#raising
That King
He's a wild little critter,
He tries so hard
And he isn't a quitter,
Show him a new trick
And he'll try a hundred times,
Failure is not a concept
To a toddler in his prime.
That King
He's a good kid,
He always looks so innocent
When you ask him what he did,
When pots and pans are on the floor
Along with Kitty and Bunny,
He never looks guilty
Which always makes it funny.
That King he's a lovable punk
If there's one thing he hates it's a bathtub dunk ,
I think I know the cause but I'm not allowed to say it
So I will whisper it to you but please don't relay it.
His parental unit
They don't know Jack,
Regarding caring for new children
They are totally out of whack,
Co-sleeping with their kid
Feeding formula for a year,
And now they've moved on to junk food
We shake our heads and think, oh dear.
The parents shower once a day
And bathe the child once a week,
He isn't trained on high chair or food utensils
She feeds him by hand as if to a bird beak,
She denies her child Pepsi to drink
But offers him chicken Mcnuggets and fries,
He has little interest in normal food
Ya, that's no surprise.
Their idea of play
Means placing him in front of a toy,
Then his parents zone out on their phones
Ignoring their beautiful boy,
They rarely talk to him
Unless it is a reprimand,
These are three-degree parents
So I do not understand.
Now:
Momo and Popo
Are raising him each day,
On average that means 10 hours
Of education and play,
I won't allow that "Miss Rachel"
To be his predominant teacher,
I can't trust that million dollar
YouTube baby preacher.
King might grow up and say
My grandpa talked all the time,
Because Grandpa grew up listening to adults speak to each other
Not distracted by Amazon prime,
And also, Grandpa knows words
That are 150 years old,
Famous writers from the late 1800’s
Were the stories that his parents told.
That King
He is pint sized royalty,
Momo and Popo swear
Absolute loyalty,
To nurture him daily
And treat him with respect,
His parents are still in training
And it is our duty to protect.
Dec 10, 2025
Dec 10, 2025 at 8:32 PM UTC
I never truly experienced daddy issues,
Even when there were moments when his
Unconventional parenting, gave a hint of
Issue on how he periodically raised us.
Yet, he never did it for any press;
Or aimed for our childhood
To become fodder for magazine covers.
Covered with the words we could remember
From church services, not engaging in the
Practice of parenting, JUST
For public service.
He poured everything he had
Into raising us, drawing from
All he had at hand, from what
Was handed to him- to make him
A man. And for our own youngsters,
We will take the most
Important lessons to raise
Better men.
Nov 29, 2024
Nov 29, 2024 at 2:43 PM UTC
You've been my biggest fan, my ever-glowing, shining light
Showing me the way and how to do what's right
There are those that wonder, and ask me where I get my strength
I get my bravery from you, someone who would go to any length
I am the man I am because you taught me how to be
Without your love around, I do not think I could be me
These words may seem small, and they don't say what I want well
My gratefulness for you is something words could never tell
I thought I would try to write at least a couple bars
It is the least that I could do, for the woman made of stars
Whose heart has traveled galaxies; whose soul has traversed dimensions
I know that raising me was difficult, yet you always had the best intentions
Though the evenings may turn dark, there is always light in the dawn
No matter what happens, or where I may go, I am blessed to call you Mom
You say you love me to the moon and back, and I love you to Mars
Please consider this a birthday gift, to the woman made of stars
Jul 17, 2024
Jul 17, 2024 at 4:43 PM UTC
beat into me until i'm broken and the feelings
alight the layer of skin just below the outermost,
like the lining of a jacket, catching aflame.
scratch out the remaining worries with the spines of your teeth.
rake me upwards, shred the doubts like old sunburn peel, and peel and peel the layers of mistrust off of me till i'm raw, pink and ready.
never has this body not been scarred
without first feeling excitement.
since you pierced it, now you're responsible. I'll chase that ownership, mutually owed, to the end of all meaning. till the sensations are the only bits that still make sense, and then you can make up for everything else.
only after this, after everything else is spread across a blood splattered floor, can things start again. only once you make up for not returning the parts of me. only once my remaining organs, now calcified, have been cracked to their inner ichor, and you tip me gently into your thankless lungs.
only once the prostration, the words left since butchered into me, have been flayed by your regret, and raised to the height of saints.
hang me up.
swing by my legs and wrap around the root of me like you once would.
debase yourself inside of me again, learn to build something again. dig deeper than needed again, strike copper in my veins so I can oxidise again. watch me alight again, at your briefest touch.
