Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Feisty

Even though I was feeling camouflage yesterday, I dig deep to motivate. Venture out to dinner with a friend. Put on the denim mini skirt and platform shoes. Maybe we’d go to the local bar and listen to the band. Stay out late and laugh.

But half-way through dinner, I’m on my second green tea and thinking about my bed at home. It’s only 9:30. My friend, she understands. We drive home eying my gas tank that reads E, while she texts her new boyfriend back home. He’s in another time zone and if we’re honest, all she really wants to do is sweet talk with him into the wee hours. And this, I understand.

Rather well-rested, I wake on a Saturday morning and find Feist. The new album, Metals, comes out in days. What is it about her voice that strikes that clichéd, but-oh-so-true, chord in me?

It’s all that’s feminine, moonlit and deep.  Sweeping feeling and bittersweet. Man. Woman. She made my morning.

Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Earthquakes, Chili Peppers and Vinyl Records

Did you feel it?

That’s a section on the US Geological Survey website
(A Science for a Changing World)

I was feeling a lot of things
in my dream

listening to vinyl records
with the man who
professed his passion
for hot chili peppers

people all around us
were preparing for
impending disaster
tsunami maybe
but I was not well-versed

I was looking at his bookshelves
putting the needle on the record
might as well listen to a good tune
feel happy
when catastrophe strikes

there was that white knitted afghan
tilted shelving
an enormous brown couch
who was it we were listening to
when my bed began shaking?

I felt an earthquake
while I was dreaming
rocking me in waves
while I slept

In the morning
I jot the dream details
but my rattling bed
is doubtful
in reality
there are no earthquakes on my dormant island

to be sure
I search the USGS
maybe I felt distant fault lines trembling

documented there
2:59am
on the other end of my island chain
Hawaii had a 2.1 tremor
and so too, Japan
a 5.1
the Philipines
4.9

when you look to see the online list
it seems the whole world is rumbling!

courtesty USGS

“Did you feel it? Report an earthquake”
links
in cyberspace

I won’t report it
except for here
record players and chili peppers
earthquakes shaking my bed

dream science
a changing world
are we feeling it?

Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Wireless Reception

One hour a day
I dial in
to the broadest band

That’s how the poem began
as I walked damp wet sand
crafting words
that spun
in swirling mists
of salt
and streaming sunlight

out of range and loving it
my 60 minutes
of wireless reception

Jessica Dofflemyer

 

but then…
nature time’s up
back at the car
I’m recording phrases
in my iPhone
trying to remember
the communication
I received
seaside

There are phone calls to return
appointments to keep
I plug in
and realize
my gift of words
are somewhere
wild
unkept
in the ether

I grasp air
dig deep in heart
give it a rest
knowing
there’s only so much time
what’s real surfaces

Hey
I got poetry
and the hiss of mushy ocean waves this morning

it’s OK if it’s not posted here
in fact
I encourage you, my friend
go out
and listen
find your own
then share it