September 20, 2010
There is not a soul alive
that has glimpsed the complete beauty
within a conch shell.
Broken by the crush of waves
and washed smooth by sand
gives a partial and wholly different vision.
The only way to truly comprehend
the smooth darkness of its bright curves:
crawl inside.
Can a man know the tenderness
of a mother nursing?
Neither can remember
the comfort of the infant
suckling mama's breast.
It must be lived in the moment of innocence.
To my knowledge,
no one alive has survived
the internal winds and pressure of a tornado
whipping about seemingly out of control;
dust and debris flung about on the outside,
while molecules of nothingness fill the eye.
But wouldn't that be an experience.
Showing posts with label relationships. Show all posts
Showing posts with label relationships. Show all posts
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Ghost of Serenity
September 20, 2010
You're not dead.
Just not here.
Where'd she go?
Don't wave bye.
Blown kisses
fill the air.
Echoes of morning jabber
tickle my inner ear.
Toys are scattered across the floor.
No one is playing.
I eat my Cheerios®
alone.
You're not here.
We're not alive.
You're not dead.
Just not here.
Where'd she go?
Don't wave bye.
Blown kisses
fill the air.
Echoes of morning jabber
tickle my inner ear.
Toys are scattered across the floor.
No one is playing.
I eat my Cheerios®
alone.
You're not here.
We're not alive.
Monday, September 6, 2010
Wholly You (A Confession)
August 31, 2010
This poem is deeply personal. It is a metaphor of amazing grace in my life. I dedicate this to my God and Saviour, Jesus Christ; and to my wife Lynn, whose love and forgiveness saved me.
It was completely you
responsible for reconciliation.
The fault is mine for crouching out the door,
walking away from the dwelling
we both built with our bare hands,
down the street and around the corner
for a tawdry, no wait,
sleazy is a better word,
affair with a strange woman;
make believe quote/unquote love, no wait,
sex with three x's is a better word,
in the dark fabric of the quilted streets of the city:
certainly castration is a certainty.
Nevertheless you nursed me back
to your milk-laden breasts
with words
of passionate urging, loving guidance, tender comfort.
I stained your back with tears of sludge.
Turning me over
you crossed my heart.
I hoped to die.
I must have been speaking in tongues
when I cried out “Merci! Merci!”
because my lips don't know how to formulate foreign language by themselves.
And now when we make love, no wait,
the better word is love,
your nails painted blood-rust dig my flesh;
Oh, God! I feel the pain you provide—pain not like yours,
in comparison a tingling, an internal cutis anserina.
The foreign tongue you mastered.
The reason we are becoming one
is wholly you.
This poem is deeply personal. It is a metaphor of amazing grace in my life. I dedicate this to my God and Saviour, Jesus Christ; and to my wife Lynn, whose love and forgiveness saved me.
It was completely you
responsible for reconciliation.
The fault is mine for crouching out the door,
walking away from the dwelling
we both built with our bare hands,
down the street and around the corner
for a tawdry, no wait,
sleazy is a better word,
affair with a strange woman;
make believe quote/unquote love, no wait,
sex with three x's is a better word,
in the dark fabric of the quilted streets of the city:
certainly castration is a certainty.
Nevertheless you nursed me back
to your milk-laden breasts
with words
of passionate urging, loving guidance, tender comfort.
I stained your back with tears of sludge.
Turning me over
you crossed my heart.
I hoped to die.
I must have been speaking in tongues
when I cried out “Merci! Merci!”
because my lips don't know how to formulate foreign language by themselves.
And now when we make love, no wait,
the better word is love,
your nails painted blood-rust dig my flesh;
Oh, God! I feel the pain you provide—pain not like yours,
in comparison a tingling, an internal cutis anserina.
The foreign tongue you mastered.
The reason we are becoming one
is wholly you.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Serenity's First Birthday
August 6, 2010
I'll miss you when you're gone:
pointy finger
squint your eyes
purse your lips
slobber drool
wobbley dance
crab walking
waddle down the hall
peek-a-boo
numma numma breakfast
yay--clap, clap
I'll see you in the morning
for our walk among the trees.
