Belated Words

Write On!

Category: Poems

  • My Hallmark Moment

    1998: Middle-aged Love

    Once despairing of loves existence
    I embraced solitude with forlorn persistence.
    But you banished that sadness in me;
    Drew back the curtain that I might see.

    Your smile evoked a peaceful bliss…..
    Morning light through an ethereal mist.
    You are the joy that a found child brings.
    Lost; now found, my heart just sings!

    Your are the garden of my soul
    Where joy surrounds, where delight unfolds,
    Where prism hues in dazzling arrays
    Grace fragrant nights and sun-drenched days.

  • More!

    I glanced you captured there inside your glare;
    your mouth drawn tight, a knurled apple agape,
    with silent shrieks more shrill than one could bear.
    My God! No touch or words or meds could sate
    your frantic mind; unlock, release the glut
    of images that only you could see.
    You spoke a dialogue…narrating, but
    all vague; so jumbled up…a horrid clutch…
    and then… I feared you lost for evermore.
    Your eyes were dead but you pulled near to me
    and grasp my arm and paused to question, “More?”
    For an instant your eyes they lived, begged me
    to understand your plea and I responded, “More!”
    Our silly game remembered, “I love you!”
    Then the other responds, “I love you, more!”
    ………ad infinitum

  • Packing Your Bag

    You’re a ten digit pin# now
    allowed three changes of clothes
    nothing with strings. Do bra straps count?
    Your clothes and mine
    separate now
    hang and lie
    suddenly
    dingy and mute.
    Now removed for your safety
    protected
    not from me but from yourself
    I have no choices to make
    but your wardrobe.
    You never see it coming
    until you must crucify yourself
    create a display and hope someone
    can remove spikes and treat wounds.
    Each time you’re broken apart
    reassembled by chemical agents
    restitched without patterns
    and
    always there are left over bits
    flotsam puffed away, out of sight
    like lint in a dryer vent
    your color, your fabric left diminished.

  • Mourning Dove

    In grass beneath the ravaged feeder,

    accepting rejected seed dropped

    or flung away by purple finch,

    the pair bob thanks that go unseen

    except by me.

     

    Sated, they ascend

    to birdbath rim, meekly chanting,

    seeking permission few could deny.

    In monkish semblance they drink.

    Again, sated…

     

    they lift with

    white-tipped, feather robes trailing

    to sing in calls we’ve name mourning

    but which can only be joyous coos

    of gratitude.

     

    What watcher first

    saw the dove as symbol of peace

    of hope, of love, of a risen god?

    I’ve lived a lifetime and only now

    I ask this question?

  • Walking the Pews

    thistle

    I remember Uncle Paul at my age now;

    sucked dry to jerky, bone and voice by

    decades of denial, sin and repentance;

    sin and repentance, sin and repentance….

    emptied of all but that ecstatic eye-light.

    Could repentance be more ruinous than sin?

    Long arms flailed us from behind his pulpit,

    while his voice, with the same wind-sucking

    cadence rasp ingrained from childhood church

    served us fiery red-lakes of eternal anguish

    like biscuits spread with strawberry jam;

    words flung joyously in condemning glee:

    You will burn forever and forever in Hell,

    torn from limb to limb by  burning demons

    unless you repent! Repent! Repent! Repent! 

    I had only heard of  preachers doing this;

    walking the pews, but never been a witness.

    Uncle Paul jumped from pulpit to floor to

    front pew seat and up and, with divine elation,

    stepped the oak pew backs from front to rear

    of his tiny church and back again, flinging

    his diminished body to right and left and right

    on trembling legs, blessing believers and me,

    alike, with spittle from Gods’ own word.

    Those in his path parted as the Red Sea,

    leaning only slightly, as not to offend,

    to right or left with graceful ducks of head.

    I wore the same pious grin of adoration as

    faithful; entranced by his joy of satiation.

    A child had capitulated to terror once

    and finally walked the aisle of Amazing Grace

    and mustered a lie of faith to profess belief;

    a child kneeling, humbled, but without relief.

    I lay spread-eagle on stony ground, open

    for reception for years. Only scent sweet

    taste of dirt and thistles have cared for me;

    holding and soothing without expectation.

  • The Portal

    buddleias 013

    My friend laments her passing years

    As lost, as nothing now.  But wait,

    Dear one, I disagreed, they’re there;

    Just out of sight and sound, secured,

    Waiting behind memories door.

    You probably walked past them this morning

    Admiring your gardens offerings.  Your cheek

    Just graced their hiding place as you sniffed,

    Then snapped malingering blooms.  They’re there,

    Passed buddleias purple cones, above

    Rudbeckias stylized suns, behind

    Hollyhocks rust/blotched leaves.

    Don’t be afraid; slip your slender hand

    Up to your thin, white wrist into the mass

    And turn like a key.

  • “Et tu, Brute?”

    I read his obit today; the who

    what where when but not the how.

    I had missed him, felt his absence

    But put it down to his capriciousness.

    Last week, his body, such as it was,

    Was found, fittingly, behind the file

    Marked “Lost and Found”

    Beside the head librarian’s desk;

    A feeble attempt at humor, as was,

    The hand-lettered sign strung round

    His neck by string, naming him….Muse.

    Cause of his passing was indeterminable

    Due to the condition of the form.

    I suspect years of abuse at the hands

    Of the likes of me and the laureates.

    No charges were filed:

    There was too little evidence

    Or too many possible suspects;

    It was all unclear. The case is closed.

    •

    Plans for internment will be announced

    When a proper eulogy can be obtained.

  • Deadheading

    deadheading 013 

    I wait too long, dreading the pinching of the bloom;

    the trashing of faded glory limply browning.

    Rampant roses prick my intent with minute thorns

    for severing when scent sings sweetest.

    Now, flaccid sheaths, daylily blooms bleed

    pomegranate/pink flora blood on my fingers

    as I grasp to snap them from their kin.

    Remove the old and the new will flourish;

    we say over and over; true, or only a mantra

    we chant to appeased our aversions to what

    we see as the useless weak and unsightly?

    After the pinch I let them lie at their makers feet

    to sing in final sweetness of summation;

    to remain and bask and seep back to the whole.

  • Free Will

    This is where I hang: exposed to dry air;

    Filleted in equal pink pieces to parch

    In low, fly/buzzed humidity, to shrink

    to the leathery truth.  Deprived of the

    justification gene, I can make no

    excuse; can’t blame father, mother, a god

    or circumstance or fate.  Am I so blessed or cursed?

  • Dying in the Woods

    The time will come

    when I will walk away:

    a farewell tour escaping bed-

    ridden incarceration

    before the doped dozing;

    the un-tethering.

    I will limp among the pines

    scenting their needles

    and remembrance’s lust,

    which will only soften,

    make more palatable,

    my final meal of leaves

    and tiny creatures;

    my final savorings

    plucked from ample offerings

    .