You Are A Poem

Poetry is feeling, and you are a poem. “Hold on,” you say, “I don’t like poetry. Poems are confusing and metaphorical and dense. I got a C- on the poetry unit my senior year in high school and I’ve never looked another poem in the eye again.” Poetry refuses rubrics, and you were told you didn’t understand well enough when you did.

You are a bewildering, symbolic, and complex poem because you feel. Poetry has been and always will be inside you. When you show how you feel, you are your singular self. There’s no way to copy paste, Google search, “Buy Now with One Click,” or AI generate the poem of you.

When you know, when you think, when you believe, you are exercising all that has shaped you by way of environment, culture and instruction. We carry that influence everywhere we go in our bindlesticks, briefcases, fanny packs, and pocketbooks for when we need it most. They are the useful tools we need to survive in the world we’ve created. We put on the suit of belonging and walk to the offices of productive citizenry each day. 

The poem of you is in your body, speaking each time you laugh, dance, cry, seek out eye contact with another, stare into the clouds without interruption, trace the invisible air with your fingers, trip on a sidewalk chunk, flail, fail in public. Poetry is a physical act of emotional expressions we were taught not to trust and to hide instead.

I think a lot about how students in public school systems respond when a teacher steps out of teacher mode to share a secret silly skill, or they make an obvious mistake and respond rather than ignore and move on, or they reveal a side of themselves that isn’t a part of the lesson. Those are the moments where the teacher becomes the poem, and the students experience a role model being vulnerable, and the lesson becomes the poetry of humanity. 

When Chris and I go out as Foolbright Scholars into public spaces to sing spontaneous songs, engage in rankling delight and invitation to feeling as we dance with uninflected balloons, we show what it is to feel and to be present with the folly of feeling. We shape an image or story in a short period of time, something brief and real. We know nothing and anything can happen and we are full of feeling. We remind others that feeling is what we are, it makes us living poems, and it is what connects us. We see the audience, and let them in. We are everything and nothing, all of the time.

Steven James

Our oldest cat, Steve, died on Wednesday night. He was fifteen. He marked an era in our lives, one that feels over now that he is gone. The house feels different without his airy, water-loving presence.

Fifteen years ago Helen's coworker said her uncle had some kittens. We were in the market for a cat that could be at our bookstore/arts space with us, so I went over one rainy afternoon to meet the kittens. I recall four or five hissy females on the sofa, and one quiet floof under a glass topped coffee table, peering up at me. When I lifted him up, he leaned into the petting. He was gentle and playful, and we kept him at the house until he grew up enough to be at the bookstore. When he was really small, he wilded energy like an amusement park ride, then would crash out on Dan's lap for a two minute nap and repeat.

At Paper Kite he loved the company that arrived for events, sometimes climbing into coats thrown over chairs to have a nap. He made friends with the mailman who slid mail through the slot in the door. But it was obvious he was too lonely when we weren't there, so we brought him back home with us on Armstrong Street where he lived with other cats who were in and out of our lives at the time -- Edna, Mango, Lucy Bob, and Stella. When I got into circus, and then burlesque, Steve's love of sequins, feather boas, and tulle came out. He was there with me for every costume build. He also loved Christmas and birthdays, because that meant there would be shiny ribbons to play with.

When we moved into an apartment in Lancaster, Steve blossomed. His favorite pastime was sitting in one of the marble bathroom sinks, all curled up like a fluffy sea creature, waiting for one of us to turn on the tap. Because the apartment was small, he had easy access to my costumes. If the wind wasn't blowing too much, he'd sit out on the balcony to watch the chimney swifts. He knew he looked good on the white sofa and chair (contrast, baby!), and sometimes he'd relax on our glass dining table.

We moved from downtown Lancaster to Akron and Dan was away a lot to care for his dad. Steve would sleep right next to my head then. He wasn't too happy with the new rental, and when Mango returned for awhile he destroyed the white sofa in protest. Mom enjoyed seeing Steve when she'd visit, then when she was in a nursing home and not able to get out as much she'd ask, "How's Steve doing?" She never forgot him.

