"mowed" poems
i am seven and in your living room
with antiques & photographs
of family that are more like strangers
and handshakes at christmas
there is a jar of circus peanuts by the armchair
and i remember being told that these are here because they are never out of stock
and that *they are the only things
children will not want to take from me*
i still do not like the color orange.
i am eight and round the bannister
to an upstairs that reminds me
of heaven in that
place i can't go sort of way & i am
knuckle deep in your pumpkin pie
wiping it on my uncles suede jacket
our hands still shake but the jury is still out
on if he looks at me and napkins the same
i hope you do not sleep
with my apologies under your fingernails
i will not say them out loud
i know i should have mowed your lawn
i should have been a home
for second hand smoke
if i could go back i would be your ashtray
i remember the day you forgot who i was
i bound into the room and throw my arms
around you like an armistice
and you ask who i am
we are not in church
but everyone stops singing
i am passed from child to child
while we all laugh
but my lungs feel like
they've been mugged in an ally
who's son does he look like, mom?
my father says like gospel
you pull on your cigarette
sip from your watered down wine and shrug
and i am neck deep in forgetfulness
i imagine alzheimer's
as being born again every day
so, we will spend ages
looking at captions to photographs
telling your stories to strangers
as my father begins to forget
and when i imagine probate
an unfamiliar hand unfolding a will
to be read to wayward angels
i want to burn down the house
and sleep in the ashes
Mar 17, 2014
Mar 17, 2014 at 3:00 PM UTC
Why do you do this?
Your Army of Nothings
Who lay in the sun
and are all but sweet
who swelter and sweat
in that fresh cut grass
mowed by a man
you can't hope to know.
And you,
you there, with the grin
Who's side are you on anyway?
What made you the prince
of the Army of Nothings;
The leader, the first in command.
You spout and you spit
that ******** and bare
your teeth at me like you're the bomb
dot com
You're such a disgrace.
parading around
with your head up your ***
"So what's new?"
Oh, shut up,
You can't even fill out your pants.
Why should I care for you,
why should I feel?
How will I ever come home?
Where welcoming words
and magical treasure,
and stories that never come true
but are good.
Where futures of light once reigned so supreme
I swore they would never run dry.
I thought you'd missed out,
you know, then and there,
of the life that we talked of in dreams.
No flowers and chocolates,
no diamond rings,
just love.
Made of stuff so much deeper
and denser
and finer
and lovely, and warm, and alive...
But it's over, and done.
and I can't have it back.
So I go on avoiding
the Army of Nothings
as they come marching in
marching in
one two, at the ready
I feel deep in my bones
that breaking and tearing
Help me, archangel!
Save me! You promised!
You said you would always be there
in that carved-out big apple
our home, once upon
when we laughed and were happy and good.
But goodness runs out.
You made that as clear
as a crystal that needs to be smashed.
And I did that, remember?
I left it all broken and you were so proud
So proud I had chosen
the right over wrong.
yet you overlook
all the splinters of glass
all there
all here
all lurking in me.
I don't want to cry
or beg or to fight
But I loved you in ways
that she found unacceptable?
So silly, so stupid,
so big that it keeps you away
*Not that I care very much
For your army of nothings
or things that remind me
of memories gone with the wind*
But I do.
Nov 10, 2012
Nov 10, 2012 at 10:54 PM UTC
On a distant summer
a girl walked four miles
to sell fruits at the haat
and mowed by the May heat
fell asleep on a patch of concrete.
The noon dusts played around her
*sleep little girl rest your feet
the winds will play you a song
refresh you with dreams so sweet
the walk back home won't be long.*
The sun had slid the shadows grown
when opened her dream dazed eyes
there she was at the haat all alone
her fruits in the basket had dried.
She had dreamed a round dime
clutched in her palm
colored gold with her wish
she had slept thru the time
and when the winds calmed
held nothing to buy home a fish.
