Belated Words

Write On!

  • 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

    .

  • farm books

     

     They were the first books from memories’ beginnings;

    even the Bible Storybook followed after.

    A sentimental claim could have saved them, ensured

    their survival from crazy mother fire she flung

    to send her gelatinous demons home to Hell

    from the closet shared with the stacked, forgotten books.

    With them flamed up my pre-school doodles penciled on

    endpapers.  The text pages, slick as ice, rebuffed

    pencil’s reticent lead, while end sheets craved caress.

    Too pristine; stiff covers of muted blues and grays,

    greens, even reds; inside: over-exposed pictures

    of breeds of hogs, cattle, fowl…crop rotation charts

    that, I would swear, were never glimpsed before my eyes.

    We never talked of books or little else; always

    at work even when sick (coming home pale to fall,

    “burning-up” to his hard bed).  He would never read

    his “farm books” bought by Uncle Sam as his reward

    for surviving battlefields in France, Belgium;

    in tiny towns…only words… he struggled to say.

    What was an Alabama boy who barely read

    to do, but wed the pretty girl waiting back home,

    and care for cotton, corn, durocs, chickens and kids?

    Tenant farming fail through.  Mother still talks of wind

    blowing bitter cold up through floorboard cracks and the

    silent rat snake, “This long!” falling from the attic’s

    dark scary hole to hit the kitchen floor, plop!

    beside her as she churned butter for our cornbread.

    (Only Sunday she had prayed for just an onion

    to eat with beans and the last of the “side meat.”)

    Poor snake, more startled than she, died a riving death

    by her cotton chopping hoe, twisting till sunset.

    Daddy, too gentle, kind…always the provider,

    “too good for his own good”, delivered milk or bread

    or pumped gas always smiling the rest of his life;

    accepting grueling hours like penitence…for what?

    The books?

    Still I summon the scent and feel of their dated

    knowledge and hope gone stale.  I remember, it was

    mother’s suggestion, her offering to me, to draw

    in Daddy’s books.

  • Gardening 101: Attitude

    cracked ice 005

    On damaged knees in wet and sweet dark dirt,

    the gardener in his plot mumbles:

    his soul is singing songs of friable decay,

    of tingling life through fingers’ sifting touch.

    .

    He presents his face, unashamed and

    divinity anoints him priest, seer, Adam’s son

    with sacred smudge of sweat and primal dust.

    All joy is not in bloom but in seeding.

  • Moses and the Burning Bush

    An Elysian blunder was how it began;

    a careless spark spewed over heaven’s brim

    and shrubbery was ablaze in heathen/land.

    The worst part was the humorless witness:

    flock-boys were bothersome with time

    to watch and wonder and suspect more.

    Since original fire could not consume…

    merely entice and dazzle and show,

    improvisation was called for, so I AM

    assigned an asinine, too/big quest, enough

    to quiver and quail a shepherd’s lust

    to tell and brag of what he had witnessed.

    We know how that turned out.

  • toys

    Charlie and I, neighbors, would scoop foxholes

    in his back yard for our little green army men

    and with a stone on a string buried beneath

    packed dirt, a jerk exploded our grenades;

    our carefully arranged troops, unsuspecting,

    were flung into an air of sweet chaos.

    They would survive, only dirtied, to endure

    by poly/plastic toughness, more assaults;

    to rise and fall again and again without protest.

    We taught ourselves to shoot; mimic the sound:

    tongue-tip against the hard palate

    capturing breath to spit-out air

    securing an eternal arsenal;

    ammo until our throats ached.

    There were no points for body counts, no thrill

    from carnage, rivulets of blood,

    or screams of torture;

    only our boisterous narration,

    our mayhem play…….and the ecstatic scent

    of fresh scooped earth’s essence and cool

    red dirt staining raw fingertips

    as Charlie and I rapturously sweated

    another white-hot summer day away.

    war games 

1957: Toys
Charlie and I would scoop foxholes
in the yard for our little green army men
and with a rock on a string, buried beneath

packed-dirt, a jerk exploded our grenades;
our carefully arranged troops, ambushed,
were flung into an air of sweaty chaos.

They would survive, only dirtied, to endure
by poly-plastic toughness more assaults;
to rise and fall, again…again, without protest.

We taught ourselves to shoot; mimic the sound:
tongue-tip against hard palate, captured breath 
spit-out rhythmically; an eternal arsenal;

ammo until our throats ached from firing.
There were no body-count points, no thrill
of carnage, rivulets of blood, torturous screams;

only boisterous narration, but most remembered:
the ecstatic scent of fresh scooped earths essence
and the cool, red dirt staining my raw fingertips.

  • cold wind day

    The cold wind owned the day.

    Sniggering, sliding icicle ghost

    against my cringing neck,

    he bent me beneath his gray face;

    pale narcissus was humbled,

    hanging face in humility

    at his own audacity

    to dare flaunt with pride.

    Even the audience trees paid homage

    with chins drawn tight to chest

    with a curious tilt of head.