TOVLI SIMIRYAN
TOVLI'S WRITINGS
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April is Poetry...2024
Day 21 Write a poem on any subject with at least five stanzas, two lines to a stanza. Make the first line long, the second shorter. It needn’t rhyme.
Why Are You?
As if breadcrumbs might successfully lead anyone back home.
So, why are you so cute?
The world never did rhyme or breathe smoothly for that matter.
So, why should I?
Poems hatch broken seeds, then bloom the earth clean.
Does anyone believe this?
Once home, I set the table and sit in the center of everything.
Is this belonging?
If you want to know the truth, I prefer Russian.
Why? No one listens.
If you want politics to behave, stop talking.
Why? No one cares.
End of days?
Poetry.
If it wasn’t for poetry we’d all open a door and greet Eliyahu HaNavi.
So, let’s continue—why are you so cute?
© Tovli 2024
Day 20 Write an occasional poem for an anniversary. It needn’t be wedding; it could be the anniversary of meeting someone, losing something, beginning or ending something. Any event. But make it on the occasion of an off-year: not 1st or 25th or 50th but something like the 16th or 22nd or 51st.
Ano
Celebrating our dear poet, Menke Katz, and his triangle-sonnet form
My song.
Belonging.
No more numbers.
Anniversary.
Birth, while waving goodbye.
We count Omer, not others.
My first year was never counted.
Followers' whereabouts were unknown,
unregistered. Bundles in unmarked graves.
They toss me strength that forms these muddy moments.
Let us choose from our own distant constellation.
Skin deep, beneath the ink, numbers fit between stars.
This is the way we promise each other, Never Again.
You’ll never forget the child who sang as she marched away.
You’ll never forget Grand-Mama’s tears dancing in heaven.
Distance has been peeled from our skin, like ripe, moldy fruit.
There’s nothing we remember, nothing we forget.
In time uncountable moments become fingers,
the knives that slice a calendar into pieces.
There’s infinity, songs beyond numbers.
Nothing begins or ends, but nighttime.
Still, we await Modei Ani,
darkness that finds its warm star.
That’s the matching number
melting sand and air
closed devotion
the secret
time-line.
© Tovli 2024
Day 19 List as many toys as you can remember from your childhood, whether you owned them or not. Then choose one to write a poem about.
Pendulum
Remembering Kreskin’s ESP/Krystal-1966 to the present time
It’s time, you say, to recognize more exists
than established genius can perceive.
Pinch the pendulum’s chain
between thumb and forefinger.
No need to roll dice or select a card.
There is no trance. No prison time is anticipated.
It’s your own light, brilliantly refracted.
That’s all there is to it, imagination and
three dollars and seventy-five cents!
If you wait half a decade, portability appears,
and you’ll never be able to let go of that string.
The price triples and pockets deepen.
It’s a small price to pay for illumination
and crystalized Formica.
Except for strange lines appearing on practitioners’ palms,
it’s just a child’s toy. Harmless.
Once those little fists learn to let go,
or fall silently within the pages of darkness,
it’ll be easy to mistake the ice-fog
for a warm day at the beach…
…the place every friend you’d ever hoped to remember
shows up and never leaves.
I promise,
The Amazing Kreskin
(c) Tovli 2024
Day 18 Write a poem on a bridge (a footbridge, covered bridge or another type). You might work into your poem other definitions for bridge, such as of the nose, in music, on a ship, or in dentistry.
Bridges
Don’t rely on bridges…
the spiritual joints
that collapse inward,
bow outward, moving solitude
from border to river.
Neither Ibuprofen nor surgery can restore cartilage.
Stand on a bridge
your boots fill with water.
Walk the bridge.
You’ll crave globalism, or
mistake nationalism for gristle.
Bridges summon the lost, then collapse. They make poor homelands.
Blockade a bridge,
you’ll die from arthritis.
Burn a bridge,
breathing becomes a wall.
Even if time howls, dismiss the child who gave charity.
So what? You live alone. Comb the snarls from your hair.
Build yourself a bridge.
Stand on it. Waist deep.
Occupy someone else's space.
Think Chopin—some catchy bridge section…
…is it the same thing?
How would you know? You’re never home long enough to hear the melody.
Forget about it.
Move north, in fact, take flight.
