Happy Birthday Willy

Dear Shakespeare, Happy Birthday dude.
You still rock. And to quote an earlier poet,
“Blessed be the womb that bore thee and
the paps that gave thee suck.” Rock on. Jim

New Poet Laureate

Our Pikes Peak Poet Laureate Project will be inaugurating Price Strobridge as our 2012-2014 Pikes Peak Poet Laureate today, Saturday, April 21 at 4:00 p.m. in the Carnegie Reading Room at Penrose Library, downtown Colorado Springs. Refreshments will be served. The event is free and open to the public and will include: CC Professor David Mason, currently the Poet Laureate for the State of Colorado; Jim Ciletti, our 2010-2012 Pikes Peak Poet Laureate; and Aaron Anstett, our 2008-2010 Pikes Peak Poet Laureate.

Price Strobridge, is a Colorado native who grew up in Colorado Springs.  He is the author of Unmasking the Heart, 2005 Pikes Peak Arts Council Performance Poet of the Year, 2006 Gazette Choice Award winner, a longtime supporter of local poetry, and has served for the past dozen years as a judge of the Jean Ciavonne Youth Poetry Contest,

Please join us in welcoming Price by attending his inauguration ceremony, where he will discuss his vision for projects during his term and regale us with his poems. More information on the Pikes Peak Poet Laureate is available at pikespeakpoetlaureate.org.

Thanks again for your support.
John Atkinson Pikes Peak Poet Laureate Steering Committee

Petal Kisses

Like when we were kids
Catching snowflakes on our face
Under the pink blossoming crabapple
I stick out my tongue.

For Karen, a requiem

I Want to Hold Still in the Mountains
for Karen, and those we loved so dearly

I want to hold still in the mountains.
I want to touch silence in the rocks,
See the sun in the eagle’s morning eyes.

I want to hold still in the mountains.

Let the pines grow out of my skin.
Winds howl in my mouth.
Let trout catch me, mule deer stalk me.
Let earth make paths like veins
Through all my grasses.

Hold still in the mountains.

Let the stream drink from my hands.
Stars kneel and pray in my rib cage.
Let the pines warm themselves by my glowing embers.

In the mountains.

Let the snowflakes take communion from my hands.
Moon shine clear through me.
Let the mountains embrace me in their arms.
I need to hold still, in the mountains.

A Mother’s Love

North, 125 miles to visit my 95-year-old Mother,
a pot of my homemade sauce and meatballs
in the box on the back seat.  Arrival.

Hugs, “Mom, you look great. Are you ready to eat soon?
Water’s boiling, pasta be ready in 15 minutes.”
“I can eat anytime.” We wheel her to the table.

We eat. “Mama, you like the sauce?”
“I taught you how to make it.”
“Yes, I just use more oregano and basil.”

I wipe off a spot of sauce from her chin.
Spooning up the last mostaccioli
Mama says, “You can cook for my wedding.”

Redemption

Dear readers, last week my computer crashed and I have been without one for a week. All of my email addresses were lost, as well as lots of “stuff.” Maybe the universe is telling me to clean house. In addition, while I have been writing every day in my 40 day Lenten journal, and illustrating it, I have not been attentive to adding poems to this blog. When you read this, please send an email to me so that I can re-generate my address book.

Times, I feel like I have nothing to say, so I look out at the world, and it tells me, “The peach tree is about to bloom. Garlic is up four inches. Birds are bathing in the fountain pool.” And they’ve never been to class. Have no degrees. Perhaps when the walls come down inside of me, I will be that pure.

Frozen Sunrise

At the crack of dawn
robins peck at the red sun
on frozen water.