Category Archives: poetry

there’s a dinosaur in our back yard!

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dinosaur

My daughter is getting ready for my grandson’s “Jurassic Park Birthday Party” scheduled for next week, when he will turn an enthusiastic 7. The dinosaur that she built behind the fence will remain there long after the party is over because my grandson loves it, and we all think it adds a certain sense of adventure to our back yard. — which already is a haven for all kinds of creatures anyway.

The little plywood play boat that my daughter built last year has deteriorated into the perfect home for a couple of friendly garden snakes. A shy newt makes an occasional appearance among the foliage near the fire pit, and our weird resident bunny keeps the clover crop in check. The ever-fatter ground hog periodically lumbers out from his home under the shed to nibble on what the bunny has left behind, and the chatty family of cardinals joins the flickers and finches each morning to make short work of the bird feeders’ seeds.

So why not a dinosaur!

last night, last life

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Last night, as I sifted through some of my earlier poetry, I remembered just how therapeutic writing it was at the time. I was so young, unprepared for the realities of husband and child/children. And I married someone as unprepared as I. He dealt with it all through multi-media productions of his original scripts. I would sit in the audience and watch the characters he created speak to our relationship more poignantly than his face-to-face words ever did.

I’m not sure I ever showed him the poems I wrote as I slowly felt my own self lost in the wake of his magnificent obsession. I’m sure there were many young women like me. Some went mad. Some got mad.

I am no Sylvia Plath. These are not great poems. But they were, and are, an essential part of my story.

Patterns (1967)

I await the unexpected,
the unsought.
My life is a contradiction.

When the goal is set,
when conscious action
strips away the dream,
I turn off.

Because I am
(why?)
a patterned person,
I am surrounded, bound, bonded.

I don’t need any more directions to go
or any more goals to touch.

I wish I were the wind.

***

Nonessence (1973)

Change is what I
wear at the edge
(where I have the best perspective)
waiting for familiar whims
to coax me into shape
and coast me down
the deepening dayslide.

Essentially, I am
not.

Medusa, I
am stoned on my own reflection.
Words curl straight
from the hurt in my head
forming questions,
marked and mumbled
under a heavy heartless hum.

Pan (Peter), I
cling to the rings
of endless adolescence,
hanging tight
as the merry goes round

Zelda, I
run screaming
toward the dark and gathered things
that claw at the threshold
of darkest dreams
and dive naked and dancing
into the fountained pool
behind my eyes.

not yet spring (1999)

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All kitchens should have windows
double wide and Windexed clear —
if not into sunny vistas,
at least into frames of sky
beyond a stand of trees marked
by clumps of day lilies,
maybe a lilac bush
or two —

certainly a bird feeder
filled with lilting movement,
and a wide indoor sill
where green seeds sprout
even when winter still
shrouds the view.

copyright Elaine Frankonis

Maxine sums it up

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maxine1

My grandson helped his mom make a delicious carrot cake for my birthday.

Got lots of birthday wishes from friends and relatives.

My new printer was delivered today; my old one finally died.

It’s raining and I’m expecting another kind of storm.

As birthdays go, it wasn’t bad.

I wonder how I’ll feel next year when I’m 70.

maxine22

a black cat almost

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A black cat almost crossed my path yesterday as I walked along almost spring streets.

It saw me coming, took a left, trotting a path ahead and parallel to mine, looking back to see if I were still there, moving forward.

With a last look back, it skittered under a car and watched me pass.

I wrote the following a decade ago while on a weekend writing retreat.

Walking the Stone Labyrinth

Sometimes life
like a labyrinth,
leads you where you have to go.

You think you make choices–
this man or that,
some child or not.

You set your alarm,
choose your shoes,
gather friends for tea,
count your changes.

Until one day a corner comes,
slipping you a glimpse
of those strings of stones
shaping your shadows edge.

