Jodi Anderson Poetry

11111

Pain is the unbearable side
effect of a
moment hardly known. And,
reaching into the depths,
I ponder
what could really happen.
Aloud I groan at
ill attempts
to exorcise this purest
fraction.
At the end,
we are left together
computing
our fatal solution.

11110

you have been gone long enough

that i can't see your mouth.
one month
and a scattering of fertile days is all it takes
to erase the chalkboard lines of your space.

twenty years later,
still i can feel the gangled limbs that first held me
up,
before you slid, lithe and limbered body,
between the bars
of this rusted metal avian cage.

you are like a parakeet,
near three decades in my past, that i dream of yet
and soak with salted water just as
secret scratched patches of earth where i have dirtied fingernails
attempting to let what is troubled rest.

11101

I might read your poems

and let myself pretend that they are about me,
that someone would arrange a dictionary of
flowers and letters and small hands and slugs,
bound-sewn with hair gathered from my comb.

Just that would forever be enough.

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11100

Did you notice the slant of light
as steel real
soaked into your skin?

I did, a mannequined form
modeling as life and wife and limbs not torn,
pivoted to seem aproned and lessened
by posed accord.

The angle shifted from a line,
refracted and finger-trace drawn
along that face
and mirror and spine, until
a truth burrowed to the brim,

metaled askew, not to mend
for food or feet or facts
that conveniently backwards bend.

11011

The solemn is long;

distant magnificence dwells
into our chests, though,

you, rat-a-tat-tat and and follow your path,
measure life not at all.

In this science,
infinite is a law;

the corner of low hush and brawl
warms the eggshells

I, with wax and tricks and tacks and math,
fix again in the comfort-cold.

The knowledge is false;

a gift-horse and gypsy, forest and trees,
catbird calling leave

us, northern lass and bittered ass,
neither empty nor full.

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11010

*something else I cannot capture ...

The sky pushes low and its hands reach down
to tussle our hair.

The grackles drop as decaying leaves, although not autumn,
a few, then a few, then a few

and covering the ground until
gusting fingers spook them to the trees
away from thawing, wriggling food.
The litany of song is varied and thick.

A rainbow is reflected
in a shallow puddle of lies.

Wear a lone sensible jacket
and your widening eyes, close.

Today's forecast is a continuation of fleeting moments in an SOS code.

Loretta, 1932 - 2009

Winter is our bittersweet,

vacant
yet holding the promise of Spring.
It can be dim and cold, and it can keep us
in, underneath our quilts of memories

to keep us warm throughout the grief.

Little by little, more birds will sing
and the heavied ground begin to thaw.
The sun shall come, the green fields flow,

flowers can open, beauty will bloom again --

a chorus of loveliness in which to honor you,
and a welcome comfort for us all.

While still slimy from crawling out of the river at birth,
I was branded.
It seared my flesh and I am owned.
Shackled and positioned like Atlas,
Here I hold the heavy world.

what should
be.
only a little stain

floods
the threads of this garment
with
charcoal gasps

there is
no buddha smiling

while i
am
transcending

pain

.merely Sophocles
chanting:

again, again, again.

01101

such is the case with a star, so bright and far away, twinkling, clear, and there every night, moving in gentle, oh-so subtle shifts, as if i tip back in my chair, over days, by arranging an arm, changing weight, which is how i prepare to doze where i write, on my side and curve, curl, dreaming under the glare of screen and light, so stellar, you ever are, like sparks and flames and strikes, though seen as individual atoms, lit brightly, bursting, like fireworks, grasping dark and squeezing it from the night, then pulse a blazing star, to me, burning, ever so, and such, is what you ever are.

01100

01011

I find myself

ever reminded that other people
are living.
The thought of truly being

alive,
to move, to breathe, to know:
it is a punch

in the gut
for those of us who are ghosts,

flat figments,
never believing that there is

a niche
that can support this fight.

11001

In these moments between

thought or dream or sleep
during that vacant pause

I lie on my back in Sweden
hair-plaited
gazing at the sky

wondering why I ever left.

11000

grief is a black-ink well
i dipped my heart into eight times.
it seeps through and eats
my belly.

there is no anatomy
to fill that hole.

stuffed with cotton,
no one is any the wiser.

10111

There are not any words for alone --

only tightened gasps,
stifled breaths,
small and invisible deaths

displayed inwardly with brilliant accord.

I stood on a rail for this,
arms straight and wide,
heel-to-toed the distance.

10110

the sweet and welcome stench
of melancholy

stakes two cold steel poles,
frosted,
grasping each a weathered flag -

one yellow, one white.

standing below,
the wind equally whipping both,
is a sight that does not grow old.

melanie coolly nags

same as ever,
smooth and bold and wise.

she will be sleeping with me tonight.

10101

when you want to hold
your heart's heart
so much that the lock on your chest

bursts,
and the squeaky hinges of this door

scream,
you cry with happiness and grief
(and grief, and grief);

there is only the earth
and your knees meeting it
in parallel collision

and embrace

and not relief.

10100

this winter:

it snows here,
lakes freeze,
i drive on ice.

i sit in the hot
bath tub,
drink beer,
read about glaciers
in alaska.

the only snowshoe
that fits
isn't my size.

i write in six different
notebooks,
crude scribblilng
about a catch in breath,
that trapped sign.

murmured
colors that suite
glazed looks,
braided,
intertwining ideas
passes time.

the world is blue;
underfoot crunches.
i chew on
the long day,
muse on movement,
observe tides.

this is
the universe-accordion.
this is
the color book of life.
this is
where i slumber,
trudging snow,
restlessly, by moon
in the night.

10011

take this specimen.

can you see
how
it has this exoskeleton

protection,
an armor

it could be a talent
and/or
it might be a tactic

an ego-operative

fitted and thwarting,
stealth,
incognito

to examine we must ...
look here, please!
... disect.

if you could
turn up
the lights just a bit

ah, yes, that's better.
thank you

10010

Haiku for a haiku.

Immediate cheers
The clapping grows to applause
Standing ovation