Steve accepted our move to the farm with grace. He kept quiet hours there, ignoring the mice, curling up on beds for long naps, gazing out the windows at ducks and goats. He never complained, but I don't think farm living was quite his style. It was dusty. His fur matted a lot and he needed to get "the Lion Cut" in the summer, which gave him a poodle-y look, but was relief from the heat. He felt like a cloud and looked a little like one, floating through the mouse filled walls of the house. When Helen's new boyfriend Rob brought his dog Percy to the house, Steve let him know who was boss. It was rare to see Steve arch his back and hiss, but a dog in the house was just too much.

When we returned to Lancaster Steve was slower in pace, but still the same cat, seeking sequins and tulle, and finding comfort in my closet by the costumes. He enjoyed the cool water of the tub every morning and evening. He sat on Dan's lap every evening as I got ready for bed. 

The other night as he was actively dying, we kept him as comfortable as we could. How can you know when they can't talk? He slipped away as gently and gentlemanly as he arrived in our lives.

We buried him wrapped in one of Dan's shirts, and accompanied by a string of sequins, some fringe, and a scrap of the tulle he loved to chew. His gravesite will be marked with a peony plant in the fall. Right now it has a very showy display of petunias and other annuals.

Pets see us through so much in our lives. Steve saw us through a bookstore/arts space, a daughter growing up and moving out (and later, getting married). He saw us get married, lose parents, and start various adventures in business. We moved so many times he probably hated seeing boxes appear. 

Fifteen years. A whole era over, marked by a sweet cat who lived and loved with us. Now there's a Steve shaped space everywhere we look. 

Everyone On Howard Ave. Has An Ice Cream Cone

On a walk to the Rite Aid I reached up to touch new ginko leaves, then stopped to admire someone's bloom of cornflower flax. The parking garage exhaled coolness. Some mossy trees tricked me into thinking someone was wearing patchouli, and the bus shelters smelled like vegetable soup and cologne. I got stuck behind a man who was walking while texting or scrolling on his phone, and his pace dwindled to the point where I was grateful when our paths diverged. Rite Aid is going out of business and the shelves are neat and tidy because there's hardly a nail file to buy. I got most of what I needed, and walked home the zigzaggy back way, avoiding rush hour intersections and reveling in my ability to be a pedestrian. I walked up Howard, past the paused ice cream truck, and peeked inside to see a bin of rainbow sprinkles, then the aproned belly of the man who runs the truck as he approached the window. Everyone on Howard Ave. had an ice cream cone. There are evenings I hear the jingle of this truck as it sits on Locust street, tinkling promises of summer nights and fireflies.

To My Old Addresses

The other day I wrote to a friend, "I wrote this poem this morning. I may have written this poem before? It's a memory that has stuck with me. Maybe I never wrote about it at all, but it feels like I did because I think about it often. And that's a squirrely little trick of memory, isn't it?" 

Well, this isn't the same poem that I was referring to in my email. This is two poems I discovered this morning, both inspired by Kenneth Koch's "To My Old Addresses," but written at different times in my life. Proof you can go home again, over and over. Proof that there is never enough time, that your memories are faulty, and that you may have favorite phrasings for those memories. It's possible I wrote the second poem with the first one from 2017 open beside it, in fact I must have, because there are repeated phrasings. I do recall using Google maps to find my old apartment on Main Street in Wilkes-Barre while writing the second one. I feel like a sleuth in my own memoir, moving through all the rooms of these homes, bumping into invisible furniture. These poems are all about process, and processing. 

This first one is from 2017.

To My Old Addresses

316 Ramapo Valley Road:

The apple tree, a yawn of lawn

where my father planted a vegetable garden,

porch where we played,

a banister where my sister

lost a tooth, the accordion door

to my bedroom. Traffic

lights told stories on my walls.



Address forgotten:

Red shag carpet, a loft, and stairs

with a space underneath I turned

into a post office. The pond my sister and I named

Anniversary Pond, we skated and I fell

in love with the idea

of what is underneath the surfaces

of the world. So many.


