Ugly But Good

I confess that this week’s Poetry Thursday did not float my rubber duck—mostly because as a college English teacher, I see so many of these first paragraphs that think they’re full of suspense, think they’re shocking you at the end when they say, “And that person—was my mother!” Egads! Horror of horrors! Of course it was your mother. You started with, "I've known her since I was born."*

This week, we’re to write a poem about something beautiful (already problematic for me, as the ugly can be made beautiful in vocabulary) without naming the thing. Of course, who said it has to be a surprise? You'll know it right off the bat (and in case you don't, the picture will clue you in).

Long ago, I wrote a three-line haiku about my favorite fruit. It was a standard nature haiku, not a senryu, which it has become with this transformation to fit the assignment.

*Note: it's not a problem with the assignment so much as it's a problem with the interpretation of it. For instance, for an online photo course, we were supposed to shoot something with side lighting. Nearly all of the first submitted were portraits. The assignment is bland but wide open—so why all the portraits? Why didn't anyone think about shooting some very textured object, like a seashell?




ebon pebbled skin
& center stone have made you
baseball heavy &

by-the-pound prohibitive
but two for a buck
I fondle my choice

slip you in a bag
& at the perfect moment
(indeed a moment)

peel away your pocks
savor butter dayglo green
every ahhhh with awe.