Welcome to the writing life Notes on life, writing, and other things.: poetry

Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts

On the day I was born spring was just a good idea. Not a tree had thought further then to catch a snowflake upon a branch. Mother Nature heaved tears upon a grateful earth that such a creature as me was being born. No, no that is not right. The sky was a slate gray of swollen cumulus clouds. No, that is not right either. I really do not know what the weather was the day I was born. I was too busy contemplating my penis. Yes, I was a girl but convinced the pulsating thing I had grown so fond of in vitro was indeed, my penis. How was I to know it would be the last time I would be so intimately involved with it and my kneecaps. Hanging out in the dark sucking your thumb and pondering the next tum in the womb does not prepare you for life. I was three or was it four when I stood naked waiting for my bath and realized it was gone. Gone!!! I asked my mother where it was and she said, why, it dried up and fell off. Fell off? My trusty companion for nine months, my playmate, the thing I was counting on to wield power in a man infested environment had dried up and fallen off? I tell you nothing prepares you for a shock like that.

Nor does it prepare you for 12 years of Catholic school and the joys of the twisted sisterhood of the religious righteous. My life from grades 1-12 was spent running from the taunts of bullies while hanging on to my socks that were always around my ankles and keeping my pointed speckled glasses from falling into the mud before I did. I was eighteen when I developed hips and could keep my pantyhose around my waist.

On the day I was born God peered into the waiting womb of my mother and shook his head to see this girl baby contemplating her penis. I think he knew right then and there I was trouble. Years later I would grow up to be a wild woman, a wild angel, and crazy about my pet TV, my computer and a boy named George, but that is another story.

I was born with a cleft in my chin. I was told that meant God had put his fingerprint on me. So this is what I think happened, God looked in utero, saw what was going on, and decided action was needed.

He lifted my head back peered into those baby blues and said; Look you goofball! What do you think you are doing? Stop mucking around and get the hell out there. With that, he pushed his finger into my chin and sent me holding on to my penis for dear life down that long tunnel to the light at the other end, his final words ringing in my ears. "You go, girl. Go and fly!!"

From the anthology: Things with Wings, 2001 The Wild Angels

Writing for Life: Creating a Story of Your Own

Creative Vagabond

Transforming Ideas into Engaging Content. Articles. Courses. Blogs. E-Books. Social Media. Text Us. 347-418-1157

What women in love do, Haiku version

what women in love

do: revealing bare shoulders
she slips back her coat

From the anthology: Things with Wings, 2001 The Wild Angels

Sandra Lee Schubert © All Rights Reserved, 2024
Writing for Life: Creating a Story of Your Own

Creative Vagabond
Transforming Ideas into Engaging Content. Articles. Courses. Blogs. E-Books. Social Media. Text Us. 347-418-1157

What women in love do

(We) throw off our coats to reveal bare shoulders
(We) dance in front of the mirror, imagining our beloved is there
What women in love do

Become unhinged in subtle and profound ways

(slightly crazy and beside ourselves)
We become different and awkward and out of sorts
When we fall (for married men, mysterious men and holy men)
Forgetting ourselves in the most awful and luscious of ways
Women in love do the most interesting things

Today I am a woman in love(and my heart aches)

From the anthology: Things with Wings, 2001 The Wild Angels

Writing for Life: Creating a Story of Your Own

Creative Vagabond

Transforming Ideas into Engaging Content. Articles. Courses. Blogs. E-Books. Social Media. Text Us. 347-418-1157

A death like this . . . .

One more time spring has erupted.

I pass by the trees and white petals fall.
A little boy says: "it is snowing momma! It's snowing..."

I kick at the trash and catch a petal on my lips.

The taste is bitter and I am full of it. A season comes around. It's spring, then fall.
Again, I walk down the street.
The tears fall like snow from the sky...
Things go round and round.

Some things stop. Stop.

His friend has died.

I sit with him and feel the heaviness of his heart. I am pulled down into it. He weeps.

A flower tips it head to the ground. I know something is being born.

At this moment my heart flutters and falters. Somewhere my soul is being filled by the Gods. They said she died of heart attack.

I know her heart broke open,

so, full oflove it could no longer be contained.

