Posts for June 13, 2023 (page 6)

After things do not go well with the drummer,
I accept an invitation to shoot clays with Quail Forever.

After my online match misfires his smooching goals,
I fire a shell with no powder through my shotgun.

After such an exciting flurry of texts in the bumble app,
he fails to check his barrel and simply shoots again.

After an amazing home made strawberry soda,
his tone widens at the point of my obstruction.

After a firm boundary is clearly crossed,
not even a calm word will stop his expansion. 

If we could
collapse your body
with the monotony
of thousands of years
the wealthy would turn
your spirit 
into fuel for their Ferraris.

Long does not go wrong.
It can grow into a song;
Straight or curly waves.

I remember being nine,
And my mother damn near beat me black and blue
For physically self harming.

I remember being eleven,
And my mother tried to put me in the foster care system
After I disagreed with her over something.

I remember being thirteen,
And my mother telling me that,
In my case,
Suicide was the best option.

I remember being sixteen,
And my mother abandoned me for two weeks
Because she couldn’t stand to look at me anymore.

I remember being eighteen,
And my mother chased me out to my car,
Threatening to kill me.

I remember being nineteen,
And my mother admitted that she 
Knew
I’d been sexually abused.

I remember being twenty-one,
And my mother told me that I
Deserved
To be sexually abused throughout my youth.

After all of this,
I have still tried to make amends.

Amends that she repeatedly rips to shreds.

There’s a place in the garden
where I hold all my tea parties
with the Hare and the Hatter and the Dormouse,
with miniature teapots and saucers and cups
and biscuits with butter cream filling.  

There’s a place in the garden with an empty chair.
The Rabbit, the Dormouse and the Hatter are there
but I’m missing the one who made everything fun
with her laughter and silliness in the sun. 

We wore hats from the Hatter,
we told time with the Hare,
and the Dormouse in his cups did not care.  

Has enough time gone by that you’d join me again?
Have enough moments passed that you’ll forgive in the end?
Have we pouted and sweated and cussed
to show that we’ve finally suffered enough?  

after Anne R. Allen

I

This poem is a work of fiction. Any similarities
between this poem and the lives of persons
real or otherwise is purely coincidental.

II

Shall I draw lofty analogies between thee
and something that falls
just short of your transcendent quality?

Naw, Ima riff on the feels.

III

In sleep a vision came to me
and it went like this:

IV

It was a dark and stormy night, lights
aflicker, house atremble, ozone in the air
and iron on the tongue to feed
the prickle of gooseflesh

V

Alone I wandered amid my thoughts, wondering
and exploring my interior landscape.

VI

Peculiar child, prone to daydreaming
and embarrassment and occasional
bullying – pretend it’s happening
to someone else.

VII

A spotted moth, a yellow pencil, a ribbon
from the science fair, a tin pail and a dog
lying in the sun, the smell of fresh-mown
grass, a cell phone pinging in someone
else’s pocket, lions and tigers and bears,
oh my!

VIII

This is a poem about joy, dear
reader, and here is a metaphor for joy
followed by an unpacking or perhaps
belaboring of the metaphor to make sure
you don’t miss it.

says the small boy in the snapshot,
“why I’m smiling.” He’s sitting on his uncle’s lap
with a book.    

“I remember that photo,” I tell him. There are
the 45-rpm record player with the Disney characters,
and the old radio with the honeycomb plastic
over the speaker and that round, lighted dial.
“I can still feel my fingers fitting into each square.”  

“That’s not while I’m smiling,” he replies.

Being with a book will be where he’s happiest
from here on out, being with a magical uncle,
who built his own house, brought us books on Fridays,
and hid the word create inside us even though
he died, leaving us with questions
like how?

“I’m smiling,” the small boy says,
“because I knew the answer even then.” 

“My strength returns to me with my cup of coffee and the reading of the Psalms.”

– Dorothy Day

My thumb joints have a dull ache
Sometimes, I don’t even recognize the hurt
Until I sit down
Until I sit with it
I wrap my palms around a warm cup of coffee
The heat penetrates
Into the ache
I pause to pick up the Word
I open the Psalms
“Though my flesh and my heart fail
God is the rock of my heart
My portion forever”
I take a hearty sip
And the warmth penetrates
Into the ache
Reaching my very heart
Strength for the day

One more night

Soaked in flashing lights

Basking thousands of faces.

One more night

Of bleeding ankles

And a scratchy voice

That for once

Is not simmered

In apathy.

One more night of eyes

Bleeding into mine

Shocking each and every nerve

Until my knees begin to shake.

One more night of nothing

For you

And everything

For me.

Strolling through the poets
And I imagined imagining
Just what each of you
(who supplied self portraits)
might be like
in those moments

I imagine picturing you doing those things
Am I there?
Then who is this watching us?

Can they keep a secret?