Flying Lessons

(Photo from Wikimedia Commons)

No, I can't, not all by myself, not without you .

Or so it seems down here on the ground

Surrounded by the others still earthbound.

There’s safety in numbers, or so they say.

But there's little to feed the longing for blue sky,

Wide open with adventure, could I find a way.

What if I had the courage to take that first step,

Jump off into space, head out on my own,
Risk trying my wings and flying alone?

What new heights might I reach, were I

Not afraid of the height of the wide open sky?

What if I were to chance it and go without you?

Would I discover I have the strength to do 

Anything I choose, if I just look inside  

Instead of turning to you for permission to fly?

Can I take the leap, even though terrified?

Yes, I can, because now it's time. It's what I must do.

Besides, you've taught me well.

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Written for One Shot Wednesday, which is a year old. Happy Birthday, One Stop Poetry!.

I remember You

I remember you. 

You were that guy.  You know, the one our parents warned us about, the one they prayed we wouldn’t bring home in a fit of teenage rebellion.

Despite our parents, or maybe because of them, you were the one we all lusted after, that slightly dangerous guy, that bad boy who could take us all the way to cool.

You wore your hair long, shiny with Brylcreem, slicked back into the perfect DA.  And, oh, your eyes.  Your eyes promised something we didn’t yet know we wanted.

You lived in dungarees, rolled twice at the ankle.  The t-shirt beneath your old leather jacket was white, with sleeves long enough to hold your Joes.

You never walked anywhere in your old black Chuckie T low tops.  You sauntered, casual in your indifference to what anyone thought, confident that they thought all the right things.

Oh, yeah, I remember you.  You were that guy. 

What the hell happened?

Sunday Morning: Catching Up With Guilty Pleasures

Sunday morning.  to-do list neon flashing,

claxon of responsibility sounding, blaring.

laundry, vacuum, and shopping list all

clamoring in chorus nagging: me, me, me!

and I go missing, coffee cup in hand.

keys at my fingertip, I escape to the world

of my guilty pleasures. I visit and catch up,

sharing laughter and coffee with you

were they to look, they might see me,

coffee in hand and hands on keys

but I’m off on a journey: California and

Canada. Australia, Alaska, Aruba.

and everywhere, in between and beyond,

hither and yon, sipping and savoring, sharing
coffee and comments, catching up with you
and these pleasures and, no, not guilty at all.

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Written for One Shot Wednesday

Fickle

I never planned to talk about fruit.  

I was going to speak of romance, feats of derring-do, 

having discovered a very cool guy with a story 

to tell.  But try as I might, he just stood there, 

never swashing his buckle, just mute and smirking, 

thumbs hooked in his belt.  OK, so screw ‘im. 

I’ll tell you instead about fruit. OK, not all fruit, 

just peaches and pears. Peaches are lovely, yes,

but they’re so obvious, you know?  Now, pears?  

Pears are mysterious.  I’m intrigued by pears.  

I really want to like pears, but they’re always so 

stand-offish, unknowable, teasing with hidden potential 

that they never deliver.

I guess I must be a glutton for punishment, silly me,

because I keep giving pears another chance.

One day, as I searched yet again for the perfect one,

I found this lone peach hanging out with the pears. 

The peach sat there shyly, listing slightly to the left,

a little off-kilter, fuzzy cheeks blushing beneath my gaze.

The eager peach looked completely out of place

among the arrogant indifferent pears.  Choose me,

it seemed to whisper, sweetness riding on its breath.

I’ve always been a sucker for strays, so it should be

no surprise that it was the peach I took home.   

I might speak here of its warmth and the softness 

of its skin, the slight give of the flesh under my touch, 

the lushness beneath the blush, and the incredibly sweet 

juice that...  sigh.   But I won't.  That would be unseemly.
  

Ssshhh...

**********************************

This was written for One Shot Wednesday.

Gone Fishin' at Ebbets Field

A couple of friends’ recent musings (you know who you are)

Reminded me of  the happiest day I ever spent with you.

“Come on, kid. Let’s go fishin’.  It’s the opening game.”

That’s what you said when you picked me up

At school just after noon on that nice October day.

We drove to the coast, and went out on the pier, and

With a twist of the radio dial, we were at Ebbets Field.

Dropping hooks in the water, we lined up at the rail:

A bunch of old men, Vin Scully, you and me,

A tom-boyish girl in dirty Keds and torn dungarees.

“Play ball!”  And they did, your Trolley Dodgers

And the Bombers; you know who I mean.

We didn’t know it then, but it was close to the end.

We won that day, but lost 4-3 with the last.  Maybe

That’s why they turned tail and headed for LA land.

We listened to the play-by-play that day, with names

That would one day be legend:  Mantle and Ford,

Robinson, Hodges and Berra.  And I caught a big fish,

With the old men all cheering and you smiling proudly.

“That’s my girl,” you said.  “A chip off the old block.”.

I wish I had known it would be the last time.  There were

No more World Series for the Bombers and your boys.

They betrayed you and you never forgave them.

And there were no more fishing trips for you and your girl.

Your new girl hated fishing; this girl found boys of her own.

But today I remembered, as I do every year when

The new boys of summer take up bats and fans cheer.

That was the best day I ever had with my dad,

And looking back, I'm really glad that you wanted to share

Your boys, the Bombers and fishing on that wooden pier.

******************************

This is my entry at One Shot Wednesday.

The Other "Woman"

I remember the day I first met you, when Daddy

Brought you to my mother’s house, all dressed in red.

"Always wanted a daughter, call me Mommy," you said,

Just barely three months since my mother was dead.

