White Rope

I am the rope
that was twisted
and tested coated
to shine and looped
shimmering coiled wristed
Traveling home in
the back of your car
placidly waiting for
a sea trip near come or
in future far
I am the rope
twisted, tested, coated, shined
and looped shimmering coiled
If animate would have your plan
resisted, halted, fatally foiled

Who Are You?

Who are you
puffed the
caterpillar
on the mushroom
long ago
intimidating
Alice
and setting
loose
a life-time
of ponder

Here I Sit

Here I sit
in a snit
for what reason?
perhaps just
the season

The following poems were inspired by a PA Prompt calling for views from the "Other Side Of The Fence"

Wednesday, October 06, 2010 3:46:19 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
DRIFTING
(keep in mind this poem is dedicated to those on the so-called "other side" of the fence...)

Now in trying to
recapture what is
essentially rockbed
Back on now historic
waters long ago
floated what became
symbolic tea

Now in trying to
recapture what is
essential rockbed
values in my veins
I am viewed with
mockery

It frustrates, provokes
and confuses that
some cannot seem to
see that
there are forces that
are alligned to change
the face forever
of this, my own country

***************************************************************
Wednesday, October 06, 2010 3:50:14 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
OVER THE FENCE

That fourteen-year-old
pushing mower summer day
I noticed the missing slat
just one through which
glittered grass greener
and the bodacious sun
kissed body of bikinied
Mrs. Pratt
it was a pleasant crew cutted
lawn summer on an on after that!
***************************************************************
10 3:54:40 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
WILD CAT

Through kitchen door I watch
with mouse emptied stomach
watch as you patter from
refrigerator to blender
making a morning shake
to watch your weight as
my kittens languish
***************************************************************
Wednesday, October 06, 2010 3:59:06 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
YOU

Belching in your underwear
are going to teach me
the finer points of living
***************************************************************
Wednesday, October 06, 2010 4:04:51 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

ROACH

Since birth
I work finding
each iotic bit
that escapes your
gargantuan eye
an exemplar of
diligence running
always from the
encroachment of
your pesticided foot
as you vilify me
as repulsive for my
work as you play
with future earth
let us see whose
progeny remain
************************************************************
Wednesday, October 06, 2010 4:37:43 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

THE CAREFUL POET

Here I sit
Holding each syllable
To the light
Considered and polished
Again and again
Sometimes discarded
While you, out there
Spread the street
Gaily with vomitous
Outpouring expecting
Me to walk out and
Slosh, happily
Through
Banging a tambourine
Ignoring
My ruined shooed syllables
Soaked in your mess
***************************************************************
Wednesday, October 06, 2010 4:44:04 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
KAITLIN WATCHED

Little girl
in candy caned
dress
sweet
there for the
taking
born to
be broken
sucked
devoured
only
when freely
offered
on a hot summer
day on the edge
of a cool dark wood...
there are rules
to be followed
***************************************************************
Friday, October 08, 2010 12:15:33 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FENCE

On the other side of the fence
is green grass that rolls out
a red carpet for wild abandon

On the other side of the fence
are flowers tumbling in a profusion
of joyous perfume

On the other side of the fence
is flesh to flesh finding solace
in innocent satiation

On the other side of the fence
is all that is not
within the confine
***************************************************************
Friday, October 08, 2010 12:38:12 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

GOING, GOING, GONE

I'm going said she
and what is it to you
You had your time and
I'll have mine too
Ring on my finger not
yours through my nose
You never raised me to
be one of those

I'm going said she
and what is it to you
You had your time
and I'll have mine too
Did you think I'd stay setting
Another and another "holiday" table
You could not have thought that
Not when I'm still young, ready
and able

You could not have thought
That I’d ride the ribbon with
you the future sliding our joined
fingers through

I'm not seeing those tears
I'm just closing my eyes
Since there really is no need
for these maudlin goodbyes
Not when there's Skype, e-mail,
and phones everywhere

A baby you say?
And what does that change?
You don’t have to be
In the same state to be
In love’s range

