Vanessa Shields's Blog, page 29

Poem 221 – Poem note

Poem note

Dear Tomorrow –

May I remember to keep
all the promises I made
to myself today:

Start with sage
Ask for help
Choose kindness
Be gentle

Under the veil of shadows
forgiveness holds a torch
lit with the love it’s okay
to give to myself.

Poem 220 – Judgement & Ode to Lady (a two-for today!)

Judgement

Waiting in line for public bathroom use affords one this:
judgement on the person using the bathroom before you

The person who exits, his/her/their clothing, hair, overall look
will avail scrutiny but what’s more is his/her/their respect for the toilet

In this case, [pronoun] high thread count, heavily labelled clothing and tight
new-leather boat shoes proved incongruent with [pronoun] toilet treatment

Urine on the toilet – both the lid (still lifted) and the porcelain circumference
there were dribbles even on the floor at the toilet’s base

Base.

Judgement: Ew.
Judgement: Really?
Judgement: Couldn’t even put the seat down?
Judgement: Toilet Respect FAILURE.

I growled as I uber-cleaned [pronoun]’s yellow wiz mess with speedy fervour
(I’d been holding in my business for hours)

Once complete, I wiped the toilet down again
I even pulsed a few squirts of vanilla spray into the air

The person entering after me to be welcomed by a sweet scent
and the relief of a clean loo

The Toilet Respect Failure stood in line awaiting [pronoun] order
I’m sure it was not respect that filled the steaming cup [pronoun] paid for

Ode to Lady

“You look like a lady who needs a cup of coffee!”
The not-lady behind the bar said jovially
as she re-filled my coffee with steaming brew
I smiled under my mask & cracked a joke
the wrinkles on my throat skin puckering in embarrassment

Lady, oh lady.
Me, a lady?

To the bartender who is twenty:
I am Lady.
To her male counterpart:
I am Ma’am.
To the age in my mind:
I am Girl.

Lady, oh lady.
Me, a lady.

Skin tags flop like the past’s flags on my neck
Stretch marks weave like clusters of rivers rushing over my hips
Salt & pepper hair is really mostly sugar with traces of coffee
The pepper has moved to my chin
The salt to my eyebrows with a few lone strands
burrowing in the thinning forest below my second belly
that bulbous old-wet-cheese-sponge of fat constantly reaching for my kneecaps

Lady, oh lady.
Me, this lady.

Barely able to comprehend that I am twenty years older than
the twenty year old behind the counter
Wasn’t it just yesterday that I galloped through
that wildly tumultuous decade of womanhood?
I am beyond that part of town now, aren’t I?

Oh, the ladies lean into the sunset just a little more
It’s not so bad, the dry heat

Lady, oh lady.
Me, Lady.

A lady let’s go of labels
A lady bats lashes not age
A lady likes coffee
indulges in a second cup

“You look like a lady…” she said

I smile under my mask

Poem 219 – Twenty-Seven-Page Journal Entry

Twenty-Seven-Page Journal Entry

The mother of all journals
A mother writes in a journal
Journals listen to mothers
Listening to mothers write is symphonic
Mothers sing a symphony of release when writing in journals

Poem 218 – late night haiku

late night haiku

sleep creeps up my calves
passes my belly plump full
today – golden feast

Poem 217 – No Poem Today Poem

No Poem Today Poem

Can’t keep my pen held poem
Eyes holding looooong blinks poem
Breath softly deep poem
Words slipping poem

Bamboo

Zzelled
By this day

Po e
m

Poem 216 – What Happens When I Buy A Journal For My New Poetry

What Happens When I Buy A Journal For My New Poetry

They’re in me now
Smart Kempe Plath Echlin
Four storms of weathering behind my kneecaps – shy
But curious, changing my gait
They do that
Extraordinary women
Dive inside me
Olympians of words
I’m a country they take over
Soon we will all be biting gold
Revelling in each other’s linguistic personal bests

Poem 215 – Questions About Words

Questions about words

Sometimes when I say a word out loud
over & over
it stops making sense at all
becomes a slew of sounds
my tongue litters out & my brain
leaves on the ground a verbal garbage

Is there a word for this?
When a word stops being a word & becomes a
soundscape?

Certain words just do not stay learned

Comitt
Comitted
Comittment

The m’s & t’s never go where they belong

Do you think it means something that I don’t know how to
Comitt?
Wait… committ
Errr commit?

Poem 214 – Seized, a haibun

Seized, a haibun

The used IBM typewriter sat like
a black jagged hill of possibilities
on the coffee table

My fingertips tingled just being near it
the deep scent of dust & technology
hung around it like a halo

I leaned down & gently pressed
my pointer finger onto the ‘I’

Nothing happened except
immoveable denial which is
something

“It seized,” he told me

I pulled back, felt a band of
disappointment belt around
my ribcage

“Oh,” I said, cramming my hands
into each other my fingers burning
with delayed desire

“I can fix it,” he said easily, casually
later he watched repair videos on youtube
my fingers, satiated, wrapped around a pen
writing a late-in-the-day haiku
my thoughts seized on everything
but the pain of grief

a sudden taking
the force of surprise that grips
a moon on my lips

What is a haibun? Haibun is a poetry form that combines a haiku with a prose poem. Haibun prose is usually descriptive. It uses sparse, poetic imagery to evoke a sensory impression in the reader. The section of prose is then followed by a haiku that serves to deepen the meaning of the prose, either by intensifying its themes or serving as a juxtaposition to the prose’s content.

Poem 213 – Yoke & August Hours at Gertrude’s Writing Room

Yoke

From yewg: to unite
We can bear this weight of loss
together – plow love

*The first week of August we’re closed for film camp! See you soon!

Poem 212 – Tell me

Tell Me

everywhere I look
things I love
sounds of life
slipping into my ears nesting
this extended arm of home
an outdoor sanctuary dotted
with purple-lipped blooms
lavender dries to perfection
bits of Paris bend into flower pots
book covers coffee mugs
steaming with comfort

the maple trees are fat green
heads – leaves luxuriating lengthening
like covid hair uncut for months
beautifully disheveled

in the distance a tall pine
reaches its double apex
into sunshine
cones dazzling beige
a hundred oval jewels
an offering to the crisp morning

everything I behold
I love
tell me, what do you see
that you love?
how does it cradle
your heart?