Monday, December 31, 2012

The Postman Rang Late

Photograph by Vickie Sheehan





She had waited
for the mail
peeking out the window
running breathlessly to
the box in soft
silk slippers
across dewy grass
the air heavy with
summer flowers

She had waited
for the mail
running quickly
through the crisp
leaves of autumn
crackling around
her ankles

She had waited
for the mail
running through
the falling snow
her father's coat
hurriedly thrown
over her shoulders

She had waited
as summer came
again and flowers
swooned about her
in bewitching profusion
and the mailbox was
empty until she
stopped running
and moved on

Her mother visited
the day she returned
a brided woman now
husband pulling their
suitcases up the stairs
of their home

Her mother visited
They drank lemonade
She laughed bright
cheeked and sparkly eyed
As her mother handed
her the letter stained
and worn
and too late
addressed to her
in a familiar hand
from a far off land



Happy New Year





In that first New Year
I held the baby close
heart to heart
enraptured
the dream surreal arrived

The years melted
on tiptoes
kisses on a warm damp
head
sleeping curls tangled
soft as a dream
In the dark, I  whispered
Happy New Year

Sometimes in those navied nights
small arms lifted with cosmic grace
to circle my neck as a blessing
and benediction
wrapping me in sweet velvet
for a moment before falling
away and back into sleep

Moments ago
in the flickering of
firelight as one year
passed another in sail
blinking sea lights
on the ever rolling water

The phone chimed in the night
and the rumbling deep voice
of a man whispered softly
as to a sleepy child
Happy New Year, Mom

And so the dream lives on
in golden glory
of memory and magic


Three "Lost" Poems



  1. Grandmothers
    One red lipsticked and henna haired
    High heels clicking on her way to this
    or that friend’s final “bon voyage party”
    We were on the way back so she’d stop,
    expect and receive coffee and danish
    served by my mother
    as she prattled on about people
    we had never met
    laughing loud, leaving quickly
    with only a trail of perfume and
    dirty dishes to remind us she had been
    when she finger waved and left -
    I could never have imagined following
    her into the car waiting at the curb
    sitting beside her as she gaily
    set off for another cemetery party
    The other silver haired and hatted
    Just a bit of powder from an immaculate
    puff on her gleaming dresser
    At her home all shoes stood inside the door
    Her hat sat back in its box
    Each bureau drawer arranged as carefully
    as a department store display
    Her velvet carpets bore not a single
    footprint, welcoming the little girl
    I was, to enter and after dinner to
    wear a silken
    slip as an evening gown twirling
    before her long mirror to her high bed
    in a sleepover tucked into her crisp sheeted
    bed scented with cashmere bouquet
    Both gone
    vanished
    as a laugh
    or a soap bubble
    song in the air
    Like a dream


  2. My Self
    That hard bodied
    Raven tossed hair
    Unshakeable
    Confident
    Sexy kitten
    Purring
    A true legend mirrored
    Shining in my
    Own mind
    Faded now
    to misted memory
    Facing clear mirrors
    and a mind’s
    myriad
    naked realities

  3. Lost Lovers …
    I was going to write about
    a man and a woman
    who started as a
    boy and a girl
    in a green sunshined field
    dotted with dandelions
    until the night wind blew
    rain pelted windows
    hard and the image flew
    softly
    away


Saturday, December 29, 2012

At The Creek



At The Creek 

Lean against me at the edge
of the creek as winter begins to
deliver the first ice crystal

Lean against me as my breath
begins to pop as you point out
a tangent of spiraled sunbeam
beginning to fall

Lean against me at the edge of
the creek as I knead your soft
skin under your parka and dream
of telling our someday brood
How their parents stood in flame
Under a cold winter star-strew
And knew all that would come to be 




At the end of the creek in winter



                                        At the end of the creek in winter 



Against the creek-ice he did deliver on a poison promise to himself -
pop-point, a surreal tangent of a desultory walk devolved - sudden flame flared up to stars overhead whirling - as He, with rough hands, continued to knead her childish flesh, until a beginning brood did he strew into her virginal womb – claimed without check as his own.
                                                                     ~
or in a slightly different presentation .....

Against the creek-ice he delivers 
to the child a poison promise to himself -

pop-point

surreal tangent of desultory walk devolves 
flame flares 
to the stars overhead
whirling 

his rough hands knead child-flesh
beginning brood he strew-pours
into her virginal womb – 
claimed without check as his own.



