Poetry

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Heart

Sealed and secured,

As a love letter that might be

Found too soon,

Or a minion too precious

To be revealed. . .

 

Hidden

Secure

Safeguarded

Preserved

(Finger touching lips)

Not known

(wink)

Yet known.

 

Why held so?

As a child grips her dearest doll,

presses it to her breast?

If it were living,

It would smother there.

 

Fear of being birthed prematurely

And unable to survive?

 

Or

 Fear of being squelched?

. . . Unworthy

Incompatible,

Or worse

Inconsequential. . .

 

Then, thus revealed,

Lying on the floor

Naked,

Ravaged

Not by passion

But pain.

Never to be held closely

By anyone

But me.

 

Yes.

Guarded,

Covered . . .

Not by a veil

But a shroud.

 

 

 

 

For My Father, Always With Me

Every once in a while

I see something

Or hear about something

Or experience something

That I want to share

With you.

For an instant I forget

That I can’t.

But for that instant,

I do.

 

There’s No Such Thing As Writer’s Block

There’s no such thing as writer’s block.
Wait patiently for a poem to drop.
There’s no such thing as writer’s block.
Just wait and scribble and breathe.
Dot your i’s and cross your t’s.
Stop thinking that it must have this or that
to rank significant,
worthy of a scholarly recipient.
A fly will buzz, a fan will drone.
Tell the muse there’s somebody home.

No,
Make her think you’re drifting,
vacant.
Sometimes she drops in unexpectedly.
Never on cue.

There’s no such thing as writer’s block.
Don’t let the ink get dry.
Write, write, write, write.
March the rhythm by.
Can a muse refuse a cadence?
Will she just pass by?

Write, write, write, write.
Your mind’s a metronome.
Read it again, then one more time.
Listen to the fan drone.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.
Don’t worry, it will come
after a load of clothes, perhaps,
after the coffee’s done.
There’s no such thing as writer’s block,
just muses that like to roam.

 

At Thirteen

Sometimes the way you look at me

makes tiny paper cuts all over me.

Somber brown eyes,

Unfeeling

(or feeling all things),

Uncaring

(or hiding all cares).

I feel a searing pain.

Not mine, not yours,

But the entire world’s

Paper cuts.

 

And sometimes when you look at me

And look away,

I catch glimpses

of something stirring beneath silky threads.

Its bold hues

Soothe the tiny paper cuts

With just a flutter.

 

I see the butterfly.

It is beautiful.

 

 

Songbird Video

In black and white.

Camera pans a cell.

Shadows stripe the wall.

Camera focuses on solitary figure.

Sitting on bed.

Camera drifts upward

As man reaches for pencil,

Begins to draw.

 

Cut to:

Bird on windowsill

Slow motion

Spreads its wings,

Flies out through bars.

Sun streams through window.

 

Cut to:

Long shot

Camera lifts through ceiling

As man draws,

And bird lights

Outside bars,

Looking in.

 

 

Monday

Monday is ethereal

under the influence

of decongestant.

My feet on the ground,

yet not touching it,

a veil separates

me

from

the world.

I look,

But don’t see,

Think,

But do not comprehend,

Muse

But cannot use

my musings.

 

Monday.

Mournful,

Unmoving,

Medicine-laden

Misguided

Meaningless

Monday.

 

 

Time

A feather

falling

earthward.

 

Cultural Ties

 

 

 

 

 

“Let us join hands with our ____________

(fill in the blank – Black, Arab, White,

Hispanic, European, Civilized) brothers,

Make this world a ____________ (better, richer,

Happier, blacker, whiter) place,

Fight our oppressor, __________(he, she)

Who does not understand OUR race,

Does not like the looks of OUR face,

Let us BAND together,

Join (tie) our hands together;

 

That which binds (blinds?) us

Gives us hope (rope?),

Makes us strong (wrong?),

Strong enough to fight (wrong or right?)”

 

This rope of hope

That binds us

Blinds us.

Shake it loose.

It is a noose. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Father’s Flag

Neatly folded into a triangle
wrapped in a plastic bag
sitting on the top shelf
of my spare bedroom closet
is the flag that once
blanketed
my father’s casket.

Situated squarely
surrounded by green
lies a stone
that states
“Veteran.”

Anchored permanently
in green-blue water
with a walkway for tourists
on sweltering summer days
floats a steel battleship.

Once told with vivid vigor,
now remembered vaguely
by a distant daughter,
my father’s stories of battles
and comradeship

are
folded neatly,
wrapped carefully,
placed gingerly
on a high shelf
in a dark closet
in a spare room.
The room I use
for storage only.

Typewriter Therapy

It used to help.
Typewriter therapy.
Appointed apostrophes.
Morbid metaphors.
Annointed
with anguish and pain.
A creation
made it right again.

Now little consolation,
the typewriter stares,
reminding me of incompetence
or lack of confidence.
It tells me
it can no longer help.

But I must press the keys,
transfer one pain to another.
“Stop crying over your trivialities;
Here is the real pain:
The words are meaningless.”

 

We Never Know Ourselves

We never know ourselves

In the present tense –

Only in the ethereal past

And the foggy future

Which exist purely

In the dreams of our present.

 

So

We never know ourselves

at all.

 

Sister/Brother

I’ll never
ever
forgive you.
You know what I’m talking about.
I’ve held it against you since
I was five,
big brother.
It was an unpardonable sin.
It was a violation.
It was treason
in its highest form.
I bet
that you regret
what you did on my birthday -
Licked the pan
from MY birthday cake.

You’ll never
ever
forgive me.
You’ll never let me forget it.
No reason
or revenge
could excuse my actions.
I should burn in hell
for my sin.
I destroyed your epicurean future.
I revealed the truth about
your favorite dish…
the one you gorged on with such glee
was in reality
eggplant casserole.

 

 

 

 

 

The Difference 

There’s a difference

between

you and me.

 

It’s the tools

that we use

to draw with.

 

I use pastels

that I spread with my fingers.

 

You use watercolors

that run

from your brush. 

 

 

 

 

Palpable

I feel as though

I could touch your spirit,

feel the bumps,

bruises,

pointed ends . . .

and know that it is you.

 

Others seem so indefinable,

smooth,

soft,

buried,

that I doubt they are there.