24 Poems ~ 24 Hours
One Christmas
I gave you a Zippo lighter
with the ace of spades
engraved upon its metal case.
It was custom ordered,
a connection to your dead daddy.
After unwrapping your gift,
your hands and voice were shaky.
That was the closest
I ever came
to seeing you cry.
Industrious
Watching black and white films
of the building of great monuments
and bridges, structures that have
survived twice my lifetime
or more, I marvel at the pace,
the rhythm, energy, and movement
in sync with so many lives,
akin to mass bird or swallowtail
butterfly migrations, folding
and billowing in the sky, kinetic
energy feeding upon itself
and transmitting from one creature
to the next, creating a single beast
with many heads, while I,
I struggle to stay awake and alert
typing at my keyboard alone.
Grandmothers
Grandmothers are special people
Never knew either grandfathers.
Soldier.
Preacher.
I had one mean grandmother and one nice.
Tall, slender, deaf and blind
As a child I took care of the nice one.
She stayed with us I slept next to the portable urinal
With the Pine-Sol and stool aroma.
All slept
My job was to make sure she didn’t miss or fall
The smell of piss dried on plastic covered floors and days my feet were splattered.
So what. I loved Grandmother.
The mean one, another slap.
Story.
I’d tuck her into bed and kiss her forehead and wipe my feet on the sheets
To see my Grandmother’s breathing rise and fall gave me peace
Seven.
And then then my big sister would wet the bed.
Another day at school smelling like dried piss
I had no friends
The kind teacher would wash the odor
Give me fresh underwear
The blind sisters
Piss poor
but we loved our Grandmother.
She gently felt our faces and gave tight hugs
Cleaning my Grandmothers dentures, brushing her hair with a part
Down the center and two plaits rolled
In back to the nape of her neck.
Her bamboo rocking chair was home in the corner.
I can still hear it creak.
The Sand Surfers
Little boys and girls wear slick black wet suits
as they practice surfing on soggy sand.
With arms outstretched, they pretend to balance
themselves on un-waxed surfboards, as parents
dutifully watch them from beneath their yellow
beach umbrellas. Older children who ocean
surf wonder when these young fledglings will leave
the safety of the unwavering sand
and venture into the sea, to experience
firsthand the thrilling thrust of undulant
waves and sea-born independence.
When we are very young
We dance, we sway
Instinctively
We watch others
But we swirl on our own
Letting the music take us and we take the music
In youth we dance in circles
Laughing
Alcohol, the sensuality, the joy consumes us
We stop only when the music stops
Anxious to jump up again after a quick swig
And an electric touch
A few years later
Responsibilities consume us
Dancing is for the frivolous
We dance when we must
At weddings or parties
Consumed by how we look
How we measure up
In middle age
Our defenses begin to come down
We move our feet to the music
We get up for a few
Smiling until we are out of breath
Joyous until our bodies grow weary
In old age
We sit more, dance less
We smile watching the young
Wistfully trading places in our minds
Our souls are lifted with the music
Our bodies weighted with age
In the end it is the music that pulls us
Out of our bodies and to the light
Weight gone, responsibilities relieved
We no longer care about how we look
We are our sensuality
Our joyousness
We dance into light
Casting out our judgements and limitations
We are the music
We are the dance
i know you may not want to think it true
but we know not what someone’s going through
did he not know how much we all did care?
our helplessness fuels our grief ~ such despair
i fight tears each day at the weirdest times
watching hockey or hearing church bell chimes
may he find the calm he did not have here
rest in peace my beloved; we hold you near
Sharing Secrets
Is it ever wise
to relive a behavior
a mistake
a sin
and share it
with a lover?
Releasing
a foul dragon
one’s kept hidden
in a mountain cave
for years
seems unwise.
It may well
burn and devour
him.
The hardest things to say
are I love you, forgive me, and help me
in ascending order.
We refrain from those words,
their combinations,
the vulnerability they provide.
The damage they cause
to our fragile “selves”.
Regrets among the living
to be carried into the world
of the after. By those who remain.
Through prayers and hopes,
the dreams and the notes,
the words spoken to the invisible listener.
The words audible only to ourselves.
The words that were locked,
the ones that were painful,
come out so easily,
when the addressee can no longer hear.
I only did the 60 seconds and 90 seconds bits, but still marking it as prompt response.
the midwife’s brow frowned,
the labor was not going well
the first time mother
was holding back instead of pushing through
the midwife called for the father in the next room
beckoning his violin too
wooing him to play his cherished jig;
like the swallow-tailed birds must sing each day into being
so too this father would sing his daughter into this world
the man with cooing melody and adept fingers
looked into the eyes of his beloved
beginning with a calming cadence of string
that lulled her back into the rhythm of her body
rolling waves not of pain but of covenant
a quicker step, a crescendo
husband and wife in unison now
a dance similar to the night this child was begotten
and mother and father were first revealed
the midwife hummed,
background music in a scene already filled with song
tapping toes
to the echos of a hollow violin body
until the echos of a hollow room
are filled with the newest song
of a girl child
who sings a jig and taps a lyric never known before
with barely a wingbeat;
this day is beginning
Spill my dreams upon the floor
Tape them to your wall
Remember what I said
Oh how you’re going to fall
Lie to yourself
Grow your disease
Convenience of stolen memory
Is what helps you sleep
Denial brings you closer
To shattered belief
When it comes closing in,
I will drink, that which you weep
Innocent eyes are witness to truth
You can’t tarnish memory
Of stolen, lost youth