Her Life Is On This Table and Other Poems

By Daniel Daugherty

The twenty-two poems in this collection are, with two exceptions, recent compositions. The poems tackle a variety of subjects, including: nature at it's best and worst; the retrograde loss of memory in the aged; theology; the circular nature of history; and the problem of whistling mailmen.

The poetic forms range from tightly controlled meter and rhyme to free verse and even experimental forms, such as those used in "Mine Enemy Sleep" and "Writing a Poem".

The author has found inspiration in many poets past and present, but is not tied down to a particular type of poetry. He prefers, rather, that the form should emerge from the theme and the narrator's voice.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Daniel Daugherty
• Release date: Oct 24, 2013
• ISBN: 9781310650819

Daniel Daugherty

Daniel Daugherty and his wife are Ohio natives who have been living in Colorado for more than forty years with their children and grandchildren, all Colorado natives. He is a retired electronics technician who has been writing poetry (rather fitfully) for the last twenty-five years.

Book preview

Her Life is on This Table

and Other Poems

by Daniel Daugherty

Copyright 2013 Daniel Daugherty

Smashwords Edition

Cover and photos by Daniel Daugherty

Smashwords Edition, License Notes:

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the work of the author.

For permission to quote from or reprint any poems in the book, contact the author at [e-mail]. I am easy going about this, as long as proper attribution is made.

Table of Contents

Storm Change

Her Life is on This Table

The Dust Bowl

First Love, Only Love

Maybe Schrodinger’s Cat Has the Name

The Dwarf’s Tale

Countering Oblivion

Part 1

Part 2

The Chalk Artists

The Wind

The Creator

Girls’ Curls

Boys’ Toys

Circles

Mine Enemy Sleep

A Day in a Bottle

The Quiet Place

After the Fire

Writing a Poem

Gnat Theology

Old Ben Cline

A Meeting in the Woods

After the Storm

About the Author

Storm Change

Thrummed like tattered flapping sail

By storm winds, in and through me

Flung from these miasmic seas

From sickness clinging to me

Leeward blown, the carrion birds

To peck at other eyes

My very soul — it’s torn away!

And loosed into the skies

Driven through baptismal spray

My cloak now ripped aside

Defenseless, emptied, spent I stand

With nothing left to hide

And in this state, against cold fate

As dark seas stretch from sight

A newborn beast, I’m turning east

To face the trial of light

August 14, 2013

Her Life is on This Table

I've put her things on this table here.

Her souvenirs.

She kept them all in a glass case—

it’s on its way to Goodwill now.

If you’d like one, please take it.

Otherwise, well,

you know the Sunny Acres’ policy:

offer belongings first to the family,

then to those here at the home,

and the rest of them off to Goodwill.

Her son was here for the funeral,

with his wife and daughter and grandkids,

and I asked him about his mother’s mementos.

I’ll pack them up for you, I said.

No, he said.

"Those are her memories, not mine."

No, not the pewter Viking ship.

That one I’m putting aside for Consuela.

She wants it for her little boy.

But anything else, take your pick.

Those two ceramic cups, perhaps,

painted with old men in funny clothes—

like Russian peasants, I’m thinking.

Imagine her going there!

I had to help her into the bathroom

and