Posts for June 29, 2019 (page 7)

o’er the moonless night
we did lose another brother
to the fever. 

t’was only two weeks ago
our order was forty-seven
strong. 

young men, all–
serving God in this
isolated paradise;

ours days spent in silence
and prayer and in
simple work,
on the grounds and 
in the garden. 

first came the fever
to brother James–
he who saw to our chickens.
quickly did it spread.

to all my ill brothers did i tend,
bringing cool water to lips
that spoke evil things
in delirium.

even the abbot did
the devil take–
a demon spitting fire
from his contorted mouth
before his spirit came
to rest.

always quiet, the monastery hath been.
now, too, is she lonely.
 
i am the last alive, and
my forehead burns.

Perfection cannot be predetermined,
It is a transient phenomenon, a discreet sojourn;
It’s arrival is no more important than its departure;
Yesterday, perfection rode in on the pounding hooves of carefully bred equine,
It survived the gusting wind by holding tight to our conversations,
It presented itself as herbed butter at dinner and as yellow wild flowers along the drive home;
Yesterday happened to be perfect

Naked
in the summer
I feel
Naked
in the summer
And I 
Hate it
in the summer
When the 
Heat 
is on my flesh and the
Sun
is in my eyes
And the
glasses
That I’m 
wearing
Don’t prove much of a disguise for being
Naked
in the summer
How I
Hate it
in the summer
Feeling
Naked

To the eyes of man and God.

i want to go lay down
in the pasture field
and let the dew fall on me.
i’ll escape the reach
of the prying porch light
and flatten that pretty patch of clover
the cows haven’t found yet
with the weight of my soft body.
i want to feel the sun slink away

and the condensation come on,
nighttime air beading up on my skin
like chill bumps, like something sashayed
right over my grave.
i want to swim in the stars.
i want someone to reel me in

before i drown in the moonlight.
hold me tight and keep me here
down on the ground.

I feel sorry that some women

have to constantly talk

about what has been

done to them by certain kinds of men.

I want to give them all a hug

and tell them to quit pouring out

their heart to these shrunken beasts

and most of those guys can’t help it anyway,

they have nothing intelligent to say to you.

They think you are a ball of yarn.

They really should paw at themselves,

that is who they truly love and, most times

if you just reach up and pull on their ears,

they will sniffle and run away

to save their little pussycat hides.

Now, one or two will sneak up on you,

flare their muzzle and roar back-

leave those to us lion girls.

polaroid snap

photogenic crevices

color shadows with lips

blood rushing

leaving

Deep in Thought

I stare at my poster
of Batman and Robin,
wondering how they always
seem to save Gotham City
from whatever peril
comes their way.
The “cerulean” walls
in my bedroom are closing
in on me.  Dad enters,
gives me a hug, and tells me
I should think about doing
something nice for Missy.
I keep thinking:  what if
something were to happen
to my dad?

My body is 50% grief,
30% guilt,
20% easy rage. In the cage 
of my body 
I’ve grown restless, my spirit
attuned to the wind
and how it carries the scent of smoke
only when I’m not paying attention.

I can look down the tracks
and see the ghosts of all the women
who birthed me,
my atoms hidden in their wombs 
before the future came for them.
I can’t measure how much of myself
belongs to them; I can only count
the breaks in my voice

when the words are too hard. 
Those words say I wasn’t there to hold 
her head up,
to put her to bed or listen 
to her phantoms. They say
that when the end comes
we are always alone 
and that it can’t be quantified.

   
Our move to Broadway was delayed
by the installation of the living room’s
plush carpet
until one Friday
after school my eighth-grade brother
mounted me on his handle bars
and we flew down our new street
like a pair of screeching hawks
From the sidewalk the front door’s
beveled window with leaded glass
the arched entryway
the brick alcove
the spaciousness of the place
made me forget the little house
where I had started the day  

Soon my parents had a party befitting
their status as model-home owners
…the drifting murmur of the crowd
shot glasses clinking
occasional shouts
reached my restless upstairs sleep
but a slam of the front door
brought me down to see Dad
standing there looking at the carpet’s
scatter of beveled glass                                   
                                   Uncle Lloyd
had too much to drink he said  

My older brother took me back to bed
and told me Uncle Lloyd wouldn’t stop
using the N-word so Dad kicked him out
It took years for me to know
what the N-word meant
but I noticed the window in the door
always rattled when the wind was up