I'm going said she
Looking straight at and through me
Her voice and demeanor just as calm as could be
You will visit with me and
I will visit with you
And this door I am closing
This conversation is through.
***************************************************************
Friday, October 08, 2010 12:56:02 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
OVER AND DONE

Boring and burning
and boring and done
long ago stopped being
anything fun
When absent heaving, panting
pulsating and sweating
Giving with one eye turned on to the getting
Those rose petal baths and hard sprayed water showers
Now completely a waste of precious better
spent hours
***************************************************************************************
Friday, October 08, 2010 12:58:29 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

FROG

In the distant cool mist past
remember I deep
water's tail flicked fast
***************************************************************
Friday, October 08, 2010 2:22:57 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
SCREAM FOR ICE CREAM

I scream, you scream
we all scream for ice cream
Papa sung and it was funny
but then he made it true
In the summer-time
hours-past-bed-time night
around our bare feet
ice cream melting in our mouths
fire-flies flew

I scream, you scream
we all scream for ice cream
Laughed and laughed, loud and OUTSIDE
As Papa sat in his green chair this WIDE
Falling dominoed onto one another
Cones held high away from each other
Until come to take us home we heard her call …
That dress-wearing succubus of magic all…
As we untangled from each other
Feet firma-terra our pursed lipped mother
***************************************************************
Saturday, October 09, 2010 12:54:02 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
SISTER LOVE
(please keep in mind this from the "other side of the fence")

Oh my dear sister, my sister my dear
I hope that this time you will stop and just hear
Your slap-dashy, anything-goes, can't we get along attitude
Does not and will not sit well, I know, with the holy “Big Dude”
And when the time comes and we rise together in glorious rapture
My sister with strangers you shall writhe in flaming infinite capture
***************************************************************

Saturday, October 09, 2010 12:55:52 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
THE UNCOMMENTED (referring to poets)

We are the uncommented
The uncommented upon are we
We write from passion of lyric, rhythm and beat
In our solitude free, the uncommented those would be we
If our eye should light on a list, our names we will not see
We write from the bursting of images breaking out floating free
Never “kudoed” or “bravoed” or “wowed” or applauded to be
We are the uncommented writing from a place above and within
No need now for any gratuituous critique to begin



Psst.. here’s a small voice as small as a Who
Whispering tiny Seussian words that I hope heard be by you
My voice so secretive-wispy a butterfly’s eyelash would it not touch
As I say... “If you mentioned me once I would not mind very much”
***************************************************************

FOUR-YEAR-OLD KAITLIN- An ongoing series (13 poems)

Saturday, October 23, 2010


Labels: Kaitlin Saturday, September 25,
Sunday, July 25, 2010

FOUR-YEAR-OLD-KAITLIN JONES

The body of four year old Kaitlin Jones found today
Mutilated, raped, and murdered in unknown order
Kaitlin had been missing for three weeks
Police had called in the FBI after an Amber Alert failed and no leads uncovered
A search party had been organized by friends and family
Her mother screamed when night fell and Kaitlin was not found
It had been expected the strong-willed little girl was hiding
Kaitlin had been under the care of Dr. Goode, PhD and categorized as
oppositional defiant
Her grandfather thought she was just a little girl who knew what
she did and did not want
But even he had to agree that something was wrong when Kaitlin was not found in any
of her secret places where she often stayed for hours on
her own
The family was never under suspicion of any foul play
Neighbors responded to the mother’s screams, coming together
in their nightclothes
Making coffee, flyers and organizing search parties, some brought their untrained dogs on long leashes, others stayed with the family
keeping up a stream of platitudes
The day Kaitlin disappeared she had been given
a peanut butter and jelly sandwich
with the crusts on and the jelly rather than the peanut butter on top
Kaitlin had fallen to the floor shocking the new baby-sitter with her
melt-down
A moment later she ran from the kitchen into her room and slammed the door
Kaitlin’s room was on the ground floor
In case of such a melt-down, the baby-sitter had been instructed to let Kaitlin “be”
No one noticed four-year-old Kaitlin climb from her window
and drop
to the ground
Where she ran across the field toward the wooded
hiking trail that snaked into the woods
Along the highway unseen but heard
rushing in the distance
beyond the trees
Where a young man had parked his car, walked for a while and waited for
something to happen - Like
a four-year-old girl who didn’t like her peanut butter and jelly sandwich

(note: for those not familiar with the "inverted pyramid form the most important details are in the first lines moving in descending level of consequence)
********************************************************

Thursday August 26, 2010

WHAT? EVER... NEVER?

