Posts for June 4, 2022 (page 9)

I am bone-marrow tired,
And fresh out of breath,
From attempting to
Anticipate, incorparate, navigate, 
And acclimate
To our revamped reality.  

Selfies in rapid succession
The constant need for self-expression
Swipe left, swipe right for true lust
In the power of likes we trust
Every mundane thought shared
No detail can be spared    
Daily posts, stories, reels
Revealing deepest feels
Filtered and curated
Every flaw obliterated
Trigger warning required
Cancel culture, you’re fired

No longer beings, but a brand
I no longer care to understand,

Besides…  
My relevancy is risidual
Participation just habitual 
 
So, I think  
I’ll just pour a stiff drink,
Unfold a rusty lawn lounger,
Settle in on the grass,
And watch this parade pass.  

Without taking a single photo. 

Please, feel free
To throw me
Candy
And a disgusted sigh,
As you march by.

a, b, and c met for lunch. a selected the half salad/half sandwich, b the half soup/half sandwich, and c the half soup/half salad. 

“I’m half full,” said a. 

“I’m half hungry,” said b.

“I’m neither full nor hungry,” said c.

By dinner they were each fully hungry. 

My supposed fragility
was stamped on me when
I was pushed from my mother.
Did I look fragile?
Wailing with virgin lungs,
bloody without being cut?
Did my flailing body 
and strong grip 
interfere with your vision of how
easily breakable I was to be?
But then I was
washed and soothed,
and I slept,
as fragile as 
the pink paper F 
pinned to my crib. 

Mandarin orange juice
quenches summer’s heated thirst
drips at lips’ corners

(Camping with my grandson:
An archery lesson)

After a bout of your impatience
we snuggle down in the tent
and I say
anger is like a bow with one arrow,
let it go and listen to the whiz
of its force. The point of its power
can race into the sky
and, bent by its own gravity,
boomerang 
and pierce your heart with anguish

Before any crack of dawn
I awaken you from a fitful dream
to watch the sky’s great hunter 
go to bed. In a scuffled voice
you tell me about your sleeping self:
I was in the woods
and there was William Tell
staggering around and hollering
at me to stand in front of the big oak.
I pressed my face against its bark
then turned and when I saw
the feather fly,
I saw that William Tell was me 

We’re not just here to add flavor, 
but to open their eyes
that there’s more to life. 
Not only are we pampered with
the fruits of the Earth;
what’s been sown by our father’s, 
what’s been lost and dropped by fallen brothers.
It’s not coincidence, yet; furthermore, 
it’s all coincidentally a miracle.
So stand up, 
as a light does not shine as bright from the floor.
Rise above the bottom line, and for the sake of love,
share your shine. 

I watch from the regionale—afternoon train
From Lucca. It hugs the Serchio River,
Whose path carved centuries-long through hills
Where summits sport crowns of castles,
Home to feudal lords. Their memory marks my story
Of builders, architects from a medieval family.

The windows show me specters of my family:
They traveled this way on other trains
Before two wars, before I joined their story.
We share what hasn’t changed: the river,
This valley, towns tumbled from high castles,
And the embrace—green and immortal—of hills.  

My first time here, this river, these hills
Mirrored the place that found my family
As immigrants, tenements replacing castles,
Brought from Ellis Island on trains
To find seven hills along another river,
The womb that birthed new stories  

In a strange tongue: I heard stories
Of the sheep my Nonna had tended on the hill
Below the stone house far from the river.
She kept the memory of the family,
A brother with the partigiani, trained
To foil the enemy, lodged in castles,  

Dug in along the Gothic Line, its castles—
Housing snipers, stuff of stories
Penned by Ernie Pyle; guns trained
On Allies inching up the muddy hills.
On one hill, a traitor, as told in the family,
Betrayed her brother. His ghost haunts the River  

Lima, where the Bridge of Chains spans that river
And the gravestone bears his image by the castle-
Church in Fornoli. He rests there with family
Laid in rows, stones silent with stories
In the light of setting sun beyond the hills
As I step down from the departing train.

Ballistics indicate

           red bells swaying low         
      nodding native columbine                   
           kisses the lamb’s-ear     

in heated debate
over self-defense,
hunting,
and automatic weapons,

then a question
stills the room;
actually quiets
both sides.

Would our Founding Fathers have written
the same Constitution
if they knew Uzis would exist?