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Sunday, December 30, 2012

PENELOPE WAITS

The mirror of wrinkles
And bending form,
The smoke of graying hair
Startle the years
And race them closer to
Their end.
What will be left to her
But what the feeble have:
A weakened mind and
Woeful eyes--bewilderment?
Confusion assails these interim years
As composure and creation reel into
A crevasse, the rumored
Drowning vortex--
As life becoms uncharted,
Spinning mercilessly between the
Tumultuous swirling
And the rocks on the shore
That can no longer
Be trusted...

But then the reader considers,
Raising her eyes from the text:
"They also serve who stand and wait."

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Harmony, Two Cats, Two Vases

 
Harmony sang a balm
For sins however adolescently
Committed as orange light bathed a room.
It sang of my green eyes—I’m sure that’s why
You loved that song, but the light
Extinguished;
Enchantment fled.  Was my hair not
Golden enough?  You didn’t want
To share two cats in the yard
That we would call 
 Ours? Would life
Have been so
Hard?  No
Pentagrams
I drew ever
Brought
You
Back
To
Me
(except for just one minute).
 
The flowers wilted in the vase
Yesterday,
But I bought a new one today.
 
 
15 August 2012
 
 
 
 


The Black Friday Before Christmas

 

I woke up at 5:00,

hopped up out of bed:

Most unlike me, I admit...

always loll an hour instead...

jumped into my jeans, 

my black shirt and shawl--

then upset my style

with white tennies for the mall.

No time for coffee:  Diet Coke had to do--

along with the tranq, so no problems would ensue...

hopped into the car with daughter at the wheel:

Her coupons and plans were making her reel:

"Where's Kohl's?" she inquired.

"I don't know," I replied.

"You live here; I don't," she came back,

so I thought and I tried

to picture the store where I'd just seen it last,

and, lo and behold, the great Kohl's had held fast

on Loop 12 at Skillman--with Target next door;

nothing could be easier when shopping for more.

The crowd: It was lulling post the madness of 3:00.

Most were at coffee or a donut reprieve.

We bought toys galore--and I want to keep them,

but I'll wrap them up brightly

With bows meant to hide them:

A Pink V-Dub with Barbie and trucks that make noise,

pajamas and books for the girls and the boys,

DVDs for my Laura, a little something for my man.

When I realized I'd had all the fun I could stand,

we came home for breakfast with

hot chocolate to mend--

and to top it all off, a little whipped cream!

Laura has recharged,

and I sit here and wonder, "Was all that a dream?"

Now she's whisked off

to shop with her cousin and aunt,

but I'm opting to sit with the fire, dogs, and cat.
 
26 November 2010


Friday, November 9, 2012

A Hero Rides Away















A choreography of a higher power,
A documentary of love, will remain in the blinded minds
And heavy hearts—a mystery
Of falling golden leaves, twirling through blue omnipotence
Down to the earth to rest at the limited feet
Which later trudge to watch the fallen hero
Lie still at last—after he takes his final ride.
Tears streak and imprison stricken faces
Yet liberate for a while the pent-up
Anguish felt not only for today’s hero
But for the heroes gone away during
Their yesterdays.
Accumulation of love and fear and
Misunderstanding and acceptance
And loss bind neighbors and strangers
As one with just a glimpse of Heaven
As they try to save the moment
Yet wish they could forget this elimination,
Forget this presence of tragedy.
Young men with faces dappling red cry and
Struggle with carrying
The weight of one who will never hold
Such gravity in their lives again.
They become little boys again:
With such metamorphoses, why cannot they also summon their hero
To ride next to them again
Rather than be borne by the amassed strength
That they have gained under his guidance?
The blue and golden day bears
The sorrowful and laden hearts for the wife, the neighbors, the strangers,
The mothers, the fathers, the sisters, the brothers,
The sons, the daughters—and those boys— who
Cannot bear to carry them with their
Own endurance because knowledge of
How to endure escapes them.
Yet they do not need command of this mystery today:
The beautiful day holds and caresses them
As it sways them in the cradle of
The lightness of the breeze
Which causes the leaves to fall.

