Category Archives: poetry

Apr4

30×30-Day Four-Sometimes You Have to Walk Away

Posted on by
Standard

I can hear you both,
when you talk about my son.
Eyes lowered, whispering under your breath.
You don’t think I know the context of the conversation?
How does she do it?
She doesn’t do enough.
I would do it different.
I wouldn’t let him get away with that.
Thank goodness he isn’t mine.

I only hope his hearing isn’t
as good as his mother’s.
How do I love such a creature as him?
You mean the most witty six-year-old you have ever met?
The one with the vocabulary that rivals my own,
I do it by asking him to tell me a story.
When he finishes he jumps up, grabs on to me
as if a Koala, tells this mama he loves her so.

I don’t do enough – you say this
because you have seen
just five minutes of us.
You are not there, as I scoop him off the floor
after the fifth tantrum of the day-
The one where at just six years old
he shouted,
“I hate my life,
you can’t control me”.
You are not there as I pull him into my arms
hold the boy still,
calm the nerves,
of the one who never grows that fast,
so that at six he still fits in my lap
assure him,
that his life isn’t so bad.

You would do it different?
Really, tell me how? Yell at him in public,
beat him till he was blue,
be less stern with him,
negotiate longer,
medicate him less,
or more?
Would you schedule more meetings with his teacher,
set up more med checks with his pediatrician,
would you change the whole diet of this family,
lock him in his room till he was eighteen?
Quit your job, school him at home?
Please tell me – what-
would you do?

Let him get away with what?
Having feelings,
noticing every last thing in the world,
stopping for every flower that looks different?
Punish him for his frustration,
tell him to bottle it away?
His energy, you would contain it?
His synapses-You would stop them for firing how?
Would you punish his frontal lobe cortex?
Tell it next time, it better shape up?

Thank goodness he isn’t yours?
Well yes,
Thank goodness he isn’t yours.
They say you get the children
you are supposed to,
and he was supposed to be mine.
As if you would even know
where to begin,
with someone as special as him.
But this time,
this time,
I am just going to have to walk away.

Apr3

30×30- Day Three -Out of Luck

Posted on by
Standard

Out of luck and out of time
she wondered what it meant to get old.
She had spent forty-eight of her sixty-six years
working harder than one should have to
to get by.
Marriage ended early when all she wanted to be
was a wife
She had been waitressing at this diner,
since she was eighteen years old
and luck was just something people
talked about in movies-
Or when the jackpot of the
powerball was getting high enough to send everyone into a tizzy
Luck was not something she was out of -
it couldn’t be, when it had never gotten to her yet.

She spent her days elbow deep in  other people’s meals
leftovers pushed into the trash
her commerce was a smile
and have a good day darlin’-
The only thing she had to sell was good will.

Thing was
she wouldn’t have it any other way -
the lucky are just waiting, she believed,
for the next best thing – she was
glad to know what was coming next.

Days starts with an alarm clock and
a cat hungry for its next meal
an email sent to her sister in Arizona,
set up in some new retirement community-
a text message to her grandson in college at
the nearby state school.

Her bones, feel harder these days,
Her frame carries less pounds than it should,
her customers always ask how she stays so thin,
how she avoids the pie.

She worked doubles  four days a week
had three days off.
Her extended family grew and shrank with the seasons
kids coming and  going for the busy months,
they used to call her ma,
the were starting to call her gram now.

Nightimes are quiet, books
and tv shows,
characters filled in for absent lovers
she didn’t mind-
that there was no one there to fill her evening -
Her first husband hadn’t been around much,
her second couldn’t let her go with out a
well placed bruise.

She hadn’t missed a day of work in ten years,
scheduled her time off in the slow months,
traveled to see her grand-babies.
She figured, she would die like this -
They would know she was gone when
she didn’t show up for her shift.

She didn’t have luck to run out of,
it was just something that hadn’t showed up yet.

Apr2

On the Couch

Posted on by
Standard

Stuck – softness of oversized pillows -
stained with six years of children taking over the house
Saturday, and the only thing
I am enjoying about the sun outside,
is the heat eeeking through the window.
I must move.
Move,
pace to be found in the way I used to run
Run, track under my feet
dirt under my cleats
sweat just beginning on my brow.

Eighteen years later, and the only vestige left of
My runner self is the shin splints I get when
I spend too much time shopping-
There is nothing easy about inspiration for movement-
I am no Nike commercial,
There is no Just Do It in me.

Instead there is a quiet want of a better me
of a need to be strong
and not just in some, you’re so tough
you always make it through,
type way,
but instead, in a,
you can leap tall buildings,
you can lift cars
you can be something that looks like some conception
of a super hero, front cover
of triathlon magazine.

And it’s not even that I want to win,
just finish,
get off the couch,
find myself  stronger
catch up to that earlier vestige of myself.

Apr1

30×30 – Day One – From Start to Finish

Posted on by
Standard

I am not one for straight lines,
or the easy way through.
The path has never been cleared for me.

