A daily poetry practice to generate and sustain the Life/Lines among us, for published and novice poets alike
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Prompt
Write a short poem (rhyming not necessary) that includes each of the following 5 words (anywhere and in any order). Poems should not exceed 7 or 8 lines.
otherwise
intimacy
archives
structural
grief
Send us your poem via our Submissions page or post on Twitter or Facebook using the hashtag #lifelines.
Today’s words were contributed by guest curator Bethany Nowviskie, Dean of Libraries, Senior Academic Technology Officer, and Professor of English at James Madison University. This afternoon, she will give the James E. McLeod Memorial Lecture on Higher Education, “Cultural Memory and the Peri-Pandemic Library” (free and open to all; registrations welcome through start time at 2 pm).
Poems submitted for April 23
He spoke of avoiding grief
Denying himself intimacy
Shelving his disappointments in archives
Living light-heartedly, otherwise
Pessimistic with a fortified
Structure against vulnerability.
— J. Thomas 4/23/21
***
Otherwise conversations start in mid=paragraph,
the cause of grief is unknown,
the usual intimacy of a confession is veiled,
cause and effect become objectified, structural,
your own words sound like testimony from the archives,
what was immediate, human becomes like religiously sculpted stone.
— Dan Cuddy
***
grief provides
an unbreakable bond
something structural
in the otherwise ordinary
archive of our intimacy
Warren Hauff
***
During her morning office of looking at his picture,
She thought once more of the day
When the uniformed men appeared at her door
And how it would have been if it had gone otherwise
For him on Omaha beach:
The forms of intimacy that could have unfolded,
Quiet joys of passing years structured into her memory.
Instead: archives of grief.
But then she, by sheer will, turned once more,
To the years they did have together.
And her heart took that in as well.
Robert Henke
***
years of shared life, shared intimacy
swift silent cancer eats away leaving only one
a lifetime together reduced to archives:
pictures, memories, old tools, projects half done
otherwise?
Grief
the structural base of all foreseeable tomorrows
Kwin
***
The Miracle of Reincarnation
In the libraries of intimacy are stored the books of grief,
The bonds of years and days spent together until time
Itself builds its hexes, beehives from waxen flesh to store
Memories of pollen, of honey stored in structural walls.
Cells rise between us, either golden essence or new children
Prepared for the next flight, bee librarians know not which:
The care for all, and trust that the keeper knows otherwise.
Jo Schaper
***
Archival Anguish
I decline with apologies,
to my deep abiding grief,
your invitation to intimacy
in the academic archives.
O! To love and otherwise
overlook structural concerns
of shelving and aging knees.
R.C. Wood, Ph.D.
***
Spiral Down
No one knows the structural
intimacy of guilt better
than survivors who sort through
the archives of loss and grief ---
Otherwise known as PTSD.
Linda O’Connell
***
On what would otherwise be a normal routine
Of structural, mechanistic monotony
The archives of my grief don’t forget
That the intimacy shrank with each choice you made.
***
Mother
Existing prematurely
led to a familiar path,
now rarely taken.
Her animated archived voice spoke
and the ache of grief returned.
Outings otherwise heatedly contentious,
today, a distressing, distant intimacy
with the structural change
brought on by finality.
Lisette Dennis
***
Write again if you’re sorry
The letter was full of confrontational language:
disowned, disappointment, dead to me.
Otherwise, the non-news of weather or what had been harvested was absent.
In the margins, like a secret from our archives,
were words scratched out. This structural start of a grief
that lasted thirty years, more. Imagine that, a father
and child slicing away their intimacy for reasons
neither could back away from.
~~M.E. Hope
***
Intimacy is the framework
The structural underpinnings
Built of joy and grief
Support and accountability
The archives of memory
Are foundational
Otherwise
We are strangers
--Chad Savage
***
ad acta
Though we wish it otherwise
The slow burn of this virus
Lingers
Among the structural proteins
The spike forms
Large protrusions
From the virus surface
Giving coronaviruses
The appearance of having crowns
Our collective intimacy
With the grief wrought by this
pestilence turned pandemic is
fresh in our cultural memory
Another wound that will not heal quickly
Communal longing for the time when this menace
Is merely a footnote in an overlooked volume collecting dust in the archives
Like the crown of a bygone prince
K.J. Boehler
***
This isn't a day for grief.
Sunshine counteracts intimacy.
Joyfully open a dark archive to it.
Otherwise structural shadows cancel light's healing.
Margaret Fourt Goka
***
grief
otherwise bereft
searches
the archives of intimacy
for structural support
by Lloyd Klinedinst
***
I searched the archives of my mind
looking for the road
the road I otherwise could have taken
if only grief had not derailed my journey
If only I had been less affected by structural constrictions
upending my hope for intimacy.
Sara Burke
***
Intimacy with grief
requires no search
in the archives of memory.
It is as close
as my coursing blood,
my bones.
It grants the structural form
on which to hang each day.
There is a grace in that.
Otherwise, I'd likely
blow away.
J Kiefer
***
AWASH IN THE PAST
Were the intimacy not intimate,
With no structural love to survive the archives of my memory
My grief might be my life otherwise
With no strong reason to survive.
TED
***
It could have been otherwise,
an end without regret or grief or rage,
a wry joke, a last kiss,
one more story for
the archives of intimacy.
The trick is to stay light,
toss those plans into the air—
but when I try,
my wrist breaks.
Must be a structural defect.
—Jeannette Cooperman
***
the structural dreamer halves + haves
have never not known this intimacy
fanatical fantasia heritage internal
phantasmagoria trapper - keeper
to have + to hold
befitting
if remembering is a keeping must we
rely on the archives to facilitate our otherwise?
(Jay Buchanan)
***
intimacy adds grief
to the archives of sorrow,
paining the structural soundness
of the heart that is
otherwise calm
John J. Han
***
Otherwise, It's Just a Building
Good grief!
That is one for the archives.
It's a beaut.
Look at its structural intimacy.
What form it has.
Check out the material used,
it really adds to its charm.
Can't you see it?
No.
Terrie Jacks
***
There is no otherwise to grief
It has its own structural integrity
Stored right next to love, intimacy
In the archives of humanity.
Carol Haake
***
our distance is structural
archives document why intimacy is Impossible
otherwise nothing would hold me back
otherwise I wouldn't grieve Romeo
Sometimes it's not joy love brings but grief
***
I submit that enough grief
will turn you otherwise.
It's a structural issue —
there's no coming back,
no cure. And when you look
into the archives of your soul
and know you did your bit,
well, you'll get all
the intimacy you can handle.
— Matthew Freeman
***
Get up
I stuffed my grief
Into the vault
Intimacy otherwise
No no no no no
No structural integrity
In archives
james goodman
***
The quiet intimacy of the archives
Dust-specked boxes. White cotton gloves. Pencils only please.
Pandemic forced structural changes.
Digital access only.
Otherwise no access at all.
A flicker of grief for the dust and the gloves and the pencils
A flicker of grief for all that has been lost.
***
What might the archives of grief contain?
The implements of institutional care?
The anti intimacy tools of mitigation, distancing and masking?
Examples of otherwise useless cures?
A tangible, structural record of our grief.
David Thomas
***
The Old Archivist Remembers
There was some momentary discomfort,
some grief, she recalled, smiling,
due to the structural confines of the space.
But otherwise
intimacy in the archives was quiet pleasant.
But that’s ancient history.
Steve Givens
***
Headline image: Jan Canty via Unsplash