Words in My Head

May 28, 2021
by Karen J. McLean
1 min read
13 Comments
Words in My Head

I go to sleep with headphones on
to keep the brain occupied
and the demons at bay

Those words in my head
fill up any cracks
that would allow the
dark to get in

Went to bed with a
heart so heavy
The breath would barely come

Months of isolation 
from ideas
from contact
from people-watching and
from new horizons
Even the fumes were gone

4:16 AM
I heard words
Poetry
A poet blazing his truth
His life
Lighting the dark

My heart stirred
My breathing quickened
And like an old furnace
My own words ignited once more.

The podcast I woke hearing — and which breathed oxygen to that dwindling ember inside — was a rerun of this episode of CBC’s Ideas: The Last Bohemian: Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

This post was created as part of the Poetry Friday challenge, hosted each week by a different poet.  Today’s host, Michelle Kogan, is celebrating a birthday this weekend!  Please enjoy her lovely poem on her blog and wish her a happy birthday in the comments.

Special shout-out to my friend and fellow poet, Christie Wyman, whose mutual love of Walden and writing has led me to my pandemic lifeline that has gotten me this far.

Poetry Prompt: Change / Don’t Change

April 6, 2021
by Karen J. McLean
2 min read
2 Comments

This week, my Tuesday prompts group used today’s 2021 April PAD Challenge prompt from Writer’s Digest.

This poem has been rattling ’round in my heart and head for a very long time, literally twelve years in the making.  Today it finally tumbled out.

Thank you for reading it.

Change / Don't Change

I look at Google Maps
To revisit childhood past;
Plunk Streetview Man down
In front of 8510,
And set the time slider
Back 12 years, to 2009,
And the preceding four decades,
Before it was all erased.

Elizabeth Wilson's house,
Back among the pines and cedars.
Sixty years between us
Makes for an unlikely friendship.
I braid her antique doll's hair,
While she braids mine.

There stands the school,
And the playground,
The old Orange Hall,
And Doris's yellow house
Where she sits on her veranda
And watches and waits to scold.

If I angle it right,
I can see the other landmarks --
Houses of people whose names I've always known:
Charlton; Briggs; Livingston; Burton --
And the ancient mountain smiles benevolently
Upon those sheltered in its valley.

But if I angle it wrong,
I can see the machines,
And the unbearable piles of corpses
Of hundreds of trees who
Watched me collecting flowers,
Cheered me chasing squirrels, and
Listened to me singing silly made-up songs,
Sighing back to me in companionable whispers.

Looking at 2021,
It's all gone now, of course.
Obliterated by progress:
"Must get to Fredericton faster."
A highway overpass
My childhood's grave marker.

Poetry Prompt: “About _______”

March 30, 2021
by Karen J. McLean
1 min read
4 Comments
About Archie

I am owned by an orange and white cat
Who, by all accounts, should be fat
He eats quite a lot
When he doesn't get caught
He really can be such a brat

The orange cat is Archie by name
He thinks scratching me is a fine game
Archies jumps on my head
Then strikes a pose on the bed
For a photo to add to his fame

I'm writing this poem while he's here
He's demanding attention, that's clear
He purrs and he rubs
I think he wants grubs
An empty dish is his one great fear.