Drawn to sweetness

They live in our house,
fleck-sized species of their family.
Have marched miles, as if
from San Antonio to Houston,
in dampness and crushing heat.
Through minute cracks,
they welcome themselves inside,
scale guts of walls until,
for them, nirvana.

Their barracks behind kitchen tile
and bathroom mirror,
they lap up microspecks
of apple juice and minty mouthwash.

I am a poor host,
half-heartedly remorseful.
To think, all that distance—
and then when rations are found,
wiped clean away with a corner
of moistened paper towel.

I console myself with knowing
each troop will soon enough
be replaced by another.

—Ash Canyon Review, Summer 2005, vol. 1, no. 1

Guest Poet: message in a bottle?

Fellow poet-blogger Wendy Bourke has a clear, distinct voice, her work ranging from light and humorous to poignant and wise—all of it relatable and with vivid details. Thought you might enjoy reading a poem she posted recently at Words and Words and Whatnot, one of her three blogs:

message in a bottle?

there’s a shelf 

near my tub,

piled with baffling mixtures 

of potions and oils,

extracts and elixirs –

to renew  

and restore, 

reinvent and refine: 

olive butter my body 

and  . . . 

mint julep my mind.

there are masks for my eyes  

and cheeks . . . 
chin, neck and nose . . .

and a bottle that offers me: 

strawberry toes.

little gifts, through the years,  

from my dear ones to me  –

selected, and given with thought, lovingly.

a shiny assortment of jars, tubes and bling – 

all, to boost and diminish, 

define, hide and cling.

a magnificent, fine, alchemistic array.

  

though, I wonder:  

what is it, they’re trying to say.

“A gift consists not in what is done or given, but in the intention of the giver or doer.”  - Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Moral Essays, Volume III:  de Feneficiis.

—copyright Wendy Bourke, 2013; reposted here with permission from author

Early art

Art in Kindergarten

should have been a joyful time,
the rounded tops
of so many crayons
sailing smoothly across
clean sheets of paper.
But I was scolded by the teacher,
as old as my grandmothers,
who labeled me predictable.

Once again I composed
my drawing—little-girlchild
beside a small square house,
delivering her bouquet
to the person lying ill inside.

Then the public rebuke,
"What you do is always the same.
But look at this picture"
(by the new girl in class):

Someone flat on a table,
globs of blood dropping.
And the elaborate tale
to accompany it—
an accident with a saw.
This, the bar that had to be met.

And so I learned I must have stories
of gore and pain and hope
and raw, rugged flesh
and began to draw my life
in varied themes, with colors
befitting a wounded soul.

—ken*again, Fall 2013

My first longer "free-verse" poem in several years—currently appearing in the online e-zine ken*again. I think I'd like to write more such poems in the not-too-distant future, while not abandoning tanka, my "true love."

P.S. The "new girl in class" became my best friend in first and second grade.

This marks an end to my 2013 "Back to School" theme. Thanks for following along!

Sharing with Poets United, Oct. 6, 2013

Beneath

When you unearth Atlantis

there
you will find me
my backroads
my passion
flung among the rubble.

You will find me
as embers
eros of energy
heaving through debris
like mountains
ascending from the ocean.

All you see now:

my lazuline eyes
and droplets of magma
glowing, creeping from their corners.

It is what you search for
this crusted chaos
is it not
(as souls seek out nests)?

But beware:
if you retrieve me
you must not keep me;
I could ignite

and so might you.

—Ancient Heart, 2006

photo (of a puddle) copyright of Robert Curtis

Sharing with Poets United, Sept. 1

Perhaps this poem is fitting given the scorched conditions we've had here, in our tiny dot on the map in southeast Texas, during the past month or two. 

How to prune a poet

I'm not prolific.
To get more lines from me
you'd have to prune me first—
grab your hand shears,
cut my creaking, errant excess out.

But do it right, at the right times,
never in winter,
during my hibernation.
Trim me with a cultivator's touch,
after lavishing me with water,
nourishing me, tending my petals
as if you were in love.

Don't hack, how brutal.
You could leave wounds
that would never heal.
I could become infected;
then I'd lower my limbs
in a defeated poet's stupor.
And at the most, I'd write of throbs,
an egregious injury
the likes of which you,
grimy gloved, would never feel.

—Megaera, Vol.8, Issue 3, No. 26, Summer 2006

sharing with Poets United 7/14

Transcendent in Spring

Today I will lay this body of bones aside—
sweep it onto the doorstep.
And this shroud of skin encasing it,
scarred and spotted and shabby with age,
I will hang to air out emptily
beneath the tepid April sky.

The blood that defines me, rich and ruby,
I will store inside jars until I return.
Human thoughts I will surrender to flame;
and the bodily pain that confines me,
strikes as darts and ghostly groans,
I will leave like litter on the ground.

Today I will be no more than the aura
around me, contracting, expanding,
soaring above all earthly sensation.
Tomorrow I will mingle again
with moths on this shadowy sphere.
But today I will regrow my eyes—
......................clear, lazuline.

