Posts for 2020 (page 67)

       
Under the Quilt

The morning sun
streaks across me and
warms my face
              just enough
to rouse me from sleep.
My body still weary from restlessness
protests the waking…
              But I stretch and yawn and
              feel life begin to course through
my muscles and veins.

Age and life have worn on me
like my grandmother’s tatter quilt
                 the one that still warms me
on cold nights.

It, like me
is old and used but
still it serves its purpose.

My eyes focus
on the beams of sunshine
that fill the room
                  replacing the night cold
                  with warmth.

I throw back the quilt and
feel the mixture of
                 more cold than warm
against my body and
                 I am tempted
to pull it back and
                 let it cover me…
But I do not
I must rise up
face the day and
                 move on
like I have
all the days of my life.

Tony Sexton

Standing at the peak of my roof, hammer
and nails in hand, having secured
the ridge cap after months of freewheeling
hedonistic waving in the winds of storms,
rainwater pouring down where it does not
belong, soaking the bones that hold
the bones of my family, I look out over
the backyard and see a clear division
of earth and sky, the coffee tree canopy
making a smooth delineation against
the cloudless smoke-blue sky, like hanging
upside down over the endless ocean,
I could swim forever, up and up until
the blue goes black and then the black
goes blinding luminescence, I could
spread something like wings and never
stop spreading, I could snuggle
the earth into dream-filled sleep.

I would
never 
sleep,
if it
meant
you could
still
wake up.

Billie, portly and paint-splattered
in his wheelchair,
holds court in his warehouse gallery with the flair

of New Orleans royalty.  Ann Stewart
Anderson’s work
covers the walls.  Too feminist

for his Old South taste but finally
her first stone collage
converted him with its clever wit.
He regales me with tales

of her last days when Parkinson’s destroyed
her painting but she could still wield scissors
like a surgeon.  Billie was an actor

with his gesturing hands, aglow
in the memory of her.
On her death bed she continued

to clip and snip and arrange fabric.
Even at the very end
refusing to slow down saying

Matisse died with a paintbrush in his hand.

Funny how the most important thing for survival,
Can be the most deadly,
Funny how a source of calmness and delight,
Harbors so much fear,
Funny how something so close,
Is vastly unknown,
Water is needed to survive,
But can easily cause an untimely end,
Beaches are pristine and joyous locations,
But the depths of the ocean harbor frightening creatures,
Water surrounds our continents,
Yet we barely know about what lies at the bottom of that abyss,
Water is such a fascinating atomic mix,
Full of both wonder,
And fear

My class project was due
tomorrow
i forgot to tell my mom about it.
We were supposed to bring in
A Collection.
i didn’t have any collections
Mom thought up a Seed
Collection.
we gathered seeds from places
One does not think
to find seeds
we started in the spice 
cabinet
the colors earthy
the smells delightful
the shapes odd and unexpected 
The pantry shelf surprised
my 6 year old self
rice and beans and
peas and oats
i don’t think we even got to
the garden shed
for flower seeds
we found all we needed
and glued them
on poster board
to make a pretty pattern
and wrote the names
underneath

when i got off the bus
and ran home downhill 
my blue ribbon
fluttered in the wind

Four ballerinas
behind a fiery stage
stretching
tightened
tense
deft in the orange glow—
the graceful denouement
before the next century’s gift:
trenches, tanks, and mud.

change the times

the current time

is created empty, unless

handled specially

change the standard.

Mandatory change

access time
and use it

instead of
dereference

change
reference

—
Found poem (erasure) from Linux Man Page
Full text at https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/touch.1.html
Written by Paul Rubin, Arnold Robbins, Jim Kingdon, David MacKenzie, and Randy Smith.
 

It felt like fall.
     Blue sky, light wind, no clouds
               Sitting back to back under a tree
               
               With someone

Who wants
     nothing from you
               But to be there.