8. Zip Code Poem Memoir with Mo Dailey
Suburban Los Angeles is home
🏡
I never thought I would move
and have
another
I was twenty-two when I moved in
with a friend. Today we live
in wonder across miles
I married you
and for the first time I live in snow–
well, in a house,
an old
frigid one
Iowa farming!
no
🚜
not us, but my
class
One baby and
another on the way our first home
with a yard and
swing
and cuddles, lullabies, and play
girls started school in the desert
Saguaros and heat
home for us
🏊🏼♀️
they hoped to never leave
Fourteen years later
back
¯\_( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)_/¯
in Iowa
home
Bahrain didn’t have zip codes, but
One interesting thing is we could get
X delivered to church, school, or hospital with just BOX
1 and Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain
Our retirement home is small and good
two of us
fit just
so, except we can make room for
much company
9. True or False List Poem with Denise Krebs
By Denise Krebs
After Dean Young
- I am much younger inside than I appear.
- Jury duty is for the birds.
- Ishmael is also a son of Abraham.
- Guns have no constructive purpose.
- The enemy has damaged everything in the sanctuary.
- The day you eat it your eyes will be open.
- I don’t need a reason.
- There is chaos in spilled milk.
- You can have too much storage space.
- That tiny silver sliver in the sky is still full.
- The computer in my pocket rules the day.
- Dean Young was an ordinary poet.
read more here
10. Celebration of Yourself in All its Complexities with Joanne Emery
My Life: A Word Want
My life was a word want
It ate, it slept, it haunted
the lexicon and mined for more
It modified its field of study
often always stirring
up another
term
concept
expression
It laughed, it cried, it blurred
the dictionary page to raise its
own little words, like fiff and yit
and whimsical wistful walloping
words of wonder
words of life
Word of Life bringing it light
It wondered, it inferred, it spurred
action in its persistent pupil
My life was a word want
11. Surprising Supplies with Amber
Entrusted Earth Dust
Earth has been entrusted to humans,
But we have neglected our vocation
For the heavy and habitual lust of the
“Ever-expanding consumption of goods”1
Entrusted Earth Dust
can help restore you to your original
anti-consumerism commitment
Curb your buyological urge
with this extraordinary powder
Just sprinkle lightly
On your prefrontal cortex
To ease the addiction
And restore
executive functioning
Made with 100% crushed Amazon returns
Digital delivery sent through WiFi
(No fossil-fuel-guzzling delivery trucks needed)
Cost: absolutely free
Our Mother will thank you
1https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/consumerism
12. An Ode to the Unworthy with Jordan
Ode to the Rock Chipper
You rumble and roar
You don’t give way
to the concrete or asphalt underneath
your dozen rock-hard wheels
You bounce
You heave
You fight back
against the barriers
barummphing to a grinding
halt at red lights
You boom brave and bellicose
with uncovered load
as you roar down the highway
sand and pebbles glitter the way behind you
reminding us that terra firma is anything but
You are the great bearer
of these tiny bits of Earth
in various sizes–
pinheads and pills
bullets and BB’s
gravelly pebbles–
each spilled bit
does your bidding
bouncing behind in your wake
O, Gravel Truck, you have
earned my husband’s
nickname this time–
chipping our windshield
13. The Brain Dump with Barb Edler
Peacock
Featherful eyes fanned out to taunt the world
Staring out at all to flaunt his dominance
Blue-black piercing pupils dot his display
in magic irises of unimaginable iridescence–
meridianroyalcobaltgreenturquoise
Sclera of warm coppery sunshine
His whirled wardrobe
a quiver waving and weaving
Then the early morning
cacophony of peacock’s
screaming shrieking
laughing hahahas
tell us to go home
but we say no,
which is to say
we may look like
weak, scared girls
but we’re not
letting you win
14. If Ever There were a Spring Day so Perfect with Margaret Simon
For Sarah
If you want to be a witness to flourishing,
You are in the right arroyo. Never in
Want of observers, these creatures, down
To their temporal roots in the rock,
Know this once-in-a-lifetime bloom of
Hope is for themselves, and yet
As they share with the animals, the sky,
The sand, and us, we breathe in their life. The
Deepest desire in this moment is to know this
Thing before me. To say thank you. To attend.
Yes, to witness this contribution to creation.
I too have temporal roots, and I
Want this life of hope to always be about
That—thanking, attending, witnessing.