Aug 22, 2023
Aug 22, 2023 at 4:39 PM UTC
a thousand years ago, wrote a poem called
“why I always carry tissues” -
a labor of love to
mine own toddlers misadventures,
requiring love covered in tissues so soft,
yet an ironclad coating
of natural substantive parenting
useful for tearing eyes, running noses,
and the cuts of living outdoors joyously
children grow older and oft that means,
they seek not your counsel,
and if offered, politely ignored,
for so it goes tween fathers and sons
then one summer days you receive an
observation, a datapoint that irradiates,
a quiet confirmation that not everything
you’ve said and done has gone astray
a young’un of “almost ten,” informs her father,
around the luncheon table of three generations,
that her foot is hurting; the son, now the father,
diagnosis renders, a blister, which will require
a protective custody that will protect the child’s
feet from the ravages of furious Shell Beach fun,
or the rough of a Manhattan sidewalk
I watch with a joy so quiet and so overwhelming,
as the son-father reaches into a cargo pocket,
producing not one but two bandaids, for life
requires backups for there are other babes about,
who at moments notice, produce scrapes and cuts
of ever greater consequence for each year they age
his wife renders me overjoyed, when she dryly
observe how certain children are lucky that
their father always carries bandaids, a new factoid,
for me, an unknown that glistens like a wet shell
now my eyes tearing, for a message in a bandaid,
or a tissue no matter which, is a certified proof,
somehow a message got through the clutter,
marked “well received,” that loving well requires
an oh so very hard attention to details, and that deep pockets
are repositories of good notions, handed down generations
June 24, 2021
Shell Beach
Jul 15, 2021
Jul 15, 2021 at 5:07 AM UTC
Memories
Like a fistful of sand
Leaky and incomplete
Something I can't grasp
Like talking in my sleep
Memories
Of dreams in daylight
Of things that never were
Like reflected starlight
Music gone unheard
Memories
Of cold nights and warm lips
Of skeletons and their prayers
From buried paths they slip
Abandoning their lairs
Memories
Like a stream in the night
It's darkest depths concealed
Memories
Like snow's last flight
Melts as it's revealed
Feb 15, 2019
Feb 15, 2019 at 1:07 PM UTC
You were the smallest baby when you were born
How could we have guessed you'd be such a thorn?
You put the twinkle in our eye
It reminds me daily when I look at my thigh.
I hate moments we argue, hate when we fight
You have been so wrong but mostly you're right
Can't imagine giving birth to a child
You sacrificed lots to make sure I smiled
I dedicated life to my daughter
Little did I know that would stupidly start some slaughter
Now you go begin life on your own
I stand back watching how much you have grown
Very confident and bold
More valuable than silver or gold
I did not ask to be brought into this world
Hands tiny, innocently curled
So much time has passed since then
Now you're not just my mom, you're my best friend!
Raising you taught me so much
With more ahead in store
Every day that passes I
Love more and more
Jan 25, 2019
Jan 25, 2019 at 9:24 AM UTC
It's not my breath
That enlightens mind.
Not my agua uplifting
These outstretched limbs,
Forever reaching, nor the hand
Always bringing another with.
Not my thousands of rivers
Of blood forever flowing,
Enlivening life eternal.
Nor, my right heart's unbeat,
Spiritually evolving somatic
Revolution with all, the Earth.
Not my striving to thrive,
Leaving no footprints
That followed none,
Echoing in all ways, always.
Life isn't mine, being is
Relation, I cannot "give it up".
Mar 14, 2018
Mar 14, 2018 at 2:11 PM UTC
A yellow bird sits on my knee
It says "Hello, I am reincarnated mother"
She was dead picking the poisoned flower
From the shelf of her wayward children
We have no way of knowing right from wrong
We will go on living as rebellious bird daughters
Flitting from heart to heart
Seeking shelter in men's broken parts
Crying when we cannot start
Laughing when we finish money
Eating away our sadness
Motherless daughters without any stress
Trading our mother's feathers for a new dress
Oct 5, 2017
Oct 5, 2017 at 1:52 PM UTC
Bad birth, Birthed a ******* baby
Born bad, born to be betrayed
Baggage badly backhanded beaten brutally
Born to be bullied, Before breathing beauty
Born to be bashed
A Barrier bouncing barbarian
Black blocks block beautiful behavior
Boiling beauty turns to a brutal beast
Blocked brain banned from being the best
A bitter beast born bad bonded behind bigotry
Bombarded brain brutally beaten before birth
May 19, 2017
May 19, 2017 at 10:36 AM UTC
Dad,
Where are you? Can you hear me?
