Hey, all
My new poetry blog is at writeapalist.com. Come visit me as I add new things to my Wordpress site.
09 December 2014
14 May 2014
Senior Poem 2014: Present Tense
When they
are old,
you hold
their hands—the shaking leather glove hands
of wisdom—
and you hear
the things you spent a childhood knowing,
the things
too obvious to say.
The things
you want your children to hold,
but can’t
tell them now
because kids
can’t reach them.
Yet.
When they
are old,
the common
place is precious,
and the
thunder
fades to a
pale tinkling of glass.
The eyes are
small Bethesda pools
of hope.
When they
are old,
they home
school you
on lessons
like
“the
shortest distance between two points”
is the
heart,
and “love is
an action verb”
that also
links.
That “time
is relative,”
but we give
it least to relatives.
When they
are old,
you
understand yesterday
more than
today.
But there are
no words that fit
but “show
grace to me.”
Because when
they are old,
you realize
that we never
learn. None of us.
Ever.
But now you
are young
with embers
of dreams
that can be
fanned
or
extinguished.
Now you look
both
ways before
crossing from one stage
of life to
another.
Now you
wonder who you are behind the
awkward
smile of the selfie.
But when
they are old,
you find
yourself poised between parent earth and child sky,
and you hear
them say,
“Take what
you can from
Me as
fertile soil.
Toughen to
be hard,
but not so
much to not be tender.”
26 March 2014
I Kneel to Pray on a Tuesday Night
the hand with a wooden rod.
The lungs are sponges for baptismal water
pressing across the chest.
The rumblings of understanding are slight taps
on the shoulder of a stranger.
The voice of thunder barely rustles
the re-sewn veil.
The fragrances of meaning
are absorbed in the fabric of speech.
Grace is a gift lying broken,
rocking back and forth,
on the floor
after the party.
How can I be real to you
when every word is digitized?
How can I climb into your heart
when my legs are scabbed and atrophied?
How can I be what you need
when all I worship are words?
24 October 2013
13 May 2013
Senior Poem 2013: 17
Standing on a hill, an arm’s length from the moon,
a small teary boy with a one-eyed bear in hand,
holds a balloon tethered to him by the thinnest string
while his face is pressed against the glass of stars.
A train coos a lullaby in the distance while
questions of truth and diligence babysit him.
Why is there hate? When is there pain?
What is a love? Where is hope?
How is alone?
In an empty room where teaching grew,
the desks face forward,
the lead desk abandoned.
Notes on conspiracies folded in corners of books of
Van Gogh. Starry Nights became dark when the stars fell from
canvas leaving melancholy swirls.
And I at 17
wander to places
too empty to share with company,
too lonely for invitation,
wondering if he or she this young
has such desolate places,
impoverished nightscapes
where cold winds of youth
rattle deserted cans of doubt,
the grime of lust and betrayal smeared on every building,
the scratches of rats’ feet across broken glass,
cat’s fighting in the
dark.
Cloudy, cloudy nights block
all light so that the neon sight of the gaudy motel
sign is the only guide for me.
There is a cloud which demands following,
a fire burning in the night
across forty year fields,
through emptiness where no IPhone rings or Starbucks grows,
over sandy thirsty hills where the ignorant rule and the
foolish gain power.
Lakes of tears and winds of cries
are stilled.
And there is meaning when there are no answers.
Standing on a hill, a ways from the moon,
a small teary boy, a one-eyed bear in hand,
holds a balloon tethered to him by the thinnest string.
Fingers loosen in release
to allow the prized to
join the stars.
08 February 2013
Voice
from female fetus #55 million:
It is her Right.
I am not a woman yet.
I am a choice, and choices can be
reversed with consequences averted.
I am the formless void of what is to come.
I am the immigrant awaiting deportment.
If I had a name like
Amy or Jane
instead of one like
Regret or Tissue,
would it be more difficult to say goodbye before
hello?
You can click all day long on “like” on your Facebook;
You can research ‘till dawn DNA and my makeup;
You can turn away now and pray hard that I’ll shut up,
but you can’t give a voice to me now?
