Posts for June 14, 2022

i never played with Barbie dolls
i played with paper dolls
Grown up ladies dressed in Vogue wearing big hats long white gloves dresses and suits
Models waiting to be dressed tabs tucked and cut just so to insure all the edges were in place

i played let’s have tea with imaginary friends
we’d take turns with Simon Says as we laughed drank tea and ate crumpets

i’d fold the sides around me only my eyes peeking up into the leaves of the over hanging walnut tree
and at just the right dizzy, the canvas flaps would burst open and out flew the most beautiful butterfly!

I can run it over
A million and one
Ways to make it make sense

It’s not you
It’s the echoes
Of all these
fools
Who didn’t know
How to love me

there’s nothing like
riding out
in the middle
of the night
to a vacant gas station
gather up some snacks
dressed in pajamas
with the heat
sticking to our skin
and sit
in our drive way
with the kids asleep
sharing what we found

Arrival home
From a get-a-way

Empty the mailbox
Packages for health

Financial mail
Reminders for support

Mail from two friends
One with the least gives the most

Retrieve birthday gifts
Another year gone by

Found in frig
Frozen rice, veggie mix

Simmer over stove
Season to taste

The hipster’s hunch in a clanless tartan,
his hips astride (in a formless gait of
deforméd and torpidly morbid mince)
the stammering dream of a surrogate mother
enshrouded, cast in a plastic prance.

Those coats one slips up slithering tongues
like numbly mumbling casts of lamb skin,
casts of applauded comedies arguing
less than a piecemeal peace perturbed

though more than a groping reflection
stressing a feckless perfection of futures thwarted,
futures voiceless voyeurs vex
to a leprous limp or stretch to a daring ideal skinning

the bored and bottomless chest of restive worlds
to a yawning and plodding snare,
to the brassy clash of reveille teasing
a bleary-eyed sunrise redder than grenadine,
oranger than farm-fresh eggs unfurled
on the scowling eaves of a crazing dream,
on a woken world irrepressibly preening,

worlds we purl and praise, perchance,
to perfection looming
a homecoming war dance.

over half a life
ago I was quite a thief
seeking green diamonds

often the only
number they’d find safe at third
was me still standing

swiping seventeen
pilfering poetically
catch me you cannot

perfectly draped flag hangs above
leaves of deep mauve sway in breezes
mountain dew gleams in the heavy sunlight
come, sit down a while she says
her dentured grin matching mine
bodies clinging fading to red cushions
etched in my mind as her recipe
all for me, all for me

Our little arm of the Rockcastle River was small
and just the right shallowness to drive through.
The locals did it for years–yeehaw across the creekbed
right next to the small gully where we’d swim
and wave at those who passed in their familiar cars.

Sometimes a water snake and mosquito bugs.
Once, the torso of a young buck bobbed downstream.
Both playground and portal to Jackson County,
this water baptized my grandfolk’s church–
but now it’s the site of a low-height bridge.

The full moon shines down on the quiet town

The old buildings barely standing

I think about how we use to walk from end to end

Hands intertwined, laughing like no one was around

And now here I am in the middle of the street

Alone with the fairy lights

And you’re in a bigger city,

One that would swallow this town

Where the stars cannot show their faces

Because the lights are too bright

And the night never sleeps

Run, run, run
sun hot, dust throat dry
Look, it’s the windmill
a tumbleweed spins by

first rung breached
second, easier still
wind lifts me, I climb
look up, not out, not yet

over the desert silence
between gusts, blades shake
every quarter turn, a squeak,
the whole tower sways

if I go to the peak I might see
Kentucky bluegrass, my river
my sidewalks to roller skate
Granny shaking salt on fat, warm

tomatoes in July mid-garden
where we suck the juice, let it run
down cheeks and chins till sun dries
tracks under smiles, over heart thrums

But, fickle Phoenix wind dies, windmill
blades hush, I turn my eyes full open
to Superstition Mountain, new home
sure the Lost Dutchman’s gold still sleeps