"overalls" poems
The girl in the yellow overalls
Is wishing for sunlight
(somelight, sumlight)
To outshine her
(outline her, outlier)
And that sky blue blouse
(blows, blowsy)
Drowsy in the noon-day
(gloom-day, soon-day)
She'll grow up gleaming
(beaming, screaming)
****** ****** of crows
(rows, rows)
Rouse the sleeping
(keeping, beeping)
Alarm clock sun.
(gun. run.)
Oct 19, 2014
Oct 19, 2014 at 8:51 PM UTC
i wasn’t feeling okay
so i put on my overalls and went
outside
to wander around my backyard,
trekking around in clunky rain boots
as i hummed and tried not to think
i like to write
little notes
on the leaves that are now
changing colors
and when i’m done
i let them
fall
so i can flatten them
beneath my heel
till the small words
are crinkled and no longer legible
amongst the dirt and grass
and so desperately,
i wish i could
let the thoughts in my head
fall
to the ground
so i could flatten
these
pitiful feelings
beneath my heel
until they were no longer legible
amongst the hurt and hopefulness
in my heart
Apr 24, 2014
Apr 24, 2014 at 10:07 PM UTC
Let me tell you a story about a busy steet in a busy city in a busy country in a busy world.
Somewhere near the end of this busy street in a busy city in a busy country in a busy world, there was a flowershop.
It was a lovely old place; an elegant building surrounded by beautiful gardens with daisies and daffodils and roses. It had bird baths where the cheery cardinals and bluejays stopped by for an afternoon splash, and even a sprinkler for the young children to run around in while their mommy's and daddy's were picking out pretty flowers.
Now, inside this flowershop, there were rows upon rows of pots filled with any type of plant you could imagine: dragonsnaps, lilies, zinnias, tulips, the whole lot. Baskets of flowers hung from the ceiling, overflowing with bright colours. Every once in a while, petals would rain down and the entire shop would look magical.
Everyday, people of all ages would dash into this flowershop. Men in suits, looking to find the perfect gift for their dates. Ladies in dresses, picking out just a little something to look nice in a vase on their dinner table. And of course, the gardeners, with their overalls and ***** fingers.
So, as I said, busy people on a busy street in a busy city in a busy country in a busy world would dash into this busy flowershop, then dash back out and get on with their busy lives. Always looking for the most ravishing type of flower, the ones that could catch your eye as soon as you entered the shop. Never focusing on anything else.
What no one realized was that there was a small flower placed near the back wall of the shop. It was never moved; always been in the same exact place ever since it arrived at the flowershop years and years ago. The owners had stopped watering it, so the flower was beginning to shrivel up. Most of the petals had fallen off and were now laying in a sad little pile on the ground, and the few that remained had turned the colour of black.
The little flower got sicker and sicker every day, but it never lost hope. Every time the suited man stopped in, or the lady with the dress, or the ***** gardener; the flower would use its last bit of strength to make itself noticed. It stood on its tippy toes, perking up and spreading its wilted petals and frail stem as much as it could.
No one saw.
Then, one day, when the owner was sweeping the floor of the flowershop, he saw something near the back wall. Something broken. Crumpled. Blackened. Ugly. Dead. Something that once was beautiful until it stopped being noticed; stopped being loved.
You see, in a busy flowershop on a busy street in a busy city in a busy country in a busy world, no one's ever going to notice a wallflower until it wilts.
Apr 16, 2013
Apr 16, 2013 at 6:47 PM UTC
Tell me why it has to be this way. I don’t want to hold on to one side of this conversation and have the other person falling off a ladder. Yeah, down there on the ground. Get up and look at me!
I wasn’t sleeping, I swear—he said hastily.
Yeah, whatever, buddy. Tell me what you’re doing in my head?
Repainting. Repainting over the old spots, the worn out spots.
But those are the best spots, the only ones with character. Can you tell me who sent you?