If I were born yesterday,
would I be less naive than to believe I’d be
more real,
more loved?
It is her Right.
I am not a woman yet.
I am a choice, and choices can be
reversed with consequences averted.
I am the formless void of what is to come.
I am the immigrant awaiting deportment.
If I had a name like
Amy or Jane
instead of one like
Regret or Tissue,
would it be more difficult to say goodbye before
hello?
You can click all day long on “like” on your Facebook;
You can research ‘till dawn DNA and my makeup;
You can turn away now and pray hard that I’ll shut up,
but you can’t give a voice to me now?
If I were born yesterday,
would I be less naive than to believe I’d be
more real,
more loved?
05 December 2012
For Jimmy
It becomes too heavy for one person
on the back on the arm
across the shoulders
Sometimes not as heavy
as awkward
but sometimes
Well sometimes heavy too
until it cuts into the chest to bleed
begging to be unpacked
The contents secret
and in the water it does not
float but drags like stone.
Cover me at the bottom.
Put sand over my mouth.
Sing until I do not speak.
Until I cannot hear.
08 May 2012
Senior Poem 2012: Song
There is a joyfully solemn, seductive harmony of stars which fell on our worshipping lips at creation like tongues of dew. The song is the eternal legacy of mortals. Only parents can sing. Only children can hear. This is the words made song.
Drawn to the wooden toy box past her own validation, she cannot
tell herself any longer that someday is distant.
Delivered in mystery, varnished with history, each toy of her daughter is a
remembering.
_______
Fathers often, especially before the race of dawn, regret they have spent
much less time on fathering, and many more hours at the office than
required. At night the scratch at their chests is more for what was undone than for what was
done.
_______
Daring to remember is like a lullaby, simple in melody, complex in joy,
mimicked by youth from ancients.
Moving from father, daughter, mother, son. Sometimes like a dove to the ark
returning.
_______
Reborn when it is late at night—so
much late that it is early—the blue soft
down moon glow blankets the beds where hoping children
dream.
_______
Dreams are the verses, mercy the refrain; grace is the metrical
time. Love is found in gifting the song, when we be and stop
doing, with the aged roughed hands of
release.
_______
Fathers, remember the song of tenderness.
Mothers, sing the song of letting go.
Remember, sons, the song of courage.
Daughters, the song of beauty.
There is a song that cradles us at morning, nurtures us at noon, points us to rest in the evening. There is a tune that stirs us when we falter, quiets us when we worry, welcomes us when we need home.
14 January 2012
To Emily about Regret
Previously Published in dotdotdash
If Hope is a feathered thing,
Regret is simply
a tardy ice
spread over jonquils
who too early broke their silence
just to hope for spring.
If Hope is a feathered thing,
Regret is simply
a tardy ice
spread over jonquils
who too early broke their silence
just to hope for spring.
06 December 2011
Coin
He saw her in the coat room
when he chaperoned her prom,
and being her teacher,
he looked on her as a father would;
with pride he said, “Why, Charlotte,
you look stunning.”
She grinned back,
and joined her date who stood outside the room.
She saw him in the coat room
when he chaperoned her prom,
and being his student,
she almost didn’t go in with him there alone;
he said, “Why, Charlotte,
you look stunning.”
She awkwardly smiled,
and joined her date who stood outside the room.
when he chaperoned her prom,
and being her teacher,
he looked on her as a father would;
with pride he said, “Why, Charlotte,
you look stunning.”
She grinned back,
and joined her date who stood outside the room.
She saw him in the coat room
when he chaperoned her prom,
and being his student,
she almost didn’t go in with him there alone;
he said, “Why, Charlotte,
you look stunning.”
She awkwardly smiled,
and joined her date who stood outside the room.
13 May 2011
The Senior Poem 2011
Parent to Child
Dear Child,
Out of our deepest love,
expectation.
My hatred for the word “precious”
is not because you have no value,
but because it is a word of greeting cards--cliched.
You will never know what it feels like
until a part of your soul
lies in your hands and
memorizes your face, searching for
some clue on how to grow.
Until the most beautiful thing witnessed
is a tiny person in a crib sleeping.