And sometimes, perhaps,
on a perfect day,
under a perfect sky,
a perfect black cat
with eyes like glowing stones
races across your path
and waits in the early ferns
for you to cross hers.

a good day for a poem

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While I was moving, I sorted through some of the stacks of poetry that I had written over the years and pulled out a batch of short ones. Perhaps Thursday will be the day of each week that I will post one of them.

I live in Pioneer Valley these days, but I wrote this one back in the 70s when I lived in another valley. I think one of the reasons I call this blog Kalilily Time is because of my memories of that past valley time.

Valley Time

Easterly,
the winds tease the the sun
toward morning,
brushing aside the easy showers
of early summer clouds.

Time follows the way of the wind
through this dawn-misted valley,
filters through the blue unfoldings
of fragile morning chicory,
flows through the slow, green seekings
of those low growing vines,
breathes honeysuckle and wildrose rain
into the season’s drifting light.

Westward,
the sun leaves the high horizon,
draping a dry autumn night
over the tired faces
of September sunflowers.

I am thinking today of my late once-husband, who loved the power of words more than anything in his life, except his children. We shared both of those loves, but not in the same ways or same volume.

I am, once again, searching for the voice that I misplaced somewhere during this last decade.

a good day for a poem

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It’s snowing outside, and I’m marooned here with my mother and brother for another day. Mom is sleeping, exhausted just by getting up to eat. My sciatica is acting up and I have a pimple blooming on my chin. (That’s such a perfect metaphor for who I am!)

Several weeks ago, I waded through my stacks of poems and picked out a bunch of short ones to blog once a week. Of course, they are waiting for me in my new home, but I won’t be back there until tomorrow.

But today seems like a good day for a poem, especially after reading my daughter’s poignant post of yesterday.

So, instead of one of my poems, here’s one of Jim Culleny‘s — because it seems like a good day for this particular poem.

DUST
by Jim Culleny

A restoration of faith
(if only for moment)
makes that moment great
and raises dust.

Dust? Don’t wait.

Dust drifts and settles but can be shaken off.
We do ourselves a justice when we shake our dust.
Once it’s shaken off, work we must
to raise more dust.

Change raises dust.

In our metier (before we return to it)
dust is a must.

Well, mom’s up. So much for engaging with the world of the internet.

a father’s words
a daughter’s pictures

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After the death of her father, Melissa Volker discovered some uncanny similarities between her photos and the poems in a collected, unpublished work of his.

As a tribute and a tether, she brings them together here — a poignant sharing meaningful to parents, children, those who have lost, those who love.

Word and pictures. Together a common vision.

The above is the description of my daughter’s book, which she is publishing online through Blurb.com.
The title of this book of her dad’s poetry and her photos is the title he gave his collections of poems: “Seeworld: visions from the wonderground,” and you can get a preview of it here.
The poems are as much for children as for adults. They are filled with unique images that reflect the simple wonders of nature. The photographs visually capture that simplicity and that wonder, adding to the delight of the poems themselves.
“Seeworld” would make a great holiday gift for any family that treasures the special relationship that a daughter can have with her father.
(Of course, this proud mama just can’t resist plugging the publication.)

a father’s words, a…
By W.A. Frankonis an…

Myrln Monday: Last Day

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For a while before his death in April 2008, non-blogger Myrln (aka W. A. Frankonis, i. frans nowak), posted here on Kalilily Time some kind of rant or other every Monday. Our daughter, who has salvaged his published, performed, and none-such writings, continues to send me some to post posthumously.

Last Day
Last day means overs
(but not the do-overs of child games)
Mother ocean left soon behind
return to land’s hard facts
imminent.
Overs
hang in the air
like haze
hiding blue sky
and eyes.

Myln Monday: See Here

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For a while before his death in April 2008, non-blogger Myrln (aka W. A. Frankonis, i. frans nowak), posted here on Kalilily Time some kind of rant or other every Monday. Our daughter, who has salvaged his published, performed, and none-such writings, continues to send me some to post posthumously.

See Here
We don’t need to go to the stars
To find wonder.
A backyard is light-years enough.
And maybe it used to be a star anyway.
Waf oct99