The Inevitable Creep of the Tide

 

The Inevitable Creep of the Tide 

There on the shore my father and I

sea breezed blown

he tanned and black haired

waiting at a sanded mound 

I ferrying Fantasia's beach

buckets of seawater

He drizzling into magical

being a castle three quarters tall as I

All afternoon we worked 

Sun lowering in the sky,

people walking by 

stopping to look to smile

a trio of tow-headed

siblings watching thumbs in mouths

dumbfounded until they called away

Finally sand golden sun setting 

He drizzled wet sand through his hands 

squeezing a draped doorway into life

a small fuchsia flag posted and waving

in the salty air

I watched my father, my castle

and the sudden unnoticed inexorable

creep of the tide lapping at its sides.

Leaned against him inhaling cigarettes,

Coppertone, salt, a touch of turpentine. 

We bought creamsicles from the man who came

around one last time lugging a huge steel cooler -

And then we were alone …in the glow of orange light

The sweet tangy taste of citrus and cream

on my lips as the gentle tide turned – 

rose and pushed waves closer - inch by inch

until in a sudden lurch of powerful spray

All that remained of my castle 

was a tiny fuchsia flag

floating out to sea.

My father’s arm stayed solid around my shoulders

as we sat warm in the chill of bittersweet inevitability

Dedicated to my father Lawrence R. Ketover 

Serengeti Plain

 

Serengeti Plain

 

Through the window she wrote carefully in intimate large rounded letters

“I love you”

Written in loopy letters on little girl stationary placed as talisman against her still planed chest – 

Part of that fearsome summer when that chesty outsider arrived to steal him 

away as the summer heat arrived, to heat her with this strange aching burning

Burning as she watched them from her child’s bed

Watched their late-night sprees in the grass behind his house under her bedroom window

Her aching for him as futile as a whispered wish for the Serengeti sun to

light the navied night with equatorial blaze 

Her aching for him as futile as a whispered wish for cold streams to wind through the desert and 

wet blossoms to spring on the verdant banks 

 

 

poem

poem

Oh August

IMG_2297.jpeg internet photo

Oh  August

 

Oh August – most regal month 

So aptly named -awaited eagerly 

as a child who yearned for  

sticky summers to crisp, for cool

breezes to blow on my legs as 

summer flowers still stood and

school! -  those halcyon halls of 

joy, elixirs of chalk and quiet,

new squeaky shoes and ah

blackboards wiped clean with 

white wet cloths … beckoned 

beckoned soon… soon… soon

Oh August …month when so many

years beyond childhood -  

my father chose, on  white pillows

piled high to step from this mortal

coil to another …

and yet, oh August, oh August he only

deepened the mystery, the joy of all 

that awaited, unknown

mystic and magic… floating just 

beyond…

August. 

Let Anger Bang Its Head

 

Let Anger Bang Its Head 

Anger is the word that lives behind the door

that remains closed – a stain of outrage

seeps under and rises up as I wipe it

with cloths of protest and activism 

hope, poetry and determination – but

Anger stays behind the door – they 

tell me, tell me, tell me, that  to live without 

anger is impossible, disingenuous, 

sanctimonious, even a blatant lie, and yet… 

Anger is the word that lives behind the door, as

I stand on the other side - aware of its possibility

skeptical of its productivity when outrage and

action, reflection, and when possible - reconciliation 

wave bright banners of hope and possibility as anger

silently broods, stews, festers, contained and unneeded.

For I do know that anger holds its finger ever on a trigger –

grasps  the shaft of a shiv – for anger is blind, dumb and active 

Let anger stay behind the door – let it bang its empty blinded

head against the walls until it distills its fetid blood to useful outrage, 

and then, and then, - I shall take those clean cloths of hope and 

wipe and wipe and wipe 

what I can clean, aware when to enlist 

help when all that  -is - 

is just too much to bear

alone. 

 

Proof and Prophecy

Proof and Prophecy 

The winds of change 

blew and I thought

they had vanished

as crumbled leaves

in winter’s coming

and yet… and yet..

Here it comes

The winds of change

once again on a back

no longer young 

resurging in a heart 

forever filled with 

hope  ..

