the jazz of my words

Posted on June 29, 2012 by Susan L Daniels

I want to roll with this
the jazz of my words
popping lightly like finger snaps
or high heels on concrete
tapping that beat
that makes me want to
sway with spoken word

let strength and snap
pour from my mouth
in a cadence felt from the toes up
yes, I am walking poetry today

and today I wake up with this poem
writing itself before my eyes open
words that kick like unsweetened espresso
in a rhythm played with brushes
not sticks, on those drums
I call ears.

Can you feel it?

***updated to add “Don’t Blame Me,” Thelonious Monk, 1966

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small things set to scale

Posted on June 28, 2012 by Susan L Daniels

this composition of ours
the singing subatomic resonance
the empty places in bodies, cells, atoms, space
a design, beautiful and subtle as lace,
which is as much made
of its lack of substance as its substance

I would speak to that smallness, that absence
that echoes in us, and question, really, what is it that is small
when each thing, set to scale, smaller to larger
is eventually lost in that vast net woven
in a pattern for larger vision than ours,
clinging to a small rock revolving around an insignificant sun
in a sea of suns; larger even than telescopes,
whose unlimited vision sees all smallness
and largeness set to the same scale, the harmonic

the invisible hands cupping the universe
in their palms, if they are hands and palms
shaped like ours, and noting every small thing
that passes with overarching awareness,
or the universe as a body, larger and thriving
and interacting with–what?
The smallness of my mind stops here
lost in contemplating a scale too big and too small
for finite neural pathways to capture
in finely spun webs.

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rain

Posted on June 28, 2012 by Susan L Daniels

this  image

translated
to voice

chained

to what
these limited eyes
know, the universe

scaled to a drop of water
on a leaf
in a summer storm

so many drops
to notice

why this one
balanced on the tip
of one leaf

among many wet leaves

speaks
as if it has significance

and brings to mind
a similar balance
on the verge of falling

my bones know

truth in transience
calls in a whisper
magnified to a shout
in my ears
because I noticed

and I will hum
this knowing
in my own process

a release
from some holding edge
among so many similar falls

the letting go
unnoticed
but remarked on later

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the risk

Posted on June 28, 2012 by Susan L Daniels

early fireflies drift easy
through air spiced by bloomed coriander
slow-falling constellations
whose coded sequences
of seduction dazzle me, too

and like those males
following that irresistible female flicker
either to love or its hungry impostor
I want to follow that light
to the source

and only then find out
if following instinct

was a mistake,
but an inevitable one
inscribed in the DNA
of either lovers,
or predator and prey.

***From an article in the Cornell Chronicle, “Firefly Fatal Attraction”

The characteristic flashes that summon male fireflies of the genus Photinus could come from female Photinus fireflies. But just as likely, Cornell chemical ecologists have discovered, the signaling females are of a different genus, Photuris, and they’re not especially interested in courtship.

Rather, the femmes fatales fireflies are luring males close enough to eat them. The males contain defensive chemicals that females need to repel predators, such as spiders. Mimicry and murder provide a lifesaving meal, the Cornell researchers report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Sept. 2, 1997, Vol. 94, pp. 9723-9728).

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if I am intimate with

Posted on June 27, 2012 by Susan L Daniels

If I am intimate with
the movements of the earth
and do not share her secrets
it is because
I leap up from her flesh
suddenly, a quake-spawned mountain
spewing ash and steam

or a weed,
growing overnight
wild and spiny,
my roots deep
to tap heat from underground

to feed a bloom
scarlet and singing.

One is dangerous.
The other inconvenient,
but beautiful.

It all depends
on how, precisely

you see it.

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Posted on June 27, 2012 by Susan L Daniels

This is wonderful, beautiful, and I want to share this with everyone–thank you NAI!

Noel Ihebuzor's avatarReflections

By Noel Ihebuzor

Life as lived unity

Life lives, breathes and shimmers as one

straddling frames and fields

defying puny encapsulation and attempts

to frame it in packets and pockets of

disparate silos by all knowing experts of life and knowledge

 

The headache, the heart that hurts

the aching tooth, the limping male

the faulty erection, the cutting tongue,

the poisoned fist, the knowing wink

 

All are biology, theology, psychology and sociology

economics, mathematics and physics

philosophy and politics fused

presenting as one seamless affirmation of being

flowing interlinked and defying our knowledge boundaries and silos

 

In our quest to know,

we now crawl on knowledge frontiers we drew

isolating, magnifying detail and specks

deepening, tunnelling with absorbing fixity

never remembering to put them back again

ignoring organic essentials,

confusing parts for whole, minutiae an obsession

missing thus the deep truth, that life

is about unity, a…

View original post 105 more words

Posted in New Free Verse | 2 Comments

Posted on June 27, 2012 by Susan L Daniels

I love this–not my process, but so beautiful!

thepoetsbillow's avatarthe poet's billow

Tina Chang, Brooklyn’s new poet laureate, breaks down her creative process.

Watch it here at the New York Times Website.

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Posted in New Free Verse | 3 Comments