For today’s prompt, write a poem about something before your time. Maybe it’s a certain time in history. Or a type of music. Or a story that was shared by friends or family–before your time.
Here’s my attempt:
“A Stroll Through Oakland Cemetery”
Each mausoleum and tombstone
hides away countless stories. From
Margaret Mitchell’s epic love
story to the master golfer
Bobby Jones, this one cemetery
holds its share of celebritites,
but also the first Atlanta
mayor, Moses Formwalt, who served
one year before he then became
a deputy–only to get
killed while he was transporting
a prisoner, or poor Agnes
Wooding, who was buried right here
before the land was sold by her
husband, A.W., to the city.
*****
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“Winter 1969-70″ (Dad was a doctor drafted to Vietnam after my brother was born, I was born in Dec. 1971.)
A piece of paper, several lines filled
each day, with happenings.
He’s healing, he’s growing, you’d be so proud!
She wipes at the tear before it falls to leave a stain.
An envelope. A stamp. A light kiss.
Then off goes the letter, so far away.
She reads your words to your son
when they come from across the sea.
So glad you’re alright, wish I could see you.
Why do they need to fight, on this other side of the world?
Keep helping, keep healing, keep safe.
And come home.
Old Soul
so
my uncle
asked me where
I
was when
JFK was assassinated
I
replied: I
wasn’t born yet
Trying to catch up on those days I wasn’t able to participate
Lascaux
Jean, Marie, Pierre with other pre teens,
not yet old enough
to go on the hunt,
were instructed to guard the cave
and gather some fruit, herbs,twigs and branches
and offer prayers for a feast.
When they arrived back
rain was dripping down
They decided to start a fire
for heat and light.
Before starting the fire,
Pierre took some of the blackened
charcoal out of the pile
looked at the other two
“We may not be able to hunt,
but we can practice by drawing
animals on the wall and throw
our spears at them.”
Each took a piece of charcoal
and drew their favorite food on the wall.
They practiced aiming at the heart
as they hurled their spears.
When the hunters returned
they had had the best hunt
that any of them could remember.
Finding the drawings on the wall,
the leader decided
the spirits of the animals
were trapped in the cave
and resulted in their easy conquest.
That night there was feasting
body painting, and dancing.
In another time
I would not stand alone
just one more wall ornament
distinguished only by the subtle movement
of tapping toe which prevents
my total absorption with the wallpaper
I would not eat alone
in my culinary oasis
surrounded by clinking silver on china
small talk lapping at me in waves
cresting over me and consuming
while my nose remains affixed to the page
I would not have freedom
to go where I want
unhindered by the wants or needs
of family or friends
unfettered by the pressures of society
unable to alter my presence or
change my future
in another time
Celebrate
It is Zebra Day
at the zoo.
Girls with zebra
stockings and
colorful platform
shoes mean
there are more
than zebras
on the loose
today in the zoo.
Mary Ann Cotter Tuohy
My father’s grandmother on his mother’s side
was born in 1841, one hundred years before
her great-granddaughter Marian was in 1941.
One hundred years made all the difference
in our lives. Mary Ann was American born,
descended from Viking invaders, founders
of the City of Cork assimilated into Ireland
long before James Thomas Cotter emigrated
in the early 1800’s to America’s New World,
thus escaping the Great Famine yet to come.
In her mid-teens Mary Ann met Mr. Tuohy
better known as Will who’d fled the Famine
with his mother Julia Darcy Tuohy in tow.
We guess his father John had already died.
James Cotter and Will Tuohy both worked
for the railroad, crisscrossing the Midwest,
thus intersected their lives. Will, courting
Mary Ann, took her in his arms and danced
her round campfires at dusty railroad sites,
fiddles scraping, stars winking in the smoke.
Like Mary Ann, Marian was married young.
A century apart, each soon had a child, each
birthed five children, each lost one. There
the likeness stops. Marian lost her first child
Mary Ann, her last, and no one could staunch
the hemorrhaging blood, her body exhausted
by five births in five years, her own life done.
