Goodbye poetry month with 2 last ones---#34 & #35!

Not my most profound month of poetry. I just feel so dry and struggle to focus these thoughts. But here are the last two for this month of poetry. Until I write some more next year in April or the random post of a poem, if it is any good, at other times of year.

Chicken Face-Off at Sunset

One solo feathered feature

Sits quietly half cooing and half clucking

Her thoughts out into the deepening twilight

She surveys her tiny fiefdom

From up top of our chicken coop

Tonight she is ready

She guards the yard from dangers

Says our boy to all who ask

I think she is exploring her freedom

And it is fun to have her feathers ruffle

In the night air as the stars struggle

To be noticed from behind the cloud cover

She remembers the day and the two hours

That she is allowed to roam with her sisters

And fellow cooped up conspirators

That competes for bugs, slugs, and other

Creepy crawly delicious delectable

That enhances her diet and entertainment

The sounds she makes now is her satisfied humming

That tells us she doesn’t care to go anywhere

Until we get out the yellow toy shovel

To dislodge her daring

And send her back up the stairs

To what is a forced march

Our warrior chicken

Will face off with us tomorrow

In a match of magnitude

Swelling her chicken pride and heart

Before I Forget Again

I found a message in the bottom of my bag

I wanted a piece of paper

To jot down some thoughts

It was blank on one side

Perfect for that

I unfolded it and inside

The note struck a tone

Of a difficult time

That someone had reached out

On this paper opined

And written contact information

Asking me to write

I have not

I put it in my bag with that intent

Wanted to honor every bit of it

Now, a scrap, waiting for me to remember

I don’t remember what I was going to write down

The moment is gone and it doesn’t matter

I must write now

The note I did not

Before I forget

Poem #32 on this 29th day

Mega Monkey on Our Backs

Noah is more than the story

He has much to say

Than just debate today

There are animals galore

On a distant shore

But how did they get there?

The dinosaurs are mighty hard to ignore

The bones that are dug up from every floor

The ones that study them know much,

Except where did they go?

God spoke and behold the universe in place

Still, scientists are finding new things in space

Was God’s voice the explosion that began

All of this in motion?

It is difficult to discern

Against what we learned

Some want to burn

The opposite theory

Which makes me so weary

I believe God is larger

Than all of this arguing

He doesn’t need the bargaining

It takes faith to believe

In him or not

The anger changes

Not even one small jot

Another blast from the past poem

Rub-a-dub-dub

Three men named “Bub”…. Yep, I got lots of nothing tonight! Posting an old poem pulled from a random journal pull off my shelf. From August 2006

Book Bound

I collect experiences on my bookshelf

Dusty and forgotten or neglected

Never read but purchased with great intentions

To excel, succeed, and move beyond

This moment’s notice

To unstick my slow footed soul

From “habitual quick sand”

I pick up a title that particularly

Taunts my sensibilities

Looking over the title page

I find the chapter I most need

Tossing aside an hour I indulge

Playing into advice that

Formulates a new plan of sincere action

I write my list,

Stick it to my fridge

Amongst a sea of witnesses

Favorite photos of my far away family and friends

Tomorrow I shall write them about the plan

That will be forgotten by week’s end

When the book is misplaced or re-shelved

As the action plan is in my way

Of today’s work that has to get done

The books look great to those visitors

Who don’t know me

And have time to kill

They peruse my office

With the many volumes from yesteryear

Poem #32 "Walking with Angels into the Night"

Walking with Angels into the Night

Rubbing eyes and head

To find that one more ounce

Of electric shock to keep going

My mind fuzzy from too many

Sudden jolts that come

Every hour of every day

I long for sleep

But when presented with it

I scoff at the notion

Of going there

No, there must be one more

Time, place, person, or word

To burn the night off

And see the charred beauty

After the fire takes

Everything else away

My bones sing and dance

Up from the sand

Reanimated with soul and sun

I stroll willingly into the furnace

walking with angels

Poem #31 this month

When life gives you another kick in the head (read job rejection) write a poem!

A Path So Traveled

The walkway up to my front door

is paved with disappointments

Each stone is set in a cement mixture

of fear, anger, and dashed hopes

Somedays all I see is the path

leading to and away from my home

The path doesn’t change

but which direction I head does

When I walk away from the place I love best

it is dark and I cannot see

where I’m headed at all

I want to stay right where I am

And never stray beyond my yard

When I know it leads inside

Safe warm walls that protect

And allow me time to grieve, grow, or groan,

Till the walls close in

And I must open up the door

Then I see a bright path leading out

Into a garden, a new mountain to climb,

Somewhere beyond my little path

That is stuck in the ground

Immovable and there to keep me

Out of the mud and muck

Something to get me

From one place to another

Then I can step down

Stomp down, solid,

And dance away from home

With a new song

Joy washing all the

Desperate, doubtful, dubious, debris away

Making the path safe with no obstacles

To run back and forth on

Without slipping or new injury

Poem #30 thoughts on Dad

Since I only work about 10 minutes on most of these poem attempts, this one has some good ideas, but it is terrible form. Does it want to rhyme or not? It is clumsy and I’d need to work on it a while to get it into any kind of shape, but I think that is where my process of thinking about my Daddy is right now too---detailed, but not knowing what shape to be. Miss you, Daddy!

