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.
Showing posts with label loneliness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label loneliness. Show all posts
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Monday, May 17, 2010
in the bar, after hours, full of promise
February 1, 2010
This was as exercise on setting in Creative Writing 238. From two lists, one of times, places, weather, the other of mood or atmosphere. The exercise was to select from each list and to suggest the mood by the setting. My selections compose my title--"in the bar, after hours" and "full of promise."
Stale smoke in the grand mirror
embraces bottles yet to be opened.
The clink of a coin in the jukebox
signals a change of rhythm.
Balls click click in the rack;
another game begins—
last call lights
constrict pupils,
but your eyes
are wide open.
This woman on the stool
beside you
couldn't be more beautiful.
This was as exercise on setting in Creative Writing 238. From two lists, one of times, places, weather, the other of mood or atmosphere. The exercise was to select from each list and to suggest the mood by the setting. My selections compose my title--"in the bar, after hours" and "full of promise."
Stale smoke in the grand mirror
embraces bottles yet to be opened.
The clink of a coin in the jukebox
signals a change of rhythm.
Balls click click in the rack;
another game begins—
last call lights
constrict pupils,
but your eyes
are wide open.
This woman on the stool
beside you
couldn't be more beautiful.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
The Cleansing Power of Fire
November 2, 2009
I wept until I could weep no more.
The rainbow did not
appear in the sky.
The ground was still rock hard.
I cried out so loud my vocal cords were raw.
The wind did not
blow or breeze.
The trees did not yield their fruit.
I beat my fists bloody against the wall.
The stars did not
hold the answers.
The earth continued to move.
Where else can I go?
Who else can I turn to?
Let it burn.
I wept until I could weep no more.
The rainbow did not
appear in the sky.
The ground was still rock hard.
I cried out so loud my vocal cords were raw.
The wind did not
blow or breeze.
The trees did not yield their fruit.
I beat my fists bloody against the wall.
The stars did not
hold the answers.
The earth continued to move.
Where else can I go?
Who else can I turn to?
Let it burn.
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.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Addiction: Living Death
November 24, 2004
Not sure how this one slipped through the cracks. Couldn't find it in the folders it should have been in. Fortunately, I have a hard copy.
I am not now, nor ever have been, addicted to any narcotic or drug (except cigarettes, but I quit them). The poem is about a variety of addictions. Let's face it; our favorite sin is our addiction. The Bible tells us that sin is death. So while we are committed to sin, we are walking around dead. Check out Romans 8. I'm still trying to wrap my head around everything in that chapter.
Addiction: Living Death
Flies swarmed about his head
screaming curses in his ears.
Sickly sweet stench invaded his nostrils
like the impotent rage of a rapist.
Grainy blurred images
imprinted on fading brainwaves.
Caked eyelids clenched shut,
anal retentive against the light of day.
Collapsed and drying lungs
heaved and hacked breathless sighs.
Lukewarm mucous clogged the vocal cords
that may have spoken if they had something to say.
Internal organs oozed precious fluids
flooding the chest cavity.
Flesh clung to brittle bones
like an insecure lover.
Standing in the loosened waste of his bowels
his feet could not, would not move.
Not sure how this one slipped through the cracks. Couldn't find it in the folders it should have been in. Fortunately, I have a hard copy.
I am not now, nor ever have been, addicted to any narcotic or drug (except cigarettes, but I quit them). The poem is about a variety of addictions. Let's face it; our favorite sin is our addiction. The Bible tells us that sin is death. So while we are committed to sin, we are walking around dead. Check out Romans 8. I'm still trying to wrap my head around everything in that chapter.
Addiction: Living Death
Flies swarmed about his head
screaming curses in his ears.
Sickly sweet stench invaded his nostrils
like the impotent rage of a rapist.
Grainy blurred images
imprinted on fading brainwaves.
Caked eyelids clenched shut,
anal retentive against the light of day.
Collapsed and drying lungs
heaved and hacked breathless sighs.
Lukewarm mucous clogged the vocal cords
that may have spoken if they had something to say.
Internal organs oozed precious fluids
flooding the chest cavity.
Flesh clung to brittle bones
like an insecure lover.
Standing in the loosened waste of his bowels
his feet could not, would not move.
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.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Musings From a Jukebox
(2006)
Last chance to dance,
lost in the fast lane
going slow:
Stars are faded,
their glitter shaded
by the darkening moon:
No time all the time
standing in a line
of one…
And the music stopped.
Last chance to dance,
lost in the fast lane
going slow:
Stars are faded,
their glitter shaded
by the darkening moon:
No time all the time
standing in a line
of one…
And the music stopped.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Dog On A Chain
(May 7, 2002)
Wow!
Look at this! Look at that!
What’sthatsmell?
What’sThatsmell?
What’sTHATsmell?
