Day 18 Highlights

There is no connection: That is the line I asked you to use in writing your poems on Day 18. It was a line that'd been rolling around in my head for awhile, though the context is totally lost on me now. As it should be. It's amazing how one line can go so many different directions.

Finding the connection in these poems is as simple as the line I asked you to use, but outside of that there appears to be no connection. (Hahahaha--yeah, I know. Bad joke.)

*****

:“mutually exclusive dinner party invitations”:

Between her old self

and her new self there is

no connection

anymore They sit on opposite

sides of the room They

sleep in

separate beds

They eat dinners in silence and rarely

call company to

toast their exclusive successes Between

the two of them

there is little room

for change Maybe someday

But for now there is no

connection

Khara House |leftnwrite08AT NOSPAMyahoo dot com

*****

FALSE LOVE

There is no connection between them anymore

False loving glances are exchanged across the table

for the sake of the children

The excuse they use to stay together

But the children see them sleep in different places

and overhear the muffled arguments at night

The tension between them chokes and suffocates

the life out of all those that come into their presence

but they continue hiding behind strained smiles

and forced affectionate rubs on the back

a piece of each of them dies everyday

knowing that life would be better apart

but it's so much easier to play the role

than to accept the truth that lies in their hearts

Christa R. Shelton |c_writesAT NOSPAMhotmail dot com

*****

A Reason

“Why did this happen? I haven’t been a bad person.

I’ve lived a good life.” There had to be a reason for

what the doctor was telling me. Cancer didn’t just

happen. There had to be a reason.

“I assure you, there is no connection between the

type of life a person has lived and cancer. You haven’t

done anything wrong.” His words flew past me, over

my head. All I heard was “cancer.” In my mind, that

was the only word that counted.

I looked back at the previous 40 years, trying to

locate the point in time where I had gone astray,

walked off the right path, jumped the tracks. I

wasn’t a perfect angel by no means, but cancer?

“I used to shoplift. Maybe that’s it.” I had to find

a reason. “I cheated on a test in high school. Wasn’t

very nice to that Jenkins girl.” He reached out and

patted my hand. “Listen to me, there is no connection.”

There had to be a reason.

Susan M. Bell |maylandwritersAT NOSPAMgmail dot com

*****

The Myth Is

there is no connection between

lollipops and pumpkins,

skyscrapers and hovels,

terrorists , saints,

the aliens that abduct

and those that intervene in angel garb:

not smithereens of a chaotic big bang –

or the fuselage of a big kahuna-deity’s

ark smashed to puzzle pieces –

but string theory, the divine quipu,

waiting to be read, quarks

to unravel, embroider,

or hang by in ignorance,

for the science and god, one,

that we have yet to touch.

Maria Jacketti |medusashairdresserAT NOSPAMmsn dot com

*****

Well-connected

Scientists are up in arms

at the speed of global warming.

Environmentalists shake their heads,

no one will heed their warning.

A ten-year window is all we have

until the point of no return.

"To hell with that", say executives,

"We've got tons of coal to burn".

Our planet cries "Stop it now

before everyone gets hurt".

Lobbyists still earn their keep

while politicians hit pay dirt.

Industry must motor on

til it hits that intersection

marked "Turn back before it's too late",

and "It's OK. There is no connection".

Joe |joemackinnonAT NOSPAMhotmail dot com

*****

Schism

How can you say there is no

connection from the crow's glistening

wing to the night that flies

away at dawn. No link

between the winter wind

and the hard sweep of grief,

no coupling between the bell

and the waves of its ring

in an empty courtyard?

How can you know there is

no chain pulling taut

the distance between tears

and the ocean--or, say,

Antarctica, the mountains and shelves

of ice, the white blindness held

together by cold until weight

or melt makes them calve,

fall apart with a roar

that echoes in your blood,

that binds you, even in sleep,

to more than one ending.

Joannie Stangeland |joannieksAT NOSPAMmsn dot com

*****

Even Teachers Get to Have Fun Sometimes

---------------------------------------

Today in class one of my students, not

knowing how to start an English essay asked,

How is the past an indicator of the future?

