Lily Myers - "Shrinking Women" (CUPSI 2013)

Finding Words

Ok, this poem a day project is harder than I had originally thought it would be. I keep waiting for that one day where I can set down a jewel of prose, but so far? Nada.

Now, don't take this as me fishing for compliments on the short pieces I've scrounged up and posted because I am aware that they're not all together horrible. But the truth of it is, being a student of English Literature with creative writing thrown in to the mix, I can easily "sling the bullshit."

That being said, I can admit that this project has been a helpful exercise. It has me thinking, and playing with phrases in my head--hence the short poems I've been updating with. Now, I know that I owe three poems today, so I will start it off with a poem that I pulled out of my folder. It's not new, but it sums up my writer's block:


Finding Words


The cursor flashes with a coy insistence:

“Fill the page! Capture the moment,” it sighs

With insidious longing—countering resistance

Built over time, where the slate holds no ties

Where once an arrow caught a fledgling core.

“Begin,” it taunts, but the ending is all that’s seen;

Yet, the keys respond in defiance for

Even an epilogue fills the page and frees

The compendia from the winking pest.

Thus, a flow of starts and stops stress the passing time—

The dart waits, suspended, and offers no rest

Where memory becomes word and is offered in rhyme.

                        “You’ve gone and filled the page,” it confides.

                        And now, pain has no place where peace resides.


Day 7:

It's funny how some men bide their time.
They make an investement--
A stock in propietary desire.
It was his turn, you see.
By some default, a clause in the "bro-code"
He had seniority on my body--
Because, apparently, the prior years of "I loves"
That had belonged to another dick was up for grabs.

Day 6:

It is but a nick of me

That you have a knack for naming.

In all, a compendium overlooked

That tells of the passing years—

Ink running on, sand to scour into permanence,

A wrinkling page showing use—

Often shelved as memoir far more often

Than embraced as a nightly tale—

Who then will read of me,

A many naméd thing,

Whose genre is ever fixed, yet changing?


Day 5:

Their words--
Heard more in melody then meaning.
My body--
Touched by desire barely masked.
The lie--
Oh sweet such song even in denial,
And I weep--
Trapped in hymn, yet shackled by honor.

Day 4

 Whom does she see?
Strum the chords to
Heighten everything--
Screeching halt,
And the mind overcomes--
The reflection is not me.

Two Birds, One Stone

I was busy with a bit of traveling yesterday, so I thought, "better late than never" mixed in with the daily April prose.

Day 2:

Warmth in winter.
Touch in solitude.
It resounds so deeply as to startle--
Words in silence.
Numb amongst feeling.
It creates the longing the mind denies--


Day 3:

Echo--
Hollow inside.
The sound, lost
Amongst thoughts--
Hello, who dwells in
This silence?

April's Prose

April is apparently a month of writing poetry (much like November's novel writing), and, due to a good friend, I have taken up the challenge. So, dear readers, bear with me because I in no way promise that every day will come with poetry worth writing home about....

Day 1:

"Something's missing--"
And the pale ring mocks,
"Look at what you left behind."
And I say, "Look! No mark--"
"Exactly," it replies.