Tuesday, December 25, 2012

And so it is still .... Happy Birthday

























And so it is still -  A Birthday Poem

Time flies backward
a tumble jumble of
indelible photographs

Until it is just you and
I again
in that white tiled tropical room
again in that first moment
breathless
washed in incomparable awe
surreal
that first you sound

shattering the barrier
of a just past Christmas Day
surpassing the speed of sonared light

and in one singular nano-second
forever beginning and ending my separate
self
forever melted into the illuminated new world

as I looked into your just
opened eyes and flew into
the magic of an unfolded Universe

never to return


Happy Birthday
then, today and always



Happy New Year Baby and Thank you....




Nothing lights up a New Year like a baby's first smiles.  Thank you Brady Max.
Wishing all a Happy, Healthy, Peace-filled New Year ....


Thank you to my, oh so very much more than "virtual" friends, followers, and readers, for including me in an ongoing sense of community.  Your presence in my life is a shining light that continues to illuminate, challenge, guide and comfort me in ways that I can never fully express. 

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! 




Saturday, December 22, 2012

Enigma Man



















Enigma Man

It seemed rare this rapid-breathing-enigma
Who had sat quietly beside her in Freshman English
Unknown, this insistent clench of fingers
This power from the poetry writer with hair in his eyes
Bursting from the world they created over coffee
From scratching pens on paper and rolled sleeved shirts to 
Slick shining flesh and the rustle of sheets now beneath, over, above, 
And then with a sudden hurl of covers to the floor
Spacious, this hunger
Unquenched, by the spasm that burst
Through all the pretty words, to hurl them both 
Tumbling over the breathless horizon
Where a new poem waited






*********************************
this poem was  written for and shared at The Sunday Whirl  and also posted at Poets United Poetry Pantry #129     PEACE-LOVE-LIGHT now in this holiday season and all through the year :)

Friday, December 21, 2012

On Track

(Image via Photobucket: OnlyAGlimpse)



On Track

There lying very still she put her bare feet together toes against the cold railing on that hot summer afternoon and looked up at the sky.  Clouds drifted against the clear blue sky, and tears dripped from her eyes in a steady small rivulet into her temple until she could feel her hair wet.  It would not be long before they missed her.  Not long before her mother opened her closed bedroom door, with that make-believe sad face she always wore after the girl had been forced into one of her stepfather's talks with her.  Talks that always began with him tipping his head back and draining a can of beer and ended with his belt coming off and finding her backside or this afternoon, her legs and her right hip, which she shifted now on the tracks.  And her mother with her make-believe sad face, the face that always was nowhere to be found during her talks, she wouldn't be there today when she opened the door with a purloined cookie and nervous eyes.   They would find her mashed into the tracks and they would finally be really sorry.  The girl listened with her keen six-year-old ears, with her soft body in her thin summer dress for the sound, the vibration of the coming train, but all that came was a bee buzzing, so close to her cheek she could imagine the velvet of its fat body, feel the stinger flashing like tiny vampire teeth.  And before she knew what she was doing she was up and on her feet and running toward home.

Thursday, December 20, 2012

April PAD Challenge Results





At long last the Poet Laureate of Poetic Asides April 2012 has been announced and there are two!

Congratulations to Poet Laureates

DE JACKSON      &          BRIAN SLUSHER



This year instead of 50 poems there is a top 25 list…
And so, now with all proper fanfare, marching bands, castanets, drumrolls and tambourines (my personal favorite) are the top 25 poems of the April Poem A Day, Poetic Asides Challenge arranged in alphabetical order of poet. 
So many "poeming friends" have been selected. 

Congratulations to the following poets and their poems....


Let’s Drive Until Our Asses Melt Into the Car Seats, Daniel Ari
A Sparrow’s Love, Jane Beal
An Apple Tree and Two Finches, Jane Beal
Cecily, Marilyn Braendeholm
Morning Rendezvous, Lorraine Baron Caramanna
Firebird, Taylor Graham
What I Look for in a Man, Joseph Harker
Seeds, Joseph Harker
Plum Crazy, Patricia A. Hawkenson
Something Wild and Wonderful, Khara House
Freshman Biology, De Jackson
The Trick of Losing What You Did Not Have, De Jackson
O, Let’s Not, De Jackson
What You Left, Laurie Kolp
At Last, Andrew Kreider
Fading, Bruce Niedt
A Shady Kyrielle, Cristina Ortega Phillips
100% Poetry, Sara Ramsdell
Baked Alaska, Jane Shlensky
Let’s Drive North, Linda Wastila-Simoni
Castaways, Brian Slusher
The Dead Birds of America, With Life-Size Hand-Colored Illustrations, Brian Slusher
Kill Your Television, Brian Slusher
Saltfish Fritters, Maxie Steer
Floater, Pamela Taylor