21 Huron Circle:

A dogwood tree, a deck with a space

left for a tree to grow through it, rooms

where my sister and I slammed doors

or created radio shows, a forest sizzling

with cicadas, dirt roads, a lake and a canoe.

The woods where I grew up, my parents

were so young in t-shirts and jeans,

my grandmothers visited on Sundays,

holidays, and birthdays.


118 Green Street:

first apartment during college,

my roommate’s knick-knacks and kimchee,

and the Peeping Tom

who left a mountain of cigarette butts

on the lawn by the kitchen window.


115 Main Street:

Not enough outlets to have

the fishtank and the coffeepot

plugged in at the same time,

a landlord who clipped his toenails

while my grandmothers visited

his real estate office. Green

shag carpeting. A kitchen table

from the 1960s, all vinyl and chrome.

My grocery receipts included

items that were a dollar or less.


221 South State Street:

Home with Mom and Dad

for a summer, then for a year or so

of a self-imposed college sabbatical.

Scrabble on the side porch, dinners with dad

while mom worked the three to eleven shift

at the hospital. House full of light.


One Hundred and Something North Main Street:

Three flights up to a layered torte

of more green shag carpeting. My father

paid burly co-workers to help him

haul my apartment sized piano

up all those stairs. I didn’t play

it enough for that.


135 W. Franklin Street:

A slow chain of buildings with

blue doors, and a train that howled

at 1 a.m. every morning.

Roaches were a staple

in the kitchen.

Traps everywhere, scuttling

when the lights were flipped on.


1148 Buttonwood Street:

Eight months pregnant, I painted

the ceiling of the bedroom

in our brick rowhome, and slept

on a mattress on the floor.

My daughter’s first smile,

first tooth, first steps.

Then, gunfire.

Feuding neighbors threw eggs

at each other in the street.

We moved.


118 Oak Street:

Two floors we rented. Cherry tree in the back,

a kitchen big enough to dance in.

Long walks in the strip-mined land

my daughter called “The Jungle.”


25 Armstrong Street:

The first house I bought.

My dad raised his eyebrow.

Not one right angle in it,

thanks to coal barons

who robbed the pillars.

The love of my life helped

paint the rooms alive again.

My daughter

wore a cat tail, a ladybug costume

a prom dress, a graduation cap,

and then a baker’s toque.

When it was time to leave,

we packed everything

but the years of growth

marked on the doorjamb.

--

This one is from 2024:


To My Old Addresses


316 Ramapo Valley Road, Oakland, New Jersey:

apple tree

pancake

yawn of lawn, garden radish,

my bicycle best friend Billy,

clouds,

gerbils mazed in a habitrail, wooden blocks,

my sister

lost a tooth, an accordion

opened to my bedroom,

traffic lights told

stories on the walls,

a burglar left a dark star in the window.


Rental A-Frame in Valley of Lakes, Pennsylvania:

The woods full of earaches,

I was thinned by a flu.

My sister and I skated

on our secret pond,

dashed through reeds,

made houses within

the house, lived in them

as if they held our futures.



21 Huron Circle, Valley of Lakes, Pennsylvania:

A dogwood, deck with space

left for a tree to grow through it, rooms

where my sister and I slammed doors

at each other or created radio shows.

Summer woods sizzled with cicadas,

dirt roads led to nowhere,

a lake, a canoe we overturned.

The dog we buried with a cairn

by the garage, my parents young

in t-shirts and jeans,

GG Romayne and Helen still alive

to sashay into our Sunday dinners.


118 Green Street, Nanticoke, Pennsylvania:

My first college apartment,

independent, I thought,

except I didn’t pay rent.

My roomie was a best friend

from high school with knick-knacks galore

and a kimchee habit.

A peeping Tom

left a mountain of cigarette butts

by our uncurtained kitchen window.


115 Main Street, Nanticoke, Pennsylvania:

The landlord, Albert of the Cigar

and Grey-shirted Potbelly, lurked

on my roof porch, insisted

I take no male visitors,

clipped his toenails

in front of my grandmothers

once as they waited for me to return.

