Ephemeral Safe

Ephemeral Safe

cuddled under covers
legs tucked tight against
small soft me
trying to find safe
as it fluttered some-
where?
years ran as the river
will a babe swelled my
belly and for a sacred 
time a bubbled im-
penetrable and clear
kept us within - 
stretching past birth
and feedings and 
cuddles over covers
and toddles and hugs
filagreed years of safe
landed bouncing on our
bubble until it popped 
and the icy dread of all
that could and was out
there flooded the sense
of me - found it peeking
around the corners of 
academia, breathed on
pages of scholarship -
flitted over friendships 
of wine and important
discussions - hung
almost there over marches
and banners, manifestos
and proclamations of 
change and hope and
then .. and then... tsunamis
and sweet seas morphing
murderous and ice caps
melting, and safe ran on
pounding legs across the
globe and in its place 
spiraled a pronged 
corona to sit upon 
heads and as knees
on necks and hatred
unleashed gallops 
red-eyed and foaming
safe floats
ephemeral 
and yet
there
some
where? 

2021 APRIL PAD CHALLENGE - PROMPTS & POEMS for the entire 30 day poem-a-day-challenge ...

It has been a long and incredibly surreal year and yet this April and this time here together sharing together has lifted my soul. It has been a pleasure to share this time with you . See you in the whisper of the wind and always in the lyrics . The finale poem over at "The Street" of poems is dedicated to Robert Lee  Brewer -ending with the fellow who began it all - with love and gratitude . Real hugs in virtual space to each and all. Goodnight April 2021.

****************************************************

Long ago there was a young fellow

(for each and all - dedicated to the inimitable RLB )

long ago there was a young fellow

who opened a site for poems -

a few souls flew in and walked

together - we called to each

other as though birds in

arched trees over a cobble-

stone road - and the street

grew and the poets came

and poems flowed and

a comraderie formed -

so many years - so many

poems - and now after this

surreal and tumultuous year

of death and disease, of

division and hope, of in-

justice and the finger of

possibility pointed in the

right direction - amidst

it all - came as always

April and this year more

than any other - the images

soaked into my pores soaked

my soul in a glory that transcended

the horror, the pondering, the worry

and refashioned the very world it-

self into a endless satin ribbon of

imagination and narration - so many

voices - some familiar and some new

all rising together in a chorus of now-

that was this April - this endless ribbon

now tied around us with a bow.

Thank you each and all - for the

salvation of the lyric - that illumes

Wendies and Lost Boys of Never-

Land into the Ever Land that

floats forever above the abyss.

Bon Voyage.

Special admiration for our young friend NC - who has risen as a bright spring blossom after a long hard winter - proving that hope and new beauty blazes.

To each and all ... as I say see you on The Street and always, always, catch you in the whisper of the wind and in the lyrics spread across the global land.

Thank you RLB for beginning, for continuing, for educating and for making each April glorious .. no one deserves going to the moon more than thee.

2021 April PAD Challenge: Day 30
For today's prompt, write a goodbye poem.

Mothers do not say goodbye 

There are those - so many who counsel

to be over and done that the time has 

long now come - to say goodbye - 

Oblivious to the impossibility of such

Those who obviously never held your

heel in dumbstruck wonder as it jutted 

jauntily from belly as you kicked hard

and strong and alive, invisible but, oh 

so clearly felt ... I did not say goodbye 

to the you connected literally, to me 

when you arrived and they slashed

the cord that bound - I will not say good-

bye now or ever - for your place runs in 

the blood of my veins, in the synapses

of mind, memory, and soul - even if the

words were spoken - a mother can never

bid her child goodbye .. and so I whisper

to the wind bon voyage - and know that as

you are with me still - I remain with you -

Always.

I said I'd never say goodbye 

there were those in that hot 

August who thought we had

all had our brains melted with

the summer heat and the grief

of losing him - for we all in our

own ways spoke of his death 

as a good death - their faces

were shocked, or disgusted

a few,usually of some religious

persuasion or such nodded as 

though they knew, but they did

not-my father stepped from this

world to another as easily as a

barefoot boy in summer grass,

or leaves of grass or a dandelion 

in the breeze or anything you can

conjure that is simple and easy 

and filled with pure and profound

innocence. For thirteen days he 

waited to step from here to there

and when he did I knew, I knew I

would not say goodbye and I did

not - Not then.

I read a poem at his service - one 

that I had written for him and read

to him when he was very much able

to hear it -I do not remember reading

the poem - I do not remember the 

faces of those listening - or the walk

to the gravesite - I remember a white

shirted arm of one of our young men 

straining as a pallbearer -nothing else - 

and yet - and yet - just before they were 

to lower the plain raw wood into the 

open waiting earth - that soil that he 

adored - a field of gladioli opened - 

blooming in repeating ripples of color-

as he and I sat on the deck overlooking -

the profusion of blossoms wild wonderful 

jumble-then -when he drew on his cigarette 

and said "listen when I tell you how to care 

for them, for I will not be here next year

to remind you." 

And then... in the jumble of gladioli and the

waiting umbered earth -then and only then...

with unstoppable urgency - I leaned in fast -

fast,before they could lower him away - 

to touch, to touch the raw warm wood - 

smooth and natural beneath my 

reaching, fully feeling fingertips - 

then and only then, as kaleidoscopic 

colors swirled-I said the words I said

I'd never say .... 

goodbye daddy -

Long ago there was a young fellow 

(for each and all and the inimitable RLB )

long ago there was a young fellow

who opened a site for poems - 

a few souls flew in and walked

together - we called to each 

other as though birds in 

arched trees over a cobble-

stone road - and the street

grew and the poets came 

and poems flowed and 

a comraderie formed - 

so many years - so many

poems - and now after this

surreal and tumultuous year

of death and disease, of 

division and hope, of in-

justice and the finger of

possibility pointed in the 

right direction - amidst

it all - came as always 

April and this year more

than any other - the images

soaked into my pores, soaked

my soul in a glory that transcended

the horror, the pondering, the worry

and refashioned the very world it-

self into a endless satin ribbon of

imagination and narration - so many

voices - some familiar and some new

all rising together in a chorus of now-

that was this April -this endless ribbon

now tied around us with a bow.

Thank you each and all - for the 

salvation of the lyric - that illumes

Wendies and Lost Boys of Never-

Land into the Ever Land that 

floats forever above the abyss.

Bon Voyage.

Special admiration for our young friend NC - who has risen as a bright spring blossom after a long hard winter - proving that hope and new beauty blazes. 

To each and all ... as I say see you on The Street and always, always, catch you in the whisper of the wind and in the lyrics spread across the global land. 

Thank you RLB for beginning, for continuing, for educating and for making each April glorious .. no one deserves going to the moon more than thee.

2021 April PAD Challenge: Day 29
For today's prompt, write an evening poem.

Evening 

a little from here 

a skooch from there 

asymmetry relieved 

- evening achieved - 

ahhhhhhhh ....

Note: I usually write poems for other's birthdays but tonight I take a leaf from Bruce and write one for myself - 

I am in Evening Time 

on this day of birth - now evening

the realization washes gentle that

I am in the <i>evening-time</i> -

sun blaze has softened to amber- 

navied night-to-come, yet unknown, 

yet, un-arrived - but now, oh Now, 

This quieting time -perfected now - 

soft on dove wings - 

I float, fly and - 

settle secure in 

the open limbs of a 

still budding branch 

illumed - luxuriating 

in feathers full fluff - 

I sigh - content here

in Evening Time 

Unfolding ....

as it will.