Instead, I take shortcuts
or the long way around
sometimes, it takes me twice as long.

But I get there.
Sooner sometimes, rather than later.
Perhaps just a little banged up from the trail.

(note to readers, I am just doing this – forcing myself to write, regardless of what comes out, how unpolished, how incoherent and rough — just writing. . . every day for thirty days – that is all).

Mar31

Blasphemy Revisited

Posted on by
Standard

 

Almost Blasphemous 
(originally posted April 8, 2012)

 

Pastor says: He has Risen.
Congregation says: He Has Risen, indeed.

 

I know that, and every line of the Easter service,
-Can tell you every parable, quote you all the verse,
sing you all the lines from the hymns.
I spent Easter Sundays as a child trying to count the lilies on the altar,
but always lost count somewhere after a hundred.

 

This is a Sunday that celebrates miracles.
Which I don’t believe in anymore.
rarely.
nearly, never.

 

Except when the last thing I want to do is host -
or clean
or bake a ham.
In fact bake at all,
since every thing about a lemon meringue pie makes me sad.
But I do those things anyway,
begrudgingly.
And  then my house if full-
of family by birth or by circumstance.
Full of children’s laughter and hopped-up on chocolate smiles

 

And that’s when I catch the miracle-
between the buds of the hyacinths of the centerpiece.
The little one.
About how there is room in my heart for love,
and joy.
And faith.

 

She has risen.
She has risen, indeed.

 

image

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lemon meringue pie, made today. 

 

Mar25

Ill of the Dead

Posted on by
Standard

The first thing I told the ER nurse,
was that you were too much of an asshole to let
something like a stroke take you down.
Except, they don’t really tell daughters
in the middle of the night,
how bad the hemorrhaging is.

I am not sure how to speak ill of the dead.
I only wish that besides the air they pumped in through
your trach, and the fluids they pumped through the iv,
the meds that flowed through your central line,
they could have also dripped in forgiveness.

I would stand on your left side,
to be out of the way of nurses
but you couldn’t feel me there.
So I would brush the sweat off your forehead,
and will the fever away.

If only intention was all it took-
because there was enough stubborn between the
both of us to fill that 8×10 hospital room.

But, cantankerous does not fix the entire paralysis of
one’s left side, does not stop the shutting down of kidneys
or cease the bacteria from becoming pneumonia.

But it will wake you from a sleep that has lasted twenty-six days.

Shook your hospital bed,
pounded it on it with my insignificant fists,
and goaded you into one more fight.
Yelled at you with the only voice I had left.

It took you only twelve hours to answer back.
Looked me sideways in the eye,
and showed me you were done.
Asked for every tube, line and iv,
to go away.

And when I leaned on my little brother,
What do we do now?
-I’ve been fighting with him my whole life,
I’m not going to today. 

ICU moves slow – has its own timezone,
except when there is no more time left,
and then you’re looking for just one more second.

When they shut down the machines
I thought it would be quick -
But Pops, you were waiting for something,
and it wasn’t old hyms for me to sing,
or Willburys’ tunes
or even one last brush of the forehead.

Sixteen hours through the night,
till they said, you didn’t have to be in that little room anymore
because this was a room to make you well -
So we wheeled you off to the light of hospice -
A room with great windows,
Pine trees almost like home-
and there was sun.

I kept singing, held your left side,
useless as it was. Amazing Grace,
how sweet the sound -
your mother taught me that one -
then Sang the other
one the one you walked me down the aisle to.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night.
take these broken wings and learn to fly
all your life.   You were only waiting -

It is hard to speak ill of the dead,
but with your last breath,
and single tear,
And how I stood so damn brave,
didn’t crumple,
till you were long past gone
Old man, you must know-
I am long past forgiveness now.

Mar19

Dear snow. . .

Posted on by
Standard

It is nearly midnight,
and still you persist.
Tomorrow, mid-morning,
is the vernal equinox.
Spring will be here.

Are you not aware,
wet, mucky, miserable,
that you will have to battle,
the impending blooms?

You may struggle to hang on, to
be something other than what
is bound to happen,
but dear snow,

Your stay here is limited,
please,
be on your way.

Feb14

Causing Trouble

Posted on by
Standard

So- I hate John Mayer
And he cries after sex.
Those two things are mutually exclusive.
A friend from college was rumored to have hooked
up with him back during his college days in Boston.
I asked - inebriated at a bachelorette party in nyc-
So, John Mayer really?
and she nodded back and I pushed,
wait, is your body a wonderland?
In return she grinned back, no.
–No we really only hooked up a couple of times.
Just a couple?
–Yah, see he cries after sex. Read the rest of this entry →

Feb6

For my Kai, who will be six on Thursday

Posted on by
Standard

He is motion
His is no breath between words
He is no pause for your answers to your questions
He runs as if by motor
He is endless knock knock jokes and one liners-
When I told him one Halloween when he was three
No I want to be the princess, you are making me sad
He said-
Don’t be sad, be a dragon. Read the rest of this entry →