Rock and Hard Place
A ledge makes a sharp, cutting fulcrum
Unnatural to my center of gravity
Perched upon a destiny
Invites hindsight to laugh--giddy and cruel
All the life behind me
Leans me forward toward the sounds of traffic
All of the relief before me
Is only halfheartedly resistant
What's known, the past, is solid
With consequences etched in stone
What's not lies ahead, with lies
The future is a hard place
Is there a point
Not quite in free fall
Not quite in retreat
Where I can continue, laughing, too?
Driving Home
the fast hiss
or slow sigh
from the map
or the tire,
on a whim,
is misnamed
.........Escape
.......................
grounding itself,
prostrate, clawed,
and towed against
the universal will...
leveled, when all that
can be placed, is,
atmospherical;
the w/hole
was there,
.........dually
....................
uninterpreted
Tides and Wells
I know they can't even be an ounce, but the weight is so much more.
Two five by seven glossies, printed in a tourist trap kiosk. I paid a far higher price than I should have, but the cost hasn't yet been tallied.
Money is a tide, but memory is a well.
Wells sometimes run dry.
Her well isn't as deep as it once was.
I'm stricken by how much she looks like her grandmother. What strikes me even more is the possibility that she'll live as long.
I'm ashamed to admit that I hope she doesn't. Her independence is already gone, her mobility a thing of the past and her thoughts have started trailing after.
My great-grand was with us into my early twenties. She lived long enough to wither on the vine, mind as sharp as a razor but a body fragile as glass. When the light in her eyes began to dim, when her memory began to slip, her body had already started to go. It was an easy thing for her to follow.
My mother's mind started slipping by inches, and her body has declined by miles. Now it's a race to see which one will be gone first.
She knows she's in decline. She's fighting it, but she's losing.
Dialysis starts soon.
I took her on a bucket list trip last week; we originally had it planned for late summer.
Late summer will be too late.
The water was too cold, but she went anyway. She'd never stepped foot in the Caribbean, and now she has.
When I told her about the trip, the first thing she asked was if she could swim with dolphins.
"Absolutely you will," I told her.
And she did.
She hates having her photo taken, so while she was distracted with my step father, I moseyed over to the photo center.
She never asked what I had in the bag.
Two photographs, professionally captured, have her kissing or petting her very own personal Flipper. She watched that show when she was a kid, and half a century later, she finally got to swim with a bottlenose.
When it's her time to go, I'll probably be tasked with building an electronic photo reel. It will be hard to do, because she avoids cameras when she can. She always has.
I knew when I bought these pictures that eventually they'd be displayed in memoriam.
Carrying these photos back to my hotel room, I know they can't even be an ounce, but the weight is so much more.
The Robo-Ghost
The best thing about the internet dating sites is what they’ve done for her confidence. She used to think she was attractive, now she knows she is hot. Now she dresses hot, more revealing, while tight-roping on taller heels. She acts differently too, now, but that is the worst thing about the internet dating sites… what they have done to her confidence.
She only swipes on the best, and they always swipe back. Always. She is hot. Super hot. She must be. She is a princess. Doesn’t a princess deserve the best?
But dating is different these days. Men don’t buy dinner anymore. Movies are a thing of the past. Dating is drinks now, always drinks. After two she’s tipsy, having not eaten. Tipsy enough to be silly… and friendly. But guys like silly… and friendly. She is proof. They like her. They always like her. After her third drink she wants to dance. They accommodate her. Why not? Dancing is cheap enough.
There are more drinks at the club, and the pounding-rhythmic music she craves, and sensual, hypnotic gyrations. She finds herself all in, every time. After all he is tall, nicely dressed, and he smells fantastic. They all smell fantastic. Don’t they? Those most desirable guys on the dating apps? She could smell them all night, and she usually does.