One hundred seventy-one years have gone.
If 2041 sees Marian’s great-granddaughter
born, how will their lives be alike or diverge?
Before
My mother was happy running on the beach,
Exercising with the women from work at Douglas Aircraft.
There was no Ocean Avenue, just sand that
Led over and further over to the beach.
Her apartment on Mira Mar street had a Murphy bed
And a little kitchen to fix some meals.
She ate avocados and cottage cheese
And went to visit her friend at her house in South Central.
They explored the unknown California without people,
And she said Seal Beach had a lot of seals and no pier.
Later, after the war, they moved back East
And took up housekeeping, in a place with no excitement.
That was still before my time.
before your time
Before now
When memories were sharp
When you were the code breaking crosswood queen
But now cannot figure out sudoko
When memories were sharp
You helped with my taxes
But now cannot figure out sudoko
And me I process your taxes and leave sukdoko untouched
You helped with my taxes
Me the inept mathetican
Now processes your taxes and I leave sudoko untouched
I look at you and dream of sharp edged times
Me the inept mathetican
now
I look at you and dream of sharp edged times
When you were the code breaking crosswood queen
The Intellectual
Lost his parents as a young lad
Thrown to the big, bad world
He fended and he fought
Like no other valor
Little to eat, two shirts on his back
Created a little world
For his own clever, desiring self
To the country of mountains he went
Design, his claim to fame
Built the Townhall and hotels five-star
Poured himself in every deed
The little sapling became a stalwart tree
Family, fame, sons so true
By and by his wealth grew
Yet he remained a sage
Detached, solitary, though deserving center stage
Old habits die hard
Scringed and saved
Suffered and craved
Lived alone, and died the death of a bard
High Functioning
Mr. Hughes, or may I call you Howard?
I’m sure we know each other well enough, living
in the same disturbance as we do, albeit
at opposite ends of the century. Me, obsessive, you
compulsive, and also the other way round.
We’re grifters, you and me
flashing a series of parlour tricks, one furitive tic
and then another. Artists of escape, slipping
out of handshakes, turns of doorknobs, disappearing
into the safe small sterility of hotel rooms
and other dark shiny places. Even there our most delicious
cravings are coated in terror that drops
into our laps in the quiet late at night. Infected?
Syphilitic movie starlets? MERSA creeping hot and silent
Into the divots of another gouged scab?
We hold the world together with cellophane tape
and a ton of excuses. It’s a nonstop sideshow
trick, pulling a neverending rope, hand over hand,
even as the fibers fray apart. Knotting faster than the human eye
can see the imperfect spaces that terrify me, the same as you.
Our fears crossing over through time.
Sixteen
Two old souls found each other
within the crowd of faceless faces
and nameless names. With one look,
one smile, one small word,
our lives seamlessly became one —
until it wasn’t.
There was no denying the attraction,
the unspoken understanding
in each moment we shared the same breath.
I wish I’d known my own heart better, held
yours tighter as it beat against mine —
until it didn’t.
The shocking truth of life’s fragileness
still haunts me, shakes me to the core,
wakes me from comfortable slumber
to remind me that we had all the time
in the world —
until we didn’t.
With no chance to properly say
goodbye, with so many other things
left unsaid, I chase your ghost, let
your presence comfort me, hold on
to memories I can’t release —
until I can.
KITTY HAWK
(A Shadorma)
On the beach,
Orville and Wilbur,
with canvas,
courage, wood,
(and a finger to the wind),
gave dreams working wings.
Grandpa
Men live and die by the sea
Neither a wife’s arms nor the hugs of his child
Can compete with the lure of the sea
Not even life itself
Grandpa worked the docks and ships
In Merry Old England until
One fine day he set sail with his wife
And children for the land of opportunity
Opportunity was there
More children arrived
And grandpa worked the docks and ships
Providing for his growing family
Grandpa loved the sea
Until that fateful day
When the sea claimed another one
And his life itself was taken
Before. Tribute to F. Scott FitzGerald
Slipping through corridors, laughing with statues,
As skies gray and twist,
To the mood of your wit.