2021 April PAD Challenge: DAY 28
For today's prompt, write a remix poem.*
(see comments for further details)

 

 

 

Lying abed in my little girl bed waiting and waited with dreams in my head -

dreams for a coming a whisper, a small burning bush - a shiver a shaking even a poke on the tush -

wasn’t quite sure how it would all come to be- the presence for which I waited, breath panting quick also bated -coming to me

listened and listened beyond lil bro’s stirring -

past creaks and the wind and all sorts of night’s whirring -

Lying abed in my lil girl bed waiting on manifestation's appear clear as I’d heard, been taught ‘bout and read -

the years came and went outgrowing that childhood bed-

yet flickering still lit, heart, soul and certainly head - ...

Nothing appeared - yet still I was not done

could not quite believe that it had not quite begun

No flamed bush not even a single solitary singed flower -

(nor a voice, nor an apparitional sign - nothing, no, nada,

but that passionate, pugnacious, persistent ongoing power-

Watched I in wonder as believers, rapt, certain and clear -

painted a human rainbow from cross the globe to quite near.

and yet, what I had was the search for whatever to come

that obviously materialized, visualized, inhabited some

the belief in believing that lasts this day bringing

its ceaselessly just out of reach carrillionly ringing -

What was never clear, never clear to this day is if this thrum in my head is a pull to begin to believe or proof positive of something instead

could it be that I've found it, that this is what it is

this ongoing certainty that there is something to find that has inhabited forever my yearn-searching mind

might just be the "thing" I have waited for with a patient calm from little child to now getting to the end of road head

be that proof positive of belief - having survived time’s tidal crash doubting remaining steadfast instead -

No voice has yet whispered -tis now clear as clear can be -

in my searching and waiting contemplation has coalesced to be what it's all about ? - possibly? -

That it is I who must embrace, finally in invisibility see,

 

my belief in belief of the non-provable, far greater and

grander, knowably unknowable, than the questioning me

(Apologies could not work on this all devices except phone non cooperative today -mhmmmm

 

2021 April PAD Challenge: Day 27For this Two-for-Tuesday prompt-Write a believe poem and/or don't believe poem. April PAD 

Lying abed in my little girl bed waiting and waited with dreams in my head -

dreams for a coming a whisper, a small burning bush - a shiver a shaking even a poke on the tush - 

wasn’t quite sure how it would all come to be- the presence for which I waited, breath panting quick also bated -coming to me

listened and listened beyond lil bro’s stirring - 

past creaks and the wind and all sorts of night’s whirring -

Lying abed in my lil girl bed waiting on manifestation's appear clear as I’d heard, been taught ‘bout and read -

the years came and went outgrowing that childhood bed- 

yet flickering still lit, heart, soul and certainly head - ...

Nothing appeared - yet still I was not done 

could not quite believe that it had not quite begun 

No flamed bush not even a single solitary singed flower - 

(nor a voice, nor an apparitional sign - nothing, no, nada,

but that passionate, pugnacious, persistent ongoing power-

Watched I in wonder as believers, rapt, certain and clear - 

painted a human rainbow from cross the globe to quite near. 

and yet, what I had was the search for whatever to come 

that obviously materialized, visualized, inhabited some 

the belief in believing that lasts this day bringing 

its ceaselessly just out of reach carrillionly ringing - 

What was never clear, never clear to this day is if this thrum in my head is a pull to begin to believe or proof positive of something instead

could it be that I've found it, that this is what it is 

this ongoing certainty that there is something to find that has inhabited forever my yearn-searching mind

might just be the "thing" I have waited for with a patient calm from little child to now getting to the end of road head 

be that proof positive of belief - having survived time’s tidal crash doubting remaining steadfast instead -

No voice has yet whispered -tis now clear as clear can be - 

in my searching and waiting contemplation has coalesced to be what it's all about ? - possibly? - 

That it is I who must embrace, finally in invisibility see, 

my belief in belief of the non-provable, far greater and 

grander, knowably unknowable, than the questioning me

Challenge: DAY 28

2021 April PAD Challenge: Day 26
For today's prompt, write a blank world poem*

“It’s A Mad Mad Mad World” ...

and I am 

trying not to be

2021 April PAD Challenge: Day 25 -
For today's prompt, write a thought poem.*

 

A Blink Of A Think Piece 

When it comes to thought -

everybody ought

 

 

 

 

P2021 April PAD Challenge: Day 24
For today's prompt, write a question poem.*

 

 

Where are you? 

As a little girl I lay with you 

under a weeping willow in

a Botanical garden after

you finished painting naked

ladies with other painters up 

a steep staircase in the

museum while I waited 

below-wandering about

the paintings - outside to

the gardens - until we met 

always under the willow tree-

The light filagreed shadows

on your bare chest - as you

stripped off your tee shirt and

put it under our heads - 

you sighed and smiled and stretched

your arms out for me - and I fit in the 

circle, inhaling your scent, 

of cigarettes and turpentine -

dreamily counting the leaves

on a single branch-wondered 

why weeping in such beauty - 

"look for me always in the whisper

of the wind" -you said eyes closed

as I fingered the scar across your 

chest - You were my forever father

this day -and a thousand more - an 

Arabian nights of tales of wonder

with you always the hero - 

crashing through the surf

on days too cool for anyone

else to swim - raising your 

arm at the zoo as Daisy the

elephant lifted her trunk - 

waiting as I leapt from a still 

moving carousel into your

perfectly time-toned arms - 

your hair shining through 

mullioned windows - that

ebon hair - the constant in 

each unfolded tale, deeper,

darker still than any coven 

of crows -the magic calliope 

turned and spun - the tides

receded - the tree wept -

as time will do and now it is

today -you gone far too young 

but far older than any imagined

and I impossibly older than you-

left to wonder - are you still my 

warrior paternus survivor of that 

dashing slash scar-crossing chest 

to back - that mystic "zipper" traced 

with chubby toddler fingers, 

felt raised against my cheek, 

that opened your heart - day before

I arrived - but that was then, the stuff

of legend, and now, now, all questions

answered flower again with new blooms,

as the calliope grows faint - the scent of 

fresh grass - the bend of a willow tree 

of a billion flickering leaves fainter still 

and I, am left, to listen for your answer

in the whisper of the wind - 

where 

are you

really ?

 

AD Challenge: Day 25 -

2021 April PAD Challenge: Day 23
For today's prompt, write an appointment poem.

I meant to make a point

I meant to make a point

but death got in the way

scurried as a white rabbit

and pulled me 'long its way

thus in the midst of turmoil 

in a whirling wilderness of 

contemplated thought - 

a point meant 

never offered for consideration, 

and so, conclusively not bought

 

prompt, write a thought poem.*

2021 April PAD Challenge: Day 22
For today's prompt, write a nature poem.

 

Nature?

"HATECHA!"

"HATECHA!"

"HATECHA!"

please, please, please, I beg you to stop.

"Can't - it's just my nature."

