A Poem for Grammy's Lawn

I like to run my lawnmower
I like to mow my lawn
I want to mow it every day
But now the grass is gone

So now all I can mow is dirt
Which raises clouds of dust
You may think I mow too much
But I don't mow enough

Now that all my grass is gone
Some moss grows on the side
I'd mow that too, but it's too low
So I just let it lie

One day I fell and lost my wig
And Rickey picked it up
He said "Hey, Grammy, Here's your Hair."
I though I'd bust a gut

Now here's the reason that I mow
You'll say "For goodness sake!"
With grass so short you see the dirt
It can't hide any snakes!

Richard Thietje 2010

Encapsulated in a cloud of smoke
She coughs, splutters, releases the choke
Shouting down the garden; ‘it’s on fire, fire!’
My mother looks on with fathomless tire.

Stuffed on chicken wire,
no rooster in the yard.

I’m practicing magic
while the lawnmower rides.

Funny that,
said her valentine.

They hadn’t yet learned
there’s so much to know,

her body opening
like a rose.

When my father was young he mowed lawns for money. He pushed a second-hand spinning blade in the hot Florida sun for spare change.

With dull coins clanging in his pocket and crumpled bills in his palm, my father fought to escape home.

To him, home was synonymous with scary southern suburbia, where late-night television  was replaced with screaming matches and loud fists. Angry eyes with children's cries. Barbecues bombarded with apologetic looks from neighbors. Pretending not to hear shatters and shouts of supposed 'baseball black eyes'.

And so he pushed. Pushed the rusty lawn mower down strangers' yards, pushed away the sniggering snot-nosed kids calling him '****', and pushed at his father's demons, crawling down his spine, whispering that he was no good.

Years later he kept pushing
Pushing
Pushing
Pushing towards whatever came next. Yet no matter how much he pushed, he was still the same boy with the lawn mower. Angry, mad, pushing violently ahead.

The smoke of sanity is inhaled now, as my father's blood-shot eyes try to suppress the angry boy within. The residue of stolen innocence is not left unnoticed. A touch of tone on his once sunburnt neck and the man he has made instantly flushes away, leaving his father's demons. Calmer than before, a dying star, burning bright before collapse.

Like a strong jaw, his father's anger is passed down to him, and I, his son, am now born with this seed of destruction. Smaller than before, but still seething.

Constantly reminded, I sit in a leather chair surrounded by white walls in carefully controlled climate, plastic pen perched on my palm, I push.

I'll keep pushing.