Belated Words

Write On!

Tag: poem

  • The hummers are gone

    The hummers are gone; they left by moonlight.

    There was no need to sneak away; lodgings,

    food was free into perpetuity.

    Perhaps the anticipation was way

    too much for tiny drumming hearts to bare.

    Maybe, they could not sleep like us, as kids,

    wide-eyed with thoughts of sunny surf and sand.

    I would like to think they darted passed our

    window as they were going, peeping at

    our dreams as we re-imagined our own

    migrations; our reasoning’s back and forth,

    battered between the same locales, misgivings

    and some forgivings, the same trees for years.

    We have our instincts, too, craving the trees.

    They must have offered a chirpy goodbye

    because I woke knowing something was gone,

    lost or forgotten but unsure of what.

    Do they rendezvous with old friends and kin

    or do connections, commiserations

    languish….falter in pursuit of nectar?

    Costa Rica! If we could go on an

    Eco-tour, we might sip the same flowers

    and they might zip-up to us tweeting their

    apologies for leaving abruptly.

    They did not have to pack, just lift and leave.

    Wouldn’t it be great to rise in air

    feeling all weight dropping from rising feet

    not having to worry about the dogs

    or what you’re leaving in the frig to spoil

    or if the bills are all paid or if you

    show enough affection and concern?

    They left three days earlier than last year.

    I marked it on the calendar as I

    cross off every day anticipating

    ….or is it gloating over surviving?

    I’ve got to stop this crossing off of days.

  • 1972

    You will learn all about yourself when your

    freedom is severed, or better, surrendered

    in protest of perceived, unholy folly;

    putting your fate in the hands of The Man.

    “Hell no!  We won’t go!  Hell no!  We won’t go!

    No more war!  No more war!…” ad infinitum;

    chants do return “trippingly on the tongue.”

    •

    (more…)

  • Let me go…three times

    Haiku:

    Let me go gently,

    like a welcomed breeze at dusk;

    a graceful exit.

    Let me go..

    Let me go….

    Between pulses of pain,

    frozen in a paralytic millisecond of bliss;

    like a mammoth in ice,

    mouth immovable in mid syllable,

    forever

    about to say something memorable.

    Caregiver’s Lament:

    Let me go after you are gone

    if only for a little while;

    when you are gone I will revert,

    with little regret, even joy,

    to indulgences I postponed

    that I might be here to sooth you.

    “You are my reason for living.”

    a cliché so misunderstood,

    has more to do with love and sad

    obligation undertaken

     almost unnoticed ….but freely

    and that wears, tears and can break will.

    I crave to sniff, sip and savor

    my hot, old bliss, irregardless

    of how fleeting or injurious.

    I give you all the world I have:

    my true love without resentment;

    I have your gratitude and love….

    which barely suffices at times.

           

                

  • In other people’s hands

    We’re forced to place the ones we love

    in other people’s hands; we swear

    we love with our languid smile

    on lips drawn thin by telling haste.

    A fat-faced, name-tagged enigma

    led you away to join others

    for the help and time we can’t give.

    You went away clutching your purse,

    soon to be taken from your hands,

    held for safety reasons…. like you;

    held safe with all your delusions,

    memories, visions, conspiracies….

    and those demons that set that fire;

    those tiny gelatinous creatures

    that taunted you from your closet

    forcing you to toss a flaming

    match in…. to send them back to hell.

  • an anniversary

           In front of the liquor store…

    Rain darts in jagged shots across the glass

    between weary swipes of squeaking, tired blades.

    The defroster stifles….but I leave it;

    let it fight the haze.  Maybe, it can sweat out

    this demon locked to my melancholy,

    my known genetic predisposition;

    this twinned self–tarred skin of me, entwined tight

    within and steeped in remembrance of bliss

    now forsaken.  For what….a longer life

    to be reminded of a craving want;

    of my own sad winter of discontent?

    This meninges, membranous bag for

    every muscle and bone and nerve and cell,

    every spark of thought, every common urge

    of me is immune to time’s cheap cure.

    Time is not a healer for everything.

    My eyes in the rearview beseech themselves

    and, stared down, blink a hard resolve….today,

    to pass on the easy and drive away.

  • Haiku….Relief

    Syrupy air rinsed clean,

    squeezed out tight and huge to dry

    in a gentler sun.

  • Grand Kids

    So sweet, the summer scent of grasses

    enveloping, floating them with ease

    across the yard, never touching ground,

    it seems, tumbling, cart-wheeling,

    timorous hand stands, “Watch me! Watch me!”

    Green stained feet squeaking on cool wood floors.

    Toes striving, pinching for purchase

    on chairs and thighs, climbing with moist aroma,

    lap squirming, so willfully loving.

    Flesh of my flesh of my flesh;

    joyous as salvation, and just as fleeting.

  • Cooking collards with Prometheus

     

    20241120_110129 

    First, a rinse under a gentle stream,

    veins down to earth cascades flow,

    cold water sweeping clinging grit

    rolling glints over savory emerald-ness

    of Gaia, like amoeba, feasting as they go.

    If prepared whole, some leaves would drape

    over both hands, an offering of perfection,

    but, as we are, pretenders to the thrones,

    we claim all honor of discovery and prep;

    we must tear, chop and season to our taste;

    salt, pepper, onion, pork, even brown sugar

    Are we attempting ambrosia?

     Collards, food of a more caring god?

    Perhaps, Prometheus presented this gift

    to us along with his glowing coals

    since we, had been denied ambrosia

    and fire’s warmth for no other reason than….

    I do not know why we were denied;

    merely created and left in want.

    I do know, sadly, that few of us have suffered

    as Prometheus, to love and care for mankind.

  • cognition tests…

    During the first break in the tests, you cried;

    frustration twisted your face tight as pain.

    Tears could not blur fright from your seeking eyes

    as you pled, silently, for solace which

    I tried to exude by words, touch, even

    by pure will.  “There’s no right or wrong answers,”

    I smiled, “the test will help to understand

    why you forget….”

                                  and look at me without

                                  comprehension as if I were a stain

                                  or quadratic equation on a board,

                                  and obsessively relive your childhood,

                                  and stumbling, you fall against the world.

                                  

    You are the locus, the center of spin…

     your affliction makes you so….I know that

    but try to think this way, it’s more soothing:

    take a line….horizontal is calming….

    and on that line, you are a data point,

    a point enclosed and held in the safety

    of a cluster of points, immersed and bathed

    in a like community, and not left

    sitting alone, an outlier astray;

    a unique Me trembling in white space.

  • I’ll mow the yard…

     

    I just fell off the page;

    for hours it seems I slid

    and at the edge my hands,

    cupped in ells, failed to grasp,

    and so, until I crash,

    I’ll pretend I’ve more important things to do.