brigit pegeen kelly

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse/144/6#!/20600016

mama

Pampers
Huggies
Luvs
Storebrand

Each brand -- four varieties
Or more
Wetguard, clothfit, baby dry
technology
To buy --

And formula
(my breasts are dry
with diets -- but this,
ironblessed,
digestible,
with live and active cultures
is better still
than my own milk)

And babyfood
already pressed
organic squeezable
kale quinoa acai

foods healthier than i
unwealthy
eat myself --

You see
how you are loved --


Your toys are handmade wood,
BCP free
organic cotton
approved by me

Your mother --

Dear, in Africa
penniless,
I would
Defend you
knife
and teeth
and fist --

Here, blessed
with health insurance,
costly crown!
and monthly paychecks,
see how i drown
your little needs in bounty ==

Baby
see
How much
(organic
 hypoallergenic
dye- and gluten-free)
you are
to
me

doxologies

In November, have you ever seen
a field like this, green
still in its greenest summer
Sunday green
cowdotted (and between
the fourlegs sometimes four legs
more, twigthin and thirsty four,
or dancing twos and fours)
While all around the trees
clap paper leaves,
rustle their Sunday skirts
those saucy girls! they flirt
they flaunt, they sing
newmaidenly -- sing
Eden songs
A breeze snaps
sweet and sassy
at the skirts about their feet
It might be spring --
Sunwarmed, center-chilly
let us, too, leap and sing
such saucy frolicking
such sure doxologies

manifesto

(this is not the poem i wanted to write.
I wanted to write --
in beauty, like the night. To write such stars, such blue, such blue, such black -- vangogh swirls against the dying of the light. Such violin-thin wails to pierce your heart -- I wanted
you to read, and ache, and love

me -- Love
me, 
Love 
me --

Love me in stars pinned up against the night, me crucified

instead i find myself writing the same poem again, over and over,
as i might turn a pebble in my palm -- i murmur:

Terrible --
this world,
and beautiful --

and there are SOULS

--these little vast and heavy things:
they will, when you have forgotten that i writing, still
be,
their own small deep and lovely being)

"For My Mother" (2006)

As i scrawled in the Black Book: "She gives me so much. I write her bad poetry."

~
FOR MY MOTHER.

If the world were a different place --
If I could have any thing -- I know
I'd want the wide sea in a silver bowl.
I'd want the moon on a golden chain,
And a glass of the scent of the grass when it rains.
I'd want a bowl of my mother's milk,
And a bottle of her tears --
I'd feed my mother apples and pears.
If the world were a different place,
I'd give my mother bread and wine.
I'd be a little vine
That twined around her waist
And bloomed in all the colors she loves best.
Oh, I'd have a bowl of my mother's milk,
And a bottle of her tears --
I'd want to soothe her skin with silk
And wash away her fears.
If the world were a different place
I'd reach into the deeps of space
And gather seven shining stars
And set them in my mother's hair --
I'd give my mother a crown of stars.
I'd give her a pearl for every year,
And a  rose for every day,
A yellow rose for every day
And a red rose on Sunday.

cat (bouts-rime ii)

cold nose curious whiskers     cat
discreet, white-mittened
steps precise as poured tea
sits proud     stares over grades
(its own estate complete)     late
sleeper, long napper    cold
eyes sliteyed peruse the noon
then s  t  r  e  t  c  h spine spunout glass
nose windowpresses     trees
outside whisper green green
whisper brown
cat
jungleeyed
pours
d
o
w
n

Bouts-Rime I

A branch longfallen, rotting quietly
Serene among its fellows, by the creek --
Beneath, inscrutable and dry, a toad
Glares lidless. Somewhere a saucy finch
Details to the wide creekside society
His exploits of the day -- A fit of pique
(finches, you know, are flighty), and the load
Of his tune ends. A twitter and a pinch
And the wide sky is his road. His glide swells wider
Than all his boasts and chirps. He hops and skips
From wind to wind, a mirror to the water-striders.