—Megaera, Vol. 8, Issue no. 25, Spring 2006

Not another death poem

—for Judy

This poem is not about death;
there are too many of those.
It is about everything else:
the long discussions of when
we were seven or twenty-two;
how we fancied being “great writers”
(both of us, even then);
how we were otherwise unalike,
you protesting in the streets,
      me watching,
you flirting with any and all
who would flirt back,
      me blushing,
you with the wild hair and umber eyes. 

It is about anything but now;
anything but the slow fading,
anything but the white lilies
that will cover you before
the next hint of frost on the meadow. 

—Loch Raven Review, Vol. 1, No. 1, Fall 2005

This poem was republished in January at Juliet Wilson's Bolts of Silk; check out her fine 'zine.

Judy, who served as inspiration here, was a spirited "hippie" and somewhat-tragic figure from California; I got to know her a number of years ago at an online health-related forum. We had conversations about all sorts of things via e-mail and a time or two by phone. She grew up around music and had been a freelance writer (among other professions) who sometimes covered the L.A. music scene.

Judy helped and encouraged me with my first serious attempt or two at poetry. She said we'd have a fun time if I were there. However, she died too early, from an excrutiating illness—before, it would seem, she could finish living. (Neither of us, of course, turned into "great writers," but dreaming is easy!)

Ode to the fry

I.

Long and slender
like fingers
of a pianist,
other times
broad, almost Rubenesque,
your forms and moods
would sometimes change.
Your skin glistened
a golden tan,
and inside
you were crushed gardenias—
soft and white.
You were best
when sizzling;
I savored your taste
against my lips!
All this:
my portrait of you.

II.

Yet I chose
to wash my guilty
hands of you,
your touch greasy,
your scent
of spent fat oft
now repulsive.
O former fry
of my eye,
you were a houseguest
who would stay
too long—
the way
you would cling
to the gullible
roof of my mouth
with your blatant essence,
my former excess.

III.

I promise to remember
you with youthful lust,
you, wonder
of my innocence!
You, whom I have left
for another—
tossed in olive oil
and roasted—
were far too deadly
for my heart.

“Fry”—also known as “chip," e.g., in the UK.

—Megaera, Spring 2006 (No. 25)

Alas, I couldn't stay away forever. 

The Vultures

Only a yard or two and a barrier
of extra-strength window glass
separated me from them
as I managed the obligatory
post-surgery stretch down the hall—
the diseased organ ripped
from my body just hours before.

They were two elderly men
on a low corner of hospital roof,
hunched beneath overcast sky,
taking a smoke between courses.

We revile them. Winged warlocks,
we call them, these other-world scavengers.

Yet we revere them. They sense
the nearness of death long before
     the white coats do.

—Tryst, issue X-XI, 2004  

Not the right thing to see after surgery? It wasn't the painkillers, really.

Just got back home after a short stay in the city, where I had a somewhat-dreaded medical procedure involving anesthesia. I typically try to stay away from medical establishments, however.

Left alone

He will miss 
      the seasonal change,
      subtle as it will be:
      the first two waves of chill. 

He will leave
      when humid air still knocks
      against skin like angry beads
      and the jasmine draws in
      its final bees for the year— 

And will be gone
      while the oleander begin
      their hibernating droop
      and the hibiscus expose
      frameworks of thinning bones. 

He will not know
      the needle’s drill into
      tame, unsuspecting flesh,
      or the restive landscape
      of waiting for results— 

But will return
      in time to witness
      the expected conflagration:
      scarlet berries on the yaupon. 

—Loch Raven Review, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2005

The berries on our city yaupon tree (pictured) would turn bright red during November. Here in this rustic place where we now live, the clump of native yaupon by our driveway already is loaded with red berries.

Pinwheel

—for Jonathan

Stone not yet placed, but weeds
fill in. New home, extra room.
Crib unused, still up and dressed.

Earlier, the breeze unseasonably
cool. Now, melted sun-pelts splash
across shoulders, drizzle down backs.

See the family ringed around
the site, fingers intertwined,
prayer whispered:

One who carried him into
the world for three seasons.
Another who carried him out
in a tiny white case.
Delicate daughter, able
to comprehend.
First son, tow-headed two-
year-old I think I must be,

Who, moments later, will run off
to twirl a pinwheel. Will scoop up
the small American flag blown loose
onto a narrow hallway of grass,
then wait for feedback.

—The Penwood Review, Spring 2005

I knew no sadder thing. I flew up there to see if I could help, and together we visited the site. All the details in "Pinwheel" are literally true, down to the strange weather: cool, then suddenly blazing. My sister later asked me for an item of remembrance, and I was glad I could give her a copy of the print journal containing this poem. Each year since then, in recognition of Jonathan's birthday, the family has been placing a pinwheel beside the small stone.

Wilted

I am hollow with petals of August.
My thoughts form deadened fields,
even before the sun is opened full.

The air hangs humid, in tarry slabs.
Bricks of heat are savage
against backs, across faces,

While garden plants lie listless—
fading, faded—their lips pursed.
At least rain threats bring variance.

It hasn't always been like this:
There were years the sweat would tap dance
on vulnerable skin, not cling.

But now the world's awry;
and the Texas summer doesn't quit, 
just blurs itself into the fall.

—Pebble Lake Review, Summer 2005

Augusts can be brutal here, even when we're not officially in a state of drought. Two more months, two more months, I tell myself.