I enjoy illustrating poems. I mostly use old pictures of my kids or animals or flowers or even myself as models/guides for my illustrations. Sometimes I combine pictures. This is a good example of that. I took an old picture of my daughter, put her on a picture of my current neighborhood and traded her hair for curlier hair because that’s how I pictured the child in my poem. The hardest part of this picture? Getting the flesh tone right.
Joy is By Michelle Garren-Flye
Joy is an unruly child
she belongs to one of the neighbors I know not which but she pops in unexpectedly then disappears for months on end just as I get used to having her around
she has a mop of golden curls like an angel’s halo she’s loud and boisterous for a while then tiptoes out and I don’t realize she’s gone until I miss her
I wish I knew to whom she belonged and I’d be able to seek her out when light and sparkle have dulled and I want someone to sing me a song
but instead I just have to sit and wait as evening shadows creep up on me hoping the next step on the walk will be the dancing one I recognize
Illustration and poem copyright 2024 Michelle Garren-Flye
Today I did something kind of fun. I have a book of Matsuo Basho’s haiku on my desk that I often read when I’m experiencing writer’s block. It’s a beautiful book even though now it’s a bit beat up and coffee-stained. But the pages are full of haiku by the master of haiku. Sometimes when I read them, I feel like I can picture him on his travels, taking inspiration from the simplest of things, writing his verses even in discomfort, possibly hungry, cold, stuck in bad weather, probably tired.
And then I wonder how on earth I can claim any adversity at all.
At any rate, today I was reading some Matsuo Basho and I found this one:
snow on snow
this night in December
a full moon
—Matsuo Basho
I’m currently editing my book Winter Solstice for republishing so this little haiku caught my attention, especially when I read the backstory of it. Basho wrote it for two fellow poets who were arguing, hoping by pointing out the beauty of the moon’s glow on the snow, he could defuse the fight.
I don’t know if it worked for them, but it gave me something to think about. I wondered what it would be like to write a sonnet with the same idea. So I did.
For Basho By Michelle Garren-Flye
Why persist in impatience and strife? When yonder field full of starflowers reflects the moon’s light into our life, how can this world of war be ours?
Sit here beside me, give me your cares. Worries, bad habits, and visions begone! Along with all the stuff of your nightmares— the ones that sometimes linger on.
This world is full of beauty, you know: meadows turned into a galaxy of stars by nothing more than the moon’s glow concealing all of our cuts and scars
Take heart! Come with me and dance in soft grass among stars and planets.
It’s hard to remember sometimes that our world has been through a lot and survived. Sometimes the news makes it seem we are on the brink of all the disasters. Politicians make money off our fears, the media churns out new ones every day. But today I saw a Monarch on a bunch of pink lemonade lantana, and it made me happy.
Photo and poem copyright 2024 Michelle Garren-Flye
I still remember the first day I actually identified as a poet. September 11, 2020. I had entered a local poetry contest and there was a reading. Still wearing a mask to keep the dreaded COVID-19 at bay, I attended with my then husband. The poem I read that night was prophetic, but the sticker the organization gave me to wear with my name badge was even more so.
It said, quite simply: “Poet”.
And when I put it on, I didn’t feel like an impostor.
I’ve read a lot of my poems in public since then. I’ve read other people’s poems in public, too. No matter what I do, I know I am a poet. Maybe we are all poets at heart, so maybe I’m not that special, but I have fully embraced being a poet.
Today is National Poets’ Day. It seems an appropriate day to share the news of my latest poetry book, Unwelcome Souvenirs. I’m very proud of this book. It has more than ninety poems in it, including many of the fortune cookie poems I wrote last April for National Poetry Month.
As a very important aside, my daughter also published her first poetry book this week. This was not planned. We finished them close to the same time, and when she told me hers was ready, I thought about how we used to get hiccups at the same time when she was a baby.
Just so you know I am not an impostor poet, I will share the last poem from the “Broken Things” portion of my book:
Just the Heart By Michelle Garren-Flye
just the heart that's all that's left after all the acid rain and all the cleansing pain washed everything else away
just the heart left on a simple pedestal i let the rest of it go (not without a fight though.) I'll plant it now, see what grows.
Copies of my daughter’s book next to mine on the shelf at my store. Photo and poem copyright 2024 Michelle Garren-Flye
So, yesterday, when I might or might not have preferred to be watching anime, I mowed the lawn. My lawn hadn’t been mowed in about two weeks, and it had, in the meantime, been watered well by the rains of a tropical storm. It was thick, lush, quite tall, and inhabited by many crickets, spiders, moths, mosquitoes, and some very pretty green bugs with lacy wings.