No sir, I cannot.
Then it is ok. I suppose I’ll have to watch as you put varnish on top of every dream and aspiration I have ever had. Do you know who the girl was that I first loved in the springtime of youth’s blossom?
It was Ashley, sir.
I believe I did not love her, guest worker. What are you wearing there?
A pair of overalls, a cape. What’s the difference?
I’m the one who speaks to you first, and don’t be short with me. I don’t like you standing there in an open room with no windows. How is that possible?
I’m sorry, boss. It’s just, I finished painting over that memory but the paint’s still wet. You loved her very much, I’m afraid.
Ashley? I never gave her a second thought. Perhaps you are right. I only remember kissing her shyly and asking permission to see her ******* They were the biggest of all.
Yes sir, I thought so too. She was a sweet girl though.
Sweet? I’ll tell you Mr. Painter; Ashley was the first girl I kissed. I kissed her in my first love’s house, a different girl. I loved Ashley more than that first love and I’m serious. No one can ever make me forget the day we lay on her mother’s sofa in the basement.
--I’m sorry, sir.
No, say it is impossible. Say you have some form of soap that can make up for your treachery!
No, I’m only wearing orange overalls and marching on the word from above.
But who sent you!!!? I have to know. I’m crying.
Justin, it’s ok. It’s Ashley. She said you need to stop crying. She has a family now.
Well, alright. That house. That basement. That unconscious.
We are worms, sir. Worms, slithering and boundless. Please accept my apologies.
No, it’s quite alright. If you must take every memory of my second love, take my third. And take my fourth and every other woman who crosses my path. It’s not my choice to keep them captive in the imagination of what could have been. You know, it’s been years since I truly cared about someone—
Since Ashley?
Who’s that?
Ashley.
Goodbye forever, harlot.
Sir, you’re being brash.
No, I don’t remember that name and I hold you at an arm’s length in my mind. Please, finish what you’re doing and allow me to rest. What color are you painting the room?
Green, I’m afraid.
Then so it is. Goodbye, good friend. Goodbye sweet love. Forever, in the spring. Temporal boundaries and endless playlists. Be the verve, be the melody. I love you!
So it is. Sleep well, sir.
Oct 18, 2010
Oct 18, 2010 at 10:24 PM UTC
For all who have been wondering
Let me set the story straight
About the hillbilly holidays
Before it gets too late
We don't have an Easter possum
This tale is just a myth
It's a cute little bunny with a basket
To collect our Easter eggs with
And Cupid don't wear overalls
And fly around with a gun
He shoots them tiny little arrows
But we know it's all in fun
And Santa still has his reindeer
Not a horse tied to his sleigh
We leave him milk and cookies
Not moonshine like they say
The Tooth Fairy is not toothless
This simply isn't true
She always leaves us money
Just like the rest of you
And of course that leaves Thanksgiving
So what else could I say
We eat turkey like everyone else
On this Hillbilly Holiday
So now that everyone understands
That hillbilly is just a name
It don't matter where you live
Our holidays are all the same
Hillbillies are like everyone else
And there's nothing for you to fear
If you ever have anymore questions
Well, Ya'll come back now, hear?
Oct 8, 2010
Oct 8, 2010 at 9:04 PM UTC
If time is a convincing illusion, then as I am writing this,
you are reading it; you are remembering me years after
we have spoken last, and I am noticing you for the first time.
I'm a young woman waking up in an apartment in Albany,
New York, realizing that I am finally broken enough to fix,
and an East Boston moppet in ***** pink overalls, riding
Big Wheels through the sprinklers with a boy named John Henry.
You're delivering newspapers on a cold New Hampshire morning.
I am falling asleep wondering if you could possibly love me.
You are saying that you do. You are stardust, and I am long gone.
Mar 18, 2012
Mar 18, 2012 at 4:17 PM UTC
Marines call to say hello,
impress. I'm over 35 but my boys
19. They could go: Hide!
One moment spent tying a shoe,
another dying, gunshot wound or poisoned food.