My apartment didn’t have enough

outlets to have a fish tank and the coffeepot

plugged in at the same time,

but it came with a kitchen table

from the 1960s, a vinyl

boomerang design, and chrome.

My grocery receipts while I lived there

included only items that were a dollar or less.



221 South State Street, Ephrata, Pennsylvania:

Back with Mom and Dad for a summer,

then for a year or so of self-imposed college sabbatical,

I received letters from lovers and friends,

turned the space above the garage into

an art studio where I made greeting cards,

and wrote poems. The neighbor’s “brother”

arrived each morning in his suspenders

to unzip his pants and pee on her garage

before visiting her. The fire department

alarm went off regularly, our dog escaped

and ran up the street. The Gehr’s little dog

yapped through the fence. We played Scrabble

on the side porch, and I had dinners with dad

while mom worked the three to eleven shift

at the hospital. I remember a house full of light.

Decades later I emptied it all with my sister,

put it up for sale.


521 North Main Street, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania:

Three flights up to a layered torte

of boozy scented green shag carpeting.

My father paid burly co-workers to help him

haul my apartment sized piano

up all those stairs. I didn’t play

it enough for that. An ex lurked

in my hallway, I worked a 9-5

at the Donnelley Directory,

shopped at the Oh Yes! Chicken Mart

down the street. Painting and crying

one night I drank vodka straight

out of an iced tea glass then rolled off

the bed to vomit into the carpet.

I turned on the radio

and the blender for the noise

to keep me awake,

alive.


135 W. Franklin Street, Topton, Pennsylvania:

A town away from the university

where I decided to complete my education,

but never did, I painted and wrote in a chain of buildings

with identical blue doors, and a train that howled

at 1 a.m. every morning. Roaches were a staple.

Traps everywhere.


1148 Buttonwood Street, Reading, Pennsylvania:

Eight months pregnant, I painted

the ceiling of the bedroom

in our brick rowhome, and slept

on a mattress on the floor.

My daughter’s first smile,

first tooth, first steps.

Then, gunfire.

Feuding neighbors threw eggs

at each other in the street.


118 Oak Street, Nanticoke, Pennsylvania:

Two rented floors in the place where I thought

I belonged. Cherry tree in the back,

a kitchen big enough to dance in, but we never did.

Instead, we fought over a melted wax

accident when he tried to make encaustics.

Long walks in the strip-mined land

my daughter called “The Jungle.”

Abandoned sofas, beer bottles, fire pits,

the stripped land still hot to the touch

and sulfurous.


25 Armstrong Street, Edwardsville, Pennsylvania:

The first house I bought. My dad raised his eyebrow.

Not one right angle in it, thanks to coal barons

who robbed the pillars. Hell’s mouths opened up

in the yard, the street.

My daughter wore a cat tail,

a ladybug costume,

a prom dress,

a graduation cap,

and then a baker’s toque.

The love of my life helped

paint the rooms alive again

after a divorce, the bamboo

sang to me in the morning.

Not long after a neighbor shot out

my daughter’s windows,

we repaired and rented the house,

then sold it.


153 E. King Street, Lancaster, Pennsylvania:

We downsized to upscale, sold everything for marble

countertops and a balcony view of historic brick

against blue sky. City street cleaning began

at 3 a.m. with a gas powered leaf blower,

trucks always hit the pothole right outside our bedroom.

His father moved in, took over the second bedroom

for a year, and my mother visited for Sunday soufflés

and games of Miles Bournes until she forgot how to find us.

We played a game of Hide and Seek.


29 Diamond Spring Circle, Akron, Pennsylvania:

I collaged the bathroom wall, turned

the tiny extra bedroom into my writing space,

backed the car out of the attached garage

to turn it into “The Little Theatre of the House of the Car”

where we held open mic nights.

An enormous tree filled the yard,

neighbors became friends,

I walked past the shush of wheat fields

to memorize lines from Shakespeare.

