dogtrax

How long will I sit here, wondering, waiting for the voice to let me know: my words, delayed by snow

(Note: I had just finished counting syllables when the call came in — Snow Day, due to ice and snow. So to answer my own question: not long)

A Naani poem for Open Write

On a whim, more than plan, the chessboard's unpacked – the pieces, stacked – rules, reviewed - and as we played the day through, who knew I'd find another view unfolding from the depths of you; you, too?

for Open Write

One note I wrote becomes a song; If I make it sing and melodic enough for your ears to hear

the ideas I am exploring than even in silence something connects

and you only need to listen long enough to find the groove that becomes a song I wrote; One note

a reverse-o Fibonacci poem for Daily Create

Why Write Songs

because words, jumbled, needed rhythm because i heard it and hear it that way because making music once may have saved me because my father's drumbeats are a phantom click-track because i get lost, nearly completely, in the moment because i found a guitar and a chord book and my voice because that summer, i had third shift overnight with nothing else to do because i already knew saxophone but needed something different because i had poems that needed something more because i had to and still do

for Open Write

Fingers, freezing cold; the dog on leash determined to drag me back home

for Algot

The paper project handout, an imagined horn of plenty, folded gently, with barely a sound, until the moment of reckoning, like a herald announcing the entry of royalty to the room with a groove: duh-duhhhhh-dahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! duh-duhhhhh-dahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! duh-duhhhhh-dahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! and then it's the hand, beckoning, another moment on the stage with the actor, removed

for OpenWrite

Bend the edge of the folded clock

where passages of time refuse to stop

Pen and paper, the end where we start

the twisting arc, of the folded clock

inspired by The Folded Clock, a memoir by Hedi Julavits

On a memory stop to an old repair shop on Main, a whistle in B flat ringing on the door, opening, explaining I'm here, aiming to get a broken sax, fixed; worn pads, replaced; things sound better, with love

I hand it to the man behind a glass counter littered with sheet music, cork grease, guitar strings - his probing fingers pour over every turn of the neck, the bell, the cage, the springs

In a gruff voice, he speaks, in a sort of bebop rhyme: he'll weave some magic to make my sax sing again - come back in two weeks time

inspired by the video documentary The Last Repair Shop https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xttrkgKXtZ4 and George's Music Shop (now shuttered)

Listen to the music on the lake

Waiting for the break of day

Let me steal this moment from you now

It's time to come together

And we'll all float on, OK

Stanza 1: Bruce Hornsby Mandolin Rain 95.5 Smooth Jazz Stanza 2: Chicago 25 or 6 to 4 Big R Radio Stanza 3: Kate Bush Running Up That Hill, 181 The Buzz Stanza 4: Kool and Gang: Celebration Philly Jammin' Oldies Stanza 5: Modest Mouse Float On 181FM The Buzz

Radio Poem for DS106

Balanced feet break through the crust of forgotten snow; ragged, walking flow