They sat there
side by side
in the fall sun
late day spilling
onto the papers
shimmer polished
on the doctor's

desk of cognitive
tests
They sat there only
as a favor to their
family's urging
his eyes drifting to
the billowing sails
of a model ship
wondering at the thousands
of tiny tied knots
she almost dozing
stroking the soft
silk fabric of the chair
in the office of the doctor
in the late afternoon sun
fall out the latticed windows
bright trees dropping leaves
lazy - and the light spilling
into the words drifting
over them as their child
lied quiet as was her nature
just her nature
quiet and limp limbed
still
across their laps
sweet drool sparkling in the
light as the doctor
delicately attempted
the first incision
of all possibility
*********************************************************

Thursday, July 29, 2010
KAITLIN IN THE WOODS

Finger poised above
tender child flesh
upturned neck flops
in impossible angles

The finger has touched
his own daughter's neck
dazzled by its softness

The father finger hovering
here postponing the inevitable
descent, hoping for warmth

and finding as it probes in
gloved professionalism
only the expected cold
Posted by Dr. Pearl Ketover Prilik (PKP) at 11:20 PM
Labels: PA Prompt- Cold
0 comments:
********************


FOR FOUR-YEAR-OLD KAITLIN
KAITLIN'S FUNERAL SERVICE

There can be
no words of comfort
for murdered Kaitlin
hair washed and
lovingly cleaned
dressed in crisp white
and arranged
fetchingly on
beloved pink sateen

There can be
no words of comfort
for Kaitlin pretty
under that small
shining white
casket lid

No comfort in the heaps of
blooms thrown in
helpless profusion
in the gaping hole
of what he did

There can be
no words of comfort
as Kaitlin in cruel irony
is returned back to
the black earth
where she was found

Her mother shivers
holding air
chilled by warm
words
as the tiny girl
is covered by the ground

Stone faced
at talk of
loving arm's
celestial embrace

No comfort for the
loved ones as they
lean one into the other
a mass of tangled
torment touching
among averted eyes
not one who can them face

Four- year- old Kaitlin
found sprawled kill raped still
in the damp wood
a child who would
have her peanut butter
sandwich made just
the way it should

Words of innocence
above that now covered casket
babble non-sense on
a ruffled breeze

Kaitlin last looked upon
the face of evil incomprehensible
etched into her eyes
with photographic ease

Rest sweet Kaitlin
perhaps for you this can be so
in the woods of your
death sweet jasmine may
inexplicably grow

Drift sweet Kaitlin tumbling
in the sparkled sunlight
on the soft wings of
white butterflies
take flight

There sweet Kaitlin one with
each petal, dancing dust mote
salted sea drop and all
known and more

Soar
sweet Kaitlin
embracing the ripped
grief-dumbed hearts left
forevermore
********************************************

Inspired by "BOP" FORM ...... 3 stanzas 8-6-8 with a refrain

THE LAST ARGUMENT
(KAITLIN'S PARENTS)

"Four year-olds need supervision"
"And fresh air and freedom
to explore stuff
to think stuff
to find stuff on their own
not like the way you were raised"

Barefooted Kaitlin lies stone still in the darkening woods.

"There's nothing wrong with parents'
caring for their children"
"Like mine didn't - that's it right?
You called me wild child, liked me then
Liked me well enough - when I was running to you
I never seen you looking for my parents when we got busy."
"As usual, that has nothing to do with what I've been saying.
She-is-my-child."

