5th Annual Cyberspace Poetry Slam

This is such a fun annual event.

This year's entry is from Minnesota poet and writer Patricial Hampl. 

Direction

Being alone, write postcards
saying I love being alone.
Call it solitude,
mention the pleasure
of wasted time, the jolt
of red when you saw
the forked amaryllis
in the store window yesterday.
And your thought: if
I were happy
I would not notice this.

Dare things to change.
Well, they do, things do.
A flower pressed thin
as grit in the family Bible
becomes the color of ink
on an old agreement, broken,
no flower at all. There's too
much symbol in saved things.

The mail arrives, word
of a friend's death.
Pile your hair in a chignon,
sear your face with make-up,
for hours stare at the mirror
as if this were grief (this is).
You'll become beautiful
(the eyes get sad first)
and nobody will notice how
your hand rubs your temple.

Some ragged gesture,
the wound of too much explaining.
What you need is to stand still,
no mirror, no flower, no future.

Comments

[Valerie]

This is a beautiful poem, I don't even know where to begin. I'm going over to Patricia Hampl's link find out more about her and her poetry! Thanks for sharing.