Events in their mere chronology
make no sense.
And the details of yr dad's life don't either.
Late night
quiet cigarette smoker. But next day,
the butts cleaned into the can. Who does that?
Lady in a skirt or overalls rolled up - cigarette smoke.
Now it's yr dad.
Yr dad who
watches for war.
Even if Uncle Sam disbands, dissolves
we the people will still be here and stay involved
with North America. The purple mountains majesty
and shining seas
little people, big people, brown, red, and white. Addicted
to action movies.
Perhaps there is no choice. One must sit, sitting still
as a buddha, sitting bull.
I can imagine myself and all others - drivers, voters, runners -
little fetal muscles
at first. Metastasizing. What's it called when the cell
at the tip of the *****
or organism, divides, and the ***** grows? It's called
girl on a bicycle.
I find I make no sense. Her **** a practicality to her, is
delicious to me
a miraculous sea lettuce or snapdragon. You've heard it before.
A moral dilemma
wrapped in robes and silks and odors. Yet, come close,
and business beckons
work gets done, life goes on, hair grows in, we go on
vacation
the Marine Corps calls, desperate for new fetuses to teach
purposeful workmanlike killing
I'll do my own killing, thanks, when violence comes to the
neighborhood
if I've got your back
your back's gotten and if I'm on point, the point's taken.
One world under God invisible with liberty and justice for all who
Art in heaven
what the hell's his name.
Nemesis.
Hysterical.
The small war of an especially inept empire. The world's too big
to swallow as the Krauts and Nips found out. Empire
is self-correcting. Them dark-skinned mustachioed *********
who can't fix their own electricity seem to be kicking our *****
pert good. As did the ***** before them. All to the good. A
good lesson to know and then we all become friends following
the brawl. We apparently cannot skip the fight. It must
be fought, and **** the girls.
Aug 10, 2015
Aug 10, 2015 at 8:24 PM UTC
Clem, the rodeo clown
wears a bold painted smile,
a bright plaid shirt and bib overalls
with cuffs too short for his legs.
Between the rides and roping -
Clem banters with the emcee,
wheeling off groaners and
scrambling in and out of his barrel-
playing the air-headed bumpkin.
But Clem is nobody's fool;
when that gate opens, his real work begins.
Bull and rider explode from the chute
and the game is on.
The cowboy weaves and writhes to stay on top
for that eight golden seconds
that will earn him his pay
against a half ton of feral energy
stomping and lurching to fling him to the earth.
With eyes as keen as a hungry hawk,
Clem tracks every buck and lurch
for any peril sign - and then it happens:
the rider is hurled airborne,
landing inches from the driving hooves.
Clem seizes the cowboy with
a linebacker's grip
and swings him safely over the fence
as wranglers speed the bull from the ring.
The show goes on and Clem
has plenty more jokes for the crowd
who knows he's never a barrel of laughs
when a rider's life is on the line.
Sep 1, 2016
Sep 1, 2016 at 8:14 AM UTC
Mammy never owned a dryer,
She would always use the fire
To dry clean clothes for her eight kids,
Who played in pants as if on stilts,
Wore Goodwill shirts like cardboard fibre.
We'd no money for laundromats,
Immigrants don't waste like that;
We made the move from Ireland,
Turned our backs, washed our hands;
Chose Sarnia to make our home.
Yes, Mammy washed our clothes with stones;
She'd string lines from wall to wall,
And draped our patchwork overalls.
In autumn, winter and early spring,
Our house was strung with clothes line string;
Socks dropped on chairs near heating vents,
Every room had ***** like tents.
One day Daddy stretched a line
From our back porch
To the farthest pine.
Looped the wire on a tubeless rim,
Secured the ends with linchpins.
Mammy was so pleased with him.
We four saw what he'd done,
He'd made a ride for his sons.
