I stood for hours
watching the seep
the trickle down drain
 to hear you move above
       and I was drunk for days

but that was once -
and once is a very long word
that’s not forgotten

that you should think
the world is flat by means
of arrogance and never give
birth to voyage unslurred

  Instead -
I busy myself pantried
stock shelves rearranged
and mummer the proper response
in mourning a greet

there’ll be no birds today
no sense of scavenge as
even the carp feeds bottomed

So quiet this, so very, very strong. Gonna pick this later, Nora.

milner

A powerfull poem, indeed, Nora!
Vasile

2. (unfinished)

I saw her that day
pyrexed on glassed
she’d all but failed this side of nuts
having picked almonds rather than arsenic
and so
         the rat returned
 
but for bread -
she'd fold herself doweled unleavened
and blow like when to nibbled

(maybe no and  we'll see, maybe no rat,  I'm thinking again . . . finally!)

Controversing

Echo the when to rise
in rumbled sleet dispelled

   forsaking clack
          as the birch no longer peels
                   excepting mind

No
 it's not raining love
but it was - below freezing

Carrot Cake Red

It’s time to go home
she’s always saying that
a metronome of monotone
grating my nerves like carrots
shredding her hair now ashed

Carrots -
because the ache flows
backwards from heart
down the arm to clinch regarding
three cups but -
we’re not making any cake

There’ll be no upside slap
no dab of tear floured bridge
in  Momma I can’t   because
this time she means it and -
 this time  -   I’m grown

Forest was wrong
it’s not like chocolate
it’s like gingerbread
always sugar-coated
but underneath
it’s hard and
peppery

Load the brush
as the canvas is blank
But platelets grow thick
squeezed from tubes arterial
and hearts are overdone
breeding ruse

Genetics unknown
a three-legged dog
opens to stand empty

It blinks
reoccurs the line to the left
changing from pink to green
and today is not present
at all . . .
 
I am speaking of my screen
the pop of a laptop titanium cased
driven by inconsistency and
I wonder at rebellion

Rebellion
because I’ve never dropped it
but many
the times I’ve scrubbed it -
clean . . .


Bound


Absent,
the run of fingers against wrist
fading the scar forgotten
covered by lines of aging
and turning her watch inward
as if the face
should never be displayed

Purple,
the flowers found
on a miniature saucer
meant for dolls
but porcelain-
 in content

She snapped it clean in half -
severed the last vestige
and would have bled outright
if not -
for the pulse within

It was not hers
 to take . . .
It never was.

Thirty years later
she opens the box-

Christmas,
and the first set of
brand new dishes
she's ever had -

A hundred piece set
given by -
the pulse . . .

Purple,
they're solid purple
no flowers attached.



* I'm going to run "bound" by another site, I know it's a bit obscure, (more than that yes) still, I'm going to.. . BUT - I'm not going to delete it, NO!  I know what it means -I may not be able to make others see it but I know what it means and I'll continue to poke it a bit.

This side of Ugly

This side of ugly I can’t begin to explain
      but it comes from having everything and nothing. . .

Nothing, nothing at all . .
    She towered,
              towered above vindictive.

     Past the church suppers, the red pea-coat, and the matching dresses I so admired, she reigned.  I loved her, still do. . .and nothing will devastate me more than her loss. . .

Letter to you

Dear Mom,
     I wish you could explain the workings of children to me, how one loves you forever and one doesn’t.  I really want to know.   I never beat my kids, though often, I was, unfair.  In all  there is - I never stomped their head fracturing a cheek and causing damage to the eye, I never did.
     But then, then - they never raised a hand, never knocked me down backwards down the stairs, never forged six hundred dollars in checks to run off to Tulsa and dance in a bar only to return and have me pay for private schooling . . .
     I skipped a year for all of that, I was smart you see, and the scholarships rolled right in.  You went without a coat, took a menial job and boosted the family income.  I could be saved. Yes, indeed.
     I cast a glance upwards Momma, at the “me” in paragraph two - I meant “you” of course, I was an English major once. . . once….and I have forgotten all without cost as you enabled me to do so.
     Yes, yes, yes, yes - for all that occurred, the pulling of hair, the weather stripping, the broom, for whatever lay handy by means of control, you loved me and I - HATED YOU - for years. .
     “Splain to me Lucy”  please, please, please, explain.
                                                                                 Love always,
                                                                                                  your daughter.

p.s. maybe a butcher knife at midnight when just past fifteen?, guess not, they’re grown.  I held their childhood precious and they love you the same as I - but not me momma, not all of them, some of them don't even begin to love me. AND, I was never mean. You're lucky, so very, very, lucky.  I did all you said . . .I really did. . .but - I was different - just like you said.

If only I could splain to my own mother or my daughter whichever.

Speaking of trees,

    this winter’s been fairly mild.  Play-acting at ice, makeup removed in twenty-four without curtain for stance.  But there- to the left of the porch, the pussy willow fell snapped.
     She sat garbed in bright pink, turtle neck turned augmenting the presence of frail, as her legs have long been useless but lend a pinch of depth to maroon slacks and failed knee replacements grown fused.
     I should have stopped right there, bundled her up and out the door, but instead . . . instead, I stood mesmerized, recalling the day it was planted and all the years before, between, and after.

      Spring, an unfenced yard clean-out to the neighbor’s cornfield, a red pea-coat with a matching headband and winter’s last stand chilling the breeze in denial.  A snapshot of me and my brothers, before the baby was born or even thought of, where the back porch was non-existent and a set of six windows shone inward matching the front.
     We lived in a cape cod, that’s what they called it anyway, the style of the house I mean.  Six panes of glass, bottom to top, opened the light to the living room and kitchen, both sides, front to back, set directly across from each other.  The kitchen windows would soon come out to be replaced by patio doors and the front would be fitted for glass shelves on which to place knick-knacks. It was the reason we were there - fresh out of the hospital she wanted to run by the old house and have me clean those shelves . . .
     Years ago, we had three elm trees. Two, sat abut the property line with spireas forming a  fence between and on both sides after.  The other sat midway, a corner stone to the garden offset by five fruit trees, and what would eventually be the porch.  It was here my father planted the pussy willow, when we were all grown and the garden was covered in grass.  Where nary a fruit tree remained and there was no longer a need for preserves or spreading the jam equal, as the summer of their lives had passed and flown off like maple wings tucked between lips sounding.
     Spring, and I stood thinking of how- if- it’d survived- the buds would echo the color of her eyes mid-January, clouded by illness . . .and it hurt.  Hurt more than the time I begged my brothers to play ball and the ball flew up to rest atop the trash cans.  They said, the only way I could play - was to crawl up there and get it.  We had barrels, (big oil drums really) and halfway in hoisting myself up, one of my brothers yanked my ankle and I came out missing two teeth . . .

                                               "the front ones."

to the left lie patterns


the drift of twist in
winter undefined
snags against finger-
combed strands
and lingers the moon
chestnut

but what of the fire?

the blaze grows white
a generation passed
in boughs of silence

Nora,

I will need to come back to this, but at first read, I really like the feeling it leaves with me.  And yet, I can't seem to articulate why....

Laura