Category Archives: Poetry

Escape

Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.

–T.S. Eliot

Oh Little One: Four Haiku

Oh Little One: Four Haiku

That brave little neck,
the stem of a sunflower;
your brain is blooming.
—–
Your luscious curved cheek
is a small apple that begs
for tender kisses.
—–
The tree sapling back
nourishes roots and branches;
may it grow mighty.
—–
Hands touch but don’t clutch
like curious mice seeking
their fortune in cheese.

–Kathryn Harper

she loves books

How I love her!

All Of A Piece

Thanks to those who reflected with me about the multiple-blog dilemma. I decided to quit keeping several blogs. I have now integrated the posts from Knit Together and Aenigmas into this blog.

If you want to read them (since they reside and mingle with the archives), you can find them by reading the Domestic Arts (107 posts) and Poetry (48 posts) categories. Comments are closed on all of them; while I don’t think there’s anything there to wow readers, if you do read them and happen to have an opinion, you’re welcome to leave it on this post or email me a kathryn at pobox dot com.

Separation or Integration?

In 2005 when I learned to knit, I assumed that writing about and posting photos of my knitting might be boring to readers here, so I started another blog. It focuses not just on knitting but on domestic arts: recipes, cleaning tips, and I toss in a few silly quizzes for variety. (Because silly quizzes don’t really fit with “serious tone” of this blog.) Then in 2006 I started exploring poetry again. And again, because I didn’t want to bore or alienate readers here, I started a separate blog for that.

And I must admit, it was fun for awhile, and I really enjoy the look of all my blogs. There is such a variety of stuff I like and the styles of the other blogs reflect this. Knit Together is warm and cozy looking; Aenigmas is sleek and austere. There are content-specific links there as well.

And yet… I stopped writing poetry in 2007 (my brain is on sabbatical). I plan to write more someday whenever the inspiration arises. And I stopped knitting in earnest for awhile in 2007, because of pregnancy carpal tunnel and a new baby. Now that I’m knitting more, I’m feeling a disconnect with the idea of managing more than one blog. Sure, I like how nice they look, and yet I don’t know that I want to be split like this. I find that my knitting friends only have time to read and look at my knitting blog, but that’s not the core of me, and they miss out by not coming here. Also, that and the poetry blog have almost no readers, so why keep them?

If I were to integrate these other two blogs with this one, I’m trying to envision how I can bring over some of the extra content as well. I suppose I could list the extra links for poetry under the “Express” page and the knitting/domestic arts ones on the “Create” page. I could put the blog rolls for each on those pages as well. And I could just trust that readers not interested in knitting or poetry would just skip reading posts pertaining to that.

Any opinions?

There Is No Place Too Small

I’m healthy. My daughter thrives. My marriage is happy. The weather is sunny and mild. We’re not in the middle of a mortgage crisis. We can pay our bills. I have a good social network.

So why have I grown tired, sad, and teary over the course of the day? I was prepared to chide myself for ingratitude, but then I remembered. Tomorrow is an anniversary. It’s been three years, but time doesn’t erase the mark completely. I feel fragile right now. (And my daughter has changed –yet again — these past few days; the cues that used to communicate hunger and exhaustion have changed, she’s eating just about every 90 minutes, and I feel off-kilter in my competence.)

I wrote the following poem a couple of years ago regarding the event.

No Place Too Small

It is easy to know how to meld with so much grief.
With joy there is blindness, rose-colored ignorance,
No body to tend, to anchor one to the earth.
When the world remains intact, you move nimbly,
Caressing the surface of things, noticing little.

But grief burrows in.
It needs only the exposed, wounded soul
To dig in as a tick under skin.
Grief bangs around the cellar, shrieking,
behaves unpredictably, hijacking your eyes
When the store clerk asks how you are. Clutching your
throat when you call the dentist’s office for a cleaning.

You walk now among oblivious humans,
an emotional leper
With lesions rotting your heart.
All of existence has its own death,
It too could slip into a tumor-ridden coma
Adorned with catheter tubes,
And gasp last breaths to the sterile beat
Of a monitor, attended by loved ones.

Since there is no place too small
For grief to infiltrate,
You lie down, surrender, pull it
to every cell of your being.
You take orders, as a dog obeys commands
From an owner; you honor and bear it,
And in this way, endure.

