School Daze (1924)

Mrs. Hall told me

that I was to be

the valedictorian of the class!

Had to write a sentence

fifty times

for talking today in school.

Am reading Mark Twain’s

The Innocents Abroad.

It’s better than any geography

or history I ever read.

Young Existentialism

To be a child

riding in a backseat,

watching cornfields

fade into driveways

and suburban lawns,

wondering

whether it’s all Imaginary

and she’s the only one

who’s really Here--

Even the car, this road

and her parents

are outside herself,

so they don’t actually exist

if she is Alone

Here.

Caroline (1925)

Am mad at Carrie.

Not just exactly mad,

but we’re not on speaking terms.

Gave Caroline a compact

for a birthday present,

because I had to.

She’s trying to make up.

Made “B” in the Latin test.

Caroline and I have “made up”

after two weeks!

I guess maybe

I will go on some of the things

with Russell,

if he gets a boy for Caroline.

Russell wrote a note

saying he loved me

and things like that.

I hate that kind of thing.

When Russell sees me at school

he’s afraid to look at me

and he never speaks.

I don’t know what to do.

Carrie and I went to Westie

and got a sundae this afternoon.

We do that almost every Sunday now.

Ways of Seeing

Sometimes, a little

basic sustenance is wont

to really ramp up

an otherwise boring day.

Thanks so much for the flowers.

Inspired by Izy’s prompt to the Real Toads: Holy Motors

Some Dreams

My Love, I will follow you

cross arid paths, the universe,

in your wagon to the Stars--

To you, I will be ever True

deliciously, and never curse

memories uniquely Ours.

Embracing, like Lovers do,

you plus me, better or worse.

Together, we’ll keep fear afar--

Some Dreams, it seems, do come true.

(Happy birthday to my most wonderful old man.)

Pot Holes

Scarred

destiny,

pinned to glacial gash,

iced distance, generations

marked.

Jersey

Barrier Placement:
Strategic requirement
of crawling back to You.

Tavern Wishes

Pour me one more glass, lady bartender

Then I’ll take my leave, my mistress calls me

To populate the night; never-ending

Questions swirl after the fog of today--

Cross-examination: How can this be?

There no convincing one who’s gone astray.

I wish I could escape this happenstance--

(Can’t live with women & can’t kill ‘em, see?)

Instead, perhaps I’ll ask my girl to dance.

Grace's weekend challenge to the Real Toads is the Nocturna.

Hooked

If crawling ‘cross the Universe

is required to show Devoutness,

here I suffer on hands and knees,

proving that Integrity

     ought not be blessed--

Devoted, I shall demonstrate

fruits of Fealty tolerate

thrashing abuse, abundant Loss,

returning only ample cause

           to Celebrate.

Inspired by this week's music prompt to the Real Toads, featuring the works of Tim Eriksen.

Land of the Lost

In those lost days,

crayfish waited under the bridge

for the erection of mud motels,

kids fished the crick & burnouts

climbed the trusses threatening

to jump, someone’d yell Kinger!

as a German shepherd lapped the yard

& a shirtless girl’d prostrate

herself on the sticky-hot blacktop

of that one-lane bridge, shrieking

come’n get me my days are all done!

waiting for cars to run her over.

Nocturne in Amber

In the backyard darkest night,

bougainvillea speaks to me;

Or perhaps the wild rose hedge,

cuckolded yet somehow free--

Bright light exits, whispry tunes

sung alto, brushed with whiskey;

Only this hour resonates,

trembly limbs are somehow free--

Lover, I will follow you

through inky night, faithfully;

Risking falling overboard,

drowning amber, somehow free--

In the backyard, darkest night,

somehow free on trembling knees.

Kerry challenged the Real Toads to write a poetic nocturne.

Electroencephalography of the Soul

   A girl

goes to the hospital

for a brain test

because the doctors

might want to change the pills

she takes for seizures.

They stick wires

all over her head

with what feels like

   bubblegum

and she wonders how she’ll ever

get all that gum out of her hair.

