2013: A Morality Play

2013:

A Morality Play

If practice really does 

A perfect mastery make,

My wagon full of props

And I, mere mortal, win

Praises from the town.

Pride here on the straw

Sweeps his hat to take a bow.

Envy seethes deep inside the chest.

Even this is practice for the end:

Wipe the grease from my chin,

Mount the boards, proclaim aloud, 

Loud enough to wake

Sloth sleeping at the reins. 

Shout, "Final! Doom!"

Drive this one, clink and rattle

To the tomb.

Undone.

Picture from Psychadelic Adventures

Undone

Do not clip my wings,

for if I try, and flutter

like a light-singed moth,

I die.

Do not steal my spark,

for if I try, and stumble

in a darkened cave, 

I die.

Do not take my song,

for if I try, and have no voice

to raise to Heaven,

I die and I,

I am a tapping on the sill,

a shadow on the wall,

an echo in the mind,

a curiosity, a loss,

a blank-paged book,

unstoried and unsung,

hero-less, unlit, 

fluttered, fallen, blind.

Undone. Undone. 

I die. I am undone.

Write Their Days Enchanted

 

My daughter says

the children always

bear my scent

when they return,

a sort of story

on their skin.

And so I walk the aisles

spraying paper strips

too small to hold a verse

but heady.

Beautiful

Happy

Sensuous

Love

Blue

and Red 

Flower, Fleur,  Poppy.

Ah! 

Enchanted. 

We'll spray their days

Enchanted,

Let's write their lives

Enchanted,

as childhood

ought to be.

Gather Us In

Gather Us In

Gathering and hunting.

The long trek, the bow, the musket drawn.

Earth's gifts bagged 

or roped and dragged 

or splayed across the backs

of other beasts.

Man breaking bread with man,

lifting it in thanks: through your goodness.

Cruising the aisles, I gather in my cans: 

beans, pumpkin, French-fried onions,

whatever they may be.

Hunt for the right spiral-sliced ham, 

turkey so heavy, I can hardly lift. 

Yams, onions, apples, real butter,

pre-rolled crust for pie,

cider, wine, frozen balls of dough, 

ready for the yeasty heat of praise.

Pardon, Me.

Pardon me my confusion,

You see, I'm feeling lost.

First it was the time coiled up in a net.

Then it was my mind hanging on a string, and yet,

Totally tangled, jangled,

Nothing worth the cost:

          Pardon me, I'm lost.

Never Once Am Turning

Never Once Am Turning

the wagon, 

I am packing

with the few things 

worth the keeping

mostly, leave behind me

more than I am taking

turn my back 

to burned out stubble

in the dewfall haze 

of morning

on the rutted roads 

I'm riding

feel the cooling grace 

of moving

Wormwood

Wormwood 

So, finally, this is how it begins.

One day you're painting the walls,

And the whole thing caves. It starts with a crack,

Then a softness of collapse at just a touch.

Peel away the paint and you will see: the house is eaten,

Its shell filled with layers and layers of cells,

Incubator and birthplace to things that buzz and sting.

Tear out the hive and patch the wall. No matter.

Apply the paint, but still. You know what things may wait

Behind the sheen, how weakness feels and fear,  

And finally, you know how it feels to be betrayed.

Waiting Room

Waiting Room

The woman in the bunny pants
is  most patient of the patients;

waiting seems her nature.

Maybe these appointments 
have become her only outing.

She's going out among 'em, 
as my old dad used to say.

Among whom, I always wondered;
now I know: the dead, the dying,
the sinner sick of sinning, 
the patient weight of living 
all too much like drowning.

Young and Easy

Yesterday was the birthday of the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. It was the power of Thomas's poetry that snared me at seventeen. I've been lost in poems ever since. Now much older than he lived to be, I fool around at writing, but really, I'm just a great audience for real poets. 

Kerry at IGRT reminded me of Dylan Thomas's birthday, so I blame her for this:

YOUNG AND EASY

on reading Dylan Thomas in October

And so,

The gifts that sift and fall

On fallow ground

Grow old and spotted

As October's rose

Or the hand that holds them now.

Unyoked, you plow plant reap

Fine wheat.

Too soon, too young

You scatter, seed, outrun

The dying sun.

Caves of Ice

 Caves of Ice

If I could make a cave of words,

Untangle skeins of thought

And shape a cool blue icy haven,

I would surround myself as in Merlin's day.

If I could fashion thought into a lake,

I would eschew the fires of life

For numbing ice, for solace in suspension.

If I could penetrate the deep with this,

And words alone protect me from my sin,

Then I would say let frost begin its holy work.

Turn burning springs of strife to caves of ice.

Hannah at Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads brought us this photo and a challenge to write about caves. Go to IGRT to dive inside other poetic caves.