We were gliding like clothes drying,
Riding down the yard.
Flapping, laughing, having fun,
Like human clothes under the sun;
We , however, were burdensome,
The line gave up, and we fell hard.
On blustery days when sheets are snapping,
I recall the clothes line cracking,
Our fall from grace had nothing lacking.
Oh, I remember he chastised,
But I also remember
Daddy's eyes,
And how they smiled
When he told his friends
He hung his sons
Out to dry.
Aug 5, 2015
Aug 5, 2015 at 12:57 PM UTC
Nine years later
I still feel everything.
Potent ****** reaction.
Guilt has caused
Riverbed cheeks.
This single image
That I've kept buried
In an attempt to leave behind
Is seared into my mind.
It plays out:
My mother is there;
up against the wall.
Pig-tailed braids
And slender in overalls.
Cowering
In hyperventilation
And sobs
Looking so child-like,
Cornered
By 3 betrayals in human form.
Voices raised in accusation
Ripping into her
In my bedroom.
Feeling ill and lost
I lie face down on the bed,
Covering my ears,
Screaming.
Blocking out
The family fight
Chaotic and ferocious,
Like worlds end
Crumbling my foundation
Only feet away
Words like daggers
Slathered in anger,
Hate, and distrust.
I couldn't handle
Seeing my mom like that;
Bullied, scared,
And broken down.
Hated and attacked
By a husband
Who vowed to love and protect her;
By a son-in-law
Who was meant to respect her;
By my sister
Who was first-born to her.
All because a misunderstanding,
A rumor,
A lie.
And I,
Too young to understand
What this meant,
But who knew the truth,
Didn't come to her rescue.
And now she
Is outcasted and alone
And I
Can't wash myself
Of this searing recollection.
21 years old
I still find myself
Lying face down,
Covering my ears,
Screaming.
May 8, 2013
May 8, 2013 at 3:36 AM UTC
Death can do strange things,
like time-lapse photography,
undress those quite bored, or
make a patron saint out of a fool,
turning sleek idiots into monks
more mysterious than Rasputin.
What a place to drink, the casino
death runs, nothing fancy or beautiful,
a blind man called Dark Island
taking requests on a piano with keys
worn dull as bone handled knives.
A place the lost can find work, graceless
and not made in America without a living,
all these odd jobs death can do, like art,
factory smoke blown in the eyes of women
in Senegal making overalls for Walmart.
Aug 12, 2016
Aug 12, 2016 at 9:47 PM UTC
On the street
Slung on his shoulder is a handle half way across,
Tied in a big knot on the scoop of cast iron
Are the overalls faded from sun and rain in the ditches;
Spatter of dry clay sticking yellow on his left sleeve
And a flimsy shirt open at the throat,
I know him for a shovel man,
A **** working for a dollar six bits a day
And a dark-eyed woman in the old country dreams of
him for one of the world's ready men with a pair
of fresh lips and a kiss better than all the wild
grapes that ever grew in Tuscany.
2.4k
We are the terraced women
piled row on row on the sagging, slipping hillsides of our
lives.
We tug reluctant children up slanting streets
the push chair wheels wedging in the ruts
breathless and bad tempered we shift the Tesco carrier bags
from hand to hand
and stop to watch the town
The hill tops creep away like children playing games
our other children shriek against the school yard rails
‘there’s Mandy’s mum, John’s mum, Dave’s mum,
Kate’s mum, Ceri’s mother, Tracey’s mummy’
we wave with hands scarred by groceries and too much
washing up
catching echoes as we pass of old wild games
after lunch, more bread and butter, tea
we dress in blue and white and pink and white checked
overalls
and do the house and scrub the porch and sweep the street
and clean all the little terraces
up and down and up and down and up and down the hill
later, before the end-of-school bell rings
all the babies are asleep
Mandy’s mum joins Ceri’s mum across the street
running to avoid the rain
and Dave’s mum and John’s mum – the others too – stop
for tea
and briefly we are wild women
girls with secrets, travellers, engineers, courtesans, and stars
of fiction, films
plotting our escape like jail birds
terraced, tescoed prisoners rising from the household dust
like heroines.
