Posts for June 14, 2017 (page 5)

Sweet, strong, melodious
Barbara Streisand and Bette Midler
beckon ears to listen
Ears gladly oblige

Rich, sassy, confident
Aretha Franklin and Etta James
command ears to hear
Ears shamelessly opt in

My voice, unlike theirs
(though I wish it were)
can’t plead with pitch
demand respect with sassy notes
or croon emotions with soul

And yet

Tender, harmonious, focused–
my voice, all my own
which my daughters usually neither
hear nor appreciate my effort

I sing anyway

I sing in hopes of reaching their core
their inner voice
in hopes of teaching and encouraging them
to sing courageously 
to sing with integrity

Unique, youthful, striving
may each daughter sing 
the song only they can.

                          College Team on the Plane

Bright smiles and joking,
the air around them crackles,
forearms muscular,
veins protruding
faded jeans hardly
contain what bulges beneath.

With the ease of a hook shot,
each tosses
a canvas bag in the overhead.

Athletic strides–
all coiled power.
The military can’t wait
to have them sign
on the dotted line.

Fodder for our foes.

dear bill

like a child finding her feet 
memory alone is awake with me
this body an improbable hickory
I listen to the promises it makes

fondly,
melva sue

dear melva sue

there are spirits that come back to us
bees taking off and returning they are
gone they are gone but we go on
all fed from the same fields of clover 

all good thing to you
bill

with gratitude for and apologies to (if they are needed)  to both Merwin and Priddy

Perhaps one must be hurt
To be a poet
It seems like it
Many here should maybe
put down the pen
meet
and give each other some

Secretly I wonder
How many are hiding

This ardor is wasted on us
who find emotion and sex incongruent
who have enjoyed or suffered hundreds
genders random, names forgotten 
or never known

So many have chosen 
To have their lives “destroyed”
Who hold grudges instead 
of just touching again

Did you think that union was real?
Stop kidding yourself
Even if you murdered them in jealous rage
and killed yourself in remorseful sorrow
You died alone

THE GIFT

There’s a revelation coming.
You can feel it crawling
up your spine
through your mind
toward consciousness, and your
heart beats faster as you
wait and anticipate what
it will tell you,
what truth it might in sonorous
speech reveal.

They say that no matter how good-looking she is
somewhere there’s a guy who’s tired of her shit.
And so it was with me and my Jeep: after fifteen
years, a transmission, three radiators ( she had an
antifreeze habit no one knew about) we broke up.

My neighbor’s son had a thing for older women
and despite my reservations, I let him take her
home. Whenever he’d come over to visit his dad
I’d get the kind of twinge I imagine people have
when their ex moves in with someone they know.

It’s been a couple years and since the kid
is having fun with her I don’t feel too bad
about the five grand. I no longer worry that
as he learns all her secrets she might tell
him some of mine as well.  She’s holding up
nicely and seeing them together I get
why I fell for her all those years ago.

Brew of hazelnut coffee, cinnamon scent

of raisin-bread toast flavor my kitchen.  Curled

fuzz of cat snoozes on the couch.  My husband

still drifts amidst his dreams.  Dawn sprinkles

the sunroom with saffron light.

I unwrap the quiet like the gift it is; lift out

words tucked beneath the tissue paper.

we could kiss and go
our seperate ways,
no attraction, no attachment
except for the soft stench of sex
between our flesh and a single
strand of spit dangling
in bitter baptism
between our lips…

but, my love,
i like a good spit: so…
why would i waste one
on the likes of you?

I think I love you
most, your eyes, occluding clouds
alight from within