I'll miss you when you're gone:
pointy finger
squint your eyes
purse your lips
slobber drool
wobbley dance
crab walking
waddle down the hall
peek-a-boo
numma numma breakfast
yay--clap, clap
I'll see you in the morning
for our walk among the trees.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Advice to J. Alfred Prufrock…
July 24, 2009
This was written while I was taking English Composition II. We had read T.S. Eliot's poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and the discussion centered mostly on the sexuality of the poem. I was intrigued by the second half of line 121:
"Do I dare to eat a peach?"
from God:
Taste and see
that the fruit is good.
Just don't eat the fruit
from that tree.
from the serpent:
Has God said
thou shalt not
eat a peach?
from a Puritan:
Thou shalt not eat of the peachtree,
nor the fruit thereof;
lest thou become as one
of the fruiteaters
who bare not fruit.
from a nutritionist:
0g fat
cholesterol, 0mg
0mg sodium
dietary fiber, 3g
go ahead
from Hamlet:
To eat or not to eat: that is the question:
Whether 'tis favorable for the tongue to satisfy
With the savory juices of this sweetest of fruit,
Or to ingest the fibrous flesh and
To suffer in the end? To eat: to squat;
More and more; and by squat to say no end.
from Freud:
You are titillated and fixated
upon your mother's breasts.
from a poetry critic:
To Prufrock,
the peach
is merely a metaphor
symbolizing a sweet life
that is unattainable,
since you rouse to reality when
“human voices wake us” (line 131).
Therefore,
whether you dare
or no, you will not.
This was written while I was taking English Composition II. We had read T.S. Eliot's poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and the discussion centered mostly on the sexuality of the poem. I was intrigued by the second half of line 121:
"Do I dare to eat a peach?"
from God:
Taste and see
that the fruit is good.
Just don't eat the fruit
from that tree.
from the serpent:
Has God said
thou shalt not
eat a peach?
from a Puritan:
Thou shalt not eat of the peachtree,
nor the fruit thereof;
lest thou become as one
of the fruiteaters
who bare not fruit.
from a nutritionist:
0g fat
cholesterol, 0mg
0mg sodium
dietary fiber, 3g
go ahead
from Hamlet:
To eat or not to eat: that is the question:
Whether 'tis favorable for the tongue to satisfy
With the savory juices of this sweetest of fruit,
Or to ingest the fibrous flesh and
To suffer in the end? To eat: to squat;
More and more; and by squat to say no end.
from Freud:
You are titillated and fixated
upon your mother's breasts.
from a poetry critic:
To Prufrock,
the peach
is merely a metaphor
symbolizing a sweet life
that is unattainable,
since you rouse to reality when
“human voices wake us” (line 131).
Therefore,
whether you dare
or no, you will not.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Watching My Husband Dress
(to me from my wife)
July 1, 2009
I wrote this from Lynn's point of view. She said I nailed it.
I like to watch my husband
dress for work;
everything is always done
the same.
It starts when he's shaving.
I don't know why
but that just fascinates me.
Pulling the razor
over the curve of
his neck
with self assured movement
to the line of his beard
under his chin
scraping away the day-
old stubble.
When he tucks in his shirt
zips his fly
notches his belt
I hate him—
the notch has moved in.
I don't want him to lose
his Buddha belly. It's just big enough.
As he looks in the mirror,
adjusts his tie and
arranges himself,
he is so focused.
I feel that if I interfered
at any time
during this entire process
he would push me aside.
July 1, 2009
I wrote this from Lynn's point of view. She said I nailed it.
I like to watch my husband
dress for work;
everything is always done
the same.
It starts when he's shaving.
I don't know why
but that just fascinates me.
Pulling the razor
over the curve of
his neck
with self assured movement
to the line of his beard
under his chin
scraping away the day-
old stubble.
