Plastic Box

Staid

Just me and Kitty here today, about to go stretch out on the sunny deck, both of us.
Perfect day for a little solitude
After consecutive days of newness and joyful noise and hard work and love.
I like to see that I am still the same when all alone.
An apple core of goodness,
Though sometimes, my skin, it bruises
Others.

In the end I am thankful for these days, when Kitty looks up at me to silently remind
What a long strange trip it's been.
But hold tight little fella,
This sun, too, will set...and tomorrow we set out again.

Verse

Thought I would mix it up a bit, since I left my camera at gramma's on Christmas and won't get it back to upload pics until New Year's. The first poem is by Ivan Minic and the second is from a draft folder I just found on my hard drive this morning. Looks like I wrote it last year.

After a While
by Ivan Minic

After a while you learn the subtle difference
between holding a hand and chaining a soul.
And you learn that love doesn't mean leaning
and company isn't security.
(Kisses aren't contracts and presents aren't promises.)

After awhile you begin to accept your defeats
with your head up and your eyes open,
with the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child.
And you learn to build your roads on today
because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain
and the inevitable has a way of crumbling in mid-flight.

After a while you learn that even sunshine burns
if you stand too long in one place.

So, you plant your own garden
instead of waiting for someone else to bring you flowers.
And you learn you really can endure,
that you really do have worth.
You learn that with every good-bye comes the dawn.

 

Julia

She never comes up here anymore.
It hardly seems worth it, since that time she was caught
And her mother cried and demanded to know
What was wrong with her.
But on sunny days when Miss Melanie lets everyone play outside
She sneaks up here
To walk barefoot on the hot tar of the hospital roof,
Twelve floors above the storytime corner
And six floors above where her mom answers the phone
Making appointments for sick kids
Just like her
And comforting their mothers in that practiced, robot voice.

 

Today is a sunny day and so here she is,
Tiny amongst the ventilation fans, pipes, and the backdrop of the city.
She can see the green grass of the baseball stadium
And people washing their cars, making mist that shines with tiny rainbows

 

It’s almost time to sneak back down the stairs.
But maybe just another sticky step or two,
The skin of her feet not quite as black as she likes them to be.
She twirls the sore steel post in her ear,
Newly pierced,
And wonders why everything hurts so much.

The Sum of Her

I have things to write and pictures to post, but they will have to wait. Until then, I give you three summer poems that I wrote several years ago, living in my dusty but most favorite apartment in German Village. In the years since I left, every time summer rolls around I think of that place...

These aren't incredibly good, but...eh...they fit the season.

Almost Light and Purple

Standing at the lilac bush this morning
I have my hands thrust full up to the wrist
In the wet, cool petals just barely purple.
Last night’s rain has soaked their heavy, fragrant bunches
Scattered on the bush,
And the cool, captured raindrops spill in rivers down my elbows
As I move my fingers through the flowers.
I can’t imagine being happier
Anywhere in the world
Than exactly where I am at this moment,
Hands full
And nose wet.

Firefly

I saw my first firefly of the summer last night.
Odd,
How late in June already.
A single flash of light
But no others followed, as they usually do.
A lone traveler
Like me.
It feels great to sweat after midnight,
The dark and the heat not logically a pair.

I left my sandals on the doorstep
And dragged my dirty feet up the stairs,
Reluctant
Because I wanted to curl up outside.
I don’t care about the stars
Or the moon.

It’s all about the earth between my toes,
Its heat forming a barrier
Between me and all things celestial.
Sweat, dirt, grass, fireflies,
The lowdown freedoms
You can touch
and smell
and breathe.

Upon Waking

The sun rose this morning and tore the sky
In strips of magenta and purple.
It was my joy that made it rise
Because I could not sleep,
Thinking of you.

Vacation

Mom shakes me but I=m already awake.

Through the open window

I=ve been watching the waves that woke me.

Their incessant clapping broke my dreams

But as I continue to watch

I see that it was worth the sacrifice.

Dark, warm, and wet

It is unusually light on the shoreline for this late hour

As the three of us,

Mom, dad, and I,

Walk to the large rocks rimming the lake.

Barefoot at night, so good it=s sinful,

And the night air is warm against our faces

Fixed on the sight that drew us hypnotically from our beds.

So many peaks of white, like mountains on the run,

Deafening as we get closer.

A sight of every hundred years as the tide shifts so dramatically,

So beautiful in its overpowering voice.

A thousand miles from home

But I have everything I need

On this cliff

On this beach

On this high tide.

The Accident

They’re siding with the dog

And I can hardly blame them,

As I look down at his eyes like melted puddles

Of warm, sweet chocolate.

