Journey

I have often bent my head
to rest on a pillow, not linen
and feathers, but concrete
and small squalid stones.

Like the breath of
a thousand butterflies,
a little wind has covered
my exposed and tested bones.

My lips have often whispered
in God’s ear, and He has
answered with a bit of stale bread.

Now I sit quietly in corners
listening to the gossip of honeybees,
whose wings are translucent
in an August sun.

I watch my skin grow thin and fragile
as sheets of onion-skin or the wings of moths.

It has been a journey - harrowing
and flush with revelation, leaving me
gaping at the wonder of it all.

Saturday.
He fondles his roses
as little Beth walks by,
holding her mommy’s hand.
When mother and daughter
are up the street a bit,
he palpates petals,
lets thorn press into his crotch.

He is that nice old retired preacher
from the middle of the block.
He babysits Beth while her mommy
goes to the gym.

His predilections are private...
secret...
No one knows.
No one knows but little Beth...

and all the little girls before her.
Not everyone is who they seem
and evil can live forever hidden.

Bumblebee Books

My Grammy was my special hero who taught me a loving respect for books.
She said books teach us and widen our world,
they never give a fig about a reader’s looks, or if they new clothes.

When June came the yellow trucks would arrive
from the school-system for Grammy to repair.
For this was 1952, where a book had to survive.

We had glue pots with tongue-depressor tongues,
and tape and scissors and huge erasers, pink
and white for the ink marks dancing on the page.
Words and words and words, all to make you think.

Big bumblebees would swarm about the pots of glue,
touching their tongues to the white Elmer’s taste.
We trimmed and erased and I learned of far-off lands.
We were careful that our glue never went to waste.

Unwanted and unloved, treated with savage brutality,
this was a place of freedom and acceptance, a world
where little girls found hope and safety so she would
grow into a woman who sits with a book, legs curled.

Nothing savored Nothing cherished
Chewing wood, spitting silk
Hating every creeping moment
till darkness lowers and laps at my toes
Blessed darkness gives me a cave
where I may retreat from all hateful, glossy life -
oblivion with eyes wide open
Monumental sorrow grinds my guts to dust
Hopelessness, a ******* that licks my ear,
whispers obscene melodies.
An ache to take out the tools
used to mark my hatred on myself
Hope is a lie believed by fools and sinners
That baked desert called my mind
spits dust on dreams
Trapped by iron bars
bleeding despair,
my face, a pale moon of desolation
peering out on savage scenes of normalcy.
Fingers tremble on the keyboard
longing to smash its plastic against my head.
Some say how sweet and gentle I am
I can’t wait to escape and laugh at their gullibility. . .
had I an ax I would chop off my haunting countenance
and hide the pieces in brown paper bags
flung into back yards around the town
Am I sweet and gentle as they say
but refuse the treacle of the words
Or have I acted upon the stage so well
I have become what I loathe to be

May I go in grace at my time,
slipping into that dark black void,
never knowing fear or panic
May visions of sweet memories
bring me peace for my hour of death
May I soar with what angels come
to guide me to that place waiting
where eternity will carry me
Let there be good I can do then

Living in a big city is not who I am
but life doesn't always give us what we want
I remember Grandma's Montana farm
and I go there in my mind when things are rough
Grandma was a little thing, not five feet tall,
but she had the courage of a lion all her years
We went there to live when I was five years old
I was dying from the coastal air and was very frail
My brother was a baby and the apple of my eye
We rode there in a chartreuse Ford, bundled
into blankets...there were no seatbelts back then
The wonder of all that 100 acres to roam and play
Chickens so sweet clucked round my little feet
The geese, Candy and Dandy, were terrorists,
hiding behind the root cellar and darting out
to chase me to the outhouse beyond the shed
Rosie the runaway horse chased cars
Grandpa made flapjacks and those not eaten
were put on the cupboard and I ate them cold...
Maybe heaven will be my Grandma's farm...

Memories hunker behind
a door marked “Blessed Oblivion”.
The key is under the mat.
To choose one, open and peek
inside would be
a foolish flagellation.

Secrets simmer in cannibal pots,
lids held down by tenuous fingers.
Some truths deserve to be buried.
Some memories must be held
as closed as a spinster’s knees.

Doors opened less than judiciously
trigger popping puppets that scream.
A mind is only as strong
as its most heinous memory.

Some minds are olios, badly stirred,
their orts floating in a brine of insanity
that needs a pinch of salt.
Reality paints itself as a circus clown,
and changes the rules of life
without warning...

Invisible

They walk the city streets, invisible.
Everyone looks away, afraid to see.
Afraid that they themselves may
one day have to say, “It’s me.”

