Writing Life
Safe in his hundred arms
Enfolded we sweat away
My freedom hearts as
One ticking thing a
Lifetime of un-spread wings
This poem is unfair
To a god who loves me truly
Enough to cut off my
Oxygen sometimes
-M.
(Day 20 of my 66 Day Poetry Habit. For those of you following along, yesterday was actually day 20, but I had to take a P day for personal reasons. Nothing like getting back up on that horse with a little of the good old god-angst. I hope everybody has a great weekend.)
Jaw set
Gray eyes clear
Seated at a loom
In an officer’s tent
One battle
One pass
One well-placed blow
Nike woven in gold
-M.
(Day 19 of my 66 Day Poetry Habit. I’m not going to lie, you guys: today’s poem sucks. Sincere apologies to Athena. As bad as the poem is, I think she might appreciate at least the fighting spirit. I feel like absolute hell but I AM going to make this 66 days. Write a sucky poem. Live to poem another day.)
Second Best Hair
Still keeps your head warm
And your lover’s fingers busy.
-M.
(Day 18 of my 66 Day Poetry Habit. This one is an “American sentence,” 17 syllables. Definitely not a home run, but enough to keep my streak alive and that’s what I’m all about on through the 67th day! Onward and forward.)
My god at the wheel
Grinning
We’ll never get there alive
-M.
(Day 17 of my 66 Day Poetry Habit)
Novice at the stand
Goddess of War guides me
Her peaceful estate
Keeping still the woof
Warp to warp
Hand to hook
Hook to thread to hand
Pull to click
Through to click
Bend
Hand to hook to hand.
-M
(Day 16 of my 66 Day Poetry Habit)
I’m working on a book. I’m making an outline from my notes. I found this and it tickled me. “I don’t know if any publisher is going to want to publish anything authoritative that I say pretty much just came out of my own butt.”
All too true. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
-M.
I’m going to marry him—
All the men my
Mind has a crush on.
No one finds Aldous
Huxley as hot as I do
Nor wants to share the
Bed as much with that
Angle-faced man.
-M.
(Day 15 of my 66 Day Poetry Habit)
One feminine hand one
Masculine hand wearing
A heavy gold watch ticking
She sat down inside me
Settled down inside me
Her heavenly blue
Robes enfolded me as
Heaven IS and enfolds
Her, Her head all my head
My thoughts all Her
Thoughts She the Law the
Law Love
She said
Don’t
Be Afraid
-M.
(Day 14 of my 66 Day Poetry Habit. I made it to two weeks! -Victory lap-)
All I said
All I said
All I said to ALL That IS
Volumes volumes volumes
Unrecordable
All She said
All She said
All the ALL She said
Don’t
Be afraid
-M.
(Day 13 of my 66 Day Poetry Habit)
Gods misunderstand
Death—Death himself
Deathless misunderstands
Forever destruction—forever
Loss—a self that decays inside
Itself until it disappears.
A god, from a full-
Bodied god can become a
Lesser-bodied god—an
Insignificant pinpoint of
Flickering ether, but still
Sovereign though infinitesimal and
Over unbounded time can
Gather unto its own flickering
Ether substance—body new
Come to body that was and
Will be forever
Body new come to body eternal that
Misunderstands body new
Come to dust
Depersonalized as dust comes
To gather to itself
A noisome film
On the cradle ledge of an infinitely
Born and born and born
Infant god
-M.
(Day 12 of my 66 Day Poetry Habit)
M. N. Ashley 