Posts for June 7, 2025 (page 7)

Every spring my heart pulls on rubber boots
pulls me along with her—

we tromp and splash where shadows
play across newborn grass

my heart’s silly pink on spring days,
love-bitten, chlorophyll-drunk

periwinkle shadows dapple dandelions,
shimmy with tadpoles in snaky

oblong lakes that sidle up sudden
in ditches after vernal showers

my heart pulls me in, I’m all yellow slickers
she’s tattoo of raindrops on the swale—

we play until all the little lakes vanish
into hot wet air—til I’m sticky haired

and she’s sunk in those rubber boots
feet damp and rank so we escape

north on I-75, chase heat-mirages
that flash ahead of us, teasing

phantom lakes, always just ahead—
summertime sadness on the radio, echoes of long-ago

mountain lake summers gone, summers we can’t drive
back to, no more shiver on the midnight dock summers

we’ll never abandon all reason
for cool deep blues and cannonballs

we’ll never ever float coconut-butter afternoons, never.  
Yet my heart skinny dips every solstice—

stubborn, she never ever minds my nevers.
She just laughs and pulls me in, naked.

Out of a grey-washed whirlwind 
Imagination stands
against a blue star-clad sky ‐
Four spirits reach

A bearded god with outstretched arms,
cruciform,
perches on a veil of clouds

Are you Apollo to his right,
guiding a chariot pulled by four
prancing steeds,
light shooting from your head?

And Artemis, the twin, on his left?
Her coiled dragons in darkness wait
Her moonlit crescent crown shines the way

Beneath them all
The pleading eyes of Job who asked, “Why?”

(The poetry of William Blake has always intrigued me, but I just
discovered his art. The blending of myth and bibical story
in his art should not have surprised me, but it did.)

As my adderall crash begins
the fuzz and the buzz in my brain
by meth minus a methyl group, barely restrained
comes roaring back
a tumult breaking through and over
the temporary dam I’d constructed.
Afternoon coffee time
hot water
two espresso
two non-dairy creamers.
The coffee machine at work is much improved
as is my mood.
Hey, I might not be able to sleep tonight
drinking coffee at fifteen hundred hours
but I deserve a treat and a functioning brain
I don’t have superpowers.

Dear Joseph and Patrick,
I’m at the circus, hoping
you are not here seeing it
from a back row seat.  
There’s an orange-haired clown
in the middle ring—no idea
what the made-up face,
the wild waving mean. Minions
he doesn’t notice flick lint
from his suit. And a magician
pulls guns from a sombrero
just to distract us. I think
you’re better off with your
pretend friend Sally. Keep  
gliding high above it all
with her till we get this show
shut down.
Love, Nana 

Whatever our bond–
vomiting, lethargy, seizures
–the way to a woodland
creature’s heart 
is through its stomach
I throw grapes at your mouth

Can you be tamed
It is practically impossible.

You need some help 
You don’t know I love you
You are scuttling around 
With no mama in sight 
I want to make you a stew
I want you to be well

Can you lie down
and quit scratching the floor

Here’s some popcorn
For your ennui
Heart palpitations
Noon sweats
For all your Victorian ailments
Overwrought and high-strung

Can you remember–
Wait!

Look at how the sun
hits the trees
and lights up
its crown!
Look at all this Cibola!
Look at this El Dorado!

The garden grows where
I cannot. I will watch, learn 
That I may bear fruit

Do you remember that summer,
the tv on till the National Anthem
signaled the snow of static
and quiet, and we’d sleep easy, 
then wake to see if he’d slunk away,
or was still baring his teeth to fight?
We knew either way,
Nixon was roadkill.
Now the thief in chief
is more Wendigo than weasel.
He says he could shoot us down
in the streets and survive.
And he could.
At night I mute my phone
and switch on an old mystery show
to see justice served in the end.
I miss you.
You wouldn’t want to be here.

un poema de luto

Redondo, gris liso
La paloma regresó al patio de piedra.
Llora cú curru cú cú.
Él camina hacia los arbustos.

Y yo también la veo.
Digo: Lamento mucho tu pérdida.
¿Por qué regresas?

Regreso para recordar.
La recuerdo volando a mi lado.
Recuerdo su cú u cú.
Recuerdo su dulce aroma.
Regreso para recordar veinte años con ella.

¿Te quedarás aquí mucho tiempo?

No lo sé. Nunca he perdido un amor.
Ojalá estuviera acostado a su lado.
Pero tenemos jóvenes casi listos para volar.

De nuevo llora cú curru cú cú.
Sale volando.

Un gusano dejado sobre su pecho.

TRANSLATION:

A Poem of Lament

Round, smooth grey,
the dove returned to the stone patio.
He cries, coo ah coo coo,
then walks toward the bushes.

And then I see her, too.
I say: I am so sorry for your loss.
But why do you return?

I return to remember,
to remember her flying beside me,
to remember her coo OO coo,
to remember her sweet scent.
To remember twenty years with her.

I worry: Will you stay here long?

I do not know. I’ve never lost a love.
I wish I were lying beside her,
but we have young ones near ready to fly.

He cries again, coo ah coo coo,
then flies.

A worm left on her chest.

(I woke imagining what happened to the birds from the other day and began writing about them, halfway through realizing it was in Spanish. Maybe influenced by Manny Grimaldi’s beautiful translation of Rafael Alberti’s Noturno Revisado from yesterday and then reading Pablo Neruda in Spanish? (Death stuff.) My translation of myself is too literal. But maybe something to play around with later?)

Wish I could find the poem I wrote about you and your sister that had you running ahead of me, out of sight, because that’s what it feels like.  You’re leaving.  Been pushing me out for some time now.  Don’t get to be maudlin, so many times I’ve leveled my temper at you.  Just wanted to help, but I shouldn’t. Get to making your own mistakes.  But here I go anyway.   Don’t try to act like you know everything; it’ll get you in trouble.  Listen to people who know more than you.  Don’t be a stranger; I’ll still want to help.

fading light of dusk,
trying to catch every
ray before it’s gone.

1.      Sister

Dear Sir
My brother is badly needed at home
My parents are both ill
And they need him with them
He has made mistakes
And he has paid for them and now
I know he is ready to settle down.
 

2.      Doctor

To Whom It May Concern
Re: Mr. Trigg Z. Parker, Gary, West Virginia
The above patient is critically ill
With cancer of the lung
It may be of possible benefit
To the patient and certainly a comfort
To him if he could be visited by his son.
 

3.      Warden

Re: WVP #45106
The above captioned inmate was received
At this institution with a 1-10 year sentence
For Entering Without Breaking
At the time he was received here
The State of Virginia
Placed a detainer against him
On two Armed Robbery charges
Due to the above I do not deem it advisable
For Douglas Parker to be permitted outside
Of this institution.