Over It
I am done vying
for your approval,
done with begging
you to like me.
I won’t be your white
maze rat any more.
I won’t keep bashing
my sore pink nose
against your lever,
over and over, hoping
for a crumb of cheese.
To Dennis Donovan
One hundred years.
Eighty borrowed from
humanity unhinged.
He sits when he’d like to dance,
rises to his feet
when friends come calling.
I told you I’d be back,
he smiles.
The King and his queen sent
their greetings, invited him
to a grander court,
with heroes’ hurrays.
Where have you been all day?
he asks, later, your hand in his
after we made our way
through the town he liberated.
He rises to feet
on the spot his captain fell,
salutes his brothers and others lost.
War is no good, he pleads
to deaf ears, relentlessly cycling back,
to the rythm of fanfare, offkey
We did what we had to do,
he defuses, softy.
He lights up to every child
he gets to meet him,
We did it for them..
And it shows.
You’d bottle it if you could,
humanity restored.
They did it for us,
you know what you owe.
The friendship and family
he welcomes you to
is the icing on the cake,
sweet, gifts that keep on giving
no fork, no spoon needed.
He sits when he’d like to dance,
you watch him sing,
count your blessings
for sunny days.
I’ll be back next year!
you feel your hand in his,
for days to come,
keep smiling through
till the blue skies
drive the dark clouds
far away.
I stomp halfway downstairs
tip-toe back up.
My mind flapjacks.
I turn around.
I stomp halfway downstairs
tip-toe back up.
I hear silent expectation.
I walk deliberately all the way downstairs
and into the kitchen.
I strap a Santa mask
across my face.
I peer through eyeholes
at my granddaughter.
Magic moment of uncertainty.
dogs bark sharp–
deer outside
window. i stumble
into pups who run
so fast they glide
across smooth
pine floor,
their nails
click-clack-tap-
clatter-scramble.
i punch in code–
they jump, yelp
more, squeeze
out as door
opens. in dim
moonlight, we
see deer leap
over paddock
fence. soon,
pups rush back,
one-by-one,
settle down.
ritual event
ends well–
all safe–them,
me, emerging
sunflowers.
and deer.
so glad tonight–
no skunk.
the father I never had
present, attentive,
committed to not only
your survival but your success.
Sharing of familial connects
and more importantly,
loving and loyal
to the mother you possess.
Bobby Sox and Saddle Shoes
Page Boy, Duck Tail, Beehive haircuts
skirts with multi crinoline slips
Madras plaid, blue gym Bloomers.
Short shorts and Pedal Pushers,
two-piece swim suits
home permanent waves.
Dial telephones, TV invented.
Ed Sullivan show – Elvis a star.
Blue Suede Shoes, Heartbreak Hotel
on 45 rpm, played zillions of times.
Driver’s Ed classes,
friend slumber parties
first cigarette.
Becoming a Flutist,
school marching band,
orchestra concerts.
Frisch’s Big Boy
after each football game.
Long telephone chats
scribbled notes passed in class.
Summer sun tanning days.
At night no AC,
finding ways to keep cool.
Life as it was in my teens.
They say “the year of the firsts”
are the worst…
“They” seem to be right,
Though, I have no comparison point… for now
Today. I think I may be slightly numb.
I’d rather be if I’m being honest.
But then,
I feel even more disconnected from you.
Read through our texts last night,
Searching for what I’m not quite sure.
Your guidance no doubt.
Every short line from you,
A reassurance of kinds.
A reminder.
A care.
Words I will
never
receive
again.
Moments…
They have forever ceased.
Frozen.
Still.
Only proof exists within my mind.
Even lightening bugs
Make my head dance
With memories of you…
Or fireflies, as you’d call them.
You admired how I cared about them,
Being so careful as I interfered
With their natural flow.
And you’d brag about that too…
And my vices.
Oh those.
Echo the flaws in you.
I grasped them tightly and
kept your expressions, anxious thoughts,
analytics, and pain for injustice …
Everything.
Everywhere.
Nowhere.
And today, instead of making you breakfast,
giving you gifts, or most importantly pouring my
gratitude for you onto a card that I
I carefully selected,
While dodging all the strangers
in the isle,
Who didn’t get you for their dad…
No. Instead.
I stood with my brother,
And our kids,
By a mound of new growing grass and dirt
When the shell of you lays.
The tears I needed to pour,
Did not.
They were emptied yesterday.
With real thoughts.
For today,
I just need to survive.
i have so many thoughts
& none of them are new
they just clatter
around in my
cranium
rolling around rattling
marbles multicolored
& hefty circling the drain of my
mindseye daily
the shock of them
zapping me into one illusion after
the other all my quickthoughts
haunt me into ways of unloving myself
softly the caress of them so sweet
i almost mistake them for idioms of grandeur
of deep rooted realistic self love
written out before me by my own quivering
hand
