PRIORITY
As I am fond and always to people say
The hemorrhoid on your behind
Is more pressing than another's heart surgery
Although you might fervently wish it another way
2.
PRIORITIES TWO
This does not mean
Nor should it imply
That for the pain of another
Your own heart can and will often cry
Dedicated to those this morning who are horror and awe struck at the devastation in the Midwest and concurrently perhaps a bit humanly guilty at involvement with their own relatively insignificant concerns.
3.
PRIORITIES - YOUNG CHILDHOOD
Walking talking
having fun
how to handle or
shun a gun
Laughing, loving
being kind
Knowing when mischief is okay
and when to mind
Off to learn at home or school
Hearing and living by the Golden Rule
Learning that one can if one must give and take a punch
And that the giving and taking of violence is not as natural as eating lunch
Listening and speaking and forming an opinion that is ones own
Blossoming from the seeds that were sown or from others
4.
PRIORITIES - ADOLESCENT
Growing up and out in the places that are expected
Feeling heat and stirrings in areas never quite projected
Stirring, settling, riding the coaster up and down
Whirling on the emotional merry-go-round
To the music of a billion chorded sound -
As the solo-song of your self-hood forms forward bound
5.
PRIORITIES - ON THE PRECIPICE OF ADULT-HOOD
Hanging on the precipice perhaps by a hand or a toe
Realizing with blazing clarity what is "right" what you now know, you know
stunningly without finger wagging, nagging, cajoling, or another voice
simply and certainly somehow, amazingly, in your own found morality rejoice
6.
PRIORITIES - FROM SWEET MILK TO EMPATHY
There is much more to see
in "priorities" enormity
Yet at the moment in simplicity
It distills from sweet milk to empathy
7.
ONE ON THE LIST...
Shaking off the numbing dread
that before long the sands will run
and one will be dead
And what one is to do when one can clearly see
The staggering array of possibility
Leading back to the importance of PRIORITY
Of course arranging, figuring, weighing this, that, when, and where
Can quickly devour the time that is afforded while you
8.
THE FINAL CHOICE
On a night like any other shadows dipped and danced and played
as his body stripped itself of cloth and laid
upon her
tearing flesh in unholy congress upon her bed for him freshly made
tasting salted sweat his hand hard against her bloodied teeth
On that night like any other when shadows dipped and danced and played
Minutes pounded into hours, over, under, back front and side
No need of the hand that held her, had been years since she had cried
Transport the pain above push it toward the ceiling up and high and out
On an night like any other suddenly a change as the door opened slipping in a softly
whispered shout
'Mommy? What is happening? Why are you fighting on the bed here in the night?'
He did not even look toward the sound kept pounding with reinvigored might
Came closer to the bed, the tiny child, of no more than just turned three
Head resting near his mother's face eyes locked confused, what could this strangeness
be
Frantically, mother telegraphed the child with her eyes to go back to his bed
To slip beneath his covers feel her kiss and evaporate his blackened dread
Of course that did not happen
The child did not move away
His face began that sliding scrunch that gave the coming tears away
'Get outta' here the sweated head atop the unstoppable body hissed into the air
Spittled rage spraying her, face, bare breast, mucous dangling in her hair
And on that night like any other with shadows dancing dipped and then
As he rolled extricating himself from her body, to grip the child standing there in fear
There was a singular, crystalized choice and she reached for the under there
From beneath the mattress where long ago she had it hid
She reached and felt with twisted finger that knife that waited her to bid
In that night like any other in the shadow dip, dance and play
Smiling coy as a virgin, up at him with blood streaked mouth she asked a little more
for him to stay
And in that night, in quiet, with that gentle smile upon her lip
She opened her arms to hold the man and into his heart the knife did slip
On a night unlike any other, the man slumped quiet on his side
Filled the room with gurgles as she held the boy's tiny hand, 'Only a game' she said
and watched as sleepiness fill where he would have cried
A night like no other she pulled the blanket up around the slack jawed man, and in
that resurrected room of life, surprised, by a choice he thought she'd never make, she
listened to the peacefulness as finally the man she had loved died.
9.
KEEP THE FAMILY
Keep the family
never let it break in two
wear turtle necks in summer
and never to a soul let on the
why, the where, the who
Keep the family
never let it break in two
Bruises fade, bones will eventually heal straight
But a child deprived of a fantasied good father
Will grow to be filled with vengeful or imitated hate
Keep the family
never let it break in two
even when the choice is between the family and you
10.
GIVE IT UP OR SAVE IT
Give it up, save it
Put it in a jar
Silly thought
silly girl on this night afar
Give it up, save it
Fallacious priority
Virginity is not tangible
Not something anyone will either miss or see
11.
UNDER THE FRANGIPANGI TREE
Sitting there in perfumed air
counting blessings as they flew
a family that loved her, a sparkling future due
The boy had come and gone, one of the tourists passing by
Her hand passes on her still flat belly as she imagines life scheduled to die
A collection of cells, nothing much more than that, a passage of some tissue, her ticket
to all that was to be
Except for a tiny glitch, floating under that frangipangi tree
As petals fall on shoulders, fragrant, fragile in the sweet night air,
she is struck and stuck on the fact, that once she was that tiny unfelt possibility,
12.
PRIORITIES AND LISTS
There are those that think
that decisions can be made
on yellow paper
13.
CLEAN FLOORS AND NO RESPONSIBILITIES
A tiny ball of fluff appears outside the door
Bringing the destruction of the perfection of the clean floor
The floor that shines with lemon wax, glowing clean of dust and hair
The only responsibility in a life, suddenly gone spare
A tiny ball of fluff appears outside the door
Let it in, and dull the floors, with responsibility and love once more
14.
7-5-7 PRIORITIES
In the esoteric world
of all things mighty
woke holding his hand
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