Raven’s Wing Poetry

I wrote this for Read Write Prompt #79 (also Read Write Word #18), and as you can guess while reading this, it was just as much for me to write as it probably will be for you to read it. Enjoy. (Oh yeah, I encourage you to click on the links too — your choice of during or after your read.)

-Nicole

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the bellydancing gorilla
at the corner of Twelfth and High
alternates between
large, gentle shimmies erupting from
chocolate-covered chunked mountain
muscle and
Continue reading ‘On An Average Afternoon On North High Street in Columbus, Ohio’

One of my poems, “They Tell Me That You Had Cherokee Blood”, was published in Strong Verse Online Poetry Magazine. To read it, go to:

http://www.strongverse.org/poems/nicholson_nicole.html

The Pharoah’s Daughter by Sijeney

I wrote this for Read Write Poem Prompt # 78: Kiss Me, Amelia Earhart. I decided to approach this a little differently, as there are so many historical figures I would like to write about — so this is kind of a longer narrative of how one woman graces the lives of several. Also, I decided not to limit myself to the idea of love in the romantic sense — but it is here, as you can see in the poem. I hope you like it.

-Nicole

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i.

green jaws
seize a brown body
clamp down
the crocodile is hungry
this young woman will do

white triangles
stained, dripping with red
color the Nile carmine
in this spot
Continue reading ‘The Egyptian’

I am featuring at Writer’s Block Poetry First Draft Poetry Night on Friday, June 19 at 8:00 PM!

First Draft Night, hosted by Joanna Schroeder, is a night where new poems and new poets are always welcome. Cover is $3 for the night. There will be an open mic — so come on out and share your *new* poetry!

For more info about Writer’s Block’s First Draft Night, check out:

http://writersblockpoetry.rewritingovid.net/FirstDraftOpenMic.php

http://community.livejournal.com/wbpoetry

Stumble It!

From PSH’s website:

“Worldwide Open Reading
Sunday June 14, 2009 @ 2:00 pm PDT/5:00 pm EDT
Call in and read your poetry, open mic style. No content or style restrictions. Share details about your local poetry community with our listeners. We want to hear you!

Our Live events are hosted through BlogTalk Radio and can be accessed during the event by visiting http://blogtalkradio.com/psh and clicking on the “Click to Listen” button.

You can listen to the shows through your web browser as well as call in and ask questions live through by dialing (646) 716-7362 during the live broadcast.”
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Literally, poets from all over the world have read on these broadcasts. You know yours truly will be dialing in and reading. I encourage any poet who wants to and who can read to join in!

To check out Poetry Super Highway or find out more, visit:

http://poetrysuperhighway.com/PoetLinks.html

Stumble It!

This was written for Read Write Word # 17. I have to admit, this gave me a bit of a workout in the vocabulary department. This poem is a little less coherent and more of a “stream of consciousness” poem. What does it look like to you? Let me know – and enjoy.

-Nicole

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saturnine glances
from heavy-lidded eyes
Continue reading ‘Pebbles’

A Merge of Opposites by N. Nicholson

This poem is about me and my fiance and was written for Read Write Poem Prompt #77: Opposites Attract. Enjoy.

-Nicole

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Two trains, both traveling at
infinity miles per hour, the speed of
light, the speed of love – one eastbound,
one westbound. Now calculate:
Continue reading ‘Yin and Yang’

Third Eye Celestial by N. Nicholson

This was the second poem written for Read Write Poem Prompt #77: Opposites Attract. I chose the cleave form because it allowed me to juxtapose the two ideas against each other while still having them connected in some way. You can read a cleave poem two ways: down or across. I hope you enjoy.

-Nicole
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Written 6/2/09
© 2009 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.

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My poem “Fables”, which appears in my recent chapbook word., was featured in the Summer 2009 Edition of Winning Writers Newsletter. To read more (and read the poem), visit:

http://www.winningwriters.com/newsletter/public/2009/nl_public_0906sup.htm#pubcreds

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Love Canvas by N. Nicholson

This was written for Read Write Prompt # 76: Changes.

-Nicole

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first, your color was green:
trees, flags, and your heart shared the color of
the rebirth of life and atoms and
photosynthesis was your queen, resting royally
in your ribcage, exploding roses and violets –
the fodder of schoolgirl crushes and bad poetry

love comes in colors
that you can’t deny

then somewhere along the way
you became black
because hearts cracked bleed black
once their scarlet wells run dry
they never mend on their own
so you set the clock to wind slow
threaded needles and stitched together
your two halves to let them grow,
meld, and become one again

love comes in colors
that you can’t deny

now, you’re wrapped again
in the arms of love
so revel in the rain
of this new moment of bliss
and realize that you needed
nothing more than this:
an eternal perfect moment, crystalline and blue
generated from this new equation of hearts -

one plus one equals much more than two

this is an exponential explosion
and you left the evidence all over the universe
everything looks electric and brand new:

stars have discarded their old clothes
for large, blue white coronas
that shine in your beloved’s eyes
the sky has wiped her skin clean of clouds
to show you her naked translucent blackness
and even rainbows are supercharged
with a bright backbeat of incandescent joy
broadcasting through their stained glass smiles

and you marvel at this metamorphosis
but behind the backbeat of colors brand new
an unending truth once again shines through:

love comes in colors
that you can’t deny

Written 5/24/09 and 5/28/09
© 2009 Nicole Nicholson except for the refrain, which is borrowed from The Smashing Pumpkins song, “Crush”, which appears on their album Gish (© 1991 The Smashing Pumpkins and Virgin Records). All Rights Reserved on original material by N. Nicholson.