Bridges are like an arrhythmia,
an out-of-sync moment,
a structure meant to frighten;
yet, no one truly crosses over. Not really.
© 2024 Tovli
Day 17 Write a poem about something someone said about you that you’ll never forget.
Last Visit
I’ve forgotten them. Sort of.
My mother made coffee.
She remembered how I liked it.
“This is for you. Just for you.”
“How’d you know to make it this way?’
“Your father told me.”
Still in bed, Dad’s eyes twinkled.
Their new bedroom was Hollywood in the forties:
kitchenette,
walk-in closet,
domed ceiling,
Bette Davis bathroom—
sunken tub, shower on the side,
plush coral towels they’d never use.
They were happy. They smiled at each other.
Their bodies, wrapped in sleek percale,
were like clever ghosts dipping their toes into heaven.
I sat in Grandma’s rocker,
fingers rubbing against tiny bite marks
her children had left behind, each one her favorite.
My parents laughed, their secrets gnawing the air.
Rebirth.
A key pinched between thumb and forefinger
unlocked belonging, suggesting
I might bury my teeth in an available arm,
leaving a trace of joy to drip away.
We exchanged odd, yet courteous recognition
and went our separate ways.
Before the door closed, I called out to them:
“Please. Wait. We’ll enjoy coffee once again.”
They laughed like a couple of little kids, turned a corner,
and never looked back…
…not even once.
© Tovli 2024
Day 16 Write a Dodoitsu, a Japanese form of four lines: seven syllables in each of the first three lines, and five syllables in the final line on the topic of work or love. End with a humorous surprise or twist.
Apostrophe
(the symbol used to indicate omission)
Hearts break. Voices chirp kisses.
I would fit my ears for gloves,
but my ears have no fingers.
Listen! Eyes will speak.
© Tovli 2024
Day 15 Think of a book that had a strong effect on you during your school years and write an epistolary poem (a poem in the form of a letter) to a character in the book.
Dear John:
I call you by your first name because we belonged, at least for one moment in time to California. I’m entitled to this familiarity for that reason alone. When we first met, I had expectations: Tell me a story the world deserves. Write it like a love letter, a tragic story that will change world history, while hollowing out family. Confuse critics, and embarrass the community. Turn their flesh into shadows that follow every reader, and every listener into an endless horizon. Make us real. Bend our arrogance into hatred. Teach us to miss those who’ve left.
I traded Zip Zip Goes to Venus for The Pastures of Heaven. It was a place with many rooms and rain puddles to splash around in. I held that book for a long time. I was just ten years old—my first “real” read.
Edward “Shark” Wicks, his wife, and his daughter stare through my windows, with a shotgun blast of poverty obliterating their faces. Yet, their ghosts are forever wealthy. I cannot describe them. Their destroyed faces have changed in memory with each passing decade. I don’t know why I loved them. I don’t know why I miss them. I guess we all live lies that turn truthful. I guess we all disappear once the neighbors find out we’ll never stack up to expectations. If it breaks, it’s time to leave. It’s time to move on, simple as it is.
“Shark” taught me that. He was so covered in scratches my skin hurt for him. Still, his daughter loved him; his wife believed in him. The family survives, but not necessarily community.
Poverty hugged my fingers as if it had been sewn there by G-d. That’s what I remembered about The Pastures of Heaven, the little house the Wicks family lived in—the few pages of story-time, the hero murdered, resurrected as Clark Kent instead of Superman.
To this day I forgive my victims before I even meet them. I’ve forgotten those who tried to carve out my soul and feed it to pigeons. I stole their knives and disappeared easily. Nothing is missing from my life. My pockets are full because I keep them that way.
All this time, I’ve begged the guy sitting next to me not to mess up a good story. Just because you’ve lost the melody, others still dance.
It doesn’t bother me if my chapters remain unread. It’s enough to know I belong in the mind of the Wicks and the deep well of the pen that created their absolution— belonging that surely lasts forever.
Re: The Pastures of Heaven, Story # III, 1932 by John Steinbeck
(c) Tovli 2024
Day 14 Write a poem about the hair of someone you love.
Empty Your Pockets—Keep Nothing
Your hair was tangled in berries.
It was the year we left. I have the picture.
You never returned and
I forgot the language our dead still speak inside their graves.
