"groundskeeper" poems
(Hypnos- God of Sleep
Eros- God of Love
Nyx- Goddess of Night)
ME:
I closed my eyes
And met 3 strangers
Whose names I knew but,
Could not express.
They stood with grace and prowess,
Each one grander than the next.
They petitioned me to ask them,
Anything at all,
So I asked them about dreams,
Given to us by gods.
HYPNOS:
A weak internal monologue,
Lapsing into night.
They sleep and breathe
So slowly,
They sleep; and breathe so deep.
EROS:
Their dreams I clouded,
Tinged, with crimson haze.
They long for one another,
They long;
To find each other.
NYX:
The dream ends now!
As my darkness overwhelms.
They no longer need to think,
They drink;
As to forget.
ME:
Pretence keeps up my dreaming,
Innerspeaker of my thoughts,
Past tense reveals it all:
Groundskeeper
To my soul.
An arrow from your quivers
Surely would do the job,
Of a thousand
Quarts of liqour
Or novocaine, or god.
NYX:
When you see light
You will see clearly,
The truth of misery.
Though I know nothing of such light,
The darkness lives in me.
EROS:
Soon your day will come,
To feel as all the rest.
The burning fire of passion,
Bellowing wild,
A fire without smoke.
HYPNOS:
And now as you awake,
Arise! Dear sir, go forth,
Knowing of what you learned,
In this episode,
This dream.
Jan 22, 2018
Jan 22, 2018 at 5:50 PM UTC
i want to be
your paper shooting-target
i will absorb every bullet you spit at me
and i will drift back to you
as you press a button
i want to be
your ant eater
your vaccuum cleaner
your band leader
i want to be
your Derek Jeter
you are a mansion,
i am your humble groundskeeper
Nov 2, 2011
Nov 2, 2011 at 1:06 PM UTC
The last drops have been swallowed,
And the last vestiges
Of post-wage labor
Libationary sorrow
Swagger slowly off
Into the night
Across cracked pavement
Like slugs after rain.
I pick up the chemtrail
Left by my father
And follow it to
A makeshift master suite
Wedged between a
Rundown groundskeeper
Shed and the unkempt
Wilderness beside the
Desolate bike path
In rural Seekonk.
The rest of this comatose
Town in this overdosed
Commonwealth
Are separated
By enough trees
And undergrowth
And small
Night creatures
Calling to each other
In the dark
That they can't hear
The nightly
Rattle of .38
Rounds my father
Sends flying into the trees.
The pistol was my
Grandfather's,
Brought over from France
In 1947.
My father cries
As he pulls the trigger
Over and over
Sporatically,
Like a Sung Tong,
His eyes wild,
Darting side to side
In milky blue trails
Back and forth
And up and down
Across the dark
Chasms of his
Eye sockets.
When the chambers
Of his firearm
Run dry he fills them
From the box
He took from my basement,
In his old house,
Where he stockpiled
Ammunition for
Twenty two years.
I've learned to stand east
Of my father when
I make the visits
Expected of children
When their parents
Are old and trapped
In the recesses of
Their insanity
Or nursing home
Or empty nest,
Because he always
Aims west.
I wait for tonight's
Box to be empty,
Then slowly walk
To where my father
Is huddled,
Clutching the pistol
Like a teddy bear.
He is breathing heavy,
And has **** himself.
He hears me coming,
Turns, and smiles
Upon recognition.
"I got em good mikey,
Got good, not taking
My land from ME
Mickey, never going
Blow south,
See it?"
I pull the pistol I've
Brought from my waistband,
The one my father,
Gregory Bishop,
Gave me on my
Eighteenth birthday.
The weight in my hand
Is deafening,
The illegal ivory
Is seamless
And cold against
My palm.
I raise my arm,
Aim,
And pull the trigger.
Oct 5, 2012
Oct 5, 2012 at 5:28 PM UTC
stuffing stolen oxygen
into my secondhand bag,
and smiling up at the
butter sun;
the ancient groundskeeper says,
earth mama, you should be
doing pirouettes
in Santa Ana, stumbling
barefoot bright sidewalks
in Albuquerque.
I nod and get in my car
feel my soul twitch
and I am astounded that
the trees haven't
found me out
yet, that the lilies
haven't strangled me
in my sleep
yet.
maybe I’ve been here
too long too long
maybe I need to go
where the sun is
relentless..
1500 miles to Albuquerque
Jul 20, 2012
Jul 20, 2012 at 10:47 PM UTC
I still can't go there.