When he tucks in his shirt
zips his fly
notches his belt
I hate him—
the notch has moved in.
I don't want him to lose
his Buddha belly. It's just big enough.
As he looks in the mirror,
adjusts his tie and
arranges himself,
he is so focused.
I feel that if I interfered
at any time
during this entire process
he would push me aside.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
The Leaning Tree
January 200?
I wrote this one night while cooking at the Waffle House. I wanted to have something to enter in the Post & Courier and South Carolina Arts Commission sponsored South Carolina Fiction Project and the deadline was only 2 days away. I wasn't able to work on it again until the day of the deadline. I spent all day editing and re-writing, managing to get it posted 5 minutes before the post office closed. I didn't win.
The Leaning Tree
He rode out on Purpose, the gray-white mare he’d left on the farm three years ago when he went away to school. The sun had already been up for an hour, hidden by a ceiling of slate gray clouds. Probably going to snow. His breath hung in the still air like a ghost. The only sound, the muffled crunch of snow under the horse’s hooves. Everyone in the house was still asleep. Spent. Unprepared for the effort of the past few days; stress they thought they had prepared for.
The horse sauntered through the farmyard; past the rusting F150; past the bare clothesline, tiny icicles dripping off the sagging lines; past the dog pens, now empty; through the already open gate to the woods on the other side of the field.
The sweet scent of pine caressed his nostrils like a friendly cat. Purpose gingerly picked her way along the deeply rutted two-track cut by Dad's Ford, the John Deere, and mother nature. The road wound and forked through the forty acres of forest that surrounded the main house and farmyard. He and his three older brothers, all of them moved away from home and starting their own families, had hunted deer and ‘coon and rabbit with their dogs out here. Large mounds of snow-covered branches and roots were scattered in clearings on either side of the road. Dad had said something about selling some of the trees to help pay Mom’s hospital bills.
A year and a half ago he had learned about his mother’s cancer. His first year at State had been more intense than he'd expected, but he kept to the books. Being the first to go to college made him push harder. Now with Mom gone it just doesn’t seem to matter anymore. Maybe I should just quit. Save time and money. Come home and help Dad.
The two-track rolled out to an open field. Brown and broken stalks poked up through the snow. The bleached gray slat barn was supposed to protect the aging John Deere from the weather, but little mounds of snow sat on top of the huge tires and seat. He had made some weak promises to his father to fix the roof. Animal tracks criss-crossed the whitened field like impatient doodles. A hawk circled over the far end, the future looking bleak for some rabbit or squirrel.
The cornfield butted against the apple orchard. Harvested fruit (the farm’s main source of income for over two generations) was now applesauce or cider vinegar. Large empty crates, stacked rank and file, stood around the perimeter of the orchard; a makeshift fortress. Smaller crates cluttered the orchard floor; some stacked two and three high near the trunks, others strewn about carelessly under the unprotecting canopy of the leafless trees. As a boy, he had learned hard work picking up drops. And he had watched as Mexican migrant workers worked even harder to pick the red ripe fruit for their few dollars; all seemingly content.
Leaving the fruitless trees, the land slowly sloped up. A small ridge—open, unplowed, and left to its own. Dried up Queen Anne’s Lace stabbed the snow here and there. Clumps of dead grasses not flattened by the snow peeked out at the world. A single maple tree stood at the top of the ridge. Three main trunks rose to form a wide canopy. The trunk to his left had been recently struck by lightning, its deadened limbs bent to the earth.
He slid from the saddle to the ground and let the reins drop.
When I was a kid I used to pack up peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, potato chips, and pop to eat out here.
I smoked my first...and last...cigar by this tree. I thought I was so cool, until I coughed my lungs out and puked my guts up.
My back was against this rough bark when Darlene first kissed me. A few weeks later we discovered more than a kiss under this tree.
My hunting dog, Bones, is buried right over there.
Mostly, I just came out here to watch the clouds slide by and the breeze blow the grass.