The new country had many street corners.
Our magnolia tree turned the sky coral each spring,
but only for a day or two
and only above our house.
Street corners. They have sharp points
like the scissors used to cut your hair,
releasing the hold wild berries had over our journey.
It was so easy to fall off a curb and be left behind.
I am still wandering.
New streets never frightened me.
My ankles are taped to keep them strong.
My shoes are tightly laced. I never fall.
I kept your locks of hair.
I placed them inside a brown envelope,
writing “Mama” in Cyrillic letters.
They stayed white, like winter in Novosibirsk.
How I’ve flown beyond your death,
wings spreading over new streets,
flowering trees. I embraced
frigid air scented with feathers.
Once I locate the right memory
I’ll take you home,
re-tangle those strands of hair
deep inside a briar patch.
It won’t be the same kind of berries
because nothing is the same
once you leave,
or should you decide to return.
But…that’s where you’ll be—
your silver hair, anyway.
That’s all that counts.
You went back.
I kept your pieces.
I let each shard grow cold
in the right place, at the right time.
Isn’t that what freedom was all about?
© Tovli 2024
Day 13 Alex Dimitrov has written a poem based on Jack Kerouac’s quote, “Be in love with your life.” Write your own prose poem of at least 25 phrases, each on a specific thing you love, each beginning, “I love….”
Enjoy Every Sandwich
I love Warren Zevon--A Haibun…
I love the fact I can ask for a Diet Coke in eighteen different languages. I love the concept that this is all that matters in life. I love the idea Coca-Cola can be categorized as sub-religious. I love the reality that life boils down to just how much effort you put into enjoying a well-poured Diet Coke. I love being able to spend at least five minutes daily mourning the loss of TAB as an elixir for good mental health. I love the way our grandfather found TAB in sparkle bottles the day it first appeared in American stores and brought it to us at the beach. I love the original TAB and the cyclamen-after-taste we were not supposed to talk about. I love the assumption Coca-Cola surely regrets its unprovoked and misogynous murder of TAB compounded with the erroneous assumption it would not be missed by women everywhere. I love the day Dad gave up RC Cola for Diet Coke. I love the option of Coke Zero on ice when Diet Coke fails me. I love the way BJ’s offers forty-eight cans of Diet Coke, lined up in neat little rows for the price of two six-packs. I love the day our great-grandmother allowed us to store Diet Coke in the refrigerator believing once and for all, it did not contain cocaine. I love caffeine-free Diet Coke—but only sometimes. I love the effervescent popping sound a cold can of Diet Coke makes when first opened. I love posters with Diet Coke written in Hebrew. I love the heart palpitations I experience when dreaming of a cold retro-TAB. I love the way everyone grabs for the complementary can of ice-cold Diet Coke at kiddush on Shabbat. I love the day the Beit Din of Israel crowned Diet Coke kasher. I love the way our saddle horses wrapped their firm, velvety lips around a bottle of Diet Coke, tipped it toward the sky, drank it down then belched.
I love a cold Diet Coke in a snowstorm. I love Diet Coke from McDonalds if there’s no alternative vendor, that is. I love the memory of a circa 1960s Fizz-Nic attached to a Coke bottle and Diet Coke melting its way through vanilla ice cream like a river on the day after 9-11. I love the metaphysical search for the perfect sugar-free Coke product. I love searching corporate America for Passover-approved Diet Coke. I love Diet Coke on tap while counting the Omer. I love the taste of Diet Coke in the desert with Mt. Sinai in the distance while sitting in a lotus position.
I love, really love
sharing a Diet Coke with
people who matter.
© Tovli 2024
Day 12 A Tautogram is a poem in which every word begins with the same letter or sound—sort of like alliteration on steroids. Write a tautogram of at least six lines.
Mirror: Haiku Tautogram-Chain
I.
Moldovan mudslide.
Midnight memories. Missing
moments. Moths. Music.
II.
It’s immediate.
Invasion. Isolation.
Ignored inclusion.
III.
Shred spring. Start singing.
Sleep silently, step softly.
Social systemic
situation. Shots…
…someone sang, “Security.”
Someone sang, “Selfish.”
IV.
“Selfish!” someone sang.
“Security!” someone sang.
Shots. Situation:
…systemic. Social.
