Chicago:
A student dreamed
arches, bridges, homes.
Everywhere he looked
one more school of solid,
one more example of
Sandburg’s broad shoulders.
Montauk, Sears, Reliance, Rookery,
Wright, Mies, Sullivan–
none could stop his slope
down, under the bridge
and then home,
under a newspaper
ads for palm tree warmth.
He rose, all long white hair
and smell, grumbling
at horrified commuters
heading home.
© 2019 L. Koenig
(image of the Montauk Building, Chicago, from the creative commons)
I thought I was being clever creating a unique email address for this blog. But then the pandemic hit, my sister died, and I just gave up on some things.
Like the blog.
Like poetry.
So it was a hassle recovering my blog.
And I think I am ready to return to poetry, not that poetry has missed me.
My brother died recently, and I am grieving in a weird way. ANGRY, sad, angry, sad. So angry.
Writing might help.
I am pursuing helping others with literacy growth in a big way, tutoring ESL, GED, and teaching literacy classes–in my retirement. This lets me know how much I value literacy.
My trusty OLD laptop died, and I replaced it right away. This lets me know how much I value literacy.
As I try to recover old documents, I am trying to find more than 1/3 of a MILLION documents created. This lets me know how much I value literacy. As I read some of my poetry and fiction/ nonfiction, I find pieces I want to edit and revise.
I need to get the twitter bashers out of my mind’s eye, for they almost took away my desire to write poetry. Use the wrong word or use the wrong voice and you can be canceled, vilified.
So here’s to grief (again? still?) and a continuing pandemic I’d like to write away. That won’t happen, but perhaps I can find the joy of creation once again if I stop listening to the voices of the poet and poetry bashers who seem to pounce if a wrong word or tone or voice is used, even unwittingly, even when trying to create art. (Persona poems are one of my favorite types.)
And here’s to writing down passwords and email logins somewhere else!
Happy new year, all. And thanks for reading.
On 7-21-1970, I was walking to work (one hour walk there, one hour walk home…to work two hours…) and thinking, oh man, I have to work until I’m 65? I was flipping burgers, cleaning tables, working with the public.
Folks, I am 65 years old today. To say I am stunned would be true, for how did this happen so quickly?
Wait, there were many long days and nights–but so much went so quickly!
I had a business career and then a teaching career. I am still teaching after retirement and loving it. I am tutoring, writing poetry, and living as well as I can.
***As to grief, picking up a bottle of Aleve yesterday had me crying over my sister. I miss having a sister so much. I would send her or bring her Aleve for she was in pain for so many years. I looked at the long list of things I brought to her and ordered for her and could almost chart her decline that way. At first they would just be gifts or nice things for her apartment. And little by little they became necessities to keep her from excruciating pain. How horrible to live for 40 years in excruciating pain. I’m very sorry that happened to her and I miss her a lot.
Looking back now I can see she knew that her end near and that she had made peace with this.Towards the last half year of her life, my sister wasn’t able to read, drive, walk sleep. She had a series of agonizing painful days. Towards the very end, she forgot how to use the telephone. She kept losing things such as her phone and would be on the floor for days. She wanted to stay living alone on her own and refused living with anyone else. That was her right. That’s how she wanted it. Adamantly. Still, it was very sad seeing her not able to use the phone, remember her phone number, or even remember that if she touched the number on her phone screen she could dial her number. She got very afraid at the end because she knew she couldn’t remember things. We think it was brain cancer or loss of oxygen to the brain.
My sister was not very compliant with hospice wishes. She wanted to live on her terms and then die. And that’s what she did.
Still, she did manage to go out for coffee one last time and flirt with the wait staff. She wanted one more Christmas holiday but that was not to be, so I will make sure to celebrate for the both of us.
And life goes on on my end. I’m retired but still teaching. Tutoring. Writing poetry.I am now the age she was when she passed away last year and I will soon be older than my older sister ever was.I know it was horrible pain for her at the end especially, but I miss my sister very much.
(Photo taken by me at the Chicago Windows, the Art Institute of Chicago, artist Marc Chagall.)
Attempts at specular poems, and yes, I probably need to leave the sparrows alone. They appear too often in my poetry; however, I do love sparrows since they STAY ALL WINTER and provide some color, sound, movement even during the dull dreariness of November, December, January, and February.
Specular poems are a form where halfway through the lines repeat themselves in a mirrored order.
Image of the American Tree Sparrow from the Creative Commons.
Thanks for reading!