Can we communicate right now?
It's your son, and I've grown older,
but still so much I don't know how.
It's just a few years since you've left us,
though for many you were ready.
I saw you fade but to a whisper,
from a voice so strong and steady.
And though you may have thought
I couldn't wait for you to die;
Today, I stand bewildered.
I beg for one more chance to try.
To try to ask you how you did it;
be a husband and a dad?
Things I never thought to ask you,
or did not know how since I was mad.
But, they throw food across the table.
Constantly fight and misbehave,
and then my wife feels so defeated.
(You must be turning in your grave.)
I worry so I've failed my boys.
As I remember, so once did you.
Though my brothers and I, we made it.
Just exactly how, I never knew.
The things I never saw you do,
yet, you must've done somehow.
Solving all the world's dismays.
Never failing in your vow.
You made it look so easy.
So calm and yet concerned.
No question left unanswered.
No compliment unearned.
You always looked undaunted.
Did you ever want to run?
Where did you find the answers
on exactly how to raise a son?
I sat smugly as a young man
dismissing all you said to me.
But, sadly now I sit here
wishing for one more chance to see.
Oct 27, 2016
Oct 27, 2016 at 10:56 PM UTC
They gathered by Williamson Road at sun-up
from neighboring spreads across the Tioga valley.
They came with carts laden with lumber stacks -
with saws, adzes, hammers and sundry tools.
They gathered with the homesteaders bond.
to co-build their neighbor's' dreams.
Sweet music of community echoed off the hills.
Chisels clanged into rock, shaping the foundation,
saws sang into boards to frame a timbered skeleton.
The staccato syncopation of hammers fastened walls
that soon would shelter plowshares, stock and grain.
A smithy leaned over his fire and forge -
chiming iron into sturdy latches and hinges.
Children scurried about mixing squeals and laughter
with exuberant fetching and lifting whenever called.
In two short passings of the sun the deed was done
and a handsome new barn, decked out in a wash of red
was silhouetted tall and proud against the fading light.
Homesteaders gathered at a celebration table
to share a hearty meal adorned by the music
of fiddles, grateful smiles and easy laughter.
Then one by one they steered their wagons home
gazing back at what their labors had wrought -
knowing to the depth of their communal souls
that we are more together than we are apart
Listen up, America! This is the music of community.
We are more together than we are apart.
© 2016 by Robert Charles Howard
Jul 31, 2016
Jul 31, 2016 at 10:16 AM UTC
This temper that lives inside
Storms out unexpectedly
Like a monster unleashed
Ignited by stress
Spilling Anger
Yelling in irritation
Sensing my mother
Lurking in my shadow
A vile aftertaste still lingers
Forced fed by her poisonous venom
Until I realize
I'm roaring
Splashing my screams onto
My loved ones
Making them cry
The beast has taken over
From the depths
Where my momster
Lay her eggs
Waiting for them to hatch
And be released
In shame and guilt
The last thing I want
Is the mirage of that
Ghost haunting
My babies
The creature that resides
Hidden from the world
To protect against
The carnivores who feasted
On my innocence
Now breathing to exhale my scare
Away from my young's oxygen
One breath at a time until
The monster's ghost
Has settled back
Deep inside my oppressed soul
© Jl 2016
Feb 13, 2016
Feb 13, 2016 at 10:49 AM UTC
I was raised on dissonance
watching the mental conflicts rage war in each of the human beings I am a product of.
they almost named me concordance so that I would never feel like I was the product of two failures
so that I would feel whole in a divided world
but from day one I have been an anomaly
loving pain but living with the fear of being hurt
this is why they named me variance
to teach me that growing up meant filling in the pieces
and that it was okay if each piece was taken from another whole to patch yourself together
I was raised on numbers
my first word was five
this number composes all human beings
five fingers
five toes
five vital organs
but none of them are mine.
-KZ
Mar 15, 2015
Mar 15, 2015 at 10:37 PM UTC
That woman has never had a motherly soul.
That is why her children have become so impudent!
Patience and Kindness is the key to raising young ones.
Support and Love is the key to raising young ones.
Trust and Faith is the key to raising young ones.
Apr 2, 2014
Apr 2, 2014 at 3:55 AM UTC