2021 April PAD Challenge: DAY 21 
For today's prompt, write a blank me poem- 
replace blank with word or phrase/use as title

Marry Me

long long ago

two friends ran

to Macy's after

a softball game

he was sweaty

she giggling a

bit - their assorted

children just hours

ago moved in together

- two plain band rings -

boxed safe in cupboard

quick separate showers

Ah! - Door bell brings

a huge bouquet of

balloons sent by

surprised friends -

and then - finally then

standing on our

gleaming hardwood floors

in clean jeans and cotton shirts -

three young kids -two German

Shepherd dogs - (one in a tie)

A rabbi - his back against

the piano - hands splayed

above our head - intoning

familiar words - we which read 

looking in each others eyes -

we kiss - long and, oh, oh, so, hard

a glass stomped with sneakered foot

we turn and hug tight our kids

Let out the dogs who’ve waited patiently and then ...

It's Now. ... So many

suns and seasons come

and done - kisses are sweeter

dogs and their pups long lived

floated away - their days done -

along with chaos happy busy grown-

kids to adults far off flown-

Heat now simmers in blood

never-to-be-believed then -

but true, runs and felt as one

you hurt I flinch - I sigh you

question why - 

we are a WE ..

You are still you, and Me of course me -but we have come to be-

come that not-quite- believed-as-actual - “we”

alone together as never

had the chance to be

Now

- joined together as then we

promised so ever so cavalierly

We are decades tested ready -

Now. Now. Now. Can you all not see?!

We are completely ready to hear, to say

Finally. Truthfully. Openly. Consciously.

Marry me.

2021 April PAD Challenge - Day 20
For today’s Two-for-Tuesday prompt:
Write a love poem and/or anti-love poem.

 

blue veined hand reaches

on white sheets fingers entwine-

last tug completed

2021 APRIL PAD -DAY 1prompt, write an animal 

 

 2021 APRIL PAD -DAY 19

For today's prompt, write an animal title poem. 

2021 April PAD Challenge – DAY 19 – 

Titles like "Counting Sheep," "Beside the White Chickens," and "Horse" would all qualify. Of course, you can stretch this prompt however you wish.

2021 APRIL PAD -

 

Hindy

named not by me for the Hindenburg 
by a fellow with a sardonic Germanic 
bent - Hindy's black pelt shone ebon
as darkest night -amber eyes shone
eerily as though in an other-worldly light

Arrived a gangly pup with a new husband
and two kids - grew quickly into a massive
guy, a powerful thick necked German Shepherd 
of the very overseas best -
We lived, three children, some rabbits, 
another Shepherd girl part of the group too, 
and as the months unfolded Hindy grew and 
grew, - most days curled atop the stairs staring 
out the side light panes onto a suburban street - 
stretching limbs uncomfortabiy - he'd turn his 
head my way so that our eyes could meet -
in those amber eyes I saw fields and land he longed
to run knew of just the place he belonged - 
his place amid the sun - 
My father'd bought a country place - 
retired very early on his new found land - 
asked him if he could take on “the dog” 
as “a favor" just for me - to give me a little
hand and so it came to be - 
Hindy ran on acres green, across the East Coast 
shores, each week they'd travel to Dairy Queen
and share vanilla cones - when I came to visit
I found what I knew I had been foreseen - 
A light-hearted boy in my father's smile
and in Hindy the message received that 
he had transported all the while - 
Of course, there are not always completely 
happy endings, none of us knew the secret - 
cells multiplying viciously - none knew that 
this secret magic garden of matched souls
would be five years
only - and then done - 
now, In a cemetery, crowded with tumbled ancient 
inscribed stones, my father and now my mother intermingle 
their disintegrating bones - and in the earth that surrounds them he can see their garden grown - Elysian fields, love, vanilla cones, and with them all together, Hindy's long-ago beloved albeit smuggled spread and scattered-to-ash-bones.

2021 PAD-DAY 18 
Write an ekphrastic poem (based on another work of art) painting, photograph, sculpture, mixed media, or other

“The world is big, but little people turn it around!”-

Gavroche/Les Miserables

seems damnably overwhelming

soaking legions of souls with fecund fears-

death spills out from knees, and guns, a cavalcade

of hatred, as mouthed prayers thrown cavalierly to

ripped hearts-raining a reign of tears -

but though true undeniably, the world is cold and big,

continues tossing bodies onto this too long bloodstained ground -

tis also true, evermore, that “little people turn it around” -

We are watching on the screens and streets,

listening with wide eyes to all as it does day by day unfold -

hearts and souls and spirits coalesce lift as “little people”

write the reckoning, reforming, rising, soon, soon, coming to be told.

For as that child with clear voice sang out on a broadway stage fruit from seeds long sown ripen justice, rising from outrage

So, as kind intentioned hearts see bodies fall lifeless to the ground

Join in, and know as it has been forevermore -

“little people turn it around”

Be a little people.

 

 

                        












2021 APRIL PAD -DAY 19
For today's prompt, write an animal title poem. 

2021 PAD challenge DAY 17- 
For today's prompt, write a waiting poem.*

 

Waiting for “Go Dough” (the musing of a precocious would be intellectual)

It was so very popular back then - everyone talking about it -everyone being the ones in black sweaters pulling French cigarettes from little boxes - or was that Benson and Hedges which her mother smoked for a time. But back to Go Dough -most things she, a child parked to wait in college cafes often for hours while her adult worked or did something or other - waiting in one or another darkish damp wood coffee beery wine scented 

place listened, waited and wondered if this “dough” they all spoke about in their hushed intense voices -their eyes flashing reflected words - words - words, oh the wealth of words- Wondered she did, if this “dough” was perhaps, she wisely decided, one of those supplements for the downtrodden they often went on about - Probably, she satisfyingly concluded, shifting her small bottom on a wide , out of the way wooden corner bench and sucking at her milky sugared coffee as she waited - throwing back her head every now and then miming perfect smoke rings as she listened and learned, on and on and on - never for an instant either bored, lonely or perish the thought - downtrodden. After all she was newly turned ten - a part-time city girl - clearly old enough to be left alone.

 

 

 

 

 

Fin


hand spans his chest

that chest where she

had laid cradled as an

infant in roof-top sun 

her hand on his chest 

in an August room shot

through with sunlight -

after thirteen days and

nights -it arrives without

fanfare - heart thumping

a simple, one, two, three 

beat, clear and plain and 

under her hand -

suddenly, profoundly

still.



It’s all about the waiting ...