Holding on, as she slowly slips away,
into her fiery mind,
With the beat of your heart.
Wishing that you could, like the ink in your pen
Drain yourself of the day.
Instead you keep every thought
marred on your mind
Like unwelcomed ink blotches,
Or creases in a page.
Dogeared by her charm,
She’s kept you in place
In the middle of a slowly churning storm
That builds as you fade.
Bound ceaselessly.
Anyone Who Had a Heart
I wish I could have been around
to sit on a writing session between
Burt Bacharach and Hal David.
When piano keys pressed caused
melodic rainstorms to wrap themselves
tenderly, caressing lyrics; swaddling them.
Horn sections bleating sensorial
overloads, stimulating emotions from
the floorboards that extend all the way
through the ceiling, into the attic, and above
the roof.
-John Pupo
Before us was them.
Those renegades,
rising up from cruel oppression,
placing fingers on strings,
voices cocked,
gripping tightly onto the sound that
changed the world forever.
Existing somewhere between rhythm and blues
the antidote burned.
Poison poised outside the speakeasy,
anathema brewing inside.
They drank of the draught,
its inocculation
savagely speeding its sanguine cleanse.
Jump, jive, and wail if you have a soul.
If not, do it anyway.
Big suits,
big hats,
big band,
big business.
Are you ready?
It’s time to dip, baby.
Un Historia
They left the coffee-rich blue mountains
to meet on a straw seated subway train
They talked gentle politics, business,
Roosevelt was wonderful
and by Garvey they’d remain
proud of a place they never knew
He would fly back over the sea he had sailed
from a place with no electricity
but the coconut polished floors gleamed
wide verandas opened to the valley
where colonial castes prevailed
chains he loosened and shook free
left that warm island, unbound in New York City
claiming a new destiny a new history
He understood cricket but loved
Democratic baseball, his easter island head
in overstuffed chair, fragrant, listening to the radio
play by play, talking about Jackie Robinson,
Hank Aaron, those sacred Sundays in Jamaica, Queens
Fanciful attraction
What a time it must have been, mamma,
when big cars full of cheap gas
took to the pavement, in the summer
you could drive about anywhere
in a halter top and linen shorts
with cuffs and ironed creases,
you were a pretty girl looking for fun,
face freckled, brown hair in a knot.
When you met daddy, did you
go to Corpus Christi right away,
heart full of hope, have corn dogs,
and cold beer on the beach?
The war was over and plenty
was the word on everyone’s lips-
he was handsome, on the G.I bill,
full of adventure and jokes.
it’s not easy to think about
you as a young secretary,
smoothed-faced and careless
taking up with a sweet talker
like him, you didn’t worry at all
about someday and what if,
no one ever does in the beginning,
when the light dances on the water
making the moment look pretty good
even heading home with me in your belly
cruising north till the salty water
disappears behind a stand of lanky pine.
They were happy
Young
And carefree
Long haired
And wild
Rambunctious
And partying
The epitome of cool.
They wrote songs
Around fires
Smoked
Whatever they wanted
Drank just as much too.
Tiny waists
Cinched and buttoned
With patterns flowing free.
They were young
Carefree
And wild
They danced
And lazed in the sun
They worked hard
And played even harder.
Then I came along.
THE ROPE
It was ordinary rope
the type used to bind parcels to carts,
or carts to horses.
You thought nothing of it,
I am sure, when you left
your crooked house
down the steep wending steps
through the iris and gladiola,
to the dirt street and Sir’s house
to mop his floors, polish
silver that saw you
reflected, blond and worn.