It was an entire habitat.
Needless to say, in my little urban neighborhood, said habitat had to go. Not to mention that it also probably housed roaches, mice, and other pests that I’d prefer not to encounter when I take my dog out at night.
To alleviate my guilt, I imagined myself as an anime villain, mowing down everything in my path, laughing evilly as the innocent bugs tried to escape. And that got me writing this poem in my head. I originally thought it was a villanelle. Not sure what it ended up as, but I do like the rhyme scheme, and the evil tone that grows more seductive through the poem is a little chilling, even to me.
Call Me Destructor By Michelle Garren-Flye
Call me Destructor; watch me lay waste. I cannot hear your cry, but you will not escape.
Luxuries can’t make me poor; destruction is my only taste. My use of power I justify; just watch me lay waste.
I feel the rush in my core… Victims stuck in my mindscape— watch them flitter and fly! I laugh as they try to escape.
Never enough, I always want more. Your dreams I will reshape— raze it all, the only way to satisfy this desire I have to rape.
You want what you know is in store; your desires were never chaste. I know this you cannot deny. Are you sure you desire escape?
Photo and poem copyright 2024 Michelle Garren-Flye.
It’s an excellent question. The truth is, I’ve been traveling with family, but I’ve also been lost in other worlds of my own making. I’m working on another poetry book (with my fortune cookie poetry included), and I’ve started a new novel, but don’t hold your breath on that one lol. It’s coming along, but right now I’m really just getting to know the characters. It’s a romantic fantasy adventure. Probably a standalone, but possibly the beginning of a new series.
And to top it off, it’s poetry contest season. Not wanting to pull any of the poems I’d already decided to put into my books, I had to write some fresh poetry. Plus, one of the competitions is an ekphrastic poetry contest I enter every year (never won it though). For those who don’t know, ekphrastic poetry is where you write poetry based on a work of art. I love it.
This year I had a lot of fun with it, too. I chose one painting and wrote three different poems (villanelle, sonnet, and tanka) about it. I loved all of them, so I submitted all of them lol. It might be fun if one of them wins!
In the meantime, though I don’t have a poem to share with you today, I did think I might share some of the artwork I’ve been creating for Unwelcome Souvenirs, my next poetry book.
In Celebration of the Furniture Year By Michelle Garren-Flye
On that morning twenty-nine years ago, I wanted to be a princess so much I shouted my beliefs loud enough to drown lingering doubts
and stormy weather that took the helium right out of the balloons, so the wind sounded like Daffy Duck and my pink and yellow and blue spheres hung flaccid
by the sign announcing our nuptials, and it was too late for real daffodils, so I made do with false ones, mixed with daisies and mournful white roses
and still I have no regrets because for at least twenty-five of those years I did believe I was a princess, or at least as good as a mom of three who lost her figure in the war can be,
and I have been awarded all these badges for my courage, and my ambition now is to deserve them, which I do, much more than I did on that morning twenty-nine years ago.
Photo and poem copyright 2024 Michelle Garren-Flye
I originally had decided to write a blog post about finally re-watching the entire series of “Lost” because I always felt sure I missed a lot during my first watch of the show during six erratic television seasons. (I really had, too. No doubt, lots of stuff missed during that first viewing.) Then I happened to listen to a podcast about the ongoing war between the two rappers Kendrick Lamar and Drake, found I had an opinion about that, too, and that opinion actually developed into a poem, so, in the realm of Things I Have No Business Commenting On…
Being a fifty-plus-year-old white woman, I don’t really keep up with the hiphop/rap scene much, although I’ve undoubtedly heard some I like. The first I’d heard about the Drake/Lamar feud was a couple weeks ago in a chance remark from a friend. I was interested because Kendrick Lamar had actually achieved something I once wished I could when he won the Pulitzer Prize.
The podcast I listened to was a Washington Post podcast, so fairly unbiased. I’ve read a little more since and talked to a few people. Everyone’s got an opinion, and some people have a less than complimentary view of Drake, influenced, no doubt, by salacious (the news loves that word) rumors and claims about his relationships. As one person said to me with great disdain, “Who’s on team Drake?”
And yet, both rappers have been acting out, putting out music practically in real time over streaming services. It reminds me of old battles that happened in newspapers between politicians or poets like Robert Frost and Carl Sandburg (that’s one of my favorites). Except these “songs” are more than inflammatory disses, they’re downright mean and often libelous, and more than one has been taken down almost as soon as it was put up. Maybe by a manager or someone with some creative control and more common sense?
