Perhaps, I am too quick to call it greed;
this yearning for an accumulation,
this lust of Mine!, self gratification,
a trophy case to cram with coin or heads
or banned ivory trinkets carved of tusk.
The rich, they give but not without receipts,
and accolades, and plaques to hang above their names.
Nature demands a self-interest if we
are to survive, I know, but studies show:
the poor are more generous than the rich,
percentage wise, of course. What does that say?
One thing to me….. another thing to you.
What of a heart more soothed by treasures’ lure
than smiles of thanks of a person in need?
Perhaps, I am too quick to call it greed;
one thing to me……another thing to you.
Tag: poems
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Greed
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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?
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Walking the Pews
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.
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The Portal
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.
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“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.
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Deadheading
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.
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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?
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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.
Belated Words 