My poem, “How to Be a Malacologist,” is live at Panoply.
Thanks so much to editor Jeff Santuososso for including my work in this terrific collection, and for your genuine and tireless support of poetry and poets.
creativity
Dilated
To think that we see
them so often yet so rarely consider
how those piebald songbirds so at home
on a snow-scape in their portable parkas
are made of the exact same stuff we use
to fill up our electric sky & shocking
watermelon nylon winter coats which must be
designed expressly for us to go out there looking
ridiculous not to mention callous (clothed as it were
in outright exploitation)—is the thing I’m pondering
as I observe through the window a little house finch
all feathery & poofed with his flushed cheeks
flitting over the snowy patio pecking among the abandoned
bench-feet for invisible if not entirely non-existent
morsels & hawking an air of self-possession that is obvious
even to me in my current incapacitated state
As for whether the red-crowned
retina specialist who conducted my examination
was young &/or fetching the prospect was relatively murky
(the simultaneity of his brisk entrance with the climax
of my dilation expertly flourished by his robust clasping of my
hand had inspired my conjecture that he might’ve been both)
& you’d better believe all bets were off the very moment
the white-cloaked smeary hulk of him ambushed my defenseless
retinas with an impossibly aggressive radiant device
thus affording me the pivotal elucidation:
that a). the anomaly on my fundus autofluourescence images
is simply an unremarkable patch of variegated pigmentation
b). it was only natural to expect that the definition
of such a lexical wonder as variegated would elude the layperson
& c). I am indeed obliged by gratuitous pigeonholing
to take categorical offense
Not that I’m usually so bold
as to co-opt medical jargon but I’m pretty certain
variegated is the only word that could aptly
account for what’s right now comprising
the better part of my visual experience
as embodied by this polka-dotty
aberration also known as a scone
I resorted to purchasing in the hospital café
thus affording myself the pivotal illusion:
that a). I’m quite absorbed in an earnest task
while waiting here in the lobby for my ride
b). I wouldn’t otherwise be averting
my freakish black gaze from passersby
& c). I’m the kind of person
who always smiles at everyone as if to say
I accept you for who you are no matter what…
From its orange piquancy
I’ve gathered that the scone’s dark splotches must
be cranberries—however vainly their vaguely moist
sweet-tang serves to redeem their crumbly substrate’s
alleged alimentary function
Still the finch remains
staunchly committed to my functional blindness
as if by sheer force of his impending command
its concomitant scone-silage would transcend
the glass & sift to the frozen ground
STEPHANIE L. HARPER
It may not surprise you to learn that I wrote this poem in January 2017, while brooding over a certain sociopolitical debacle. This is its first exposure to the light of day…
Poems for Days 18 & 19 of the May 30/30 Challenge…
Insecurity (Day 18)
born a bastard
i was cast
on a doorstep of nobles & founded
in a mold of changing hands
& intrigue…
Rationale for Missing Deadlines (Day 19)
As a child I so loved looking from the outside in
at frozen images portraying quaint examples
of how time took longer
for folks in the olden days…
My Day 15 Poem for the May 30/30 Challenge is up at Tupelo Press!
Chimera
What cause did I provision for my own death
to be ordered & carried out? Which of my features
amounted to monstrosity? My prescience to forewarn your
Lycian forebears of cataclysmic storms & volcanic eruptions? (…)
I’ve managed to scrape to the half-way point, and would still be ever so grateful for your generous HELP!
My Day 12 Poem for the May 30/30 Challenge is up at Tupelo Press!
Moon Cake
For Mike
My sixteen year-old daughter wants
dessert at ten o’clock on a Friday night,
so right there & then…
Aiders and abettors of fine poetry, read here!
Chartreuse
Sour-apple-flavored candy
The team color of your alma mater’s rival
A jacket that never gets misplaced
The labial-nasal fricative of choice
for cicadas & fire-flies on a summer’s night
The vaguely perturbing chortle
of that quintessentially hip grandma
who reclaimed her youth through Yoga
The tinkle of that crystal bell
you long ago purchased in Prague for a song
An herbal cold remedy’s fizz
Key-lime pie’s tang
The fizz & the tang of a Midori Sour on the rocks
& the fuzzy socks
that of course you wouldn’t be caught dead in
The vinyl stool you still covet in your mother’s kitchen
& the satiny ribbon you once got for honorable mention
In other words
the dessert menu’s less lethal option
for the lactose intolerant on a date
My Cat is Bread
because what is a purr
but the promise of nourishment realized
in the rhythmic release of the heat
that’s accumulated in pockets
with the rise & fall of her breath?
& what is a bagel
if not a nose meeting the base of a tail
& little pink berry & black currant toes
neatly tucked to sleepy chin
all curled around a heart
that holds no lack?
because basking on my windowsill
in a pretzel of scruff limbs salt-tang
& afternoon-sifted sun she is keenly sweet
like a wheat field’s essence of summer wind
in the last days before the harvest hearty
with the warmth of a freshly-baked marble rye
because whenever i’m away from home
i long for her knowing she’s there ‘kneading’
enough for the both of us (for let’s be honest
no pillowy provender of fleece to grace my bed
has managed to preserve its store-bought virginity
for much more than an hour)
& because although
I realize the time she yet has with me
will be fleeting she will ever remain
the loaf of my life
STEPHANIE L. HARPER
UPDATE: Our sweet Hannah passed away from cancer at age 14 yrs. 5months on Friday, January 27, 2017. She lived with unapologetic grace, generously gave to us of her healing energy, and died with stoic dignity. RIP, beautiful girl…
The house has been empty and strange without her, but my grief is tempered by my gratitude and awe for the magical connection this quirky, smart, territorial, eight-pound (in her heyday), dog-terrorizing wonder of a creature made with her human family. Such is the spiritually-rich and filling nature of the “Bread of Life.”