Pennyanne Windsor, from Poetry 1900-2000 One hundred poets from Wales
Sep 15, 2015
Sep 15, 2015 at 4:27 AM UTC
80 degrees in the shade
with a breeze
by a pond with a fountain
sprinkling
overalls over calvin klein
underwear
on a thursday afternoon
in the summer
far away from an old home
closer to a new home
free,
free,
free
Jun 3, 2018
Jun 3, 2018 at 11:31 AM UTC
On a spring day, Emelia soared through the field, like a baby robin learning to fly, running in diagonals with her hands brushing against every shrub and leaf she saw.
Mud drenched pink overalls
and a bright blonde bowl cut.
She ran like a bumble bee on a mission
to pick the freshest, prettiest flower.
Stepping over bugs and playing tag with chipmunks,
she giggled uncontrollably and was a friend to all that walked nature's green carpet, tripping over wild, wispy grasses.
She looks up with innocent eyes, beaming like two sunflowers,
"We have to share," she announced to the big tree
that resembled Grandmother Willow.
She had just seen Pocahontas for the first time
and wanted nothing more than to become a color of the wind.
The wind blew the leaves in a nodding fashion,
showing agreeance to the young sprites statement.
She whipped and whirled her arms toward the sun
as it danced on her skin through the branches of her friends.
"I want to do this forever," she squealed.
So, she did.
20 years later, the girl grew
But with a dimmer light
Weaker legs
And a hole in her chest.
On a cold night, Emelia staggered through the barren field, fueled by a magic dust that made her feel like a crashing plane
Running in diagonals with her hands
Brushing against her watery eyes, keeping them from flooding.
Mud drenched ripped jeans
and a long, shaggy haircut mirroring the bark on the trees.
She ran like she was being chased by a vicious monster
trying to find the safest space for her to vent after feeling her brain bleed from her nose and heart deflate in its cage.
Stumbling over broken bottles and playing tag with her inner demons, she was a slave to all that walked nature's casket, tripping over roots and graves, smashing against a tree.
She looks up with innocent eyes, welling with painful tears,
"We have to share," she whispered to the big tree
that resembled Grandmother Willow.
She felt an unbearable pain that no one should live with and wanted nothing more than to be numb.
The wind stopped in it tracks, the leaves stagnant on their branches, showing heart wrenching dismay to the old skeleton's statement.
She sobbed and heaved with her arms wrapped tight to her torso
as her skin danced with her shuttering bones and tightening muscles.
"I don't want to do this forever," she helplessly breathed.
But, she did.
Jan 2, 2019
Jan 2, 2019 at 12:39 PM UTC
She—an unrepeated motif—waxes precocious like her ancient self.
Never mind the counterfeit eccentrics,
strange enough to be noticed but not doomed.
Their only burden is imperfection.
She’d die for these people, but they don’t realize omniscience is boring.
In preschool, she learned people are mean for no reason.
There’s no sense in spiting the inevitable,
so she gave away her quarters at bake sale.
Her mother would say, “That money is yours.”
The girl would ask, adjusting her overalls,
“If it’s mine, can’t I decide what to do with it?”
In the future, when repeating this story to a potential motif,
she’d know he’s The One when he’d say,
“What do four-year-olds need to know about capitalism?
Thanks to Walt Disney, they want to conform
and follow their hearts at the same time.”
She’d get off on his grumpy, and then notice his ring.
If he had met her first, would he still have married his wife?
It’s not worth hoping for divorce. He’s built to mate for life.
Instead of turning twenty-six, she’ll choose a chair in purgatory—
trapped between what should be and what is.
As long as she’s sitting, she may as well start smoking.
