearly,
clearly visible
in the light blue of the morning,
streaks by and I must have I must have Where is the fog? Where? where bring the fog the merciful fog where is the bottle with its packaged mist to hide everything to help to block out the sky and let me cope get through the day.

Planespotting

I do have a "serious" poem in mind for this week's Poetry Jam, but it isn't ready yet and it's almost time for the next theme. So the silly one while I get my act in gear for Always Looking Up:

At 10:38, the Air France to Paris CDG lifts off and magestically turns northward
At 10:39, the Air France to Paris Orly lifts off and magestically turns northward
looking exactly the same.
You wonder: why are they two?
They fade into the hazy distance
as the Lyon-Bordeaux crosses their trails
much higher up,
linking the eastern cumulous group
to the western cirrus.
The Paris-Toulous weaves its strand
into the contrail tartan
before the high breezes
disperse them.

Hey, you! Live gently

Brian's theme for this week's Poetry Jam is Will Write For... a cause of some sort. I'm not a big cause person (like I'm not a quotation person, but that doesn't stop me participating in memes), perhaps because I'm afraid of getting started. Throwing myself into a cause - can't just dabble in these things; it's not serious - somehow should mean I'm committed to it. And I know that either the committment would either eat up my life, or I wouldn't be committed and it would just be a joke.
I know! I know. It doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing deal.
But somehow it is. I have yet to find the right balance.
Anyway here's my Awareness poem.

This blue marvel

Was here long before you.
It gave rise to everything that is here.
It breathes
and shifts
and coughs with the swell of the tide.
We forget that the landscape is not fixed
that cliffs should crumble and fall
and shorelines advance or retreat
and that rivers may change their routes.
We try to be stronger than the forces that
move continents across the seas
and raise mountains from plains.
With our engineers
and our concrete
and our hubris
we try to stop the planet from shifting in its sleep.
In that we fail.
Instead we succeed in scraping bare the delicate living crust
replacing meadows with suffocating asphalt
chasing down animals to the last of their kind.
Will we learn to live gently on this earth
Before there is nothing but ourselves left of it ?

Evening Jam

Monday's Poetry Jam theme is Evening, and for once I've got one early.

In the northern summer
when evening comes late,
so very late
the children go in before the light is full gone
and I have the swings in the park
all to my peaceful self.

Fade to black

This week's Poetry Jam task, set by Chris of Enchanted Oak, is to write an elegy for something we have lost, whether it be a loved one, lost youth, innocence, anything. I was thinking of something along these lines for next week's prompt, and I'll just have to find another, now! Anyway, my poem about a lost friendship:

Farewell to Iris

I don't know what I did.
I don't know what I said.
If indeed it was anything at all to do with me.
But you could have left me a message
Stop calling
Give up.
And I would have stopped
Instead of lingering.
Instead of believing our mutual friends
who said you were just very busy
in their effort to be kind.
I have given up now.
For a long time
I imagined that if I met you in the street,
I would feign delighted surprise, as if it had only been a week,
and then drop you in my turn.
Or I would warmly greet your husband,
and act as if you were absent.
Or any of a hundred scenes.
I hold my grudges as tightly as my friends.
Now, I would just pass on by.
You, just another face in the crowd.
Perhaps this has already happened,
And I didn't even notice.

P-Jam 67

Today's Poetry Jam theme by The Bug is about being 67, whether that's future present or past. I admit to not being terribly inspired this weekend, but I did play bridge at the club on Saturday, and we did win (again! who'd'a thunk it?). My position there as young pet to be cooed over and coddled will eventually fade away, and I came up with this.

