Attitude Sprouting in Autumn

A dent is developing in my attitude; pleased I be to feel change; yet, how the indentation began may haunt me; Brussel sprouts for lunch; a garden is nice with sprouts; that garden use to be part of my life; I am sure it misses me; I miss the good times; shoe holes in 4th grade filled by white socks painted black; poverty camoflauge; I didn’t understand poverty; I lived poverty; nowadays, torn jeans are high fashion; ratty worn paint is chic; I’d cherish those shoes if I had them; lunch is almost done; the sun it out; a ghost of attitude presents itself with a revelation; it could be that a year tally of meals a person wants cooked fast versus let it just cook, might reveal something about the universe; a mind is a universe like the cosmos; knows only so much; doesn’t know all that much; the new attitude dent feels like a puddle of gluten free dreams; this shirt needs a sweater; missing the air of cool A/C; autumn is here; the dent in my attitude rejoices; leaves falling in silence can fill the space; or I can fill it with apple donuts; a hike will help; finding a colorful maple leaf will assist in creating a puff of pleased; being pleased is important; frozen Brussel sprouts warming up in a conventional oven exists at the same time I type these words; they taste better than when boiled; pleased I be appears; discovery at 1 o’clock.

M.Flannery
September 2020

Not Sure About Cloud Cover

the sunny forecast must be waiting above the clouds; noise substitutes life affirmation; maintaining physics as it must; sounds; we wish for magic; inspiration doesn’t wish; brains beg for lottery numbers; personal chef; prolong life food dinner ready; television brain composting; phoney flat screened window; the carpenter’s woodworking shop; no sun; phoney wind moving a phoney plant; doesn’t fool us; we know a real wind when we see it; not hearing noise is hearing silence; the TV will keep life going; poetry will keep a soul flying; I want to hear myself think; see me rock climb without leaving the ground; there’s a suny forecast about that in my heart; the woods, lichen, a breeze and me feeling powerful; accomplishments are meant to do that.

M.Flannery
September 2020

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There are days when nothing in particular inspires me. Flash fiction can help us stroll through places we have zero desire to visit, but do care to observe. Listening to music in silence. Seeing daylight at midnight. Feeling the ocean on our feet in the snow. Things like that can keep the poet in us going.

Hot Coffee More

Unaware can’t be there—
watching
birds be trees,
trees jogging,
winged paths flying,
and hummingbirds
waving good-bye.
A music washes
dreams with aqua
diamond petals
collecting questions
to recycle in winter.
A rust and teal pottery mug
anchors a hand shaking,
chilled by morning
frost and a body aching.
Into daylight air,
wafting scents of autumn,
feet hit the floor
to shuffle onward
in cozy slippers,
to hot coffee more.

M.Flannery
September 2020
~~~~~~
I don’t wake up thinking, I will write a poem today. This poem is a sort of an ode to here is autumn, the sleepy morning I am not ready for. That is how this time of year feels to me. Not a missing being out in the warm sun, but rather Being indoors cozy, and not out in the cold.

Iron to Feather

The wind reaches me well,
without obligation.
Gravity low and cold,
imposes abruptly
on sensible
leaning against
common sense—
cuddling a determination
wildflowers know well.
Disguised doorways
with jambs of jelly,
freeze when footsteps
push shadows closer.
Iron to feather,
release this tether,
brush away the sands,
the salts, the shells
obscuring
the security of self.

M.Flannery
September 2020
~~~~~
This poem took over a week to finish. A few lines a day, some crossed off while some remain, left me wondering if a poem is that difficult, then maybe the focus is off. Does what I think I am writing, translate to what I write? I felt weighed down by over a month of problems, feeling bad, deeper depression. The poem is the pouring out, sorting out, being out of that trap of negativity. Anger is an emotion I deliberately do not want to include in the lines. Instead, my focus is on navigating out of feeling bad to feeling better. One poem will not resolve it all. Poetry helps spread out our emotions in ways that doesn’t allow the bad to trail after the good…that tether broken. I believe that.

August Fade

This last day of a thirty-one,
doesn't move the sun
or straighten a waxing moon
in my window view.
August heat—sunglasses.
August chill—jackets.
June bug buzzing is done.
Spider webs hail the fog,
lines and lines
of dew diamonds strung.
Fall beckons socked toes
to slip into shoes,
in rows by the door,
under hanging jackets 
for winter's cold roar.
Sparrows outside are busy 
chirping up a shrub
as a marionette. Branch
and leaf matinee.
September glides in twilight
as August fades away.

M.Flannery
August 2020

Since the end of May 2020, half the poems I’ve written have been posted here. A few aren’t finished. The others need work. Completing a poem rarely feels finished. I notice that I edit more now than in the past. This poem, for example, lots of editing. It didn’t begin with inspiration. It began with thinking, that I should write a poem to celebrate the end of August. I may not see another summer. The reminder of death every single day I turn on the news makes the passage of time feel different. The position of the moon was far over to the west horizon by the time I remember to look. It was cloudy the night before the poem, Moon barely visible. By morning, the poem thought is awake enough to write