I Do Not Write Poetry by Carol Carpenter

Datura Moonflower's birth...

I Do Not Write Poetry

By Carol Carpenter

it writes me
into the blue-black center
of my birth back then
when I slid head first
into sterile white with no words
for my life pushed into that mid-afternoon
glare of Detroit time clocked in and out
at the Ford Body and Assembly Plant
and ticked off by the White Castle
belly-buster burgers slammed one after the other
onto the greasy grill and patted flat by the slender cook
who knew her blank-verse days ended Sundays
in the Temple Baptist church on Woodward,
the main drag for the ‘43 Ford V8 DeLuxe coupes
revving up and running lights too red
after the world war I read about in poems
without rhyme
and later, words
slapped me flat as a White Castle
when poetry sizzled blue in my mouth
dribbled onto pages of my life
and wrote me into a simile
as if I could puzzle out
my birth and death rites
and scrawl poems in between.

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Happy first day of Autumn!  You'd never know it here in the sweltering, humid swamp, but I have spotted a few red leaves fallen from the trash trees.  The hummingbirds are fewer as are the dragonflies, but butterflies are everywhere, covering my Zinnias and Gerbera Daisies.

May Autumn bring us all peace of mind and an absence of pain...

xo,
Marion