Oh yes, together

once again we stand

in time’s reflection 

and refraction 

shimmering as 

the times they 

are a changing… 

We are the change

We are the wind 

We are the time that was  

Singing in the time that is yet to be..

We are the proof and prophecy of time

Changing… 

 

Proof and Prophecy

https://youtu.be/B_nKf7BNqhA

Proof and Prophecy - 

The winds of change 

blew and I thought

they had vanished

as crumbled leaves

in winter’s coming

and yet… and yet..

Here it comes

The winds of change

once again on a back

no longer young 

resurging in a heart 

forever filled with 

hope  ..

Oh yes, together

once again we stand

in time’s reflection 

and refraction 

shimmering as 

the times they 

are a changing… 

We are the change

We are the wind 

We are the time that was  

Singing in the time that is yet to be..

We are the proof and prophecy of time

Changing… 

 

 

On rain dancing

On rain dancing 

Once I danced in the ever summered 

sweet tropic rains … skies opening to 

slanted sheets love slapping my face

awake – cooling my hot skin, soaking

wild hair slick against my bare back -

Now I rush from the car holding a coat

above my salon coiffed curls – ducking

from a single drop –  and for moment – 

just, for a moment, 

-stop-  

and ponder 

letting the damn

coat slip to

ground -

stepping 

back 

out 

into 

rain 

once

  again 

free

Doors Doors Doors ....

Doors Doors Doors ...

Hallways limned with eye stretched lines of door after door

Straight, twisted, crystal, planked, illusory, sidewise, more and more

found down in childhood rabbit holes in verdant gardens green 

on and on appearing, in places contrived, concocted, and unseen

Big doors, small doors, mouse doors with cartoon cats awaiting

pretty doors, shabby doors hanging on their hinges, sealed doors,

cracked doors, revelatory, deceptive, secret doors, all with lessons baiting

Doors that swing open bang you upside the head – amid them that singular

door that fills most with dread - 

you know that door, the door that shall hungrily open swallow and mark you - doornail dead - 

Onward  – 

Doors hiding tigers and ladies behind their planks

Doors shimmering with jewels, with joy, with ecstasy, as gasping into thanks

Doors that open into my body to enter love and exit the miracle of child

Doors that are pristinely quietly shut and others flung wide and wild

Motorcycles behind some and hearses  draped in black

Door limned and shimmering ahead and doors looking back

Doors oh doors they say when one closes another opens 

Sometimes this is good and true 

Others times slammed in one’s face shocking throughout and through

Oh these gobsmacked doors … 

Swinging, locked, open, ajar, others just a slivered, silver, Siren-calling crack

Some beckon with fresh white  paint and dripping trellised perfumed roses

Others draped in sinister solid black

Always among them that door that will open up - that final final door– 

a knob here and there  turned tenuously recklessly, curiously, anxiously, 

will-o-the-wisp devil-may-care - up until now always opening onto more

In front once they marched onto a horizon far far beyond sight– now ahead one ponders

how many more, doorways, how many more or less doors to try,  how much more light…? 

Someday whilst looking back, forward, or distracted by life's mundanity and more

The door - The door - The door - 

That door will fling open to klieg lights of stardusted  Universe

And there shall be … Yes, there shall be …..

?????

Did you think I had a conclusion, that I have a vision, to share all that I clearly see?

No, dear readers, this is where we must stop and heed the peal of carillon clarion call  

Where we must cease hypothesizing that this significant door is actually the end of all

For unknown in the stardusted spectrum of eternity there just might be an endless hall  

 

The Maiden, The Prince and the Child

 

The Maiden, The Prince and the Child 

 

Once upon a time in a land far off and away

there was born a little girl in a most unusual way

to a maiden who was young and a prince who

heart was failing as he lay upon a hospital bed – 

a tiny girl child arrived without customary portents…

instead – 

On the eve of the young prince’s wizardly cardiac operation 

with loved ones waiting in scrunched faced anxious anticipation 

the young maiden paced, felt stirring, a rushing urgency in her gut

and with fast patters down a hallway she 

spied a chair next to her princely lover but -

could not sit - it seemed there was something there, there, 

far larger than any pea – twas the referenced little girl slipping …  

into the world – dusted with mystery, magic and curls –  

unexpected – manifested from wherever –

me