Odes & Poems

Selections from:

Check out more poems on Marissa's new blog:   http://marissadodge.wordpress.com/

“A Scene From The Parsonage” by Marissa Dodge, from Multiple Poemodality Disorder.(c)NPP. "Thought For Food” by Marissa Dodge, from The Power Of Negative Thinking. (c)NPP. "A Poem Is A Pot" by Marissa Dodge, from Never Tell An Indian How To Start A Fire.(c)NPP

A Scene From The Parsonage

(inspired by the Haworth Parsonage graveyard photograph on p. 15 of The Brontes, by Phyllis Bentley)

I’m admiring you from the graveyard,
Charlotte. Your charcoal image coils
up my stove pipe hat; magnificent notions
trapped in the top like opium plums/plumes.

My clay pipe bowl warms my hand,
but I imagine that its your heart
Charlotte; a glowing stove fueled
by reams of ink-covered sheets;
your words - the cells of oxygen,
your hands - the flames that torch them.
A bonfire so bold I can warm myself
from here across the churchyard,
perched on this unforgiving granite.

Your torso is a straight and slender
wooden handle, your skirt
a black bell ready to be rung.
I imagine one peal from that bell
could demolish the brick house
you stand by; ten times taller than you,
but one toll would shatter shutters,
one clang could crumble cornerstones.

Though I thought to speak,
I never dared break your focus;
your chestnut eyes were set
on the top of a three-tiered fountain
where one wild-eyed bird
poised on the scalloped edge
seemed to be your 38 year old soul
suspended on the brink of the universe;
where soon your nightly revolutions
around the dining room table
at the Parsonage, would become
a spin around the seated planets.

Thought For Food

I’d have a full plate all you can eat buffet.
Open 24 hours - 3-65 days.
Gardens and orchards rowed in my head,
fruit always falling and ready to et.

Stove tops red hot, soups, and stews,
simmering, boiling, sautéing, rues.
I could feed a whole continent 
if my thoughts were sustenance.

Instead my thoughts are stacked up in surplus,
backed up and packed up in cerebral warehouses,
where none of them seem to do me much good;
can’t sell them, can’t eat them, can’t burn them like wood.

The gray matter they’re made of is nothing at all,
not gray-vy or head cheese or a cheddar cheese ball.
Not even a cracker or cracked crust of bread,
comes from the stockpile of thoughts in my head.

The energy spent by my brain is intangible.
It can’t be canned or canapés for a cannibal. 
Though I consume thoughts and they consume me
they contain nary a calorie.

They do feed my mind and tie me up tight,
they cause constipation, indigestion, and blight.
They make me feel crazy and quite overwrought
that my right side and left side leftovers will rot.

With my skull in my hand I’m a Twisted Oliver
“That gruel looks grand, could I have some more, sir?”
Though I know second helpings are not second thoughts,
I chew over and squander and come up with squat.

I’ve imagined a bountiful banquet quite toothsome.
A mass mastication, a feast wild and winsome.
I would batter and fry up my thoughts for a feed,
but no matter, no batter, no meat, and no seed.

Now I’ve wasted my time on this asinine rhyme
and no fruit has it brought me, not even a rind.
I’ve no plate in my head and no head on a plate,
but like ponderous Plato, I must contemplate.

Like meals on wheels brought right to your home,
I could eat my words if I’d publish a poem.
Perchance just a pittance I’d be paid for once,
then at last I’d have edible food for my thoughts.

A Poem Is A Pot

A poem is a pot about to boil.
A bud about to bloom.

A horse that waits at the cranial gate.
A lone light in a room.

A poem is a boat about to launch.
A salmon set to spawn.

A cake that springs back to the touch.
A radio clicked on.

A poem is a cat primed up to purr.
A babe cranked up to cry.

A universe, both true and absurd,
And every pondered, “Why?”

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