When you left,
I am sure, you thought nothing
of the rope on the basement stoop
or your son in his room
coughing red streaks
on his hand, his shirt,
his wall, the floor, not yet a man
but more than a boy.
I am sure, when you left,
You thought nothing
of your husband sawing logs,
sweat staining the once-white
shirt, the rasping making music
with the chortle of finches.
Perhaps you smiled,
Happy to soon have shelves
promised last week, not knowing
he took the coffee you made
before you left
with sips from the bottle squirreled
in the dank corner where you
kept your canning jars
and spiders kept their eggs.
You thought nothing of the rope,
nor of the solid oaken beam
transecting the basement ceiling,
I am sure, and neither did he,
but perhaps he thought of it
only after he found the pistol
too poor for bullets,
and in the heat of morning sunshine
and liquor, perhaps he heard
your son rasping,
perhaps he saw the rope,
and thought something of it.
***
Better late than never. Wrote the poem but alas, no internet access until now. This poem relates the suicide of my great-grandfather, an immigrant from Finland, a man I never met but whose wife, my Mumu, kept me close. Peace…
Glad you made it. Wonderful poem.
So many amazing poems with so many different takes on the prompt! Well done, poets! I enjoyed reading every one!
In a time long forgotten
By
Arrvada
In a time long forgotten
At least I would like to believe
There was beauty and magic
And they were more than make-believe
Elves and fairy, troll and sprite
Roamed the hills morning and night
In a time long forgotten
Long before I was born
There were beings of power
From which legends were born
In a time long forgotten
A time long before me
In a land far away
Beyond the bright shining sea.
My Father Was a Gypsy
Passing rocky ballast piles,
Crossing the churning Sound
in a small boat
Arriving on a beach
with no footprints
Finding a crematory
on the leeward side of the island
An adventure for a young girl
A thoughtful journey for a father
A place to share with her mate,
her children
long ago, now.
That deserted beach walked
by ancient natives who left
mounds of oyster shells ,piled
under the spreading live oaks and
very little else to be found now.
But the ghosts of them gather
at the campfire, the passing
of their story, one to another
making sure
they are n’er forgotten,
making sure they are
n’er forgotten.
This is wonderful! I love the last stanza!
The Morning in the Garden
Would I have been there,
Had I been there,
In the garden?
Would I have opened
My aching eyes
Before the first light dawned
In the hopeless sky?
Would I have sought
The agony and solace
Of that place,
Wishing for rock
To shatter like my heart?
Would there have been
A sliver of hopeful memory
Urging me towards that tomb?
Or would I have
Still been sleeping
Only to awake too late
And too confused?
Just YOU.
Long before you were wife, mother, breadwinner,
you must have been just YOU.
Days, when you too dreamed in technicolor.
When you were allowed to be just, YOU.
And then came he.
Through him, me.
IS AIGA A WORD?
and their calls continued fainter when the light
inside went completely. Alice has her history of
competitive play. The youngest sibling by eight
years, she was home while the rest were at school,
in her dad’s hair while he worked in the tool shop
and in her mother’s while she cooked and canned.
Her mom called a game of hide and seek, counted
loud to a hundred by fives and forget about her
five-year old, figuring Alice had found something
more fun to do after ten minutes. But fifteen ‘til
dinnertime, one child did not answer the order
to wash up for table. This was before abductions
infested front pages, but it was no less a panic.
They ran calling through the house and all around
it. Her oldest brother, who could drive now, took
the car. They made phone calls and the police came.
Inside one of the empty rain barrels, under the lid
she had pulled over herself, Alice discovered she
could laugh and weep at the same time, and both
while completely silent. She was cold, cramped,
terrified and unassailably, gold-medal victorious,
which is why I hesitate whenever I notice she’s
made a pot of tea and taken out the Scrabble board.
FangO
Pearl Harbor
The Japanese attacked
and life hit fast forward,
a frantic adrenaline rush
they married instead of dated
procreated shaking fists
against death
the suddenness of it all
and of the end . . .
homes, wives/husbands,
children, full-time jobs
they looked around for dreams
they left behind
and quickly recreated lives
in images they had never
quite imagined.
