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Best Poems Written by Marian Baker

Below are the all-time best Marian Baker poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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Candle of Hope

One little candle
Given to shine
In all this world
Make it mine
A glow of warmth
A vision began
Our treasure, our land
One prayer for hope
Told of a candle
To His glory-
Bow down and receive
The hope you desire
Your candle,
Your story

(Reference: Alma 22:16)

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Saturation Point - Hawaii

Saturation Point 

Dirt under my nails
A withered feeling
I did not notice the sun
Until I succumbed to a weakness
In by back and knees

My shoulders sagged
My eyelids were
Like those lead fishing lures
I found in a corner of my scrape yard
I’d like to call my garden old

The simplification of watching the
Process of spring
Is a spring 

Daffodils sprout from my table
They are yellow, from Safeway, butter-cup gold
Morning glory bells and daisy clusters
Could not be crushed
In their proliferation on the chicken-farm road

The old lady sat triangular
A heart’s distance to my house
She thanked me for a gift of an orchid and gladiola
They were on silken paper, but not fake
She thanked me for the real thing and some
Potato salad my children had delivered

I smiled-
There was no dirt under her nails.

Details | Marian Baker Poem

Copper Penny

A COPPER PENNY


The significance of a copper penny…
It’s part of our heritage
Being raised in the copper mining area
Of Ruth, Nevada
Fathers and brothers worked for
The Kennecott Copper Mining Corporation
Both abhorred and sacrificed for
It was a job
The dirt was copper colored
There was no gazebo
No water
No arboretum
The only wish made was for the bell
At the end of the day
Men
Working
Sweating
Crying
Dying
The copper colored beer with elbowed sleeves
On copper tile
Laborers draught 
The copper penny
The juke box
Seen in the dance of the copper leaves in fall
Twenty and thirty years on
It’s not gold
An entirely different color
The copper leaves rake sweetness layered
Pilings high 
Dancing in the breeze
A “Little” Fugue in G Minor
The Classical Power
Given by Time-Life living divided
Spent
Leaving
Wondering where it is
The beauty, the color, the penny

Details | Marian Baker Poem

Pain Poem

Marian Kaye 2012
The Elements of Pain at Midnight
Can I be perfunctory about pain?
The sound of rain begins…
Having never had much pain
Old age brings opportunity
Why I wonder
Why explore the wonder?
It’s suspicious the way I hesitate
The cringe, the whine, the question and then
No embrace, just rejection
I sense a fellow creeper accompanying the rain
Still I haven’t come to the center of the experience
I lay there wondering about my reluctance
To be like Him
Whose presence is divine deliverance?
We celebrate, congratulate each other, revere, and even fear
And I was wondering about the character of
Small, little, even miniscule tethered and sharp teeth
Threatening more
The promise before craziness sets in
The knowledge is a pre-emptor state that shakes me
I am awake
There is no plan, no rain
There is no sacrifice embracing pain
Mom carries it floating on waves of time
She is laying there- prone and bone in place
A sweet secret smile on her grim face
We cannot fix the reminder of pain
We try to embrace
We hold her- strengthening soothing way
Yet our own pain is elusive- we hold back
Both hands out only to fall without grace
Like a child flying off a bike
We cannot tell pain to go-take a hike!
Still- I haven’t reached back to where I was in the center
Is that on the operating table?
I awoke with Domer on my mind
Wanting to erase the suggestion of even going there 
The nightmare bad guy vs our friend Jesus
There is fear and trembling even physical pain
Bleeding from every pore
Think of His choices
There is no comparison with mom or a dream 
Or the real world psychotics plotting
Another’s pain
We cannot put two arms out resisting change
And stopping the window, the well the witness of pain
Still is there a center where one can rest
Where the tunnel of darkness is absolute
Where there is trust and truth
Where assurance smells damp and one knows faith and pain stops 
Is then this the center?
Where we forget how we arrived and
We begin to believe
We see the light at the end of the day
The tunnel retreats
Our pain gives way
A child’s eyes are wide with surprise
Our delight we embrace the child of pain
The tears, the night, in the dark a tender rain

Details | Marian Baker Poem

Love's Wheel

Love’s Wheel

Nothing could compare to how you make me feel
Would that in this envelope were
My body, my heart and soul
In the distance I see your face and hold your hand

I hope-
I know you understand after a while
I see you don’t back down
You have taken a stand despite

Three choices given on love’s wheel

To help the blind to see
More time on the fruited plains,
And a bird on the wing,

That was me

Details | Marian Baker Poem

Afterglow a Memory

What!  That sweet peace between you and me… never-
What we had was a thought, a hidden moment of what could be
A possibility
I didn’t read your poem, call it deceit 
Don’t pretend
I cannot, my body is too simple, untrained
Thankfully my mind doesn’t work that way
I pay as I go
Today is tomorrow as was yesterday, it’s late
The broken hinges of an old flip phone
The slip-shoddy patterns of a diet, a way to perfection,
Art, a tasty confection
The piano class was a dream given up for the birth of a child
Backing up, holding tight, holding on
The child more important than the dream-
In the cloud, still there- waiting
Another time for delicious showers afterglow

