Thanks to Meggie Royer, I feel compelled to share a poem a day in December.
Know that it is my belief that we humans give off a certain energy and that the role of the poet is to channel that energy into words which can then be fed to others like manna, fueling our spirits with the lifeblood of feeling. Therefore, I will lean on the wit and poetry of Billy Collins for inspiration to muse out some raw, uncooked poems as he and I share a similar wavelength of this so-called energy.
I will also try to share the source material for each poem, so you can see the spark that fueled my work...here is today’s: https://fb.watch/26r7RH0bCd/
Without further ado, here’s poem #1:
Thanksgiving 1975
“I’ll never eat again,” she said
patting her belly and leaning back
in her rickety wooden chair.
And, while the meal was quite large—
turkey and cranberry, stuffing, potatoes,
string bean casserole and green jello,
buttered rolls with honey,
pumpkin pie and ambrosia salad—
I couldn’t help but doubt her veracity.
I mean, did she really expect us to believe
that starting right this second,
she would begin starving herself to death?
Please, this is the same woman
who swears she slept with Jack Kennedy
and that she was once abducted by aliens,
both of which make more sense than this
preposterous claim that she had sworn off
food for the remainder of her life.
So, when I yelled, “Bullshit, you fat cow!”
I expected more nods of support and affirmation
than what I got, which was a quick slap
across my cheek and a tugging of my ear
as my dad yanked me up from the dinner table
and hauled me over to the paddling station.
So please, reader, know that I have
learned my lesson and won’t speak
another word as long as I live.
