My nightmares are of him, the wrathful father
I used to fear I’d grow to be like him
A petty, ugly, bulging vein of anger
My nightmares were I’d be a wrathful daughter
but it is him, all him, and I am gentle
I grow more gentle and he grows more dim
My nightmares were of him, the wrathful father
I used to fear I’d grow to be like him.
2015
Saturday, July 18, 2020
The Hourglass
The hourglass that bulges at the middle
I seem to see it everywhere I go
the last bite of an apple will reveal it
two cones, a sphere, a lozenge or a bow
And cutting figures into railroad board
to make Glengarry caps for kids to wear
next week at Scottish Fest, my scissors snip
and in the scraps that fall, the shape is there.
At dinner with a group I don’t know well
I clench my paper napkin and I twist
it anxiously beneath the tabletop
and after, find the hourglass in my fist.
What’s in the middle part that makes it bulge,
my refuse swelling with significance?
Which I would loose, my hoarding thoughts intake:
a pregnant glass whose water will not break.
I seem to see it everywhere I go
the last bite of an apple will reveal it
two cones, a sphere, a lozenge or a bow
And cutting figures into railroad board
to make Glengarry caps for kids to wear
next week at Scottish Fest, my scissors snip
and in the scraps that fall, the shape is there.
At dinner with a group I don’t know well
I clench my paper napkin and I twist
it anxiously beneath the tabletop
and after, find the hourglass in my fist.
What’s in the middle part that makes it bulge,
my refuse swelling with significance?
Which I would loose, my hoarding thoughts intake:
a pregnant glass whose water will not break.
2015
Villanelle
I'm not sure how I am supposed to help her.
Does “doing nothing” mean the same as “kill”?
How should I know? Am I my sister's keeper?
I left for school and now I rarely see her.
I’m still the only one she trusts to tell.
I’m not sure how I am supposed to help her.
If she sinks into medicated slumber,
am I at fault in every bitter pill?
How should I know? Am I my sister’s keeper?
I'm not a mother, therapist or doctor;
I don't know how to make a person well.
I’m not sure how I am supposed to help her.
I couldn't save Jess from the ER either,
I didn't even know that she was ill.
But knowing now, am I my sister’s keeper?
What if Cain didn’t raise his hand to murder
but quietly stood and watched as Abel fell?
I’m not sure how I am supposed to help her.
How should I know? Am I my sister’s keeper?
Does “doing nothing” mean the same as “kill”?
How should I know? Am I my sister's keeper?
I left for school and now I rarely see her.
I’m still the only one she trusts to tell.
I’m not sure how I am supposed to help her.
If she sinks into medicated slumber,
am I at fault in every bitter pill?
How should I know? Am I my sister’s keeper?
I'm not a mother, therapist or doctor;
I don't know how to make a person well.
I’m not sure how I am supposed to help her.
I couldn't save Jess from the ER either,
I didn't even know that she was ill.
But knowing now, am I my sister’s keeper?
What if Cain didn’t raise his hand to murder
but quietly stood and watched as Abel fell?
I’m not sure how I am supposed to help her.
How should I know? Am I my sister’s keeper?
Villanelle
They toiled all the night.
They did what they could do.
Your smile isn’t right.
Beneath the panicked light
you seemed red white and blue.
They toiled all the night
Eventually you’ll bite
just fine, they say, and chew.
Your smile isn’t right.
There is a strange delight
in forming someone new.
They toiled all the night.
You say, a detail’s trite
I say, they fudged a few:
Your smile isn’t right.
Almost, but not quite,
what did they put askew?
They toiled all the night,
but your smile isn’t right.
They did what they could do.
Your smile isn’t right.
Beneath the panicked light
you seemed red white and blue.
They toiled all the night
Eventually you’ll bite
just fine, they say, and chew.
Your smile isn’t right.
There is a strange delight
in forming someone new.
They toiled all the night.
You say, a detail’s trite
I say, they fudged a few:
Your smile isn’t right.
Almost, but not quite,
what did they put askew?
They toiled all the night,
but your smile isn’t right.
2012
Death of the Lavender Fields
Hill Country, Texas, in the summer drought:
Blue-purple pill-like petals dried or greyed
except in rare, spare areas of shade
where others seeking shade are driven out
by lashes of mesquite, arboreal knout.
Beneath the sun’s unsparing chereb-blade
rich colors, lavender corollas, fade
and hillocks bulge and redden as with gout.
Provence, who with its lavish plumes would flout,
repents the perfumed excess of its clade
and wishes prayers for sun had gone unprayed
and burns ecstatic in a dearth of doubt.
Even if rain could come—and well it may—
the fields have crusted with a lacquered shell
to keep the most torrential rain at bay.
And hot and choking folds of dust-wind swell,
bend, coil, and shimmer dully like a snake
where dormant desert impulses awake.
2015
Blue-purple pill-like petals dried or greyed
except in rare, spare areas of shade
where others seeking shade are driven out
by lashes of mesquite, arboreal knout.
Beneath the sun’s unsparing chereb-blade
rich colors, lavender corollas, fade
and hillocks bulge and redden as with gout.
Provence, who with its lavish plumes would flout,
repents the perfumed excess of its clade
and wishes prayers for sun had gone unprayed
and burns ecstatic in a dearth of doubt.
Even if rain could come—and well it may—
the fields have crusted with a lacquered shell
to keep the most torrential rain at bay.
And hot and choking folds of dust-wind swell,
bend, coil, and shimmer dully like a snake
where dormant desert impulses awake.
2015
Meditation
today I give thanks
that I am butter-fingered--
that I don’t need to
what I cannot do--
hold anything
inside forever, or find
the answer-- what’s
hoarded in the heart’s
fist threatens
to destroy -- even truth,
even love and friends--
so I give thanks for a heart
whose grip’s so weak--
for a world so slippery--
that I am porous
with a mind of mesh,
not marble--and that ends,
not means, evade me--
that my essence is
to breathe, and not
despite my readiness
of hand, to grasp
what’s only passing,
or to understand--
that I am butter-fingered--
that I don’t need to
what I cannot do--
hold anything
inside forever, or find
the answer-- what’s
hoarded in the heart’s
fist threatens
to destroy -- even truth,
even love and friends--
so I give thanks for a heart
whose grip’s so weak--
for a world so slippery--
that I am porous
with a mind of mesh,
not marble--and that ends,
not means, evade me--
that my essence is
to breathe, and not
despite my readiness
of hand, to grasp
what’s only passing,
or to understand--
2017
Past Disaster
At midday, drifting
through a barren lot
I stumbled on a static
solar system: rings
of stones. No, rubble,
rough and loveless,
I discovered--
asphalt, concrete, trash.
But flung together
from some past
disaster, they
petaled open
like a peony
with crabgrass pacing
a labyrinth’s paths
between the clutter.
I’d been passing
through with nothing
on my mind but troubles
and this reminded me
it’s not important
to remember nothing
matters. Detritus,
razed spaces,
these muster miracles
that sense and order
never could have
put together.
I stumbled on a static
solar system: rings
of stones. No, rubble,
rough and loveless,
I discovered--
asphalt, concrete, trash.
But flung together
from some past
disaster, they
petaled open
like a peony
with crabgrass pacing
a labyrinth’s paths
between the clutter.
I’d been passing
through with nothing
on my mind but troubles
and this reminded me
it’s not important
to remember nothing
matters. Detritus,
razed spaces,
these muster miracles
that sense and order
never could have
put together.
2017
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