And while you nursed on sounds newly forming on your lips,
I saw a future better than I.
Out of our expectation,
disappointment.
Why is it we think the children will save us?
The regret is that any bad choice you will ever make
is a genetic mutation of my post-Edenic DNA.
The regret is that many plans I had for us
are still sitting in boxes yet to be opened
with receipts crumpled in my pocket.
The regret is
with me.
Out of our disappointment,
honesty—
the honesty about how I’ve tried to walk in your shoes,
to taste your music,
to talk as if age cannot steal youth from me,
but now I must face the mirror and see
the lines which read I am your parent and was not meant to be
your friend.
And I need your forgiveness for
trying to be
relevant.
Out of our honesty,
joy—
the joy that although religion is profane,
God is sacred and
that our home is a cathedral,
that I am the priest,
that every chore we shared
was a rite of worship,
each memory a stained glass piece of
a beautiful window through which we see the sky,
and that every argument was a prayer that you would be less me.
Out of our joy,
contentment
because family is an heirloom blanket, tattered and thread-bare,
a scrap of grandma, a stitch of aunt,
and if we
are careful not to let it smother us,
it will keep us warm.
Out of our contentment,
resolution
that you have become what you have become,
and I am what I am,
and there is beauty and flaw in both,
and that dirt was never anything but something to stand on
until God planted his breath down deep,
and in that resolution,
my child,
my precious child,
is hope.
Out of our resolution,
hope.
Out of our deepest love,
hope.
Dear Child,
Out of our deepest love,
expectation.
My hatred for the word “precious”
is not because you have no value,
but because it is a word of greeting cards--cliched.
You will never know what it feels like
until a part of your soul
lies in your hands and
memorizes your face, searching for
some clue on how to grow.
Until the most beautiful thing witnessed
is a tiny person in a crib sleeping.
And while you nursed on sounds newly forming on your lips,
I saw a future better than I.
Out of our expectation,
disappointment.
Why is it we think the children will save us?
The regret is that any bad choice you will ever make
is a genetic mutation of my post-Edenic DNA.
The regret is that many plans I had for us
are still sitting in boxes yet to be opened
with receipts crumpled in my pocket.
The regret is
with me.
Out of our disappointment,
honesty—
the honesty about how I’ve tried to walk in your shoes,
to taste your music,
to talk as if age cannot steal youth from me,
but now I must face the mirror and see
the lines which read I am your parent and was not meant to be
your friend.
And I need your forgiveness for
trying to be
relevant.
Out of our honesty,
joy—
the joy that although religion is profane,
God is sacred and
that our home is a cathedral,
that I am the priest,
that every chore we shared
was a rite of worship,
each memory a stained glass piece of
a beautiful window through which we see the sky,
and that every argument was a prayer that you would be less me.
Out of our joy,
contentment
because family is an heirloom blanket, tattered and thread-bare,
a scrap of grandma, a stitch of aunt,
and if we
are careful not to let it smother us,
it will keep us warm.
Out of our contentment,
resolution
that you have become what you have become,
and I am what I am,
and there is beauty and flaw in both,
and that dirt was never anything but something to stand on
until God planted his breath down deep,
and in that resolution,
my child,
my precious child,
is hope.
Out of our resolution,
hope.
Out of our deepest love,
hope.
03 April 2011
27 February 2011
The Game of Gossip in 1 Scene
(The characters take the stage and form a line across the stage. St. John begins the line on stage right and the thirteen characters stand side by side facing the audience. Each character whispers his/her lines into the ear of the character to his left.)
ST. JOHN
Your faith is evident in your acts of love.
CHARACTER 1
Your faith is evident in your acts of love.
CHARACTER 2
Your faith is evident in your acts of love.
CHARACTER 3
Your faith is evident in your acts.
CHARACTER 4
Your faith is evident in your acts.
CHARACTER 5
Your faith is your acts.
CHARACTER 6
Your faith is your acts.
CHARACTER 7
Your acts are your faith.
CHARACTER 8
You are your acts of faith.
CHARACTER 9
You are your acts and faith.
CHARACTER 10
You are your faith.
