Free
Verse
Bribing
Day
An incontinent
day; a day plagued by moods
that waffle as often as a l6-year-old
told she can have a car if she will learn
to drive stick. Sky sulks, wheedles, tries
to hide, weeps, grumbles, slams doors,
and switches lights off and on. These.
shenanigans don't work, she tries
half a sunny Huck Finn grin. Freckles
and all. Make up your mind! I yell
from my deck. Or I'm going to ground
you, I swear. So what does she do?
She starts to clown. Finds a baby blue
wig and pats circles on it with talcum
powder. Please, Night, I plead when
dusk falls, please-oh-pretty-please bring
Day flowers so she'll be nice tomorrow.
Maybe a little perfume will lull her
into being the delight I know she can be.
Might try night-blooming jasmine.
Whatever you do, please make sure
the little pill gets her beauty sleep!
Dancing
Still
One moment you
were on your sagging porch
cavorting to the sturm und drang of an August
strangler. Cymbals clanged and thunder clapped,
telling us it would be your final performance.
Telling you? Rain! you sang with all the voice
you had left. Rain!! God, but I love
a good storm. Lightning pale and lightning
thin, light as the wisps of mist-silvered hair
framing your leukemia ravaged face,
you electrified. Ravished coal sky ogled
you through a net of catch-as-can-patched
screen, only light an eak from your kitchen
and the pyrotechnic glow that was you.
IS, this rain whispers, then taps in Morse code.
No more florist daffodils and horrid pink
satin. Still laughing, still shining, still a star....
Reluctant to go in, I jump in a puddle,
let water stream until thunder applauds.
Tracks
Lead to Gamble
Fingerprinted
glass shows soot hanging
about a constantly shifting, yet same-old
patchwork of iron and more flexible metal,
abandoned tools, sleds, parts, cartons, and
boards with nails sticking out. Concrete
blocks are stacked helter-skelter among
a jumbo jumble sale's worth of broken
glass, poisoned wood, and gizmos held in
place by deserted or rarely-set-foot-in
buildings and leaning huts and bins
long stuck to asphalt. Latter pocked with
holes. The train has rumbled to a crawl,
perhaps, like me, temporarily in awe
of outskirts that Dali would have hated
missing a chance to paint. Throw in
the odd geometry quiz by Picasso and
Edward Hopper's loneliest night, shazam.
Out-of-sight-and-mind factories that made
a city out of a virtual ghost look worked
to death, their painted windows nursing
panes shattered by desperate denisens
of the city's streets and petty vandals.
View is a streaked forties film noir on
a screen tries to keep secrets with rain
and clouds. Shades range from dirt white
to gravel stirred into tar. Odd jolts of
cartoon colors on peeling signs with half
their letters, angry explosions of graffiti,
and flotsam swirled by the wind the train
creates are making grey greyer. Turned off,
I close my eyes. Afraid to sleep for fear I
will end up out there. People watches one
of my addictions, so I study a small boy
with a bowl cut and eyes like black-eyed
susans with the yellow bleached away.
Unfolding to his knees, he presses his nose
against glass. "Mama!" "Mama! "Look
quick, and you'll see the bird I just saw.
Wings are thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis big!" For the rest
of the trip, I keep an eye out for the color
and movement mean life ain' gonna fold.
Pull myself up and wend my way in jerks
and starts to the club car for a game of
chance. Not to go off the wagon.
H o p e
a dog howls
its heart out
behind peeling paint
and scattered pink toys
a child’s shoe lies heel-up
on a mound of trash
where beer bottles shine
a car fender leans on a worn-out sink
by a tree that has dropped limbs
on rock-hard dirt
a train roars past, leaving cinders
spotting a dying sky
under a long abandoned bridge
a wren builds a nest with aluminum foil
and string from a unwanted gift
and starts a family
[Appeared in The Village Rambler]
Valentine
Dare
Let's hear
it for Valentine's Day all year every year
all around the globe and all the way out into space
Make it so that compassion triumphs over fear,
anger, resentment, envy, and hate. Let's turn bullets and
bombs to pretend-arrowed hearts
with huge I love you's in every known tongue.
Let's fold paper doilies and cut pretty felt apart,
for roses, color them, then sing at the top of our lungs,
Let's all be Valentines for each other.
Live at peace and be gentle and kind.
After all, we are sisters and brothers.
None of us has a whole lot of time.
Time the candy gets shared.
Time the games get played fair.
True Valentines care!