It’s a fine day for oral fixation.
At least she doesn’t smoke Parliaments like the counterfeit eccentrics.
She’d wonder if in a past life she was a dusty vacuum cleaner,
covered in what she was meant to destroy.
It’s too easy to claim hypocrisy,
too easy to cry genius for discovering what works
when for so long, failure was the only place to go.
She hasn’t been happy since she was thirteen.
The day before her first existential crisis,
her mother said, “Stop being so melodramatic.
You must want to be depressed.” Her response:
“I’m not too young for a mid-life crisis. I just won’t live to see thirty.”
She owes her life to a fear of hell,
knows we all experience hell differently. Hers is a banquet.
The proceeds will go toward ending world hunger.
At the end of the night, the keynote speaker complains
that Alfredo sauce doesn’t reheat well, so the leftovers get thrown out.
Jul 29, 2012
Jul 29, 2012 at 10:17 AM UTC
We read “Captain Hook’s collection of psalms,
And other songs to sing along to.”
Nothing better to do off hand,
But revel in our own arrogance.
And, we notched holes in leather straps,
To expand at the waste.
Drive through diets replacing lessons-
Of keeping elbows off the table.
Of speaking only when spoken to.
Twenty-one years plus a little change.
And, daddy says-
Everything I taught you is replaceable.
And, daddy says-
Mistake is a just a word.
Hasn’t got it figured out either,
At least he admits it,
Choking down another cigarette,
Says: here’s to now.
And, don’t break your back if you don’t have to.
Technology affords avenues
Different rivers to float experience
Overalls and baseball caps
And the tree house that broke my tibia.
Talked through tin cans in this age,
Of golden innocence.
Now I’m Facebooking and twitting or twittering
Or… who the **** cares?
No one I care about.
Rivers given way to raw sewage.
And, even dogs eat their own ****
This cat called my computer a *********** box-
If the shoe fits,
Clichés get the hits.
Search: Blonde **** Big *******
5 million 38 hundred and 2 results.
Neon Bibles erupt in the sky.
Today I am a believer in the quarter pounder with cheese
Tomorrow in gasoline for 2.85
Midas made gold
Now he wants to change my oil.
They call that economics
Or advertising.
And, suddenly my sneakers aren’t good enough
Voice on the other end reassures-
My ideas are manic.
Paint a scene of terror.
Laying waste to iron giants-
Tearing down systems in place to restrict
Setting fire to everything-
Rack it up to fulfilling.
Rack it up to rebuilding.
Dismal haze, red glow to ash filled sky,
That makes mom clutch the good book-
Saying its time to go home.
How she knows her redeemer lives.
Clarity reigns supreme
And, daddy says-
Son, you’ve been watching too much TV.
And daddy says-
You catch more with honey by rule.
Feb 7, 2013
Feb 7, 2013 at 1:37 PM UTC
Where were you when I was growing up?
You were in college getting A's while I was getting D's in science class in the 5th grade.
I remember asking if you wanted to draw with me and you never had the "time"
10 minutes out of your ******* busy day to spend with your CHILD.
yeah, I understand bringing food to the table is important and your brain wasn't fully developed until 25 but, where were you?
I loved that computer. Oh, AOL 5.0, talking to strangers, going into lesbian chats, looking at naked pictures of women.
I appreciated when you paid attention to me when I would wear the same underwear and pants weeks straight.
It was amazing that you noticed I never used to take my Ritalin and that I would hide it under my tongue and then stick it in a mug under my ****** twin bed.
I've had 8 cats during my lifetime?
Do you remember April that cat, that siamese cat, our 5 cats? What was up with having so many **** CATS?
I loved watching nickolodeon and nick at nite. Cat dog all day with 5 kittens in our lovely apartment.
LOVED having your now "husbands" nephew trying to have *** with me when I was like 11 and he was 18.
The moths were fun.....fancied smelling like moth ***** during school!
