The requiem played So softly in the background. Our words stuttered to a halt, And we listened to this-- The breath between words Not said in the silence Between us. All the while the strains of the requiem Filled the ever widening space Between the words of lies and truths In the deafening silence. To relieve the pressure in our ears We talked of all the daily banalities Of work, of dinner, of lunches, Of the silly things the dogs have done That made us laugh. We talked over each other Stumbling in a strange vocal dance Until finally tripping into silence Before a final goodbye is said With your lies and my truth unclaimed. But the requiem played still-- And then silence.
Category: poetry
Shadows
In the shadows of the mountains
Where beasts have fled,
Leaving behind cloven hoof prints
In the inky muck of the forest floor
Beside the pristine waters of a rushing stream
Near the fading timberline here,
The scent of decaying pine bark and musk
On a faint icy breeze
Weaves all into the forest primordial.
Nothing human can be found
In a fear filled chest.
Words in the Electronic Ages
What we know of words upon a page Read, learned over again until sated In the richness found. Then turn to the electronic blue haze Where even words resonate, echoing fade. For the sweetest lies, a believer craves. Then scrolling over plastic flowers dancing, The words of a lover’s refrain found Written once too often In wooing others On the same blank cards With pictures of bears. The words like Cheap plated jewelry’s shine Turn black in the bitterness On the day some thought Something pure, pristine was born. Then, finally, is it known the words Of the poetic, the romantic Are but rhetoric and lies Written and said More than once But promised For one. The gravity, the gravity A black hole.
Water
Turn
Breathe warmth
Rest comes easy now
Curled around you—
Poured would be better
Yes—
Become liquid
To be the bath water
Surrounding you
Or the water droplets of a shower
Cascading over you
To possess for a moment
The ability of water
To touch you everywhere at once
SMOKE THE CRAVING
I debate:
Should I buy
That pack of cigarettes?
God knows I want too.
The store clerk
Stares at me
As if I’ve lost my mind.
I nearly answer—
Yes, I have and other things too.
Please, God.
I just want to feel the smoke
Rush through my lungs.
Skimming, skipping, speeding
The way pictures crash the dam of my heart.
I am flooded.
I’d rather be flooded with waves of nicotine.
Yes, it’d be a blessing to drown in nicotine.
Reveling in the stench of smoke
Would help dull this taste of bitterness,
Would dull this craving for a sweetness
I can no longer have.
And why not?
What’s it all matter now?
A slow roll kind of Catholic suicide.
How long could it take?
I mean, really, at this stage?
“Ma’am, can I help you with somethin’ else?”
Says the clerk behind the counter.
I am still standing there,
The crazy lady,
Trying to wring the water out
Of the water bottle I just bought.
“No, thank you,” as I walk away.
So, no slow roll Catholic suicide.
At least, starting not today.
But this patch of bitter taste,
This patch of craving for a sweetness,
Are sewn with double stitched seams
On the underside
Of my skin.
Fairy Tale
Once upon a time,
It starts.
To begin it not
Acceptance since—
It is as it has always been.
Love and loss,
Desire and lust,
Sex and sin,
Pain and pleasure
Twisted and braided into rope
To bind our souls
Struggling against the rope
To escape such exquisite pain,
Yet seeking
To find within such passionate pleasure,
A relief to modern existence.
All too willing
To believe anything told–
From fairytales to lies,
Finding comfort
In a fool’s belief
Of such romantic notions
To ignore photos displayed
Of wine and treats arranged in twos,
A photo of the same card given,
Wishes of happiness in the margins.
It is here that words told
And appearances do not mesh.
Make a choice of what is true
And believe in faith of carnival games.
So one can curl against
Such soft warm skin
As if it contained a potion
To wash away the stain
Of sin and bring the happy ending.
Winter Destruction
The cruelest time is winter.
Green, nesting in the folds of flower petals,
That once basked in summer sun
Withers,
Crackling in dryness.
Then comes the stomping,
Crunching of ice.
Innocence destroyed.
Two Trees
In the woods,
two trees stand,
equally rooted
firmly in the ground.
Yet, as if deciding
it a curse of solitude
to try and touch a Sky
who never reached back,
one turned
to touch the other,
leaning its trunk
against its forest mate’s.
And so, I found them,
standing as lovers,
one resting upon the other,
limbs entwined in embrace.
I turned,
wishing not to disturb
what I’d found there,
and walked down the trail.
In the Songs of Birds
When I was three,
My mother taught me to read,
And words
Became playthings and playmates
As I sat in the back of the restaurant
Watching her work her dream to death.
Later, as I grew,
Family losses piled, heaped
Weighty upon the shoulders of a nine-year-old.
Words became
Escape, shelter, survival,
A path out of destruction.
And so, words stayed
For more years than I’d care to say.
But now here,
Waking mornings,
Hearing birdsong,
Or in early evening,
The warm sun blanketing
My skin as I fill the birdfeeders,
I hear words in the songs of birds.
Silly though it may seem,
The cardinals have much to say,
“It’s cheaper here. It’s cheaper here.”
To “Pretty, pretty, pretty.”
The mockingbirds chatter away
Announcements of “She’s here, she’s here, she’s here.”
And I’m not sure which bird continually asks,
“Wanna see, wanna see, wanna see a receipt?”
All the while, the Blue Jays squawk away,
Warning all the others,
“Stay away! Stay away!”
Then in the chittering of the squirrels,
I hear the demand,
“Where’s the food? Where’s the food?
You let the food run out! How dare you?”
As they scurry away,
Pretending, at least, to be afraid of me.
Among all the noise and chatter
All the words of birds and squirrels
One word, never felt before now,
I feel move within my chest,
Peace.
The Mixed
Too dark
Too light
Too in between
Too bright
Too rosy
Too peach–
Just too much
Or not enough at all.
This has always been my plight.
I am African-American
But not black enough .
I am Native American
But not red enough.
I am Latina
But not brown enough.
Just mixed enough for most
To assume whiteness of me,
Sparking comments about a whitey master
in the woodpile of my ancestors.
In this ocean of the mixed
There’s affinity
But no belonging
As I reach for a new shade of blush
That is just close enough.
Hearing The Mermaids Sing 