Posts for June 18, 2020 (page 6)

Pine Mountain Cemetery XVII
           Danny Ray

Soldier Boy, O Soldier Boy when will
You come home to me? Song sung so
Often it could engrave each empty stone.

Two wars filled a passel of these lots,
Brave, afraid, young, erect, crack shots
All of them signed up, marched off to fight.

He didn’t have to go, two kids, sick mom
Working the indispensable job deep
In the important, they said, coal holes.

Mountain boys were a different breed,
Check your records where you can see
Volunteers from our place numbered big.

Danny Ray,12, left school when dad
Died, manned up to do the job of care
Buried a wife and newborn. Sis and lad

Aging mom and he were all the family left.
Took it on, learned at lot, loved them two. O
It was a sight to see, but a man goes when

His country calls, duty bound he said.
Two years in, a blast and bomb, Danny
Hit, felled, in time joined the other dead.

Medals they gave, ribbons too, mother cried
Alone, after the burying and ringing taps.
Wouldn’t do to give in, bravery ran in the family.

If I was to tell every tale of them so brave who
Gave it all, we’d be here for a long sad day. Mournful
Toll of our good men now sleepin’ in their grave.

Soldier Boy, O soldier boy see us here bereft.
Come back and sing and dance a dance, drink
Of life and sit with what few of us are left.

Long ago, walking to school in St. Paul, MN,
we kids would hear an ambulance siren
and say Hail Marys to keep the victims safe.

Today protesters seeking justice are lifted
into a storm as I lounge in the basement
watching the Downton Abby marathon,

while our son views gardening videos and plays
board games with college friends in the garage,
as our astronauts arrive at the space station,

as a NYC chef feeds 275,000 people in India,
and as my husband listens to a 2018 Reds game.
Our choir has gone quiet, no need

for us to skip the tricky notes or try to sing tall.
We look for other ways to refresh our faith.

Literally in form,
Figuratively in spirit,
You David were the kindest, and the clearest,
Most earnest,
Most helpful,
Encouraging.
With a sense of humor
And a presence so much larger than life
that your body could not contain it.

“Everybody’s got something”
I say to console myself
It is no consolation 
But there is comfort
In knowing we do not struggle alone,
Even if we want to,
And I learned that from you
Literally in form,
Figuratively in spirit.

there is a code of silence 
covering my confessions.
i’ve always been too afraid
to just tell the truth.
i have a deal struck
between the devil and myself
where he’ll
keep my confidence 
and in return
the quiet can keep hurting me.

You deserve so much in life,
You deserve better than what I can give,
You deserve better than this,
You’ll never know how lonely you are,
Until everyone around you pushes you away with this word,
Deserve,
I deserve so much better than them,
I deserve so much better than what I have,
I deserve so much more than what I have,
I’m never told what I deserve,
Apparently I don’t deserve the friends I’ve chosen,
Apparently I don’t deserve the life I’ve chosen,
Apparently I don’t deserve the person I love,
I don’t belong in the life I’ve chosen,
I don’t belong in the life I deserve,
I stand alone apart from the life I’ve chosen,
I stand alone apart from the life I deserve.

Double-thick curtains drawn tight. The swish and flow of linen and lace. I peek through the long slash of light. “Do you think he knows we’re here?” my sister Kate whispers. “Don’t fret,” I reassure. “He’s already down by the boxcars.”  Mama started it by fixing him a tuna club with two pecan sandies. My sister thought he broke out of the state penitentiary. She made me double-bolt the front and back doors and the first-floor windows. Kate would chant: “Go away Jimmy Joe, shoo. Jump into that caboose ‘til it goes choo.”

Scary southern nights
Like haints railcars scramble by
Hoot owls and gunshots

I thought of him as St. Francis, tattered and cracked but in a good way. His incoherent mumbling was a code from the undercover angels. A cold front blew the day he disappeared for good. Six inches of snow and 5 degrees above zero in west Tennessee was a once in a generation event. I felt a crushing sensation inside my chest like a steam shovel hitting bedrock. I heard the news on the portable Silvertone. They found him frozen on the north shore of the Cumberland in a threadbare Woody Woodpecker sleeping bag, clenching the last hunk of a tuna and dill on rye in his ice-covered fist.

What is the end like?
Hot, frozen, or like drowning?
Can I bring the snow?

In my room, the stars are but dreams;
Black flowers dance along the walls.
Black limbs form upon the floor,
As the moon seems create life.
Gods eye,
Looking down upon a dead world.
The stars are, to me, dreams;
Propelled upon my ceiling.
As the air is filled with static electricity,
I cannot help but wonder at my trick.
To create light from nothingness,
Though completely unseen.
If Gods eye hovers above,
What trick limits us so?
Are the stars any less real,
Than the ceiling they rest upon?
The memory so strong, that every face is recalled in dreams.
But in all of this creation and wonder,
I find myself more often being gone.

