Posts for June 18, 2015

I wish this could be the last shooting we discuss over breakfast.

I wish this could be the last time I ask, “How many?” followed by “Were there any kids?” and hold my breath for the answer.

I wish this could be the last time I wait for the answer to the question I don’t ask aloud: the shooter’s race? and the victims’?

I wish this could be the last time (this, the fourteenth time) I listen to the president convey his sorrow for our nation.

I wish this could be the last time I hear people jump to the defense of the weapons that killed these people before their bodies are even in the ground.

I wish.

I wish.

I wish.

Scents furnish ghosts.

I smell the sea but hear no roar.
I smell the sand but feel no grit. 

Alone, I mourn the lover lost, the man
who hears the roar and feels the grit.
I cannot see his face or taste
the salty pleasure of his skin,
but scents, scents evoke memories,
unbidden and unwelcome.

I smell the sea but hear no roar, no roar.
I smell the sand but feel no grit, no grit.

Mary Allen

Outside the high school doors
there is a grandfather under a safari hat
whose tired legs attempt 
criss-cross applesauce
but don’t make it all the way,
and whose left hand digs
through a hitchhiker’s backpack,
placing comic books on the sidewalk.
His right hand arranges columns
like a solitaire game of
Astroboy,
The Sandman,
and Tintin in the Congo.

The grandfather’s lips are curled
like he is trying to hide a smile
as evil-eyed 15 year-olds cast
long stares at him.
They continue on
down the sidewalk
and resume conversations about
his work at the pool,
her week at law camp,
a texts she keeps receiving from
an unwanted suitor,
and they tell themselves they’ll never
be like him 
when they are
older.

a woman sitting alone
on the back porch
of a dive bar

tries to catch smoke
rings with her loneliest

finger

a dying woman dances
in a resurrected fountain

with the carelessness of a child
that hasn’t been taught how

to fear

I come in from the garden, dirty

hands, feet, hair and sit

in the leather chair

blades whirl above my head.

I have no idea what time it is.

I have been shoveling, planting, running

from rain

for hours.

The sun is still sunny but

softening.

I have no idea what time it is.

My laptop is nearby closed.  I would 

look at the time if it were open.  I don’t.

There are no clocks around me.  The television

is off.  No time there.

My phone is somewhere,

silent.

Chair arms rest mine.

Fan-made wind cools my burnt face.

I have no idea what time it is.

I want to do this again.

She doesn’t have to worry
now. It really doesn’t matter
how drunk he gets,
who warms him at night when
he’s far away. She knows
who he’s coming home to
in the end
so it’s all right
now.
Just watch out, buddy,
she thinks. She says in her head,
Be careful, ring wearer,
when the kids come.

Poem 18, June 18

Night before last

Night before last I dreamed about you.

Three times I dream the same dream.

You are somewhere I do not recognize.

You are not in Savannah

unless you are in the apartment on base.

You are not in Columbia-

not in any house I know.

You are alone.

That is the strange part.

Your silence strikes me dumb.

I have a bird’s eye view of you

in each separate dream, the theme,

one of you as you read & agonize.

Confused, I see you are in a cabana

by the ocean & I see your face.

I realize you are out of your cumbia.

I see Old Seventy Creek in the flow

of tears you cry. They cut me to the bone;

they shred my very heart.

I feel a sudden chill of death; I go numb.

moon green
she blooms wide wings
neon
like a ghost moth
glittering midnight