9 November 2012

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Water


Aquaceous
loquacious--
Were it intubatious
I could breathe it--
In water I can fly--
the only place I can fly--
except in my dreams where
through the air I can fly.
Water and air
I wish could be one.

Monday, October 15, 2012

eternity


in the far and dark
reaches of the night
the little girl pondered
how in the world
(Heaven, actually)
she would keep herself
occupied for eternity
after the demise...
all she could come up with
was to eat popcorn at the movies

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Aquarius, We Hope



We dawned the age of Aquarius
back in 1969.
Some never heard the words
which blast away still today
and bounce back and forth,
ricocheting around the interior of
a New Beetle--from an iPod.
No one outside can
hear it but me. The others on
the freeway absorb their own messages
from their own programs.
How cacophonous we've become.
What did cacophony ever serve
except to warn us in a movie that
something bad was about to happen?
But we pound on down the highway
as if ZZ Top were dying tomorrow.
 
And yet I remember a herald of
cacophonous cathedral bells
which scattered doves to flight.
Aquarius, we hope.




Monday, September 3, 2012

Berries


 
The berries of a time ago

bleed into memory

as onto my tongue and

onto my hands then.

The yellow-jackets: 

They hovered then

a moment—then

whisked to the other side

of my head until

I wished them away--

like the thoughts of

my days today.

 
Where do thoughts go for

someone who does not

hold them still? They arise as a

taste or a hue again—

as an aroma

that elicits warmth or pain.

Remembered bright days of childhood accompany

visions that sear and splash

the rows of berries

in a refrigerated market and strings of beans

haphazardly bulked in piles,

not harvested by

children whose sun-heated

thoughts transcend to what might

be grown

on another day

far-flung from the circles of

their imaginations—

circles which do not close

as they are pricked

by years of circumventing

to regain the serenity

and yearning of a child.

 
Nov. 18, 2009

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Thin Morning Air

 


Thin morning air,
lemon-colored light,
Helios’ delight:
Stellar gray of dawn
takes wing with geese
who trumpet the day.
Breezes shiver leaves,
aroused for diurnal play 
of shading mortals
from the fierceness
of his reign.
Yet Apollo’s light filters through
with dapples of truth.
We dare not know omniscience.
Blinded we continue,
passing from nocturnal songs
to the burnishing of dirges—
wondering which way the
wind will spin us into
webs thrown out merely,
yet with no little weight; we
knock on wood,
cross our fingers,
cross our hearts,
sing praises to the heights,
and wait for all surprises
lingering in the air—
set to stagger or amaze us,
to take the wind or
fill our sails.
We tremble and pause
to catch our breaths.

31 May 2011


Tuesday, August 28, 2012

To a Scholar





To a Scholar

I take no credit.
I am a small bit of mortar
in the edifice that becomes your
living.  Our roads cross
briefly, but your
journey is lengthy.
I am but a sign post.
I am not the path.
You fly.  You sing.  You
work.  You play well.  You
become an aria as your own influence
mingles with the gladness of a choir of strong elders.
Indubitably, you
are more than the sum
of all the intermittent notes that balance you
and that you count
for brief moments--
more than all the arcs that spring
you to spiral
upward and forward
to countless blessed hours.
The long-lived measures
you learn to improvise
after understanding the rules of school--
and I am humbled
and carried forth
by the delivery
of your song.

8 June 2011, edited 28 August 2012



Monday, August 27, 2012

The Umbra


Fear is the umbra that I carry
From my youth.
It snakes its way coldly
Through the years—
As shards of ice shooting
Through my veins,
Stabbing my heart,
Compelling me to falter—then halt.
Hence, the steam from the bleeding-out
Infects me with cold sweat in the night—
When all reason is obscured.
Yet I cling to this shadow
Which cannot leave me
(for a shadow is not a variable),
Seeking its companionship
Rather than enmity--
As a Lost Boy who delights
In the tests of his bravery,
However spectrally
They are presented
(for Hope is the small thing
that thrives in the darkness
of Pandora's box).
Herein lies the key to surviving:
To open one’s eyes as
Innocently as a child
Each morning
As Dawn slips in through
The window to 
Emblazon her light on the face
Of fear—
Hence blinding the serpent
Which would tempt and deceive
With the image of safety 
Hidden underneath
The dark covers of the bed--
Urging one to live in limbo forever.