They dig through garbage bins,
and everyone looks away in disgust.
To eat and strengthen the body
is nit a little thing - it is a must.

Invisible and hated, street people

Scent of pine lingers
over the deep labyrinths
beneath the trees.
Black beetles bump chests
like Sumo wrestlers
as they try to avoid each other
in the warm scratch
of detritus dark with shade.
Baby snakes lace the meadow grass
where deep sunshine heats their cold bones.
A deep hush is suspended
by the erratic leaps of pond frogs.
One sails on a limb through
water yellow and noxious as nicotine.
The day carries  its own rhythms
and paints them on a peaceful canvas.
Where I would love to be.

Tedious and tiring.  Arrayed before me like a king’s court, books open, but eyes on me.  ******* on the **** of my wisdom, absorbing little.  A lazy October sun peeks through the windows, highlighting the auburn hair of the girl in the front row...the one who sits, legs slyly parted, hoping I will notice her lace ******* and...
But no, I am sated and cannot rise to interest for her.  Silly thing, thinking her ****** and obvious try at seduction will rouse me. Yes, she is a pretty specimen, but I have a garden of such flowers. Wilted roses that give me no more pleasure.
Soon the bell will ring and these pathetic creatures will pour out the door and I will wait for the next herd, bored by their very existence.  I feel like a cowherd readying to lead the bored and boring cattle to sentient awareness, dim though it may be.  

I do not bother to look up.  There is no need - they are all the same.  I begin to lecture when there is an interruption.  Can these creatures not get to class on time?
Hoping to berate the latecomer, to vent my squirming spleen and make the day less cloying...  She is there...this new student.  This rose who must be in my garden of perfection.  Breath leaves my lungs and I am struck dumb.  I, who am strong and stalwart...a prime alpha male am rendered a stuttering child.
Her name - Rose McClellan.  My Rose.  She hands me her class card and chooses a desk far in the back.  My heart is beating loudly, my hands have a sheen of sweat.  Nothing about this day is ordinary now.

How many more springs will be granted.
Springs where seeds and flowers are planted.
How long will the filthy rain sustain the vigor
Of tender shoots so green and innocently eager.
We spew out human seed to take root on earth,
Lessening its space, its value and its worth.
How long until we are world of ants scurrying,
Everything trampled by the constant hurrying.
We have chipped the beauty away into rows
of ticky-tacky houses where nothing grows.
Where are the jungles, the forest primeval.
Not now but air and water that are lethal.
Oh, mourn the earth of beauteous expanse.
Now no beauty can be found with a glance.
Mayhaps we will survive - but maybe not. . .
between progress and the lessons taught.
Sleep well sweet Earth, beautiful orb.

THE OFFERING

He sat, silently smirking over
his cardboard cup of coffee,
leaning, to lap it like a cat.

Lips oiled and curved and bluish,
hands knotted with filth, he
stroked his pocket.

Like a child picking wildflowers -
he paid court to every set of eyes
in the busy hum of the fast-food
place.

He chose me and pinned me to
his moment in time.
Lascivious, leering, laughing,
he opened his pocket just for me.

A half-dead sparrow leaked
part way out and burred its
broken wing.

It sang as sweetly as if we were
in a glen, a meadow, a dale of
helitroping sunflowers.

Then he licked one lip and
ran his bony, bent finger down
the bird's spine, causing it
to flutter, as if some phantom
wind blew by...

Transformation

Ebon night is seeping away,
like spilled ink slips on satin.
Curling its toes, yawning wide
and ready for bed and sleep.

Quicksilver shadows dart
like lightening bugs in August.
Knowing their end is coming
soon, they scatter to hide away.

Little stars tiptoe off to their room,
dragging slip streams behind.

Mother moon counts her children,
tucks them in in satin blankets,
kisses their cheeks with pale lips,
and then taking herself by the hand,
climbs the stairs in the wake of dawn.

I woke up this morning in
an America I did not recognize
So many years of just drifting,
certain of her elasticity
her ability to shake off
the parasites and naysayers
Now I see a buffoon where
lesser buffoons have capered
Why do I imagine that under
that bleached wave, are the
numbers 666?
Wake up all you who have
slept beside me, drifting
in the false safety that is not
We must dust off our shoes
and march again, doggedly
and without reservation.
We must demand justice and change...
peacefully and forcefully.
For this nation is one person
who stands up and says - "Enough!"
My wheelchair and your legs
must gather others and refuse
to be silent - evermore.

made myself a promise
no more men for me
then in a moment of self-pity
your smile was there
spreading hope
over me
like warm jam