To that little swatch of grass
bathed in sunlight
without even a dappling of shade
It seems like a green field of memories
with almost no one left to remember
Even the words subscribed on the tiny brass plaques
seem somehow belittling
With them set into the ground
for the convenience of mowers
to pass over
It makes her seem
so inconsequential
that she shouldn't trouble the groundskeeper
with her monument
It makes me think of the mundane consequences of death
that overshadow the greatness of life
Like the simple economics
of maintenance
I can't look at the life of such a beautiful women
summed up in such a small way
it seems so common
so trite
I know that she would have told you
that she was common
but she wasn't
She had a greatness in her soul and being
that transcended the normal
that transcends death
I am overwhelmed by that little plaque
and it's insignificance
Enough to paralyze me from going there
I know that if I see it it will push
the other memories from my mind
and supplant her
She will become a place in a cemetery
with a little map on the grounds keeping shed
gridded and numbered
number 6 in row B
a little part of the order in a small field
and I can't have that
Jan 23, 2014
Jan 23, 2014 at 9:38 AM UTC
My night, under opaque wraps, collects my candid questions —
unkept before the walls crept back up on me and
crammed my thorough thoughts
into sufficient suffocation and disallowed my dislocation
from total cerebral closure —
and covers cognative wonders with a dense fence-like stone cure.
The clean-cut cold sheets, tucked beneath the bed springs
spring my curiosity through layer after layer
of teeming tides of blockades and prohibition
but someone sits at the edge of the road, just before crack
drops to cliff and he catches my despair, tangled in the rye, and
before my in-experience allows me to cry,
he hurls my candid questions back my way and continues
my disallowance of detaching myself from purity.
But despite his baseball mitts, he can’t catch my verbal fits
so I scream, “My wants can’t be blocked forever and Holden,
I’m holding onto my life for the sake of avoiding strife with you but
celibacy of the mind can only lead to our true demise.”
He looks me in the eyes, scared he’d been outdone,
so he tries to run but the cliff leaves him hanging and
I reach for his undemanding hand that swats my offer
with a backwards hat.
But his fear subsides in his recollection of his misinterpretation of
a silly old poem that led him to believe he could catch our innocence.
So wear your hat straight, Holden, ‘cause in the rye,
you’re not the groundskeeper, but keep your ground and
catch yourself before you fall off the cliff and lose yourself
in your selfless tantrums and your disregard for your need for wondering.
Let me break through my caul, ‘cause it’s burning of decay and
I’ve overstayed my welcome in this amniotic gate, devoid of vitality,
and I like my life in my own hands, so I’ll tell you now:
I’m holdin’ on, Holden. Get a grip and hold on, yourself.
Mar 1, 2014
Mar 1, 2014 at 3:54 PM UTC
He's a rat in a cage
Strolling down his lonesome trails
around the grounds.
His knees are shaky and he's working minimum wage.
He tries to unlock the door to the gymnasium,
but his fragile hands can't still the keys.
Every day he rode his bike to work
And his grey appearance would turn sour in the cold morning wind.
Every day at 9 am, he would take a deep breath, and upon exhaling, he would raise the flag on the grounds square.
It was a ragged, pale old flag stained with the tears of time and his years at the gates.
He would sit in the afternoon sun, after the sound of the bells and all the kids were gone. In his dark blue jumpsuit, unable to remember how he felt before. When he was the one on the grounds, climbing the pine trees.
Feb 26, 2014
Feb 26, 2014 at 4:11 PM UTC
Just for a time
I thought it might be nice
To hold onto something fleeting
Something outside my might
Like, a few notes played over ivory keys
Plastic and pristine as they still seem
Can make something change for a day or so
There's something to be said about the whole
Being more
Than the sum
Old grounds
Older groundskeeper
Feeble and perturbed
A victim of himself
And his age
Mental anomaly still feels fine
Tiny little levers getting flipped around
Creating new demons to exorcise
But barring sudden
Static shock
It might as well happen
Can't change
Won't change
It would happen anyway
****
I haven't felt too happy, as of late
Questioning just how long to wait
Before dropping off the map
A whole new life tempts and attracts
Closer and closer
Drifting into the unknown
**** the magic only comes around once
Barring me out
Leaving me stuck
Bricked up the ways in which I've come
To each new dead end
Hungry for change
But unwilling to amend
And I don't know why this world keeps turning
Tried and true
As I keep burning through
Exhausting words, and things to prove
Jul 11, 2017
Jul 11, 2017 at 3:54 AM UTC
Like the shade of a great tree in summer heat
I sit beneath your love like a weary traveler
As a man tired and panting in humid weather
Waiting for the storm to move in outside
My window and let the raindrops fall like the tears
That no longer flow from my eyes as wellsprings
Or from yours in your pain... I rest beneath the tree
Of your love like a groundskeeper in autumn;
Watering and tending you for now, in my love
Watching you begin to bloom again.
Jul 27, 2011
Jul 27, 2011 at 10:43 AM UTC
Obama was the nicest guy - Intelligent and cool.
Comparatively speaking, his successor plays the fool.
Ridiculous and baseless tweets, The Donald can't avoid.
His recent missives indicate he's turning paranoid.
Barack Obama seems to be Trump's ongoing obsession.
Obama saved the U.S.A. from Bush-induced recession.
The Donald hates Barack's success and can't leave it alone,
and Trump, now "off the rails", claims Obama bugged his phone!
Trump's offered no supporting facts for his emphatic claim.
No warrants from the F.B.I. or C.I.A. to blame.
Perhaps he thinks Barack Obama has a super-power
that lets him fly high in the sky to break into Trump Tower.
So, do you wonder, Donald Trump, just where Barack is now?
