Posts for June 21, 2020 (page 5)

daddy’s dead  
and almost gone from my head
it takes a day like today to arouse
memories of a man i missed
when i was young
a great man in my child brain-
commander sir   ran a ship
 men in uniforms saluted him
but i didn’t know him
until he quit going off to sea
i glorified him still but i didn’t know
he liked to feel teenage girls
he felt my boobies one too many times
and i never sat on his lap after that
he never rubbed my back again
because i would let him
but my older sister
must have loved those back rubs
but then 30 years later she accused
him of being a molester  
one reason she was mind messed
she wanted him to apologize
he wouldn’t cause he didn’t remember
what she remembered but now he’s dead
been that way for quite a while
should have been dead sooner
cause he was sick and never
wanted to be a nemesis
which he was to his younger
2nd wife when it came to care
and lack of money
he was bad at investing
he taught me how to sail
he taught me plumbing
and electrical stuff
i can read a schematic drawing
thanks to him
he taught me how to train dogs 
he taught me how to obey too
and how to avoid and hide
and keep emotions inside 
and say yes sir
i don’t think of him often

Oh the pain
of squeezing
limes
by hand
after picking
wild
blackberries
all morning

“oh, she looks just like you.”
i never really understood that..
i didn’t get your eyes–
mine are blue, yours are green.
i didn’t get your hair–
yours is black, mine is purple
well…blonde.
i didn’t get your greys-
probably just got your stress.
i think maybe i got your shoulders-
sunk heavy, both with the weight of the world.
and definitely your legs-
always so much smaller
than our bodies really needed.
i thought i got your smarts
but you weren’t there to see me read.
i thought i got your strength 
but i am stronger than you are.
i thought i got your insight
but i really just got your trust issues.
i thought i got your kindness
but you only taught me guilt.
i thought i got your corrections,
but i only got the belt.
i thought i got your pain 
because you always said,
“this hurts me more than it hurts you”.
i thought i got your compassion
but it’s a lot more sinister when you say it as,
“i am the law.”
i did get your taste for violence-
and we never flinch from blood.
maybe the PTSD and OCD and paranoia
were from epegenetics.
i thought i got your love;
i only inherited fear.

BEING DAD
Two scoops
of French Vanilla
in a waffle cone
              and two tickets to an afternoon matinee.

Supper at McDonald’s
A new toy from the mall and
              a long ride home.

At the door
his mother waits
with a blank stare on her face.

I wave good-bye.
She hugs him hello and
turns off the light.
                 I drive away in darkness

Tony Sexton

I dream of sounds that burst
into words when bitten,
words like:
blintzes
risotto
arugula
bouillabaisse;
sounds we swirl
on our tongues, savoring
their complexity;
words that bubble
and boil until they thicken,
and are ready to be poured
onto the page.

I dream of sounds served
as a main course, garnished
with sprigs of metaphor,
rosettes of alliteration,
julienned enjambment;
a feast of words that beckons:
Come and partake!

Today they let the cat out of the bag
and boy is she pissed                
                                      for each meow now
she has a thousand more stored                                  
                                                          cats
never forgive a grudge, they are the
totem of karma with nine lives
to balance accounts        
                                    sometimes even
Jesus          
         can’t free you from cat jail.  

June sunrise, calling e, f, e, f, g, g 

beckons me
to write
words
upon this space

reminds
me
of a woman
I once knew

one look
from her
would take
me to this place

where words
emerge
to shape
a humble rhyme

I give myself
to poetry
and
time.

We stand at the end of the rainbow,
Or is it the beginning?

Flowers in one hand, ashes in the other. 

Mom says, 
Wait for the wind to blow just right. 

We toss you,
With the flowers, 
Off the bridge,
Into the swirling water. 

So you can swim to the end of the rainbow,
Or is it the beginning?

You’d never fail to
laugh away high school hardships
as we walked those haunted halls
in tandem, shiny pennies slipped
tight in our loafers.

Your dreams of being an architect 
shattered by your mom.
“Girls  can only be nurses or teachers.”
she ranted. You tore up your
carefully crafted blueprints.

We went our separate paths
until you asked me to be a 
bridesmaid at your nuptials.
I had to decline. It was finals
week at college.

Years later you were assigned
as my brother’s nurse. He faced
possible amputation of his
right foot. You pulled him
through. That foot survived.

Back home on a visit…my baby girl
in the grocery cart, your mom 
approached and poured out your 
suicidal ending with painstaking
details. Shock and horror filled my
cart. I wanted to muffle her words
from my baby’s ears.

i failed you.
Sorry too late.

She is like a magpie
attracted to shiny things,
a bit of foil, a lost coin,
a white button burst
from someone’s shirt.
She collects first,
sorts later:
then the light
in her eyes.

Somehow the art emerges,
the idea at the end.