I am a history teacher, and as you know,

teachers know everything. We have no life

outside of school. In fact, some of us

live in our classrooms, pulling our Murphy beds

from beneath the chalkboard, shower up

in the denizens of the faculty lounge. Her logic

in asking me was, shall we say, inspired.

Trying to act the clown, or just to see her face

I replied as straight as I could, There is no

connection, no way to tell from one day to the next

what is going to happen. I pause before adding,

Haven't you ever heard of Chaos Theory?

This is the part I always like best, when they

ask themselves if they heard me right, decide

if they can trust what I have told them.

Sometimes, they catch on right away, think back

to the beginning of the year when I told them

about Heraclitus, how you can never step

into the same river twice, how all things

are connected. Then their smile comes

and they know the real answer is yet to come.

That's when I know I have them, know when

they are going to really listen, give this whole

school thing at least one more shot, let in

just a little more light into the cave and

dust down the shelves of their minds.

Justin Evans |evjustinAT NOSPAMyahoo dot com

*****

Proximity

I'm walking down French Road

and I see a familiar vista -

up there, to the south of me,

a miniature mountain rises

(we Uticans call it Crow Hill),

a mountain crowned with trees,

four of which stand out

like the straight spikes

of a truncated stegosaur.

There is no connection

between them and the rest

of the little oak forest

that's been standing there

for a hundred years or more.

It's like something sudden

and completely unplanned -

like a wicked windstorm,

or a minute meteor,

or an errant bulldozer -

just so happened to pass

through that small space

and thus forever changed

that fractional footage

of Oneida County landscape.

Whatever it was, it left

the dwellers of this valley

with a place that radiates

that sort of bizarre beauty

that throws the futile

humdrum claptrap of life

into relief and makes you say,

"Well, I guess maybe things

aren't so awful after all"

as you look up at those four trees,

thinking of how close they might be.

Callan Bignoli-Zale |shehadausernameAT NOSPAMgmail dot com

*****

In Rio de Janeiro,

a pregnant woman throws up

for the second time today.

In Perth,

unable to sleep, a boy watches rain drops

snake down his bedroom window.

In Cambridge,

two teenage girls kiss

under a blooming dogwood for the first time.

In Palo Alto,

a computer crashes as a student

tries to save the final version of her thesis.

In Cairo,

a woman cleans her kitchen

in preparation for her mother-in-law's visit.

In Bucharest,

a man on a bicycle is knocked into a ditch

by a small truck that doesn’t stop.

In Kawagoe,

a man holds his granddaughter in his arms

and feeds her a bottle of milk.

In Reykjavik,

an old woman dies while drinking her afternoon tea,

which spills across the front of her blouse.

There is no connection.

JL Smither |jlsmitherAT NOSPAMgmail dot com

*****

Special Information Tone

I learned the annoying, ear-piercing,

three-toned chime that sounds on the phone

when there is no connection,

is called a SIT code.

Three sharp pings, aptly called

SIT, command the listener

to wait for special information.

But those three notes, the ones I hear

several times a day, always

make me jump.

I hang-up before hearing the message—

I already know the number is disconnected

because you no longer live there.

And you didn’t tell me goodbye

because there is no longer a connection

between you and me.

Sara Diane Doyle |saras dot sojournsAT NOSPAMgmail dot com

*****

Even then

Even when there is no connection

Even when it rains like slate

Even when you can’t smell anything

Even when your legs stop working

Even when you can’t find work

Even when someone you love dies

Even when you loose a favorite earring

Even when you can’t breathe

Even when your car breaks down

Even when someone is mad at you

Even when the fridge is empty

Even when the birds wake you at four AM

Even when people are rude

Even when you have a headache for three days

Even when

Even then

beauty suffuses every molecule

Even then

your smile restores me.

Jacquie Wareham |wareham dot jacquieAT NOSPAMgmail dot com

*****

THERE IS NO CONNECTION

“Don’t be so stupid -

there is no connection

between butterflies

and typhoons,”

she exclaimed.

The child went quiet

and hung his head.

A great sadness

fell on the school

after that

and things

were never the same.

Maureen |sajwriter06AT NOSPAMyahoo dot com dot au