Yeah, this is where I made my decision to go to school upstate. Stayed out here until it got dark. Mom was so proud that I was going to college. Any college.
And in the shelter of naked branches, he leaned back and wept. For as long as it took, he wept and sobbed. Puffy snowflakes floated down to frozen earth. Wiping his chapped cheeks, he took the reins of Purpose and walked her home.
I wrote this one night while cooking at the Waffle House. I wanted to have something to enter in the Post & Courier and South Carolina Arts Commission sponsored South Carolina Fiction Project and the deadline was only 2 days away. I wasn't able to work on it again until the day of the deadline. I spent all day editing and re-writing, managing to get it posted 5 minutes before the post office closed. I didn't win.
He rode out on Purpose, the gray-white mare he’d left on the farm three years ago when he went away to school. The sun had already been up for an hour, hidden by a ceiling of slate gray clouds. Probably going to snow. His breath hung in the still air like a ghost. The only sound, the muffled crunch of snow under the horse’s hooves. Everyone in the house was still asleep. Spent. Unprepared for the effort of the past few days; stress they thought they had prepared for.
The horse sauntered through the farmyard; past the rusting F150; past the bare clothesline, tiny icicles dripping off the sagging lines; past the dog pens, now empty; through the already open gate to the woods on the other side of the field.
The sweet scent of pine caressed his nostrils like a friendly cat. Purpose gingerly picked her way along the deeply rutted two-track cut by Dad's Ford, the John Deere, and mother nature. The road wound and forked through the forty acres of forest that surrounded the main house and farmyard. He and his three older brothers, all of them moved away from home and starting their own families, had hunted deer and ‘coon and rabbit with their dogs out here. Large mounds of snow-covered branches and roots were scattered in clearings on either side of the road. Dad had said something about selling some of the trees to help pay Mom’s hospital bills.
A year and a half ago he had learned about his mother’s cancer. His first year at State had been more intense than he'd expected, but he kept to the books. Being the first to go to college made him push harder. Now with Mom gone it just doesn’t seem to matter anymore. Maybe I should just quit. Save time and money. Come home and help Dad.
The two-track rolled out to an open field. Brown and broken stalks poked up through the snow. The bleached gray slat barn was supposed to protect the aging John Deere from the weather, but little mounds of snow sat on top of the huge tires and seat. He had made some weak promises to his father to fix the roof. Animal tracks criss-crossed the whitened field like impatient doodles. A hawk circled over the far end, the future looking bleak for some rabbit or squirrel.
The cornfield butted against the apple orchard. Harvested fruit (the farm’s main source of income for over two generations) was now applesauce or cider vinegar. Large empty crates, stacked rank and file, stood around the perimeter of the orchard; a makeshift fortress. Smaller crates cluttered the orchard floor; some stacked two and three high near the trunks, others strewn about carelessly under the unprotecting canopy of the leafless trees. As a boy, he had learned hard work picking up drops. And he had watched as Mexican migrant workers worked even harder to pick the red ripe fruit for their few dollars; all seemingly content.
Leaving the fruitless trees, the land slowly sloped up. A small ridge—open, unplowed, and left to its own. Dried up Queen Anne’s Lace stabbed the snow here and there. Clumps of dead grasses not flattened by the snow peeked out at the world. A single maple tree stood at the top of the ridge. Three main trunks rose to form a wide canopy. The trunk to his left had been recently struck by lightning, its deadened limbs bent to the earth.
He slid from the saddle to the ground and let the reins drop.
When I was a kid I used to pack up peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, potato chips, and pop to eat out here.
I smoked my first...and last...cigar by this tree. I thought I was so cool, until I coughed my lungs out and puked my guts up.
My back was against this rough bark when Darlene first kissed me. A few weeks later we discovered more than a kiss under this tree.
My hunting dog, Bones, is buried right over there.
Mostly, I just came out here to watch the clouds slide by and the breeze blow the grass.
