by Janee J. Baugher
Fists of sound, fitting the regularities of life.
Super Big Gulp lidded cups straws whooshing up and down
Zippo lighters flickering to flames
Tin garbage pail drumming
Garbage pail lids clapping
Every object to its own music.
Newspapers snapped open crumpling
Pots, cans, oil barrels metaling
Milk crates set down on the floor tap, tap, tap
Plastic pails bongo, bongo, bongo, bongo
Without shop-made instruments, mother of imagination.
Rope and switches slapping the floor snap
Boxes of matchsticks rattling
Formation of plungers suctioning
Tape measures snapping back spirals
Take something in your hand let the notes rise, an endless crescendo.
Brown lunch sacks crunching
Lunch sacks blown up boom
Booms across a sand-scatter floor grainy swish swish
Water in jugs galumphing
Stomp, stomp for home-made music,
vibrations under skin,
life’s songs in your very own hands.
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ABOUT THE POET ~
Janée J. Baugher, a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee and Bread Loaf Conference participant, holds a B.S. in Applied Physiology from Boston University and an MFA in Creative Writing from Eastern Washington University. A former poetry editor for Willow Springs magazine and Switched-on Gutenberg online journal, Baugher is an associate editor for StringTown magazine (Spokane, WA). Baugher regularly collaborates with visual artists, composers, and choreographers, with recent collaborations having been produced at University of Cincinnati–Conservatory of Music, Interlochen Center for the Arts (Interlochen, MI), and Dance Now! Ensemble (Miami Beach, FL). Baugher is the author of the collection of ekphrastic and travel poems, Coördinates of Yes (Ahadada Books), and in 2011 she presented her work at the Library of Congress. Her current projects include a collection of water-themed lyric essays and a collection of human-anatomy-physiology-influenced poems. Baugher lives in Seattle where she teaches Creative Writing and Literature at Richard Hugo House and University of Phoenix. For more information, visit: http://JaneeJBaugher.wordpress.com.
Last updated October 22, 2011