NaPoWriMo #7/30

Haiku: For Him (2)

My chest is a ditch
A muddy recess of fear
How could you fill that

© Michelle R. Smith 2009

NaPoWriMo #6/30

Haiku: For Him

You are a jigsaw
Still it wasn't my job
To assemble you

(c) Michelle R. Smith 2009

NaPoWriMo #5/30

haiku

perfectionism
probably kills more poems
than plain writer's block

(c) Michelle R. Smith 2009

NaPoWriMo #4/30

a (modified) triolet: nommo

amma (mama) spoke me--
a breath of truth into a chalazae of black--
had her nursemaid (time) stroke, had her stoke me;
amma (mama), from her niger lips, spoke me

the need of my being woke me;
i broke (bad) from my smothering sac
amma (mama), from her niger lips, spoke me:
a black scream that won't be swallowed back

(c) Michelle R. Smith 2009

The Reason Sisters Don't Smile

For Josiah

It does not come easy –
Twisting our generous lips,
Our selves,
Into joy.

It is a skill we have to work
To perfect:

Rolling back the grief
That makes tombs of our mouths;

Stretching the muscles
That clamp the rage in our teeth.

I’m telling you,
Brothers –
It is a real struggle –

Opening our traps
And letting go

© Michelle R. Smith 2006-7

Sivvy

[NOTE: Each line of this poem is a scrap from Sylvia Plath’s journals.]

I cannot be a man
I cry at everything
I have no imagination
What do I do

I am jealous of men
No god but the sun
The Panic Bird on my heart
Ugh, I gag to think of it

How ghastly
The grumpy fruitless cramps
I am bloody bloody bloody
I may have a baby someday

Who am I angry at
Men, nasty lousy men
I should be the world’s whore
But I am not

© Michelle R. Smith 2003-2009

Sylvia, August 1962

[NOTE: Each line of this poem is a scrap from Sylvia Plath’s journals.]

It is morning, gray, most sober, with cold white puritanical eyes;
The light is cold, cruel, and still.

And all the time the wrongness growing, creeping, choking the house, twining the tables and chairs and poisoning the knives and forks, clouding the drinking water with that lethal taint.

Blonde & sullen, her hair down, sheened metallic gilt in the dim light –
A dark blue sweater, harlequin striped bermuda shorts – red, green & yellow,
& long navy-blue stockings, she in a pout,
Humiliations stomached like rotten fruit.

Alone, deepening.

Absolutely blind fuming sick.

© Michelle R. Smith 2005

NaPoWriMo #3/30

Haiku: Promise

i will love myself
even when i do not see
what there is to love

(c) Michelle R. Smith 2009

NaPoWriMo #2/30

a (modified) tritina

men are a unique species of insect
springing from dark corners
to greet you with tiny acid stings

even their absence stings
in the most secret of your heart's corners
leaving hopes an ugly dead, like flattened insects

his silences (yes, him) always needled--nasty insects
hemmed me into impossible corners
bled me with their tricky stings

still, his loss is unwieldy, like a mob of crawling insects, blindly turning narrow corners--a skein of bitter stings

(c) Michelle R. Smith 2009

NaPoWriMo #1/30

A Clerihew

Michelle Renee
has just wasted a day
swilling pepsi and pity
wasting pussy and pretty

(c) Michelle R. Smith 2009