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
   
   
   

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.

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!!! 

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 :)

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.

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