Three Poems

Judith Offer

perspectives
writings: poetry

September 2012

Crab Of The Poet Persuasion

Oh littoral-minded creature of lateral orientation,
You dredge out of shifting sands your furiously stubborn position,
Heaping next to the ocean's edge edition after edition
Of your edifying, uncondensed, elevating creations.

No matter a tidal waver or whatever horrendous occasion,
You scratch away with broken limb or other pathetic condition:
Such a littoral-minded creature of lateral orientation,
Dredging out of shifting sands your furiously stubborn position.

By now you might have written a doctoral dissertation,
But you heroically cling to couplets without apology or ambition,
Breaching the beach as with some divinely-ordained mission.
Nothing seems to strike you as an impossible complication.

Oh littoral-minded creature of lateral orientation,
Who dredges out of shifting sands your furiously stubborn position.

 

Give Me Words

                  I can't read this.
                  The words are too close
                  to the page.   Sol B.

Give me words that aren't  so close to the page.
Sweaty, shoveling, shoving, shouting words,
Steel into soil, fist on face, earthrumbling words.

Or something in the sobbing genre,
Soggy, sliding south, sad
A woman screaming no no don't take my baby.

A poet wants words she has to hold down,
Which moan on their own, pant, grab ass,
Grab gut, clutch, writhe, finally satisfy.

Finger-popping words, which fling themselves,
Whirl, twirl, stomp their feet,
 To some sort of regular rhythm that won't let go.

        But give me words that want to rise
        That make the heart rise,
        That raise the brain,
        Won't stay on a page
        But rise and carry a reader,
        Carry any reader, carry all readers,
        Through the universe flying, flying high,
        Flying on words, flying on my words
        Finally flung at the ear of God.

 

It Takes A Village To Raise A Pome

Coffeehouse workshop inception: much-published Studly M. Guru
Seminates Emily surrogate.  "If you can walk, you can pome."

Transferred from scrapbackto IMAC, swaddled in Mirosoft typeface,
Suckled by metaphor website, pome electronically amahed.

Pometry seminar baptism:  Iowa MBA godmother pours.
Promise to guard Lapomita from meter. Congregate blessing bestowed.

Livingingroom pometry playgroup: typified toddlers displayed.
Mita's meanderings mystify moms;  must be a prodigy pome!

Epublication on webzine:  out to the scholarly world.
Bashfully blank and awash in enigma, Mita amazes academes.

Five-dollar contests on line;  none ever heard of before.
Communified Mita takes twenty-three firsts; resume longer than she is.

Watching from heavenly regions, Emily Dickenson marvels:
"I sat with notebook and bee, writing alone. Hundreds of poems found me!"

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©2012 Judith Offer
©2012 Publication Scene4 Magazine

Judith Offer has five books of poetry and dozens of plays. (Eighteen of the latter, including six musicals, have been produced.) Her most recent book of poetry is Double Crossing. More at: www.judithoffer.com

 

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