Bravo, bravo! This made me cry!
Losing Time (a Kyrielle)
Do you ever wonder what life
was like a hundred years ago?
Was it full of fun or of strife?
Wondering why time lies so low.
Carriage rides for a Sunday drive,
fresh air, sunshine and fields to hoe –
new inventions poised to arrive
wondering why time lies so low.
Electric cars were new, in style
but life had a trickling flow –
being indoors was kind of vile
wondering why time lies so low.
There was plenty of time to do
your chores, work your job, kiss your beau
and still have time to dream anew.
Wondering why time lies so low.
Or was the life they had as fast
as ours today, just different so
we romanticize on our past?
Wondering why time lies so low.
Turquoise, gold
and silver are gone from
the tombs. Carved slabs
of the sacrificed
and masks of the dead
are in the museum.
We climb narrow steps
to the top of the temple
and walk across
the dirt plaza,
where thousands gathered,
fought and feasted.
All is silent, except
for an old man
calling out to tourists
to buy souvenir rocks.
In the distance,
other mountains are far off
and the highways
and city are not visible
The sky is pale and hot.
There’s no wind.
So we find the canopy
of a very old tree,
climb into the shade
and listen to leaves, rustling.
ACCIDENTAL PUPPY
It happened before my time
in her life. Unplanned backyard breeding
in a cluttered bungalow. The owners were away.
Without my knowing, as if another age,
another history, she was born blind into the puppy-
dark. First to escape the whelping-box.
All her littermates moved on to new homes.
She was passed over. Untrained. Learning life
by teeth and bark. At last she was sold,
bought, and soon returned. Too much,
too smart, too hard.
So how did we find her, or she us?
Sheer accident. Yesterday.
This morning she pulls me at the end of a leash –
will she ever learn dog-manners? –
down concrete stairs of an unknown city
into April springlight. Up 13th Street, startling
at her reflection in glass; showing me
the scent of white begonias;
adventuring sidewalk, as strangers debark
from sighing buses. Bark. Greeting?
Accident creating our brand-new world.
Dancers
And she shrieks.
The Spring Equinox begins, and the sunlight shafts through the main doorway
As she begins her dance of 3600 years ago.
The tethered bull quakes, for it has smelled death.
Her steps are light and her long, dark, Mediterranean hair flows
Rhythmically to the music
And the chants
Sinuously and sensuously she moves with the grace of a lifetime of service
In homage to the Fat Lady goddess.
Of Malta, the Island…
The omphalos of the World.
She weaves in and out of the coralline limestone post-and-lintel constructions,
Oblivious, to everything but the rhythm
Of her own movements, mirroring those of the branches.
To the beat of the lambskin drums
And jarring rattle of hog-bone shakers.
The wind howls.
The priest raises the knife;
The animal’s life blood spurts
And the dancer sinks to the ground,
Exhausted.
And the orgy begins.
The Rainbow
Plumeria falls on soft grass like dreams that keep coming.
The wall wheezes with her asthma, the plaster falls away
like rain of stone dust, and his eyelashes gently dip down
with pain as she rasps for breath, wrenches fist of space in lungs
as plumeria falls soft on grass and dreams keep coming
of her pale skin flushed like the fine watermarks on marble.
He holds her gaze, draws her to the portico of sun shine,
slats of stained glass break into splinters of rainbow on her:
the blood drains from her face and lips turn blue. Blurry eyed he
sees plumeria fall on grass, dreams of her coming back.
