Tag: Angie Blake-Moore

Conversation Hearts by Angie Blake-Moore

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Conversation Hearts

Do you remember those candy hearts
that come in little boxes
around Valentine’s Day?
They used to say things like SWEETIE
and CUTIE PIE
and then they updated them to say FER SURE
and FAX ME. Now they say ADORBS and LOL,
GOAT, and BAE.
My teenager and I make rude ones
to place around the house—
CAN U NOT,
UGH, AS IF!,
and WTF.

Not only do they look chalky–
those sickly-sweet pastels–
the candy hearts taste like chalk too
or how you imagine
chalk would taste.
Have you ever licked
a piece you found, white or yellow—
resting on the metal shelf
underneath your teacher’s chalkboard?
You could pretend to smoke a stick
instead of a cigarette, trying to
look cool as you clap out her erasers
during recess, coughing—
a cloud of chalk dust
hanging in the air as the bell rings,
calling you back to class.

*

Angie Blake-Moore has been a teacher of 3- and 4-year-olds in Washinton, DC for over 30 years. She’s had work published in Potomac Review, Green Mountains Review, ONE ART, and like a field among others, including the anthology Cabin Fever: Poets at Joaquin Miller’s Cabin 1984-2001. She had a poem chosen for a competition in her hometown of Arlington, VA, where her poem was displayed in county buses.

Forsythia by Angie Blake-Moore

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Forsythia

Driving with the sunroof open
and feeling spring pour in
onto my neck and shoulders,
I notice all the forsythia
in the neighborhood
have woken up.

Like a kindergartener’s overeager
drawing, all wild and woolly
with too much yellow—
these scraggly tentacles of sunshine
won’t be tamed.

You can come at them
with your pruning shears
but you will be rebuffed.
The forsythia bows to no man’s notion
of how a neat yard should look.
You will back away,
hands raised in surrender.

It will have its say
and it will be loud about it.
Yellow, yellow, and then some!
Spring is not a shy season–

forsythia denounces
winter days as if they will
never come again.

*

Angie Blake-Moore has been a teacher of 3- and 4-year-olds in Washington, DC for 30 years. She’s had work published in Potomac Review, Green Mountains Review, ONE ART, and like a field among others, including the anthology Cabin Fever: Poets at Joaquin Miller’s Cabin 1984-2001. She recently had a poem chosen for Moving Words in Arlington, VA where her poem was displayed in county buses.

Two Poems by Angie Blake-Moore

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Beaks Full

an anniversary poem for D

Our rental car shooting down
the tight Irish country roads lined with
the greenest of hedgerows, we see
a seagull fly overhead—
a whole piece of bread in its beak
and we both exclaim our happiness for it.

We are that bird.
Pleased with the lucky find, the unexpected
wish come true—all that we asked for
has already happened: our beaks full
of good fortune and someone to share it with.

* 

Romance

Think of Carson McCullers
and the 3-legged Italian
teacup. She craved it something awful,
pictured it nesting
in her palm, awkward
yet lovely. But she made no move
to get one, knowing romance
is in the wanting
while possession’s as dry as Georgia grass
in the ardent August sun.

*

Angie Blake-Moore has been a teacher of 3- and 4-year-olds in Washington, DC for nearly 30 years. She has been writing poetry since she was in high school and has had the opportunity to learn from poets such as Hilary Tham and Matthew Lippman. She’s had work published in Potomac Review and Green Mountains Review among others and recently had a poem chosen for Moving Words in Arlington, VA where her poem is displayed in county buses.