The short-order cook and the dishwasher
argue the relative merits
of Rilke’s Elegies
against Eliot’s Four Quartets,
but the delivery man who brings eggs
suggests they have forgotten Les fleurs
du mal and Baudelaire. The waitress
carrying three plates and a coffee ***
can’t decide whom she loves more—
Rimbaud or Verlaine,
William Blake or William Wordsworth.
She refills the rabbi’s cup
(he’s reading Rumi),
asks what he thinks of Arthur Whaley.
In the booth behind them, a fat woman
feeds a small white poodle in her lap,
with whom she shares her spoon.
"It’s Rexroth’s translations of the Japanese,"
she says, "that one can’t live without:
May those who are born after me
Never travel such roads of love."
The revolving door proffers
a stranger in a long black coat, lost in the madhouse poems of John Clare.
As he waits to be seated,
the woman who owns the place
hands him a menu
in which he finds several handwritten poems
By Hafiz, Gibran, and Rabindranath Tagore.
The lunch hour’s crowded—
the owner wonders
if the stranger might share
my table. As he sits,
I put a finger to my lips,
and with my eyes ask him
to listen with me
to the young boy and the young girl
two tables away
taking turns reading aloud
the love poems of Pablo Neruda.

there’s this invisible gremlin with his hands around my neck and yes, i say HIS because yes, he’s a man, what else would a gremlin be.

he’s got his hands around my neck and he has another set of hands around my arms.  and my eyes are locked with his and i'm entranced.

i wish i could say he was as beautiful as vishnu with his four arms and enchanting mystique.  but i wouldn’t be caught dead praying to this guy.  

he pulls my hair and he grabs at my ankles and don’t get me wrong, there’s a time and a place for that.  but this is always at the most inopportune moment. because while i’m running away, he calls out to me,

“hey!  remember how terrible you are?  remember how you’re actually incapable of doing anything?  remember how literally no one likes you?”  

and i freeze in my tracks and i look around hysterically, begging that no one heard him.  and i open my mouth to say something but he’s throwing pencils at my head like nate in my civics class and what did i ever do to you, nate?  

my brother likes to remind me that he cried on the homecoming court and i wish i could say that i felt vindicated but ever since i felt the eraser hit my temple, i realized i should probably keep my mouth shut because these linoleum halls are run by basketball shorts and beauty queens, not band geeks

nate threw pencils at my head.  he didn’t put his hands around my neck.  he wouldn’t be caught dead touching someone like me.

this invisible gremlin is all over me.  and i’m kind of indifferent because i love any kind of attention.  he bought me so many drinks in college and i thought, for a while, it was a good system.  we’d drink and we’d dance and we’d follow those adult rules of not talking about work or family while having fun.  

and then the next day, he’d hit me in the face as sharp as the wind on wood street.  “remember, you’re in love with someone who doesn't love you.”  “remember, you’re too awkward to get past the job interview.”  

he keeps me up all hours of the night wanting more from me and my muscles are tense but with no touch of intimacy.  

i’ve spent my whole life being the tallest girl in the room but he has his shoe right over my head.  people watch as he brings me to my knees and they STILL ask me why i’m always apologizing.

it took me years and years to end up realizing that i was apologizing for him.  like an exhausted midlifer apologizing for her ******* husband.  but my favorite stories are the ones where she gets a fresh haircut and a new dress and she realizes she’s worth more than Bud Weiser hollering at her from the recliner and then she writes a new ending for herself.

so thanks for the pencil.

i like your landscape
your scenery different
from here, yet we have
queen anne's lace too
yesterday we swept along the new bypass
yet the flowers were gone over though
else where is all rowan berries and rosebay
willow herb

such a day
freedom from driving
mapping the land
pausing in montgomery
go google

the next destination

your road is straight
as was ours
roman up to the castle

today is quiet work
again to see what comes

6.21
have you heard about the dam
at whaley bridge?

news on the radio
i have to be careful
how i spell things

Win some, lose some
Leave or stay,  
The world will go on anyway.

No more important than a grain of sand,
Come or go,
The winds will continue to blow.

We are born, and then we die,
Remembered or forgotten,
Time goes on without us.

make friends, lose friends,
real or not,
end the end we are all just someone, someone else forgot.

~Shawna K. Whaley

It starts small, and then grow stronger
First a little sadness, then a small tear

Soon I am weeping, can hold back no longer
The thoughts come, I'm paralyzed with fear

Feeling unloved, unwanted and more
Trying to fight it, they say they care

Yet deep down inside, my heart has been torn
Trying to hold on, becomes hard to bare

Feelings of loneliness, like no one is there
Rage deep inside me, I'm feeling so lost

The true thoughts inside me, I cannot share
I want to let go, though I cannot pay the cost

Shawna K Whaley
10-13-01

(8/19/15)

As I drift away into my own thoughts

Voices get farther away

Once more trapped within my own mind

Unaware of my surroundings

The world around goes on without me

As conversations continue unhindered by my absence

In my head is nothing but silence

Then my thoughts begin to penetrate the fog

In my mind I am alone

Don't try to talk to me 'cause I won't hear you

I'm somewhere else now even if you still see me

Lost within myself

Consumed by my own thoughts

So far away

Only half aware when you say my name

I'm daydreaming yet it's unclear

As I sit here thinking

I'm here, but I'm not here

~Shawna K. Whaley