Tears of Cleopatra
I think she wept, yes she must have
Wept when it all fell apart
A beautiful queen a lovely queen
But she could not act like a queen
She ruled a land where only rulers were men
Beautiful visage she wore the crown and the beard
Seductively gifted she play grown men games
See from the distance the threat that comes
Her defense was as a woman not
Anything coming from a kingly man
Seduction was a tool
Femininity the secret play
She work the levels of power
Made grown play the games she dictated
But all most fall
And nothing, even empires, deny final decay
Even passion turns sour
When kingdoms are the commodities traded
I know she wept at the realization
That this too will pass
The golden becomes tarnished
The great fall beneath the wicked lash
But glory will never crumble
From forces coming in
She whispered to the wind
On this last breathe
I am the greatest of all queens
This morning I was unable to leave comments, (the screen kept telling me I was posting comments too fast and should slow down) so I’m doing a joint accolade here: I especially love the family stories of justLynne,Connie Peters,Jannilee (ah! your compassion!), ceeess, Janet Rice Carnahan, Walt Wojtanik, Jane Shlensky, zevd2001. And then there were the others – Jerry Walraven’s “Moanin'”, Imaginalchemy’s “Thoughts from the Dodo bird” and “The Invention of Time”, Linda Voit’s “Before my big entrance” and the conversation between De Jackson (Of Parks & Buses) and Marie Elena (Two Navy gentlemen). Every one of these poems touched me, moved me, and sometimes amused me. So thank you to this wonderful group of word-crafters for giving me such a gift to start the day.
Thank you so much, Jaywig. Marie’s poem touched my heart so deeply…history becoming personal, a real hero, the daddy of one of the kindest people I “know.”
Day 5 – something before my time
Rusted
(after watching Australia: The Time Traveller’s Guide, Parts 1 & 2)
Red
the soil of my country
where lichens bled
and chemistry
turned sand
to iron, zinc, silver, lead.
Even now
saltbush claims
old ocean beds
and where I walk
I see an arid future
where the past
is spread.
Old land, old earth:
they say here
you can see the birth
of living forms
that thrived
where was a dearth
of oxygen and H2O
and all we deem has worth.
Is it dead?
Crossing by train
I feel a certain dread.
But in the mining town
let red soil run through my hands
and feel the heat
of living earth instead.
The Lost Boys
Grandma had a routine
when she visited her
husband’s grave
She stopped at
two small graves
on the other side
of this pocket sized
cemetery overwhelmed
by Brooklyn streets and
the sound of the el
She strolled over and
stood in front of these
tiny markers while she
and my mother recited
once again the same
story of how beautiful
they were and how
fast they went as the
epidemic claimed mostly
the young and left a hole
in the family and sorrow
still in the hearts of their
mother and sister over fifty years
later and I watched each
shed tears dripping on
the soil as both of them
found the tiniest pebble
to place on the top of
the stones.
Innana, Where Have You Gone?
By: Meena Rose
Innana.
Here I am, I heeded your call.
How could I not?
Every cell in my body is
Encoded to hear your call.
Uruk.
Where have you taken me?
When is this time?
Where is this place?
What do you want to do to me?
Sisterhood.
Innana, why have you forsaken me?
Who are all these women
I see?
Innana, please speak to me.
Heritage.
Child, you have forgotten your lineage.
Why have you let the world
Forget me?
Child, come to my temple and pay homage.
Change.
Rise, Child, Rise.
Bring back my message
To this blighted land.
Hurry, Child, end this demise.
Sand.
Faceless destroyer, formless power.
You erased my legacy,
You destroyed my temple.
I will restore my power.
God deciding on how to get us up to Heaven? Definitely before my time!
Elevevator to Heaven by Camilla Carron
I doubt there’s a stairway to Heaven.
I’m sure it’s an elevator.
Preventing the option to run back down
surely has been thought of by our Creator.
More at http://www.camillacarron.wordpress.com
Oops, forgot to send in my Day Five poem.
Bathsheba’s Paramour
Uriah, son of Heth, why won’t he go in to his wife?
Damn him! I have called him home from Rabbah,
from harshest battle, to give him this, his own lily
among the thorns, the choicest fruit, the rose of Sharon
within his own garden. And he says no? Uriah must
serve the King always, here in the castle, he says.
