a daughter is a rose
after a poem by Francisco X. Alcaron, “A Poet Is A River”
a daughter is a rose
opening closing
she comes she goes
imitating
the sun
she rises she sets
she lights the world
she laughs
she climbs mountains
of attitude
always leaving
always coming home
A daughter is
the voice of love
she speaks
to the wind
sings an aria to
the night
A daughter
becomes
a mountain
inside a heart
a soul inside
a mountain
she rises toward
the light
We all watched as you painted yourself in a corner
You wore my clothes to work
And now I’m wearing the dress
of last night’s skin you shed, and left
on my living room floor this morning
When I talk about us
I always end up saying again, again
Because I’ve met my living proof of
those ride or die friends
people are always talking about
It’s really just been one sweaty,
rain-soaked, blanket-clad, beer sticky
sweeping embrace
standing on a porch, shouting in a thunderstorm,
hiding out on the couch
What do you call the opposite
of a fair-weather friend?
We’re the daily shit storm forecast
Brought to you by: mutual existential dread
a fierce loyalty, and a splash
of the ole razzle-dazzle
Tonight you locked my door behind you
with the key you’ve saved me with twice
I go to bed without checking
thinking maybe it’s just about practice
in reaching out and holding on.
That word
The MVP of so many great pop songs
It caputres the freewheeling immediacy
Inhibition and mystique
That a good high will provide
Or at least the promise of one
For three and a half minutes
The world turns its collective attention
To you
Screaming into the void
Bleachers line the shoulders
In the highways of your mind
As you recklessly speed by
Bathed in the humid neon glow
Of a perfect summer eve
Some feel the need to tack the word
“Guilty”
Onto their pleasure, feeling unclean
Well, I feel bad for you son
I’ve got 99 problems
But tomorrow ain’t one
Called Back against my will to face
Facts of who I was and now not am.
Accusing kin with forgiveness smiles
Clucked behind weathered hands.
The prodigal returned, after the burying.
Little Jake told me the story I missed
With the blow out and rock slide on the
Old road to where I didn’t’t want to go.
The telling honest as the child himself.
“Mama kept us more or less off to ourselves,
But that day somebody was in a long gray box in the front room.
That was why ever’body I know and most I don’t crowded
The porch as if we were having a big old shiveree.
The women kept pulling handkershiefs from their sleeves
And taking a swipe at every kid who came too near.
No one had caught me yet, onec’t Aunt Sudie come close.
The guns were leaning aginst the maple tree, just a sapling.
Since I was running from Sudie that tree looked like a hidin’
Place with its pinwheel of rifles and a bit of shade.
As I was ducking behind the carbines, I kicked a forty ought
And the blast scattered buckshot right at the chicken house.
No one ran that distance from the porch to me faster than mama,
Yelling and grabbing and swinging. I might of died right there,
But Uncle Ray grabbed me and Granny grabbed mama.
‘Boy, there’s been enough guns lately. Get in the house
And set with your pappy. You’ll never see him again.’
I felt Popaw fall to pieces like a china cup had dropped
On a rock. I hate porches and kin and that long gray box.”
I reached to comfort him but he darted away
Aiming to hide in in the dark barn, his sanctuary.
Wonder if there is room for two?
K. Bruce Florence
Would you ask a violinist “how much do you practice?”
or a ballerina about her grueling daily dance routine?
Everybody writes. The poet writes like she prays, with passion.
Athena emerged fully-grown from the head of Zeus.
She saw everything and knew everything.
To be born, the writer enters a state of curiosity,
waiting for the moment when
the poem opens up and tells her
what it wants to be about.
No thrills of discovery for the goddess.
Miles Davis said, my future
starts when I wake up every morning.
One more journey,
my failsafe illusion;
if she hurts me
you and I will be ready.
Another star
to drag the night,
one more prodigal
return to safety.
Will you see me
and set preparations,
fatter calf
communion feast?
Just believe
poor man’s redemption,
designed for death
of already dead soul.
Passing trees
amid the hot concrete
going 75+:
Air is hot, humid
My lungs fill with cicadas
its that time now.
Every year when they come,
I remember my sister
Innocence has been lost
since they last
descended.
I’ve kept this bubbly
I’ve kept it bright
Do not want to go
Where there is no light
They make me sad, those dreadful places
Unrequited love – moons without faces
See, one can deal with ‘fluffy’ for so long
Then the gargoyles start to sing me their song
“Come hither, come hither, you lack luster fool
grab a hammer a shovel or some kind of tool
and dig yourself out of the spot you got in
you might need a beer or a bottle of gin”
Stop trying to go back to a time most forgot
Best left unopened, that door that you locked
That you brushed against it, is not questioned here
the dark evil place void of light and all cheer
It was an accident – you don’t want the past
Keep that door shut – run away very fast
Why did you even want to go there?
It’s scary, it’s evil – there’s no one to care
They wait for you – those gargoyles that drool
They want you back – their delight is in cruel
Write down your thoughts, your feelings your fears
Don’t try to relieve them – that puts you back years
Do not uncover those times that were raw
You’re not the same person – No, not at all.
Let your deepness within, come out with a pen
You lived it all once – don’t go there again!
