Posts for 2020 (page 72)

I love you
with a painful kind
of love,
an ache that resonates
like a finger passing over an
old scar-
the flesh is numb, 
and the memory sears.

I love you 
with a forgiving kind 
of love,
knotted tightly in my stomach,
making it impossible to relax in your presence,
like a punch
in the gut –
the flesh throbs
and the memory wounds.

I love you
with a sad kind 
of love,
a permanent mourning,
like someone grieving,
forever trapped in a 
funeral home – 
the flesh wears black cloth,
and the memory darkens.

I love you, Dad,
with a complicated kind
of love.

But
I’ll take it.

to label children in schools

to label people on health documents

to label people on job applications

to label people?

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?