Posts for June 27, 2020 (page 6)

No more open windows;
            doves call in vain
from telephone wires
            fritzed useless by
storm and progress.
I cannot hear them,
            hermetic and sealed
in this brick room, calling
at spirits who
                        refuse to answer,
long kink of telephone cord
coiled around my wrist,
            receiver a presence
weighting my palm but
unplugged from
            the wall’s dead port.
I am wireless
               or a marionette,
cordless or
            strung, echo or
the echomaker, some shout
            before the cradled phone
falls away, humless.

Taken to support the New Green Deal
and create less gas
But why use word 

when picture has?

(No picture was hosted for this poem)

I feel like I’m down in the muddy side
drinking from the river of fear
the estuary’s mouth
a space grown wide
like some red-blotched wash of negativity
All that has made me feel so heavy
Where do we go from here?

This world has enough fragments
I forgot
I am the shore
This is where the roots are
their tongues heavy with the taste of
desire
possibility
This is how the forest regenerates
Do you remember
wonder?

This is the poem that has been staring at you
I just call it a baptism
The arc of our lives
falling in 3 parts
Some things refuse to unravel
the places you have yet to go
love and memory
you can still drink from a chipped cup

~ Created/modified from lines, phrases, & titles of poems in the LEXPOMO 2019 anthology “If Only They Were Hungrier They Would Swallow Me Whole,” in order of appearance (including title): Amanda Crum, Jude Lally, Jazzy, Christina Joy, T.L. Andry, Sylvia Ahrens, Jazzy, Jennifer (Stricklett) Dobson, Madison Miller, Bianca Bargo, Christina Joy, Rachel Bollman, Rachel, J K Elias, Michelle Knickerbocker, Amanda Holt, A. E. Bryant, Larry Wheeler, Pauletta Hansel, Jazzy, Pat Owen, Shaun Taylor, Heather Dent, Madison Miller, Jay McCoy, Deat.

I would dance with the devil on the head of a pin. 

I would brush his hair.
Smooth the wrinkles from his bed.
Caress his cheeks.

If it would make your life’s journey easier, my child. 

More love and light into my eyes and out of my mouth. More love and light applied like lotion to my children’s dry elbows and jaw lines. More love and light cast out of our open doors and windows. More love and light for the neighborhood, the noonday fireworks displays, the loud engines, the strange dogs in the yard, the waves and gifted skateboards to my son. More love and light into the air to burn away viruses and sandstorms until vaccines arrive and global currents die down. More love and light toward those that feast on hate and shadows, the red-capped humpers of homogeny, the ones who belch smoke and stone walls. More love and light for everyone who needs a torch to guide them. More love and light for everyone. More love and light like a biblical flood, let it swell until it reaches the moon, let it saturate every inch of the earth, let it be the water and the Ark.

On quiet, cloudy days I breathe clean, still air and
I remember smoking cigarettes.

The last pack cost me $4.28.
They were Parliament Lights,
barely cigarettes, but boldly so by default definition.

I tapped the top against my palm
to pack the tobbacco tight.
I picked at the edge, peeled the perforated plastic,
and a tiny smile of satisfaction greeted the 
victory of a perfect cellophane strip pinched between my thin fingers.
An unspoken game I’d play.
Never kept score.
Maybe I should have?

I’d eye the white filters and select 
the lucky one (always random)
flip it upside down and save it for last. 
Then choose another, inhale the tobbacco’s sweet scent,
And with careful concern and sudden urgency,
place it gently between my lips:
Never seductive like in the movies,
or as an ex-lover once described me
(His intensity and desire still resonate).

I reached in my front pocket for my zippo
–finger-lifted from a secondhand shop–
The distinct “click” opened to a bright orange flame
And I cupped my hands around it,
to keep it safe,
to cradle the fire as if my survival depended on it
(and it did)

The paper ignited and held the heat,
A tiny act of self-immolation to keep 
this sacred ritual alive
as I selfishly killed my lungs with a slow burn,
and I enjoyed it,
The way I imagine that ex-lover would. 

GRANDDAD’S SHADOW

Better bring a light
the day has just begun.
We’ll be some miles away
before we see the sun.

Don’t forget your hoe
them weeds won’t tend themselves
and grab a pair of gloves
a layin’ on the shelves.

Mornin’s made for men
before it’s bright and warm
you gotta do the chores
if you gonna run a farm.

Better bring some string and
maybe a hook or two
we might do some fishin’
when all the work is through.

He took me by the hand and
led me to the field
he showed me of my life and
the fruit that I could yield.
He stood like an Oak
to a mere lad of ten
he taught me all I know
of morals and of men.

And, though he’s long since gone
I remember what he said
almost every night
before we went to bed.

“Always be a neighbor and
try to get some rest
then when the work is done
fishin’ at its best.

Tony Sexton

Imagination grips me on the highway
in the form of a guardrail
twisted all to hell
just after mile marker sixteen.
Did someone get clipped
and spin out of control?
Maybe they hydroplaned
on the rain-soaked road?

One of those stories was my brother
asleep at the wheel and drifting
until he rolled his car three times
somewhere in northern Kentucky.
He and his friends walked away unscathed
save for knowing the worse that could have been.
I remember the picture of my brother taken later
sitting reflective in the front seat of the wreckage.

I also remember the snowstorm
that beat me to Illinois,
the whole state an icy battle
with roads threatening constant betrayal.
The losers settled into new fights
for warmth, stuck beyond the shoulders
waiting for rescue.
I couldn’t stop rolling.

We pass cars left empty
miles from the next city or haven,
orange stickers promising removal
if no one comes to claim them.
Does anyone ever make it back
or do those vehicles remain vacant
for the rest of their existence,
their owners moving on with life?

But then there’s the occasional cross
where a loved one’s life
did not move on.
I always worry about becoming
my own cross someday.
The guardrail comes back to mind.
Did they recover? Do they still walk?
Is that mile waiting for its own cross?

These stories
are all just blinks on the open road
where trials, life events, and sorrows
once gripped a pocket of people.
Most of us just pass by them
on a measly toll of curiosity.
This mile marker sixteen
was just another mile to me.

Let your life be small.

Words from my friend
for me to flip, consider
from one side, another: 
let yourself not matter,
not have to matter,
let yourself not
hurt over mattering
or not mattering.   

See yourself—a lower case
 item in an overfull world,
not a star, a single ray
or better yet, a spark;
not a work of art, 
a bright smudge, sharp lead

It’s too late to turn back.  The empty lot, muddied
by spring rain, is slowly sucking us in.  Each step layers
more and more muck onto our shoes.  Our eight-year-old legs
are soon unable to lift up and out of the mud.  Between sobs,
and screams for help, the two of us swear to:
                                                 never take this shortcut again, ever!
                                                
We can see the shape of Nancy’s house just up the road.
The sun is sitting right on top of its roof.  Dinnertime.
Why didn’t we save some of our Dime Store candy?

Long shadows stretch out across the field.  The sun has dropped
to eye-level, its warmth in retreat.  A night chill is oozing up
from the mud.  Fear shivers our bodies, chatters our teeth.
The dark is coming.  Will we have to spend the night here?
                                                                                Sitting ducks?

On the horizon, backlit by the setting sun, a figure lurches
towards us.  Our screams strangle in our throats.  But wait.
The monster is laughing.  He calls out our names.
It’s Nancy’s dad!
His strong arms free us, one by one, from our mud shackles.
Both pairs of shoes are lost, sacrificed to the underworld.

A warm bath, hot chocolate, the comfort of light allows us
to giggle again.  But later, in my dreams, the hungry earth
swallows me.  The dark closes in.