 

It’s all about the waiting 

From first breath to the last 

It’s all about the waiting -

About the time past passed 

It’s all about the waiting 

From last breath back to first 

It’s all about the waiting -

About harmony through chaos-cursed 

It’s all about the waiting 

All breaths ultimately as one 

It’s all about the waiting -

About the puzzle finally done


A mother's waiting is never done 


A mother's waiting is never done

it begins before the child 

in womb begins to move

No matter what shall happen 

Be it joyous, sorrow filled or

burst with ambiguity or fun -


A mother's waiting is never ever done

She might tell you that she's finished 

that a grievous wrong has closed the 

book etched within her heart - she may

be counseled that the rational way to happiness

is to accept that they shall forever part


Listen not,my friends,to the mother who says that she is done

for she is waiting for a love returned as certain as the rising sun



(also haiku day)

CoVid virus runs 

merrily round blue marble -

population thinned

 

haiku ah achoo 

cherry blossoms fluttering 

nasal passage tickle… 

 

hand brushes tummy

seismic quiver shifts flesh

baby will be born

…

 

 

bare ancient tree

thick trunk splintering

suckling spring rainfall

 


cries of mothers rise

a tsunami of shed tears

waves rolling to shore

…






in the tall dry grass 

wide eyed baby bunny twitch 

hawk circles clear sky



 

on windowsill waits

the cat stretching settling - 

human late again



 

2021 April PAD -DAY 16 today's prompt: Write a city poem. You can make the title the name of a city/mention a city/set your poem in a city*

T

City of Gold 

She sits a small child excited into quiet in the predawn

seat beside her father as they drive into work ... watching

out the window ... remembering last night's music played

loud as he liked it, until the sound rumbled in her chest -

She sits watching as the first fingers of light begin and 

her father speeds up the car - calls her his navigator -

turns the wheel so the car takes the curve precisely as

with a wave of his hand - the sun rises over the Hudson

River - the city shimmering, Statue of Liberty, Empire State, 

Chrysler Building, a mantra of love as they near the cobble

stones of the city that will still be empty when they arrive, 

sitting in that golden light, she turns for a moment to watch 

the profile of her father's smile - hears clearly the golden, 

splendid soaring crescendo of The New World Symphony. 

as they ride on 

into the sun ..

 

 

 

2021 PAD DAY 15 -

For today's prompt:write a (blank) story poem- replace the blank with a word or phrase /use as titleyou can stretch this prompt however you 

Police Story 

No, not the raunchy silly kind 

the one where heartbreak, defilement of protect and serve, juxtaposed insanely with murder 

repeatedly, horrifically entwine 

Way past time for a new one.

 

 

Spun Story 

Spun sugar

whirled into a cone

vanishing

disappearing 

on the tip of a touched tongue 

cotton candy lives so soon done 

leaving only memories 

tucked into empty paper cones

 

 

 

 

 

 

2021 PAD DAY 14- write a poem inspired only by stimulus from where you're sitting/consider your surroundings/poem away

In morning write what do I see ...

Back abed for a delicious while 

A white duvet spreads soft and wide to a slice of grandma’s patchwork put neatly spread across the foot 

Beyond, this that mahogany double dresser topped on one side -carrying the light- a shining crystal mushroom, a small clear dove calmly waiting as though ready to lift to flight, an antique paperweight, all together arranged on a clear crystal tray - 

on the other end - a cut glass framed picture of my heart’s home - the beachy exquisitely beautiful sea - 

far far down in bright St Thomas way ... 

Above this all rises on the wall a huge mirror from grandparents’ bedroom so long ago - in its visage a sturdy soaring budding tree, blue skies and - there and ...and...

If I stretch to rise from my bed I can clearly see -

reflected back - the eyebrow-raised-long-hair-scrunched atop my head - the familiar slightly-smiling-in an oversized men’s-white-washed soft repeatedly, sleeping-shirt -wearing - quite comfy -this loose-limbed - newly reawakened 

writing me ...

 

2021 PAD DAY 13 
Two-for-Tuesday 
1. Write a lucky poem and/or...
2. Write an unlucky poem.

Bestowing the lucky 

a little boy enters a this and that shop

hand tightly clutched searches about 

looking here and there

(among potpourri, pastel figurines, sparkling bracelets and such )

- pacing here and there growing a look of fear - 

until he with an expression of delight finds a small painted sailboat -

clutching the prize in both hands with all his might - 

rushes to the register where I, a lazy summer dawdler - dawdle with 

nothing to do much 

fingering at the painted seashells and such - 

of course I let him go on before - 

watching him hop from one foot to the other other -he can hardly bear a moment more - 

so close am I to the small lad - I can feel his panic in my own throat - as joy turns so fast to bad - 

panic spreads on his face as he hands over the little sailboat there 

and scans his palm - 

WHERE 

there is nothing there - 

his hand empty of his scrunched held bill - 

Looks about him with neck whipping abandon - 

runs up/down the store -as only a young child can or will - 

all the while shouting in a choked whisper "It's for my Dad - he's just returned from navy today" - 

What oh what I ask, would any of you at that time say - 

the cashier/owner stands and stares, another woman clucks "Oh bad luck, how too too sad" 

Meantime all the while, the distraught boy repeats "For my Dad" ... 

over and over echoing in gurgled pain again and then again and again - 

and when he finally he does return -flush faced so close and hot it could if touched I'm certain fingers burn. 

His eyes stricken, I ask him casually "Is that yours?" ...Looks down and then back up at me -(I shrug, smile, busy myself back with the shells)

a random bestower of belief - 

My own joyous heart pounding soaking in his relief,

He stares in wonder and snatches up the crumpled fiver that "appeared" behind us (“magically“ on the sandy wooden floor - right there in plain sight) 

right, where it had not been before, right down THERE -

WHERE 

A merry (secret as required) mitzvah memory created, one would surely say 

- This poet, dear readers, has never known from then to now who was the truly lucky one that long ago summer day.

 

DAY 12 use at least 3 of 6 words: convict, great, play, race, season, voice. Extra credit for using all & extra extra credit for a sestina.

The obvious missing word 

This is a season of sickness 

of body, mind and soul - 

This morning ...

I am choked with revulsion -

suspending this poem until 

my voice returns with some

resemblance of whole -

I silently scream out to convict

those who flay others layer by

layer of skin - but wherever begun 

there is more to begin..in this season

of sickness so far below anything great 

begging indulgence in this moment of 

day when another drop overflows my 

rain barrel of tears - I have no heart for play.

 

 

 

The end of hate based on conviction of hope 

- letter to an unborn great-grandchild of a gestating future 

(my try at a Sestina) 

 

 

Dear Great-Grandchild you may soon learn about a time of convict-

ion - a time when the young danced in the streets belief powerful -great

were the beat of true hearts, searching the horizon for oncoming play 

They dressed in vestments and tapestries of each human tint of race 

was a surreal time: plague of politic, hate and, a sudden come season 

of reason a -feet twitched to march, to dance and give voice 

For overwhelmed by hate -throngs turned to hope with inevitable voice 

yearning for choice,tired of log jams and fear, near came a stir to convict

the naysayers of hope that lived in castles of salt, a vinegar season

As a rising tide grew to magnificent height -rose a wave never as great

there were those -children, all ages, of this new wave, who ran to race

others in castles, denying disgrace, who chuckled as at a comedic play 

Yet,through the land came a stirring, a deep dipping graceful plie 

and small children and oldersters began a low humming voice -

a voice continued to grow one to one- stretched and ready to race

there was singing and talking long into the night as the castle convicts

refused to see light or the song, or the tide rising salt sprayed and great 

beginning the seminal inflection point where hate just fell out of season 

The old-timers stretched and spoke of long ago tales season-

ed, their time in the sun when they waited for reasoned fair-play 

about how time after time - disappointments were deep and great 

as they marched, carried signs, gave speeches and sang in loud voice 

as many, yes tis true, were killed and too few charged, less convict-

ed-ucation was twisted and chunks of history gagged and erase/d

drained and defaced the blood, sweat and tears - white washed all race

whilst mamas of color held their breath when their boys came to season 

fearing police sworn to serve and protect would find reason to convict

with conviction, as prisons and coffins filled with colored foreplay 

of a continuous fucking that continued day after day, but came a voice 

of choice, for yes dear one,flaying by color crept from humble to great 

Finally that humming, that thrumming grew loud and far great

joining threads torn by hate to a grand tapestry falling with g-race 

and up to those cloistered castles - even there was this strong voice 

of this choice kind of end times of privilege, now gone rot of all season, 

the land underfoot glowed with a blood earned tinged umber dis-play 

castles crumbled to sand and blew irrevocably away in convict/ion 

Without a trial needed -hatred - a forgotten convict -silent and great 

dear child, happily, you cannot grasp foul play based on hate and race 

Lives rode a long ago season -arrived at free choice - Listen to my voice

 