Back in 2001-2005, I suffered the loss of several loved ones, both families and friends. Before then, I sometimes marveled how I had not experienced the death of anyone I cared about and I was nearly 50 then. I knew that would end, and it did as friends died from freak accidents (falling on ice in a church parking lot and having a bone fragment reach the bloodstream–RIP Ruth) to dying while sleeping and choking (RIP Earl), to the death of my godmother from heart disease, my mother from dementia from a terrible head injury to my father to a stroke he suffered while we were on the phone–and so on.
All of this emotional and body memory is being resurfaced by the death of my only sister last week. I remember grief, what it feels like (shock, anger, grief, disbelief, pain), what it tastes like (tears), what it sounds like (choking, crying, silence). And then the permanence, the inability to touch the loved one anymore.
I wrote a lot of poetry about grief before then because of childhood losses that did not involve death, during this time, and afterwards, for my sister was diagnosed with terminal illnesses, one after the other after the other. She lived an amazing 15 years after the first terminal diagnosis–truly amazing.
But I rarely wrote directly about the one who died, except for about my best friend Susan who died young, before age 40, from colon cancer. We were such close friends I was shattered. When someone told me I should get over it, I snapped and wrote a very harsh poem titled NOTOVERIT, full of profanities.
You may have heard that writers used everything in their life to write, and that is true of me, but not in a direct fashion. I write sideways poems.
Sideways? I usually wrote about the death of a spouse or a divorce, telling my dear husband it was how I could deal with the grief, to write about it sideways, obliquely. Since we are still married, he just gave a puzzled look. But it helped me to write about grief in a way others could understand without battering me further.
This poem, “Where You are Not,” was written to explore the empty feeling of not being able to touch, to feel, to see the loved one anymore. I am blessed to have my spouse with me in my daily life, but grief is grief I think, and while I could not yet write about the many others since they came too close together, I could fictionalize my losses and take poetic license.
I really appreciate Esthetic Apostle for publishing this poem in their June 2019 issue.
Family, colleagues, friends, writers— I am pleased to have a poem published here today. If you give it a read, I hope you enjoy.
Publications, Laura Lee
Some of my poems, short stories, and nonfiction articles are included online and in print books and magazines published in the UK, Greece, India, New Zealand, and the United States. Many thanks to the staff at these publications.
“The Three Month Sentence,” a poem, in Esthetic Apostle, 2019.
“Red Halo,” a poem, in Prometheus Dreaming, 2019.
“Devastation,” a poem, 2019, in Headline Poetry.
“Havishammed +1,” a poem, 2019, online and in print edition available through amazon.com and at High Shelf Press.
“Where You Are Not,” a poem, June 2019, Esthetic Apostle, here.
“Swamp Pearls,” a poem, May 2019, in Prometheus Dreaming, here.
“Not Sleep,” a poem, in Cagibi: A Literary Space, 2019, here: Cagibi.
“The Professor and the Gravel,” (2019), a poem, in Wingless Dreamer.
“Saltwater Faces,” an ekphrastic poem inspired by paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago, High Shelf Press, 2018, here.
“Click,” “The Night is our First Language,” and “They Left the Bed,” poetry published in The Poetic Bond VIII print issue, 2018. Available at Poetic Bond VIII.
“Moving Gravel” a short story at Crack the Spine – Themed Anthology Submissions, “Routine”, print edition, 2018. Available at Crack the Spine Anthology.
“Walk with Child,” a poem, in Snapdragon Journal, 2018, “Here and Gone” theme, here.
Coffin Bell Journal,2018, “Herstory,” a poem, 2018,here.
Spillwords Press, “Stopped,” a poem, 2018, here.
Tuck Magazine, June 2018, “Teach to Kill” http://tuckmagazine.com/2018/06/06/poetry-1528/.
Tuck Magazine, May 2018, “Refuge,” http://tuckmagazine.com/2018/05/29/poetry-1511/.
Southernmost Point Guest House (UK), poetry.
Journal of Modern Poetry 21 (Volume 21), “Hell, No,” a poem at JOMP Volume 21 Dear Mr. President.
Journal of Modern Poetry 20 (Volume 20), “Moonlit Awakening,” JOMP Volume 20 Poetry Writer’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Journal of Modern Poetry 18 (Volume 18), The Official Poets Guide to Peace, two poems: “Open” and “After Poetry Class.” 2015. Purchase here.
Journal of Modern Poetry 17 (Volume 17), JOMP Volume 17.
