he can reach
the top of the table
under the crib
behind the piano
with ease
he grabs
a toolkit
a nail clipper
some cheerios
with tiny fingers
he finds
beads
rhinestones
plastic clips
in the shallow carpet
he’s just tall enough to choke.
Lisa Holcomb 10/27/04
Image Poem entitled “Jelena”
Lisa Holcomb 2013
My eldest son was doing a poetry project for school, so I did it alongside him. One of the prompts was to write a poem inside a picture of how the poem made you feel. It was interesting to do. Mine was depressing.
phone call
licking panic off my lips
uttering the
swollen words I wish i’d said
when I talk
to you
i’m always stiff as yesterday’s cake
I sit here and eat the
silence
like sky and caramel
we’ve rotted in this embrace
and now you spend time
cursing in the corner
and looking up at the
ceiling as if it has all the answers
we’re sitting under this
plague blanket
brick bruises on our hearts
refusing to say the words we mean
and saying all the ones we don’t
——-
Lisa Holcomb 1998
It’s National Poetry Month…and therefore I must share poetry. Some days I’ll share my own and some days I’ll share famous works and others I’ll share works of lesser fame. Who knows what the day will bring?
Today, because it’s on my mind, a poem about adoption (I’m an adoptee and a friend called tonight to ask about my experience): (click on the image to enbiggen)
Dear brain,
When I told you I wanted to dream about my writing, I was not asking you to send me a whole other story to write; I wanted help with what I’m currently working in.
No love,
Me
Food discussed (pinterest purused). Food eaten (after much delay). Publishing industry discussed.
More food purchased (Fresh!).
Slept (my first time with puppy in bed). Woken (puppies have small bladders).
More food eaten (Fresh muffins are good).
Writing discussed. Writing pondered. Writing stared at. Writing done? Possibly.
Food prepared (Steph makes a yummy marinara). Food eaten.
Writing pondered. Writing discussed. Writing read about. Writing done? Maybe.
Now time for more food preparation.
Well, The Good first: I wrote a lot last month. A lot.
The Bad: I didn’t finish NANOWRIMO. 😦
The Ugly: I didn’t even come close.
I started out strong, met a lot of daily goals, and then one day just stopped writing all together and never went back to it. Two solid weeks of not cleaning and not paying attention to life in general took its toll on my household and my sanity and I had to go back to real life and feed my kids.
So, some time in the next month or so I hope to go back to the novel, but for now I’m taking a little break and going to read a friends manuscript and a few writing books and see what kind of magic I can put back into my writing. We will see how that goes.
…and all my words with it…
Blogging will recommence December 1st…
So out of the last six days, I had kids (one, two, one) home three days, I worked two days, I had events going on five nights and parents in town the last one, it was the first anniversary of a friends murder, AND I started Nanowrimo. So you’ll forgive me for not following up on the Biscuit vs. Scone bake-off. Maybe I’ll do that tomorrow. Nothing’s happening tomorrow, right? (Don’t tell me. I like being blissfully unaware today.)
Kids are well now, they’ve all had haircuts, they’ve had a sleepover (either at church or at Nana & Pa’s), and they’ve already eaten most of their Halloween candy.
I’m something like 5600 words into my latest novel for Nanowrimo. It’s going pretty well. This year I have Beta Readers, too, which is different and fun. I’m awaiting feedback. I think it’ll be nifty having a braintrust behind my novel. I’ve got an artist, a photographer, and a librarian reading my stuff. WHEE!
My husband is being sweet about all this. He said “You choose what you do with your free time. I watch football and drink beer. You spend time with crazy people inside your own head.” It’s all good. I still think mine’s better. 🙂
When I shut down my blog several months ago, it was because I just didn’t want to write any more. I felt guilty when I didn’t blog enough, I felt bad when I didn’t have anything interesting to say and I blogged about daily life anyway, and most days writing just seemed too hard.
I went several months without blogging. Life was good again. I didn’t feel the need to document every movement I and my family made. We just LIVED. I stopped taking as many pictures and lived through moments instead of seeming them through a tiny lens. It was wondrous.
It was also very, very weird. I’ve been blogging since before there was blogging. I’ve had a diary, journal, notebook, scrap of paper or something in my hands since I was a little girl. I noticed an uptick in Facebook and twitter posts. Then I started writing longer notes in my head that I never posted because they were too long for Facebook. I started writing in a paper journal again, only to realize that my hands are no longer up to that task. So I started searching for an app for journalling on my computer, but that wasn’t enough. I wanted input on my writing.
Which lead me back to blogging. So welcome back to the new Life According to Lisa. 🙂
