Tag: poetry

A strange little poem

annebower

As many of you know, poetry calls out to me often. I love reading other’s poetry, both older work and newer. At times I find the urge to write unstoppable and so a poem, or something like a poem emerges. Here’s one I wrote a while back. The exercise bike is still with me. On this snowy day, seems like it’s time for a ride!

Ode to a Faulty Exercise Bike

Go ahead—sit there, empty and dull

your fancy electronics failed

waiting, always patient,

for someone to pedal you lively,

to click the screen buttons for

higher or lower resistance,

give you that imaginary ride

across shadowed Appalachian Trail,

Tuscany’s leafy byways,

through Acadia’s crags and folds,

down the long slopes of the Poconos,

or weaving in and out the shoppers

along Henry Street in Dublin. You

wait,

so quiet, so plastic

so metal, pulsing out guilt and need

begging me, come,

let’s share our imperfection

Grateful to our Senior Centers

annebower

For over fifteen years I’ve been teaching at the Bugbee Sr. Ctr. in WRJ and the Thompson Sr. Ctr. in Woodstock. Big thanks to the staff at both locations for all the support they’ve provided. Each of these centers provides food, exercise, advice, cultural experiences, and fantastic opportunities for socializing.

Please support your senior centers. This is more important than ever given the kinds of budget cuts the current federal administration is putting in place.

As many of you know, I’ve had three chapbooks of poetry published, each with a different press. I’m currently selling them at the bargain rate of $5 each, with the money going to our two senior centers. So let me know if you want one. If you are a current student, I can bring it to you. If you aren’t, I can mail it to you (but the cost, incl. shipping and handling, will be $10, and you’ll need to email me your mailing address). You can pay using the cart icon on this website.

Poems for Tai Chi Players, Kattywompus Press: All the poems relate directly to tai chi

The Space Between Us, Finishing Line Press: Poems about the spaces within and around us, in nature, in relationships, and a few about tai chi too

Getting it Down on Paper, Orchard Street Press: This letter-like exchange of poems with fellow-poet Pam Ahlen, explores our histories and experiences in a wonderful give and take.

After the Rain

annebower

It’s Tuesday, July 25th, and after the seige of rain we’ve had over the past few days it feels SO good to have a sunny dry day ahead. Here’s a poem I wrote a while back after a different stretch of rainy days when I guessed mushrooms would be abundant in the nearby woods.

After the rain   

In search of strangeness I slow walk uphill, pines, birch, maple, ash my August companions. Old wooden basket on my arm, eager to gaze on late summer fungi. Some may be edible, some could be poison. Childhood fears of strange plants rise— crossing the street to avoid huge turning sunflowers, horror of gray creeping mold on an orange, corn plants so thick and tall they sliced my arms. Yet mushrooms aren’t plants at all, more animal, like us, unable to make their own food like the self-sufficient rose and cabbage. This does not comfort me.

Suddenly they’re everywhere— some lacquered red with orange gills, others rust-orange, stems pure white. Now a cluster of thin-tubed pipes, beige-skinned, less than three inches tall. Here’s an eight-inch stem with umbrella cap, two ruffled yellow dancers, gills striping down stem, a pair of dry, thin-skinned beings, caps’ beige texture like best kid leather gloves, delicate skin collar protecting bleached coral gills.

But whoa, four moon-blue creatures, round-edged glowing biscuits, pale, squat, assured among pine needles.

All along the downhill path tiny dark red mushrooms, stems wiry, emerge like imps, shorter than a red eft’s length.

The twelve little newts I’ve seen among the pine needles are just as strange. Poison or sweet, cousins all.

Mud, mud, mud, words, words, words

annebower

Some years mud season is worse than others. This is a doozy and early too. The warm February weather has been melting snow up here in the Pomfret Hills, frost is oozing out of the ground, and our dirt roads are quite the challenge. The shifting ruts and puddles, the lumpy ridges and divots conspire to throw your vehicle this way and that. I guess this is what it feels like to ride a wild horse?

The unsettled and unsettling road echoes my writing mood these days. I’m riding the ridge of confidence one day and down in the rut of no-can-do the next. Lines of poetry slip and slide and can’t seem to find a rhythm. Paragraphs of fiction slither along and don’t really get anywhere. Now, this is not unusual. I’m sure all of you creative folks out there–whether your passion is paint or clay, dance or a musical instrument, acting or some form of writing, pen, pencil, puppetry–all of you go through this too.

I’m hoping that just as mud season will turn into spring, my writing mojo will return. Cheers to you and your energies as well.