A friend has died

and a death like this takes away a piece from here and a piece from there.

Until there is this patchwork of things that God has woven back together.

I walk down this street and all around everything has gone green ...

Next week it falls like feathers from angels' wings. I am wrapped by this cycle of life and death.

I am reaching and holding back.

I am looking to scream somewhere... Scream it all back to God.

From the anthology: Things with Wings, 2001 The Wild Angels

Writing for Life: Creating a Story of Your Own

Creative Vagabond

Transforming Ideas into Engaging Content. Articles. Courses. Blogs. E-Books. Social Media. Text Us. 347-418-1157

Day Breakers - Haiku

Haiku Version

The day breakers rise

Separating night from day

I prefer sleep

From the anthology: Things with Wings, 2001 The Wild Angels

Writing for Life: Creating a Story of Your Own

Creative Vagabond

Transforming Ideas into Engaging Content. Articles. Courses. Blogs. E-Books. Social Media. Text Us. 347-418-1157

Day Breakers

There are those who separate night from day.

Greeting dawn with anticipation

They are golden people, light bearers of the world.

I am not one of these ...

I pull night over me, a trusted friend. I am crimson and gold

I am in the company of demons and angels drawn into the center of the dark night (of the soul.) I fall, I reel ... Oh sweet night. .. Oh saving grace

Wild 'angels I call on thee... lift me from this wild imagining Rise, they say, child of God, greet this night,

Do not languish in your mourning bed...

Rise; lift up thine eyes from the burning dark.

Look to the swirling stars, the poetic moon, break it open ... At night, I am crimson and gold,

Embered, a soft glow in the velvet darkness

I will have my churning dreams and tormented heart

Let the day breakers have their brilliant light and Marian blue Give me this sweet night, this tender passage

Wild Angels I call on thee O' my soul,

O' my soul.

From the anthology: Things with Wings, 2001 The Wild Angels

Writing for Life: Creating a Story of Your Own

Creative Vagabond

Transforming Ideas into Engaging Content. Articles. Courses. Blogs. E-Books. Social Media. Text Us. 347-418-1157

Revisiting Poetry

I am considering breaking this poem in half. Can you guess where?

THE MOURNING OF THE LOSS OF TOWELS

Not a willing early riser, prone to steal extra minutes slipping further under the covers with just a nose to catch the air.

Sometimes I slip deeper, unintentional really, back to a dream that had me entertained before the clock bellows with morning voices and then later the second beep and finally the 3rd alarm stationed in the bathroom making me pull out of a dream a bitter end to a delicious sleep.

Occasionally morning calls to me and I wait in the dark, cold air. I can make out the last of the deer scurrying off into the deep woods, pausing once to look at me the lone watcher on the stone balcony.

Here is the moment when the night sounds die off and the silence is deep and the sky is still black. And then the slow roll of night back over my head as the morning begins her ascension over the horizon even before she crests the birds begin to sing a chorus of the song that builds like the dawn and with the first break of day, the shimmer of light cascades down the mountain to the river and finally lights my perch.

I am reminded of lost things. The towels my mother taught me to fold, not like my aunt- she would have none of that.

First is one fold to the middle and the second fold over that smooth it out, fold the towel in half and in half again. After all these years,

I still fold towels the same way.

But it is my mother’s towels, the ones we folded together,

I miss the most. Their frayed edges with soft middles, the way they wrapped me. And her hands, worn even then, her furrowed brow, brown hair and the faint smell of gardenia that clung to her.

Then I learned about loss and sorrow still to come.

Mourning the loss of towels,

I slip deeper under the covers to grasp one last dream.

Creative Vagabond: Read this first.

Poetry and Music

Join us for Poets on Main in Boonton, NJ.

Friday, April 1st - 7:30 PM

Iconic Images Art Gallery

414 Main St, Boonton, New Jersey 07005

Poets and musicians have inspired each other for generations.
From lyrics to melody the collaboration between the two can
bring about great works of art.

Tonights collaboration will have music joined with words,
and words and music following each other. Part spontaneous
and part planned - we will riff off each other and create
something fun and wonderful.