Barefooted Kaitlin lies stone still in the darkening woods.

Flushed faced faced off, they stop - and listen
to the quiet
a breeze blows on their hot skin, on their pounding chests
as together they look to the open door
look through and beyond over the empty lawn rolling to the woods
willing a shimmered peal of crystal laughter - a game-of-hide-n-seek
as they run racing to nowhere
together for the very last time calling her name to the gulping wind

Barefooted Kaitlin lies stone still in the darkening woods.
Posted by Dr. Pearl Ketover Prilik (PKP) at 9:35 AM 0 comments:


***************************************************************
October 1, 2010

KAITLIN IN THE RAIN

Little Kaitlin
skips and sings
in the shining rain
barefoot in the
cool green grass
never home will
she see
again
Posted by Dr. Pearl Ketover Prilik (PKP) at 4:37 PM 1 comments
********************************************************
Thursday, October 14, 2010

KAITLIN WATCHED

Little girl
in candy caned
dress
sweet
there for the
taking
born to
be broken
sucked
devoured
only
when freely
offered
on a hot summer
day on the edge
of a cool dark wood...
there are rules
to be followed


*********************************************************
Saturday, October 23,
KAITLIN-INFANT


As you lifted her
From her crib
Her swaddled blanket
Falling unwrapped away
Her lips swollen pursed
Into a rose budded heart
Until her eyes opened
And flashed with delight
A mere micro moment before
Her caterwauling shriek
Split the air as
Jagged shards threatened
Eardrums to pierce
But it was that sweet
Glint that stayed
Shining in her eyes
Determined in her eyes
To continue
Until ears bled
And then just when
Holding her arched rigid
In your shaking arms
You would begin to
feel the first fingertip of
Chill....she'd soften, nestle
boneless and rooting
Latch on to your full breast
One tiny hand of
Incomparably soft skin
Caressing yours
As with rose budded lips
She gently drained you
With that glint of manic
Determined delight
Shining through upturned lashes
Coyly
**Sunday, October 31, 2010

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT MURDERED 4-YEAR-OLD-KAITLIN JONES
PA Prompt- What I Love About...

What I love about murdered four-year-old- Kaitlin Jones
is her rising back to flesh from bones
her sweet curved cheek flushed as she ran
eyes sparkling toward dark forest she began

Kaitlin hair tousled catching last rays of the sun
Coyly catching my eye, peeking between fingers, did she run
Followed I her glee filled barefooted flight
Into a nightmared darkened silenced night

What I love about murdered four-year-old Kaitlin Jones
is her rising again back to flesh from her bones.
Rising from the earth where she was found
Rising from her grave in the ground
To run back to me, smiling, barefoot tumbled, touseled fresh washed hair,
plump legs tight around my waist, arms wrap her alive forever there.
Entwined in purest shimmered light sparkling twirling mystic, magical pair
Posted by Dr. Pearl Ketover Prilik (PKP) at 4:17 PM 0 comments
Labels: Kaitlin
***************************************************

AGREEING TO SILENCE

They sat in the car
he in his silly pom-pom
red wool hat
She leaning against the
seat imagining that
they could speak openly
about what they had lost
so recently
But he had his way, smiling through
Drenched in delusion that that she knew
She longed to pour him into her emptied heart
And fill the part that had been torn out apart
But between them they did by actions agree
on the subject of Kaitlin
they would muse only each to his and her own
separate, different, and silently
***
NO ONE WANTS TO...KNOW KAITLIN LIVES ON..

No one wants to listen
to me
that Kaitlin ran in
green fields and made
snow angels in the snow

No wants to listen
to me
that though "gone" still lives
they cannot and do not want to know

If we meet, they turn their eyes
and look someplace
up on to my forehead
throw frozen smiles and babble on
with perhaps a mumbled reference to gone or passed
unspoken words scream at me "your daughter is forever dead."