She doesn’t know

what they are measuring

   as their machines

start their scribbling,

but she hopes to hell it’s true

that they can’t

   actually read her mind

because she can’t stop

her thoughts from racing

      with monstrous imaginings.

Penned for Write on Edge: Bubblegum

If Birthdays Were Wishes

What if it were as simple

as knocking three times, blinking

repeatedly, & clicking your heels?

You’d be on your knees, lucky

stars kissed-blown, dandelions

conserved instead of holding breath

Because this could be your last.

FOOTNOTE TO LIFE HERE

with profuse apologies to Allen Ginsberg

Wonder! Wonder! Wonder! Wonder! Wonder! Wonder! Wonder!

    Wonder! Wonder! Wonder! Wonder!
The earth is wondrous! Her people are wondrous! Her seas

    and trees and landscapes are wondrous!

Everything is wondrous! The eyes and lips and hands are wondrous!

Everyday is wondrous! Everywhere is an eternity! Everyone’s

    full of wondrous ecstasy and gin-juice and cunt-power!

    Wondrous sweat pooling under breasts, wondrous the cock, yes

    especially the cock is wondrous!

The typewriter is wondrous, words flying across ether is wondrous,

    all the mundane shit of everymorning and everynight is

    wondrous, tucking kids in bed at night is wondrous!

Wondrous dreams! Wondrous sleepless nights wondrous amber liquid

    sipped from a jelly jar wondrous!

Wondrous the farmer’s market! Wondrous children on the bike path!

    Tasty Top Soft Serve is fucking wondrous!

Wondrous the people protesting violence and tyranny! Wondrous

    the students facing down tanks! Wondrous tweeting through

    tear gas! Wondrous the people of Istanbul!

Wondrous protests!

The Internet is full of wondrous wonder!

Television is wondrous! Communication is wondrous! Wondrous your

    whisper in my ear, wondrous a phone call from my father,

    wondrous songs handed down generations, wondrous books

    of poetry passed hand to hand, wondrous Edith Bunker singing

    Love Can Make A Hero From A Chump!

Wondrous a lecture from a child about how trash can be useful!

Wonder! Wonder! Wonder! Wonder! Wonder! Wonder!

Wondrous the children the love the sex the earth the super-goodness

    of the soul in the face of evil the notion that love

    trumps it all!

 

Kerry asked the Real Toads for an homage to Allen Ginsberg, whose birthday is June 3. Special favorite! And rest in peace, dear Jean Stapleton.

Please Stand By

Too busy

to write. Too

bad this writer must

work for a living.

Be back soon.

Help Me, Erica Jong

Yesterday,

my name was Snidely Green.

Today, it's Guardedly Optimistic:

Requiring External Validation.

My real name is Mama, Mama, Mama!

Tomorrow, it will be

Bellowing My Poems From That Rooftop.

My secret name

is Tender Roots

Quaking

Toward a Half-Century

and Wondering

How I Got Here.

A reprise and gentle re-write of this poem I wrote a few years back, on the advent of my forty-seventh birthday. Ahem. 

Pedestrians

They walked,

seemingly amiably,

apparently a mother

window-shopping arm-in-arm

with her adult daughter,

laughing,

until the young one said,

loud enough for passersby

to perk up and listen:

I’m not going to say

that you’re emotionally stunted,

but I am going to say

that you owe me an apology.

Okay To Go

When the Aliens

come for me,

I want them to embody

the form

of Jeff Bridges.

1. Love Is

Someone Who

Notices Your Morning Breath

and Kisses You

Anyway

Teenaged Girl Birthdays in the 1920's

My birthday.

Got a bracelet,

one dollar, a box of candy,

and silk stockings.

Am fourteen, now.

Another birthday.

Got 2 boxes of candy,

two nightgowns,

a pair of silk stockings,

choker beads, and a compact.

Sweet sixteen!

Got a pink silk combination,

a pair of silk stockings,

a pair for fancy garters,

and a compact.

Seventeen.

Mother baked me a cake,

Dad brought me a box of candy,

and they both gave me

green & white silk sport stockings.

My grandmother would have been 103 today. These are excerpted from her teenaged diary, 1924-1927. Silk stockings, who knew?