 

 

 

2021 April PAD Challenge Day 11 -

For today's prompt incorporate a prime number into your poem* (see comments)

 

 

 

 

INDIVISIBLE- 

(an inadvertently created new version of the shadorma) 

Onward they come 

Walking united-side by side 

Onward they come 

Onward they come

prime shadormaing skipping as stones on pond 

Undivided by self or another the seminal inflection point where hate just fell out of season 

 

 

 

Morning Becomes Electric 

(a shadorma 3-5-3-3-7-5)

In morning 

birds twittering on 

In morning 

In mourning 

Cacophonous joy plays on 

indifferent to pain

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

April PAD Challenge- DAY 10 
today's prompt, - write a Get (blank),"poem - replace the blank with a word or phrase*

Get well my son (a very raw poem)

watched you as an infant

your lips a slightly synodic blue 

felt my own heart catch in the

perfect prism of our new world

that the slightest cardiac malady

could have been passed from grand-

father on to you ... in breathless relief

watched as you nursed - hungry at my

breast -and on the third or morning of 

the fourth - in brilliant frangipani sun-

shine watched your lips full and rosy

red as I released held breath and finally

came to rest -healthy precocious infant 

grown quickly to a magically wise and 

brilliant child - At five your friend, 

a tow-headed mischief lad -

died a bloody death - for months 

you'd call me to your room and tell me 

with excited breath -that Sean had been 

"right there" sitting on your bed 

the experts that I called agreed that this was 

your defense balancing tragedy in a too young 

for-this head -

Then one day you said to me 

with those eyes so wide and 

darkest chocolate brown that you

decided that God was made of 

all those who had gone before -

as though you were politely, gently

instructive, swinging open a celestially 

informed door -

Your premise was far beyond what some 

might - expect from such a little boy - 

but you continued on this course with a

kindness, wisdom and perhaps some 

special preprogrammed joy.

You read at two and one night at three - 

at bedtime held my face with both hands said 

“My heart overflows with love Mommy” 

Was any other mother ever filled with such

a profound and precious awareness of a gift 

Perhaps, but I reveled in the mystic magic of

such a precious lift - I recall that when 

your friend died -the day before he had 

teased you until you left the play date at

an end 

and then asked quickly to return and 

made it up - because you said "You don't 

get angry at a friend" 

"Mommy I am so happy," 

you said after all the rituals were gone and

done - Sean will never get to be a man and

for that I am very sad - but i am happy that 

I didn't leave him angry because Mommy 

that would have been so very bad -

I take liberty with his words - the child-like

purity was far grander poetry - but so it 

went on in this way, as years folded onto

one another, and teachers, counselors, 

friends, family and other parents came to see 

and share what I saw with me ...College came

and off you went - I sobbed in silence 

hiding - I thought my bewildered frightened

at your leaving misery - until as ready to leave 

your college room a frozen smile plastered on 

my face - you hugged me hard and said 

"Oh Mom - it is okay for you to cry - Did you really 

think I did not see?" - and so I sobbed into your 

chest until bright red blew up my blubbering face - 

tears finally turned to a smile and laughter as I left having

been in the presence of that sort of supra-natural grace -

You moved onto manhood - all and even more 

that any thought you would be

and then just as you had said as a teen you

married late in life - and I was proud - in fact

I was downright self-congratulatory -

how thrilled I was for you to finally take a wife - 

that new chapter beginning in the thick book of your life 

and I knew that the children you yearned for as a small 

child yourself back so long ago - were soon to arrive 

with a love that my soul already seemed to recognize and know - 

and then 

it went 

sideways -

You'd shout "You know what you have done"

but I swear before all that is sacred I had and

have no idea where this rageful hatred erupted

where in hell - for this was hell - this horror had begun

There was a few weeks after a first child came

to be - when it seemed that all returned to 

the love we shared so natural and beautifully- 

That lasted a mere ten weeks - then a slide began

down a jagged razored road - nothing that used

to bring calm and surcease - I could not break

this locked and loaded for obliteration - code

Hundreds of pages - thousands of hours of 

talk and try brought us only further far apart 

For the first time in what I now see as a blessed 

life I felt the rip and rend of what I had thought 

overdone usage of that term the breaking of a heart

Oh, yes some said it was the wife - how easy

that would be - but no, it was not the case -

for after my own mother passed- the person

who reached out in love was she - 

and there for a bit in those dark times - 

there was a flickered light - she and I met

and talked and all went lovingly - she let

me know that there was work and I explained 

after several long great talks that we could do

no more and was delighted weeks later on 

when my son called and opened up a proposed

get-together door

We met, my boy, my full grown man, father 

now to his own son, and I elated waited

to listen ready to begin - the reconciliation begun - 

I had no inkling that this meeting heralded a 

clear bright sense that you were stuck, 

unwilling to move on, for all intents and purposes - 

as the young ones say - I suppose the upshot was 

that you were in fact, nearly done

Two silent non responsive years went by, 

I kept you apprised of joys and sorrow too - 

sent happy texts on holidays and as advised 

by all as confused as I let this situation in its 

own time and path continue on to brew - 

One year ago received a text another baby was to be 

and I responded with delight not-"hysterical" and

appropriately congratulatory - 

in return I received a reply cutting surgically - "I should", 

you said, not have any expectations wrapped up 

"unrealistically.".

So, yes, the years have passed

and the reading, reflecting, reaching, searching

is coming to a new possibility excruciatingly

difficult for myself to myself to sell - 

that friends and family who have suggested such

may have a point and that perhaps my adored

son - things are not within you well. 

I shall not send this to you - oh no - I've learned

lessons in humility and distancing through the

years - I do wish that you find "well" and know

that I have come to a conclusion worthy of the

the wisdom you might have reached forward and 

flung to me with a strong cast -

perhaps after all I wonder if this banishment applied 

is karma for those I might have unintentionally caused harm 

and pain to in the past -

Or perhaps, my wise son, who may or may not be 

quite well, perhaps the huge life lesson is that one 

who gets forty years of bliss from a child is very far 

from a state of hell.

In conclusion, I revise the implication of the title so now 

far there up above and fervently wish 

with no strained expectation that 

we both are well and that somehow we again can share 

or, at the very least recall and cherish the legacy of our 

love .