Stumble It!

This was written for two Read Write Poem Prompts this week – Read Write Word # 16 and Read Write Prompt # 74: Hyperlink Your Poetry. I used some of the words in the first prompt and added hyperlinks to some pictures, Wikipedia entries, and other kinds of content for selected words (hence why this is also for the second prompt). Please, look at the links — and feel free to comment and let me know how well (or not) this worked. And as always, enjoy.

-Nicole

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I wonder what this land was before
we carved asphalt lines into Mother Earth’s
face. If I tilt my head and look outside
my window to the green beside
this roadway, I can still see the land

sloping

down. I can see
Continue reading ‘Asphalt’

From PSH’s website:

“Worldwide Open Reading
Sunday May 17, 2009 @ 2:00 pm PDT/5:00 pm EDT
Call in and read your poetry, open mic style. No content or style restrictions. Share details about your local poetry community with our listeners. We want to hear you!

Our Live events are hosted through BlogTalk Radio and can be accessed during the event by visiting http://blogtalkradio.com/psh and clicking on the “Click to Listen” button.

You can listen to the shows through your web browser as well as call in and ask questions live through by dialing (646) 716-7362 during the live broadcast.”
—————————————————————–

Literally, poets from all over the world have read on these broadcasts. You know yours truly will be dialing in and reading. I encourage any poet who wants to and who can read to join in!

To check out Poetry Super Highway or find out more, visit:

http://poetrysuperhighway.com/PoetLinks.html

Stumble It!

This was written for Read Write Word #15 (and NaPoWriMo #27 – I am soooo behind!). These were words that I donated to RWP a while back. This was also inspired by Sarah’s poem written for the same prompt.

-Nicole

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You once told me
that you heard

colors, that songs were leaking
tones of liquid pigment into
your ears. Like B flat – for you,
it was
Continue reading ‘SYNESTHESIA’

I will be performing at the Poetry Corner at the Columbus Arts Festival on Saturday, June 6 at 2:40 PM. I have a 20-minute set of my own poetry which I will be presenting at the Poetry Corner. So….come out and hear me! And the other awesome poets on the schedule, including Barbara Fant, D.M. Emigh, Ed Plunkett, and Louise Robertson, the first place winner for this year and one of the featured Arts Festival Poets.

The Arts Fest Poetry Corner will be near the corner of Gay Street and Cleveland Avenue.

More details about the Poetry Corner and the schedule for such can be found at: http://www.gcac.org/fest/entertainment-schedule/poetry-corner-schedule.php.

See you there!

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Tuesday, April 21 is Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), and Poetry Super Highway published a special issue this week to commemorate this. My poem, “Somewhere”, appears in this issue of PSH Weekly. You can read “Somewhere” at: http://poetrysuperhighway.com/ppa/ppa603b.html#fp10

I also read this poem on the April 19th edition of Poetry Super Highway Live. To hear the poem and to listen to April’s edition of the show, please visit:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/psh/2009/04/19/April-2009-Worlide-Open-Reading

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This piece is highly unusually for me, as I do not normally write poems with end line rhyme and in this style…but I decided to have some fun. It was written for Read Write Poem’s NaPoWriMo #12: Where Do You Come From?. Have fun reading…

-Nicole

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I come from
              my mother’s Kentucky mouth
             and my father’s New Jersey lips,

             the echoes of trans-Atlantic chains
             and violated plantation hips;

from
             souls written in fiddle, dulcimer, and pipes
             upon Killarney’s stony pages,

             and barbed wire and machine gun symphonies
             exacting war’s nightmare wages;

from
             holy Cherokee prayers and
             sacred Delaware incantations,

             and African Methodist Episcopal
             Sunday morning celebrations;

from
             dinners spelled out in cornbread, catfish,
             soup beans, and collard greens,

             and teenage nights curled up on my bed
             nursing inner pain unseen;

from
             worn-out Doc Martins and sullen eyes
             lined with Neil Gaiman black

             and ancestral blood that threatens me with
             an early heart attack;

from
             Sonoran desert rainbows –
             my skin forever embued

             with azure, crimson, gold, indigo,
             and strains of turquoise blue;

             and now, I come from Ohio wearing
             silver in my eyes

             pulled from endless years living under
             masked pale winter skies.

I come from
             lakefront summers carrying
             Milwaukee lilacs in their arms

             and pots of coffee played to the weary backbeat
             of 5:00 A.M. alarms;

from
             sound boards, wearing music
             and microphones as my mask;

and from
             every odd job, unemployment check,
             and ignoble mindless task.

I come from
             Frost, Dunbar, Angelou, Giovanni,
             Williams, Sia, Hughes,

             Morrison, Poe, Ali, and Ginsberg – they all
             taught me how to sing the blues;

             and now, I come from rhyme, metaphor, and line
             spoken into the air

             or tattooed into paper skins and flung
             from my hands to share

             with you this graphic, deranged riddle
             so that you will understand

             just where it is I that come from
             and precisely who I am.

Written 4/14 and 4/15/09
© 2009 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.

Stumble It!

This was written for NaPoWriMo #7: Nicknames over at Read Write Poem. I decided to do a darker take of the prompt, more along the lines of an alter ego idea. I should warn readers that this poem deals with a sensitive subject (sexual abuse) — I namely do this to avoid accidentally triggering any survivors who read my blog.

-Nicole

Continue reading ‘Jack’