Posts for June 7, 2019 (page 2)

I keep living in the past.
I keep looking over my shoulder.
The last 5 or 10 years seem so close
like I could have that again.

But they are mere reflections
like the long dead stars
we wish upon.

There are conversations
I wish to continue
with mouths long stopped.

Too late I hold precious
the things that were before me.

I can hardly bear to see pictures of my father.
He was just here.
We just spoke.
And I see him everywhere.

Sometimes
someone with my grandfather’s voice
and even his larger than life presence
will walk into the office.
I am almost on my feet and halfway to him
before I realize.

I want to pick things up where I left them
but the lines are dead
and the deadlines have passed.

I keep looking over my shoulder
as if my life is there.
I torture myself
searching for answers that can no longer
be found.

I pine for yesterday
as today slips into the past
to be mourned tomorrow.

I saw your name in the program

My heart was complexed

Memories of smiles and laughter

Mingled with rejection

I fell for your smiles, your voice

Somehow through the pain

You still have the power to blind me to the past

I won’t walk down this road again

I know where it leads

With my heart in pieces

Alone when I need you most.

Today I used my fingernails to scrape
away the skin from my chest cracked three of
my own ribs chose the rib with the most jagg-
ed edge to deflate a lung to tear out
my young blonde heart and leave her on a plane

To recognize is not
only to give something a name
but to give it the very name
that was waiting for it
(Rae Armantrout from FUSION)

When I was six I began to think
Jimmy was not my name or at least
not my real name; some days
I imagined I was Charles The Sailor
like Mr. Cochran who’d lived next door
or Christopher The Explorer
or Peter The Saint at the pearly gates.
Jimmy had no ring to it,
no snap of adventure, no heroics

One Sunday after church my dad let me go
with him by myself to Bridge Street Donuts.
You’ve been a sad shade lately, he said. 
what’s happened to our Smiley Jimmy?
I don’t like my name, I said. Jimmy never
discovered anything or started anything.
I wish I was Daniel or Davey or Henry.

Then he drove us to the cemetery
where our family is buried and read
to me from the modest stone above his father’s
bones: JAMES JOSEPH LALLY 1873 – 1931.
The man buried here is who you are named for.
His name is your name, Dad said. He was
my father as I am yours. If he had lived
for you to know him you would be proud
to have his name. You are a lot like him.
You’ll know his voice when you hear it.
Listen to it.

old friends sitting by a pool
eating guacamole and drinking
beers and laughing because
the memories are funny
and the guac is good, not
this-is-my-house-mother’s-
recipe-from-my-semester-
in-Mexico-City good, but
still good, and the beer helps
because when doesn’t beer
help? The conversation spills
on the afternoon and silences
finally tell everyone to go
home — the host has kids who
need to get to soccer to make
friends who will one day sit
around a pool drinking
and talking on down
the line, everyone by pools
in early June eating guacamole

To me, family has always been
who you made it. It didn’t matter
if they were blood or marriage,
kindred spirit or tribe.

Family to me,
has always been the ones
who I held space for in my lives,
who held space back.

The ones you could not see
for a zillion years,
who pick right back up with you,
no beats missed.

Every day I’m grateful,
my Star and True North by my side,
old friends and newer ones around me,
but mostly, God stringing us all together.

you took me into the woods
thick humid shadows
clinging at the bottom of trees
pointed out the markers 
to find the coveted
bloodroot, ginseng, and mayflower
taught me how to dig
and leave behind something
for the next coming year 

but the ginseng is all but gone
you’ve been dead for so long
became the shade of the man 
walking with your cane 
hunting

I sure as hell 
wished you were alive
pointing out more markers
about what I’m supposed to do
but more than likely
you’d be like the rest of them
and walk out when I was reaching

the best thing about this
is that you died before 
I had to ask for you

past the window
out beyond the communal kitchen
atop the entry awning
sits a single razor blade
caked in iron oxide
aside pools that splash
with each drizzle–
who left it; furthermore
why
was it?
maybe Checkov knows

I’m amazed how
when I stand in
the shadow of the
old tobacco barn,
it still holds the
smell from years
of use. One deep
breath, and I’m
back in the field
running barefoot
with my cousins
and the barn is full,
drying out the leaves.
Waiting.
Hanging.
Seasoning.
All in due time.

In the town
By the creek
There’s a sword that’s never been touched
Not by its creator, 
Nor by the many warriors that have wielded it
It repelled itself from the grasp in all directions
In such a way
That it stayed perfectly still