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The Only Things We Had

2/21/2020

2 Comments

 
Thanks to Marilyn Ashbaugh, a poet whose work has appeared in international anthologies and journals of Japanese short-form poetry. She is a member of the Apple Farm writing group. She writes: I recently attended a Florida poetry festival and am delighted to report that American poetry is alive and well.  There was so much truth shared in the prose poems read that I sat in awe.  We all did. We were awe struck by truth.  So below is my riff.

The Only Things We Had

flip flops and polka dots
bikinis and baby oil
sprinklers and kiddy pools
purees and steelies 
shooters and thumpers

rednecks and greasers
hard boiled and over easy
duck tails and teeter totters
smoke rings and cokes in bottles
five fingers and detention
banana seats and butterflies 
borrowed bikes and joyrides
Kool aid lips and sucker punches
hopscotch and holes in our socks

twinkies and tang and
T R U T H 
all jujubeded and slo poked


Marilyn Ashbaugh
2 Comments
Jo Marie Thompson
2/28/2020 11:30:23 pm

A list poem! I just learned about these :-) I love the evocation of childhood and the somber sense of "Knowing" that is injected right into all that rambunctious playfulness. I remember that feeling; thank you for bringing it back. And thank you for the report from the poetry festival!

Reply
Marilyn Ashbaugh
5/4/2020 10:04:56 am

Dear Jo Marie,

Thank you for your kind comments. Joy Harjo was the featured poet at the festival. She walks truth.

Reply



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    ...it is in part by our response to the great stories of the world  that we too can begin to find, each of us this individual story expressing the symbolic meaning behind the facts of our fate and behind the motives that determine the day-to-day choices of our lives.  -Helen Luke, The Inner Story

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