A Poem a Day, Week 44, Oct 29 to Nov 4, 2022

 A Poem a Day, Week 44, Oct 29 to Nov 4, 2022

Welcome to Sifting the Rubble's weekly blog and podcast of my poem-a-day challenge for 2022. I am your host, and poet, Emily Gibson. The poems for the 44th week of the year, October 29 to Nov 4, started in a variety of ways. Most came from prompts from a poetry class I am attending online through Coursera, "Sharpened Visions."  So far, it is an excellent course, and free as well!

I want to explain, for those new to this podcast, that these are 1 or 2 day poems, which have not gone through the grist of revision. That comes later, something I truly look forward to doing, as I sift the collection for poems to finalize. For now, they are new, not quite steady or solid, but each speaks of something, so I share them, uncensored. It is part of my healing challenge to write a poem every day this year.

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And now, for this week's poems!

Listen to Week 44 Poetry Podcast

Poem #302, Unsolicited Advice 

by Emily Gibson, Oct 29, 2022

My mom showed me

with actions and words.

I wouldn’t listen, 

felt I knew better,

heard her ideas 

as unrealistic, critical.

Survival in our world

relegated her wisdom

as unwanted information

no matter her intention.

Here I stand

to acknowledge,

humility in hand,

her rightness.

The greatest gift?

Health.

I didn’t listen

until my body 

said No.

About "Unsolicited Advice":  I started this poem a week or so ago, to the prompt "When have you gotten unwanted information, and how did you use it?" I thought of my mom, who tried every way she could to get me off the high-pressure track I put myself on. Before she died, I think she knew it was my rail to ride, and I'd either figure it out or not. This is my poem to her, because I did figure it out, thanks to the messenger of MS!

Poem #303 Silence of Dust Speaks Volumes

by Emily Gibson, Oct 30, 2022

Found Poem: excerpt from The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck 

Owners came onto the land, 

or spokesmen for owners came.

They came in closed cars.

They felt the dry earth 

with their fingers.

They drove big earth augers 

into the ground 

to test soils. 

Tenants watched uneasily 

from sun-beaten dooryards

whenever closed cars 

drove along their fields;

until, at last, owner men 

drove into the dooryards

to sit in their cars, 

to talk out of the windows. 

Beside the cars, 

tenant men stood 

for a while, then squatted

on their hams.  They found

sticks to mark their dust. 

From their open doors,

women stood and looked.

Behind, out peered the children— 

corn-headed, wide-eyed children, 

one bare foot pressed atop 

another bare foot, 

ten toes working. 

The women and children watched

their men talk 

to the owner men. 

They were silent…

About "Silence of Dust Speaks Volumes":  This poem is the first of my poems for the poetry class I am attending.  The assignment was to write a Found Poem, which creates a poem from text that already exists in the world. The text used in this poem comes from a paragraph from the Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. All I did was use line breaks to transform the paragraph and enhance the meaning. 

Poem #304, Recycled

by Emily Gibson, Oct 31, 2022

Each leaf, bud to green,

unfurled a magic of carbon,

a stockpile of light.

Each leaf, green to gold,

released a shock of salvaged

star onto gray sky.

Each leaf, gold to orange,

delivered solar brilliance back 

to ease winter’s set.  

Each leaf, orange to red,

left arboreal outlines

burned on retinas.

Each leaf, red to brown,

returned ingredients to earth

for next year’s go-round.

About "Recycled":  Inspired by the sights of the day, with flames of trees against grey skies. Overnight, the trees changed, but not all at once. So on this day, I could see all the colors mentioned here.  A vision of how the trees released the light they'd captured all year came to me.  I am not sure this poem captured my vision, but it will do for now.