He looks back at mine, pupils dilated

In the dark of a late-summer porch,

And I am resigned to the fact

That we have both been kicked out of the party.

Oiseau

I’m crossing 150^th and I don’t wanna look.

Somewhere around 121^st I heard it hit,

A soft, scratchy thud that forced the overhead light to land in the seat next to me

Staring up with bare bulb asking “Whatthefuck?!”

It’s big, I can feel it,

And the feathers in the rearview mirror

Form a trail behind my weary Chevy,

Flaunting my misfortune in a plume of grandeur.

No one is staring, pointing.

“What is it?!” I want to scream at them.

“Will someone please help?!”

But I can’t bring myself to slow down,

Because maybe if I drive and drive

It will somehow just get up and fly away,

Taking with it the sizeable dent in my roof.

Images flash in my mind of a mighty feathered beast

Of Jurassic proportions,

A prehistoric rat still clutched in its talons, now pointing to the sky.

Or maybe a great eagle, fallen from a battle mid-flight,

Only to land smack on my roof

As the victor soared away into the glare of the sun.

What grand design has chosen this moment

To involve me and my ’86 sedan

As I drive back from the liquor store.

It’s dusty and hot and I’m cooking something big

As the tar pops under my tires.

Friendship Is More Than a Song

People who use pencils…

Heh.

Since I’ve been sixteen

I’ve needed something that wouldn’t break

Under pressure.

Like my best friend

The tip of a pen will bend

Contort

Adapt

And survive.

Marti’s last day of work was today. Her students love her and will miss her. It is a huge frikkin deal for them and I want you to understand that.

To follow a dream against the odds is an amazing thing. I tell you that if anyone deserves success it is this woman. This woman who gives, who cares, who perseveres, who never forgets where she came from and who loves her no matter what.

I love her and want to tell you that she is amazing beyond her music. She has worked with kids who are troubled in ways that you wouldn’t understand. Ways that would make you cry, as they have made me cry listening to how she has helped them.

Yes, today marks the day when Marti follows her dream and becomes a career musician. Today marks the day when I return to work as a married woman. But aside from the honeymoon and the chasing of dreams are a group of kids that really don’t have much more than a bed and a radio antenna. They love Marti and they know Marti. Not as a rock star, which she is, but as a compassionate human being, which she is above all, and they mean a lot to her.

When you think about what it costs to live a dream, think of the sacrifice as well as the reward.

You are the most amazing woman I have ever known, Marti, besides my ma…and that’s saying a lot.  :)

Walk the Line

I saw you tonight.
Or, rather, what I remember
That you might have been.
Sweaty, head on pillow folded,
Yellowed shirt crumpled on a bed,
And rock ‘n roll spilled
On an early morning floor.

You were breath in a microphone,
Sticky with ended love.
The torture that drives you.
It drives you.

I felt your hair on my neck
And your smell
That smell
Was on my hands,
As I clasped one to my mouth
To stop the revelation.

I tried to pretend that it wasn't me,

That it couldn't have been

The way it might have.

But you sing to me
And I’m a duet of silence,
Up at the mic
With no more words.

Peach and Pistachio

Set the tone for getting old,
Gathering herbs as knees creak down to the garden,
Knuckles white on the rail to the basement.
She can still play the piano
Side-by-side with me
And grampa's still opening paint cans with his fingers,
But it's the cool peach tile
And the pistachio towels,
The scent of Johnson's Lotion
And the slow chopping of onions under the fan blade
That tell me the time
Without having to look,
Eyes closed.

Maria, diosa del sol

Carlos squeezed the orange softly

Noticing that one end was green.

‘Why would someone buy fruit that’s not ready?’

he thought,

Wanting to eat the orange now more than before

Just because he couldn’t.

He saw that she had uncorked the wine,

An Ampurdán-Costa Brava,

To let it breathe,

But that was also not yet ready.

‘All this waiting…’

He paced and scratched and wondered

Why he came back.

To this place where nothing seemed to suit him.

The fruit too green the wine too dry

The absence of warmth in the marble counters

And stiff-sheeted bed.

Why this woman

In whom he could find a thousand faults

Like the cracked earth of the desert.

You couldn’t see it without getting close,

But what he loved was the fire in her.

A burn that defied decency and politeness.

Evident even in her hair

There was a sense of something

Untamed.

He heard the door click upstairs

And beads of sweat pooled in his armpits.

Soft pads of footsteps

And the brushing together of her thighs

Were the drums beating between his ears,

And the feeling that something was going to happen

Ripened the orange still in his hand.