Trumping the Lord’s Prayer
Oh Donald,
we were never a heaven,
but now hollowed
is our name–
a kingdom of guns
if thy will be done
the earth will have
no haven.
Day-to-day run
by bread,
leaders in bed
with temptation
delivering us to the upheaval
of thine King Dumb, craving
power and gory
hopefully not
forever–
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Something like that. For Brendan’s prompt on Real Toads, in part about power. Pic, such as it is, is mine. All rights reserved.
Grief
Like those flowers
by the side of the road in fall
that you see first
as blurred blue
but then find here
and here
and here
again,
until they are all
that is everywhere,
so grief focuses, sharply,
as green recedes,
road fades,
and trees like shy teens try not
to be seen
and you know looking
at those blue blossoms
(even if it is not your parent
who has been lost)
that you will never be a child again, and that honestly
you have been one
your whole life long.
***********************************
Poem that I will likely link to Real Toads Open Link Forum this week. Very uncertain of line breaks, but so it goes– pic is mine. k.
Book of Words
Mimi cry
cause Testa meant
no good–
oh he would rap sure,
so cool he set her hair a-tic (not just heart)
but if Mimi tried
for her own part,
he slagged her as a Me-imitator,
person-
impersonator,
said he’d terminate her
if she didn’t goddamn
shut up,
and so she shut,
but for the cry.
************************
Kind of a strange ditty for Mama Zen’s prompt on Real Toads to use words from a wonderful book of words put together by her daughter–I’ve cheated here I believe, using my own versions of same. Drawing is mine, all rights reserved.
Grateful
She woke between pained breaths and said,
“they’ve all
crossed over.”
So, after soothing her shock
of white bang back,
we hurried to measure
the morphine,
pretty sure she would not try to get up
like she did the day before, anxious
to meet them,
but not certain,
“sweetheart,” saying, as we nosed the syringe into
the inside of the downward-tilted
cheek, then smoothed squeezed balm
over desert lips, “sweetheart,”
caressing back
that shock of hair again
until I lay down beside her at last
to listen to the full
and hollow,
not breathing myself
in some of the pauses.
So a good death goes,
and comes,
oh sweetheart.
**************************
Poem for my mother.
What does it want?
There is a part of me that can’t shake
sadness;
that hears the rise of the mourning dove
as fall;
that substitutes for throat
but will not be slaked–
What does it want– this ache?
For everything that’s been
to have been
all right.
To lay down upon a lap
as if it were a head
that might be stroked.
To not be a head
that is thinking, thinking,
but a body of that water
that laps gently
and doesn’t churn.
And to have you, my sometimes world,
hold me
in earthen arms.
In the reeds that grow about us,
red-winged blackbirds nest;
just above, swallows swallow.
****************
Poem for open link platform on Real Toads (http://withrealtoads.blogspot.com)
Drawing is mine. It’s a bit more complicated than I’d like, ha.
Simply the way it was (Eclipse of sorts)
At a certain point, she even felt the trees longing
to hold the child she carried,
the sky scrying to espy
the color of his eyes;
all of Nature, she felt sure,
yearned with her
to meet him,
though after he was born,
she kept him close as bark
for some time, letting not wind nor glare make
their acquaintance, any leaving
out of the question,
and whether Nature was peeved
was too complicated a thing
for her to think about, there with the new son
at her side.
*****************
For a prompt by the wonderful Kerry O’ Connor on Real Toads to write about a simple thing. I should note that this poem is imagined–not meant to express anything about boy or girl babies–I’ve only been thinking about the sun a bit what with the eclipse.
Drawing is mine–pastels and charcoal on paper, 2017. All rights reserved.
Bird Mask Girl
She only feels like drawing bird mask girls
lately, knowing more about beaks
than wings,
only what really is at issue is
the mouth.
The bird mask girls don’t have one,
the mask a closed construct
except for the slits the girls’ lashes
flutter against.
Why do we do what we do?
The bird mask girls wear
puffed sleeves.
These are arguably shaped like cumulous clouds
but are small and tethered to what is drawn
as clothes.
She is not conscious in this culture of ever wearing a bird mask.
It seems to her that the one she has perfected has a smile
and teeth that manage to look fairly white
against the lipstick, lipstick not at all like the sticks
birds perch upon
in air or sky, even barred sky.
The strings that hold the masks in place
are tied with bows
in the back.
***************************
For Magaly Guerero’s prompt on Real Toads to write a poem based on one’s own prior work. I am slightly varying the prompt to write the poem about one of my past drawings (instead of an old poem) although I have also been about an old poem about posturing.
Not Morse
They spoke in code, each word a secret agent
of another, so that, “I need more time
for myself,’ meant ‘I’m seeing
someone else.’
And so on.
At first, even uttered letters
delighted in the game, dipthongs preening
at devices, consonants peacocking
about the vowels, but soon language stretched
to strain, silence pained.
*******************
55 words for Kerry O’Connor’s prompt on Real Toads, with a special challenge to write something stemming from the art of Erte. A piece on the letter M by Romain de Tirtoff, known as Erté, above.
Wound (Passed Down)
My mother didn’t know
the contours of her wound
so had to sculpt mine
by feel
as if she were a blind girl
and I were a piano that she heard
by touch,
only that would have been a deaf girl
and she didn’t honestly
touch much.
At a certain point, I took charge
of my own wound,
but since I also worked by feel at first,
its deepening seemed somewhat haphazard
like the chance radio station
the frequencies always
default to.
It was only as I grew older
when I could see it in the mirror
or when I looked down
at my person
that I became conscious of where
I put in the dirk.
****************************
Poem for Margaret Bednar’s lovely quilting challenge on Real Toads. Not sure this exactly fits but what I have. The above an image from fabric saved by Margaret. Process note: dirk is a small knife (probably more properly a small dagger of Scottish Highland origin.)
The Moment My Own Nurse
Of course, she’d been drugged, but
“I just can’t believe it, I can’t
believe it,” she exclaimed even as
she breathed, and in the elevator,
took my face in both hands,
as I bent over
the gurney, and
‘oh” my name, she said, you know, saying
my name, and “oh” my name
so intensely that the nurse
teared up,
and it’s not that we
are in perfect synch or
synch,
though I did know how to calm her somehow
both pre- and post-op, playing just the right music into
her almost deaf ears, able too to sing
along–
still, it was a moment–my mother loving me–
no, my mother always
loves me–but my mother loving me
with her hands–
I can feel them yet, the flow of blood that turned
the cool palms pink, there
on my cheeks,
I can feel them
yet.
**************
For my own prompt on Real Toads (posting later today) to write a poem using narrative. The drawing is mine; all rights reserved.
ps will be traveling today so may be late in returning comments, thanks!
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