Posts for June 13, 2020 (page 7)

Pine Mountain Cemetery XII
Doc and the Poplar Tree

Popular trees built this country. There
Is the myth that the mighty Chestnut
Wins that prize, but it had other uses.

When Doc Parks was laid to rest, crowds
Of grateful people took the hard journey
Past this one stump to witness his burying.

No wonder. Some sixty years of cutting
Us open on the kitchen table, birthin’
Babies in Granny’s bed, wound stitchin’,

Bone setting and even tight holding
When the answer was no earned his
Place in heaven and a big funeral.

Back then before kids got so important
They can even eat at first table, I got
Pushed to the back where I belonged.

Not seeing I climbed to sit on a relic,
The cemetery’s Poplar stump. Room
Enough for three big people it stood.

Rings of time marked maybe three hundred
Years and bored I counted ‘til I ran out then
Made up more to seventy eleven and past.

This tree could have built fifty houses. Top
Reached way beyond the neighbor Pines.
A target, she must have been easy to spot.

What a lot of life that tree stood over, wars,
Moonshiners, lovers, with storms enough
To fell weaker sisters growing in that grove.

Same with old doc, now sleeping in that box.
Most of the crowd alive and well because he
Never slept an easy night or finished a meal.

Doctors and Poplars might seem a pair
Contraire, it was a Poplar that showed me
Mourning that much life was our anchor.

strip –
discard symbols and other data

Show summary of options to strip.
Display all.
Treat the original as object.

Remove section, in addition to whatever.

This option may be given more than once.

using this option inappropriately
may make the output unusable.

The wildcard character * may be given at the end.

If so, any section will be removed.

Remove all,
leaving the remaining intact.

Remove all
if it would normally be stripped.

When stripping, retain names.

Note—the choice is arbitrary.

Also optional.

It does not make sense.

—
Found poem (erasure) from the Linux Man Pages
Complete text at:
https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/strip.1.html

Juneteenth 2020
(Inspired by Dan Beachy-Quick’s Variations on Dawn and Dusk)

My head cracks from the headache
my mind runs like a TV between the channels
as I sink into my meditation, the stars aligning
my deepest thoughts reflect on my deepest self

My mind runs like static
tired and weather-worn
floating gracefully on inner-deep-water
the purple petals of my mind

Tired, worn threads keeping their grip
the galaxies unfold like old fabric
looking for the Lotus
I focused my meditation

Spinning in place behind the moon
all the stars aligned
when my third eye opened
my head cracked

Surrounded by treasure,
I stare at the dragon.

Throw gold,
Juggle diamonds,
Frolick in rubies,

And wait
For the eye of Smaug to turn.

i left her in the street.

Looking out into the world we see many things,
Cities, cars, trees, buildings, you name it,
When we look at these we overlook the most beautiful of them all,
All of the rolling pastures,
Pastures filled with beautiful flowers and warm sunshine,
So next time you look out and see nothing but despair,
Think about these beautiful pastures,
And let yourself be surrounded with their radiant happiness

I have this curiosity about prison beds.
I think I might have a prison bed. 
Or maybe my blankets are just made of chainsand my sheets of shackles. 
I have too many pillows.
I say they’re for comfort but what’s comforting about the hissing tongues of cigarette smoke and cologne that you leave trapped in their cases like prison cells every time you leave me alone.
I pretend the stuffed unicorn on my bed is a security guard.
When I was younger, I would’ve said that she protects me from the monsters under my bed.
Now I look at her and realize that this false sense of security just comes from keeping the people out and keeping the monsters in.
My purple unicorn is no match to the thoughts like dragons with ridged teeth and flamethrower breath in my head
But my tongue is a phoenix.
My words are hot and dangerous.
It’s a defense mechanism if used correctly.
So what if I said my phoenix is only a baby?
Unaware of my own strength.
My words are destructive and controversial.
They start fires that burn up every relationship I’ve ever known and turn homes into ash.
As a kid, that scared me.
I was afraid of the fire and losing my home.
Well, what I thought was home anyways.
I’ve grown up since then.
I know now that the thing that my phoenix set ablaze was not a home but an empty dungeon disguised as a happy family.
It didn’t matter how many times my flame thrashed against those walls because you can’t destroy something that doesn’t exist.
Thankfully, I don’t remember everything about the dungeon.
I remember learning to differentiate between intoxication and sobriety in the late night footsteps of a troll.
I tried to understand the magic in his hands that would form weapons out of sunflower stems and toothbrushes and last night’s leftover chili.
I remember the screaming heard through hollow walls like nails on a chalkboard.
A reminder that no matter how welcoming he looked, the troll was a killer.
I remember my prison bed.
It held me the same as the one I have now only my wounds are no longer filled with alcohol and salt water but with rose petals and galaxies.

Your sober face doesn’t
fool me, having seen
your smirk, heard
your sass, you
and your suits, almost
dowdy but useful and with a twist
of chili red or lapis blue plus
ladylike scallops at the cuff. You don’t
fool me with your schoolmarm
guise.  Slightly showy, you dance
like a Sufi when you peel
your stockings. When no
one’s looking you hammer air
guitar to Metallica. O Angela, quantum
chemist, so many male,
idols in my wake; they, like walnuts,
have fallen on a soggy
lawn, while you, my chancellor, rise
like steam from beer
soup. Will we dance
deliriously in the valley
of plain women?  Wait
until midday when sunlight
salted with sparkling
dust brightens our ripened
skin?  When it warms
our forearms & floods our bright
gray eyes, will we plunge our practical
hands into oversized
handbags?  Grab our steel
framed shades and saunter straight
ahead, low-heels clicking?

“Hey, don’t get nasty” he says,
after telling me
I’m ‘surprisingly’ (to him) closed-minded
re: the private ownership of AR-15s
– on the
anniversary
of Pulse.
I hold: no one has a need to own these
weapons of war, killing machines. No one. Not
now, not ever.
“Everything
is a weapon” he insists, equating
rolls
of lifesavers, quarters, and brass knuckles, as if
that line of logic somehow will slip crowbar
inside brain,
pull loose a cobweb keeping closed the dusty chest
labeled ‘polite, demure, smiling acquiescence’
and not instead: spear a wasp’s paper-nest,
set it alight and humming.