Bom Bom
Bom Bom
Bom Bom
Do you hear that?

That's the sound of my heart beating.

Bom Bom
Bom Bom
Bom Bom
Do you hear that?
That's the sound of your heart beating.

It was first day of October. I was wearing my blue sweater,
You know the one I bought at Dillard's? The one with a
double-knitted hem and holes in the ends of the sleeves
that I could poke my thumbs through
when it was cold but I didn't feel like wearing gloves?
It was the same sweater you said made my eyes look
like reflections of the stars on the ocean.
You promised to love me forever that night. . .
and boy
did you
ever.

It was the first day of December this time. I was wearing
my blue sweater, you know the one I bought at Dillard's?
The one with a double-knitted hem and holes in the ends of the sleeves that I could poke my thumbs through when it was cold I
didn't feel like wearing gloves?
It was the same sweater you said made my eyes look like
reflections of the stars on the ocean.
I told you I was three weeks late.
You told me it was fate.
You promised to love me forever that night. . .
and boy
did you
ever!

It was the first day of May. I was wearing my blue sweater,
although this time the double-stitched hem was worn
and the strength of each thread tested as they were pulled
tight against my growing belly. You know one.
The same one I bought at Dillard's?
The one with holes in the ends of the sleeves that I
could poke my thumbs through when it was cold but
I didn't feel like wearing gloves?
It was the same sweater you said made my eyes look like
reflections of the stars on the ocean.

The SAME sweater you RIPPED off my body
as you shoved me to the floor,
calling me a *****,
telling me
you didn't love me
anymore.

Bom Bom
Bom Bom
Bom Bom
Do you hear that? That's the sound of my heart beating.

Bom Bom
Bom Bom
Bom Bom
Do you hear that? That's the sound of your heart beating.



Do you hear that? Of course you don't.
That's the silence of my womb because you
RIPPED OFF MY SWEATER.

Looking at the clock, I struggle

Despair floating like an eye floaty thing
Get the hell out of here

Like cheese, I age, the more so the more I smell like a ****** old guy like ******* quit buying clothes from Dillard's

Like an onion, I make people cry because my face resembles a donkey getting ***** by an eagle that's ice skating and juggling

All at the same time.

Stuck in my socioeconomic class
My mom is getting harassed
My brain cells are getting grassed

I hate communists.

There once was an old man from Nantucket
Who spent his life kicking a bucket.
Then one day unaware
He had found nothing there
A garden ended his journey and arose he did just to pluck it.

...Take Time To Smell The Roses #1
Kathy S. Dillard

my feet are weary
but I walk tall
this path is worn
but I will outlast it
there is a city ahead
I imagine,
people who are strangers
now but perhaps not forever
the only always is my
desire to never be alone
I can only carry myself for so long
but I’ll make it, I say
I will collapse into the
arms of one who was once
a face in a shop or
a figure behind a book
who knows how many millions
will walk by
until I find the courage to fail
or maybe someone else reads
an Annie Dillard book
how much do I have in common
with anyone other than myself
probably nothing
I should let myself be lost
for someone else to find
I want to be a stranger again
tell me how to unlearn and
disremember

I'm a pretty pathetic poet
I'm not up at 3am pouring my heart out on white canvases
Or composing wonderful literature about love
Fact is in asleep before most of you eat dinner
Just sitting in my room thinking about the pack of Marlboro lights hidden under my bed
There's no great epiphany I can right about
I'm not a Emerson, a Whitman, or a Dillard or a Hull

I'm not a poet.

The dim fluorescent lights that illuminate the section of ties and clothes for 40 year old women. They buzz and if you watch every now and then they flicker.
The people mindlessly strolling down the carpeted isles, checking the clearance section titles ‘ladies blouses’
Every time you turn the corner, your own lonely and decrepit reflection greets you via the full length mirror ******* into the columns.
The particle board ceilings, the circular tables lined with multipacks of men’s underwear, the pointlessness of a store existing solely to accompany browsing zombies
You walk in not needing anything except to fill the extra time you have on a hot day in June. Hoping for anything to keep your mind off of the crushing weight that you need something to distract you from your own fear of being alone.

I'm not sure what it is about that one spot on Five Mile Rd.
that gets me every time
We used to go on walks
I'm not even sure if this is where we would walk every time
But if I'm being honest
I only remember a few of our walks

I'm not sure what it is about that one spot in Dillard's
with the one smell
that takes me back to that one spot on Five Mile

I don't remember the things you said
just the way things made me feel
My feet flying under me just happy to be outside
the kind bus driver thinking I was chasing him had to be waved on by you
multiple times

I'm not sure what it is about willow trees
I don't even know how many times we made those bracelets out of their limbs
but the ones that I still have are my strongest earthly possessions

I'm not sure what it is about the Starbucks where I last saw you alive
and a year later in the parking lot found out you were dead
I'm not sure why I never went and saw you
With reminders of your presence all around town I felt that you were always with me
Until one day you weren't

I still turn my head at the smell of a pipe like yours
I still turn my head at scruffy beards on bikes
I still turn my head at the best **** family dinner I will ever have at Flying Pie  

I am so sorry that when I turned my head at Starbucks

I didn't say goodbye

From:  Monet's impression of A Summer's Day
To:  "The starry, starry night" of Vangough's way
Finds the mystery from artistry of canvas and ink
--And gives my mind a moment's think.

What now does it render,
Of both color and spendor
What pros ever written
Might it tell.

When once unknown and now,
Never to be forgotten
Lives
That never end.

Oil spills onto paper
From an eye's Moment in time
Now rewrites its history
In rhyme.

With Monet of my right
And Van Gough of my left
Balances between the two,
Talent just known to few.

I gather my thoughts
of day and night
And place them
Whole and new.

A transference  of time and hour
Through portals of memoired pasts
Bring memorials of perfect views
That last, and last, and last.

Kathy S. Dillard
083008