Helen moved into the basement

and turned it into an apartment,

Dan moved away to care for his father,

the cat destroyed the sofa, I helped

my mother in ways that felt intrusive,

but I could still make her laugh.


2979 Kutztown Road, East Greenville:

A pond to boat and skate on, a house

full of drafts and ghosts, an electrical fire

that shot out the outlets. I raised 40 or so

ducks, two goats, and two dopey sheep. Dan

followed his dream of growing his own food —

tomatoes, squashes, corn, peanuts, kolrahbi.

I turned the old barn into a theatre.

Dying ash trees knocked power out on the coldest

of days, I got chilblains. We committed horrible acts

of farm mercy, locals shouted “faggots!” at us

as they roared down the road full of potholes.

I became the quirky lady next door to Archer and Gus,

who I watched daily as they waited for the school bus.

We balanced feathers, made art, fed the goats,

created a game with a hula hoop and a hammock,

and turned feral cats into pets. My mother visited

once from the nursing home to say “It’s like a dream.”

Happy Other's Day

 Helen wrote "Mother's Day" onto the May whiteboard calendar this week at work, and for word-nerd fun I wiped the M off. Other's Day! I like it better than Mother's Day because it is inclusive. Almost everyone is a mother in one way or another (more word-nerd fun there), caring for, nurturing, bringing into the world something new. Some tend toward caring and nurturing more, and yes, some have pushed real, living human beings out of vaginas, but that's just one way of being a mother. There are many ways. Happy Other's Day to everyone who creates. 

When Helen asked what I was doing on Sunday, I was thrilled I had no plans other than laundry, and suggested we take a hike together somewhere that we could stop and do some drawing. She suggested Speedwell Forge, and we walked a loop along the creek to see fly fisherman slinging lines, and a heron in a tree (and later in the water -- magnificent and stately), and plenty of families with dogs happy to slop around in the muddy paths. It was the perfect day for a hike, and time spent under the trees to focus on what was right in front of us, and try to capture it on paper. We talked, and laughed, shared some spicy nuts and a mandarin orange. She gave me some beautiful, handmade gifts of pottery. It has been such a joy to see her progress as an artist. She's been making pottery since she was 11, and I have some of her earliest works and now some of her most recent.

One of the many things mothers do is insist on the impossible and potentially embarrassing. "Let's get our photo together with our drawings!" We wore them as hats so they'd fit in the frame.

Red Actions

I 

whittle down,

consider,

then remember

I care.

--

It is my birthday

and I begin again.

I turn between

poetic and honest:

I have always been

my birthday.

--

In the anonymous solitude

of the ocean

I dissolve sadness,

my thoughts

pure as an old piano.

Dab Float Flick Wring Press Slash Glide Punch

Happy Marching into who knows what's next. To start my day yesterday I moved through my space using Laban's eight efforts to the sounds of The Juju Orchestra, and then I read half of a collection of short stories by George Saunders, Liberation Day. Laundry tumbled in the dryer, then was folded, we went for a walk, groceries were purchased and put away for the week. In short, we had the sort of day we take for granted. The kind I worry are numbered.

This weekend I attended a funeral. I had to switch over my pocketbooks, and in the changeover I went with a bag that had my slide whistle tucked inside one of the compartments. You never know when a slide whistle may be needed. The two hour trip to the funeral was a trip back in time, a homecoming, and all day feeling of deep and abiding love. I cried slide whistle tears most of the day. I ate two of the most delicious pierogie served to me by a classmate of my sister's, talked to my former school bus driver (he's been driving a bus for 49 years!), shared theatre stories with family friends, and heard the most moving love story. I stood in the wind high up on the hill in the cemetery, with my ear covered as the snow spit sideways, wishing I'd worn my winter coat, feeling once again, underprepared, but with a slide whistle.

The funeral felt like a hug from the friend who died. His last words to me when I saw him two weeks ago were, "It's going to be ok." I want to believe him. I'm trying. His ability to make others feel good, to lift others up and build community was so strong it ripples out still after his death.

