Pup cups
Boy he loves them so
thinks all drive throughs carry them
searching the window
giving them the sad side-eye
like he besieges me on the sly.
yard sale dolls and tiny china teacups
uneven pigtails with a topsy turvy part
dreams of new corduroys
from the Sears and Roebuck catalogue
neighborhood games in the schoolyard
watching All in the Family with Mom and Dad
but not understanding much
John Denver, Don Maclean, and The Osmonds were
the soundtrack of our backyard swing set:
childhood memories haunt me
charming and cheerful
comfortable
like Casper the Friendly Ghost.
a dim basement burning
with a monster furnace, growling all winter long
creaking wood floors above
spooked me as I played make believe
alone with a dark shadow
my innocence was sacrificed
culled not by a stranger
but a known demon, sibling
in grotesque silence.
I was just five years old:
childhood memories haunt me
chaotic and coercive,
catastrophic
like Willy Wonka’s factory.
a lifetime has passed and
the boogeyman has gone away
my mind, though, plays
Ghosts in the Graveyard because
childhood memories linger.
Words go around and around in my head
an idea pops in and out again.
Is there a common theme
it feels more like a tangled web
some stick others float away
what are they trying to tell me ‘
I don’t understand
like a record on repeat
words words everywhere
some meant to be spoken
others to be written
some are secrets
not to be heard
Truly fascinated by all these words.
slb
As balance is to covetiousness
So progress is to inertia
As dreams are to apathy
So is virtue to its challenges
I can see that inirtia
Can be boosted
Can do an out of balance swing
Like a sling shot moon shot
And I can see that with apathy
The will is gone
It’s biliousness also can
Slow you down
As perserverence is to faithfulness
As unfaithfulness is to to incapacitation
As selflessness is to catharsis
So’s a day’s virtue to its challenges
My son introduced us
At first, they were so sweet, so kind
You think, I could make this work.
You bring them home, feed them dinner,
eventually invite them to move in, share your bed
You begin to overlook the little things
The way they tentatively lick your ankles
Later nibble your calve. Then there’s a bite
It’s when the bodies started showing up
on the doorstep – gifts I suppose
that you begin to second guess sharing
your life with a cat
(Inspired by Sophie, my cat
who left me another gift this morning.
We have been roommates for 15 years. )
It’s the way their pixel hands never shake
If there are innocent civilians
Are there guilty ones
Who decides which is which
In the end does it matter
Who by bullet or who by boot
Who by gas or who by bomb
Will the birds still sing
When the humans are gone
(with apologies to Emma Lazarus)
Lady Liberty limps away from her stone
foundation, leaves her lamp beside the
golden door. Her green-bronze robes
rustle as she lumbers off, book of the law
under her arm, to stride across the land.
This Mother of Exiles no longer sees
the wretched refuse at our shore. Her
plea to ancient lands is silenced.
Teeming with anger she has witnessed
huddled masses at the courthouse doors,
round-ups, hooded menace choking
breath. Another brazen giant threatens
and she ponders where she must strike
anew with her imprisoned lightning.
Ever a lover of sound and song
you are the bard of birds.
Your snatched song soars above us all,
spills passion from high-wire overdrive.
You, the bard of birds
trim the breezes with bits of mimic,
spill passion in high-wire overdrive.
Sometimes bold and snazzy and brash
is your breezy mimicry.
But today it is melody you favor
over ditties bold and snazzy and brash—
even heaven holds its breath in awe.
And when it’s melody you favor,
you lover of sound and song,
heaven pauses, holding breath in awe
of snatched songs soaring, blessing us all.