GET OVER IT - a companion (apology) piece 

Get over it 

for goodness sake 

it is not the end of

all the we know

There are melting

ice caps - rising 

tides - wars- 

infanticide -

genocide,

and all sorts of 

horror real 

as you sit and

ponder your innards

and a son who has 

decided to grow cold

Get over it - I tell you 

you've had too much 

time alone in this pandemic

and m'dear this story and 

you are growing - oh so old

Yes you wrote those postcards 

mailed them out for Georgia 

gave yourself a trigger finger

but the hatred and the grander

insanity outside your little L 

life does despite you onward

linger

So GET OVER IT

Get over yourself and

your imposed operatic 

tragedy - be grateful for

the husband who crashed

to the floor last year un-

expectedly and now with 

a little unit trucks on next

to you with a Que-Sera Sera

quite centered happily

GET OVER IT 

I say, and I mean 

it - not intending to be 

cold - but even during this

past year - m'dear you are 

growing old

You'll not be here forever 

and no sense in worrying

about your legacy - live in

the now and do what you 

can and leave these good poet

people please - please please 

and off this topic - GO - GO GO - 

GET OVER IT

LEAVE NOW 

peacefully!!!

Have a goodnight all 

2021 April PAD Challenge. DAY 9 -
For today's prompt, write a persona poem (for an inanimate object).

The Note

At the dawn of Covid decided I did 

that this was the the time to free all the things that I hid

You know what I mean the things that you stuff 

into a huge box or a bag - when you've just had enough

I had only one left as Super Sandy had cleaned quite a few

Feeling more than a bit blue at the events of the world and the day

Chilled by the touch of mortality, reflecting what the heck for myself did I have to say

Oh sure, I did this and a little of that

But, nothing quite grand as I sat and I sat

Take even this clearing up - I had known there would be hours and hours to get through

Yet, step right up, lookee here, a year came and went and what did I do? 

Gave myself a virtual shake and smack upside the head and said get going right then

No more time to sit in a puddle of wonder of the, why, where and what the heck when

At least I could free those things, most unremembered that I had hid

I could, I would, and what do you know, I got up and did. 

From the spare room - I lugged out that huge grown dusty container

opened its lid and was surprised at the remainder -

kitchen drawer items from the old kitchen ruined and wash-ed away .. 

a bagful of change, a few knives, and higgely piggely stack of papers from back in the day 

What day was that - you might ask - You did ask that, you say?

Oh nothing quite special just adverts, a menu, a bill of sale for something unbought

There's a saying -"haven't seen it for years out it should ought" Considered for a moment, then thought

It was almost the end, I had had goals for CoVid sequester-ing 

Managed to jog 10K steps each day, lose some weight and now here was this thing

This stack of papers, from a quick look most would condemn as categorical junk

Almost, just almost I grabbed them up to be gone, then my heart jolted and sunk

It would take just a minute -okay neurosis was going to win 

Just a quick shuffled through and then the end could begin 

There were coupons expired in two thousand and three

all manner of such and as I quickened my work at the bottom, what did I see?

a thick embossed envelope with a curlicued handwriting of love

if I could believe in such things I'd say it was sent from above... 

At the end of this refuse, this junk, this salvaged anonymous stuff, 

was a note from my Grandmother, "Mother Cele" who in her magnificent script wrote

how much she adored me, how as a granddaughter, I was so much much more than enough. 

And through tears filled with sunshine, spring flowers and more

Her writing inscribed a new note on deep within my opening core

For ladies and gents, CoVid was ending - a new day, in so many wondrous ways just now begun 

Tossed out the old bin, laughed right out loud -Takes a love note from "Mother" to return this girl ready for fun

2021 PAD CHALLENGE DAY 8 - 
For today’s prompt-write a metaphor 

poem(when something is something else)*

Dust Ball

I flow

I float

I bounce on a whisper of a breeze

from your opened window - slide under

your bed as night falls and you sleep - I slip

between the cracks and crevices of the legs

of your favorite chair and rest for a bit - evading

with a quick puff the bristles of the thing you push

along as you listen to music - once I passed the tip

of your toe as you danced - I flow, I float, I bounce,

portions of me separate and rise into shafted sunlight - 

my motes - that shall stay on - until inevitably as it must come for all - the roar of the Great Suck arrives and into the blackness inhales me along with others tumbled

in the vacuum of blackness - remembering in joyful comraderie the halcyon days when -

we flowed and floated and danced in sunlight -

invisibly with you -

always -

dust to ...

Four year old raped and murdered Kaitlin* 

I am Kaitlin - that four year old little girl - 

raped murdered and left in my yellow summer dress 

to molder until ... 

that long, long ago April when I called out to you - and you answered – 

how eagerly you scooped me up into your arms and posted me in poems that made some cry - 

You had waited for me since your own girlhood - 

Oh, you - so joyful were you -

So filled with your own self serving gratitude 

- you set about torturing me - 

Relentlessly- you twisted my soft limbs reached your fingers to lift my tiny gauzy skirt - exposing me, hoping for everyone to see

I know you remember how I loved peanut butter sandwiches with the crusts cut off - You told everyone! -in those poems you happily posted and smiled as people cried at your words writing me into life 

This was not enough for you, Oh no - you needed the Why, The Who, the flippin Wherefore and had no time to wait –

No, you persevered, on and on, long into dawn after dawn- year after year- twisting my soft limbs, my very mind, as helpless, I stood, watching the weight of your words fall upon me, your heavy leaden deadened prose, peopled with strangers, with those whirling chaotic ill-formed scenes, scenarios, digging in the soft earth of my grave littering it with your inane storylines, taking me to towns, creating parents

I never knew - a murderous, incestuous father, a psychotic mother hate filled or once confusingly, lovingly delusional - You whirled in my wind- 

You would not stop -defining the soul I entrusted to you -and now thousands of pages and three falsified versions of my life later - ten years of your time passed - you have done the unimaginable – you, my would be selfish savior have raped me nearly senseless and a

slain me once again - 

until I am almost good and truly dead - and the thing of it is “she whispered her cornflower blue eyes wide, her fingers playing with the hem of her skirt, ....” 

See?! I know , I know you will not, cannot bury me for good - 

I beg you now with a voice I hope you hear -as once I came to you standing silently, clearly, complete in the corner of your living room - I beg you to understand that the moment was the magic - 

Embrace what was for what it is, and for the sake of all you cherish, including me. 

Stop.

*Note: 

*Katilin was and is a character that appeared to me during the time of my first PAD writing challenge. I wrote quite a few poems about this little girl at the time.

and have attempted to novelize her over the years. This is my attempt to make amends and to find some sort of peace.

 

 

 

2021 April PAD - Day 7 
For today's prompt, write a villain poem.

Not Quite A Fairytale

(a shadorma )

Stalked right in

Smiling ridiculously with television teeth

That retrofitted wolf

We, Riding Hoods

skipping through the forest with our baskets

until he bared killer fangs

Today, I combined our PA Villain prompt with NaPoWriMo option to write a shadorma

*The shadorma is a six-line, 26-syllable poem (or a stanza – you can write a poem that is made of multiple shadorma stanzas). The syllable count by line is 3/5/3/3/7/5

 

The Villain's Mom

even the worst of the very worst

was once some mother's soft

infant babe-in-arms - 

even the worst of the very worst

Which is worse the villainy or the indifferent watchers?

a quick poem ... inspired by 

Rosemary Nissen-Wade

 

They came for them in shining black cars

cruising right up to doorways, that bleating

siren repeating, blaring in the quiet streets - 

as neighbors peeked from curtains -

They had watched as schools closed and shops and Nein Juden appeared and yellow stars sprang on suit jackets and little girls jumpers, on hasfrau’s dresses, and school teachers white shirts, on rabbis and even on non-believers. 

