My grandfather was a high priest
a conjurer
a man who denied his own existence
he never played with guns until he shot himself
     when no one was looking
I was 11 years in the making
     slowly brought to fruition
pale of skin, almost colorless
my father did not know what to do with me
he would stare me down in the middle of the night
I learned to look away
or perhaps I was looking right at him

I took to tears easily
and threw tantrums even when I was happy
I once stood on my head
     for 3 days, 2 hours & 27 minutes
my parents took me to a shrink
     who was also a gymnast
I spoke upside-down to him
he nodded his head and tapped his feet
     and cartwheeled across the room
but I don’t think he really understood
My other grandfather was a Civil War general
     or maybe it was the Spanish American war
he spoke in anagrams and wove intricate tapestries
     he gave to the needy
he died late in life of a variety of sketchy illnesses

I was told he never laughed
neither did he sigh much
he was actually a lawyer
but where’s the poetry in that?
There are no dancers in my family, alas,
nor circus acrobats
but I’m pretty sure there were sailors going way back
and perhaps a pirate or two
     and definitely a damsel in distress






My parents met on a foggy foggy day
from then on they never saw each other clearly
still they married & had children
     one two three and four
one was a boy with a great hook shot
two was also a boy who could run and run and run
three was me
and four was a girl who got lost in the shuffle
We settled in a ramshackle bungalow on Park Avenue
no, wait, that’s some other family’s tall tale

I began to grow wings at the age of seven
but I refused to learn to fly
kids would taunt me and tease me
saying, “Fly, angel boy, fly!”
They once dragged me to the edge of a cliff
     and flung me over
I just rolled up into a ball and spun downward
multiplying numbers in my head to dull the pain
when I landed on the ground I tossed my wings aside
and skipped backwards all the way home

One summer’s day
     sick with fever and crows battering my brain
I discovered something inexplicably enticing
it fell upon my shoulders
down my chest and torso
I began speaking in tongues
became a true believer
my mother found tell tale signs one Christmas Eve
On that most silent of nights
she raised her voice
and demanded answers
I took the Fifth
     not knowing what I was doing,
         how could I explain it
She brought in the doctors and the experts
and even a shaman or two
they examined me up
they examined me down
they tested my brain waves
they locked me in a closet filled with suits and ties
they made me watch westerns & war movies
morning noon and night
and when the tumult and the shouting
     and the misguided attempts
          to brand me with normalcy died down
I gathered up my tears and danced once again
     into a sweet and mysterious underworld

We walked on fields of hellish amber,
our bare toes scraping barbed wire.
we held our naked palms out flat
so that they might feel the air thick with dust.
We walked in the black rain, dying our hair a sooty grey
and leaving vertical wrinkles on our cheeks.
We walked towards the end.

We watched the phoenix plumes rise up
then crescendo in an extinguishing fire.
we saw the mountains crumble, as if tired,
and lay in purplish rest.
We saw the shining sea stir against the coasts
and eat back the Earth.
We touched hands,
and we walked towards the end.

We saw a billion mouths demanding, reprimanding,
consuming and presuming, quiet to a hum.
We saw them crumple on driveways and in shopping malls,
murmuring so many names to the same effect.
They were still then,
but we,
we walked towards the end.

We trudged in our clothes,
shreds of some past life
we left there in the ashes.
We walked under the studded sky pierced by skyscrapers,
peeling back as easily as skin.
There, the torn fabric waltzed in a hissing breeze,
burning orange at the bulging seams.
Lopsided stars hung askew as decorations
and cartwheeled to the steady rythmn of gunfire.
Swaying, we danced along,
as we walked towards the end.

Scorched prairie grass crumbled beneath our feet.
Ringing filled us, and we broke cleanly in two.
Asphalt melted and mingled with the crust
and buildings knelt to pray.
We laid down side by side,
brushing our fingertips.
The sky bled lukewarm tears above us.
We knitted our hands together
and unfolded ourselves upon packed dirt,
black and singed,
as angels stitched the lacerated heavens.

We rested, tiny scars on Earth's craggy face.
We nicknamed every star and every worm,
orange with nuclear light.
Laughing, we closed our eyes,
flowing with the fire and the night.
Our hands were sure and firm,
as we drifted out of sight,
fading towards the end.

