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.
    




    




    




    




    




    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    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
    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    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.

    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
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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!’”.
    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    Encounter with a Cellist
    
			
    

     
    An apiarist, a priest and a carpenter walked into a bar.
    OK. What happened then?
    A cellist walked in, opened his case and shot them with his AR-15.
    OK. Why just those three?
    He was stung by a bee, touched by a priest and his father was a carpenter.
    OK. Was that his trial defense?
    Oh, never caught and the three weren’t regulars, anyway.
    OK. Did you just make all that up?
    What’s your job? Gotta go, due at the Symphony Hall.
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    the flow
    
			
    

    




    




    Days flow in incandescent, pollen-tinted light
    




    moment by hour by millennium unstoppable;
    




    sinuously hand in hand with time, their free arms
    




    throw outward, chests pump to boast of being one
    




    with the flow’s blasting bellow of life heard only
    




    mutely by us, whispering under our constant din
    




    of rants, proclamations and squeals of whiny ills.
    




    As the river scrounges, ravishing, stealing
    




    fish cavern walls from beneath its own banks 
    




    that hinder the flow it knows no purpose only
    




    the god of movement’s flood.  Stopping is death.
    




    The mother oak by strength and massive reach
    




    commands her hill only by chance and entrée
    




    by tenacious grasp of Gaia’s breast sucking
    




    the flow of mother’s milk.  Her mammoth face 
    




    in breeze sings praise. The flow, not by beat, 
    




    but by constancy plays the melody of her song.
    




    




    This is a slightly revised version of a poem originally posted in October 2012. I am slowly adding photos to each old post and, in a sense, reliving past memories and experiences; some sweet, some not so much.