Time has flown those dusts far away
years have grown her wise
yet when the winds blow lonely in May
her tears she cannot disguise.
Mar 22, 2017
Mar 22, 2017 at 9:49 AM UTC
There once was a time
Gone by, gone by,
Picking blackberries till the vine was plucked dry.
Pricked finger and the blood of kings
washed the riverbed clean again
paving path for new bled love.
Story of my life: Hot Hand-Grenade.
Tripwire tickled by trespassing travelers
Red wire arteries
clipped and clipped and clipped
and simple minded times when birds sang songs to other birds
and chirped lyrical lines in the dusk.
More wonder. More trust. Less wanderlust.
Dust in the air. Still in the sunlight.
Through glass.
Broke. Fall. Cut. All roads lead to home.
Wood, River, Stone. A guide, a path, alone.
We all walk on our own
Striving for independence
Together.
Now is a time of faded glory, daffodils in freshly-mowed fields.
I still catch myself wishing I had the words to share
The bigness of what's out there.
I still hear myself singing your song of longing.
Still find myself longing for days of childish peace and ignorance
when we could pick blackberries from the bush without bombs falling in our basket.
Still a long way to go to hear the sound of surrender and the silent unfurling of egos into how alone we feel.
Still my heart, that lost love long ago, and surrendered a savior forever.
Hart, of dreams, slip into the stream.
Interstitch the seams.
Jul 22, 2018
Jul 22, 2018 at 3:55 AM UTC
My friend and I talk about it
Neighborhood got decimated this year
One after another the corners of community are gone
We touch the elder memories
as one might touch a head in blessing
as loved ones pass
We linger longest over John
Found dead after ten hot days
by other-worldly hazmat crew
flanked by cruisers
with their special, yellow truck
and zipper bags
...found 'im
glasses folded neatly on the night stand
in his jammies
all tucked into bed
No one thought it strange
that strange young guy would die
already decomposing in his head
Lost
among his personal effects
his fleet of rusting cars
and half-assed projects
Deck tacked to garage
his herds of “pets”
Easy to pretend he wasn't really there
between jail stints or some imagined threat or theft
of crap
haunted by the shadows of his persecutors
caught in motion lights
and cameras' blinding evidence of
jungle-jumble and malfunctioning alarms
going off in the wind
Everyone's out to get his stuff
We could dismiss him--
mostly
sorta
...except for times
he mowed his grass at night
or hand-built “the lunatic tower”
just for mom
from scavenged scraps and
hammered hours
power-sawed
through the housing codes
and horror
of the neighbors...
...Such a special spectacle...
******* crazy-- John!
He was enough for one day at a time
like when
he flung that threatening bolder
on bilco doors
for percussive effect
"Get off my fuckin' property!”
(not using his “inside voice")
“Next time, that'll be your head!!
He announces his intent
to not get mad, behave himself
to call the cops on me instead
Fake-dialing
While his mother screams in dread
“John is off his meds!”
My phone is set to speed dial
911
____
“How did we miss this?
How did we not miss him those quiet days?”
How we miss him now
How quiet
Sep 17, 2018
Sep 17, 2018 at 4:18 PM UTC
Even though I've been helping you and working hard,
you won't give me a beer after I've mowed your yard.
I'm hot, sweaty and dying of thirst.
You've done some bad things but this is the worst.
When you asked for my help, I shouldn't have come here.
You offered me a glass of water but what I want is a beer.
You love your **** beer so much that you won't even give me one.
I would kick your *** up and down the street if you weren't my son.
I have something to say and you'd better listen to me.
Don't ever expect me to mow your yard again for free.
