Belated Words

Write On!

Tag: poems

  • Three Days

    August one and sweet gum leaves,
    enough to notice, are falling yellow
    on wilting grass. The air is dry;
    the parching season; joy does thirst;

    I crave a single meager bliss:
    a sip of wine, a furtive smile,
    but for now this cool wind gift will do.
    August two and insidious privet

    tentacle roots spit depleted red-
    clay clumps at me. I fight to claim
    a needed though paltry victory
    before winter’s cold, harsh truce.

    August three and butterflies flood
    their namesake shrubs decoding
    nectar’s notes on divine law while
    breeze and chime synch our requiem.

  • Turtle

    When five, she scraped in soft, black ground

    a hole—a grave—to cuddle what she found

    below the steps; a baby turtle; dead.

    Splayed neck and legs and cracked green shell

    told her of death and worse, of disregard.

     

    She took her sister’s glass jewel-box

    and lay Turtle in on velvet cloth, covered

    him over, patted, caressed his final bed;

    she sang a song she’d heard the choir sing

    while fashioning a cross from sticks and string.

     

    Three days straight, she exhumed his remains

    but Turtle’s knowing smile did not change.

    At death, soul flies, flesh melts away, they said.

    At five, she wanted only fireflies’ night vitrine

    to sooth a disquiet mind; to run, to sing.

  • Vulture

    Most conspicuous soarer of Georgia skies
    floats for eons circling till I grit my teeth
    in expectancy and finally he, snagging

    a hot air lift, shoots up straight, ascending
    like Jesus, wings stiff with ecstasy,
    blood stained beak thrown open to sing

    hosannas, but not for my ears. Then more
    eons and satiated or fearful of God-light or
    despairing still of Paradise lost, a minute

    wing-tip-dip spirals him in delirium down
    to vanish behind pine’s dark façade;
    shade veiled refuge for his grotesquerie.

  • I should have trekked more

    I should have trekked more;
    risked unmapped excursions; not
    Vegas, Turkey or New Guinea,
    those lauded, exotic locals; no.

    I should have taken LSD or
    chewed some shrooms and
    luxuriated in my own colors,
    sniffed the illusive waft of wild,

    instead:
    I’ve traipsed these bland locals;
    wary of running aground,
    of taking a hike in flip-flops,
    of eating forbidden fruit.

  • A Poem I’ll Write Someday

    I crossed the line without noticing;
    stepped over it as I missed my turn
    or as I mumbled execrations at the
    4-way stop, unsure of when to go.

    Yesterday I heard a guy mumbling,
    reading the words I carry on my back
    as he overtook me huffing hard,
    “Old man! Old man! Old man!”

  • Lumbricidae guiltos uniquitous

    Nothing is hidden, buried perhaps;
    dozed over by heavy machinery
    or a synapses misalignment sends
    the thing astray or it sits waiting, but
    it is not unknown and, unlike you and I,
    reeks of patience till revelation.

    There’s a creature, little known and blind,
    that eats its wandering way about;
    much like, in appearance, Lumbricidae
    and without judgment devours the gist
    of us, leaving a trail of detritus to be
    burned in heaven’s fire on that final day.

  • The Tether

    The tether is broken; the frayed end

    fades into nothingness, detectable only

    to great-grandparents, severing me

    from those that were the first to come.

    ·

    Records were lost or never made

    by those chosing to inter their pasts,

    to cherish their second/chance lives.

    Were there no offices held,

    ·

    were there no fortunes earned,

    no martyred selves, no gloat,

    no consuming greed, no illicit loves?

    Were lives too sordid or too slight to claim?

    ·

    Were there no poems sung?

  • In Memory of George

    George

    You looked like a clay/mockup you,

    a rough portrait study bust devoid

    of hair and beard, lying in that coffin,

    swaddled in unfamiliar satin and suit.

    •

    Without hair, your nose stood out,

    pitted, more bulbous than I recalled,

    scarred where the dog bull-baited

    you while you, on all fours, earned

    a hard day’s wage laying carpet.

    •

    You were hardly you, even discounting death,

    without your ginger hair and beard;

    a small Sasquatch some have joked;

    some with affection; others cruelly.

    Your soul mirrored only the gentlest

    of beast to me.  At  M’s graduation

    in a too small jacket & wrinkled tie,

    slicked red hair and beard awry you

    drew looks even in our red-neck town.

    I remember you above all others;

    you blessed our hearts by being there.

    •

    The preacher couldn’t help but mention

    your “troubled life” as if perfection was just

    a matter of choice and our duty was to judge.

    He seemed to care little of your nature;

    if only he had recalled your soft mumbling

    voice, strangely soothing to my ears,

    or your eyes’ sparkle hidden now behind

    sealed lids, or your generous heart and smile.

    •

    We, the ones that love you, gathered

    to stand and wave as you took one last

    glance at this often cruel world with an

    over-the-shoulder smile and slipped

    into the welcoming, singing trees.

    ♥

  • Spirea: Burning Bush

    spirea 002

    Scattered Spirea blaze reddish/gold,

    flaming space-heater globes, warming

    my brown garden iced by lethargic air.

    If I lie naked among them could I thaw,

    and seep to meld with nourished root

    capillaries spiraling to a fruitful place

    of spring stirrings and glorious blooms?

    ∞

    Could I, in late March break ground,

    a green sliver twisting to light only,

    sated with discernment of all things,

    yet ordained by the flow only to flow;

    a Buddha sitting under The Tree of Life,

    hands cupped, not in prayer, but empathy?

  • poor

    poor:

    The word itself appears dried up,

    too scantily clad to survive,

    too striped of bone, devoid of desire;

    no evident, attendant Bling!

    bling: a none-existent word back then

    all through the slow, long years of youth

    when we said fancy-stuff, as in,

    “Who really wants that fancy stuff?”

    licking our lips in blusterous denial.

    I don’t remember being poor or “pour”

    as I would have said back then….and still do.

    Daddy always worked long, hard hours,

    burnt dark pumping gas…fixing flats.

    We always had a rust-free, used car

    staunchly devoid of Bling! except

    that ’59 Chevy with fender-skirts

    and air and re-upholstered seats!

    We always had a house; tiny but clean,

    clapboarded, rural rentals with,

    in my earliest years, an outhouse,

    but in my room, in the darkest spot,

    a child’s white enameled pot with

    a red-rimed lid was kept for me;

    I did have a pot to piss in.

    I did not feel so different

    because of that….I did not know

    the reason I felt singular.

    I remember first grade school bus

    and being called sunk-eyes; me,

    the poster kid for sickly-child

    with breath pilfering asthma,

    a snot-rag dampening my pocket

    during the glories of Spring and Fall

    and being alone, balled-up,

    in a paint-peeled Adirondack

    built from scrap and hope by dad

    in a rented yard in brilliant sun,

    and wondering if pollen had

    attacked my heart as it had

    my nose and lungs and eyes

    and infected hope, stolen joy

    and would I ever unclasp my knees

    and unfurl my wheezing mind.