Poem #305, Inch Worms Pupate, Too

by Emily Gibson, Nov 1, 2022

you

too

measure

the mortal

mystery of life

in that sharp moment between breaths

About "Inch Worms Pupate, Too":  A Fibonacci Poem follows the pattern of Fibonacci, with syllables. 1/1/2/3/5/8 (the pattern of Fibonacci: each number is the sum of the previous two numbers).  I have no real understanding of where this poem came from.   The title ties to the last line, where I envisioned the sharp moment between breaths to be like the inch worm inching along, and to the mortal mystery of life that is pupation.

Poem #306, The Stapler of Appetite 

by Emily Gibson, Nov 2, 2022

Affix your gaze on portion possibilities

afforded by a plate, a bowl, a cup!

Fasten your belt to the dimension

necessary for comfort, not fashion.

Adhere to this rule alone: when 

hungry, eat, but as a sloth, slow.

Clench not your teeth, nor suck

in your gut to stave off a meal.

Nail down regular mealtimes

that every cell gets the message.

Screw down your resolve to choose

the healthier option for future’s sake.

Link today’s meals to tomorrow’s

goals: eat to live, live to eat!

About "The Stapler of Appetite":   This started with an exercise in a poetry class to make lists of concrete nouns (like Stapler) and abstract nouns (like Appetite) and make titles of poems from these lists ( The _______ of _______) to see what inspires a poem. I made about 15 potential titles from my lists.   This is a poem inspired by the exercise.

Poem #307, Portrait of a Ripe Mango

by Emily Gibson, Nov 3, 2022

Perfectly ripe, a mango fruit’s complexion

of yellows, oranges, and flecks of red,  

merge into an edible sunset.  

Devoured, slippery syrup drips and sticks 

down chin and wrist, neck and elbow. 

When perfectly ripe, a mango’s textured flesh 

cushions teeth into gentle, easy, 

smoothly satisfied bites of bliss. 

Peeled, a citrus undercurrent emits 

invisible zest at skin’s edge. 

If perfectly ripe, a mango’s aroma 

sets off a riot of taste bud 

signals that hint of ambrosia. 

Eaten, sandpaper seeds strand threads among juice 

to snag the spaces between teeth.  

Mango perfection, like an avocado, 

is a goldilocks state of mind 

led by vigilant fingertips

that palpate a rind’s imperceptible give 

to hint at ripeness underneath.  

About "Portrait of a Ripe Mango": Written for a prompt to write a deep portrait of an object, using sensory imagery. I chose a mango because just thinking about a mango brings so many textures, colors, and images to mind.  On top of sensory details, I explored syllables, giving each stanza 5 lines of 11/8/8/11/8.  

Poem #308, My Ear is an Amusement Park, a Conceit Poem

by Emily Gibson, Nov 4, 2022

Sound careens down and around,

through the tunnel-ear cochlea.

Most of the track is out of sight

though you can travel in the dark

since sound knows where to go.

Once the waves disappear from view,

no one knows what happens

like the magic of a tunnel of love.

Voila, passenger sounds do arrive

at brain’s door, translated and known. 

When the tracks are out, 

the popcorn’s burnt, 

and the animals all have hurt paws,

the show shuts down:

without an ear, can we know 

if it’s fun, or scary or worth an “again!”

Is it better to never know the experience

or to have had sound only to lose it?

Reviews are mixed at best

and subject to personal interpretation.

After all the screams are gone,

the cotton candy melted in mouths,

and heartbeats stuck on high,

a view in a funhouse mirror shows

every hair on end, shocked by sound.

Only time restores function

after episodes of high volume,

as a roller coaster eases to the end

to expel passengers out of time.

About " My Ear is an Amusement Park, a Conceit Poem": This was another assignment from a poetry class I am taking. A Conceit Poem is one which sustains a metaphor over the entire poem. A metaphor comparing two things that a person might never normally consider as similar. The goal is to convince readers that there is actually similarity. 

And that concludes Sifting the Rubble's poetry for this week! I hope you enjoyed this collection of poems. Perhaps some of them spoke to you, or maybe you found one begging to be shared with someone else. If so, I hope you will pass it on! Either way, thank you for listening and reading. Hope to see you next week with seven new poems!