I've felt as, left-over as
last-night's left-hand & her
reclaiming, uncanny way of
well / of
my oh my, what a
good morning, I'd love to but;
I'd just need my heart back

it's the cartwheeled chaos
slapping against,
counting again to see if it works-
I'm calling my bluff I've had
enough of all the nothing.
you're the little tag on my red
the writing in black
every time it is grey until
there isn't anything left of you but
a hundred poems
the striped gills of my sorrow and
some slang cause
I ain't got it in me anymore

You could never really look at
The color yellow the same
Because she put in it poems
And wore it against her shoulders

You found in the way she smiled
Or the noise she made when she laughed
It burst through the times she cried
Swam in her crocodile tears

It settled on her furniture in pillows
And moved through her bones in daylight
But reflected in her eyes in the nighttime
Cartwheeled on her eyelashes

She exhaled it in between sheets
And whispered it against your ear
It warmed her hands as they touched you
Engulfed her soft fingertips

You found it in her curled hair
Or the freckles on her arched back
It hung on her pink plump lips
Vibrated in her velvety kisses

It patterned the dresses she wore
And painted the tips of her toes
But tickled the nape of her neck
Danced on her tanned skin

She held it tightly in her chest
And you felt it when you held her close
It hummed against your own
Consumed her entire body

You could never really look at
The color yellow the same
Because she put it in poems
And all it ever did
Was remind you of her

Is this actually possible? Considering so few pf the planes were built... i dunno...



Manchester Bomber Wreck

Manchester bomber rotting away

Different than it was before

Holes in the surface skin

Many pieces missing

Broken in two

Separated by many feet

Engines fallen free

Skeletons of the crew inside

Unknown war grave except to them

Who haunt their lost bomber

Lying under the sea bed

To them they’re still flying

In the sky above enemy territory

Fighting for their lives

With a faulty engine

Not actually on fire

Then the flak hit them

Damaging the tail unit

Followed by an enemy fighter

Who shoots them full of holes

And kills the Flight Engineer

Hitting him with a 20mm cannon shell

But not before the gunners

Down the **** night fighter

The crippled bomber flies on

Slowly losing height

They’ll never reach the target

Nor return home to England

So drop their bombs on a small town

Unknowingly killing dozens

Four tons of bombs will do that

The Manchester bomber wasn’t fired on again

Losing height was the enemy

They decided what to do and drew lots

Bail out or ditch in the sea?

They decided to ditch

It was almost dawn

And the horizon lit up

They should of made it

But the faulty engine finally died

The bomber stalled and dug a wing in

It cartwheeled over the sea

Broke in two and sank

All aboard were knocked out

And taken to a watery grave

Unknown to the world except themselves

The only remaining Manchester bomber

The dark still there
Plastic cup cover runs it course out into the day
Before tumbling onto its sides

Wheels rumble onto the road
Cars ahead of the still slumbering workforce
Defeated, no one notices the cup's cover
Nor wonders what it is doing there on the road
Passed by like so many things on a Tuesday morning

But I saw its little cartwheeled dance
Its fleeting greeting of midnight's newborn day
I saw the stillness of the wind that ever so slightly moved it
A bus stop souvenir instilled on my frames

Before everything comes alive
I watch the still-life plays that come out from the night
The cartwheeling covers
The sleeping trees
The strangers in the early hours
Waiting to catch their bus into the day

Everything seems harder.
The furniture we lounge,
the lighting.
What I put into my mouth.

I stay lit enough to function without slobbering.
Funny enough for them to think I mean it.
Creative enough without coming across as weird.

It happened upon a year of being alone.
I looked up and the child I'd forgotten was
not actually a child, cartwheeled away.

I stay sober enough to think I still matter,
and changed my name from Mom to
something vaguely familiar.
Oddly enough, a name my Mom gave me.

This level of impairment allows for memories
like the smell of baby **** to tease without
getting stuck on my imaginary teeth.

Without a word they turn into birds and fly their love away.
You go out to the driveway and stare,
and feel, and decide you're numb and
really dumb compared to other people.


Sara Fielder © Nov 2020

I want to give you
something to think about
that’s good when
the light has
disappeared.
So that it seems
like the altitude has
left only a
sliver of air
there to breathe.
And in the wave
of a cape,
in the flash
of a moment
at least, cleaved
away all that
had ever been wrong.
Feeling everything
cartwheeled together,
like confetti in color,
within you,
tumbling over and over.
I want to give you
something no one
would change.  Something
ready to find
whenever you want
and are crushed
at the moment,
at the verge of
a dream in
which
love is beginning,
not ending.