Softly step. Silently sleep.
Singing. Start spring. Shred.
V.
Inclusion Ignored.
Isolation. Invasion.
Immediate. It’s…
VI.
...music. Moths. Moments.
Missing memories. Midnight
Moldovan mudslide.
© Tovli 2024
Day 11 Write a poem on your strangest neighbor ever, whether someone now or in a dormitory or ocean cruise or your family’s first neighborhood.
Honey-boy and Nikes
Neighbor boy. Unlike us.
In his house, honey melts completely in tea.
His grandmother never speaks. We wonder if she still has her teeth.
Honey-boy walks alone. He never looks back.
His shirt is crisp, but he only owns one. His shoes don’t fit.
His mother found a new country six months after he was born.
She plans to return, with food and Nikes.
His father died waiting.
His grandfather is a gardener. Their backyard is filled with vegetables.
Sometimes Honey-boy brings us tomatoes.
On Sunday, he brings a jar of his grandmother’s honey.
He smiles on Sundays.
He walks alone Monday through Thursday.
We never see him on Fridays.
On Shabbat, he prays with his grandfather.
They walk slowly, side by side. They watch their feet as they walk.
They acknowledge every stranger they pass.
“Remember Honey-boy?” I asked my brother two decades after we left our childhood behind.
“In my dreams I see him.” My brother remained quiet. Then walked away. His shoes didn’t fit. His shirt had been recently laundered. He always seems to wear the same shirt—tzitzit dancing from the inside out.
Why should Honey-boy stick to our dreams?
He made dreams melt like honey in tea.
He wrote poetry on our souls.
With just the right warmth,
his grandmother’s honeycomb softened our lives.
Strange.
Honey-boy’s grandfather-garden,
with its bee farm floated away,
it lingered in wounds, healed,
caused us to admire loose-fitting Nikes with missing laces.
In childhood, we simply watched, accepted gifts, and followed others.
As adults we chose one day to smile, one shirt to wear,
one memory to dream backward,
and taste Honey-boy’s little poem,
a note that divulged:
there’s this world inside us, amused,
planning to return, with new, flashy Nikes,
silver-white with colorful shoe laces--
everything sweet,
all that’s lost,
safely in place,
a chair set aside for anything we need.
© Tovli 2024
Day 10 Write an ode (a poem in praise) to your favorite beverage. It may be very general, like water or milk, or very specific, like a brand of sparkling water or an eggnog recipe you use or a cocktail you’ve concocted.
A Skinny Ode
Skinny poem form discovered by Truth Thomas
Journey in summer, earth to heaven.
We loved you.
Tab
Coca-Cola
RC
We loved you.
Diet-rite
Ice-brick
Grandfather.
We loved you.
Journey in heaven. Earth to summer.
© Tovli 2024
Day 9
Today is the 100th day of the year. This being a leap year, we have 266 days left. Write a poem about how you have used your 100 days OR how you’d like to use the next 266.
Just the Beginning. Just the End.
Just one hundred?
All the distance travelled.
Just me, walking.
Still wearing a ruck sack with matching head-band.
Just beings who step lightly.
Nothing to grieve. No walking sticks.
Just strangers on the trail.
They know where everyone lives.
Just ask about sand.
I’ll disclose a cemetery.
Just wonder about silence.
I’ll plagiarize, or consult A.I.
Just speak of endings.
I’ll whistle for a new beginning.
Just ignore the sunset.
I’ll remember hatred.
Just blink into the morning sun.
I’ll censor the government.
Just stop at 100.
I’ll buy new shoes.
Just continue.
I’ll ask the voting machine to stop counting.
Just be compliant. Stay on the path…
…and follow the old men at the front of the line.
Just imagine continuing, eking out what’s left of a leap year.
Imagine how it all ends:
An old man, moving quickly crosses in front of a crowd. It could be Fifth and Main, busiest city in the world. Or, maybe he’s a farmer walking to his barn because the cows are calling out in pain and his grand-kids are thirsty for fresh milk.
It’s possible his wife is watching from the apartment window to be sure after all these years, the old man is not mugged and left for dead. Then again, maybe the old farmer has a daughter who just watches her grandfather tend the stock, and smiles when his back is turned.
