That Girl
in bedazzled self splendor
she cross cat walked strolled
unaware of the averted glances-extolled
cracking volumes of thick tiny printed books
trailing endless margined rivulets into babbling brooks
mini skirted high heeled booted bespectacled wonder
in front of class after class each day
in the night Danskinned dancing the night away
taking what she wanted and only according to her rule
thought of everything but the epheremality of it all,
a strolling, studying, dancing, in besotted liqueur of youth fool
**********
Poem 2.
The Suckling
Fresh from womb
feet untouched by ground
fuzzed silk spun
dreams of unfolded future yet to come
Particulars matter little, it is the transformation
as startling as the stretching of a man into a werewolf
A new mother's infant son into a man
**********
Poem 3.
Poem 3.
How things change
Slowly, incrementally, out of notice seen
Until nothing resembles anything that has been
Caterpillars in chrysalis
bursting forth to brightly silken winged fly
less ingenuous than the slow encroachment day
subtracting day until the day we die
**********
Poem 4.
Poem 4.
Change?
with a pop with a crash
with a sprinkle or a dash
can be major can be not
remembered for all time or next day forgot
some fear it, some race into its embrace
the only constant in change its shifting face
**********
Poem 5.
Slow Coming
These two fingers
that tracked trails
of tears
these creased
and skin from bone
loosened fingers
slip the golden band
on his husband's waiting
waiting, waiting, hand
thirty year
engagement
ended
finally
finally
**********
Poem 6.
Change of Heart
When did the pounding
of heated pulse
translate as anxiety
rather than anticipation?
When did lolling
cradled in soft cushions
translate as depression
rather than relaxation?
When did the trembling
of fingertips reaching
translate as illness
rather than passion?
When did the heart change?
**********
Poem 7.
Poem 7.
In The Ever-After Years
Long curls bouncing on her back
she runs in wide overlapping circles
princess on her white winged
stallion pawing
the velvet pampas of Papa lawn
her reign spreading endlessly
beyond the hydrangea'd snowballs
soft sensed smile in purple, pink, blue, blinking blur
her shimmering future
a given of endless
golden possibility
ribboning into the melting horizon
over the edge into the unseen tomorrow
**********
Poem 8.
Love is Kind
Oft repeated that homily
of love being blind
usually related to the
falling into one another's
arms of one or another
whose passion has blurred
vision clearly seen by others
There is another sort of
love blindness that is kind
There on a hot summer week
in August I found it waiting
as my raven haired father
who leapt upon moving carousels
and swooped me into arms
and onto the ground
my raven haired father
smelling of turpentine
hands smeared with
cobalt, and sienna and
a palette of non-crayola colours
lay abed crisp white sheets
and I lay with him
in a magical space
of oxygen whir
and humidity
the others eyes
shrank when they
looked at him
seeing something
I did not see
as I rose on my
knees and sung
the song he had
taught me in childhood
strange song for
a child of three
"swing low, sweet chariot,
coming for to carry me home..."
singing high, folding my hand into
his, singing again and again
for eleven days and nights
in the steamy air of
sweet apricots
as he rid himself of
this pestering breath
and stepped raven haired
off the carousel
it took more than twenty years
for a moment when the blur
of love blindness cleared
and the muscle fell from his bones
and beneath my hand the jutting
knobs of each vertebrae
his thin robe
his thin arms
his thin silvered hair
For just a cruel moment
of some spoken clarity
Until returned to the
way it really was
in love
in kindness
my raven haired
father returned
**********
Poem 9.
On the Edge
Impossible to hold in the senses
what memory recalls clear
the moment when a mostly
non-believing father
rose and looked beyond
into the something so
profoundly boundless
clear as though he stood
at the edge of a mountain
top and I just behind
his body blocking my
vision of eternity
**********
Poem 10.
Changing It Up
There once was a guy from Toledo
Who once in New York knew not where to go
Should he cultured be
And visit the actual grand old opree
Or should he just find a hooker and image blow?
*******************
Poem 11. (haiku)
in the cool clearing
open shutters welcoming
in the cool clearing
***************************
Poem 12.
Sometime in the night
Sometime in the night
someone came up to my bed
where I had arranged
all my change next to my sleeping head
dimes, nickels, quarters, and pennies, even a half dollar, piled
loved the shining symmetry, the crystal clink that almost smiled
sometime in the night
someone came right there up to my sleeping bed
and stole all my change where I had it placed next to my sleeping head
replaced my shining pleasured treasure of incomparable tactile
with a limp, green, thin, paper - PAPER ! - five dollar bill
**********
