"liesl" poems
Beneath the city we speak many languages,
none fluently:
in our solitude we cannot hear
how foreign words were meant to sound.
Liesl calls my window a "mercy."
To me it is a threat
or a tease,
a glimpse of the impossible
like ******
Yes I have tiny hands,
tiny thoughts, hopes, dreams
beneath the city that is closed to me:
useless treasure,
an unreadable book in a foreign tongue
full of printers errors
and, like this poem,
a wrestling match with words.
We tried to speak,
we sat and watched each other,
shared mornings and nights.
But still we came here,
up these crooked stairs
alone and so small, behind warped glass
an oddity, a curiosity in a freak show.
And what is curiosity
but another way to cut myself
without leaving scars?
Sep 16, 2016
Sep 16, 2016 at 7:14 PM UTC
High Noon at the Bird Feeder
A little dog, a streak of dachshund red,
Across the grass speeds to a squirrel’s doom
She wants its blood, she wants its flesh, she wants it dead;
Ripped, shredded, and torn; it will need no tomb.
The fat old squirrel, a fluff of forest grey,
Is unimpressed by doggie dementia;
To Liesl’s grief he leaps and climbs away -
Never underestimate the Order Rodentia!
Liesl’s squirrel clings to a low-hanging limb
And rattles abuse at the angry pup
Who spins and barks and spins and barks at him
Laughing among the leaves, and climbing higher up.
So Liesl snorts and sneers, and marks the ground;
She accepts not defeat, nor lingers in sorrow;
For Liesl and squirrel it’s their daily round;
They’ll go it again, same time tomorrow.
Nov 25, 2017
Nov 25, 2017 at 5:05 PM UTC
Easter Vigil, Sort Of
A vigil, no, simply quiet reflection
Minutes before midnight, with all asleep
Little Liesl-Dog perhaps dreams of squirrels,
For she has chased and barked them all the day;
The kittens are disposed with their mother
After an hour of kitty-baby-talk,
Adored by all, except by Calvin-Cat,
That venerable, cranky old orange hair-ball,
Who resents youthful intrusion upon
His proper role as object of worship.
All the house settles in for the spring night,
Anticipating Easter, early Mass,
And then the appropriately pagan
Merriments of chocolates and colored eggs
And children with baskets squealing for more
As children should, in the springtime of life.
Apr 15, 2017
Apr 15, 2017 at 8:37 AM UTC
For Liesl-the-Wonder-Dachshund, of Happy Memory
A merry dachshund yaps, and leaps for leaves
Wind-strewn across the still-green summer grass
As Autumn visits briefly, and looks around
To plan his festive moonlit frosts when soon
Diana dances across November’s skies.
Oct 1, 2017
Oct 1, 2017 at 9:28 AM UTC
Imagine an overused sickroom,
an army hospital in a war zone:
the reek of sulfur and saltpeter overpowering sweet rotting meat,
a periodic shocking light of casual bombardment
reveals brass colored walls.
And, and, and ...
the noises—too many to catalogue
or differentiate.
A fever feels better,
opening a dream flower—
transfiguration follows death, we know this,
now. We know colors, liquid figures
so familiar somehow.
Isn't dying a familiar act?
The nurse laving ice water
on my puckered brow should excite me
(bedraggled, blood-smudged,
her hair loose, lips slightly parted
from fatigue or an indisguisible loathing for decay).
Think: in this given moment
five billion people are doing something else.
Even those also dying are dying in a different way
without ice water.
"Quel dommage," you'd say, Liesl,
making the bed of a morning. "What're the rich folks doing?"
The sun hot and blinding through the east windows
The room so white, the sheets green, your brown eyes
never averted
aromas of grass, exhaust, drying ***
where is it all?
where does it go?
what brings it here
this polluted room
this anti place
this hole where a stomach used to be
resides a memory of a stomach
recalling hunger
as a good thing to be assuaged with pleasure
Nurse, close your mouth before your soul escapes
Sep 16, 2016
Sep 16, 2016 at 12:30 PM UTC
Devil's eyes
Sparkling surprise
Big in size
and Full of lies.
Says, "Insanity brings compromise".
Pointless cries.
Away she flies.
Oct 8, 2014
Oct 8, 2014 at 5:32 PM UTC
A vigil, no, simply quiet reflection
Minutes before midnight, with all asleep
Little Liesl-Dog perhaps dreams of squirrels,
For she has chased and barked them all the day;
The kittens are disposed with their mother
After an hour of kitty-baby-talk,
Adored by all, except by Calvin-Cat,
That venerable, cranky old orange hair-ball,
Who resents youthful intrusion upon
His proper role as object of worship.
The household settles in for the spring night,
Anticipating Easter, early Mass,
And then the appropriately pagan
Merriments of chocolates and colored eggs
And children with baskets squealing for more
As children should, in the springtime of life.
Mar 31, 2018
Mar 31, 2018 at 2:58 PM UTC