Lego at the Lake

“running in the rain” by KristinaAlexanderson: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kalexanderson/7319769482/in/pool-flickrtoday

This poem was inspired by a NaPoWriMo prompt that encouraged rebellion and rule-breaking. I’m not sure that I went to any extremes, but I did try to stretch my use of language a little.

Lego-ing with my brother
at the lake because the rain

Mom, drink-tired
daddying our holiday

he was long gone
gone from dad to father

and back again
memoried into physical

we built towers
and joyed most the toppling

puddles of brick clatter
twisted our ears outside

where we boy-stacked
our raindrops instead

© 2018 Lisa Mulrooney

 

Secrets I’d Like The Universe to Keep

I have been getting a little nervous lately about poems that deal heavily in abstract ideas and are short on vivid images. While these types of poems can play out well on the page, I’m not sure that they grab an audience’s attention when read aloud. Nonetheless, I enjoyed writing this poem. It had me grappling with essential questions of human existence and, at the end of the process, I felt content.

 

Secrets I’d Like the Universe to Keep

Don’t tell me why I’m here,
just let me cut the stems of carnations
without feeling guilty.

Don’t tell me what other people think of me,
just let me get dirt under my fingernails
without feeling ashamed.

Don’t tell me who or how to love,
just let me graciously accept yellow roses
without feeling betrayed.

And when I suspect that happiness is not avoiding sorrow,
keep me running from gratuitous pain,
cursing joy that floats like oil on water.

You may be tempted to tell me I cannot meet expectations,
but be sure I sometimes do－in cursory, illusory moments,
in moments of mist on snow-covered mornings.
I won’t take them for granted.

I will want to know what might have been,
gather tinder to fuel my regrets.
Let that fodder be consumed by the light that dries the dew.

The consequences of my actions
may smoulder in some molten core, but
I do not need to know them: protect me
from volcanoes and tectonics.

Protect me from the knowledge of my death,
the whys and wherefores, and sometimes
the inevitability－especially when, like a whale,
I walk as a wolf on the land.

I’ll thank you when my carcass comes ashore－perhaps,
but don’t tell me if that’s true. Lie to me occasionally
and spin tall tales often.

Let the best tales of all be the ones I leave behind,
yarns spun and cut like the thread of life, binding
flowers and flames that I pray are not yellow.
But don’t tell me if they are.

© 2018 Lisa Mulrooney

Ghazal

I have not participated in this year’s NaPoWriMo challenge to write a poem a day; however, I was intrigued by yesterday’s prompt to write a ghazal. Here’s what I came up with. It was much harder than I thought it would be!

Intertidal Ecology: A Love Poem

Goodbyes are hardest said in person, beside the ocean’s furrowing rhythm,
Tossing along notions of return, helpless vessel, in complicit billowing rhythm.

Rocky shelves, cursed by sailors, are exposed just prior to contact.
Candid inner sanctums echo a similar, sombre, crowing rhythm.

“Refrain, refrain.” Again and again, siren call and conscience meld:
Neither sanity nor drowning – both – provoke the heart’s flowing rhythm.

Awash in weeds and pummeled driftwood, bearing the scars of every tide,
I lay my head in your lap and listen to the ocean’s knowing rhythm.

We danced along with drifting continents, tidal shifts and evolution.
Though dying, we’re immortalized in this last rendition of life’s slowing rhythm.

© Lisa Mulrooney