Tag Archives: Kitty Jospé

Just a Snap by Kitty Jospé

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unmarked country road near Piffard (Avon) NY on Summer Day

of rising blue hills beyond the fingered bones
of a dead tree
               and off to the right an old red truck perched
by a fence in the tall grasses, with its hood up, as a dirt road
climbs by to pass it.

It’s just a framed moment of a chance look—
a possible diagonal conversation between an abandoned truck
and shattered tree branches to the bottom left

               or perhaps that splintered rubble
of branches would prefer reassuring the shadow of a small unseen tree
it won’t meet the fate that felled its parent trunk.

In just a chance snap,
               opportunities to imagine what could have been,

the mind wondering if it’s fair to ascribe abandoned
to that truck, and how many heartbeats are left,
if any, to the one who drove it there.

A snap of a moment, a shot
caught in time, waiting for some
stranger kicking down the road.

 

 
—
Kitty Jospé: MA French Literature, New York University; MFA Poetry, Pacific University, OR. She embraces the joy of working with language and helping others to become good readers of poems, people and life.Her work is in 5 books, published since 2009 and numerous journals and anthologies.

Behind the Bruised Peach by Kitty Jospé

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I hold something resembling a fruit whose form
perhaps could pass as peach. We know the story:
starts as blossom, with the expectation of turning
into the honest-to-goodness jubilance of juicy
sun-ripe peach.

How to understand the truth of the matter?
It reminds me of my father’s lesson about the indelible
mark of a lie: he folded a piece of paper,
handed it back to us, saying, no matter
what you say, there is nothing you can do to get
rid of that telltale pleat. It is a hurt that will always
wear its scar—

like this rock of a fruit
bearing the marks of multiple beatings,
in a mass of fellow picked-too-soon fruits
under the sign “Fresh Peaches.”

—

Kitty Jospé, MA French Literature, New York University; MFA Poetry, Pacific University embraces the joy of working with language and helping others to become good readers of poems, people, life. Docent at the local art museum, moderator of two weekly poetry discussion groups, singer and pianist, she enjoys applying these skills in workshops on ekphrastic poetry. Her work is in 5 books, published since 2009 and numerous journals and anthologies.

Ugliness came up by Kitty Jospé

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                        in conversation  today—
a word for when things go wrong.
the daily ugly of what shouldn’t be.

All that we avoid mentioning:
ugly of shootings of innocents,
exploitation, slavery; the ugly tone
of the powerful, the ugly tone
of irrational words, self-serving
policies… All the times we answer
fine but it isn’t.  The unspoken in
Untitled. How close the word skims
you figure it out yourself, in a skinned dis-
connect.   No clue.  Not interested in you.

Let’s start with a teen-age boy.
His detention center doesn’t allow any kindness,
any touch.  But, someone volunteered to teach
a writing class where he wrote about wanting to be a bird,
fly to where he could meet summer and fall
in Honduras.  You wouldn’t call something
like that Untitled.  Nor would you call it
Today With a Dash of Yearning…
or talk about how Tomorrow will be dressed.
Whatever the title, his writing will help him
when ugliness comes up.  And now,
tell me about you. How do you cope
when ugliness comes up?

—

Kitty Jospé holds an MA in French Literature, NY University and an MFA Poetry Pacific University, OR. (2009). She has been Art Docent since 1998 at the Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY and since 2008 she has been moderating weekly poetry sessions. Her work has appeared in many journals and published in five books of her poems as well as other anthologies.