Hannah, age 14 yrs. 3 mos.
My poem, “Prologue to My Birth” is up at Bonnie McClellan’s International Poetry Month Celebration
My poem, “Prologue to My Birth,” is up at esteemed editor, translator, poet and artist, Bonnie McClellan’s 2017 International Poetry Month Celebration! Bonnie will be featuring a poem per day for 28 days following this year’s theme, “Neural Networks: The Creative Power of Language.” I hope you’ll enjoy following this rich, diverse, international network of creative voices. Thank you for your support!
Meet Cosplayer Cam Harper – And Her Pet Dalek!
My amazing, talented daughter (oh, and her Dalek…) is a featured cosplayer on Skatronixxx.com!
Hello, fellow Whovians! I would like you to meet “mover, shaker, Dalek Maker” Cameren Harper – who along with her Dad, built Dalek Cas. Being somewhat of a Doctor Who fan myself, when Cam and I crossed paths in the Twitterverse, and then when I saw some pictures of her Dalek on Deviant Art, I felt that she would be an awesome addition to our cosplay interviews. And luckily enough, she agreed!
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GISHWHES Highlights
My daughter, Cameren, is a wise, wonderful 15 year-old. By insisting that our family participate in GISHWHES, a world-wide week of shenanigans, she not only gave me the gift of new-found appreciation for my husband and kids’ beautiful, generous hearts, many and varied talents, creativity, problem-solving prowess, and potential for spontaneity–but she also restored my faith in the essential goodness of human beings, and made me feel hopeful for the future.
As we embarked on the week-long scavenger hunt, I was terrified of being faced with impossible and/or ridiculous tasks that would impinge on my life, and I had no capacity to envision whether or how my participation in the event might actually matter. Then, somehow, things just began to unfold, and I was suddenly in the thick of the sheer magic we were making in collaboration with our teammates from all over the U.S. In one week, our 15-member team completed and submitted upwards of 75 items, including acts of kindness throughout our communities, and raising funds to house, clothe, and provide medical care for Syrian refugee families in dire circumstances (see previous post).
And so, I hope you’ll enjoy seeing just a fraction of the wild and wonderful items we completed in our hunt:
Create a Vision Board from items found in magazines to represent the things you want more of in your life that can’t be bought or sold.
This item took me about 30 hours over the course of 3 days to complete. Dimensions: 18″ x 24″
There’s a lot of hype in the news that undocumented “illegal aliens” are stealing jobs from citizens and overflowing from our hospitals and prisons, but what we should really be concerned about is the burden created by aliens from outer space. Capture a photo depicting this scourge on society, and caption it with a message that emphasizes how aliens are a drain on our civic infrastructure.
This item specified that the space alien costume must be “impeccable” — and it just so happens that we proudly harbor a fugitive, fully-functional, life-sized Dalek (meticulously crafted by my husband, Mike, and operated by my daughter, Cameren). Having a wonderful neighbor who is a police officer with a penchant for the theatrical, was icing on the cake…
Have a child under the age of 6 draw your family’s portrait. Then take an actual family portrait in which you make whatever contortions necessary to recreate the drawing.
For this item, we thank my 5 year-old nephew, Corban, for his inspired rendering replete with labels (for most of us). Cameren is on the top left, my husband, Mike, is seated in front of her, my son, Matthew, is seated beside Mike, and I am the speck in the back. Corban also included an additional family member named, “Sir,” who he said is “the one who tells you what to find in the scavenger hunt.” We figured that “Sir” must in fact be the Grand Master/Brain Child of GISHWHES, Misha Collins, and so my daughter’s best friend, Sadie, wore a Misha mask and posed with us. Since GISHWHES is a (mostly) family-friendly event, posing in the nude (as we were drawn) was not really an option, so we decided to pose in the color we’d been drawn in…
I’d like mention a few other highlights that come to mind, the photos for which I don’t have access to at the moment:
Drone Battle: Cameren and Sadie faced off with my son’s Quad-Copter (which resembled a giant mosquito hawk in the photo) while dressed in battle armor made entirely of kitchen items, featuring a turkey baster and a rolling pin.
Create a Coin worth a Half Penny out of actual metal to commemorate the 7th anniversary of Misha Collins’ on-off affair with the Queen of England. Mike machined an aluminum medallion, and etched the recognizable visages of Misha and the Queen with Ferrous Oxide… This was his plan B, and it worked like a charm.
Depict the fairy tale, Trumpunzel, in an illustration. Cameren showcased her artistic genius and knack for subtlety.
Badminton Match in a Mall Food Court. Yes, with a net, racquets, and sporting our “tennis whites.” In her badminton debut, Cam deftly served the birdie over the net and into her friend’s frozen yogurt cup!
SLHARPERPOETRY 