Is he there behind the curtains? Is he in the walls somehow?
Is he watching from the ceiling? Is he in the chandelier?
Is he in your 15th closet? Do these thoughts fill you with fear?
Is he down at Mar-a-Lago, in the old groundskeeper's shed?
Is he disguised just like Melania, right there in your bed?
The truth may be much worse than that! Does it fill you with dread,
to realize Barack is living... deep inside your head?
Mar 11, 2017
Mar 11, 2017 at 1:49 PM UTC
I found a heart on my doorstep
And rushed to bring it inside
To put it in a new ***
With good soil from the nice patch of grass,
And fresh water from the tap,
Wondering
who could ever have thought
That I was responsible enough
To care for something like this
When they could see all the planters by my door
Have withered away to dust?
Feb 27, 2017
Feb 27, 2017 at 7:17 PM UTC
My eyes probe the mist where it clings to to mountains.
The mountains who stand tall and strong
Who grow darker as they rise Shadows.
They're pitted against the sharp vibrant sky
That surrounds them, vast, blue, mysterious.
I linger over the glassy river surface
That reflects the cotton clouds
And the dark, haunting mountains
And their huge blue groundskeeper
The river winds and winds,
A great thriving knot,
Untanglable.
That sinks and weaves
And swims
Level with the earth
Equal in grandness
Acts as home to all
All who breath air
All who drink and sleep.
Those who gaze up at towers of green
When the sun is high and summer abroad
They chatter and gather and hunt
They roll in beds of fuzzy moss
Growing, growing,
To give life to others
To leave when it's time
I reach, I stretch
My fingers strain
To go there
To escape
So close, so close
My hands hit the glass.
The **** jumps the frame.
May 24, 2013
May 24, 2013 at 11:31 PM UTC
he called from the edge
of a cliff
“look to the stars”
a peach pit
or plum stem
in orbit
adrift
he thinks
about
being forgotten
in the garden
overgrown
no chemical
in the memory
and the room
is more open now
halved
with nectar
dripping
the cosmos
exposed
and he
enters
through the
stone
of a
lychee
Dec 16, 2022
Dec 16, 2022 at 12:23 AM UTC
as some things incorrectly have wings, we stamp a chicken into the hood of a cop car. the groundskeeper on break inside the church wonders aloud how much is left of the lord. a boy not part of our boyhood bikes over to us with his feet he’s named individually show and tell. the cop chuckles but straightens out when he sees what I’ve made of my hand. the boy says careful it might stay that way for good.
Mar 21, 2013
Mar 21, 2013 at 3:01 PM UTC
Assume the role of groundskeeper
entirely and entitledly. This is
your destiny: as a human
being your role is to care for
every plant, animal, and
fungus as your kin, for they
are the material that breeds us.
Permaculture is a simple tale:
Listen, and you will be told;
Ask, and you will be answered;
Play and you will be happy :)
Your propagations, transplants,
and seeds will grow,
flower, and reseed...
Mar 30, 2020
Mar 30, 2020 at 2:27 PM UTC
He'd lived in the remaining house on the little byway,
The place and its existence somewhat accidental
As it was built as the groundskeeper's cottage
Accompanying a rambling edifice
Built by a former president of the mill,
That once-grand structure gone to rack and ruin
Nothing remaining save the odd bit of foundation
Poking forlornly above crownvetch and milkweed,
Though the lot of the man we'd dubbed the ogre
(The notion that he had an actual name
Not occurring to us at the time,
Though, as Nicky Demmer wisely noted
Whatever it might be, it must be unspoken.)
Was only slightly less unkempt and foreboding,
And it is hard to remember what exactly made him
Something to be feared and avoided at all costs,
Perhaps the combination of height
(Though lessened yet somehow accentuated
By a slight yet perceptible stoop)
And a widow's peak at the top of an unusually high forehead
Bookended by wiry and unruly locks,
Perhaps the fact that he rarely appeared in the daylight,
And then squinting as he turned his head to the sky
In the manner of one who fully expected
That it would fall, Chicken-Little style
But in any case his lawn
Was strictly no-man's land,
And any wiffle ball or frisbee,
Regardless of how new it may be
Or the retribution attached to coming home without it,
Remained behind, mourned but forsaken
And at some point we moved beyond our unease,
Too old for such superstition,
Moving on to other totems, other portents
Though some years later I happened upon his obituary,
Laying out the signposts of an ordinary
Though vaguely underwhelming and melancholy life:
He'd worked on the third shift at the mill all his days,
Thus precluding much of the social commerce
With his fellow man, no Rotary or Odd Fellows rites
To be performed at his service
(Of which there was none, burial being private as well)
And the list of survivors was limited to one daughter
Wholly unknown to us, ostensibly taken elsewhere
By an unmentioned and unmourning mother.
The item, brief and unadorned as it was,
Brought me back to that fretful nine-year-old self,
Though imbued with a greater disquiet,
As I had a deeper knowledge of the finality
Of cold, agate type, among several other things.
Mar 1, 2021
Mar 1, 2021 at 10:45 AM UTC