poet Keith Leonard

Poem of the Week, by Keith Leonard

Posted on by alisonmcghee

 My neighbor who shovels my sidewalk if he gets up earlier than me. The rhubarb I share with him in the spring. The people who leave sweet notes in my Poetry Hut. The little free food library at the church a few blocks away. These and a thousand more small daily acts of generosity and kindness make life better for everyone.

Remember when, instead of patiently answering his question, a presidential candidate made fun of a disabled reporter in front of a huge crowd and instead of going silent in revulsion, they cheered? Witnessing acts of cruelty twists something up in me —what should I do what should I do what should I do–in an almost paralyzing way. The saying “hurt people hurt people” makes sense but not enough sense, because aren’t we all hurt? The only thing to do about cruelty is resist it.

Boléro, by Keith Leonard

From the kitchen, I catch the neighbor
cross the street to switch off my car’s interior lights.
He returns to his house without announcing the favor.
For the last three years, a friend has woken early
and walked the beach, combing for bottle caps
and frayed fishing line. She mentions this
only casually at lunch, after I’ve asked
what she did that morning.
Care has a quiet soundtrack: the sycamore’s
rustling leaves, your nails tracing my shoulder blades.
A melody that repeats—a bit like Ravel’s Boléro.
When it was first performed, a woman shouted,
Rubbish! from the balcony. She called Ravel
a madman. I think I understand. I wish I didn’t.
I’ve been taught that art must have conflict,
that reason must meet resistance.

Click here for more information about Keith Leonard. Today’s poem first appeared in Poetry in December, 2023. 
alisonmcghee.com
My podcast: Words by Winter

Poem of the Week, by Keith Leonard

Posted on by alisonmcghee

Registration for our January 8-13 2024 Write Together session is in full swing. I’d love to see you in this one hour, twice-daily workshop in which we all quietly write together from a guided prompt. It’s a beautiful way to usher in the new year. 

I love going to weddings and I love dancing at weddings. I love how every wedding band plays the exact same songs and I love them all. I love how even when you’ve been dancing for hours and you could use a break and a drink so you step off the dance floor but then you hear the first few bars of Shut Up and Dance or Uptown Funk or Dancing Queen or Proud Mary and you look around at your friends and everyone’s got the Oh my God we can’t stop now! look on their faces and back out onto the dance floor you go. I love how there’s no skill or art to my dancing but who cares? Balterers of the world, unite!

Balter, by Keith Leonard

There is a word in middle English
to describe the way you dance—
with delight but without a hint
of art or skill. Al Green licks the walls
of our tiny apartment, and you balter
across the living room nursing the plants.
You balter to the sink
and sing to a toothbrush
with a mouth full of foam.
If we’re doing this right,
the ruling god of embarrassment
has no place in our home.
He can orbit the building.
He can scratch the brick
with nails as sharp as checkmarks,
but we do not need to invite him in.
I have never understood elegance.
Below the song dampening dirt,
the dead all practice a statued grace.
But here you can clap a half-step
behind the beat. You can announce
an extra note with the body abundant.
Here, you can place your hands
on my shoulders. I can lift my hands
to your waist.

Balter was first published in The Journal. Click here for more information about poet Keith Leonard.
alisonmcghee.com
My podcast: Words by Winter

Poem of the Week, by Keith Leonard

Posted on by alisonmcghee

I’d love to see you in one (or both!) of our two remaining fall four-hour Zoom workshops: The Intuitive Leap on November 14, and Poetry, from Flicker to Flame, on November 17. Click here and scroll down for all the details.

Last year, my parents sold The Homestead (150 acres of woods and fields and creeks and ancient farmhouse in far upstate New York), a huge endeavor which meant many hours of sorting through sixty-plus years of belongings, including a number of little ceramic bowls and planters with my initials on the bottom.

As I held them memory came back to me: of my high school pottery class and of the semester in college when I bought a pass to the basement pottery studio, hours of calm and peace spent sitting at the wheel, shaping clay into bowls.

I too was once my own storm–okay fine, I still am–but these tiny bowls remind me that calm and peace also live somewhere inside me.

Keel, by Keith Leonard

That half-moon smooth beam,
I think someone made it because
they had a spine and wanted
to make a stronger one,
and they sent the little skiff
out to sea for years,
and it went on boot-thudded
and shoal-scraped,
and it went on boot-thudded
and shoal-scraped, and it held
all the while like it holds
in the boatyard, though
it is belly-up on blocks
to keep out the rain, now,
and it does rain here,
and did again this morning
when I was walking your dog,
Love, thinking how I, too, 
have been boot-thudded
by love, I was my own
storm once, so young
and eager to raise the sail
of my wanting, and I just wanted
to tell you I love this old boat,
this settled-in thing.

Click here for more information on poet Keith Leonard.

alisonmcghee.com
My podcast: Words by Winter