May 17, 2015
May 17, 2015 at 1:22 PM UTC
The smell of fresh cut grass that you have mowed
A lollipop with flavor painful, ****
The signal traffic has to let you go
A thumb on men who give plants great kick-starts
The middle of a rainbow, warm and cold
A long square with fuzz on a table for pool
The mark on the root of all evil that's sold
A moss-covered abandoned private school
The things you see once trekking through the woods
A pond lies ankle-high within this place
The bits of algae below where you stood
A frog that jumps in front of your shocked face
There still are many things we've not yet seen
Pertaining to the wonderful color green
Sep 8, 2014
Sep 8, 2014 at 6:53 PM UTC
When my father was young he mowed lawns for money. He pushed a second-hand spinning blade in the hot Florida sun for spare change.
With dull coins clanging in his pocket and crumpled bills in his palm, my father fought to escape home.
To him, home was synonymous with scary southern suburbia, where late-night television was replaced with screaming matches and loud fists. Angry eyes with children's cries. Barbecues bombarded with apologetic looks from neighbors. Pretending not to hear shatters and shouts of supposed 'baseball black eyes'.
And so he pushed. Pushed the rusty lawn mower down strangers' yards, pushed away the sniggering snot-nosed kids calling him 'Spic', and pushed at his father's demons, crawling down his spine, whispering that he was no good.
Years later he kept pushing
Pushing
Pushing
Pushing towards whatever came next. Yet no matter how much he pushed, he was still the same boy with the lawn mower. Angry, mad, pushing violently ahead.
The smoke of sanity is inhaled now, as my father's blood-shot eyes try to suppress the angry boy within. The residue of stolen innocence is not left unnoticed. A touch of tone on his once sunburnt neck and the man he has made instantly flushes away, leaving his father's demons. Calmer than before, a dying star, burning bright before collapse.
Like a strong jaw, his father's anger is passed down to him, and I, his son, am now born with this seed of destruction. Smaller than before, but still seething.
Constantly reminded, I sit in a leather chair surrounded by white walls in carefully controlled climate, plastic pen perched on my palm, I push.
I'll keep pushing.
Jun 9, 2014
Jun 9, 2014 at 4:50 PM UTC
I went to turn the grass once after one
Who mowed it in the dew before the sun.
The dew was gone that made his blade so keen
Before I came to view the levelled scene.
I looked for him behind an isle of trees;
I listened for his whetstone on the breeze.
But he had gone his way, the grass all mown,
And I must be, as he had been,—alone,
‘As all must be,’ I said within my heart,
‘Whether they work together or apart.’
But as I said it, swift there passed me by
On noiseless wing a bewildered butterfly,
Seeking with memories grown dim over night
Some resting flower of yesterday’s delight.
And once I marked his flight go round and round,
As where some flower lay withering on the ground.
And then he flew as far as eye could see,
And then on tremulous wing came back to me.
I thought of questions that have no reply,
And would have turned to toss the grass to dry;
But he turned first, and led my eye to look
At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook,
A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared
Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared.
I left my place to know them by their name,
Finding them butterfly-weed when I came.
The mower in the dew had loved them thus,
By leaving them to flourish, not for us,
Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him,
But from sheer morning gladness at the brim.
The butterfly and I had lit upon,
Nevertheless, a message from the dawn,
That made me hear the wakening birds around,
And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground,
And feel a spirit kindred to my own;
So that henceforth I worked no more alone;
But glad with him, I worked as with his aid,
And weary, sought at noon with him the shade;
And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech
With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach.
‘Men work together,’ I told him from the heart,
‘Whether they work together or apart.’
4.2k
Ragged mountains and rough terrains,
Withstanding storms and heavy rains.
Warm rays of sunshine bring light.
Bearing hues of black and white.
To the touch it feels like a freshly mowed lawn.
A promise of tummy tickling at dawn.
A relaxing walk in an uninhabited forest.
A tempestuous hike to the top of Everest.
You could be a renegade or a mad scientist
An investment banker or electric guitarist.
A biker's beard could be just as immaculate.
Rough as sandpaper or soft as velvet.
