We’re picking along the shore
We’re picking along the shore
and picking up shells
fragments
smooth and glistening against a sandshine sun
beaten into submission so we can rub them with our thumbs
a worrystone
a memory
smooth and glistening against sunsoaked skin
dip this one down in the water
a brief reflection of the sky
press it in my pocket for another day
a dark patch of fabric woven with salt
as we pick along again
Buried Child
She calls down the stairs.
She calls down.
Again.
No answer.
Faded fabric furniture and rugs worn through
by heavy boots.
There's an indent in the couch cushion--
an invisible somebody
watching the old TV screen.
Again.
No answer.
The sun is coming up.
It's almost time to plant again, she thinks.
She preens-- pulls at deep wrinkles
in the corners of her eyes
her forehead
her neck.
There's no one to sew the seeds anymore.
She calls down the stairs.
Corn husks have blown into the corner
with balls of dust
and grey hairs.
Planting season come and gone.
Again.
No answer.
*Inspired by Sam Shephard's "Buried Child." Halie was without a doubt one of my favorite roles to play onstage.
City Colors
The city colors cling to us like chalk dust.
Shades and hues of life stick to the soles of our worn boots, and leave vibrant footprints across centuries-old cobblestones.
Gray evening fogs blurred into blue skies overhead.
Gleaming white clouds mirrored the marble museum tiles beneath our feet.
Our noses turned pink as we waited for an endless cycle of
red and green
green and red
red and green lights.
Buildings the colors of sand and stone created a deep canyon around us.
We waded through streams of shining black shoes in Paris,
of brown fur coats in Vienna,
and of dyed deep-plum hair in Budapest.
We explored the minute details and differences
in the chestnut tones of cappuccinos,
and the auburn hues of beers.
From ornate gold trimmings of palaces to painted pastel townhouses
the city colors enveloped us.
Even if we shake off the settled silt of colorful dust, smears and smudges stay. The pigments might fade with time, but the rainbow of the cities and our memories remains.
A Life’s Work
The haze seeped in at the corners of his vision.
The stillness, the darkness-- oh, why couldn't he have it all?
If it consumed him, there would be no room for self-reproach!
He wanted it so, that black quiet.
He wanted the end as he had wanted the beginning.
If he got it all, would the gnawing, searing need that lived just behind his eyes finally simmer to a dull pain rather than a constant burning?
He had always wanted and always taken:
The bright gold, the glaring scars, the loud women, the sharp dagger, the unending pastures, the sweet sugars, the screaming grief, the jovial friends, the deep chasms, the warm bread, the crying pain, the large rooms, the aged wine, the unnerving terror, the strong horse, the soft bed, the awful nightmares...
He wanted it all.
No wonder they always looked on me with disdain, he thought, they were always envious. They were full of greed for what's mine!
What I've been given, what I've taken, what I've needed-- my life's work.
They were the greedy ones, isn't it true?
He needed the end now more than he'd ever needed anything else.
The quiet just might bring answers to such questions.
Steam and Stars
Something listing on the blue-green sky:
Ships slipping between waves of stars,
Slipping through the frothy moonlight.
Smoking stacks sending clouds
Streaming past and into shallow pools,
Settling over the sleeping cities below.
Standing alone under the deep blue night,
Sleep seeping in at the corners of his vision like
Steeping tea in a cloud of steam.
Ships passing,
Silent and sure.
Still, a sentry, watching them pass from below
Sure to be the only memory of these
Steel giants slipping by.
Something leaving, disappearing into the blue beyond,
Stealing away into parts unknown.
Settled clouds turned into fog,
Settled fog turned into dust.
Settled dust turned into stars with
Ships slipping by.
*The prompot was to write a 20-line poem using the first letter of your first name.
of a nightmare.
When the lights go out
in all the homes
along the street--
When the sheets
are finally warm
around my feet--
The darkness seeps in
and
the Sandman's sand
settles like silt
in the murky riverbed
of my sleep
and
there in the bed--
the riverbed--
the creeping
terrors swim past
brushing against my thigh
the pain there
then gone
and
lurking just out of my reach
in the cold swirling darkness.
And when I wake up
all that's left--
a ghost of a memory of a nightmare.