So, even though I probably don’t have any right to have a real opinion about this rap battle, I was nonetheless moved to write the following poem. As for if I’m on team Lamar or team Drake, I’d just like to say I hate to see anybody wasting their talents dragging apart an art form they both excel at and should spend their time promoting. What good will it do the music world if two bright stars develop a black hole between them?
Beef By Michelle Garren-Flye
Send out your diss over the interweb. Its mark won’t miss your intended jab.
Insulting pushback, wasting your time. Get in the next crack— make sure to rhyme!
Talent you got in spades but gotta be sure to rile when you throw shades! (What rhymes with pedophile?)
Take it from this old white chick: you could do so much more. You could make each word stick, bring the world to the floor.
But go ahead, send out a slur, defend what’s left of pride. Growl and bark like a mad cur, and we’ll watch from ringside.
This tree has a death sentence. The town has decided it doesn’t look good enough to not be cut down. So it will soon be gone. I’m a little sad. Photo by Michelle Garren-Flye
If ever I’ve wondered if God had a sense of humor, this was answered today. I honestly howled with laughter when I read today’s fortune. And I swear by all that is holy, that is today’s fortune. I’d just been thinking thank goodness this is the last one when I pulled that fortune out of the cookie. I wish there’d been a camera on me because I honestly felt like somebody was pranking me.
Maybe somebody is. Maybe it’s my balloon-man telling me there’s more to come out of fortune cookies than I know. Maybe even a book?
Whatever. This has been a wonderful month creatively. I’ve written some of my best poetry, and I don’t think I’ve written some of my worst this month, so there’s some creative growth that has occurred. So good. I wrote when I was sick, when I was traveling, when work was busy, when I was finishing up an editing project…I never missed a day during all that.
I do thank you for reading it all. I’ll keep you posted if the fortune cookies decide it’s a good idea to fill up a book. 🙂
Photo and poem copyright 2024 Michelle Garren-Flye
It’s not the end yet. Let’s stay with it.
What a Month By Michelle Garren-Flye
I’m tired and distracted and ready to go. I’ve other things to do that take up my time! Don’t overstay, you’re breaking the flow.
Life goes on may be a tale of woe, and that’s easy to say when it’s not your dime. I’m tired and distracted and ready to go
We’ve had a great run, but this I know: drawing out a good thing would be a crime. Don’t overstay, you’re breaking the flow.
If needs were less or the pace would slow, if only I could be forever in my prime! But I’m tired, distracted, and ready to go.
This month has left us much to show. It hasn’t been easy, but we made the climb! Don’t overstay now, you’ll break the flow.
I’m guessing you’d like a little quid pro quo, and I thank you for reading all my rhythm and rhyme. Now I’m tired and distracted and ready to go. Don’t overstay. You’re breaking the flow.
What came to mind immediately was Jimmy Buffett’s classic “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes”. Love that song and hope to live it someday. However, while I’m still mostly “Mom” the word that is most important to me is “home” and my home is far from perfect. However, I have a lot of pride in what it is, because I think what it has makes up for everything it lacks, at least to the people who belong to it.
Photo and poem copyright 2024 Michelle Garren-Flye
The attitude within is more important than the circumstances without.
Welcome Home By Michelle Garren-Flye
We may be small, we may be broken, the kitchen’s not clean, there’s dust everywhere and the laundry was forgotten— but what we do have here is a must.
You feel it as soon as you walk in: a warmth lacking in tidier spaces, a friendly smell of meals that have been eaten in peace in this humblest of places.
Maybe it’s love, maybe it’s life lived well— or just reliably there although you may roam? It’s much more than just a place you can dwell, and whatever it is, it makes this a home.
Photo and poem copyright 2024 Michelle Garren-Flye
The true way to soften one’s troubles is to solace those of others.
Our Secret By Michelle Garren-Flye
Don’t cry, come here, let me hold you I know I’m broken but I’ll make a soft spot somehow, in all the mess that’s left of what once was me. Don’t cry, snuggle up here, I broke off the shards and I’ll hold you tight, and if it’s not enough, I’ll drop more of me on the floor; I don’t need the damaged parts and if you let me, I’ll turn it all to fluff so you can lay your head down in safety. Don’t cry, my love, your pain is mine so I don’t have room for cracked, damaged pieces you’re healing me from the outside in because my arms must be whole to hold you. I may be broken, I may have been destroyed, a faulty heart conked out— but for you, I will be a feather bed. Just don’t cry…anymore.
BREATHE: Michelle Garren-Flye 