There are mirrors at the club. She looks hot in the mirrors. So does he. She knows this because she sees other women looking. They’ll even pass him a napkin when her head is turned, forgetting the mirrors. This is ok though. She doesn’t mind it. She wants them to want him. Why not? She is super-hot. His eyes are only for her, and she knows it. She likes it. He knows where this night is heading. Where she is leading it. Besides. Would she even want him if no other women did? No, of course not. In fact, their interest fuels her. It excites her, so that she dances closer, backing herself against him, arching her back, watching herself in the mirror, moving to the music, fueling his excitement. And he is excited. She can feel his excitement. And she is hot. She can feel this, too. And knowing she is fuels her.
And the sex is always fantastic. Always… what she can remember of it. And there is always sex. And always at his place. Always. But somehow on the Uber ride home, she never feels hot. She never looks hot. Not ever. What she looks in the morning light, and what she feels, is washed out and ran through. But no worries. The feeling never lasts.
He won’t call her again.
That is dating today, for those like her, stuck in the robotic grind.
But next weekend she’ll swipe on another. As always, it will be another match. She is hot. So she puts the dress back on, the really tiny one. And the shoes, the really big ones. And she tells herself how hot she looks as she goes to meet this new guy for drinks.
“Words hurt” a phrase that only ever applied to me.
When I think of all of the scars inside me, it is proof that you were right.
You said there was nothing I could do to make you stop loving me,
but if that were true as well then why did you leave me in a dark, lonely box and refuse to ever hear me when I cried for you?
7 years is a long time to spend in solitary.
A roof, food, clothing,
none of that makes a mother.
I have learned that, since taking your place.
I have learned all of the things that I would never do as a mother,
let alone as a person that cares about others.
You shattered me, and I was left with so many pieces.
I am still trying to make sense of them, some don’t seem to fit anywhere anymore.
I am forced to rebuild,
recover on my own while you continue your life as if nothing ever happened.
Faded words in an ancient book of your life.
I wonder if I was one of your pieces that just didn’t fit anymore.
I have long since stopped crying for you.
I miss Karen Carpenter
I miss Karen Carpenter
May 08, 2024
I miss Karen Carpenter. Not because today is an anniversary. Not because I am making a statement. I miss Karen Carpenter because of that voice.
It was perfect.
The songs were perfect.
And they came at the right time.
Nestled between the psychedelics of the late 60's and Disco of the late 70's were the Carpenters. It was indeed a simpler time made even simpler with lyrics you could understand, melodies you could learn, and songs you could sing to.
Karen's voice resonates in my mind from this time period as well as today. I hear those songs and I am swept away to a time when worries were few, politics did not interfere in every aspect of life, and people seemed less hurried.
Take time when you are troubled to listen to, "Rainy Days and Mondays", "Close to You". "I Need to Be in Love", "I Won't Last a Day Without You", and "We've Only Just Begun." Wonder why you haven't done this before. Listen to her voice. Then go to the internet and find others who try to do the songs justice.
You always go back to the best.
I choose this picture of her from the hundreds available, not to emphasize how she died, but what she did when she lived. Karen was a mixture of many things, but that voice, much like the cream, always rises to the top.
If you do not follow what I am saying, listen to, "Yesterday Once More." Ask someone if this was a part of their life. Then wonder if it should be part of yours.
Babel
Once upon a yesteryear,
My size three steps
Were but youth’s aching metronome
And vibratory pulse
Afoot our day glow playground
Of raucous rendezvous,
An atom bomb
Of impish haunt.
Do you hear our faded ricochet
That held imprints
From babble to Babel,
As oblivion’s snow white noise
Clapped out peals
Of static and canned laughter,
When a man, long since dead, yelled;
“Howdy Doody Time?”
And we char the page
With our snapshot flash,
Flame licked lightening
A memorial to the poetry
Of our animatic dance.
We were once black riders
Of the technicolour age,
Too young to die,
Too young to fade.
Do you hear our faded ricochet
As the gloaming eats the light?
While the murmurs rattling Saturn’s cage,
Hang halos in the night?
Memory’s weeping willow eyes
Drop their anchor lids aground,
As patchwork quilted souls of time
Are lost and never found.
For ashes are but derelict heirlooms,
Turned kilter, upside down,
And our childhood in Babel,
Sleeps hushed on fallow ground.