Belated Words

Write On!

Tag: poems

  • Memorial

    Separation is the state of final

    acknowledgement of the absolute.

    Existing in relation to all, you cannot

    complete yourself but we will be here,

    remembering your name, speaking humbly,

    offering colorful ribbons and tears.

    •

    Sacrifice is the act, the act that ends.

    Who made the choice is not the point to argue;

    you were chosen or made the choice yourself.

    Whether the cause was just or not or moot,

    something was required and you were loss.

    Now, you  have that knowing that eludes us.

    •

    Placated, soothed by ritualistic words,

    we read hollow text and embarrassed by

    uncouth grief and the shriek of loss we pray,

    speaking of the Ultimate Sacrifice;

    we whisper the name of that demigod.

    Here….we will never have that knowing.

    •

    Guilt is the word, the word that tells,

    leaving no room for elaboration.

    We wrap and place your bones with no dreams in

    The Cave of the Devoured Prolifics.

    On occasion, we hear their soft clacking;

    lighting short candles, we appease with chants.

  • My bones

    Let my bones be better traveled after flesh has attended

    and hindered.

    Let them rattle on a string around the neck of creatures,

    bold and roaming,

    with beast hair, polished stones and a herbaceous plait;

    charms healing.

    Let my ribs protrude at a jaunty angle from plains, barren

    and desiccated;

    let them, though broken and hollowed, pick sonatas from hot

    meandering winds

    and with stealth and over-the-shoulder looks let the locals

    gather to listen.

    Let my femur be a gnaw bone for a she-wolf full bellied

    and contented;

    let her trot her bouncing-rear gait, muzzle lowered, wary

    eyes intent,

    to her suckling pups to share; accepting yelp-thanks with

    long tongue caresses.

    Let my skull be a prop held and caressed by sweaty hands

    by those possessed;

    let them hold my diminished, polished visage and declare,

    “Alas, poor poet..”

    and recite true the words of those aiming to discern order

    from disorder.

    Let a part of my bones be cast to burn and given to those

    that love me;

    let them with a final sigh of assent puff the dust leeward from

    cupped palms

    onto a receding tide to a current returning with no haste

    to tropical shores.

    Let me push my body bones up from this chair, away from

    this screen;

    let me walk across the room to the window and the scene

    passing unaware,

    and pressing against sun warmed panes leave hand prints;

    flesh intact.

    February 2002

  • Benediction in the doctor’s office

    They climbed the steps one behind the other:

    the mother in front clutching the rail,

    daughter behind watching her mother’s feet;

    easing each wary step by simple will.

    Similar print dresses passed the knees hid

    partially, overly muscular legs,

    but the plainness of their faces needed

    no paint; from pores and creases slandered as

     unsightly or crude, benevolence glowed,

     turning heads, almost in deference, drawn

    to look and nod….even the rude and vain.

    As the daughter signed her in, the mother

    with a glance choose me to sit beside.  Blessed;

    I followed her lead.   We talked of children

    and having cared for our mothers in need.

    Battered hand’s skin still tough, cracked, told of toil,

    perhaps by choice, likely by circumstance,

    but not one complaint against her life passed

    full, unadorned lips, only sweetness and

    praise of goodness and kindness of others.

    Her name was called and with daughters’ help she

    rose smiling, touching my hand in farewell.

    I had glimpsed in her full moon face answers

    for questions I could never even ask.

  • For Malala

    It seems they revel in being reviled;

    those who want to be hated will always

    relish the atrocious, seek our disgust.

    That is why they provoke us to attack;

    our outrage caresses their ecstasy.

    Some call them animals but the only

    creatures demeaned is the wolf and the fowl.

  • place

    Context can not exist without place
    but even an airless nothing is place
    humm…you would be dead in such a place.

    But you are still there, your remains, right?
    You can tell I don’t do philosophy
    my head’s not in the right place.

    When my wife berates a spider or fly
    for being in the same room as herself
    I proffer an ill-considered smirk

    “Everybody has got to be someplace”.
    She eyes me as the fool I am coolly
    commanding I kill the poor thing.

    Forced to choose between one or the other
    insecticide or disobedience
    puts me between a rock and a hard place.

    This is not going the way I had planned
    I had foreseen a gloriously drawn
    depiction of the natural world and

    of the need of awareness of man’s place
    in the flow of things toward perfection.
    (whether created by the roll of dice

    or by a divine is irrelevant)
    but no my muse has put me in my place.
    Perhaps another day another place.

  • 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.

           

                

  • I hate politics

     

    They ask for money daily now;

    horrid how principles rain ruin,

    hinder purpose, drain the coffers.

     

    I give one more quick donation;

    ten dollars, freely with sadness

    …..and hope.  We have a little left

    this month, but the donut hole looms,

    a snare that could snap both bone and will.

  • Dread

    Always the palpable dread turning behind

    my smile or frown; I’m the victim in the

    horror film that feels the sentient house’s

    aura on approach, the foreboding, the angst.

    Behind the pulled shade she waits to inform,

    throwing looks, crying distrust of even me,

    her tenaculum snared offspring.  I come to do

    her bidding grudgingly; a calloused hearted son.

    I’ve never learned: I attempt to reason, to plea,

    but logic is dead in her house, killed by disease

    which mints lies and villains as readily

    as harsh light cast shadows onto a wall.

    She’s not the one needing help she warns,

    but the others and, yes, me too, if I think so!

    So absolute in her anger…I wish it were true;

    this helplessness precludes affection.

  • The Body

    The body fails the mind even before

    the last moment cast consciousness to where

    it goes.  Forget disease, the slippery tub;

    muscle slackens or turns to stone, wrought hard

    by pain from errant bone, the ear, the eye

    can fail from use , the joints refuse, the lungs

    rebel; the parts unite to fight for warmth,

    for softer, for a peace, stasis, for time.

    The will can be hard hit by pain and dreams

    of youth deferred until can fade or slink

    away hardly noticed or lamented.

    But yet, a mountain bald, a topless sky

    invites just me to come and see a bit

    of truth, hidden, held close along a ledge

    secured by pine. A sweaty climb along

    the bluff, a grunt of pain a pill can not

    relieve, and now I strain to see tiny

    iris, cristata; blooming blue and gold

    and white so pure that God is real,

    at least, worth consideration.

    Atop the bald, a boulder makes a bed

    of soothing heat to draw fatigue away,

    and leave a space in which a breeze warm with

    the smell of pine needles can ease my hurt.

    Dwarf-crested iris, cristrata
    (stock photo)

    This poem comes from 2002 and rings even more true today than ten years ago.  This is not about remorse, self-pity or even ageing, but rather the soothing power and joy that the natural world can provide, at least temporarily, if a person is so incline to make an effort to see the wonders that exist.

  • My Fortieth Year…3:47 A.M.

    There were footsteps outside my door last night;

    loose gravel crunched, there was a catch in a gait.

    Something stood squinting in the darkness

    checking a number or matching a date.

    My heart ran rampant, throbbing, pumping dread;

    an emptying slash…..now a cavernous hollow.

    Opened now……anti-being knows my smell;

    when will it beckon for me to follow?

    I was actually 40 before I seriously considered and accepted the concept of mortality.  I awoke in the middle of the night with the most horrid feeling which haunted me for days.  This poem was an effort many, many years  ago to put words to it.  This feeling initiated the clichéd “mid-life crisis” which I quickly and completely recovered from…I’m now content, accepting and at ease.