+Sandra Lee Schubert is a writer, poet and consultant. She is the founder of Wild Woman Network – forums to explore and express creativity and spirituality. She has created a successful e-course, leading a person through building the foundation for a lifetime of writing and creating their life story. She facilitated a popular writing program called the Wild Angels Poets and Writers Group at the historic Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York City.

+Jed Luckless is NYC area musician who performs original music and streams his shows online in the virtual world of Secondlife. His improvisational style has earned him the nickname Jammin’ Jed and this spontaneity makes every performance a unique experience for the listener.Jed Luckless - http://jedluckless.com/

Hosted by Dave Pucciarelli
First Friday Late Night: Poets on Main is sponsored by: B&B Design and WDHA FM

Writing for Life: Creating a Story of Your Own e-course available by email subscription.

Click here for more information and to sign up http://bit.ly/write4life

A Grateful Dead thing...

The creative process is fraught with details - Here is my newest video for Drums and space -

It is an interpretation based on a conversation with Jed Luckless about the Grateful Dead and drums and space in their concerts. The conversation inspired a poem (only some elements of the conversation are in the poem) I watched the Grateful Dead's Fare Thee Well concert on a big screen and took some photos. I played with a couple of ways of connecting the poem and photos together. Read more on YouTube.

h/t +Jed Luckless for the music and inspiration of this piece.

Sandra Lee Schubert © All Rights Reserved, 2016
Writing for Life: Creating a Story of Your Own e-course available by email subscription.
Click here for more information and to sign up http://bit.ly/write4life

What is Poetry?

What is Poetry?

Last night when we walked downtown –
over the tops of buildings we saw the tops of other buildings –
spheres and shapes that had settled together, a family cobbled together.

Different and unique together.
I like when it rains and the sun is out –
the water catches the quality of the light and reflects it back.

All these things are poetry, seeing, revealing in the most unusual ways.
Poetry is the stuff of a heart that cannot be shut down.
It is a voice that continues to speak even after the tongue has been removed.

Poetry tells me I am a mystery.
I am not a problem to be solved, but
a grand result of a just and creative God.

Sandra Lee Schubert © All Rights Reserved, 2006

Sign up for the Wild Woman Network newsletter
http://home.ezezine.com/331_2/

Writing for Life: Creating a Story of Your Own
e-course available by email subscription.

Click here for more information and to sign up
http://cli.gs/Uy4Up3

From a Poetry workshop

If you came to me,
I would take your hand
Dance with me tonight

If you asked me, I would love you
Carried away on a star

Don’t let me languish here
my heart full and waiting

Ask me and I’d fly away

There is a dream I wake from where the sweetness hangs in the air like Jasmine
There is a dream I wake from where love comes from the heart and all around
There is a dream I wake from that I dream to bring to life
If you ask me, I would take your hand.

Sandra Lee Schubert © All Rights Reserved, 2006

Writing for Life: Creating a Story of Your Own
e-course available by email subscription.

Click here for more information and to sign up
http://cli.gs/Uy4Up3

Full Moon Hungry

Come my love, and slip down beside me
I am full moon hungry and tonight
it is the brightest of the year

Empty of you finally
after a long illness
almost took the last breath of my body
I measure each action as victory
marking time by each
day I wake
greet the morning
reluctantly still
after all this time
It is the moon that feeds me, moving
lambently across my breasts,
filling me with its light and grace
I will tell you
when I have reclaimed my life.

Moving past the shadow of this illness,
I curl into the smallest shaft of light.
I will drink until I am full.

Sandra Lee Schubert © All Rights Reserved, 2006

Writing for Life: Creating a Story of Your Own
e-course available by email subscription.

Click here for more information and to sign up
http://cli.gs/Uy4Up3

Declare the Head!

Declare the Head

The police said,
The luggage leaking
The sniff of a dog
The puzzled looks
The tourists running

Then,
The reasons why
The offer in a foreign country
The priest with a plan
The spells to cast
The gravediggers with a hunger

Declare the head!

The skull was smelling
The teeth still clinging
The hair still curling
The brain matter spilling
The kids were crying

The police just saying,
This woman must,
Declare the head!

