Melissa Balmain

July 19, 2022

“Caught in the Webb” by Melissa BalmainPosted by

Melissa Balmain

CAUGHT IN THE WEBB

If you held a grain of sand up to the sky at arm’s length, that tiny speck is the size of Webb’s view in this image. Imagine—galaxies galore within a grain …
—NASA Webb Telescope’s Twitter account

My morning newsfeed teems with shots of space—
bright slopes and swirls of russet and vermilion
that shelter hidden planets by the billion.
Soon, soon my puny brain will try to face
the likelihood that everything I do
is just a blip of no more real importance
than goings-on atop that speck of Horton’s
in Dr. Seuss’s book; that I’m a Who,
and there’s no god who gives a flip for me
or anybody else as we’re revolving
among the other galaxies that hurtle,
all dreaming, planning, acting pointlessly.
Soon, soon I’ll face this—once I finish solving
(ta-da! I did it!) Spelling Bee and Wordle.
 

—from Poets Respond
July 19, 2022

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Melissa Balmain: “Yep, this was me the morning the Webb photos came out. Fun fact: taken together, that day’s Spelling Bee pangram and Wordle solution formed the phrase NIGHT ALCHEMY. Mere coincidence? Or proof that a higher power does, after all, care about our tiny pursuits? Discuss amongst yourselves …” (web)

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January 10, 2022

“On Looking at an MRI Cross-Section” by Melissa BalmainPosted by

Melissa Balmain

ON LOOKING AT AN MRI CROSS-SECTION

actual photo below

Inside my head, I learn, a horseshoe crab
stares heavenward with jumbo-olive eyes
(the pitted kind), each in an ice cream cone
webbed like a goose’s foot. Between them flies
bright looping wire. 
And past each ice cream cone, a marbled slab
of glossy, skinless chicken-off-the-bone
spreads like a wing. Behind the meat and flab?
A gown for those who like their skirts outsize
and half on fire.

So this is it: from fruit to flaming dress
hums every memory I’ve kept since birth—
each love and hate, each lesson I’ve been taught
and not ejected,
each town, cafe, or weedy patch of earth,
each brilliant scheme or idiotic thought.
In other words, it’s just the sort of mess
I’d have expected.

eBalmainBrain

—from Rattle #74, Winter 2021

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Melissa Balmain: “After the shock of peering inside my skull, my need to write felt almost medical. Finding words for what I’d seen, and a poetic form to suit it, somehow helped me cope with the bizarreness of it all. As for the fact that the freaky object in the photo wrote the poem? Or that the ‘I’ that realized this fact is also the freaky object? I’m still wrapping my freaky object around both of those.” (web)

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February 9, 2021

“Spinach Can Send Emails Now, and Twitter Is in Disbeleaf” by Melissa BalmainPosted by

Melissa Balmain

“SPINACH CAN SEND EMAILS NOW, AND TWITTER IS IN DISBELEAF”

—Today

Why so surprised, folks, that I’m sending mail?
I’m spinach, not some turnip! I’m a super!
While you’re obsessing over wombat poop or
Bernie memes, I focus without fail
on deeper stuff. I burrow down, alert
to hidden poison. I’m the real green party.
No activist, not even a big smarty,
is more equipped to dish the eco-dirt.
It’s nice I’ve reached some scientific ears,
but give me yours as well, the Twittersphere’s—
at last my grassroots network must be heard!
And after I receive your due attention,
and you cut back your silly condescension,
the kale and Brussels sprouts would like a word.

—from Poets Respond
February 9, 2021

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Melissa Balmain: “This week we learned that MIT scientists are using spinach—whose roots sense chemical traces—to trigger emails on underground levels of compounds used in explosives. ‘Professor Michael Strano, who led the research … said that the process could also be used to warn scientists about pollution and environmental changes since plants are constantly absorbing a ‘vast amount of data’ from their surroundings,” according to an article in Today.” (web)

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July 15, 2018

“Marooned” by Melissa BalmainPosted by

Melissa Balmain

MAROONED

Nothing moves us like a person stuck—
a toddler in a well, a stranded scout:
we gather at our screens and pray for luck.

Will storms bypass the climbers? Run amok?
Will all those boaters perish like beached trout?
Nothing moves us like a person stuck,

a coach trapped with his soccer team, their pluck
despite the odds, the rising tide of doubt;
we mourn a diver who ran out of luck

and hold our breath while others roll and tuck
through limestone passages to get them out.
Nothing moves us like a person stuck—

except for seeing (teary, thunderstruck)
the things we’ve longed for finally come about:
rescues soaked in undiluted luck.

And then we’re back to making our next buck,
to swimming after consequence and clout.
Nothing moves us. Like a person stuck,
we peer from caves of bone and pray for luck.

—from Poets Respond
July 15, 2018

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Melissa Balmain: “Like many who rejoiced this week at the Wild Boars’ rescue in Thailand, I love how such stories unite us—and wish the unity would last.” (web)

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December 25, 2017

“Seasons Tweetings” by Melissa BalmainPosted by

Melissa Balmain

SEASONS TWEETINGS

to the tune of “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day“

I heard the buzz on Christmas Day—
A Twitter storm was underway.
Alarmed and peeved, our prez believed
He had important things to say:

Don’t hesitate! Don’t think! Don’t pause!
The time has come for major laws
To regulate a guy I hate:
The loser known as Santa Claus.

He cuddles little girls and boys,
with promises of sweets or toys.
That perv appalls! (Just southern pols
Deserve to have their sicko joys.)

He’s not in NAFTA, yet exports
Dolls, teddy bears and cocoa—quarts—
Untaxed! (Such breaks are huge mistakes
Except for mega-wealthy sorts.)

But wait: there’s more. I’ve heard some hints
He makes illegal “peppermints,”
Then sneaks them here inside his deer—
undocumented immigrants!

It’s time to fund another wall
A couple thousand miles tall
And just as deep to keep this creep
From coming to your local mall.

(What if he still gets in? Of course
We’ll need to take him down by force.
And then—you know, Guantánamo.
We can’t show Reindeer Man remorse.)

It’s true, some idiots insist
that Santa Claus does not exist,
and I’m a nut for griping—but
I want him on the No-Fly List!

—from Poets Respond
December 25, 2017

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Melissa Balmain: “Pompous notes don’t pair well with parodies, but I can’t resist mentioning that the song behind this spoof (originally a poem written by Longfellow in 1863) reflects the strangeness of Christmastime in a country at war with itself.” (web)

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