A Poem a Day, Week 45, Nov 5 to 11, 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 45th week of the year, Nov 5 to 11, mostly originated in observations about the world, as well as prompts from a variety of sources.
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 on their feet, 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 45 Poetry Podcast
Poem #309, Your Eyes, Distorted by Mine
by Emily Gibson, Nov 5, 2022
Yesterday, I caught the reflection
of my distorted inner perception
in the mirrors of another’s eyes.
It called me to deeper inspection.
In one I wore an awkward disguise
woven on a rickety loom of lies
drenched in a sticky, sickly gloom
of critical, nonsensed, self-despise.
The other showed a confident costume
in which my spirit appeared to bloom,
yet colors belied excessive enthusiasm,
and perfumes pretended to presume.
Between those two eyes lay a chasm,
a history of malignant festered neoplasm
and misguided attempts at self defense
with tentative hints at sacrificial sarcasm.
Time to get off this dense plastic fence,
stop the unconscious prickly offense,
and view complex quirks with affection:
an overdue adjustment to my lens.
Poem #310, Finding Human Kind in Unlikely Places
by Emily Gibson, Nov 6, 2022
Distinctive top-knots
of winter-plump quail
quoted the brisk air
so the wind had no
reason to shout.
A covey of ten
flowed over the rocky
sands of eastern Oregon.
Like water on rocks,
uninterested in flight,
their feet weathered
round the corner
of a metal barn,
disappeared from sight
behind a pile of roughly
stacked silvered lumber.
Yet one male quail
remained,
his proper bob a
question in the air,
eyes to the direction
his bevy flowed from.
I stood at attention,
lit by silent curiosity.
Soon a hen hopped
into view, an oddity
for a quail, her two legs
visible but unable to run.
The male waited,
impatience in every ‘quirp,’
as the hen hobbled
unfluid, opposite of water.
When she disappeared
behind the same wood,
to meet her flock’s tail
feathers, that sentry
quail flew up and over,
with a last call to unify.
Curiosity satisfied,
I sent a silent hope
for the hen, grateful
to catch glimpse
of quail kindness,
an infusion into
my human day.
Poem #311, Things We Do for Love
by Emily Gibson, Nov 7, 2022
Hidden in a nest of knit scarves,
A toasty horse climbs a hill.
Neighs ring the ridge,
Belted out from beneath
A riot of stitches,
In search of faster friends.
Those not encumbered
With a hundred
rainbow wool wraps
Worn to honor
Grandmother.
(Inspired by watercolor by 2nd grader, Luke)
Poem #312, Third Graders with Sticks at Recess in Autumn
by Emily Gibson, Nov 8, 2022
By the wall-ball court, three kids sent fishing lines out
from curved sticks found under a fruitless fruit tree.
Later they prepared and ate their fish, cooked on straight sticks
over the flames of a stick fire that also warmed their snow-cold hands.
By the swings, two kids gathered sticks of particular size and shape,
along with snips of grass and extra-large maple leaves. When asked,
they explained, “We have a taco stand.” I see it, by the 3rd grade wing,
out of the brutal wind that drifts leaves like a sheep dog does sheep.
Under a juniper tree, a group digs, patiently, recess after recess,
with special swiss army knife sticks, to unlodge a buried rock.
Later, after that rock is covered in a foot of snow, the same sticks
become ice sculpture tools in their creation of “Penguin Island.”
Give a child a hammer, and they will nail things.
Give a child a stick, and they can do anything.
Poem #313, Transformed While We Slept
by Emily Gibson, Nov 9, 2022
Yesterday afternoon, before clouds settled,
the great baker in the sky dusted powdered
sugar over the land, like chocolate bundt cakes.
Mountain folds and ridge lines stood out, solid white
that faded into sprinkles further down slope.
After bedtime, the sky baker’s toddlers stole
out with sifters and bags of sugar. Joyous
chaos ensued overnight. Crinkle cookie
Cascades buried deep in drifts that softened all
angular lines in sight. Now, all is smooth white.
Dawn’s light crept a dusty pink from east to west
as the toddlers hid under beds. The baker’s
face rose over the mountains. Her broad full moon
smile beamed across the day. “Oh, you were right,
my dears, this day needed more powder. Perfect!”
Poem #314, Raw Means We Can Still Heal
by Emily Gibson, Nov 10, 2022
I remember the time you
cracked
like a raw chicken egg.
Your inner demons
oozed
across our counter’s
yellow-flecked ceramic tiles,
pooled
in the stained grout, and then
dripped,
like yolks
down the mint-green
kitchen cabinets.
I remember you
cooked
yourself in the fire
of generational rage.
Afterwards, you made
a breakfast scramble
that fed us
for days.
Poem #315, The Day Formerly Known as Armistice Day
by Emily Gibson, Nov 11, 2022
This day once stood, a marker,
a reminder of death and trenches
and foot rot and death and insanity
and dismemberment and loss
and death, always wasteful death.
A fervent hope of many nations
that a first war of the world
could be the last
wept
behind this day.
Despite the signatures of leaders,
the wars continued
in lock step,
driven by barely concealed
economic policies.
Instead of recommitment
to end war as a method
of problem solving,
this day became rebranded
in 1954.
Now, in a twisted version
of “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,”
instead of a calendaric
statement on the ravages
wrought by war,
it bears a new name.
Thinly disguised under
flags and respect of troops,
it serves the military machine’s
jingoist propaganda
that celebrates war.