Yeah, this is where I made my decision to go to school upstate. Stayed out here until it got dark. Mom was so proud that I was going to college. Any college.
And in the shelter of naked branches, he leaned back and wept. For as long as it took, he wept and sobbed. Puffy snowflakes floated down to frozen earth. Wiping his chapped cheeks, he took the reins of Purpose and walked her home.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Angel
April 30, 2009
Catherine, should you ever read this blog, I want you to know that this poem is as much for you as it is for the baby. Love you, Sweetie. Dad
Angel
(for my Little Angel and her Mom)
Fear not,
my little angel.
Don't be afraid.
There is peace,
my little angel.
Bring peace.
Fear not,
my little angel.
Do not be scared.
Be strong,
my little angel.
Have strength.
And though you are unexpected
(as all angels are)
God has found a place for you,
my little angel,
here within my heart.
So, fear not,
my little angel.
Don't be afraid.
You are loved.
Catherine, should you ever read this blog, I want you to know that this poem is as much for you as it is for the baby. Love you, Sweetie. Dad
Angel
(for my Little Angel and her Mom)
Fear not,
my little angel.
Don't be afraid.
There is peace,
my little angel.
Bring peace.
Fear not,
my little angel.
Do not be scared.
Be strong,
my little angel.
Have strength.
And though you are unexpected
(as all angels are)
God has found a place for you,
my little angel,
here within my heart.
So, fear not,
my little angel.
Don't be afraid.
You are loved.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Road Trip
(January 25, 2008)
Staring through the heat haze
rising from the road in the distance
skewing the view and vision,
wondering when this trip will ever end
'cause you've gotta pee
gotta pee
gotta pee.
And you can't pull over—
there's no trees,
no bushes,
no cover.
And the next rest stop is 55 miles away
with no exits in between.
And the gnawing in your gut
informs you that beef jerky
is no substitute for a full meal.
Wish you hadn't passed up
McDonald's an hour,
a lifetime ago.
And what's that noise?
That rattle.
That hum.
That annoying squeak.
Is my roadside service insurance up-to-date?
There's no way I can fix
whatever that is
myself.
Hey! Was that a lion?
Really. A lion. On a farm.
? ? !
A giant Jesus. Carved in butter.
Hmm.
And why would anyone make
a ball of string that big anyway?
So, where was I going anyway?
Should have listened to mom and dad.
Use the bathroom before you leave home.
Pack a lunch.
Know where you're going. Have a plan. Carry a map. Use the map.
Side trips are fun and educational,
however, don't forget your destination.
Destination.
Vacation.
Relaxation.
Forever R & R.
Am I there yet?
Staring through the heat haze
rising from the road in the distance
skewing the view and vision,
wondering when this trip will ever end
'cause you've gotta pee
gotta pee
gotta pee.
And you can't pull over—
there's no trees,
no bushes,
no cover.
And the next rest stop is 55 miles away
with no exits in between.
And the gnawing in your gut
informs you that beef jerky
is no substitute for a full meal.
Wish you hadn't passed up
McDonald's an hour,
a lifetime ago.
And what's that noise?
That rattle.
That hum.
That annoying squeak.
Is my roadside service insurance up-to-date?
There's no way I can fix
whatever that is
myself.
Hey! Was that a lion?
Really. A lion. On a farm.
? ? !
A giant Jesus. Carved in butter.
Hmm.
And why would anyone make
a ball of string that big anyway?
So, where was I going anyway?
Should have listened to mom and dad.
Use the bathroom before you leave home.
Pack a lunch.
Know where you're going. Have a plan. Carry a map. Use the map.
Side trips are fun and educational,
however, don't forget your destination.
Destination.
Vacation.
Relaxation.
Forever R & R.
Am I there yet?
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
A Whisper of Butterfly Wings
(March 6, 2007)
This was another poem I was "requested" to write. One of my "fans" at the restaraunt I was working asked me to write a poem on the "butterfly effect" (look it up).
