"tetherball" poems
In class the big black and white tick-tock pinched
my mid-morning belly. When everyone else
borrowed numbers, my pencil lead and yellow paint
scratched out hunger. Minutes chugged like school
buses. Even columns of three-numeraled numbers
minused the bottom line, scold of lunch.
A borrowed quarter and dime from the office,
meant a secretary’s red-lipsticked mouth, bent
and accusing. Her coiffed curls shook my dreams.
I would starve before sailing into that office
for my little belly, but forever yearned for the secretary
to pet my hair. Say, “There, there,”like to a character
in a book rosy with girls in gingham dresses.
But, for all those lovely boats of hot lunches: meatloaf
with crusts of catsup like a winter cap, buttered beans,
dinner rolls
and cold-cartoned milk, not watered down--
Missing lunch, I'd hide out in the cold storage
room of sack lunches next to the playground.
While the others ate, I'd escape at the right tick
into the recess of blacktop and tetherball.
Feb 3, 2015
Feb 3, 2015 at 2:28 PM UTC
Cigarette smoke and **** colored beer
Family is a suckerpunch epiphany
For people who’ve spent so much time
Saying they no longer had one
I swore forever
Mine was missing parts
This heart carved shells
Let’s swap odd shapes
Re-sew them and **** up our beats forever
Together
If the world is ending and you find me here
Kicking up the earth
Dirt scatter to the wind
Brown blood spatter
That’s just me trying to escape faster
Join me or leave me
But I got this beef with gravity
Like a severed head tetherball
This face senseless
You make me senseless
Numb to all the bad parts
In the same way salt makes everything sweeter
You make everything sweeter
Your salty skin
Sweet mouth
Sweet speak
Sweet laughter
Make me feel a little less stupid
About giving in to the movement
This mouth
This body
Like a knee-buckle kick to the gas pedal
And I peel out by accident
And you can still love me
Like family
I’ve slept in so many beds
And on so many floors
All so much more comfortable than my own
I swear I have bed bugs
Drinking my blood as I sleep
Getting drunk most nights
Them and me
Wake up itchy and fatigued
Like an allergy
But you
You smile like a hammock
Held up by strings hanging from your eye squint
To your dimples
Without speaking
“you can rest here tonight”
This is for the beds
For the people who say ouch when I hug them
For the family I thought I never had
For the appreciation that
Every moment of sadness
Means I’ve known so much joy
To feel that way
I’ve known so much joy
Thank you
Mar 1, 2013
Mar 1, 2013 at 4:06 PM UTC
Grass stains
Growing pains
Tetherball
Kickball
New swear words
Detention
Girlfriends
Best friends
Pizza parties
Saying "No" to drugs
(Eventually saying "Yes")
Ketchup on the ceiling at lunch
Detention
Pencil stuck in the ceiling
Detention
Scraped knees
Snowball fights
Fist fights
Detention
Life's lessons
Early on
Dealing with bullies
Being a bully
Detention
Being stubborn
But growing up
Learning things the hard way
Detention
Jun 12, 2015
Jun 12, 2015 at 3:26 PM UTC
Gazing at furry paws
smacking white cord pulls
mesmerizes her.
Wooden tassels clunk together,
waving to and fro
like a tetherball
on a playground pole
spanked by busy children.
He left his kitten
his curious kitten.
Outside snowflakes
float downward
like the pieces of paper
she shred from his exit note
and like bits of cotton
the kitten pulls from her pillow.
He left his kitten,
his curious kitten.
Her hands clasp together.
She utters no prayer.
Downcast she cannot face her Lord.
Her red streaked eyes,
accented by ash colored cheeks
study playful kitten.
Her thoughts clink together
as she slaps them around her mind.
He left his kitten,
his curious kitten.
He left.
He left her.
Oct 27, 2015
Oct 27, 2015 at 10:10 AM UTC
At this point she remains a specter
Nearly unnoticed, yet vital as the pole to a tethered ball
At this point I remain oblong
Punched from behind, yet to reaffirm my true form
I orbit her essence, chasing the wire that holds me
Not to have it, but to outrun it
Racing him to her, in a hapless homage
To every failed romance before
In a binding performance
Painfully predictable twists and turns
Leading me to her in a victorious procession
Slaps to my face and blows to my head
Strangely entertaining
I rest atop her, fully requited now
Forced there by some unknown hand
I’m committed, torsion of the wire pulsing
Ignore it now for this one day
Until we play again
May 4, 2010
May 4, 2010 at 9:58 PM UTC
These thoughts inside my head
Are memories long gone, lost or dead
These things you forget
I'll usually remember
I'm not sure why
I remember.
Sometimes I wish I didn't
Like the times I made you cry
Or when we cried together.
Little things
You forget you told me.
I remember them all.
Not just with him.
With most everybody.
She told me she was *****
He said he wanted to die.
When another one cried
I still remember the shine in his eye.
His preference to music
That one song that hit her hard.
How Ace of Spades
Wasn't just a card.
I remember spilling my past
Into her ears.
Watching her eyes
Fill up with tears.
In the 4th grade
When he did the splits
In 3rd grade when
She was made fun of
I was her only friend on that playground
Playing tetherball everyday at recess.
How the 'weird kid' thought my pie
Had cockroaches on top.
They were Pecans.
You asked me every time I brought it.
In second grade when you made fun
When you found out I was adopted.
I remember my dad made you cry.
Then later in High school
You liked me.
I didn't.
I remember the countless nights
I'd wait up for your call.
At least that didn't fail.
I remember all these things.
But they're lost in all of your minds.
Not in mine.
They won't be forgotten soon.
Sep 29, 2013
Sep 29, 2013 at 2:59 AM UTC
House gone
Spouse broken
Son searching
I watch, listening thru years of seasoned namaste
Memories dismembered, then undone
Let it go
Being must draw from today's agenda
Ladies nite upcoming
....Wait...the camp bus has arrived
Eyes twinkling, *** bellied, picking at my brown bagged lunch
Tasting an easy win at tetherball
Sometimes we choose winning
Later, greet the passerby or not
Opt to live or die
Oct 14, 2016
Oct 14, 2016 at 12:10 PM UTC