How can we know anything?  We don't. We can't. There's faith. Hope. People doing small acts of good in a world full of muck and mire. 

This morning my car won't start. A dead battery. I craned around to see if there were jumper cables in the back seat. Nope. But there's a pool noodle, for keening.

February's Foolhearty Give-It-a-Go

Everything is an experiment, including you. What a relief, right? Here's a little exercise I really enjoy. It's fine to try in in a public space (I did it at work and got a bemused chortle), but it's better to be alone to start. You'll feel less self-conscious and will follow your instincts rather than whatever it is your mind tells you. This a chance to let whatever feelings are in you now to have a voice, form, and movement:

Make a wordless noise. Any noise (don't overthink, let whatever bubbles up be the sound), and then after repeating it a few times, find a movement that goes with it. What part of your body instinctively wants to move to that sound? It can be small (just a foot, or an eyebrow), or your whole body. Make the sound and movement until you tire of it, or it turns into another sound and movement.

If you have time, write a little about the experience. 

How do you feel? Did any sounds/movements feel like characters emerging? Did you find yourself thinking "what should come next" or did you find your internal chatter quiet down? How does everything around you appear now? What, if anything, has shifted? 

Owl Pellets

I think of my poetic process as the digestive tract of an owl. Of course, doesn't everyone? My poems take awhile to process, and each poem is a pellet full of fur and bones and other bits of indigestables, but something whole, a product of being well fed. I realize I am saying my poems are poop, but they are fascinating poop, worthy of poking around in for the occasional treasure.

Yesterday I saw two things I thought were remarkable, and that I hope made it into the deep recesses of my poet-owl's digestive tract. The first was a frilled, foil Dollar Tree Valentine heart decoration slapped on top of a "No Trespassing" sign. The words "No Trespassing" peeped through the empty space of the heart. 

The second was an attempt at beautifying the concrete barriers on a stretch of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Whoever constructed them used a texture tool to shape some lollipop trees  --  ideas of trees. The real trees behind them stretched out their intricately networked branches over the barriers and cast shadows on top of the fakery.

And today I've made myself cry by reading an excerpt of the Velveteen Rabbit, having gone down the "what is real?" thought process while writing this. It doesn't apply to concrete lollipop trees and real ones shadowing them, but it does apply to aging. Dan took a photo of me yesterday and texted it to me, and I zoomed in on my eyes, oh look at my eyes, almost loved into raisins from smiles and squints of sunny days.

The Why

My mother was my best reader. She always read what I wrote, and commented on it in some way. Either in the vague, not entirely complimentary way of "How'd you do that?" or "Why did you write that?" or in a very specific-to-the-line way that let me know she understood, and felt what I was trying to do. If I could make my mother or father laugh or cry through whatever project I was working on, I knew I was on the right track. Both of them were brilliant people with deep imaginations, talents, and skills. I wanted to be more like them, and I wanted them to understand how I viewed the world too.

What they loved to read was different. Mom read short stories, plays, Tom Robbins, David Sedaris, memoirs. Dad's tastes leaned toward the historic biography, sci-fi, and spy novels, and he loved any book that had to do with the legend of King Arthur. I'm not sure my father understood how he ended up with a poet for a daughter, but I think he enjoyed it to some degree.

After Mom died, I discovered all the publications of mine she'd saved. Many of them I'd forgotten about, including a newsletter I'd edited for a writing group, one of my very early poetry publications, and a program for a show I wrote.

My "why" for writing or creating anything was always to make my parents feel something, and respond. Pride in me was never the goal. The goal was always to connect with them on an emotional level.

Now I just hope to make anyone feel in a world full of numbing distractions, and I don't always feel up to it. My "why" is something of a "why bother?" on some days, a scattershot of thoughts I have to confront to get to the work. The only rule is work. That is how you catch onto things.

Ah, a memory: I am standing in my slanted kitchen in the house on Armstrong Street, twirling the six foot phone cord around my wrist like a bracelet. I am 35. I can hear my mother ask through the phone receiver, "So, what projects are you working on now?"