Month: April 2015

Spring Poetry Marathon Day #4

Claudia McGill

Today I returned to the grocery store to work. I have something planned for later in the day and so I decided to Marathon in the morning. I realized that up to now I have always gone out in the afternoon. Anyway, the store was open when I could fit my session into the day. To change things I sat in a different section – the row of small tables next to the checkout lines and the front windows.

 

 

It was a good location. Lots of activity. And the view out the window equally attention-getting. The site sent my mind through a lot of different channels – the inside happenings, the parking lot/street inspirations,, and then just some tangents suggested by whatever thought occurred to me as I started up a new poem.

Here is the poem I chose for today:

13.

The verdict is in.
The tree on the edge of the parking lot
planted as a skinny youth fifty years ago
is dead
and I can tell you that this is the case
because the tree
has missed its April cue to leaf out
first time ever.

 

Getting Ahead of Myself

Claudia McGill 2 Comments

Getting Ahead of Myself

The truck turns into the field.
Tires crunching across frozen mud
remind me that in the summer
this field is green
wet and fresh-smelling tussocky grass
stretching all the way out there
where at the moment
the tires of the truck are
crunching across frozen mud.
My feet
skittering in the icy ruts
remind me that I’d better pay attention
because
It’s not summer now.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Field at Lorimer Park, January, 2015. This view is the one that inspired the poem.

Day 3 – Spring Poetry Marathon

Claudia McGill 2 Comments

Beautiful Sky 4-29-15 small

For today’s Marathon session, I wanted to be outside because the weather was just marvelous – sunny and warm. I chose Mondauk Park in Fort Washington for my location. It’s a typical neighborhood park with ball fields, tot lot, beach volleyball, horseshoes, walking track, and so on. I set myself up at the central picnic pavilion area.

Since I was there in the afternoon, most of the other people around me were small children and their parents or caregivers. There was a lot to observe and I see that my environment really influenced my work – quite a few poems about kids, parents, etc. – which I don’t normally think much about since I don’t live in that young-child world anymore. Very interesting to me and a change of pace.

I took the opportunity to leave a few more books at the Little Free Library, too.

Here is the poem I chose from today’s session:

18.

The wind blowing across my knees
because I’m wearing shorts
first time this season.
Outside here in the sunshine
a little chilly, maybe, but
I cease to notice it
when
I trap a yellow jacket
as I cross my legs

Fright House

Claudia McGill 2 Comments

Fright House

The headache that started off small
Grew bigger. Sat down
in the upper right section of my head and
I believe it has to do with
my visit to the dentist this afternoon.
Holding my entire body rigid for thirty minutes
while the dental tools roamed around
picking digging and having a great old time
nosing out the flaws among
my selection of tired weak teeth and
prodding all the spaces and gaps and
scratching at the enamel and
It was just too much.
A horror movie
could be filmed with great success
inside that pleasant-looking
converted former home
turned palace of fear.
The headache stretches out its legs and settles itself.

"Teeth Grinding" collage/acrylics mail art postcard

“Teeth Grinding”
collage/acrylics
mail art postcard

Spring Poetry Marathon Day #2

Claudia McGill 2 Comments

Today’s session of the Poetry Marathon was spent in two locations. I started off in Renninger Park in Glenside, about a mile from my house. It’s a tiny little spot tucked in against the road and bounded by a creek. The weather was just warm enough, I thought, to sit outside, and I was right. I set myself up at a picnic table and got to work.

After about an hour, though, it got cooler and the wind a bit stronger. So I walked a block or so and went into the Glenside Library. This location is very familiar to me as it is the library I use most often. I found myself a table and finished up there.

I was in a quiet mood today – maybe because my surroundings were peaceful, especially in the park. I wrote more slowly, but at a steady pace. The poems I produced were shorter and I think more abstract, if that’s the right word. It’s interesting to me to see how surroundings affect even the pace of my work.

Here is the poem I have chosen from today’s work.

2.

Morning
Lie in bed
the window cracked open just a little bit
it was cold last night for April but
the windows have been closed too long
says the single bird in the tree outside
in three succinct phrases

Frame

Claudia McGill 4 Comments

Frame

the windows in the yellow bedroom
are a frame for a chimney and two trees
not a composition I’d choose
for a piece of art
but not a bad arrangement, either
And the cost
certainly was within my budget

“Raquel’s View”
acrylics

Spring Poetry Marathon – Day 1

Claudia McGill 6 Comments

Today I spent the first session of the Spring Poetry Marathon at the café in our local grocery store. I just felt the need to be in a familiar place and one with some noise and distraction in it. Can’t say why.

I settled myself down and got to work. I had some notes I had jotted down over the past few weeks to refer to if I wanted to – it has seemed important to me to hold on to some impressions of spring and its events that have come and gone already. I used a few and then I fell into a mental flow and went on from there.

Ready to get to work.

Ready to get to work.

I really enjoy working this Marathon way. Meaning – I like settling in and just writing, without stopping to reread or to edit or to criticize my work. The focus is calming and having a specific time to work encourages me to dig a little deeper into my thoughts.

Future words.

Future words.

I will attach one poem from today, as I did in the earlier Winter Marathon. It’s just as it came out of my mind – I am sure in the revision stage it will change, but for now, here is something that was part of today’s Marathon.

10.

Well, it’s spring, girls,
and if you’re going to come out here in the pouring rain
and wait for the school bus
it may have been prudent to have put on a raincoat
don’t you think
although I see one of you has made an attempt
wearing a flimsy red windbreaker
soaked through as it is
And what is wrong with picking up an umbrella
as you went out the door?
But you are laughing and flipping your wet hair
and dancing around on the corner
and laughing
as the bus pulls up and you both
run to get on but not too quickly
and I know why
it’s because
this morning
it’s marvelous being out here in the pouring rain
in the spring
underdressed for the weather and that’s the point
it couldn’t be better
to wait for the bus
in the rain
in spring

Facts

Claudia McGill 2 Comments

Facts

The bottle of iced tea
is sixty percent full
and forty percent empty
None of that optimism/pessimism definer stuff
as to what kind of frame of mind
outlook on life
view of existence
I may have.
The level of the liquid
is a simple statement of fact.
No one can look at a bottle
and predict my mood
or yours or hers or theirs
only how thirsty
I am, you are, they are.
Let’s just stick to facts.

Girl letting a genie out of a bottle pen and ink/acrylics Artist Trading Card

Girl letting a genie out of a bottle
pen and ink/acrylics
Artist Trading Card

Eye Blink

Claudia McGill 2 Comments

Eye Blink

I startle the birds
I don’t know how
something I do
a wave of my hand
my footsteps in the gravel
catches their attention
Sends them up and away
over me
Their dark wings
snapping the still air
in half and
in half again
quick as a branch breaking
and they are gone
in the space of time
it takes me to turn my head and look

blue bird in a dark tree acrylics and collage

blue bird in a dark tree
acrylics and collage

Emperor and Dictator

Claudia McGill 4 Comments

Emperor and Dictator

Listen to that radio
– Shhh, you say, holding up your hand –
and the tiny voice
so anxiously awaited
speaks and then you know
the weather report
calls for snow
and so it may snow
or not
but you know you must
begin to worry about power cuts
iced-up roads
dead car batteries
the broken snow shovel you meant to replace
but didn’t.
Everyone’s doing it
All for snow
that may
or may not
arrive today tonight tomorrow or never
Powerful stuff, this snow is.

The Power Is Out and We Are Freezing - I Hate Winter series small