May 21, 2019
May 21, 2019 at 8:00 AM UTC
A borrowed attire
A ***** curly fro
A slant set of shoulders
A "lawn" that is mowed
Soft caramel skin
Four new tattoos
Old holes from piercings
No longer in use.
A taller frame
And a nice juicy ****
******* to match
But a small little gut
A refurbished heart
A genuine smile
A great listener
Keeps old things on file
A charming stare
But not much to say
She'll sneak in your heart
In a phenomenal way
Ready for anything
When put to the test
Yes, she has her flaws
But she's close to the best.
Sep 26, 2012
Sep 26, 2012 at 5:16 PM UTC
invisible isotopes
gently rain down
onto the chins
of infants
we whisk
them
away with
soft kisses
tiny
irradiated
dust flakes
float onto
boutonniereless
lapels
we brush them
off with fresh
carnations
Oak leaves
blown from
denuding limbs
by soft puffs of
radioactive
plumes
are shaken
from our
door mats
green grass
sprinkled with
Strontium 90
is mowed
and mixed
into our
compost piles
the pristine
waters
of March
are laced with
uranium
tainted
iodine
it coolly
slakes
our
piqued
thirst
the rouge rose
gilded with
a golden plush
of soft plutonium
is plucked
to adorn late
evening
dinner tables
and exchanged
by sweethearts
as amorous
gestures
of resignation
between
condemned
lovers
Oakland
3/28/11
jbm
Nov 5, 2011
Nov 5, 2011 at 9:27 PM UTC
The casket was coming up, swaying and wobbling
Like a novice skater’s layover spin,
The workings proceeding apace,
The stillness of the August heat
Punctuated by disinterested growl of the backhoe,
The occasional out-of-place jocularity by the excavators
The creaky jingle of the chains holding the muddied box
As it proceeded skyward in its clumsy poor-man’s Resurrection.
The affair was being observed by an elderly couple,
Old enough to be of no particular age.
Their car had Carolina plates,
But their inflections, their casually-tossed idioms
They noted that ruefully The grass needs mowed)
Marked them as natives.
They’d returned (Last time, most likely,
The wife uttered mournfully)
To take their son with them; he’d drowned when was five? six?
(The years will do that to a body, apparently)
In Kinzua Creek some half-century ago,
Back when little boys weren’t under a mandate
To be safe from themselves, as it were.
He was our boy! We’ve never forgotten him!
The old man said, the words snapping off
In a manner that spoke of something else altogether,
How the whistle at the Montmorenci
Went off at three and eleven for second shift,
And your *** had better be there,
As those were good jobs that didn’t wait for bereavement leave,
Because there was always someone
Just itching to take your spot on the line,
And anyway life went on,
At least in the sense that television screens went all to snow
And tires went flat and fuses blew
And eventually a dead child
Is not always in the forefront of your thoughts,
Only tiptoeing in when the Press ran a picture
Of the Montmorenci Area Class of whenever,
Or there was an item about some other family
Who opened their front door
To a grim sheriff’s deputy with his hat in his hand.
Eventually, after some time
And in defiance of both the odds and gravity,
The casket was settled into the back
Of the undertaker’s huge old black Caddy,
And the couple cane-toddled back to their car,
Following out the through the old spider-like gates
And onto the main road.
The brief procession fading from sight,
Until there was nothing left to see
Save the hillsides covered in old growth pine.
Sep 21, 2018
Sep 21, 2018 at 11:00 AM UTC
Nanu, I had a dream last night that you came back
From being gone almost 3 years
We embraced and I told you I missed you so much
It was bittersweet, really.
I had seen you, and then you disappeared.
Like a shadow, when the sun decides to sleep.
I could've slept eternally knowing I would've been with you; forever
I remember when you were first diagnosed with lung cancer.
You held a smooth stone and told me, "Emily this stone is going to heal me one day."
You told me how it would make you better.
I remember one thanksgiving you gave me a glass of your wine
It was, bittersweet.