His men are at siege against the Ammonites, he says,
and he will not disrespect their faith, their sacrifice.
He will not disrespect me, my service, he says.
What of his oath to defend my crown, God’s city?
What of that, upright Uriah? Go to her! Her breasts
are two baby deer fed on flowers, her eyes are purest
white of doves, her temple a split pomegranate
amid her sweet curls. Even the King could not resist
her myriad charms, though try he did. O yes, try
he did. Well, then, Uriah, back to the battle you go.
A letter will you carry, giving your general Joab
my orders, the King’s desire. Uriah, I offer you
the chance in the thickest of the fight to prove
your fealty to me, your master, your true King.
O brother, yes, you will fight, and you will be
lauded forevermore as the brave, loyal lieutenant
who laid down his life for the Kingdom of Israel
and Judah. Yes, let it be so. I wash my hands of it.
The Lord speaks . . . I merely pass on His word.
I am Moses . . . I merely bring down the stones.
Yes, Uriah shall go to the stones. And Bathsheba,
abandoned by her Hittite, like so much spoiled milk
dashed to the dirt, she shall bear Kings. Kings, I say.
Kings of Kings. Yes. Yes. It is the will of the Lord.
by Vince Gotera
Blog: The Man with the Blue Guitar
If you look on my Day Five blog post, you’ll see that this poem was inspired by another poem written by my Poem-a-Day buddy Catherine Pritchard Childress.
HAVE A TOMATO, MRS. KRAUSE
and somebody, in my imagination a farmer, bearded,
splashed a blessing of moonshine on the salty soil
one morning and broke ground on the main house
where over the years a chicken farm grew, gripping
the foothills within sniffing distance of the broad bay.
Eggs, fryers, stewers, fighting cocks and breeders—
but mostly eggs—plus a vegetable garden—came up
at the time our neighbor Kato’s grandpa was just being
born in the city, which would have taken our farmer
two days to reach by horse and buggy, before bridges,
riding the long way ‘round south then north again—
and what a glorious passage through the womanly
hills oscillating green and brown, and between her
hip curves, the glint of Poseidon’s gates, and at last
fetching the bustling four-story city with its balconies
and dust and everything commercial—and, of course,
its endless hunger for eggs—but no tomatoes. Our
farmer sells the eggs, takes on his weekend delights
and makes the return trip back to the farm, with its
endless tide of scratching feet, pecking beaks, and
pooping and pooping—and that’s why, Mrs. Krause
we have beefsteaks and cherries, romas and brandy-
wines, red and running wet as drunkards’ noses while
just down the street, you and the mister get no luck
with your tomatoes.
FangO
“the glint of Poseidon’s cave…” wonderful and subtle
“gates” – stupid autocorrect.
Before you were you, you were disco lights
and white suits that boggie wooogie woogied
down a parted dance floor, slick as the quiff
you built for the girls to wink at.
Before you were you, you were purple hair dye
and one gold hoop that shifted each shoulder
from side to side at a crowded gig, stiff as the
stool you rested a boot on.
Before you were you, you were a mustache
and plaid pants that made feet tap in turn
with hand claps at a smokey pub, smug as the
lady you just sent a drink to.
Before you were you, you never had a me
and the rest, they say, is history.
SHE WAS 16 AT A CARNIVAL
He’ll be cunning and his beauty will fool you
you will have a child who you will let break you
you will see that he soon will forsake you.
Another charmer will come in to protect you
and buffer you from the fear that fills you
the prince will have shining armor that blinds you.
In the void that looms large within you
he will plant seeds times two that will craze you
beyond the father who ridiculed and berated you.
You will be screaming in the prison that they made for you
you will find that you cannot escape you
leaden sorrow and strife will disease you.
At death’s door your thoughts will swirl ’round you
you will wish you had listened to my fortune telling you
you will leave yearning peace that was not meant for you.