Posts for June 9, 2023 (page 7)

Bors hunting for Daed and Gareth

Don’t we miss a missing thing? Keen, lack
–a sparrow pecking salt into one’s wary eye. 

They bury the dead at sea
stitched in their hammock

cradling a cannonball
the final thread
through their nose

It’s the best stories
told often that stick

the one about the old lady
in the corner store
begging for crackers

Cracker?
You look like a cracker!

and the hairlipped boy
who came over the ridge
yelling, the war is oder, it’s oder!

About the shiftless
And indolent
And lazy
And feckless

Going down and down and down
deep in the chamber of contempt.

The Vitruvian Man? It must come down. 

She writes of balconies
in Bulgaria, touching  

the nose of a horse
in a film about a new country  

where she dons
a Superman T-shirt  

wielding pen
as warrior/worrier  

mother to den
of poets who gather  

when she beckons/calls
to arms voices  

who holler injustice
and seek peace/place  

uniting unlikely
fellows intent  

to lean forward
to understand accents

Perhaps he attends
preschool, but the first departure
occurs at the entrance
to kindergarten. You will

most assuredly cry,
but your child may or may not.
One child, perhaps,
will complete the entire year

selectively mute.
A great weight will fall
when he speaks
at orientation to first grade.

The second departure
occurs at the
entrance to college.
Again you will cry.

In fact, you will
cry each August until
he graduates.
Then will come a job

out-of-town or a marriage.
At this point,
you will be beyond tears.
Your OB-GYN will inform

you that your goal
is to raise children who don’t need you.
You will agree.
Still, your body will deny this.

This poet commune
fosters Hope, encouragement
for many voices.

Scream the lyrics
out the car window
let me roll it down for you
way back when.

I want to show you a differnet kind of fun.
six pre-teen girls cramped into a five-passenger
shouting Taylor Swift at the top of our lungs.
We got looks from the other cars
but we didn’t care.  

When I was ten
and thought I was the shit
I’d sing Imagine Dragons in the backseat
humming along not-so-softly to the radio.

The night I caught feelings for the first time
I screamed Bohemian Rhapsody in the dark.
Or is this just fantasy?
Call me cringe
Call me crazy
I thought I was in love.

Fourteen feels so far
yet at the same time it was yesterday
Conan Gray’s new single
I’d already listened to it 10 times
jamming in the Sam’s Club parking lot.

Walking up the hill, your arm holding me so close my steps were buoyant as we walk toward the future.
Sun and breeze over rough stalks we stop.
I hear your mind creating the vision.
Road base and curb appeal
A barn and a quilt square
A barn!!
Culverts through creek, new corners and fence, we find a hidden place to set a dream for growing corn.
The road home will hug the curve of the land like your hand on my hip
And at the end, I will find you.

Veins prominent, skin all hills and valleys, fingers gnarled  
Held babies, rolled out pie crust, picked berries
Shook with rage, raised protest signs, cast votes in every election
Sewed curtains, wove wall hangings, embossed leather
Clutched cigarettes, threw chicken necks for fun, dealt solitaire
Held a scared child’s hand, fed stray cats, wrote a master’s thesis at 50  

The hands of a woman, wife, mother, sister, friend
These hands spoke volumes and never will again