The point is, all that matters is the grace in which the old man moves, steps, climbs, leaves, returns. As long as what’s leftover fills space with unused holiness there is calm authority. Someone worth following. In fact, a stillness that maintains loosely absorbed world-closets from simply unravelling.
© Tovli 2024
Day 8
The total eclipse is today and it is also Opening Day for the Cleveland Guardians.
Write about the juxtaposition of these two events.
Palindrome: Baseball Juxtaposition—Light to Dark
Night Game
Day Game
Eclipse swallows Cleveland
Nothing from light
Nothing from darkness
Now Guardians.
Not Indians?
Baseball happening.
Americans change.
Eclipse the burn.
Baseball?
America!
Eclipse sliding home.
Subtle.
Light off
Light on.
Dogs. Kosher again!
Finally light
Finally, night.
Night finally.
Light finally.
Again, Kosher Dogs.
On. Light.
Off. Light.
Subtle.
Home. Sliding eclipse.
America?
Baseball!
Burn the eclipse.
Change Americans.
Happening. Baseball.
Indians? Not.
Guardians! Now?
Darkness from nothing.
Light from nothing.
Cleaveland swallows eclipse.
(c) Tovli 2024
Day 6:
The Oxford English Dictionary has chosen the 2023 word of the year: “rizz,” meaning style, charm or attractiveness, related perhaps to “charisma.” Write a poem using the word seriously or satirizing it.
Rizz Blitz
A Blitz poem—form discovered by Robert Keim
That unspoken rizz
That rizz capture
Capture sister rizz
Capture rizz, that’s all
All that hunger
All that’s missing
Missing what counts
Missing the sun
Sun disappears
Sun burns black
Black turns grey
Black like deep sea-water
Sea-water shimmers
Sea-water tastes angry
Angry. That’s all
Angry like an American
American dresses with rizz
American vape
Vape is rising
Vape is bottled
Bottled charisma
Bottled spit
Spit out romance
Spit like poetry
Poetry dresses her rizz
Poetry tastes from sunlight
Sunlight might burn
Sunlight might lie
Lie between feathers
Lie with stars
Stars have memory
Stars live and die
Die in a suit
Die dressed up
Up America’s dream
Up America’s twirl
Twirl your hair
Twirl your charm
Charm your space
Charm your chat
Chat like a disaster
Chat on purpose
Purpose is smoke
Purpose is electric
Electric nail polish
Electric eyelash
Eyelash talk
Eyelash rizz
Rizz
Talk
© Tovli 2014
Day 7
The total eclipse is tomorrow. Write in anticipation of it.
Total Eclipse of the Sun
April 8, 2024...Cleveland Ohio
It’s not that we’re sun-people
the moon girl,
the sun boy,
shadows of something new,
things made up. We’re not confused.
It’s so simple:
The daughter folds her clothes
then leaves forever
the only boy stays home
forever
the parents drift off to sleep
then die forever
It’s the edge we fear, approaching like an army--
a bolt of impaired sight, burnt out eyes
that might stick to the sky forever.
Not one of us sleeps.
No one is as still as moonlight.
Moon-girl has sewn her fingernails to final shards of creation.
She’s waited a long time for this.
Sun-boy’s bright rim craters and he grabs her rib.
What remains of sun-boy empties
into the apron of the moon.
His eyes recede into a hollow skull.
He blinks.
It was his last mistake.
Nothing’s the same. Forever.
Not the air.
Not the hills.
Not the flower bed.
Not the confused flock of chickens.
Not even the century or cherished dust.
Light is useless without darkness.
People know where they are.
They’ll gather the eggs and harvest the fields
just like before
those who were here,
those who have already left.
(c) Tovli 2024
Lillian M. Bond
Day 5.
Write a poem on your childhood neighborhood then and now.
Bio Statement--A Prose-Poem in Seven Steps
Step 1
It was fifth grade. A bunch of ten-year-olds, except for Castro, who broke his leg in the third grade, spent a year in the hospital and six months at home in a cast. Consequently, he was two years older.
Step 2
And then there was Mrs. Bond. She wouldn’t make us line up like the other teachers. “This is America, not nazi Germany,” she quipped. Her eyes twinkled old. “We don’t walk in straight lines. We walk separate paths, and we walk in friendship. We’re living in America.”