And,if they can they quickly turn at a
single glimpse of me
walk quickly toward another way
if caught stammer smile oh so "obliviously"

No wants to listen
fearing talk of a four-year-old
who physically is dead
Most chilling is that
no one wants to listen
no one wants to hear
that my memories are
sweet and sparkling, finally beginning now to clear

Sunshined laughter
touseled hair, running
in the grass, those angels in
the snow

No one wants to
listen
To how alive my forever
four-year-old continues
now to grow

No one wants to speak of
her, no one wants to know
Smiling, avoiding, dropping
in their wake seeds of ice
in my just warming heart to grow
and in their self-protective shunning
leave her dead with me
because
No one wants to
listen

No one wants to
know
It is they that keep
her dead and still and gone
trapped by their fear beneath
a forever thickly falling snow
It is they who will not allow her to
continue to shine and grow
Tragedy compounded, no one listens, asks
or shares a sweet remembered time
because
No one wants to
know


***
FORGET WHAT THEY SAY.. TWO WEEKS AFTER KAITLIN'S DISAPPEARANCE
Each morning waking in
light that has no right
to shine so bright
filled with sudden hope
embrace yourself and
repeat on this fresh day
Forget,
Forget what they say..

Forget statistics about
how soon children should
be found if they are to be
above the ground
Forget what they say
as night falls
hard and still
and from the emptiness
slither black thoughts
until
Whisper loud light
pouring through the
end of another day
Forget
Forget what they say

At each end of night and day
Hear her laughter, feel her
weight damp in sleep upon
your chest, wake easy and
go easy to your rest
Inhale her scent, shampoo
and days filled with green
grassed play
Continue to
Forget what they say

***

CROSS-ROAD THAT A PARENT HOPEFULLY NEVER REACHES -
A KAITLIN POEM

When does the time come
when a child's laughter
trailing off across green
wet summer grass
freezes into the ice
of winter, thaws again
into spring and still
echoes into summer.

When does the time come
when listening for the
laughter becomes a memory
rather than an anticipated
possibility
When does the time come
when hope is replaced by
silence?

Who determines the cross-road
when laughter dies
on decomposing lips
of a child
forever gone...

Kaitlin in the rain

Little Kaitlin
skips and sings
in the shining rain
barefoot in the
cool green grass
never home will
she see
again

Democrats and consensus...

Democrats believe in talk
and listening to
another voiced point of view

Which leads to interesting
discussion but leaves
consensus to others - true?

Forward Motion

The times they are a changing
A well-known nasal voiced poet
sung long ago
Sung of the wind blowing
and questioned how long it
would take until we would finally know
The sands of time are running
They poured quickly for a bit
Hand in hand we thought that
we should overcome
A world of peace and harmony
So close we could taste it

Now the sands are running
faster than before
and words of peace retreating
faster than any coward's war
there are some that would applaud
sand run backward and surrender all
to a slippery ribbon reversing all
hard fought and patient waited won
be grateful for the universal laws that
keep forward motion from being easily undone

It takes an adult to make different mean

There was an old song that
did state
that children needed to
be taught carefully to hate
True this may have been and
true still to be
Children must too be taught
to see differences not so different
to them apparently

A child quite close to my own heart
Categorized people not separate but different apart
He noticed differences only bilaterally
in brown and white, this distinction clear in his sight
everyone with eyes of brown was brown
and everyone with eyes of blue was white
But you may say that is not quite right
No not quite right as most categorize
But clearly what he saw with three-year-old eyes
Brown and White only the two
I do not know what he would have done with eyes
of green, violent or gray as dun
The point is that innocence locates differences seen
But it takes an adult to make different mean

The Mad Tea Party

Come away with me
to the Mad Tea Party
Alice, not there, she has been called away
the doormouse absent along with his loud voiced say
yet still the party's quite mad and still quite loud
and drawing curious and curiouser quite a crowd

Come away with me
to the Mad Tea Party
who think they are righteously setting things right
and ready for a rival to the Red Queen type of fight

Come away with me
to the Mad Tea Party
stuff your pockets with sugar and honey and peace
cool the anger and have this maddening insanity cease