It’s...it’s...it’s...it’s...
Whoa!
A ball!
Get the ball! Get the ball! Get the ball!
Hey, hey, hey, hey
this, this, this
is, is, is
Hmm...?
Where
does
this...
Gotta run, gotta run, gotta run...
Wow!
Look at that!
Wow!
Look at this!
What’sthatsmell?What’sThatsmell?
What’sTHATsmell?
Aaah...
Gotta run, gotta run, gotta
Whoops
Okay.
Anyway.
Okay?
Sigh...
What?
What’s that?
It’s a cat!
It’s a cat!
Get the cat!
Get the cat!
Get the ca
Cat! Cat!
Cat! Cat!
Okay.
Okay.
Anyway.
Anyway.
Need to
drink some
water.
Need to
drink some
water.
Gotta run
(gotta run)
Gotta run
(gotta run)
Gotta run
(gotta
Anyway.
Anyway.
Anyway.
Sigh...
Wow!
Look at this! Look at that!
What’sthatsmell?
What’sThatsmell?
What’sTHATsmell?
It’s...it’s...it’s...it’s...
Whoa!
A ball!
Get the ball! Get the ball! Get the ball!
Hey, hey, hey, hey
this, this, this
is, is, is
Hmm...?
Where
does
this...
Gotta run, gotta run, gotta run...
Wow!
Look at that!
Wow!
Look at this!
What’sthatsmell?What’sThatsmell?
What’sTHATsmell?
Aaah...
Gotta run, gotta run, gotta
Whoops
Okay.
Anyway.
Okay?
Sigh...
What?
What’s that?
It’s a cat!
It’s a cat!
Get the cat!
Get the cat!
Get the ca
Cat! Cat!
Cat! Cat!
Okay.
Okay.
Anyway.
Anyway.
Need to
drink some
water.
Need to
drink some
water.
Gotta run
(gotta run)
Gotta run
(gotta run)
Gotta run
(gotta
Anyway.
Anyway.
Anyway.
Sigh...
Moving
(September 2001)
Wasn't very happy in the current job situation, but didn't know what else to do.
Dull and labored footfalls echo
echo in the empty halls that
turn upon themselves,
that turn upon themselves.
Dust clogs the pores of the paintings
on the walls and the cracks
and the crevices of collected curios
cluttering the hall.
Now, looking out the window
looking in at
looking out the window
looking in at
the carpet looks greener than the grass:
Is the grass greener
on the floor that hasn’t been mown?
(Was that a mixed or melded metaphor?)
Renovate or relocate.
Wasn't very happy in the current job situation, but didn't know what else to do.
Dull and labored footfalls echo
echo in the empty halls that
turn upon themselves,
that turn upon themselves.
Dust clogs the pores of the paintings
on the walls and the cracks
and the crevices of collected curios
cluttering the hall.
Now, looking out the window
looking in at
looking out the window
looking in at
the carpet looks greener than the grass:
Is the grass greener
on the floor that hasn’t been mown?
(Was that a mixed or melded metaphor?)
Renovate or relocate.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
A Prayer in Melancholy Pain
(1990)
I was not in a joyous mood; God did not seem to be listening.
One morning I awoke to look out my bedroom window at a frost covered lawn and flowers blooming on the bush.
Autumn.
Cold and cruel
daubed in dulled hues.
Darkness comes early,
clutching for control.
And the Sky seems strangely
silent and still.
A bitter wind
whips this battered soul,
provoking retreat within.
Death does not judge—
all is stripped bare;
snapped
from warmth to frost.
Help me find
the flowers in the frost.
I was not in a joyous mood; God did not seem to be listening.
One morning I awoke to look out my bedroom window at a frost covered lawn and flowers blooming on the bush.
Autumn.
Cold and cruel
daubed in dulled hues.
Darkness comes early,
clutching for control.
And the Sky seems strangely
silent and still.
A bitter wind
whips this battered soul,
provoking retreat within.
Death does not judge—
all is stripped bare;
snapped
from warmth to frost.
Help me find
the flowers in the frost.
Retro 90's
Looking back (isn't that what a lot of this is all about), a lot of big things happened to me in the 90's: I regained contact with my 10 year old daughter, Beth, in '90, she came to live with me in '92; I married for the first time in '93, I divorced in '94; remarried in '95, gaining not just my wife Lynn, but two more daughters (Carrie 13, Catherine 3); became a grandfather in '97.
And mixed up in all of that was the continuing struggle with sin, loneliness, and other personal pains. Most of the poetry posts from that decade reflect those inner travails.
With my heart on my sleeve,
Jongleur the Cupbearer
And mixed up in all of that was the continuing struggle with sin, loneliness, and other personal pains. Most of the poetry posts from that decade reflect those inner travails.
With my heart on my sleeve,
Jongleur the Cupbearer
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