Awaking
I love awaking with
a fully formed poem
dropping from pen to page
One August, the plums were
juicy, sweet, and bountiful.
Healthy snack for school
lunches or so I thought
till the day my daughter
said, “No more!”
At lunch a boy with
a smirk asked her,
“What’s that? Gorilla poop?
Peace
Racing engines chasing dogs barking
Purification
Birds chirp and call and crackle
Compassion
Gentle breeze caresses my shoulder
Prosperity
Dew so heavy it bends the blades
Knowledge
Words of God carried on rays creeping from the East
Peace * Purification * Compassion * Prosperity * Knowledge
Breathe me in
Settle my soul
Begin the day
Pine Mountain Cemetery XIV
The Reverend Mr. White
It being Sunday and all of us blocked
Out of our paid for and beloved pews,
My mind drifts back to The Rev. Mr. White.
Such a list of firsts, he employed me
To care for the nursery, not much more
Than a child myself. Adults back then
Gave you twelve years and then expected
You to behave as if you had some sense.
Second, he baptized me, washed me clean of
Whatever sins I had accumulated by then,
Too bad his cleansing isn’t more frequent,
Since my sins grow in number and consequence.
Third, he promoted me to church secretary. A
Grown-up job, smart enough to brag to others.
Type, file, run errands, answer phone. Perching
There in high cotton I was. Still just fifteen with
Enough money to buy precious penny loafers.
Never again would I have to wear lace-up oxfords.
Fourth, he urged me to go to Church Camp, if
There ever was a paradise on earth, that is where
You would find it. A perfect time, tears sprout in reverie.
Fifth, he sent me packing to investigate Transy,
Changed my life, grew me up, gave me a picture
Of a world I could grab and own for myself.
Sixth, he married me, on a hot day in August,
Handed my groom a handkerchief during prayer,
Getting married is hot work, he blessed it.
Saints are named at other hierarchical posts,
But resting over there, in case they miss one
Is the closest thing to a saint you might ever know.
Soft nose nudge.
Lips wrap my fingers.
Wet velvet.
Snickering,
a one-eyed gelding
takes tall clover
from my hand.
We both lean
into the fence.
I’ve eaten whole fish
Mouth agape
Eyes sunken from the oven
Told as I shred the meat away
to pluck each hair-thin rib
Carefully
I’ve eaten crab
Cracked shells with brute strength
Dug flesh out with my fingernails
Ravaged a steamed body
Senselessly
I’ve ripped apart chicken wings
Twisted the joint until knuckles popped apart
Sawed open a femur to boil out the marrow
Violently
Ravenously
Devoured.
When I’ve told people that I care for two snakes
They always mention
‘I could never feed a snake mice.
They’re already dead, right?’
And
‘Do you keep it in the fridge?
By your FOOD?”
Yes
And yes
Unlike the crabs.
Unlike the chickens.
Unlike the cow and pig and shrimp and turkey and duck and-
Unlike those whose bodies I have savaged to consume.
A snake is far more polite.
She strikes
She strangles an already lifeless body,
and waits for the quiet of death
She arranges the body in her coils
And simply
Swallows.
No blood
No bones
No sunken eyes
Knife glistening with fat
Or ribs piled to the side
I keep them in my freezer
Because they are meat.
Sleeping
Whole
Soft
Unbroken
The mice are named food
And then they are gone.
accept a connection
The accept call is used
with connection-based types.
It extracts the first connection request on the queue.
The newly created argument
is filled with communications.
The exact format is determined by family
(see the man).
when a new connection is attempted
you may accept.
saves extra calls to achieve the same result.
See the description for reasons
why this may be useful.
ERRORS
no connections are present to be accepted.
check for possibilities.
A connection has been aborted.
The call was interrupted before a valid connection arrived;
The limit has been reached.
Listening behavior differs from the canonical implementation. should always explicitly accept.
historical implementations required this, and applications are wise to include it.
There may not always be a connection waiting
the connection might have been removed
by another.
If this happens, then call for the next connection to arrive.
certain protocols require an explicit confirmation. Confirmation can be implied, and rejection can be implied.
Currently, only semantics.
—
Found poem (erasure) from the Linux Man Pages. The original text can be found at:
https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/accept.2.html
There is
One
Ubiquitous
Call I
Hearken to, to
Settle my self when
Troubled,
One who brings me back like
No one and nothing
Else can.
How long will you feel like home to me?
How long will you feel like home?
Writing in my car
not texting,
but shaping words
in my head
instead
of words
that sing–
or get tossed
upon the page–
I imagine.
I imagine,
without a page,
my words are lost
upon
the world,
so writing
this morning,
my words unfurled,
is a stone
to trip a reader
down side up.
