Belated Words

Write On!

Category: Poems

  • Eve’s Lament

    




    Seth, your father always has me to blame,
    




    Perhaps, rightly so.  We both were weak,
    




    But I was bolder; more easily snared
    




    By honeyed words and glittering eyes.
    




     
    




    Given no chance to reflect or repent,
    




    We were abruptly yanked from naiveté.
    




    The embittering truth of our sullen days
    




    Crushed us to chaff, dry as this hot wind.
    




     
    




    “The woman whom thou gavest to be
    




    With me, she gave me of the tree, and
    




    I did eat.” Your father played the dutiful son,
    




    Accusing me cruelly. I was no better.
    




     
    




    The other bore my blame; he with
    




    The most beautiful skin of enameled
    




    Green hues and eyes so fearless
    




    In their un-blinking expectations of me.
    




     
    




    Your brothers are forever lost to you.
    




    Both had fallen before you were born;
    




    Cain still flees his brothers blood
    




    That seeps and whispers from this ground.
    




     
    




    A child myself, born grown, no nurture,
    




    No mothers’ touch and love;
    




    I felt no kin to Father, man, nor beast.
    




    I was that beetle, Seth, you toy with your stick.
    




     
    




    Regret and blame, they rule your father’s days.
    




    The other tree, if I had eaten of it instead;
    




    Eternal Life and then Knowledge?
    




    No.  It was better this way.
    




    




    




    




    




    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    Television
    
			
    

    Lindon: The High-wire Clown
    




    




    




    A frame, a portal box to view the past,
    




     reruns of the slow years entice:
    




    a clown, fake feet, in rags of gray and grime
    




    ascended a ladder tipped against a rope 
    




    strung taut across the stage that night;
    




    a deft, stealth cat move and the ladder flipped.
    




    The clown entangled with ladder and rope
    




    was hung to dry…to fain ineptitude….
    




    his look of bewilderment held for laughs.
    




    I was a watcher struck by time, amazed
    




    by memory more clear than that of today’s,
    




    Ed Sullivan…. Live….the early sixties.
    




    I had watched his act, probably smiled
    




    my same quick smile, and lived sixty odd years
    




    never thinking of it again and now,
    




    a clowns’ skill, his perfected art, saddens,
    




    begs of decades  of years of imperfecting:
    




    why are our looks of puzzlement the same?
    




    




    First blogged fourteen years ago as TV; slight revisions made.
    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    Ninety-nine Years Ago
    
			
    

    

    




    




    

    




    Ninety-nine years ago an instant of time was snapped.

    click-click

    A picture of a life just beginning preserved by caring;
    April 1926, rural Alabama. Her birth certificate denotes,
     in cursive, under Doctor-Midwife: Mrs. B.  A midwife 
    or, who knows now, just by chance a caring neighbor?
     Is that the birthing sheet hung to dry in the background?

    click-click 

    See the slate-looking stones placed under the rockers and
    the two pillows in dinge softness framing a newborn life; 
    daughter, sister, mother; an endless array of assignations.   
    See the leather covered seat... the rocker's an inside chair.
    No flash bulbed cameras back then for poor farmer folks;
    she had to be brought outside to face the sun...the glare 
    of life's beginnings. See her tiny fingers grasping, searching
     for something to clutch, to squeeze...always...to cling to?

    click-click

     




    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    Burial
    
			
    

    






    Funeral Processions; yes, I've followed a few; led two
    in the second vehicle, the family car, after the Hearse.

    Yesterday on the bypass on way to the nursing home 
    I fell behind another; a slow, near stalling motorcade;

    multiple police blue lights flashing at crossroads,
    extended parade of taillight's paying homage. Then,

    exit to Glory Gardens' acres and acres of Departures;
    the ridge cresting crypts; roadside hugging flat stones.

    Was the honored one a past friend I had forgotten?
    Past is the word noting my ascension into the Present,

    in which I have chosen, requested of my son, a plot;
    a boundless plot unmarked, his choosing, along a creek,

    a wilderness home where a discreet casting of ashes 
    elicits only bird hymns and fern frond's silent prayers,

     and an endless cleansing by the gurgling creek
    and scents of flowing seasons to converse with me.

    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    A Traveler
    
			
    

    




    





    A Traveler

    “She’s a Traveler, for sure.” Nurse sighed
    through a tired, unpretentious  smile.
    “Gotta chase her down at times to give’er meds.

    Other day tried to get in the mechanical room!
    Course, it was locked... but you never can tell...
    lord knows why she’s always wheeling around...

    looking for somebody, probably you, or a way outta here.
    Course, we all love’er; she's always sweet’n kind...
    always saying Thanks Honey!, Hi! and such...

    except at night sometimes when she screams
    and calls for something we don’t understand...
    yeah, she’s really a Traveler, a Searcher for sure."
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    nail clippings
    
			
    

    




            



    in the end its just the end
    no ascension no descension
    no immortality no damnation  

     in the end there is no end
    memory and maybe bone are gone
                      but never gone   
                        
           all seeps and blends on and on
         as bits and thoughts whirling as
    clippings blooming in a thousand years
    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    Take Me
    
			
    

    




    For weeks they came daily; grackles and 
    vultures swarming in plagues and kettles
    descending to take, devour claimed food.
    A scold of jays bitching from leafless trees
    did nothing to deflect or deter the feedings.

    Now they are gone; the migrant portions
    of their species; the uneasy, the unsettled,
    the searchers. For days by my windows I
    stood entranced, aching to leave, to gorge;
    imploring them to take me along to soar. 
    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    the Idea
    
			
    

    

    




    

    




    
I remember a horrid infant:
the creation of rabid men,
a concoction of desires,
ideas and secret process
devoid of conscience.
They thought the riddle was solved:
The forfeiture of a fraction
for the good of the whole.
But the whole was demeaned;
the part was not consumable
and refused to lie in silence
as mere charred bone.

    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    Trump Groped Eggs
    
			
    

    




    

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  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    Harvest
    
			
    

    






    Soybean rows paved the fields in tan shades
    heralding by their dryness a nearing harvest;
    a crop, a cycle, a promise of a fulfillment.
    Lean, overalled, old man paces his fields;
    squatting, testing multiple plants’ readiness.
    A taciturn self can’t hide the bliss of Harvest.

     A seventeen-year-old boy has harvested,
    with, according to companions, “extreme 
    happiness,” a young, rare albino antelope.
    Ask about the hunt, the harvester said,
    “I‘m was so happy! I  couldn’t git a breath!”
    Culls blood runs thick-red over white hair.
     
    “News! Breaking news! News just for you!
    An illicit harvesting may have just occurred!
    Apparently, the Harvester did not issue
    any notifications prior to this culling and 
    states his intent was ‘totally eradicate, not
    mere persecution, of those sordid, ethic beast!’”.