Cram Volume 12: “White Board Clown,” 2011. Chicago Poetry Press 2011.
Magazine (New Zealand) , Raewyn Alexander, Publisher, nonfiction and poetry. Raewyn Alexander NZ.
Fiction in: http://staxtes.com/2003/ “Between the Sunlight and the Skipping” in English Wednesdays
Poetry in: https://poetsagainstthewar.org/ archives.
Illinois English Bulletin, a publication of the National Council of Teachers of English, nonfiction article about teaching in an alternative education program.
Poetry in Marginalia, Elmhurst, IL.
I don’t intend to make a living writing poetry–I’ve done that with teaching and business jobs. But reading and writing (poetry, fiction, nonfiction) help me live. So I submitted three of my favorite poems to a journal I really like and respect, a journal that doesn’t seem to have a social media presence.
Since I like the poetry this journal publishes and I like the way their poets are treated, I submitted to them.
Publications, Laura Lee
Some of my poems, short stories, and nonfiction articles are included online and in print books and magazines published in the UK, Greece, India, New Zealand, and the United States. Many thanks to the staff at these publications.
“Devastation,” a poem, August 2019, in Headline Poetry.Details to follow.
“Havishammed +1,” a poem, August 2019, High Shelf Press.
“Where You Are Not,” a poem, June 2019, Esthetic Apostle.
“Swamp Pearls,” a poem, May 2019, here at: Prometheus Dreaming.
“Not Sleep,” a poem, in Cagibi: A Literary Space, April 2019, here: Cagibi.
“The Professor and the Gravel,” a poem, 2019, at Wingless Dreamer.
“Saltwater Faces,” an ekphrastic poem inspired by paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago, High Shelf Press, 2018, https://www.highshelfpress.com/saltwaterfaces.
“Click,” “The Night is our First Language,” and “They Left the Bed,” poetry published in The Poetic Bond VIII print issue, December 2018. Available at Poetic Bond VIII.
“Moving Gravel” a short story at Crack the Spine – Themed Anthology Submissions, “Routine”, print edition, 2018. Available at Crack the Spine Anthology.
“Walk with Child” at https://www.snapdragonjournal.com/ September 2018 Issue, “Here and Gone.” http://pub.lucidpress.com/9b90935e-82ec-4edd-a09e-725a9cf574b8/#Vu72fBijlewR
Coffin Bell Journal,2018, “Herstory,” October 2018. https://coffinbell.com/herstory-lesson/
Spillwords Press, “Stopped,” 2018, http://spillwords.com/stopped/.
Tuck Magazine, June 2018, “Teach to Kill” http://tuckmagazine.com/2018/06/06/poetry-1528/.
Tuck Magazine, May 2018, “Refuge,” http://tuckmagazine.com/2018/05/29/poetry-1511/.
Southernmost Point Guest House (UK), poetry.
Journal of Modern Poetry 21 (Volume 21), “Hell, No,” a poem at JOMP Volume 21 Dear Mr. President.
Journal of Modern Poetry 20 (Volume 20), “Moonlit Awakening,” JOMP Volume 20 Poetry Writer’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Journal of Modern Poetry 18 (Volume 18), The Official Poets Guide to Peace, two poems: “Open” and “After Poetry Class.” 2015. Purchase here.
Journal of Modern Poetry 17 (Volume 17), JOMP Volume 17.
Cram Volume 12: “White Board Clown,” 2011. Chicago Poetry Press 2011.
Magazine (New Zealand) , Raewyn Alexander, Publisher, nonfiction and poetry. Raewyn Alexander NZ.
Fiction in: http://staxtes.com/2003/ “Between the Sunlight and the Skipping” in English Wednesdays
Poetry in: https://poetsagainstthewar.org/ archives.
Illinois English Bulletin, a publication of the National Council of Teachers of English, nonfiction article about teaching in an alternative education program.
Poetry in Marginalia, Elmhurst, IL.
Addendum: I am pleased Coffin Bell Journal IS publishing again. Always glad when literary journals survive. It can be read here: Coffin Bell.
Two LOVELY journals I was published in during the last year have closed their internet doors/ sites. I am sad about this, for each brought a different point of view to the world. One was very political and one was very psychological. Sad about this, but hoping their words last out there.
Good bye (for now?) to Tuck Magazine and Coffin Bell. The first published some of my political poetry and the second a feminist poem disguised as a horror story.
Laura Lee 