Watched as old men were thrown to the ground - 

stepped around the shards of glass glittering Kristallnacht -

By the time those black cars came and the trains chugged off to camps they perhaps believed were only for work -

they turned their heads - moved on with their day - 

What could they do?

Years whirled and wars came and went - camps opened

and film footage horrified - and all watched and more wars and strange fruit was swinging hanging from trees - 

the pollen of hatred blew across the globe to 

children afire running naked down a Vietnam road fell like powdered dust on others waiting on rooftops for copter that would never come - 

A young sweet faced boy on a wire fence, a fellow dragged behind a car - one brown or black face after another...choked, shot, beaten. Citizens interned in camps, others on opposite sides of a wall, massacres between one tribe and another - white farmers killed - peace-makers jailed - children with swollen bellies - flies swarming - the toxicity flew ...from one end of the world to the other committed in collective and individual abandon with bare hands on flesh, sophisticated weaponry fired from on high, 

and all imaginable weaponized hatred in the in-between. On and on and on this litany too long to repeat too unconscionable to be recited of life defiled, trampled, burned, extinguished, spat upon, lynched, punched, pummeled, bullied, ....

from long before the manic mustachioed man manifested, marching on to a woman beaten in broad daylight - while others...

watched...

Each villain can have some reasonable doubt, excuse, mental compromise or illness, coercion under fear for the life of self and family - some iota of possible explanation, passion, delusion, distortion, hallucination, psychoses, possession, some rationale for the horror that is otherwise inexplicable ... but...

the watchers... the reasonable dispassionate watchers...

placidly viewing the unviewable ... closing the curtains, filming a scene to post for friends, walking away... the ice of placid indifference far surpassing the conflagration of hatred - 

chilling the spark of soul - extinguishing that tiny light of simple humanity and casting all into the abyss...

while others come to peer down and ultimately, yes to... 

Watch.

 

 

 

PAD-DAY 6 - Two-for-Tuesday prompt: 
1. Write a change poem and/or...
2. Write a don't change poem.

I want to be the change 

Moving the plates of the world - serving a banquet of kindness and perfect justice - 

as the innocence in each child’s heart changes not a single molecule and I live on to protect the meal

Don’t go changing sang the song 

Running in my head all day long 

As unexpected he crashed down to the 

floor 

and for an instant was here no more 

Don’t go changing 

and yet every day a piece of tech implanted -has him here to stay 

In the middle of don’t and do 

Our lives dance through 

How can I ever choose between 

these two - 

for each day is an amalgam of beloved former and cherished miraculously resurrected you

Change

his father was an older guy

in a sepia time long gone by

returned each evening stripping

off his work limp dampened tie - 

(jiggling a hand into a bulging pocket)

so the boy could hear that repeated remarkable clink

and there looking up and up to that tired face-he'd think

in respectful pride - his father was for sure a millionaire 

come home again - Midas at their fifth floor walk-up stair

·      

Have also combined the NaPo prompt...though it presents quite better with italics that I cannot seem to get going here. I think the general idea of the poem holds. 
"I have dreamt in my life, dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they have gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind. "– 
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

I HAVE DREAMT IN MY LIFE – 
(per NaNoWriMo – the second title) 
PASSING THROUGH 

Those nights walking through the house- 
that house that reappeared – once filled
with mouldering curtains swinging 
malevolently – another refashioned in 
irreverent irony – crown moldings and
curliques gone – shiplap and mahogany
replaced with sheetrock – white on white
with but a single window paned door opening
to snowy curtains – gauzed and blowing in a 
a warm breeze …. Those nights waking always
with a keening yearning ache for the house that was
seen but once as a small child - perfect in unexpected 
majesty – grand but warm, embracing as though with
plump arms -held my tiny child self – swirled in soft chintz -
dressed in loose muslin swinging gently - as she, as I 
wandered with slippered feet on floorboards wide 
waxed to such shimmering sheen that we could see 
all she was and all they could be in wavery reflection upon reflection. 
Yes. Yes. Such dreams I dreamt and dream ever still - soaking this soul in the color of gemstones and wildflowers 
turning from EB back to the old fellow to nod in singular sorrow-full sudden sibling-hood synchronicity …Yes.
"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself."
Thank you Leo. I cast myself upon the changing waters in gratitude.
For, I shall continue to open the door and walk through that house –again and again – 
in Bronte's colors swirling as “wine through water” 
Until...

•  

 

 

 

2021 APRIL PAD CHALLENGE - DAY 5*
Prompt:”The First (blank)”/replace the blank with a word/phrase/use as the title

First Time - when

“Go ahead,” she said, seventeen, flush cheeked, clothes in a muss

Her high school boyfriend always insisted on stopping them right then without a fuss 

“Go ahead,” she said. 

“Sure?”- new fellow most perfunctorily said. 

Far from home, no longer in Kansas, with this guy she barely knew- 

he most definitely definingly did - and in an moment’s blur they were through 

She was a bit pensively surprised - as clothes restored she lay on that lumpy dormitory bed -

a good and reasonable girl -she accepted accountability, for she knew, even right there and even right then - 

he had followed to the letter, what she had said, when - as leaves tumbled from trees outside that crisp long ago autumn college night - laying in the after-then sight .... 

when things could have turned left or right 

She lay calmly bemused considering that seminal “go ahead” in the newly made by her bed - laying there softly solo - in that autumn then - in her now forever inscribed after-then 

When ...

The First Time I Lost You

was when you were two 

it was a nanosecond -

then there you were

sitting behind me all

the while - I hugged

those tiny shoulders

you said "Mama smile?"

the second time you were forty one

you are not behind me at all this time and

I truly do not know when this will be done

Mama not smile

The First Book 

Pulled the drawer .. silently 

alphabetized oak bronze brackets 

in the sun so shimmery - 

heart pounding determined was I to finally get this done - 

to see, to see alone, just for me - 

this grand possible impossibility 

Gently pulled, as cat burglar in a diamond theft - 

my potential disappointed self already in my mind self protectively had left 

Pulled and riffled through and through until I stopped stunned - for it was apparently true 

Never but for birth such a thrill - my soul still stores its trembly chill - 

yes there it was for all to see 

- my book, my name 

-there in 

THE LI-BRA-RY

 

 

2021 April PAD Challenge - Day 4
For today's prompt, write an active poem. *

Prompt: “What does the 

Running the 4 mile hallway 

Turns out pandemics are the mother of invention - 

As weeks morphed to months in self quarantine 

Decided to jog -more actively than I’d ever been 

Ran concentric laps out on my deck and as winter snow fell thought what the heck ...