CHARACTER 11
Your faith is you.
CHARACTER 12
You are faith.
The End.
12 January 2011
Poets
Poets cannot understand
war or
economics or
politics or
auto mechanics or
even bookkeeping
although they may pretend to.
These are things without love.
Poets can only
caress or
cradle or
nurse or
ween or
cause pain,
the kind that brings hope.
war or
economics or
politics or
auto mechanics or
even bookkeeping
although they may pretend to.
These are things without love.
Poets can only
caress or
cradle or
nurse or
ween or
cause pain,
the kind that brings hope.
15 December 2010
Fighting Fish
When babies aren’t born,
his wrinkled, calloused hands wrestle each other,
it hurts the daddy too.
He sits in the lobby of the assisted care home, staring at the aquarium.
Not the same as the mother, but when a baby is stillborn—where the hell did they get the name anyway?Because the baby is still? There is nothing still afterwards.
We lost—she lost—three.The weirdest thing is for someone to be born dead. Born and dead at the same time.
The water plants sway in the filtered water.
I think the thing that hurt most was packing up the crib and buying the little coffin, so small it looked like a stage prop. Everything must have its place to end. Everything finds its place.
Water puddles on his lower eyelid.
Sometimes I wonder what if. I guess there is no reason to think of these fill in the blanks as much as I do.
The setting sun bleeds pink through the window. I will have to leave soon.
She left me soon after we buried the last one. We stayed married in the same house, but she was never really there--not inside.
He chuckles. I follow his stare to two pink fish in the tank, repeatedly kissing and backing away flirtatiously.
Ever see pink gouramis? the fish? It looks like they’re kissing. They’re beautiful, but they’re actually
The gnarled knuckles of each hand hit.
doing battle. They’re trying to suck the life out of each other. That’s what we were.
There is a ringing of our own silence that makes me shift my view.
Nothing causes everything to die inside--where they can’t be repaired or replaced--like a child’s death. ‘Specially one you never knew.
his wrinkled, calloused hands wrestle each other,
it hurts the daddy too.
He sits in the lobby of the assisted care home, staring at the aquarium.
Not the same as the mother, but when a baby is stillborn—where the hell did they get the name anyway?Because the baby is still? There is nothing still afterwards.
We lost—she lost—three.The weirdest thing is for someone to be born dead. Born and dead at the same time.
The water plants sway in the filtered water.
I think the thing that hurt most was packing up the crib and buying the little coffin, so small it looked like a stage prop. Everything must have its place to end. Everything finds its place.
Water puddles on his lower eyelid.
Sometimes I wonder what if. I guess there is no reason to think of these fill in the blanks as much as I do.
The setting sun bleeds pink through the window. I will have to leave soon.
She left me soon after we buried the last one. We stayed married in the same house, but she was never really there--not inside.
He chuckles. I follow his stare to two pink fish in the tank, repeatedly kissing and backing away flirtatiously.
Ever see pink gouramis? the fish? It looks like they’re kissing. They’re beautiful, but they’re actually
The gnarled knuckles of each hand hit.
doing battle. They’re trying to suck the life out of each other. That’s what we were.
There is a ringing of our own silence that makes me shift my view.
Nothing causes everything to die inside--where they can’t be repaired or replaced--like a child’s death. ‘Specially one you never knew.
12 December 2010
Prayer, Second Version
Mostly is not all
as evidenced forever,
a fate so apropos
no jury would deny.
Midnight died for lack of prayer,
and yet I beat my fists against your father chest.
"You are no father to me," I shout without remorse.
The runes of blood tattooed
across your skin remind me
there is nothing more frightening than
God damning, nothing more deserved.
Now your holy fingers
slip into the sinew of my thigh, and
I fight no more.
You were my great whiting out,
painted over heart textures,
relief and ravine of soul,
onion paper over bone stretched.
Be thou my cancer --
the eating of my core,
the tendrils inseparably spiraling around my hopes--
the vegetable spine that wills against desire.
Take the colors from me,
the hazing demanding verdict,
the deadline long since passed,
the message clearly given:
Abuse is not grace.
