Posts for June 2, 2020 (page 9)

A hunger is growing
not just for hugs
or being close enough
to look into your eyes
or smell your hair
      but for all the spaces we used to inhabit
               together, my friends of many years     

your cat pacing our kitchenful of poems
soft light, tea and apples  

painting after painting in rooms that dance
with your spirited swirls of red, ochre, Prussian blue

the view of your wide orchard from the couch
dog at the door  

the quiet space you cleared for art-making
with fresh flowers, always  

your rich chaos of a kitchen packed to the gills
with cookbooks and crockery  

the sound of your boys playing while we talk
their art curling on the walls    

I miss the settling breaths of my clients     
      as they enter my  office.  

I miss the fullness of feeding you at my table.    
     Remember steaming stuffed shells in winter,   
     asparagus and farro and feta in summer?                

They made him keep his dog
penned in the far-back yard,
distant enough to muffle the barks.

I thought if he stopped reading comics
and watching cartoons, it would save
him, unwanted child,
his mother always watchful
of what he’d done wrong.  No
smiles, not praise for this boy.

He ran into walls for 58 years–

teen marriage and a second
marriage to a shrew echoing his spurning
mother, grapefruit-size brain tumor,
terminal lung cancer
though he never smoked–

until the funeral home driver
carred him out
in his favorite Superman tee shirt.

I am a fish.   A rather ordinary fish.  You are a lure.  A beautiful, expensive lure.  Hand tied by an expert.  Stored in your own clear plastic hard top case.  You enter the water with ease.  A sense of purpose.  Feathers spread wide,  you begin to dance.  A dance of promises.  Twisting, turning, a pirouette in the prism of sunshine.  I am hypnotized by the act itself.  You are uninhibited, free, focusing solely on this rather ordinary fish.  I am uncomfortable with this undivided attention.  This fiery focus you have for me.  I attempt to swim away.  Darting here and there.  You follow, dancing and bowing.  Sweeping past me, yet close enough for me to feel a wisp of your beauty brush me.  I am overtaken with the ache of longing.  I turn quickly and I bite.  Hard.  

Instantly, your softness becomes a spear piercing my flesh.  Extending to my soul.  Your beauty was simply a costume.  Your dance a wicked spell.  I am pulled, jerked, tossed through what remains of my life.  I fight furiously.  Eyes bulging.  Body seizing.  I am unable to free myself.  I am unable to breath.  I have entered a world that I know nothing of.  Mouth pulsing open, close, open, close.  You are still with me.  In the sunshine, wind floating through your feathers.  I can finally see that viscous hook you use.  It has impaled all that is me.  I relinquish all that I am.  I resign myself.  I am lost.  You dance.  Celebrating your exceptional skill at catching rather ordinary fish, like me.   

Spring Blooms in Frankfort

Cherry Blossoms gather on the ground
like so much April snow.
And
like the snow they will be gone
with the next strong wind.  

But for this brief moment
I stop smell the fragrance and
enjoy the view.  
Tony Sexton 

kill – terminate a process

The command kill sends the specified signal to specified groups.

The default action for this signal is to terminate.

to perform clean-up steps before terminating in an orderly fashion.

be aware that the signal cannot be caught, and does not give the target opportunity.

Most modern shells have a builtin kill command, with a usage rather similar.

The options, and the possibility to specify name are local extensions.

The list can be a mixture of names and PIDs.

When an argument is given, and it is meant to denote a group,  it will be taken as signal.

The signal may be given as a name or a number.

The value argument is sent along with the signal.

this signal can obtain data via the structure defined the usual way.

timeout will make kill wait for a period defined in milliseconds before sending follow-up signal.

Note that the operating system may reuse PIDs and may introduce a race in defined timeouts.

kill has the following exit status values:

success
failure
partial success

Although it is possible to specify the argument of kill, the signal is nevertheless directed to the entire group. In other words, it is not possible to send a signal to an explicitly selected thread in a multithreaded process.

Various shells provide kill implementation. Easiest way to ensure executing.
The kill command is part of the package and is available.

*a found poem (from Linux Man Pages)

(after Stephen Burt)

you can’t compress emptiness—
but you can fill it—
with garbage, or with flowers,
or with flour

we should take care of it—
protect its purposelessness—
save energy for activities
that have no use

if you try to use all your mind
you will use it up—
block it up, fill it up, kill it off—
the constant shift from s to z

My daughter quickened into this world-
I wanted to keep her in the womb, safe,
Like all mothers, keep her sound
In me and with me-
When I saw her first there was a rushed flood of absolute love
Then a sharp crash of panic that she would be taken from me
In some way, any way, a million ill thoughts
Resulting in insurmountable loss, taken by
Accident, taken on purpose, lost gone,
Me left torn-through, stoned, and eroded with grief that I was
Reassured would never happen-
“You have no reason to think…”

Still I was ready to let the world burn on
Any given notice, any given reason,
That meant she was away from me. 

Diagnosis: Postpartum Anxiety,
Medication, Stabilization, a chance to realize
I was just recognizing my fears as a mother,
Like all mothers,
Because our children are what we breathe.

“No reason to think” because I am white,
My husband is white, my child is white,
So much summed up in something too little,
“No reason to think” unlike “every reason to think,”
Unlike a knee to the neck, a walk down the street, 
Sleeping at home in the bed made for rest, and then
Gone- taken- murdered- any number of nightmares, 
My consuming fears an unjust reality for
Too many.

He called for his momma. He could not breathe.
We heard him, that resounding call for mom,
And now we cannot breathe, a collective of mothers
Ready to let it all turn back to dust and ash
Because without our babies there is no reason
To let the earth continue turning.

I found the Dayflower
at Whitewater Bay,
after the fire had
melted everything away

It was sitting there:
bright lavender and new,
and then it hummed
with a ghostly hue

I knelt as one does
for the dead,
and I reached out
with a slow dread

And that is when I
realized that the blue
was not left by you,
but by me,

That you are the grey
and that I am the sea—

You were nothing but a mirage,
a phantom face on an ethereal screen,
and now I know
that you were only looking for static,
with the sad girl living in an attic

I sat there for a very long time, 
listening to the waves whine,
the Dayflower by my side,
And waited to become something divine

The sea-foam swallowed me up
and I began to climb into the sky
If Sylvia could rise,
so will I.

Sitting on the couch with you
I try not to tie myself to the rack of inattention
Your ETAs & ETDs seem to be in Swahili
I make myself listen to your husky whisper
For the test is coming and my intention
To lurch forward can begin only
If I’m on the right track

Outside the vet
            sparrows nest in Es and Rs
spell another word for
                                    emergency,
beaks urgent,
            another word for screaming.
These days
            everything sounds like
sirens,
            another word for pay attention,
witness
sounds straining through
            open windows, lawn mowers or
helicopters, every night
                        anxious vigil,
every morning
                        a new death.
Another word for tired is
            so very fucking angry.
Here are these words.
            Take them,
for what they’re worth.