10 June 2011

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Agley: From Dictionary.com, Word of the Day


a·gley

  [uh-glee, uh-gley, uh-glahy]  Show IPA
adverb Chiefly Scot.
off the right lineawry; wrong.


Big Lennie loved the mouse a wee
Bit hard.  He begged for rabbits, too.
But George--he knew that she--
Whom the big child crushed (though nameless She may be)--
Foreshadowed all their schemes--agley…

The rabbits in the sky he watched…
The rabbits in the sky:
He had no prospects more to fear
And no more stakes unmade.

Mice and men are fragile beasts,
And so’s a woman without a name.

6 April 2012

Thursday, August 23, 2012

dog day musings

still August but a bit of
fall is springing in the air
during seconds in the
shade by St. Augustine
which survives in any heat
…hope…there’s hope…
my new year always begins
in the fourth quarter
…listen for the marching band’s
practice tomorrow morning
…I forget this every year
until surprise smacks me
after the drought and channels more words
buzzing in the left brain
waiting for a nudge from the right
brain while dodging squadrons
of giant dragonflies that the
aerial spray didn’t kill
…happy they’re alive
…not the graceful lacey ones
…hordes of them like black ops 'copters
…perhaps the strongest to survive or
perhaps ones strengthened by the poison somehow—
bizarrely, like the green grass that grew one
August in Hiroshima
…still, there’s hope
…a Mayberry day
…walking the chihuahua who’d
love to chew away the leash
and make me work for this walk
…a Mayfield day
…even the tree trimmer’s red rig
like old Gus’s fire truck
…transcendence to a time
before the towers came down
to a time which needed no towers
…or so I think…

23 August 2012

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Sing


The panther screams, yet again, within the womb;
His mother’s golden eyes search the shadows
Of the night for the poacher:  No trickery
Of the gods on Olympus here:
Innocence no longer tempts them:  Paranoia and evil
Cloak and arm themselves into incarnate forces without
The aid of a sanctified force…no thoughts of “meant to be”
Can be condoned:
Evil happens when evil is allowed when heads turn the other way.
The words of poets, the canvases of artists,
The songs of chanteuses:  These are our strongest prayers—
Besides the mother’s wail and the father’s jousting with the night.
The poets, the artists, the singers absorb the ricochet of every bullet
In their souls when the fabric of the universe is rent once again.
They cannot sleep until they weave more cloaks against the
Coming of the phantoms of fear.
So, “Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story
Of that man skilled in all ways of contending…”
 
Where are our heroes?
They are within.

24 March 2012

Monday, August 20, 2012

The City Sings a Song of Jazz


The city sings a song of jazz
with softened saxes and gentle guitars
to send us gliding around the curves
of overpasses brunted against the
neon skyline as the moon rises and ripples
among high frozen notes of clouds
as the sun plays its final reprise
on the shaded eyes of skyscrapers
while the users of the streets
play musical chairs--
as some exit, others arrive--
while many can only march in place.
The jazz once sang for a swinging happening
at a fancy club where memories of jet-setters are left
as ring stains on bars and tables.  The fog of
martini-laden nights croons to us--who were too
young to be glamourous then.
The underbelly of the city cannot quieten
the soulful scats of the lounge singer's echo
from decade to decade,
cannot hide the burlesque
that flowed heavily and rounded, carrying the good and the bad on its River Styx,
cannot stop the resonance of bullets near a grassy knoll,
cannot stop the carousel's fillies from going 'round and 'round.
We stalk the years
that played all the standards--and set the standards
up and down the scales of every dweller's heart--
and we lean wistfully on lamposts,
wishing for a film noir's moment
with a saxophone's rising.

26 September 2011