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Michelle Faulkner Poem
"Rhyming poems have nothing of substance to say
They're childish! Ridiculous! Silly! Passe!
What's that - 'The Raven,' fine prose, you assure?
Pshaw, a talking bird is not Literature!
'The Road Not Taken' - how indecisively trite
'Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day' ~ why, out of spite?
'How Do I Love Thee' - such female nonsense!
'She Walks in Beauty,' not even past tense!
'Oh Captain, my Captain' just repeats and repeats
'Death Be Not Proud' - indeed, no great feat
Rhyme is over and done, finite, dead
Give me a rambling run-on sentence, instead!"
Sure, it's easy to call Dr. Seuss poppycock
HIS books are world-famous, what have YOU got?
12/11/18
Entered in 'Living It Up for Laughter' contest
Copyright © Michelle Faulkner | Year Posted 2018
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Michelle Faulkner Poem
Apple cheeked autumn eyes bashful skies, as
Yellow frocked summer says her goodbyes to fragrant
Earth's seeded spring, to wild bouquets
Arranged by careless care, for the
Roses and daffodils to compare
Dandelion sprinkles of buoyant cheer on
Windswept wishes from children's magic, landing
In water lilies and long looping lanes, woven in
Nests of chirping, fragile hope
Delicate shadows of feather and wing
Lingering through flickering whiplash steam where
Ice caves lost to reckless flame
Northern flocks under southern stars to map
Greener seasons slipped through graying rain
Drowsy flutters the pale sun's
Oscillating gusts of sleeted night as
Wan, wanting branches undone by
November's surrender to darkling winter.
10/09/20
Copyright © Michelle Faulkner | Year Posted 2020
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Michelle Faulkner Poem
We the People
Will disagree
On taxation and prosperity
On liberty and duty
We the People
Are every color of Christianity
Every Jewish prayer, every song of Islam
The puritans, the atheists and the Amish
Are neighbors here
We the People
Are Jamaican and Japanese
Swedish and Samoan
Cuban and Cherokee
Moroccan and Mexican
The Irish and the Inuit
And all shades of Africa
We are country hills and cityscapes
Suburban parks and downtown fire escapes
We are singers and stutterers
Daredevils and diplomats
Renegades and redeemers
The leaders and the lone wolves
The suits and the sarongs
We are the gun owners for gun control
The justice for unjust loopholes
We are the hands that struck the iron
And the backs that laid the tracks
Of trails of rails connecting
Sea to shining Sea
We are protesters and poets
The soldiers without peace
The nurses without sleep
We are the straight arrows and the skeptics
The gay and the god-fearing
We are Black Lives Matter
And we are the badges in blue
We the People
Are complicit and complicated
No freedom gave
To chains of slaves
We have conquered and colonized
Sacrificed and stolen
Pillaged and planted
To naturalize a nation
We are teachers of tenacity
Prophicies of pioneers
And the children of second chances
We the People
Speak for our land’s legacy
In every tongue, from every rung
On each stumbled stair, each crumbled chair
We demand democracy.
8/21/20
Poem of the Day
August 23, 2020
Copyright © Michelle Faulkner | Year Posted 2020
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Michelle Faulkner Poem
They told me you cried on the day I died
A sob splintering through a silent dome
Your sorrow a shroud on the catacomb
As I laid where birds no longer replied
Now I watch as you slowly search the beach
For those rare shells edged in liminal blue
I would gift you that impossible hue
To show I was within sight, within reach
Yet I wish you more than what shadows grant
A life in the sun of a springtime glen
Not lost in the gloom of my grave's abyss
Let my legacy be the hope you plant
Blooming with the courage to love again
If you will keep something of me - keep this
Copyright © Michelle Faulkner | Year Posted 2023
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Michelle Faulkner Poem
This is not a time for us
Facing these weeks of hospital walls
My knight now jousts an invisible foe
Shorn of hair, yet still he wears
Tubes of pain as proud as armor
With blood too pale, future too frail
No anniversary in candlelight
This year is measured in pills and applesauce
Doctor visits replacing road trips
To the salty sea beach, where he proposed
With a ring of delicate gold
All those years melting in florescent folds
Of bleached sheets and disposable gowns
Yet, every tide of fever, every ocean of nausea
Is one more wobbly step towards a tomorrow
Of recovered roses and kaleidoscope kisses
Where I believe, past this horizon's thin eve
In lush trees, green with anniversaries.