Step 3
We learned arithmetic—fractions, long division and all that. But I never remember her teaching us about numbers. She’d say, “Open your books to page 27 and complete the problems at the bottom. And listen while you work today’s problems out.”
She read stories of Greek Mythology and sometimes the stories of the Roman Empire while we counted on our fingers and stole answers from each other.
Step 4
If I was confused about numbers, I asked my grandfather for help. It was simple. I always earned an A—sometimes a B, but usually an A. Mrs. Bond liked the letter A.
She taught us French after lunch. Each of her students had fifteen one-one minutes with her every day. We had to listen in French. We had to respond in French. It made us into children who listened quietly and spoke softly. French was the diplomat language. We needed it to solve problems. The last day of school she laughed like a French professor and blessed us to find our own diplomat language. “Find your own words and melody and make your footsteps permanent.”
Step 5
Fridays were for writing. “Write stories—your stories. But it’s okay to steal from the kid next to you. It’s not stealing, it’s inspiration. Get that straight.” She was a tough old dame. Parents were in awe, but rarely visited our class. The PTA kept its distance. They were afraid to ask too many questions. Other classrooms had “Room-Mothers”, but we didn’t. Mrs. Bond said, “Organize yourselves. Your mothers have their own lives. Give them the gift of freedom. Work out your problems. Being silent is being vocal.”
Step 6
It was the year we hid under our desks from bombs. It was a big deal. We had to practice. Mr. Lohr, the principal would fling the classroom door open, using his blow horn from the Navy. He’d scream, “Duck!”
We complied. Castro was assigned to close the curtains on the windows. But we had a secret. After all the practice drills performed perfectly and all the perfect little bodies scurried like bunnies beneath kid-sized desks, Mrs. Bond explained the secret of life and survival:
“Look. Kids. Castro. Forget the curtains. If a nuclear war happens, we won’t have to worry about the curtains being open or closed. Just enjoy the experience and create your stories. Walk your own paths. These days, we’re afraid of endings. But there is no end. At least not one any of us will remember.”
Step 7
And that was that. We were different when we left the fifth grade, and no one, except for the likes of us, understood why.
It’s a new century. We still walk side by side, adapt the other guy’s muse, practice self-rule, wear different uniforms and speak foreign languages.
We all became poets—not one of us became a teacher, and we all forgot to have kids.
(c) Tovli 2024
Day 4
Write a 14-line poem with none of the usual tributes of a traditional sonnet: no regular meter, no rhyme, no 8/6 or 4/4/4/2 divisions. Just 14 lines.
Soviets Blink: stay warm, dream free
(Bendery, Moldova--1991)
Water boils. Coffee soaks.
Poverty. Nothing left to sweeten thin, dark water.
It’s only us…tasting.
Meaning? Who cares what’s sweetened.
Last week, the ruble died.
Mama used left-over cash to insulate walls.
Good idea.
Still, the water boiled.
They told us we could leave,
but borders mattered.
We changed our language that night:
spoke American in public,
Russian when crossing over,
Moldovan in our dreams or at the cemeteries.
© Tovli 2024
Day 3
The word crash calls up audio, visual, tactile, even metaphorical (as the 1929 stock market) impressions. Write a poem with the word crash using all four of those impressions.
Let’s Crash
Grandma had this theory: Corn is salvation.
She kept a black and white picture of burnt-out vineyards.
The milk-cow lay on her side,
smooth, fat tongue protruding. Teeth clenched.
On the last transport flight to America
we placed oxygen over her face.
Grandma held the picture in the palm of her hand.
“Salvation.” She whispered.
“Who says?” We asked, with hubris.
“Off we go.” Grandfather changed the subject.
“Kruschev. He believed in corn.” Grandma’s eyes swelled.
“She was a good cow.”
“For G-d’s sake, Della.” Grandpa had enough.
“Give it a rest. In twenty-four hours, we’ll be Americans. Sort of.”
“Moldovans sitting under a bridge.” Grandma took a deep breath.
The hum of pre-fab oxygen reached deep into our ears.
“We’re Russians. I think.” A grandchild acknowledged.
The grandparents cursed in a language we'd never heard.
It was as though they were singing us to sleep.
As we entered the sky, we crashed into the sun
just as it fell off the edge of the world.
It was like a light extinguished in the middle of a wildfire.
