We’ve got just two days left of National Poetry Month. It’s Sunday, a good day to relax and read local poetry. Once you’ve read this final selection, I hope you find time to peruse the earlier posts this month. So much good work being written in Santa Clara County!
If you care to leave a comment, I know the poets would love hearing from you. It’s awfully quiet out there. Thanks for reading along~and bravo to everyone who participated in the contest.
Poetry on the Move is a project of the Santa Clara County Poet Laureate. All poems remain the property of the authors.
Sally Ashton
Santa Clara County Poet Laureate
* * *
Silicon Valley
The showers of the sun
Gleaming through overcast skies,
The sequoias
Rising from the womb of fires…
Our hearts sing-
Life flows…
Our minds zing-
Creativity glows…
The valley of us –
Of smarts, arts
And the indomitable hearts…
Yoga Saripalli
San Jose
* * *
Silicon Valley
A living, self-creating entity composed
of brick, mortar, and silicon chips
fueled by sunshine and brainshine
where people and ideas are pulled
together in a synergy of mass and energy.
A paragon of possibility where
life is reinvented everyday.
Marjorie Schallau
San Jose
* * *
Silicon Vienna
If Mozart lived here,
new planets, discovered by
telescopes in space,
could inspire
another Jupiter symphony.
Mozart would throw down his quill and embrace the new keyboard
and its music notation software.
He would listen to the discoveries crackle through the air
like explosions of daring harmony.
Renee Schell
San Jose
* * *
These Beds We Live In
Creeks, trails, roads and rails crease our gypsy sheets.
Pillows plumped by labor boost business that competes.
Outside worrisome weathers spawned by nature and man
spin droughts, firestorms, job losses and stimulus plans.
We disrupt. We retrain. We aim to get ahead.
We innovate together while we remake our beds.
C. Seney
Santa Clara
* * *
Progress
Trains came first.
Railed dragons
Roaring forward.
Autos followed;
Demanding roads and bridges
Line our landscape.
Then the telephone
Tied us together.
Our whispered words heard.
Soon electronics excited.
A deluge of gadgets
Raining down.
Today, iPhones
Cover our valley,
Tweeting like angry birds.
Judith Shernock
San Jose
* * *
Friday Night Stroll
Standing at an easel,
paintbrush in hand, mixing
burnt sienna with a splash of white
to make sand the common ground.
On a special night of the month
art on display in galleries
in downtown San Jose´.
You might be the purchaser
who takes home a painter’s heart.
Mary Lou Taylor
Saratoga
* * *
Anake’s Undoing
Not a pill I took, but Ananke’s undoing I think.
Elements disassembled and reassembled into their other forms.
Steel, stone and plastics once clotted now dissolved in thick streams wandering a fruited valley. Orchards swallowed to the ground, now grasses covering a winter hillside where melted snow stole bare footprints.
James Thorn
Santa Clara
* * *
Dollar Dress, 2008
A Babylonian goddess pointed at me
and money, jobs, and houses
flew up in the air over Kansas
and suddenly I was a stripper
in a dress made of dollars,
peeling off a dollar to each beat of the drum,
until, in the finale, naked,
arms out to each side,
chin up, I cried,
‘Bring me my wings!
I have immortal longings in me!’
Janet Trenchard
San Jose
* * *
Invention
Silicon Valley a place where we invent
Some are wizards that are heaven sent
many faces
different races
from different places
could be me could be you
now you think now you can do
Silicon Valley a place where we invent
To keep on inventing is the wizards intent
Michael Uhila
Mountain View
* * *
The Joy of Transit
This change of commute is no accident.
In place of the many hours I’ve spent
Driving my car, being far from content,
Consuming gas by the dollar and cent,
The stress of the road has got up and went.
Here, there’s time to work, to play, to invent.
Larry White
Mountain View
* * *
The Movers
A couple of quarters jingle in my pocket.
Alright,
That’s all I need for a ride on the city bus—
A five, maybe ten, minute journey
To the next destination,
And a chance encounter with Inspiration.
Hop on up, say the movers,
Open your mind—
Leave the mundane world behind.
Kathryn Wong
Cupertino
Santa Clara County Poet Laureate Blog 