EYEdle, July o8, 2o13

Monday,
   I popped this one off pretty fast today. I've decided to not call what I do poetry or poems. I think I'll just call them, writes. Or maybe just call them, words. I'm stuck on the color red for the pics. Need to change that, AND also need to use something other than MY picture in everything! Come on, I can be more creative than that!

EYEdle

 

I wake up. A desire not to do so.

My eyes, at least, refuse to open.
Hands, however, already busy scratching,
touching my body... I guess they want  
to figure out if I'm still here, physically.
Like some damn fairy burglar would sneak in,
steal a body part  while we slept. Arms,
legs, personal parts (always checked first),
hair— well, what hasn't already been stolen
by nature— nope all there.
It's then my eyes agree to look.
I'm supposing they want to make sure
that I exist before making any commitment
to getting up. Yes, these dear eyes of mine
are so insecure. They wouldn’t like to be
surprised or shocked by loss of limb… or life.
It’s sort of funny, they have no qualms about
rummaging through the unknown territories
of a random dream, but reality?
Scares the hell out of ‘em.
—rrw o7-o7-13

... To Bed, July o7, 2o13

Sunday,
   Disappointed with this other site I'm on. People don't "appreciate" my poetry much, or so it seems to me. So, I quit it. Plan to spend more time here and on my Facebook page, RRW Poetry. I need readers bad who like my work. Don't need people who don't get into what I write. This is another one of my poems that got passed over.

…To Bed

 

My eyes too anemic tonight

to bother with this bit of poetry
still fluttering about on my tongue.
My cheap reading glasses from
WalGreens’ Pharmacy are of little
help. The smudges on their lenses
generating blurry, gray ghosts who
appear on the pasty white screen  
of my computer monitor.  The shadow
cast by the table lamp also seems to be
something newly risen from the grave.

 

I place each word quite carefully

in military straight, unyielding lines
forming a sort of chain gang rhyme
and rhythm, tapping out a song I hope
gets the pragmatic (if less than dramatic)
job done, and forces my mind, finally,
to push back the chair that binds me
here in these withering hours,
on this particular night, to this cluttered,
coffee cup stained desk where my laptop
hums an electric weariness so profound
I must include it in this poem.

 

I wait (not too impatiently) for a desert,

a dry patch, a Brawny paper towel thought
to emerge and soak up all unnecessary,
unseemly drips and drops: the occasional
inactive verb, misused pronouns, conjunctions,
all the incoherent blips and blobs, and typos,
that really, really sinful working class grammar
that stammers its way through my stubby,
illiterate, node shaped fingers.

 

I wait as the neglected pencils and pens

in their cracked, Masson jar home wait,
as the unused, dust covered stationary
on the desktop waits,
as the amber colored streetlight
on the corner outside
my blindfolded window waits…

 

All of us waiting for something

magically poetic to happen so 
we may (desperately) go to bed. 
—rrw o6-1o-13

Shadow Dog

Friday
   Well, the prosecution in the George Zimmerman murder trial has concluded their side of the argument, and it ain't looking that good for the murder victim, Treyvon Martin. I think we're gonna wind-up with an OJ verdict. Anyway, wrote this long before the trial ever got started, way back when the protests were going on trying to get the state of Florida to indict Zimmerman:

Shadow Dog

 

The shadow was chasing me down, becoming larger,

heftier as it approached. I picked up speed—
not running away, I’d never do that—just trying
to make it... make it to... to the light of that streetlamp,  
safe in the glow of the streetlamp I would be
from the black-dog like thing ...

 

Rain in huge, cold drops; rain

pounding the top of my hoodie,
throbbing at the same rate of speed
as my heart. My thoughts, though,
moved too slow, tried hard to keep up
with the dark question hammering away
at the inside of my skull...

 

What did this shadowy thing want with me?

It wasn’t mine. It belonged to someone else
or some thing else that I couldn’t quite see...

 

I remember the smell of sweat. I turned

to confront it... the smell of dog shit
on the sidewalk... it’s a crime, you know,
not to clean up after your pets.

 

But there’s nothing funny

about this shadow dog’s bark... it was loud,
too loud, so loud when it slammed into my chest,
sliced its way through my chest, my flesh, the muscles
that protected my heart... and that sound... CRACK!
My heart...  it stopped my heart from ever racing again.

—rrw 3-30-12

Stone Blind July o5, 2o13

Friday
   Like a lot of my poems, this one started out as a post... I do that a lot... something comes to mind as I'm on Facebook and I just gotta write it down before I lose it. AND afterwards, always, I rework it for a few days or so and finally post it again as a poem. I think sometimes when writing a poem the writer may discover things about his/herself. I don't think the writer sets out to do that, but there's always that possibility. And I believe that during the process of writing this poem I learn a lot about myself as a person and a poet.