Vinegary as it ate away my tastebuds
Sweet like strawberries marinading in sugar, only.. Wine is made out of grapes... You taught me that.
Its funny, you used to let me sit upon your lap when you mowed the lawn, it was my own mistake for crashing it into the fence.
It was, bittersweet.
I got to drive a lawn mower and you had to fix the fence.
I look back to how happy you were on the sun porch in the summer heat, especially when lightening would strike the area around us,
I'd hide my face in your tarnished sweater
It was, bittersweet.
This morning I stood in the snow
Weeping as I stared at the sky,
Then I remembered, you didn't disappear, you just went on vacation for awhile.
It's bittersweet, really.
Jun 16, 2014
Jun 16, 2014 at 12:45 PM UTC
Someone asked me my favorite color.
All I could think to answer, was that
pink and orange mixture that radiates
from the sun a half hour after 7
in the beginning of October,
reflecting vibrantly in her hazel eyes,
while her fingers are entwined with mine
and the faint smell of her perfume
blends with the Autumn smell
of mowed grass and bonfires.
Nov 19, 2014
Nov 19, 2014 at 3:17 PM UTC
we promised each
other a
broken
lawn
mower
so we mowed
the dirt
instead
Dec 1, 2013
Dec 1, 2013 at 8:28 PM UTC
I painted the fence,
washed the car,
mowed the lawn,
what else is there to do?
you told me to
clean the windows,
take out the trash,
walk the dog,
feed the cat
and I did that as well
what else do you need?
I picked up the groceries,
mopped the floors,
clean the toilets,
NO
I'm done
finished
I WON'T DO ANYMORE
all these chores are not worth 5 bucks!
Stop with this terrible labor.
Apr 16, 2010
Apr 16, 2010 at 9:08 AM UTC
Cookies in the oven, grass mowed, petrol, permanent markers
her hair.
Flowers, lavender and roses, wet dogs, even the barkers,
her hair.
Dinner ready, bacon barbecue, onions sizzling, fresh soup
her hair.
My sweat, my tears,
her hair, my fears,
morning dew, honey,
misty sunrise
hers.
Apr 22, 2014
Apr 22, 2014 at 5:43 PM UTC
The sky is pink with the sunset and,
The clouds look like cotton candy.
I want to eat popcorn at carnivals,
or spend all day by riverbanks soaking up the atmosphere.
The air is tinged with sun tan lotion, freshly mowed grass and,
the laughter of children playing in puddles
left over from afternoon showers.
The breeze is thick and warm, flowing through the skirts of lovers
And kissing bare shoulders.
Daisies and dandelions tilt their faces towards the sun,
Proudly pretending they each deserve to be picked and
braided into chains, adorning necks and hair.
Little girls dressed in sunshine
dance in the evening glow, as
little boys catch fireflies in an attempt to captivate and impress.
I hold my breath as the sun dips below the horizon and,
sets the sky on fire one last time.
I could swear time stops
As everything transforms into silhouettes of what they were.
The clouds give way to a million stars, that still can't shine
as bright as your eyes.
The whole world tucks itself away, but not us.
We lounge in the cool grass and breathe in the moment when
all I can feel is your hand in mine, and
the earth still coming alive with summertime.
Feb 10, 2011
Feb 10, 2011 at 9:54 PM UTC
Nanu, I had a dream last night that you came back
From being gone almost 3 years
We embraced and I told you I missed you so much
It was bittersweet, really.
I had seen you, and then you disappeared.
Like a shadow, when the sun decides to sleep.
I could've slept eternally knowing I would've been with you; forever
I remember when you were first diagnosed with lung cancer.
You held a smooth stone and told me, "Emily this stone is going to heal me one day."
You told me how it would make you better.
I remember one thanksgiving you gave me a glass of your wine
It was, bittersweet.
Vinegary as it ate away my tastebuds
Sweet like strawberries marinading in sugar, only.. Wine is made out of grapes... You taught me that.