Up and down the hallway there - turns out sneakered feet will gather miles just anywhere 

And thus the daily 10k jogging steps were born to stay -

sure to last past the final pandemic day

future hold?" Make your

 

 

2021 April PAD Challenge - Day 3:  
For today's prompt, write a communication poem.  

The Music of That Night

Thirteen days and nights passed 

sitting on his bed - white pillows piled high - he lay his raven hair back - 

I combed cologne through - and sat, sometimes kneeled, other times lay in the crook of his arm our fingers entwined - quiet but for the whoosh of oxygen - of course there were songs to be sung that he had taught me as a tiny girl never expecting to reach this age - this day - Swing Low Swing High -Chariots on white horses coming for to take him home - and newer tunes -The Music of the Night - all sorts of things - 

On that 12th night I ran glycerin across his lips and hummed Pathetique, The New world Symphony and as midnight passed a shift gently shook the room with perceptible predictable entree - in those soft lit predawn hours I fell silent - suddenly struck with the absolute irrelevancy of sound -no need in our new paradigm for such - for you see the orchestra crescendoed along my pounding heart as my father raised both arms from beneath his coverlet and with eyes closed -

conducted 

in perfect

time - 

together 

with the 

music in 

my mind,

heart and 

soul ...

slept for a bit

and woke-my

hand flat on his

chest-I counted

three precise beats 

 

fin

Out of ...a work in progress 

She texts, poems, pleasantries, news, links, congratulations and such - 

She tries reaching out in emails, phone messages, postcards, psychic telepathy, prayer, again and such 

Months flow into years, she continues yet, does not hear back very much 

Until even this faintest of “much” fades as well.

She lives each year with her silent grown -married and himself a father now twice over - child - in the surreal seared, scarred with pain land of the euphemistically designated 

out of touch - 

Oh well, 

a custom tailored version of never expected nor etiology understood plain spoken in silence - 

capital H hell. 

What can one do or say after a while, but carry on continue to try- 

shake the malaise each morning blink sleep from each eye, 

draw a deep breath and sigh, one of those shiver shudder walk-on-her-grave deepest of sigh...breaking the seal- bursting myriad memory from a depthless charged soul -

Oh well... 

With a strong cleansing breath she stretches, reaches and once again just for this day with a final sigh, 

frees it all to flutter onward floating the flotsam of fracture into the high.

 

 

 

021 April PAD Challenge Day 2 
Prompt: “What does the future hold?" 

Make your answer the title of your poem

 

The Arc Bent 

Held in powerful hands - small unlined written in childhood to the gnarled knuckles of those who have held and fended far too much for far too long - to all in the in between -grabbing fast refusing to release -

together in a passionate power pulling, shaping, in sacred malleability that oft cited arc to bend - to bend to simple righteousness - shimmering with the history of hope indefatigable - together in the shimmer of the shine protected and jubilant in the shining 

of metaphorical mythological movement -now 

Manifested - 

liberty and justice for All by All 

The arc bent

On waves of aquamarine (in concert with NaPoWriMo road not taken prompt) 


 

 

          at twenty – found myself in a white dress
father at my side – in an alcove heading
down an aisle that had nothing to do with
who I was or what I felt and no –there was
no little one pushing the walk – simply in-
explicable inertia at least inexplicable now
things were different then – I was different
then – went along to get along and there I 
walked – every road has a reason – this one
led after several months of the blurry groom
finishing service duty to a honeymoon – one
of those packages advertised on Thirty-Fourth 
Street, NY at Liberty Travel. The Virgin Islands,
almost aptly named – three islands one sleepy,
one with ‘night-life’ and one in the middle – 
I, a would be hippie Goldie Locks chose the 
“just right” middle – deplaned in a pale linen
sheath and Jackie O sunglasses in St. Croix
and as the doors opened was sucked as surely 
as Alice down the rabbit hole into wonderland.
I was home – frangipani filled my head – my
heart slowed and recalibrated a new rhythm 
as I walked down the plane steps I shook off shoes – 
in love with a place in a way that excluded my shorn
headed compatriot with the matching ring and his
distinctly different and wildly mecurial temperament.
But, that was that road – patently perfectly different
from the ticky-tacky houses of surburbia lined up 
on Long Island or Scarsdale that I foresaw with
chilled foreboding marching me onward on a conveyor
belt to my eventual plot in some tree laden stone garden. 
I had escaped … and stay I did, we did, - the marriage
surviving on the nectar of paradise – the brilliance 
of crimson flamboyant blossoms, bougainvillea and
crystal waters, friends with sail boats and cold wine,
crayfish pulled from the water, a job offered teaching
little children, eventually a baby of my own – a huge 
German Shepherd dog that ran free as childhood Lassie
a perfectly pointed Siamese cat rubbing my ankles -
sitting on a terrace nursing the infant child watching swallows swoop at sunset – uncaring when corrected
that they were bats after all – 
day after day unfolded each presenting another gasp of agape wonder at postcard beauty … 
the baby stood and toddled and 
the fellow with the matching band – sometimes lost it and smashed something or needed ice for his knuckles when they met my teeth – everything healed quickly in the clear salt water, in the laughter of friends,
folk music on guitars, reggae dancing barefoot in the streets, steel drums, and motorcycle rides through the rainforest – 
until he grew radically restless and needed to leave – beginning a drumbeat that grew louder minute 
by minute, month by month, until suitcases packed I walked the plank to the plane into the open arms of family who mostly, but for one never 
understood why I had chosen to stay away – 
Every road has its destination – 
that one to inexpressible beauty 
and fruitfulness seeding the implantation of certainty that there 
was always another way, another road – another time - 
The matching ring cast to the wind with its wearer -violence it seems
does not melt easily in the cold New York winter – replace flamboyant 
blossoms with bare limbs of scrawny trees –in one of those neighborhoods 
escaped for just enough years – and one cannot help but see what is plain –
Another road, books, and libraries, papers and writing, trains, and teaching teens, listening to the uncanny wisdom of a small child growing into the man I knew he would become, - friends, cold white wine on summer beaches, walks in The Village near grad school and more grad school, rushing home to sweet
little boy hugs and games, snuggles and hot chocolate and marshmallow snow days and when he visited family, allowable lust, 
oh that allowable consummated consummate lust. 
This jiggling path, from folk to disco, from fairy tales to Faulkner to Freud side by side with motherhood, and more big slips of paper for framing, letters to trail my name. 
Finally, a friend, with a centered center, flowed into an unexpected love,ready made children, a birthed book, and another and another with my name on the spines - 
This forsaken, forced upon road, this just long and windy enough road to build a career, a life, and feel the poetry of Caribbean warmth flooding veins in the coldest of days – moving forward on new roads – fed on with wisdom of that first footfall placed decisively on a path that felt right – continuing on all the others – that followed, all the others that continue to flow – to flow as clear as the crystalline confidence of the Caribbean sea – rocking me to tomorrow trusting in the path.







                           

 

 

 

2021 April PAD Challenge: Day 1
For today's prompt, write an introduction poem.

Footfalls 

I hear the steps

gathering down 

The Street of long 

ago - familiar faces 

penned in pleasure 

Here on this first day

No introduction necessary

 

 

Welcome to the world of pain 

Where grown men cry for their mama 

As others watch in

helpless horror the 

indifference chilling 

as a casual hand in a

pocket a knee on the

neck of all .. 

as we rise up

stand up draw 

breath from death

and introduce ourselves to one 

another - Finally.

Seeing, hearing, 

addressing, ending 

the pain. 

Introducing humanity.

 

 








                        



2021 April PAD Challenge Day 2 

Prompt: “What does the future hold?" Make your answer the title of your poem

2021 April