8/24/20
Copyright © Michelle Faulkner | Year Posted 2020
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Michelle Faulkner Poem
Some say you are lost
If you are not found
On their ground
Some think you are blind
If you do not find
What they find
I am an atheist who believes
The universe is a tapestry
Not a thread
The science to chart the stars
Is but a celestial church
That medicine and vaccines
Are answered prayers
That communities
Can save each other
That math and music
Language and learning
Rebuilding destruction
And regretting a wrong
Are inherent miracles
That to plant a tree
Water a garden
Kiss a scar
Soothe a bruise
Give a smile
Hug a sorrow
Cook a meal
Play a song
Clasp a hand
Bandage a cut
Wipe a tear
Hear a need -
Is divine
I believe the soul of nature
Is sacred
and a rainbow's refraction
Is all the more radiant
For the formula it contains
I believe the finitude of life
Makes a more precious day
And, to my friends of other faiths
I believe - we can meet halfway.
4/27/20
(this was inspired by a poem I read by Anil Deo called Any Athiests out there - thank you for your kind response to my novella-of-a-comment, Anil!)
Copyright © Michelle Faulkner | Year Posted 2020
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Michelle Faulkner Poem
Is it a crime
To pry apart rhyme
Stitch lines, unhitched
From native consequence
To warily marry
Unmetered time
By forced remorse
Unrehearsed
In patchwork verse
In my malaise
My daydreams ablaze
I long for eloquence...
to drip, untripped
From my lips
The devil rides
my prideful hide
Chastise with whip and spur
Damning the span
Between who I am
And who I wish I were.
3/6/20
Copyright © Michelle Faulkner | Year Posted 2020
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Michelle Faulkner Poem
Who would I bring back, if I had only one
Perhaps a great leader, Kennedy or Lincoln
Or I could choose a musical icon
Such as John Lennon or Michael Jackson
Maybe a legend of the silver screen
Maybe Marilyn Monroe or James Dean
All gifts to the world, but the selfish truth
I would bring back the mother of my youth
The mother who, with sublime grace,
Applied lipstick and blush to her ivory face
The mother whose delicate jasmine perfume
Filled my childhood's every room
Whose all-day-long-to-cook beef stew
Was the first comfort food I knew
Her dancing steps, so full of ease
Until the claws of arthritis seized
Her laughter so free, her hugs so giving
Before these days of assisted living
I would return the fire to her hair
And raise her from the wheelchair
And, as I used to, watch her choose
Her dress, earrings, necklace and shoes
Then she'll softly kiss my cheek
Before going out, coiffed and sleek
To her I would give my own energy
To be, again, the woman in my memory...
10/09/18
for Caren Krutsinger's 'Who Would You Bring Back' contest
Copyright © Michelle Faulkner | Year Posted 2018
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Michelle Faulkner Poem
November falls
In languid swirls
Of lacy sorrowful leaves
Waning circles
Of shortened light
How bold the cold becomes
Clearing the weighty clouds
From the pristine ebony ice
Of the heavens
Their astral beauty
Reflecting your eyes
As your hand follows
The celestial lanes of comets
All while the topaz earth
Covers our feet
With the comfort of gravity
Yet I will always
Hold you higher
As high as the
Searchlight of your heart
As high as
Numberless destiny
As high as the
Spirals of the sky
Guiding us north
Even if we
Fall short of the moon
We still have
The infinity
Of stars
11/26/22
Poem of the Day - 11/28/22
First Place, Brian Strand Premiere Contest #53
Copyright © Michelle Faulkner | Year Posted 2022
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Michelle Faulkner Poem
I try on words
Like hats and shoes
To see which look
Best fits my muse.
7/30/20
Poem of the Day
August 1st, 2020
Copyright © Michelle Faulkner | Year Posted 2020
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