Release is not grace.
Forget is not grace.
Cost is grace.
as evidenced forever,
a fate so apropos
no jury would deny.
Midnight died for lack of prayer,
and yet I beat my fists against your father chest.
"You are no father to me," I shout without remorse.
The runes of blood tattooed
across your skin remind me
there is nothing more frightening than
God damning, nothing more deserved.
Now your holy fingers
slip into the sinew of my thigh, and
I fight no more.
You were my great whiting out,
painted over heart textures,
relief and ravine of soul,
onion paper over bone stretched.
Be thou my cancer --
the eating of my core,
the tendrils inseparably spiraling around my hopes--
the vegetable spine that wills against desire.
Take the colors from me,
the hazing demanding verdict,
the deadline long since passed,
the message clearly given:
Abuse is not grace.
Release is not grace.
Forget is not grace.
Cost is grace.
19 October 2010
Introversion
The pulse is beats across
the hand with a wooden rod.
The lungs are sponges for baptismal water
pressing across the chest.
The rumblings of meaning are slight taps
on the shoulder of a stranger—
“Could you please remove your hat?”
The voice of thunder barely rustles
the re-sewn veil.
Grace is a gift lying broken,
rocking back and forth,
on the floor
after the party.
How can I be real to you
when every word is digitized?
How can I climb into your heart
when my legs are scabbed and atrophied?
How can I be what you need
when all I worship are words?
the hand with a wooden rod.
The lungs are sponges for baptismal water
pressing across the chest.
The rumblings of meaning are slight taps
on the shoulder of a stranger—
“Could you please remove your hat?”
The voice of thunder barely rustles
the re-sewn veil.
Grace is a gift lying broken,
rocking back and forth,
on the floor
after the party.
How can I be real to you
when every word is digitized?
How can I climb into your heart
when my legs are scabbed and atrophied?
How can I be what you need
when all I worship are words?
25 September 2010
The Crowd on the MARTA
Shadows don’t know
what
is figure and ground.
Someone should tell them.
They think
they have substance of
more than just absence,
defining themselves by
what
they are not.
what
is figure and ground.
Someone should tell them.
They think
they have substance of
more than just absence,
defining themselves by
what
they are not.
31 August 2010
131
Today my heart is not lifted up.
Sometimes I lift my eyes unto the hills.
Today my eyes contemplate the sand.
Sometimes I sing until I’m sore.
Today I am silent.
I have calmed and quieted my soul
like a little boy
reaching up to his mother’s hand
like a little boy
silent and waiting
with a mother
who has nothing to say
but stares ahead.
Sometimes I lift my eyes unto the hills.
Today my eyes contemplate the sand.
Sometimes I sing until I’m sore.
Today I am silent.
I have calmed and quieted my soul
like a little boy
reaching up to his mother’s hand
like a little boy
silent and waiting
with a mother
who has nothing to say
but stares ahead.
11 August 2010
Prayer
Mostly is not all
as evidenced forever,
a fate so apropos,
the emptiness to fill.
The runes of blood tattooed
across your skin remind me
there is nothing more frightening than
God damning, nothing more deserved.
You are my cancer--
the eating of my core,
the tendrils inseparably spiraling around my will--
the vegetable spine that wills against desire.
Intimate finger trace
skimmed over heart textures,
relief and ravine of soul
over finite bone stretched.
Take the colors from me,
the hazing demanding verdict,
the deadline long since passed,
the message given clear:
Abuse is not grace.
Release is not grace.
Forget is not grace.
Cost is grace.
as evidenced forever,
a fate so apropos,
the emptiness to fill.
The runes of blood tattooed
across your skin remind me
there is nothing more frightening than
God damning, nothing more deserved.
You are my cancer--
the eating of my core,
the tendrils inseparably spiraling around my will--
the vegetable spine that wills against desire.
Intimate finger trace
skimmed over heart textures,
relief and ravine of soul
over finite bone stretched.
Take the colors from me,
the hazing demanding verdict,
the deadline long since passed,
the message given clear:
Abuse is not grace.
Release is not grace.
Forget is not grace.
Cost is grace.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)