i'm a poet and i know it....

I have a little something to tell you. I am a published poet. THERE! I said it! I am rather proud of that little ditty about myself, but I don't often share it because the first thing people ask after I tell them is: can I read some of your work? And, oh, poetry is such a personal thing. Each piece I wrote and polished and tore apart and wrote and polished again is like one of my babies, and what mom wants to be told that she has an ugly baby, right? But, Kamee asked so nicely if I would share something, and she IS an English teacher--so I am going to put myself out there. If contemporary poetry makes you fall asleep, please feel free to move onto the next blog and I promise I'll write something normal tomorrow! The first piece was published in the July 1999 issue of The Poetry Conspiracy, and the second in the 2000 issue of Cold-Drill (these are poetry forums and anthologies, and yes! I realize that was 7- 8 years ago-- I haven't, sadly, been able to write quite as much since boys #3 and 4 were born. But I have a lot of ideas stored up in my head, just waiting for the right year to come out......). Remember people, these are my babies, my BABIES :)........

FOOD FOR ANGELS
based on the quote: "The Teletubbies found it rather inconvenient having a cloud indoors"

This morning I wake
to find I am a cloud
Some form of dream fluff
or ghost mist


Arms and legs of sugar strands and steam,
My head a bowl of smoke
Overcome with the urge
to rain on a parade


"Oh--I'm like a poem." I say,
and try to write myself down,
but there is only white vapor
where my fingers use to be,
and I can't hold the pen.


Going about my day is no good either
Pieces of myself keep trailing
off in every direction--
trying to escape out windows or
seep under the door.


At late afternoon, I step out onto the balcony
and am gone--
rising through shades of blue--
periwinkle, robins egg, turquoise, cerulean,
thinning with the atmosphere.

"No one would accept an earth-bound cloud anyway"
the sky sighs from all sides--
"Better to be food for the angels,
than bits and particles
of misunderstood air."
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MIGRATION
Sunday, 5:00 am

I fear the sky is falling
or an apocalypse horse has trampled
into our realm
when the sound tears into my sleeping ears,
startles me
from my soft dreams--


the frantic
dissonance
of honking geese
as they pass by my dawn window.


But blue chips of atmosphere
do not rain down on my gentle head,
nor does my bed
go up in judgement's blaze


They are not warning me,
this time,
instead just flapping southward,
linked in one great, downy V,
the long sinews of their necks
pulled pale and straight.


They offer up their one-note song--
a trumpeter's prayer--
apology
for parting the air.


*All poems copyright of Jennifer Peterson, so any teenaged plagiarists that come upon them, move on :)

By the way Kamee, do YOU have anything you'd like to share?!