Tag Archives: Art

Poetry, Writing

How to Hold a Cockroach

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(Poem 260 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

AI Generated image I prompted on Gencraft.com https://gencraft.ai/p/W0ZpTf

I know how to hold a cockroach.
That is not the problem. The real
problem is in the willingness to
hold the cockroach because I
don’t want to. I absolutely know
intellectually that the cockroach
will not harm me, and I absolutely
know spiritually that cockroaches
are God’s creatures, too, and I
absolutely know psychologically
that the exercise is good for my
psyche and all that jazz, but I
still don’t want to extend my hand
and allow the cockroach to climb
aboard and scurry all around. I
just got chills up my spine thinking
about it because the story is still
too strong that my mind makes up,
and I’m just not ready to let it go.

@Home Studio – 260th poem of the year (After reading How to Hold a Cockroach by Matthew Maxwell.)

Maxwell, Matthew. Illustrations by Allie Daigle. How to Hold a Cockroach – A book for those who are free and don’t know it, Hearthstone, 2020.

Runner ups for the Cockroach photos to accompany my poem:

Poetry, Writing

Friday the 13th

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(Poem 257 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

AI Generated image I prompted on Gencraft.com https://gencraft.ai/p/05ijyi

My grandmother Mema’s father’s
father Grandpa Carroll was an extremely
superstitious man who came down
hard on anyone who walked under a
ladder or spilled salt without throwing
some over the shoulder or broke a
mirror without taking proper precautions.
Mema did not remember what the proper
precautions were, as she was a small
child when she got harshly scolded for
spinning a chair on one leg in the dining
room, and her father had to come to
her defense, reprimanding his own
father for spouting such nonsense.
He hated black cats, unlucky numbers,
stepping on cracks, the opening of
umbrellas in the house, speaking of
the dead, and she thinks he told her
about the need to keep an axe under
the bed when a woman is in labor
to protect her from evil spirits about.
She found his stories both horrifying
and confusing, since her parents
countered that they were not true.
As she grew, her only superstition
became the spells of prayer she
uttered without ceasing to protect
her loved ones, which I know saved
us all on a number of occasions.

@Home Studio – 257th poem of the year

Poetry, Writing

Painted Skin

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(Poem 254 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

AI Generated image I prompted on Gencraft.com https://gencraft.ai/p/GQuc0J

Jenni married an Indian man,
painted her white skin brown,
and adopted a Hindi accent.
She wore a simple cotton sari
as though it was a ball gown
and dispensed sage advice
with smooth tilts of the head,
as though born in Mumbai.

@Home Studio – 254th poem of the year (After a dream I had about a white friend of mine completely appropriating Indian culture.)

Runner ups for the Indian Jenni photos to accompany my poem:

Poetry, Writing

Whales in the Sky

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(Poem 252 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

AI Generated image I prompted on Gencraft.com https://gencraft.ai/p/YfTkjY

Last night I saw a giant humpback
whale swimming in the sky, diving
deep through the air water to the
ocean floor land where I stood in
awe of its graceful power that both
terrified me and kept me rooted in
place admiring its beauty and grace.

@Home Studio – 252nd poem of the year

Runner ups for the Whales in the Sky photos to accompany my poem:

Poetry, Writing

Making the Call

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(Poem 247 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

AI Generated image I prompted on Gencraft.com https://gencraft.ai/p/l27VBQ

Making the call to end a life
weighs heavily on the spirit,
even if the conclusion is an
act of mercy for the beloved
by relieving pain and suffering.
Only those who have spent
years with another in close
proximity, shared their lives
intimately, and were tasked
with taking the initiative to
usher in the end know the
reluctance with which the
decision is made and how
heavy the heart to speak the
truth that life has become a
burden rather than a blessing.