Bridgeaddict at 67
When you're retired, you can play bridge at the club every afternoon of the week except Sunday. Monday is Chamalières. Tuesday is Desaix, going back for seconds in the evening. Wednesday and Thursday are Lafayette. Friday is back to Desaix, Saturday Lafayette. Like clockwork, you make the rounds. Even Sunday's there's often a tournament somewhere, and if not, you can always fix up a foursome at home.
The Tuesday evening game is the best. The young people come to that one after work, and you can talk about something else for a change. You've got to encourage the young people to come, for who else will be filling the clubs in 20 years time?
20 years ago you were one of them. One of the Young People. It's curious how the time goes. One day you're the belle of the ball, the marvel everyone wants to partner with. You weren't that young, admit it, but with this gang, not-retired-yet is plenty young. It was a pleasure to come to the club then (as it is now, but of a different kind). For the workday you were the oldest, the boss, the stick in the mud. Tuesday nights you were the kid, the adventurer, the learner.
You mocked (gently, slightly, and never out loud) the bluehaired women living from tournament to tournament, counting their master points, then. Today you are one. Trump that.

Apricot Jaam

Today's Poetry Jam flavor is Summer Chillin', the good idea from Margaret. I haven't found any proper poem words, so this unwordy collection of photos will have to do.

too long haiku of several subjects piled up

the season for cherries is long gone

bicycles wait patiently

while players !crack! on the field

The Poetry Jam too, is filled with stuff stirred in together. Have some here. Spread it on your toast.

Forgetting

I thought I would come up with a really good poem for the Poetry Jam this week, but somehow it just hasn't jelled yet. If the real poem makes itself known soon, I'll post again. In the meantime:

Out with the old! In with the new
Turnover in my head like changing to my summer wardrobe.
There's not unlimited space in there for endless archives
And sometimes it's just as well.
Let it go.
Move on.
Though sometimes, I admit, the bits jettisoned could have been useful.
My drivers' licence is still expired.
Mother's Day is not the same day here & where my mother lives.
Tax day must be coming up soon.
Mystery: what else did I forget that I haven't yet realized I forgot?
.
To join in the Jam, click here!

The creature

Oh, here I am again, last-minuting for a Monday poem. I was delighted to know the theme as early as Tuesday, but then nothing much ever cooked itself up in my head for writing down over the weekend. I think Chris's theme of Father needs more than a couple of days to stew. In lieu of a good poem, here is a morning train poem.

On hands and knees in the living room

three offspring, riding

Giddy-up!

Dadhorse rules the range.

That's my dad playing with us kids when we were little enough to fit all three on his back. My mom took a nice photo of us, and I'm not at all sure it was the same event, but from my side I remember a dadhorse ride around the living room where (at four or thereabouts) I lost control and peed on him. Sorry, Dad!

For more takes on Father, click on over to the Poetry Jam!

ThunderJam

This week at the Poetry Jam our theme is Thunder and Lightning, by Mark. I've been away, but did manage to write this while waiting for the bus.

Thunder & Lightning
If it's only weather
why is the cat under the bed?
If it's only a passing pressure wrinkle
why is the dog cowering?
If somebody up there is sending a message
what does it say?

Birthday Jam

Here's my contribution to the first-ever Poetry Jam. Click here for this week's linkywidget to all the formerly bus-riding poets.

The Phantom Birthday

She thinks of September
and which day it might have been
Her favorite pick changes
the fifth, that's a nice day.
or 22
twentytwo, like the sound of that.

She thinks of everything that would have been different
At every step of her life, how would he have fit in?
Or would life be so far from the one she knows as to be unimaginable?
College commencement, or a McJob and a first grader,
Late nights working, or late nights keeping a fever or cough company,
weekends at loose ends, or weekends of soccer and sleepovers and grocery carts piled high?

She misses a smiling face
not the arguments and the crises and constraints (imagined, all!)
She misses the birthday parties, the milestones, the firsts,
his graduation now, his college choice (how would she have paid for it all?), his wedding, his own children
   yes, already he's much older than she was.

They have a peaceful relationship
She imagines wonderful things
He doesn't reproach her, too much
A quiet what-if
With no birthday.
.

AAAAaaaaaa

It's unfurling its infernal antenna!

Soon the seeds will be everywhere

They will land and sprout

and all will become rhubarb.

Run!!!!!

(this is not my real poem. just a test to make sure the Linky thingy works)