Forgive me, father, for I have sinned.
It’s been 97 days since my last confession.
                           
                        (- confession, +poem;
                         – 97 days, + five minutes)

It started innocently enough:  All month,
I’ve written poems about
                                                    (and used the word too frequently)
Dreams.  So I wanted
to shake it up, you know?  Be less
predictable, more
tangible.  Preempt the muse
                                                     (so to speak).
I began:

             ***  ***   *** 
           
                 Let’s Do it in Reverse

                         “I shook the softening chalk of my bones…”
                                                              –      Theodore Roethke

                Instead of chasing dreams, tonight,
                                 let’s try something new—

                Let’s gather chalk
                                 of our bones—

                relax the lines,
                lay out our curves
                on the ground…
                                                     (hard stop, here)

             ***  ***   *** 

at which point, as is my nature,
from time to time, I stopped
to read, and to judge, and to edit
what I had, so far. 

            Praise Jesus and pass the jelly!
                                                                   *cough*
            I mean, thank goodness I did.

Roethke stared at me in shock.
My spirit guides burst into laughter.
The Muse was…more than amused.

Freud, my dear old Freud, just crossed his arms
            with a knowing smirk. 

And I decided, right then and there,
perhaps it was time to close the laptop
and get some sleep 

                                    (or at least hide my phone)

The sea rose up to leap and buck like a frothing beast, 

spraying her cold spittle across the deck 

and crashing her arms to sweep it clean.

Men scrambled to keep themselves secured, 

to open hatches 

and close them again.

Someone screamed. 

A shrill, helpless noise 

and I turned away from the rail 

my fingers ached from clutching, 

turned my head to the sliver of sea still visible beyond a rattling doorway.

Mountains of water rose up, 

peaks climbing in gut-wrenching heaves

taller and deeper than snow-teeth spires.
The ship perched aloft on a roaring crest, 

wind screaming and snapping 

across every plank and tied-shut sail. 

I stared past the stinging spray 

To a yellow light pulsing like a heartbeat

folded inside a mountainous wave. 

My ears roared with the sound of my heartbeat,

and the world seemed silent in comparison. 

Like sparks igniting across wool, 

yellow pulses bled outward 

across something huge, 

veining and outlining the shape of vast wings that encircled the horizon. 

They pulled apart, 

and the water sucked downward in their absence. 

I felt my stomach drop as the ship dropped into the chasm left behind. 

hands gripping impossibly tighter, 

screams rising up around me as the ship plummeted. 

I saw

a golden head churning up out of the sea, 

water sluicing off
an avian face
whipped with jagged, star-bright scars
Bleeding light out between each feather. 

And harsh golden rays cast razor-edged shadows

behind every splinter and pore. 

The air split with thunder as its wings 

spread up 

to fill the sky.

 I could feel it vibrating the wood beneath my fingers, 

Could feel it in my clenched jaw,

halfway to gagging as it

thrummed 

through my lungs. 

The bird’s bright light-veins suddenly sucked 

up and inward, 

flowing into its brow. 

Between one breath and the next, the world went black. 

The sky was a void of 

dark rain and

Darker wind 

Then, the eye opened. 

There was a half-breath 

and in it I could see two suns waking.

see each feathery lash, 

see sparks and oozing gold bubbling down its cheeks like molten metal,

like living hands reaching out for freedom. 

All at once, thick ropes of lightning lanced out.

 A black shadow of wings was cast across the clouds above. 

Fingers of light flashed, 

illuminating the silhouetted shapes of 

whales below and and 

pinpricks of fish schools, 

Jagged energy branching out and out

 in an endless net of light and heat 

and a whip-crack so sharp that

my bones 

sang

Give me that America from the painted postcards with the husband 
unable to say he loves me, then the dog, house, the job, car, the boat, 
three kids, the two MDs for Rx shopping, and a history of bottles 
in a trunk, cabinet, and pantry.

Give me a lover who calls at noon, and the honest cracks in his 
laughter, and his inky dreams, bring him at his very best.

I’m attracted to the frank, peering thrills of your lips, my dear.

Today, I’m floating back-a time as if undressed in my white gown 
thrown over my head that he didn’t take time to unclasp or untie, 
it wasn’t worth the wait.

The first time my body hit a bed with the weight of a man.
      Who else will there be, I thought almost immediately
                                                       running from the lonely.

Give me Norman Rockwell, Bob Ross, and Fred Rogers
to mix my truth with the American Dream ™