A rock. A ripple.
A flutter. A flurry.
A touch. A slap.
A first step. A final act.
Lifting a finger.
Moving a mountain.
Random acts of pettiness.
Random acts of kindness.
A lonely man. A family clan.
A woman on the street.
A simple word whispered.
A complex speech shouted from the rooftop.
A mistake. A plan.
Benefiting the good, the bad, the ugly.
World war. World peace.
Heaven. Hell.
Yesterday's gesture.
Tomorrow's conjecture.
This was another poem I was "requested" to write. One of my "fans" at the restaraunt I was working asked me to write a poem on the "butterfly effect" (look it up).
A rock. A ripple.
A flutter. A flurry.
A touch. A slap.
A first step. A final act.
Lifting a finger.
Moving a mountain.
Random acts of pettiness.
Random acts of kindness.
A lonely man. A family clan.
A woman on the street.
A simple word whispered.
A complex speech shouted from the rooftop.
A mistake. A plan.
Benefiting the good, the bad, the ugly.
World war. World peace.
Heaven. Hell.
Yesterday's gesture.
Tomorrow's conjecture.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Mama’s Ragdoll (a photo-album for Jane, her mother, and her granddaughter)
(March 5, 2004)
My friend Jane and I were discussing the relationships she has with her mother and granddaughter, and the difficulty she was having translating that into sculpture. The more we talked the more the words formed the picture in my mind. Jane asked if I would put those pictures in writing. When I first presented the poem to her there were only the two major stanzas and the bridge. She told me it wasn't finished. She was right.
Stocking footed
standing on the back stoop,
tiny hands clutching
cotton stuffed cloth—
limp from nights of being slept and dreamt on;
red polka dotted dress stained
at picnics and tea parties under the trees;
blue embroidered eyes smiling,
while innocent eyes search the open sky
for Mother flying away to meet Father.
Sepia snapshots drift.
Black and white photos linger.
Full color images flash.
Knee highs and flats
sitting by the bedside,
older hands caressing
skin and bone—
limp from days of not sleeping, no longer dreaming;
pale rosy flesh drained
from dinners and cocktail parties under the stars;
fading gray eyes smiling
while mature eyes scour the open Sky,
Mama goes the way Daddy went.
Silver halides scan.
Shades of gray focus.
High resolutions dim.
Barefoot toes
pad across the floor,
chubby hands clasping
terry cloth covering—
limp from not napping, video dreams;
sunburned freckles gained
from snacks and games under the sun;
baby blue eyes smiling
while tender eyes ponder an open sky,
as Mom jets off with Dad.
My friend Jane and I were discussing the relationships she has with her mother and granddaughter, and the difficulty she was having translating that into sculpture. The more we talked the more the words formed the picture in my mind. Jane asked if I would put those pictures in writing. When I first presented the poem to her there were only the two major stanzas and the bridge. She told me it wasn't finished. She was right.
Stocking footed
standing on the back stoop,
tiny hands clutching
cotton stuffed cloth—
limp from nights of being slept and dreamt on;
red polka dotted dress stained
at picnics and tea parties under the trees;
blue embroidered eyes smiling,
while innocent eyes search the open sky
for Mother flying away to meet Father.
Sepia snapshots drift.
Black and white photos linger.
Full color images flash.
Knee highs and flats
sitting by the bedside,
older hands caressing
skin and bone—
limp from days of not sleeping, no longer dreaming;
pale rosy flesh drained
from dinners and cocktail parties under the stars;
fading gray eyes smiling
while mature eyes scour the open Sky,
Mama goes the way Daddy went.
Silver halides scan.
Shades of gray focus.
High resolutions dim.
Barefoot toes
pad across the floor,
chubby hands clasping
terry cloth covering—
limp from not napping, video dreams;
sunburned freckles gained
from snacks and games under the sun;
baby blue eyes smiling
while tender eyes ponder an open sky,
as Mom jets off with Dad.
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