Donna Barkman – String Poet

MOTHER GOOSE PREVAILS

The moon rises late, tardy again, belly full,
to question my motives for writing a poem about her.
She speaks in tongues: streams of bright
unintelligible syllables that I, as a goose, understand.

I call Hey, Diddle Diddle to confuse and taunt her,
pretend to be the dimwit she thinks I am.
My cat and my fiddle seem fit rationale since they
thrive in her light, screeching and wailing their dissonant tunes.

I chew intellectual cud like my ruminating cow who
hurdled the moon with an udder as full as the moon’s round cheeks.
In the sink by the window, my dish and my spoon, crazed
by her beams, blast through the bubbles, run away hand in hand.

Shrieking, chomping, leaping, eloping. My little dog laughs —
no need to explain — Hey, Diddle Diddle is reason enough.

As a writer/actor, Donna Barkman has had her solo play “Hand-Me-Downs” produced in NYC and Westchester. Most recently, she wrote and performed two pieces in The “Ides of March” at the Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art. Her poetry has appeared in The Westchester Review, ragazine.cc, Bray Arts Journal, Chautauqua, Boston Literary Review, and others. She’s enjoyed two writers residencies at Brush Creek and Jentel, both in Wyoming.