Details | Marian Baker Poem

My Girls

My Girls

My girls are all always on my mind
In my heart
Not within a stone’s throw
Make that a pebble-
Or a spit wad
Not that I’d use that method of communicating
Only disgust allows me the frustration of a morning
When I cannot reach out and touch their thoughts
Nor influence their minds
Every year there are more of them-
Every year I am inconsolable
Wafting around in circles
Wishing there was more of me to drain at their feet
In little circles pushing from the shore
There would be little sail boats
With real sails
And no motors
Only oars
And sweets and snacks to pack
For our picnic
Across to the island
We’ll call home

Details | Marian Baker Poem

Birdie's Bar

Birdie’s Bar
August 19, 2008

To the old Plymouth
Mom came to salvage her brood
We’d hear the crunch of gravel beneath her feet
She dragged us three sleepy eyed girls
Sullen
Curious 
Non-entities
We took our mealy mouths up and followed her
Out of the warm, closed-in car
We all had to go to the bathroom
We all hoped for a treat
She always remembered us
As we were
Tucked away in a locked car, somewhat threatened
Injured by time, her pleadings, his resignation and defeat
The door opened
The smoke escaped into our eyes
We traipsed around tables with yakking customers 
Drinking liquid sunshine
Gut-rot
Spewing epithets
We bounced off the stools plastic corners
Cracked with resistance of our efforts to spin them as we passed
If luck had its way
Birdie would be playing the boomerang
Her platinum hair bobbing up and down with her 
Wrinkled body
We looked for Dad and he looked for us
What did he wish?
Sometimes he treated us to a hamburger
Or we’d get our orange Nezbit sodas and peanuts to take back out to the car
We were grateful for any small thing then
He’d come to us sometimes
He leaned over us smelling like Lucky Strikes and Budweiser
His smoldering gray work shirt, his worn jeans,
His blue blood- shot eyes, sad and forlorn,
Love passed like a vapor between us and
Fear was a given, a constant companion 
No one knew anything about
The bar was noisy with men’s bawdy laughter
The wicked laugh of a man at a woman he scorned
Or she;
The evil empire, the corporation,
The low pay, the idealistic boss
The economy
The lost hunt for a deer that got away
The hunger for a justice they knew little of
And contributed less 
The laughter was
For the pain they protected
Everyone’s pain
The beer flowed and frothed while
The pang of the women who left them
And the pain of the children who stayed 
Out in the car
Hung around Birdie’s Bar
Reminds me of a rattlesnake 
We killed in the summer
All the ‘car’ children
Hiked the hills
Around the bar
About five of us 
Roamed like Indians 
Whooping over sagebrush
Determined to create
The sunshine somewhere other
Than at Birdie’s Bar

Details | Marian Baker Poem

I'Ve Been To Hollywood

POEM- 9/9/2015-
I contemplate my mother’s birthday- the day before September 10th-
A neighbor visits and I’m distracted discussing her wishes-
Who can’t sit still long enough to listen to mine except long enough to hear my whine? 
I heard it when she had left
I was stuck in a little groove, wishing my way out, open to newness
Wanting more than I could afford, not patient in planning…well, if they’d leave me alone
Cat Stevens, Al says “You gotta be a part of…”
Did you hear him?
He said to get on-line and seek “a pot of gold” while you’re getting old
Mom, are you there?  I owe you.  I owe everybody  
I need to scale down and I am overwhelmed—
  I’m losing and I don’t know when death takes over.
Should I throw you out Al, (I’m listening to your music tapes),  like I do so well…run-a-way on our hands
That’s what someone said
Maybe I’m a Doomsday kid and all is really not well
In Hollywood, America, Tin-buc-too, and Ru-
What do we do with the kangaroo?  It is not an elephant in the room.  It’s more like a ripple of dew
Sliding everything new  
	And, I’m afraid; so what’s new?

Details | Marian Baker Poem

The Goodnight Kiss

The Goodnight Kiss

A man's voice on the radio made me cry
"Love flowed and has been a warm breeze"
My tears flowed, and I chocked them back
It was the words I hadn't heard from anyone
	My father...mom...for so long
Had I been to them...love flowing, a warm breeze?
When did they love each other for the last time?
I don't recall the last goodnight kiss, as a child, 
	In our home
Years later, knowing all that I know, joy comes anyway,
	Joy decried-
	By duty driven and
Love flowed and has been a warm breeze
My parents' kiss is there, separate, each unique 	
And secure for me to share
My need for love changed each time I served...
	To a need... to love
When a storm threatened or a crisis became a tragedy,
	The need helped me to be...
Love flowing- a warm breeze
My good cheer returns, my arms reach out to hug and
	Kiss good night...”Sweet dreams...
Love, my warm breeze”