They are now out there in cyberspace.....
APRIL PAD CHALLENGE - 2012
5 poems about the way things are...
Visit? Or?
I can come for a visit
Someone here will fold
the walker into the car
you send for me
I will be presentable
they have someone who
styles hair here now
not like last time
perhaps at ninety three
hair should not fall free
on shoulders as you said
I can come for a visit
and sit in that chair
you have for me by
the window – I won’t
comment on the crinkle
of the plastic I feel under
the pretty paisley throw
I can come for a visit
and see your new Prada
admire its sheen
and smile when you and yours
laugh those laughs they
must have given out when
you came into your own
I can come for a visit
Or
I can come
and cut carrots
for the holiday dinner
even from a chair
my fingers tremble
but my heart is strong
I can come for a visit
Or
I can return to my home
by the lake with the sagging
porch that you say is being fixed
while I visit in that place perfumed with
faint urine for another year
I can visit
Or
I can return to the home that is no more
Stand on the shore of the lake that shines
With a reflection of all that was before and
Just after you
I can
visit
Or
I can stay
With you – it shouldn't be for too long
I have some stories left unspoken
Yet, my voice too sudden-soft to speak
I write instead …
“Dear Child, – Thank you, for the kind invitation
to visit but I must…
Decline..."
******************************************************
quantum imagination
They were legion
those who looked at
glimmered starlit mystic
sky and poured from
jeweled vials of sparkling
knowledge mixtures glimmering
phantastical paginations
streaking comets through minds
reflected, refracted, related
shimmering through the enfolded
unseen territory of untold new
crannied minds sparking
floating filaments of particled
possibility lighting the cresting
wave of coming…on the flutter
of flickered eyelash ponderings
********************************************
The Would-Be-Micro-Biology-Scholar
she spoke in whispered syllables
filaments floating in the air
eyes averted as she had been
schooled to elders who were there
she spoke in whispered syllables
sitting straight backed in her chair
hands folded calmly loose
head scarf soft covering her bare
the paneled wooded table shone
with sunshafted bouncing oiled sunlight
her papers, spread untidily before them
oddly out of place disturbingly unright
as she left on soft feet across that polished wooded floor
they smiled with emptied eyes filled her with chagrin
she heard one loudly murmur to the other "so strange in today's world"
and she knew with frozen clarity that her work here would not begin
out on the campus beneath a soaring chestnut tree
pulled her cell phone from her pocket called home
and relayed in whispered syllables
"I am sorry for your sacrifice – still they do not like me"
******************************************************
Love on two wheels
I watched from the
window
as you – thin
small shoulders
hunched, muscle bunched
pedaled
fast
hair blown back
grin trailing
the air of
that kindred kindergarten
summer night
the very air swirled
golden
as sparks shot
shafted Midas beams
drenching a melty molten
heart shimmer shivered
in shining sacrosanct
loving – for – you
as you flew
rounding all corners
**********************************
It is common in April
To hear castanets
Clicking
As roos move
Through the bush
Of roses in Maine
It is common in April
That the white cliffs of
Dover dive into the Laguna
Sea sparkling
It is common in April
To feel the Buffaloed snow
Fall gently melting in the
Sands of Hawaiian sun
It is common in April
For the wheat fields
To sway in spring breezes
Along the distant moors
As butterflies lift in melodious
Swarms of chromatic glory
It is common in April
For seas to sip rivulets
And spray purple deserts
As dandelions float on
Shared dreams
It is common in April
For strangers to fall
Into each others arms
And beds and minds
Tracing each face
With the braille of keys
Until each crevice revealed
It is common in April
For the tapestry to fly
Enfolding all for one
Shimmered month
Of intertwined thread
Golden….
It is common in April
Only in April
Now melting
Like spun sugar
on the reaching
tongue of
May