–Kathryn Harper

Surreal

Surreal

At the turn of the century
it is a long way down
to the mind’s I. A treehouse
chronicles my journey to this
lost continent, which requires
the amber spyglass to navigate.
When I arrive I am barely a
shadow. There is
snow falling on cedars; through
the woods I hear the single hound
wailing for her hometown. After
twenty years at Hull House, I
mourn for that bastard out of
Carolina who left her tender
at the bone. I wander through
trees toward her cries and find
her. My journey ends across the
river, past the canal town. Before
crossing over, I ask her for
directions. “I don’t know,” she
replies. “I’m a stranger here myself.”

–Kathryn Harper

Our Life’s Prayer

blood art

Our Life’s Prayer

Carnal syrup which flows within,
why not make it art?
It has been spilled
enough to fill
the gloomy pit of Tartarus.
Ferry to us the draught of life.
Preserve us from dissolution,
for our gene codes fight dauntlessly,
against this.
Be not used to segregate others,
for humanity is one tribe.
Thou art the mystery, the
sinew, and the richness
that makes our lives worth living. Yes.

–Kathryn Harper

—
For Poetry Thursday. This poem is based on a Poetry Thursday exercise using a style called ekphrasis. The photograph is of a piece by René de Guzman and is titled Blood Color Theory. His artworks allude to current issues such as the HIV/AIDS crisis in the early 1990s. In this piece, de Guzman sandwiched his own blood, mixed with preservatives, between two Plexiglass sheets. The work’s impact lies partly in the shock value to convey the message, and the work takes on the formal qualities of a minimalist painting. What I find intriguing are the images reflected. This poem, which echoes The Lord’s Prayer, is the result.

Turf War With A Spider

Turf War With a Spider

I drape against a picnic table, inhaling
orange blossom perfume thick
on the breeze. With pen poised,
my hand starts scrawling when
in the corner of my sight
I catch perched on my elbow a small
tuxedo with eight legs.

Jerking,
I shake her off; she lands on my knee.
I am Goliath. With a stamp of my foot
she tumbles
to the concrete,
banished.

Moments later a presence pulls me
from my pen. I look down.
She has crawled
halfway up the table leg. One gust
of breath blows the leaf of her body
to the concrete, again.

I return to my words, absorbed, only
to soon find my nemesis at the
table edge. We stare,
eyes to eyes. I’m a behemoth,
but this David is relentless.

Such determination in so small
a creature deserves reward.
I move to another table.

–Kathryn Harper

These Old Boots

These Old Boots

These boots were once fresh,
a leather pair of strutting
peacocks flaunting
straight laces in full plumage.
They boasted proud soles,
like granite; impervious
to water, stoic in heat
and cold. These centurions
marched to conquer.

Now the plumage, frayed
and faded, holds scuffed
split leather by a thread.
Mile after mile erased
the heels. They are failed
sentries against enemy
pebbles and creeping rot.
These wounded soldiers
wear the perfume of decay
waiting to hike one last
time into the shadows.

–Kathryn Harper

—
For Poetry Thursday; from an exercise in The Poet’s Companion. Photo by Fedot Praslov, used under the Creative Commons License.

A Visit With Mother

A Visit With Mother

Playing with the ocean is a high contact sport.
Wrestle a wave, expect
to be tackled, lifted up, tossed aside,
waves sprinting and jockeying each other to shore,
cresting, swapping twelve-foot high fives.

Boys tag icy waves; cries of surprise
compete with seagulls. A toddler in pink totters toward
starlings holding their convention on the sand.
Her face beams as she waves to each bird.

You cross dry sand and it swallows your toes.
The wind slaps and pushes,
scrubs your face, bleaches your mind.
Your eyes sting and weep in the salt air.

You do not come to the beach for tranquility.
You do not come here for shelter,
but to absorb ancient energy,
feel the rhythm of waves in your blood,

swing on the tidal pendulum,
submit to the scrutiny of the bald sun,
gaze at the horizon melting into thousands
of miles of nothingness and possibility.

You come to release your illusions.

–Kathryn Harper

The Lonely Hours

The Lonely Hours

The second hand on the clock marches,
dances a stiff two-step circle.

Sleep flees, an unfaithful spouse,
courts everyone else while I lie
still as a corpse, pretending not to notice,
not to care. The rest of the world
sinks into its embrace.

My conscience sparkles like clean plate
glass. My body a race horse, ridden
hard and put up wet. If I were a rode
doper, I’d be a recovered one,
stimulant free.

God does not whisper to me.
I receive no visions.
I am simply awake, witness to the hours.