Its funny, you used to let me sit upon your lap when you mowed the lawn, it was my own mistake for crashing it into the fence.
It was, bittersweet.
I got to drive a lawn mower and you had to fix the fence.
I look back to how happy you were on the sun porch in the summer heat, especially when lightening would strike the area around us,
I'd hide my face in your tarnished sweater
It was, bittersweet.
This morning I stood in the snow
Inhaling the heavy smoke of my marlboro cigarette
Weeping as I stared at the sky,
Then I remembered, you didn't disappear, you just went on vacation for awhile.
It's bittersweet, really.
Apr 16, 2014
Apr 16, 2014 at 1:01 PM UTC
Green buds, fresh mowed grass,
Bees and pollen everywhere;
I can't stop sneezing.
May 5, 2015
May 5, 2015 at 7:13 PM UTC
I'm in love.
I'm in love with the way grass smells after it's been mowed.
It has a certain smell that reminds me of summer days and childhood memories.
I'm in love with how that rain hits my window during a storm.
It's like it wants to come in so badly that tries to obliterate my window but only to realize that as soon as it hits the glass, the raindrop itself obliterates.
And I guess that's how I feel in love with you. You reminded me of summer nights and some childhood memories and I wanted to get into your heart so badly that I thought if I made myself fall you would catch me.
But, just like the raindrop, I obliterated on contact.
Jun 27, 2014
Jun 27, 2014 at 11:40 AM UTC
Before identities and allegiances are even confirmed,
The cries of anger rise up like a thick, black smoke,
Heavy and suffocating, it flows through streets,
Over the English Channel, across oceans,
Seeping into social media and blanketing all else.
Cries for vengeance,
Vengeance,
Vengeance.
And those cries barely manifested into a wisp
When Beirut was attacked the day before Paris.
I didn't see any Facebook pictures of the flag of Lebanon.
Do any of us even know what the flag of Lebanon looks like???
To **** innocent people is a crime except when we do it,
Then it's "There are always casualties of war,"
But if this isn't a war except when we're killing people,
Can it really be called a war?
We care so much about the injustice of it,
How the innocent are mowed down without mercy,
That we want those bombs dropped and we want them dropped now.
When those bombs destroy homes and blast children's limbs apart,
Bloodless and pale, until the area looks like it used to be a porcelain doll factory...
Will we all have Syrian flags for our Facebook pictures?
Jul 15, 2016
Jul 15, 2016 at 10:37 AM UTC
You were my ice tea
On a lemonade day
Honey from a bumblebee
On the patio of your cafe
You were the green grass
We smoked at dawn
The freshly mowed grass
We stretched our limbs on
You were my summer drink
Those strawberry lips
A raspberry pink distinct
With those cool iced hips
Mar 26, 2013
Mar 26, 2013 at 1:38 AM UTC
The grit in this world seems to be gone,
all of us have just become pawns
in this static, yet enigmatic,
state of mowed lawns, and designer shoes.
Yesterday, I asked for a hammer,
to fix things up around here,
and was asked if I wanted red or blue?
Because everything nowadays is a choice.
I said to the man in a soft voice, "I'm colorblind."
If only to remind him that it didn't matter what color the hammer was.
Because you see, regardless of whether the hammer is red or blue,
I'm still going to nail and glue
this world together again.
And make a world where cranes have feathers
and not tall steel bars,
and life is just a really surreal cigar.
Tasty and lustful.
Mysterious, but certainly not mistrustful.
A world where only adjectives can make a complete sentence,
and not create any repentance.
Are you catching my drift?
Grasping the concept?
If your mind is still adrift,
then leave it there.
Let it float around until it reaches something profound.
Then come back.
Join the rest of us for a mid-afternoon snack,
with lemonade and empathy.
Ginger snaps and morality.
And a rainbow.
Even if I am colorblind.
Aug 31, 2010
Aug 31, 2010 at 8:24 PM UTC