Friday, July 26, 2013


Tree rings photograph by Nicholas Benner

Here's a poem by Raul Guiterrez sent from my old friend and artist Ahuta Markman

Lies I’ve Told My 3 Year Old Recently

Trees talk to each other at night.
All fish are named either Lorna or Jack.
Before your eyeballs fall out from watching too much TV, they get very loose.
Tiny bears live in drain pipes.
If you are very very quiet you can hear the clouds rub against the sky.
The moon and the sun had a fight a long time ago.
Everyone knows at least one secret language.
When nobody is looking, I can fly.
We are all held together by invisible threads.
Books get lonely too.
Sadness can be eaten.
I will always be there.


Raul Gutierrez

Sherry has the Poetry Friday Roundup today at Semicolon.

13 comments:

Michelle Heidenrich Barnes said...

Not sure I agree that all of these are lies, but maybe I'm just in denial. Still, I wish I could eat this kind of imagination every morning with my Wheaties.

Tabatha said...

Pow! That packs a punch. I have to agree with Michelle that there could be some truths hidden in there...

Linda B said...

This makes me wonder what would happen if we asked young adolescents to write about the lies they remember they were told. And, I've had a few conversations about what lives in drainpipes, & no bears in my part of the world, but other things...

Joy said...

This is a great poem. Thank you for posting it. What a great group exercise this poem could start. I'm going to have to go think about my own lies and let my imagination have a fun day.
I'm having so much fun thinking about how you would illustrate this poem.

Douglas Florian said...

I actually wrote the poem myself...no, I'm lying.

Douglas Florian said...

Thanx Michelle, Tabatha, Linda, and Joy.

Liz Steinglass said...

I think I believe some of these.
I wish I believed that sadness could be eaten.

Matt Forrest Esenwine said...

What a powerful poem! I love this. Simultaneously touching and disconcerting. I love the idea that one hear the clouds rub against the sky....and I do believe we ARE all connected via invisible threads! The last line, of course, chokes up anyone with a heart.

Anonymous said...

Love this! My dad once told me if I watch closely enough, I could observe a flower grow in real time -this was to get me to stop crying when I had fallen off my bike or some such thing. I believed him, gazed at a sunflower forever, and it worked (I stopped crying).

The Pen and Ink Blogspot said...

fabulous. I'd love to post it everywhere.

Renee LaTulippe said...

As the mother of two 3-year-olds, I am in love with this and must write my own. The last line is a killer.

A recent lie that worked, used with a prop: This power stick will make the boo-boo go away.

Mary Lee said...

Oh, that ending!

Not only can I fly when you're not looking, but I also have a second career as a super hero who fights evil in the world.

Anonymous said...

Love when words painnt thousands of pictures. Parenting is creative on so many levels.