I loved taking baths only because we had no shower head. Filling up a plastic cup with water to be able to wash my hair was my favorite.
I loved when you threw a hair dryer at me.
Digging your stupid fake nails into my skin, not sure what I did "wrong" then but that was always the best treatment, CHILD.
My favorite was when you helped with my homework.
Loved when you threatened that you would "tie a rope around my neck" and that you hated me.
Loved eating raviolis and getting 2 chicken sandwiches from Mcdonalds. Oh, 4 mini burgers and fries from Whitecastle after going to Marshalls was my favorite.
That guy, that assyrian, iranian guy that owned Carvel and was 20 years older than you...I loved when he used to let me go outside alone the condos when I was 3.
Loved when he'd force me to where overalls and ugly clothes in elementary school.
Being forced to go to an Assyrian church every sunday was the best!
Jan 9, 2013
Jan 9, 2013 at 5:07 PM UTC
X marks the spot,
A man in overalls and rubber gloves tells me
Go stand there, son
And pick the bones & beaks
Out of the
Chicken press
The whole factory reeked of ammonia
I went home reeking of ammonia.
Chicken conveyor-belts
With upside-down chickens on hooks
Riding slowly over one master neck-splitting saw
Heads in baskets
For when the master saw cuts too deep
I watched them come
& go...
The factory was filled with silent mechanical drumming
Eventually,
I went home
Silent & mechanical.
Jul 30, 2012
Jul 30, 2012 at 6:55 AM UTC
Anachronous monogamy
Schwarzenegger gets to the choppa
Invisible maliciousness awaits to those who
Explore the jungles, Danny Trejo just wants help
Crisis in the management takes two eggs to heal it
Two eggs, two dregs, two more lines to make it through
The day. **** like howitzers, snake in my trousers, wearing overalls
Doesn’t make me gay. Pig farmers, snake charmers, **** undercover, pigs
Make the best companions. Dead of night, chill or fright, I’m here so talk to me.
Mar 12, 2013
Mar 12, 2013 at 12:34 PM UTC
I must have been at least eight years old
when I started playing doctor in my garage,
using long gardening tools as skeletons
and drawing scattered veins with colored
pencils on sketches of the human brain.
I used to set up little name tags on the floorboards.
My parents had a plastic bin full of sticks
to help the plants grow straight that I used
as pointers, attacking each ventricle
of this made up heart with detail. I'd examine
my imaginary person and tell the entire
classroom just how to fix them up right.
Now, I'm twenty one and I must have tried
to fix you up at least ten different times.
I molded you with my hands like soil,
nurturing you with soft kisses and coffee
in the mornings. I'd even try to pull your nightmares
out from the roots, tie up the frayed ends,
and throw them into the compost. I used
my own spine like those pointers to help you
grow up straight, grow up different than all
the memories you'd blurt out like bubbles
when trying to breathe underwater. Memories
like falling asleep accidentally on the bus
just to be awoken by the driver back at the station,
the way that pity candy bar must have tasted
as you waited in a nasty plastic seat
for your mom who wasn't even worrying.
I tried to dissect you from the outside in.
Read your body like it was directions, but
I'm still just a kid in a too big overalls
playing doctor out in my garage.
You are bigger than the pretend desks
with the broken pencils inside. You are more
fragile than the yarn that I would loop
around my neck like a fake teacher's badge.
You have way too many pieces for me to count
on a skeleton, but if you let me I will try
to memorize them all, label them
with sidewalk chalk, put them together
again with Elmer's glue. If you let me,
I will let you slip on my nostalgia
like a patient's gown, let you relive
a tiny moment of the childhood that was stolen
even if it's just for a little while, even
if it's just pretend.