Burning Leaf

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet and playwright, ardent feminist 

Burning Leaf

How simple and how hard is this:

To see the grass,

To only touch the flowers,

To feel the sun ,

To not bow under boulders,

To know which light is yours,

To follow it back home.

Poets United challenges us to write about a poet we adore...hence, meet Miss V. 

Erasure

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

artwork used by permission of Catrin Welzstein

in association with d'Verse Poets

 

 

 

ERASURE

 

I am gone, and this goes on

You have your smoke

The girls talk quietly about their lives

I am not here, but this goes on

Up and down the yard

The children run

Juliet picks flowers

As the sun begins to fade

Someone clears the plates

This goes on and I am gone

The way your smoke dissipates above,

Gone the way of dandelion fuzz.

because I'm still in love with you

because I'm still in love with you

This moon lights brightly through the pane

and blues you feature by feature.

I watch your peaceful, even breathing. 

We've gathered in the grain, begun the winter wait.

This time of year, the moon seems nearer, brighter, dearer.

Sleep, my love, your fearless peace, 

for I will see you dancing soon, 

on this Harvest Moon. 

Fall

Fall

The leaves loose early now,

As hapless children

Pull away and run.

Bereft on barren branch,

Spotting in the sun,

Late apples cling 

Where just days past 

We loved beneath the green ---

Green scattered now, 

Leavings,  gold then rust,

Gone to ground too soon.

Too soon the hurried rush,

The barren branch,

The fallen, spotted 

Sticky, ripened fruit.

Too soon the leaves,

The fall, the spot of rust;

Outrun, the frenzied, scattered 
Sweetness gone to dust.

What I Carry

What I Carry

What I ought

Is in a pocket

In my heart.

Tucked into my heart, 

I carry 

What I ought.

What I do, 

Is on my shoulder;

Like a boulder on my back, 

I carry

What I do. 

What I know, 

Is in my hands;

In my open hands, 

I carry 

What I know.

But what I ought

Is in a pocket,

In a pocket of my heart;

I carry what I ought

In a secret part,

Tucked into my heart.

Dance Me to the Edge of the Moon

Dance Me to the Edge of the Moon

Calypso to the edge of the moon,

                    (Crickets' cryptic drumbeat tune)

Dance me to the edge of the moon.

Dance the rapid banging beat

                    (Thrust and bite of all belief)

Turn me to the banging beat.

Turn the climb into the dance 

                    (Darkened precipice of chance)

Make me see the climb as dance.

Calypso to the edge of the moon,

                     (Leverage the bite of doom)

And dance me to the edge of the moon.

Begins and Ends in Dust

 

Begins and Ends in Dust

This is the door

I stand before:

The entry, ivy and rust,

Hinge that groans,

Wood that moans,

Step that is covered in dust.

This is the door

I stand before:

Heart that stills with trust,

Body that groans,

Mouth that moans,

Hands that are speckled with rust.

This is the way

I go today:

The way that all men must.

Lorem Ipsum

Lorem Ipsum

I just noticed

how the  lighted screen

looks ripped across the top

like the mini yellow pads

that clutter and stack a desk --

to dos and dones, calls recorded

calls returned, hand-drawn charts,

the stuff of later talks,

pages ripped,  discarded

starts and stops.

The keys along the bottom

click away as if something really

is depressed and strikes.

How like a life this screen,

bright as the eyes can take,

yet cold and flat and final

as the hand that hits delete 

but does not think to save.

When the lights went out

When the lights went out

And the winds blew hard, harder

Than Appalachian summer ever sees,

And the children ran dripping to the house

While Poppy held then gave the umbrella

To the yard, family and guests --

Fourteen in all, gathered beneath the stairs,

Children up and down like popping corn,

The littlest one cried mommy, mommy, mommy,

Who was somewhere, later learned,

Moving trees that blocked the road,

Unable to go forward or go back.

When the  winds died down

And the sky cleared off as if it never raged,

And the damage was surveyed,

And neighbors came together for a change

To tell their various stories (all the same),

The children gathered pool toys from the yard,

The men, the bent umbrella from the tree,

And the eerie sound of no electricity --

The lack of sound, gave life a different sound,

Pure and clear, the sound of feet and breath,

The sound of living on and living through,

The littlest gathered candles for the dark

And built a tale to tell again, again, again

As the power hums, of the fun we had 

when the winds blew hard on the day the lights went out.

Still, the clock

Still, the  clock:

Back and forth

Settled, regular, like the heart.

Staccato notes

Dum dee, dum dee, dum dee

Patterned background chatter

Morning song that fades

With the scrape of shoes

Night Blind

Night Blind

It always  was your sight

That banished darkest night,

But now my Light is spent,

For while I dozed, it went

The way of leaving things:

Bags packed, a cab, the rings

Bereft beside the bed

Atop a note that said:

When darkness turns to day

And chases dreams away,

Yet you remain in night,

Long longing for the light,

Think on me and know

I didn't wish to go.