"susannah" poems
“Angelica arguta”,
He shows her his wildflowers
“Angelica Susannah”, he says.
And prodded further by her
His heart.
Lingers briefly with the night;
Her affection has power,
But not enough
To keep him
From marching off to fight.
Tristan, son of One Stab,
Brings wildness from the mountains.
Lovely woman from the East,
Fascinated by her,
His passion.
Revels in her bridal bower,
And stops her
Loving any other.
Alfred, eldest son of his father,
Full of rectitude and romance.
Angelica abandoned,
Adrift between the mountains
Becalmed far from the sea.
He takes advantage,
Snatches her soul with riches,
But never captures
Her longing heart.
Years pass and one son gone,
The other lost and mad.
Year of the red grass and
Happiness found
Is felt too soon.
Tristan loves young Isabel,
But Angelica is his doom.
Yet only he survives
The waves that lash her shore,
“Like water in the ice,
She breaks them.”
And in the Spring,
Is gone once more.
Angelica Susannah is buried
Above the box canyon in the meadow
Among the many dead.
Near Samuel’s heart,
The executed Isabel,
And others who follow soon.
Until only Tristan remains,
Left to hunt his nemesis,
The bear inside him.
And dream of one wife lost,
And a lover left behind:
Angelica Susannah
Beside whom he should lie.
He is slain by the bear in Sixty-three,
After forty years of solitude.
And laid to rest in the plot
Between two women he loved,
Isabel, his ingenuous wife
And Susannah, his tragic love.
Do their spirits meet at last
And wander the golden fields,
Or ride out to bathe in the hot springs,
Under the moon of the falling leaves?
Aug 6, 2018
Aug 6, 2018 at 10:37 AM UTC
Things sometimes fall apart
Among sisters and brothers,
No matter what they once were.
Childhood picnics and dreamy games,
Memories of trips with Dad,
Since Mom was tired of us.
We would climb Appalachian peaks
Or drive to look at the Mayflower.
Every summer there was a golden week
A lakeside cottage and all-day swims
In crystal water, becoming mermaids.
But time passes and bitterness accrues.
Imagined slights grow like slow tumors,
Never excised but nurtured by some.
I go to college and am freed
From the poison of ignorant rage,
From the creeping depression left
Like diesel fog on an endless floor.
Four or five years of delight pass
With only hints here or there
Of a sibling’s misery at home.
Of a once close sister, Maggie,
Who is ignored and never loved
By any man she pursues.
She blames me for it, for reasons
I have yet to fathom.
Of a brother, Francis, deluded, drugged,
Steals the family car in a rage
And drives to New York City.
Of Deirdre, the middle sister,
Whose friend who knows men who feed
On her ignorance and rebellion.
Only Susannah tries to rise above
The maelstrom of misery.
I send her to a school far away
And she sheds despair, at least.
Decades drawl, children are born to us,
While the bridge between us, obscured,
Sags and frays under weight of rancor.
Christmas dinners and birthday parties
Turn into chores, invitations kept as scores.
Petty grudges, like acid, sever the bridge
At last, all ties are abandoned.
When we are all grown and scattered,
No one speaking to anyone else,
Unaware, uncaring about the others.
Only Susannah visits me and smiles,
With no ulterior plan for insane revenge,
Or accusations for errant slights.
Her once dark hair is grizzled and wild
And her girlish skin now creased.
But her treacle eyes, “black aggies”,
I used to call them, still shine.
Only Susannah writes a letter,
Wishing us well and
Healing scars made by others,
Returning the word “family”.
To my basket of small treasures,
I carry with me
Into the twilight.
Oct 10, 2021
Oct 10, 2021 at 10:52 AM UTC
“Angelica arguta”,
He shows her wildflowers
Angelica Susannah.
And prodded further by her
His heart.
Lingers briefly with the night;
Her affection has power,
But not enough
To keep him
From marching off to fight.
One son of One Stab,
He brings wildness from the mountains.
Lovely woman from the East,
Fascinated by her,
His passions.
Revels in her bridal bower,
To stop her
Loving any other.
Eldest son of his father,
Full of rectitude and romance.
Angelica abandoned,
Adrift between the mountains
Becalmed far from the sea.
He takes advantage,
Snatches her soul with riches,
But never captures
Her longing heart.
One son gone,
The other lost and mad.
Years pass and
Happiness found
Is felt too soon.
He loves another,
But Angelica is his doom.
Sep 5, 2017
Sep 5, 2017 at 8:46 AM UTC
"Baby Brianna was five months old when she died...she had multiple broken bones. Over thirty bite marks. She was beat to death..." "Susannah Martinez (campaign ad)
Doe eyed ghosts
Y los ninos mi corazon
Mall haired mamacita with the lined lips
505 madonna meant nothing to you
Bust that cap while she sleeps
Represent
And leave the little ones behind
Curled up against her cooling breast
Black blood and coffee grounds under their nails
It took them weeks to starve to death
Abuelitas they lament
Light the candles in Torreon
Would you buckle under the weight of tiny bones
Small hands that clutch the sky
Sightless eyes
Fragments of a smile stopped by a single shot
Gangstas gunning the wrong house
Little girl lost in poppi's arms
would her whispered breath against your neck
bring one tear
Baby Bartholemew in his car seat
choking to death in his own blood
Head lolling back crying for mommy
One last time
The sound...the stench forever resonant
Cuz teddy bears cant stop a bullet can they
Wrong place
Wrong time
Hand the grieving parents a tissue
And straighten her hair
For the cameras
This indignation will rise
Bile in your throat
for the next 40 minutes
Until you return to the blur
Of your regularly scheduled lives
We're so casual with our offspring
But Brianna, Bartholomew
and the ghosts in Torreon
they haunt these tears I cry
"It took us three years, but we fought to make it a death sentence. Baby Brianna's picture still hangs in my office." Susannah Martinez (campaign ad)
I will not forget....
TL Boehm
December 2010
Oct 7, 2014
Oct 7, 2014 at 2:44 PM UTC
Harmonica Player
Dad was a harmonica player.
He always played those same several songs,
but he played them well.
Everyone recognized and sang along with
Camptown Racetrack, Oh Susannah
and Red River Valley.
On his visit to Germany
while I was in the Army
Dad played, Ach Du Lieber Augustin
and Beer Barrel Polka much
to everyone’s enjoyment over there.
He could also do a good imitation
of that train chugging along the tracks
down by the plywood factory
in Ridgeway Virginia,
steam whistle and all.
Dad was a harmonica player.
He always had a harmonica
in one of the kitchen drawers
or on our mantle above the fireplace,
sticky from a child’s fingers
and clogged with ******* crumbs.
With six children he went through
quite a few harmonicas.
Out of us kids, I was the only one
to learn to play anything,
just 3 or 4 songs, but that,
none the less, means
I am a harmonica player.
That one Christmas Dad gave
each of his four grandsons
a Hohner “Old Standby” harmonica
with beginner instruction and method book.
I guess none of the other grandsons
had done much with their instrument,
because when Dad asked my son, Jason
if he could play the harmonica he’d sent,
it was something like,
“Well, I guess you never learned to play yours either.”
Jason came out of his room a little later,
handed Dad the songbook and asked,
“Which would you like to hear?”
He picked You Are My Sunshine
and Jason played it note for note
from the music written on the page.
Dad was both surprised and thrilled,
but most of all amazed.
Jason not only could play his harmonica,
but also read music,
something neither he nor I could ever do.
He talked about this for many years to come.
That, of course, means
Jason is a harmonica player, too.
Feb 18, 2018
Feb 18, 2018 at 11:20 PM UTC