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The spoons were your grandparent’s,
So were the knives;
They washed them and ate with them all of their lives.
Departing this life,
They left an estate,
That’s why these utensils are set by your plate.
Your plate, these white plates,
Were bought by your Dad,
When we had all that money, the best job that he’d had;
The spoons that we use
To serve gravy and rice,
Came to me from Aunt Julia; they’re worn but they’re nice.
From Pop’s iron stewpot
Came my old wooden spoon,
The sifter, a gift from my sister, the loon,
And even the tablecloth,
Stained and so thin,
Was embroidered by Betty, my dearest of kin.
All these things to make households,
Handed silently down,
We don’t often think how they’re memory-bound,
How each slice in the cutting board
Was incised by Pa’s hands,
How the linens and laces came down through the clans,
How the candy dish lid
Got its crack from that man,
Who stopped by every Christmas with presents for Anne,
She cut off all the bows with her scissors and ran;
Yet she finally accepted his ring for her hand,
When she learned how the ring was his grandmother’s band.
Play a black hole backwards, what will you see?
I hypothesize: a galaxy.
Starry spiral arms, ejected from the heart,
Galactic disks whirl, when black holes swirl apart.
Water rotates down the drain;
Play the time passed in reverse, it spins back up again.
The Milky Way, Andromeda and galaxies abound,
They’re all black holes, silently unwound.
Matter hits a packing point and bounces redeployed,
Our galaxy’s decretion disk flings us into the void.
A white hole.
My storms blow in and chaos reigns,
Whirling winds, unsettled pains,
All my wounds, my sins, my stains,
Corrupted mind, my soiled remains.
The darkened clouds refuse retreat,
My fighting voices urge deceit,
I hurt, I’m hurt, repeat, repeat,
I can’t escape my self-defeat.
So softly slants the silent snow,
Dampens sounds to hush and low,
Lets the winds just barely blow,
And calms my mind, and lets things go…
They will come back, I know, I know.
Alice plays at sacrifice
And rubs her little lamb,
Her chalice splayed in candlelight,
Her ritual in hand.
Alice moans with sacred lips,
She makes the secret signs,
Dances ‘round with fingertips
And stirs the holy wines.
Alice whispers tiny cries,
Her lamb begins to bleat;
The sacrifice on table lies,
Succulent and sweet.
Alice draws a sudden breath,
Her fingers in the fleece;
Her little lamb awaited death
Or miracle release.
Now Alice holds her lamb so still,
And still the knife is stayed;
She cannot bring the blood to spill –
The lamb runs off to play.
Some days he’s poetry not prose,
As driving for Arrows he goes,
From highs to lows to woes,
He knows
He’s not supposed
To get too close,
Or doze,
When someone slows.
His Grand Prix auto shows:
The final rows.
I me my mine,
You yours, you yours.
Him her, his hers,
Us ours, them theirs.
Am is are,
Was were, was were,
Have has had,
Be be, been being.
Have had, has had,
Could should would;
Shall be, will be,
Understood?
If then, if then,
All some one,
And or, and or,
No not none.
Who what, where when,
Why how, why how?
Here there, this that,
Then now, then now.
I me my mine,
You yours, you yours.
I me my mine,
You yours, you yours.
Oddly ebbed, the inlet limned by moonlight glints against the rising tide,
While the wind unbound unwinding wound around the windward side;
With a loud astounding rumble thunder blundered under troubled clouds,
Smote, my mind remembered stubborn embers smoldered under colder cinders ‘til I pulled the shroud.
Ouch, I grouched aloud, I’ve touched a proud confounding doubt I’m not allowed to laugh about;
With each raw breached belief, my grief unleashed, my awful sleep too brief, I dream, I try to speak, I shout;
What furied hell, so mean, so vile, cuts through effective, well-protected shells to rile my bitter inner child?
Stop! Please stop! My thoughts defiled, unbridled cries, my tears undried, my mind a trial, too difficult, too pained, too wild.
To what so mindless, witless, unnamed debt,
Do I owe these fitful unsought thoughts I can’t forget?
To drown, to bleed, to suffocate, to reach a dreamless sleep,
Even black of death can’t promise me a calmness I can keep.
So in my boat I pilot ‘round the reef,
Avoiding rocks, the strife, subsurface grief;
No beach to reach, I mapless journey on,
And plot this plat to survey where I’ve gone.
At birth a champ in chess gets crowned,
Child prodigy who will astound,
At just age two found Scholar’s Mate,
IM by four, GM by eight.
While Daddy beams, Son once again,
Refutes the dread Sicilian,
The soft foam chessmen in his crib,
Rybka logo on checked bib.
Dad’s pride and joy, Dad’s champ-to-be,
Gets interviewed on ICC,
When asked how world champ he’d become,
Said, “I learned the moves from dearest Mum.”
The minister, courageous, so prayed
That we’d find the lost child on this day,
Then thousands looked, thousands walked, they
Discovered him safe where he lay.
Had the clergy not blessed us that day,
Would God have turned His face away?
Or caused that sweet boy to pay
A cold death on the field where he lay?
Be still, my worthless confusion!
Can’t be of comfort if it’s all delusion;
No coincidence prompts my conclusion
That it mustn’t be just an illusion!
Don’t ask of those prayed but unfound!
Don’t ask of those laid in the ground!
This isn’t the time or the place to expound
On the murdered, the starved, or the recently drowned;
There’s no human wisdom so strong or profound
As the innocent child who is lost and then found.
I dreamed again of Michael tonight
With his guts splashed out and his leg blown away,
I pulled him again with all my might
And he dies again and his life’s thrown away.
It should have been me on the field that night
With the barking dogs and the birds flown away,
But the dream is the same and the ending’s right,
Michael’s dead again and he’s gone away.
I’m here for you Mike, I visited your wife,
We drank all night ‘til the sun came up,
Traded stories we knew about your life,
And cried about how your son would grow up.
Got something dead in here, just won’t go away,
Got the doctors, got the talk, got my meds, got my Jack,
I’m supposed to let go but don’t know the way,
Close my eyes, breathe deep, let it fade to black…
And BOOM! Lost my breath, and I’m running away,
And BOOM! I can’t hear, and we’re under attack;
I drag you again from where you lay,
And you die on me buddy, and I can’t get you back!
I’m here for you Mike, I spoke to your son,
Tried to tell him who you were, but he’s just a boy,
I promise I’ll come back when my war is won,
But for now, close it down, got to redeploy.
Redeploy. Redeploy.
I will contract until as ‘til
So long as tractors till,
And tellers fill the till with bills,
So still I will contract until as ‘til.
If Phil and Bill and Will and Jill,
All contact until as till,
And spill their tills until I’m filled with ill of will,
Even still I will contract until as ‘til.
An extra l – that’s how it’s spelled? Apostrophe withheld?
Farewell I tell the spell that held until to ‘til and fell;
I foretell dispelled as well the skill nonpareil,
To fill with ill-spelled tills and ‘tils to tell a bagatelle!
I will contract until as ‘til
So long as tractors till,
And tellers fill the till with bills,
So still I will contract until as ‘til.
If Phil and Bill and Will and Jill,
All contact until as till,
And spill their tills until I’m filled with ill of will,
Even still I will contract until as ‘til.
An extra l – that’s how it’s spelled? Apostrophe withheld?
Farewell I tell the spell that held until to ‘til and fell;
I foretell dispelled as well the skill nonpareil,
To fill with ill-spelled tills and ‘tils to tell a bagatelle!