@Home Studio – 247th poem of the year

Runner ups for the Making the Call photos to accompany my poem:

Poetry, Writing

COVID’s curse

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(Poem 246 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

AI Generated image I prompted on Gencraft.com https://gencraft.ai/p/zxz2Lt

COVID’s curse is that it lingers,
hangs menacingly in the air, and
recapitulates its previous threats
with symptomatic diminishment.
Not as serious, less deadly, return
to work after only five days now,
means everyone shares the virus
and those concerned are viewed
as disproportionately cautious.
Do they remember the terror so
recently fresh to those whose
cats lost their owners and children
lost their grandmothers and we
lamented the death counts daily?
This time when my husband got
sick and I could not touch him
for a week, I still checked to make
sure he was breathing and sheltered
in place and social distanced,
though no one uses that language
these days anymore…so 2020 of me.
Perhaps it is the lack of the sense
of smell that was stolen from me
or the worsened sense of vision
that was purloined or the lessened
oxygenation ability that was pilfered
or possibly the energy I once had
to function all day that was looted
after my fourth run-in with the
offender who is nothing more than
an unwelcome, tiresome loiterer.

@Home Studio – 246th poem of the year

Runner ups for the COVID photos to accompany my poem:

Poetry, Writing

Antinet Zettelkasten

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(Poem 237 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

AI Generated image I prompted on Gencraft.com https://gencraft.ai/p/rtQdRI

Analog externality boxes
technical materials into
physical reality’s system.
Numeric-alpha notecards
are self-referential links
with limitless possibility.
Arbitrary internal branches
flow from trees both chaotic
and ordered with fluidity.
Indexing a map of keys and
values connects the leaves
on the branches on the trees.
Ordered randomness forms
from a system written one
structured thought at a time.

@Home Studio – 237th poem of the year

Scheper, Scott. Antinet Zettelkasten. Greenlight, LLC, 2022.

Runner ups for the Antinet photos to accompany my poem:

Poetry, Writing

Emily in Paris

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(Poem 236 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

https://images.app.goo.gl/xLWcHpsbnEBDJaPx9 https://images.app.goo.gl/R6w1x8wuUVKRu5Nu8 https://images.app.goo.gl/GT53vsWyqN3gAkCP8

Emily in Paris
wears couture,
and speaks very
little French beyond
je ne comprends pas.
Nonsensical fantasy,
masquerade balls,
friends to lovers,
pregnant brides
leave grooms at
the altar to run off
to Greece with
another woman,
lovers’ triangles–non,
lovers’ pentagons.
Galas and lunches,
gorgeous people,
a French chef,
oh là là.
Silver-voiced
roommates who
sing Enchanté,
more fashion than
one decadent femme
could possibly possess,
merci beaucoup,
and everyone she
meets has that
je ne sais quoi
that Americans
simply do not
understand.

@Home Studio – 236th poem of the year (After watching Emily in Paris.)

Star, Darren, et al. Emily in Paris. Widescreen. Los Angeles, CA, Paramount, 2021.

Poetry, Writing

UFO

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(Poem 234 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

AI Generated image I prompted on Gencraft.com https://gencraft.ai/p/6xE6e6 (It looked like this, but triangular shaped.)

Nearing dusk in the
falling in love time
of year when we said
our goodbyes longer
than was necessary,
a UFO floated above,
slowly, gracefully, for
a machine so large,
its triangular shape
at once distinct and
completely unclear.

The size of a city block,
it made no sound,
shone no lights, nor
revealed exhaust,
but simply hovered
like a kite out for a
leisurely jaunt taking
a moment to survey
the neighborhood
from the best vantage
point in the clear sky.

My lover and I pointed
heavenward in awe and
disbelief, unsure of the
images our eyes relayed
to our brains, unable to
fully process a craft of
solid black smoothness
suspended in disbelief
as gently as a cloud,
then race north and out
of sight like a memory.

@Home Studio – 234th poem of the year (David and I saw a UFO one evening in 2013 or 2014, when we were still dating.)

Poetry, Writing

Mean Girls

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(Poem 232 for 2024 – I am writing a poem a day)

AI Generated image I prompted on Gencraft.com https://gencraft.ai/p/SD7SWc https://gencraft.ai/p/rFOMfX

My granddaughter admitted
school was off to a rough start.
I asked her what was wrong,
and her answer broke my heart.

She said there was a mean girl
who was excluding her at lunch.
She had to sit all by herself,
which felt like a gut punch.

I asked if the only other
black girl in her class
stood up for her or reached out,
but that did not come to pass.

Why can’t children include others?
Why must they make it so hard?
I guess it’s human nature to fear,
and be a bully in the school yard.

We talked about some things to try
and a few days later I checked in.
Not only were things going better,
But the girl was now her good friend.

@Home Studio on – 232nd poem of the year

Runner ups for the Mean Girls photos to accompany my poem: