Posts for June 24, 2020 (page 6)

I’ve finished edging our yard with bricks
found in a corner of our garage:
wavy bricks, solid bricks from the 1880s
fired by The Ohio Paving Company.

To complete the job, I’ve stolen bricks
from a construction site, digging
clay slabs lodged in the soil, among tall weeds.

Paying attention as I mined, I imagined
that I was invisible to the neighbors
and removed two bricks to carry home.

Already I’ve forgotten the empty house
–now a hole in the ground–
or how long the bricks lay there.

What I remember are the bricks,
their weight in my canvas bag, and moving
the bag from shoulder to shoulder.

You scare me with the plethora
Of bugs you bring forth when you open
Your closed fist: mud dauber, potato beetle,
The common grasshopper and the one
You say I’m most related to, The Lady Bug
I’m your four-year-old granddaughter and I like
Band-Aids all over my knee, they remind
Me of the raggedy quilts on your outside mattress
i like to say big words
I like to throw up just to see the frothy milk
I like the cruelty of smashing ants, calmly,
With a hammer in your gravel driveway
I watch them carry bits of puffed corn
To their little baby ants, then whamo.  Sometimes
I have to hit them several times and I want
To know how many times you have to die
Before you’re dead.
On clear nights we sleep outside under the stars
I can already pick out the bigger dipper
When your alarm for the space station goes off
We see its unblinking path, like a glowing bathtub
With three people washing under their arms, they
Frown down on us because they want their privacy.
I love to catch fireflies in a jar
Are these bugs like shooting stars in the grass?
Bioluminescence you say.  I take my shirt off
Smear my belly with their bellies
I want to blink on and off, on and off
I want to light up with their bioluminescence

A horse van on my suburban street,
neighbors crowded around
and sequestered in the two car garage
a menagerie of live animals:
a young camel, soft-eyed llama,
a small donkey and four or five goats,
clean and soft and ready for small hands
but the intended audience–an elderly woman
in a wheelchair, hard to surprise
after all these years, but this gift
she wouldn’t forget.

I tried to introduce myself, say I know
your daughter, who? she said.

Bleparoplasty they called it
to lift my dragging lids that
cut off vision for reading and such.
Tired of people asking “”Are you tired?”
Afterwards felt like one of those
Keane eye girls with eyes as wide
as saucers.
Felt a fake sense of awe or terror
suspended by those eyes.
Even my  dog stared at me in awe 
and distrust.
Husband said I looked fine but he would.

The innocuous astonishment lasted a 
few days till my mind absorbed my
new look and shifted my morph.

I’m watching a movie about me and see
a full confession stitched across my chest
in big block letters                
                                  you are asleep so I stop
the show and go           
                              to the bathroom, put on a
shirt to cover the truth but in the gymnasium
my muscles betray me, each shot falls short,
the ball doesn’t clear the net                    
                                                    on my knees I see
a distant golfer swing with a body I can feel
but it’s not mine                             
                              the white ball sails like a flag
flown in victory, lands with intent where it’s
meant to be on the beautiful grassy plain of
irony:           
            it’s not mine unless I can give it away           
            and when I give it away it’s not mine                      

desperate to assist
yet finding it impossible
too far away, though closer than anyone
all I want is knowing you are alright
but you won’t be today
or tomorrow
so I pray and attempt
some sort of encouraging gesture
faltering in my imperfection
and lack of articulation
yet you know I am here
and could be there
will be if you ask
maybe I should be a stronger interventionist

1.
what to write when nothing is right  

i am not in the mood for poetry
can i write essays
how’s about prose
what about silly shit
or short stories

i am at odds with myself
where i am in life
who i have become  
i feel like no one
i want to feel like

my anger and frustration
often more crippling
than the brokenness
of my bones
send me reeling
to the basement
the cellar of my soul
where i blow and blow
pretending to make music
but spit soaked notes
are the dissonance i emit

2.
how my clarinet playing sounds to my ears 

tunes tendered by one in flames
songs sung by burnt flesh
spit soaked notes vibrating sour air
high pitched screeches of death
time wasted
an effort in futility
therapy gone awry
the making of a monster
a loose drivebelt
cliched finger nails on a chalkboard  

guess i need to practice more

whereis –

locate the source
for the restrictions.

Only show the unusual.

unusual does not have just one
explicitly requested type.

whereis asks for more.

whereis searches for places.

whereis searches for Info.

whereis searches for sources.

signals the start.

whereis is using the hard paths.

whereis attempts

to use the easiest way
to find

whereis man

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

I expected a puddle
but I discovered an ocean
when I met you.

Your current shifts without warning,
But your tides are cyclical, steadfast.

You read true when a storm brews,
when a quiet day greets the horizon,
when a tectonic plate shifts,
And yet, I understand so little of you.

The depths unknown to human touch keep me guessing
because I know the deeper I dive,
the surface’s weight grows deadly,
crushing anything that ventures too far.

Life swims through you as I wade safely,
ankle-deep and unaware.

Sometimes your words become waves;
They often break gently when we disagree.
Sometimes the swells rise with might
and pummel the retreating shoreline without intent to harm.
The ocean (you) do not know their might.
I can feel the riptide pull the sand beneath my feet as the waves retreat, 
I steady myself while the water rushes back;
Gathering itself to unfold and repeat the motion in an endless loop.
You are wondrous, mysterious, and familiar.

I long to return to you.