Jan 2, 2016
Jan 2, 2016 at 12:31 AM UTC
two summers ago,
I found myself under a cabbage leaf
curled beneath the sun.
circled in slumber,
like there was never an end to anything.
then, I grew wings
and left my warmth for speed
sacrificing my calm breeze for cold storms
and windy nights.
on my flight home,
I sit through red lights and
look for tear tracks on the
faces of strangers
kissing their cheeks with my eyes
and pretending I can see the salt.
because there is hope left in
loss, my friends.
sometimes, you just have to let
the best things fall.
(how do you think storks still fly?)
so, I spend rush hour
untying the cloth diapers from my ankles
and when the highway pulls
my hills away from me,
I send them flying out the window
like dead birds
knowing
I will never see the seeds
fertilized through their bones
praying God thinks this
is a gesture of my good will.
let us all pray that God notices
our empty hands when we give up
the deepest now for an uncertain future.
Personally, I am praying for a cardboard-box
collection of home movies documenting
the growth of all the people I left,
of all the places thrown behind me
like stale cigarette smoke,
the homes I have broken with
my ever moving feet, my restless
guilty wings.
I will project the shaky film
all over my internals until my
gut is soaked with light
and the last shocked thought
of my quickly fading mind
will be of the things I could have seen,
the memories I would have made
if I had not gone away so much.
If I had just stayed.
but the wind is a vicious thing,
especially the updrafts
especially the hot breath under wings
which gradually convinced me
that my home was a cold dead thing
that there was no life left in my town
that the only world worth seeing was
far far away.
I have burned the eyes
of bluegrass Beethovens dying
slowly on a stage just to prove
that I never needed a quiet place.
that I was above all the country songs
and overalls and camouflage,
but we all need to hide sometimes.
even from ourselves.
Aug 2, 2013
Aug 2, 2013 at 11:39 AM UTC
Kicking pine cones , hands in pockets with my favorite scarf on ..
Outfitted like a business man with something important to decide ,
a lawyer testing a juries intellect , like an important subversive agent with a clandestine government ...
Walking the fence line , dressed to save the world someday , my flashy duds turning heads , yet their only clothes , and clothes never did make the man so they say !
Fancy leather gloves , gold cuff links , cashmere sweater with well planned schemes ..
Upscale hero with a prominent address , four star restaurants , high end assets ..
Caviar and red wine , penthouse vista .. Fancy cigars and first class tickets ..
I'm still Cocoa Cola , cheese and crackers , homemade biscuits ..
Forever overalls , laying hens and sour mash whiskey ..
Jan 3, 2016
Jan 3, 2016 at 8:18 PM UTC
My father used to sing this ditty for us:
"Columbus sailed the ocean blue
in 14 hundred 92
He sailed as far as Chicopee Falls
...and there he left his overalls"
When my teacher asked where Columbus landed,
I knew exactly where! Out of my seat, hand waving in the air... "Oooo ooo me! I know!"
"Yes, Liz..."
"Chicopee Falls!!" ...and I argued the accuracy, VEHEMENTLY.
At least Chicopee was a genuine Native Algonquin word, meaning violent waters.
Thanks Dad!
Oct 8, 2018
Oct 8, 2018 at 11:02 PM UTC
Mama's in the hospital again; this time she's a saint.
Seeing Jesus in the laundry,
she strung my little brother from red overalls,
pinned his palms to the clothesline.
Martin's small, bare feet kicked his dissent
until his weight brought him to ground.
Now Daddy's in the kitchen making waffles.
His wrinkled trousers wear yesterday's doubt.
All us kids at the table, hands pressed
on knees, trying our Sunday best to not see the images:
the glazed panes,
the way the butter slides and dips,
how the syrup pools.
My gaze falls out the window at white sheets snapping
on the wire. Disappointed angels, their great huffing
wings strain to flap away from here.
I want to say a prayer but my mouth is full
of statues. Fissured
words scrape across the plate. I swallow
each one, sticky-sweet, unyielding,
with eyes closed.
Apr 1, 2015
Apr 1, 2015 at 2:30 PM UTC