Life Lessons for a Poet

 

Read one good poem a day.

Look up.

For every negative thought, think three positives. Because this life hurts too much already.

Duct tape your ugly mouth.  You are amazing and stop saying otherwise.

When all else fails, pray.

Everything will fail.  Pray.

Think of the children.

Talk a walk in nature.  Breathe it in.  Don’t forget what you learned there.

Remember: someone needs you.

Remember: you need, too.

Write, damn it.  That’s how you know what you need to know.  It’s your gift.  To yourself.

 

© 2023 Jennifer Wagner

 

Lift (For My Son)

And this, my very heart,

is the weight of water

like blood

bending the blooms,

smoke and mist graying tulips,

ash on butterflies’ wings.

My very heart! We bury

our dead selves

swollen but dry,

and in this come alive—the lift

in rain

and rain and rain again.

My very heart, see!

Instead of the weight, the gray, the ash—

the bloom,

the color,

the wings.

© 2020 Jennifer Wagner

Soon: Spiders

Dalí looks at me

from across the room,

time melting as if exhausted

from the heat.

That look: like puppy dog eyes

pleading for a shift in the breeze.

But, no, I say,

don’t do that to me.

The darkness is coming,

so damp and rich I can taste it.

And soon:

spiders.

© 2019 Jennifer Wagner

Reference:  Salvador Dalí's clocks in The Persistence of Memory.