Fly Away Doc

My father was a funny bird

That flew the coop at a very young age

Not before working hard

At being a man while in child’s clothing

He taught his own father to read

By reading to him and teaching

A man more stubborn than

a country mule stuck in the mud

to open up his mind and become

someone totally different by believing

in what they read together

God’s word pried them both open

To the possibilities of loving

Each other and those around

Even though all they had known

Pulling up coal from the ground

Hands, faces, and insides black

They were scrubbed down

And found a way to relate

Dad still wanted more

He traveled to a distant shore

Not his choice, but the war

Dragged him onto a boat

That floated away his location

But never his ambition

He laid bets with those vets

Finding the bulk of his tuition

And the GI bill funded the rest

He did his best and became a doctor

His father found this less than fair

As he believed now that only God

Would heal him both spiritual

And physical and everything else a fraud

The thing that brought them together

Broke them apart at the start

In the end my father flew back

To Kentucky and his Dad

When his mother was sick

And his Dad was sad

Wanting anything to heal her

My father came in to assist

She didn’t make it

But it was for his and her sake

He came back to the nest

To give them both rest

And be the good number one son

When all things were done

Alone poem #29

I saw more homeless people today in a short span of time in my suburb than I had seen before. I felt helpless and overwhelmed to try to help them. I failed miserably in doing much of anything.

The other night, I was talking to a long-time acquaintance/friend, she struck me as more lonely than I’d ever thought before and I tried harder to connect to her, but it wasn’t easy. Again, it seemed ineffectual.

I watched an episode of the History Channel’s show Alone and I thought about what surviving in this world takes and how we now deem that as “entertainment” and I felt like this is a very strange culture we live in. And a conversation with another mother talking about how hard it is to “change a culture”---all of this funneled through my thoughts tonight to form a poem to remind me that things do need to change for all our survival. I need to do more than just survive.

Lost in the Wilderness

In among the trees

Bear scat is everywhere

Showing that they live there

No person ventures here

Except creatures that growl or howl

Cold wet woods or on concreate

A man holding a homemade sign

With one word “hungry”

Looks past those that pass

Hurried customers reading the sign

Not checking-in with the man

Who holds it so tight

Night falls deep and fast

A woman types “like”

Clicking right and left

Too far away friends

Who “get” her but

She never sees in real time

She is glued to this one spot

Hoping the phone will ring

It almost never does

She sighs as tomorrow

She will walk past

The familiar spot at the store

Where that man waits

To be fed

She will run in quick

To get supplies

For her camp out with kids

that she teaches

And she knows everything

About them

But they don’t know one thing

About her

She goes out another door

So she doesn’t have to see

The hungry man again

He just wants a warm greeting

A place to wash

He wants real meeting of just one

Other person today

She has no time

To really talk and he could

Keep her too long

Though he is an expert

On how to avoid the bears

And things that go bump

In the night

She has fright

Of another kind

that the kindness

Will be taken wrong

And somehow he will tangle up

Her life and she’ll fall in a trap

By saying “hello” or “what’s your name?”

An unwritten contract will be signed

Ironclad and she’ll not know

How to end it

No, she has children waiting,

Students she has promised to teach

How to survive

In this vast wilderness

Happy Birthday, Will! and other things...Poems #27 & #28

I usually attempt and succeed at writing some kind of sonnet to celebrate Shakespeare’s birthday, but my mind cannot settle into the task tonight. You get two disjointed poems and more prose than anything. We can’t all be the Bard!

Happy Birthday William and yes, thank you for your plays and many sonnets that inspire me daily!

Much Ado About Something

Come, come mist over

The water raging

And forth it goes

For pages

The flow of fast running words

That tickle and trip forward

To show past

In this present picture to make

A crack of open wounds and wonder

Our eyes leak

In recognition of our now

We lean in

Come and rest at this

Monument of feels

Our best meal

Satisfied we leave

Overfull and so very happy

Child ‘Hood

Deeper than the deepest well

Comes the toll of saddest bell

I know not how to fell

A permanent shade in my parts

Into pitch black my heart

Is thrown asunder

Under a rooted memory

Calling to me

When I hear my friends

Who also morn

The passing

Of a baby not born

Who breathed not

Whose cries were not heard

Or briefly held

To be taken

But they all remain

So close

We miss them most

The have-nots

With us forever remain

Sorry excuse of a poem #26

Just getting my required poem in before midnight. Pathetic!

Runaway

Travel is the aphrodisiac

Sending a message

That this world

Continues to surprise

My every thought

Poem #25 "Swim Lessons"

I don’t think many or some nights anyone is reading what I write here. My poetry this month hasn’t been as good as some in the past, I admit. I’m not well in the zone, but I’ll keep trying as it is a good discipline. I write poetry from time to time, but April is the only time I write a poem a day or try to do so. 

This month I feel like nothing is coming up new and it is mangled forms and words of the past, but I must march on to get to the other side! Last night I cheated, because nothing was coming and I was all tapped out, so I started earlier on this one and wrote it during my son’s swim lesson as you can see from the title.