“Kruschev.” Grandpa closed his eyes. “Dumb-ass farmer.”
We laughed.
“Della, it’s time to stop sitting shiva for a dead milk-cow.”
Is the cow in the cemetery? We wondered.
“The cemetery?
It was the year of hunger. We ate its tongue.
There was nothing left to bury. Try to be serious.”
Grandma cried all the way to New York City.
She cried for the milk cow.
She cried for dead vineyards.
She cried from hunger.
She cried for salvation.
She cried because rows of corn are unending.
She cried for all that caught fire.
She cried because there’d be no future.
She cried because the past was an old photo.
She cried because the present ended.
She cried from loneliness.
She cried for Gorbachev
and forgot Kruschev’s first name.
She cried because she feared we might crash.
First, the sun disappeared.
Then, the moon took over.
It made our hair grow.
The plane soared like a silver eagle.
It flung us into a line-up:
Questions.
Customs.
Searches.
Paperwork.
Uniformed men wanted to separate us.
Grandpa said KGB had followed us.
Silence mattered.
We held hands.
Grandma cried. Grandpa cursed
and the new-world soldiers let us in.
We arrived.
Lonely.
Hungry.
Happy.
Relieved.
Welcomed!
Grandma lost her photograph.
She forgot about murdered milk-cows.
She was careful to bless the taste of grapes.
She gave up idolatry.
She never mentioned corn again.
There was no salvation,
just America—
new sky,
same sun.
© Tovli 2024
Day 2
Write a poem about something in your life that started small, maybe invisibly, and mushroomed to huge proportions—a hobby, a relationship, an idea, a disease.
The Clouds Became Stones
It should take time.
Then again. Who argues?
The eyes have darkened,
splintering from deep, inside the core.
Nothing stops darkness. Just pay the bill
and leave. Gracefully. You know the way.
Eyes are the sun.
The poet touches her eyelash
against the cave’s smooth, hard flesh
and writes a cure.
The poem lights a match.
The journal is too full to catch fire.
Morning stalls while crossing the bridge.
Or so you thought.
Clouds became stones you learn to look beyond.
They take your driver’s license.
They give you a complementary RTD pass.
They sell you a New-Age computer
with compliance soft-ware.
The poet steals the light from the street lamp
and pretends to see. Nothing has changed.
At the corner, the horizon bends.
Nothing will end. Nothing begins.
The morning stays put; the night stalls out.
Enlightenment for all:
What’s there to worry about?
Just count your steps.
We'll pay for it.
Update: The state approved social worker is a dumb ass.
Treatment Plan:
1. Open the door to the coffee-shop.
2. You'll think it's yesterday. Incidentally, that's a cute blouse.
3. Order the same little espresso.
4. Admire the porcelain demitasse-cup.
5. They'll charge it all to your smart phone.
6. There's nothing more for you to do.
Near the end of times
Life as darkness will confuse and intrude.
Therefore, take a long time to drink whatever's left inside.
© Tovli 2024
Day 1
A fool is an unwise, silly person. A fool is also a dessert made by mashing fruit (from the French fouler, to mash.) Write a poem that includes both types of fool.
Tasting The Foolish Poet
When my fingers bleed
for the quiver of words
the young poet chose to swallow
vs. shooting beyond darkness,
I see the sky. It’s electric.
And there’s the high-school boys,
silly like opossums at dusk,
wearing only high-top Converse,
shoelaces untied, muscular ankles
untested, made from iron.
They offend. They laugh. Their words are archery-bows.
They’re never without arrows or direction.
Only then I understood
peace is not the absence of war
and war is not the death of stillness.
So, what am I watching?
Screaming boys. Broken fingernails.
The baker. The cabdriver. The schoolteacher.
The little girl in a new dress. The ovens. The army.
The wall that never fails. The rapist as hero.
It’s easy to mix sand into air, coughing up a world.
It’s cute to be lost in the garden, honing privacy, improving stillness.
If you’d legalize the right drug—you know,
that perfect vape trapped in a dry beer bottle—
I’d bandage my sore fingers,
illuminate the horizon,
electrocute the wind.
I’d make the world sit up and take notice,
feel foolish, reckless yet desirable…
then I’d burn a poem into a star.
© Tovli 2024