Stone Blind

 

There are holes in my eyes, deep white, they seem.

Seeing little more than off-gray, half-lit shadows from
the dining room brought to life by gossiping candlewax.
Red, pomegranate memories, I have. Lips like oranges
dipped in chocolate, speaking cream and coffee, delicate
teaspoons, tongue tied condiments. I remember my words
barked too loud, gushing brutal ribbons of obscenities
that whipped your curious smile into a frightened silence.
I'm lucky. I no longer see the scars, the disappointments
you carried around like empty bags of groceries. I starved
your patience almost to death, all the while begging
you to overlook my quarrelsome moods, my devotion
to pain whenever the moon dived behind a regrettable cloud.
If I could, I would render the world as vacant and uncertain
as my life has made me. Then might I slip into the comfort
of a well-oiled grave and never recall how my ability to love
had finally become, once and forever, stone blind.
—rrw o7-o2-13
 

Wonderful Day July 4th, 2o13

Thursday,
   So, I got a bit of a challenge yesterday on Facebook. One of my poet friends (Mig) said she wanted to see a poem that was upbeat from me. No, what she said was 'POSITIVE." I'm not much if I'm a "on demand" writer, and seriously not much of a positive sort of writer... or even a positive sort of human being. But since it is the 4th and there is so much stuff going on in the world right now, I thought I'd try to write something a little "bouncy." To be honest, I got the idea for this poem from a Devo song, Beautiful World.

Wonderful Day

 

Birds up high nesting in a tree

singing  to me in Japanese
got no idea what they mean
but that’s okay, it’s a wonderful day.

 

A girl in line her name is Flo

she's beautiful like an evening snow
she digs it when I tell her so
and that’s okay, what a glorious day.

 

A Facebook buddy hates my poetry

too much sinning, sadness,  idolatry
"Write something cheerful if you please"
well, okay, I’ll try anything… once.

 

The killer’s march, a long, strong stride

through darkness he glides, gun at his side
BAM! Shot them birds and poor old Flo! I don't know why
but that’s okay, I’m still hopeful today.

 

And the lawyer dressed in his crocodile suit

speaks out, “My client wasn’t in pursuit
he has a constitutional right to shoot!”
What? What the hell did you say?!

 

And the De-volution of  ancient Egypt

filling the skies, the military edict
blood in the streets, the people scream it
“You got no reason to treat us this way
no God given duty to blow us away
we gonna stand and fight ‘cause it’s liberty day.”

 

And it’ll be alright, it’s a wonderful day.

—rrw o7-o4-13

Blush, July o2, 2o13

Tuesday,
   Like almost all my poetry, it takes me a while to get a poem posted here. This was written right after the Super Moon in June:

Blush

 

Yellow-white against black skin,

a cloud of midnight wanders
past her moody face. There, within
her smoky flesh she  wonders

 

how she can be so delicately tame,

how day and dark can shape her,
bind her without shame,
blind the beauty of all other.

 

Her light is brightest in the grasp

of night.  The branches of the elms
tonight call out to her, they gasp;
her glowing stare it overwhelms.

 

My simple need to always please

her, to be near her, watching every move
she shimmers in the slightest breeze.
And now it’s me who loudly blushes love.
—rrw o6-26-13


 

Mother Morning, July o1, 2013

Monday,

   July! A new month and hopefully some new poetry. I worked on this a few days and it seems to be ready. I don't really know what causes these poems to come out... I think that's part of the fun. Let the idea come out on its own then work on it until it makes some kind of sense.

Mother Morning

 

And when I woke, there was morning

slumped in an armchair tapping its foot
impatiently, the way mamma used to do,
pearly arms crossed, eyes sternly narrow,
"Well, what do you have to say for yourself?"
My routine answer, a wide mouth yawn.

 

At sixty-five I can’t help but feel the old guilt,

sleeping in till noon instead of up and running  
long before the clock’s alarm. Today smacked
me in the face with a trillion megaton bomb
of sunlight; my eyes popped open by the blast,
my hands shot up protectively— Too late.
Wide awake. Irreparable damage done.
The morning’s won like mamma always did.

 

She never spoke to me as if I were a person,

a living, breathing  thing. She sounded like
rain beating steadily against the center
of an empty pie tin— Not the flat thud
of raindrops on sidewalk, that was Pops.
Her voice… a breeze, that gentle racket
wind made when rummaging through
 the spring elms’  thick, green locks,
or as it danced haphazardly across
the leaky rooftops of identical track homes.

 

“I love you best,” Mom always said,

her echo doesn’t quite ring  true to me.
I never found her to be extremely caring
or forgiving. She asked me once to rub
her shoulders— Hair spray and roses,
I remember. A funny smell, I thought.
Not appropriate for mothers.
—rrw o7-o1-13