The Wild Angels Poets and Writers Anthology

A Body of Work: Writing with Heart, Soul and Senses
Sandra Lee Schubert © All Rights Reserved, 2006

Sandra Lee Schubert © All Rights Reserved, 2006-2014
Writing for Life: Creating a Story of Your Own
e-course available by email subscription.

Click here for more information and to sign up
http://cli.gs/Uy4Up3

Night Highway

Night Highway

It is the ground ground, the slithery sliding slippery wet,

that sucks the heat and breath with a cool clammy eye, and hissing

snapping like the snappy top of Hammer’s hammer.

Boxing this corner of the world in, cornering the corner

slipping the wet thigh, along the night highway

scrunching the dark night into a small benevolent eyeball,

bursting,

just once before the sun quickens across the sky

falling backwards into a dream sleep

and here we are again

along this cool edge of the last day.

The Wild Angels Poets and Writers Anthology

A Body of Work: Writing with Heart, Soul and Senses

Sandra Lee Schubert © All Rights Reserved, 2006-2014

Writing for Life: Creating a Story of Your Own
e-course available by email subscription.

Click here for more information and to sign up
http://cli.gs/Uy4Up3

Returning

Returning

We go to pick out her coffin. How horrible they all are. All these tiny, flimsy pink things. I want her in something substantial, something to keep her safe, to wrap her body, to keep her warm. Her body rotting in a pink coffin is not right to me.

So we pick out a large coffin and it is made of dark wood. I know she would love it, if it were a piece of furniture and not her deathbed. Does she remember what we buried daddy in? She will be above him. They tell us we could fit in another when the time comes. But not now. Now that I have chosen this wood that will not rot.

So just let me climb in with her. Dissolve into her flesh – like we once were. I will slip back into her belly and together we will sleep to the end.

The Wild Angels Poets and Writers Anthology
A Body of Work: Writing with Heart, Soul and Senses
My submissions- by Sandra Lee Schubert © All Right Reserved 2006

Sandra Lee Schubert © All Rights Reserved, 2006-2014

Writing for Life: Creating a Story of Your Own
e-course available by email subscription.

Click here for more information and to sign up
http://cli.gs/Uy4Up3

Wisdom

Wisdom
I don’t know
About the flesh

Falling and flailing from the bone

I don’t know

About the dark
The night creeping into
Every corner

I don’t know

Where the air is anymore
Pure and shapely
As a still frame

I don’t know
Why my mouth won’t open
Won’t scream
Or cry
Or sing

I don’t know
I don’t know
I don’t know
I don’t know
I don’t know
I don’t know

The Wild Angels Poets and Writers Anthology
A Body of Work: Writing with Heart, Soul and Senses
My submissions- by Sandra Lee Schubert © All Right Reserved 2006

Sandra Lee Schubert © All Rights Reserved, 2006-2014

Writing for Life: Creating a Story of Your Own
e-course available by email subscription.

Click here for more information and to sign up
http://cli.gs/Uy4Up3

A Body of Work

A Body of Work
I am here – lined like an ancient river that once flowed east into the great sea.

I am here – a body forlorn and bound to its remembrances.

See me – from above, the shadow sister next to the river that now flows west.

If you were to explore me – rock and bone now ground into pale sand along the urban highway – I would show you the path of water that once raged against my ample shores.

This river is bound to the earth,

waiting for the end of the world and the final rain and the one great wave that will wash me once again into the sea.

The Wild Angels Poets and Writers AnthologyMy submissions- by Sandra Lee Schubert © All Right Reserved 2006

Sandra Lee Schubert © All Rights Reserved, 2006-2014

Writing for Life: Creating a Story of Your Own
e-course available by email subscription.

Click here for more information and to sign up
http://cli.gs/Uy4Up3

Welcome to the writing life
Notes on life, writing, and other things.

What women in love do, Haiku version

What women in love do

A death like this . . . .

Day Breakers - Haiku

Day Breakers

Creative Vagabond

Revisiting Poetry

Poetry and Music

A Grateful Dead thing...

What is Poetry?

From a Poetry workshop

Full Moon Hungry

Declare the Head!

Night Highway

Returning

Wisdom

A Body of Work

Links

Blog Archive