Swim Lessons

The air is so dense

It hits him from

When he walks in

with an odor

That smells like only

Its own asphyxiating mixture

Something he once trembled

Balked to enter into

Now he slips silently

Into the wet wonderland

To learn, to escape, to exercise,

Body getting the mind in line

To serve him once more

Into the breach

Of boy meets manhood

Arms turn over one, two,

Pause and under he goes

To come up for air

He pushes forward to the wall

Just a touch to turn around

And start all over again

Way Back When Wednesday Poem from the past

I totally feel like cheating tonight and posting an “old” poem from one of my journals. Okay, here it goes! I will randomly select a journal off the shelf and turn to the first poem that is there. The winner is…written August 17, 2005. Our son was about six weeks old. And how appropriate for today! He is ever a “diamond in the rough”.

Father’s Daydream

A little bundle of grace

Arrived on my doorstep

Crying, drooling, and wriggling

from the beginning

to be a part of me

he is a meld of us

bright eyed, wide eyed,

looking so wise

but with so much to learn

he blinks at a rate

of the millions of moments

that will pass

“before we know it”

He gives us more meaning and connection

He will take our strength

Spending our youth

Like one thin dime

Our diamond in the rough

Cut by “the expert”

Spit shined with

Torn rags of love

Poems #23 & #24 Yellow and a Boy telling me about bees!

I write in my office where I really do have a western facing window that gets super sunny this time of year. I interact with my curtains every single day.

And I interact with my boy every day also. He has days where everything is on repeat and today was like that. Today he kept asking me, “Mama, what is a honeycomb?” and “Did you know that a worker bee can go inside a honeycomb?” He couldn’t explain to me tonight why it was all about bees for a couple of hours today. Then later the subject finally turned to dinosaurs and then evolution and then creation and then we ended up somewhere in Siberia. And this was in the course of about an hour and a half. Hence tonight’s poems.

Sunshine Yellow

A yellow curtain

Hung to block out

The brightest sun

Each day I unfold it

Spreading it wide

To catch the rays

Those flood my window

Early as the sun

Rises over the trees

And stun my sleepy eyes

Like Mom shaking me

When I pull the covers

Over my head

I hide

The curtain closed

I feel like no one

Can find me

Like I’ve won

Hide and seek

In my cave so dim

Nothing on but

My computer screen

Blank waiting for warmth

From words to flow

And spread like light

Breaking the dark night

To bring on the day

Thought Building Honeycombs

Did you know?

Is the start to nearly every sentence

The light tone with a serious

Pull of wanting to know if I really do know

Or do I pretend to listen?

He repeats, one, two, three, four, five, six,

I loose count in the never ending cycle

It all whizzes by me in a buzz, buzz, buzz,

The lecture loosening his every thought

That tumbles like one pebble

That brings down an avalanche

Till I am buried under all the thoughts

Weighing us both down

He can float from subject to subject

Like a bee looking for that right flower

To land on

Yet when he does land

He can stay there

Until there isn’t one drop of nectar left

The flower has given its very life force

To be a part of his honey

And he flies back to store it

All his words are now at a full stop

I wake from my stupor

To fill-in the pause

It is too late

The silent worker bee

Is depositing his secret stash

In twisting chambers

Only he can fit into

Only he knows the path

I wait for another question

It is a long time coming

When he’s ready he flies

Out again on the hunt

For that perfect flower

Telling me when he’s found it

Poem #22 Autism Inside Out

A big part of today was doing an interview with a lady who contacted me about my son and his violent behaviors and how that affects me as the Mom. It was a hard interview. She is gathering evidence as her doctoral thesis to do something about this difficult situation families find themselves in dealing with violence from children on the spectrum. She wants to help. I appreciate that and that is why I patriated though it is probably the hardest thing for me to just sit down and talk about.

She stopped me part way through and observed though she was asking questions directly about me, I kept filtering everything through the perspective of my son. I spoke with distance about myself in trying figure out how I felt about all of it. I pushed into third person when it was really difficult. That made me think about how my son has a preference for third person speaking too. It was an “aha” moment of understanding him and myself better.

Autism Inside Out

I am used to observing you

All you do

Picking apart

Your art

Your heart

Where things for you start

What is or isn’t

What does or doesn’t

And how to proceed

I look at how you lead

Where you go

Things you tow

How you know

What you do

If you’re blue

If I have a clue

Sometimes I really don’t

I don’t know

Where to go

How to find

What to do

Or what you need

You are still a child

Sometimes mild

Other times not

Many times we have fought

Not like others do

But with a shoe

That you throw

To hurt me

More of that is with fists

Or hits or kicks

I tire of it

So do you

We hope it stops

Or drops

Far away

Where we can’t get to it anymore

A far distant shore

We can’t even see

How free!

Yes, let us gaze

At one another

Till we know each other

Not to study

But to memorize

How each part works

The many quirks

The jerks

The unsteady walk

The balk

The time we are unsure

Let us not focus on cure

But growth

And promote

The love we seek

Through our speak