I’d have called you "Bitch" if I’d known that word,

But I didn’t, so all I could call you was all that I had.

You pushed me away from the start, and called me
names, like Lazy and Stupid and Always-in-the-Way.

I might have known why if I were older than nine,

But all I knew was that no matter how hard I tried,

I never measured up to the daughter you never had.
I couldn't be her because, just look, I was just bad.

Five years into it, one night you screamed that you'd had it.
You cleaned out your closets and packed up your bags.

Shouting harsh words, you stormed out with all of your stuff.

The truck came two days later and took all of ours.

You left us two beds and a television, two lawn

Chairs, two tray tables, our place to eat dinner at night.

Couple weeks later, the sheriff came to our house.

I was home alone after school, and I opened the door.

“Your daddy here, girl?” he asked me, puffing his chest out.

“No, sir.” He’s at work until six.”  He gave me some papers.

“Tell your daddy he’s been served."  He barked loudly.
"Now don’t you forget.  You hear me, girl?”

Back then, all I knew was that you were divorcing us,

Me and my daddy, and somehow it was all my fault.

You actually said so in the papers you filed. 

 “Cruel and unusual,” you called me, “a terrible child.
No marriage could work with her in the house."  

Back then, all I knew was that somehow I'd failed.  

Today I know better, now that I'm grown.
Today I know I was OK; it was you who was
Lacking in most everything but jealousy of a child.

My only sin was being that other woman, daughter.

And today I know. Oh, yes, I sure do.

Today I know exactly what I should call you.

Bitch.

***********************************

Written for One Shot Wednesday.

And when the door finally closes

 

And when the door finally closes

And the sound of your footsteps fade

Along with the harsh words you

Toss in my face as you turn to leave,

I’ll breathe, and forgive myself for not

Walking through the door long before.

And when the door finally closes,

I won’t say goodbye.  I’ll remember

The times I hurried to open it to find

You, offering flowers and regret, and

I  reached out to draw you back in,

Thinking he didn’t mean it.

And when the door finally closes

And the sound of your footsteps fade,

I won’t search the empty walkway for you.

I’ll close my ears to the memory sounds of
Stomping and strutting and swearing,

Anger speaking sharply in every heel click.

And when the door finally closes

And the sound of your footsteps fade

Along with the harsh words you

Toss in my face as you turn to leave,

I’ll listen instead for the whimpered words

Of our son as he cried in his sleep.

And when the door finally closes

And the sound of your footsteps fade

Along with the harsh words you

Toss in my face as you turn to leave, I'll forget

The blows you tossed in my face when you stayed

And open the door to myself, finally.

**************************************************

This was written for One Shot Poetry.

I should say "thanks," right?

It was a good thing, right?

My 17-year-old self had tried for so long to be like him,

That older brother, thirteen years smarter and wiser,

That sibling held so high in esteem by the parent

I could never please, no matter how hard I tried,

The ideal cited in the frequent exhortation,

“Why can’t you be more like your brother?”

So if my brother said it, it must be good, right?  

 

 “You drive like a man.”

It meant I’d finally done something right.

Right?

Then why did it feel so wrong?

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This is my entry in One Shot Wednesday.

Doo, Do Doo, Do Doo, Do Do Doo

The From-Hell-to-Breakfast, No-Such-Thing-As-Writer's-Block, Write-Anyway Chorus

No matter the muse,

No matter the vacuum.

No matter that words hide behind

Posts or just skip gaily away.

No matter the vowels and the tenses

Scattered from hell to breakfast,

The music keeps playing 

And the beat keeps beating.

The back-up group keeps singing,

"Write anyway. Write anyway.”

Were this then and I sat here

With paper and an eraser grown thin,

Crumpled balls of frustration

Would carpet the floor at my feet 

With bits of stories that could only begin.

But this being now and times being modern,

And eraser replaced by a worn Delete key,

It’s my mind that’s littered from hell to breakfast,

While the refrain keeps on playing

“Write anyway. Write anyway.”

No matter the muse
Asleep in the corner.

No matter the absence
Of any inspiration at all.

The music keeps playing

To the beat always beating

As the singers keeps singing,

“Write anyway.  
Write any way.”

W

            r

                      i

                                t

                                         e

                                               .

                                                  .

                                                     .

 

Doo, Do Doo, Do Doo, Do Do Doo...

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This was written for the Tenth Daughter of Memory and 
One Stop Poetry.

Out of Tune and Way Off Key

I know how it's supposed to go.

I heard all the songs. I memorized

The words and waited for them to come true.

That’s, after all, what love is supposed to do.

You came into my life, and the orchestra played.

But the tune was off key, at least to my ear.

You danced to the rhythm, keeping the beat

While I covered my ears and tripped over my feet.

I listened for violins and guitars and a flute.

Instead I got drums and banjos and horns that toot.

The rhythm and tempo and melody were all wrong.

But one thing I know; this is truly our song.

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Written for One Shot Wednesday, hosted by One Stop Poetry.  Stop by and congratulate the One Stop team. They just won the 2011 Shorty Award in Art!

Pandora and the Purple Monster

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Written for One Shot Wednesday.

Dangerous Curves

 

Dangerous Curves?

Despite relative obscurity in death, he lives on,

And we who play the word game collaborate.

We audition many and oft in the end choose him

For visual elaboration and emotional demonstration.

GE, Sony, Hilton, Deere: visages crafted by him.

Electric or electronic, hotel or tractor, lifelong friends

Instantly familiar.  He hides behind the curtain as

They turn a Young Face toward the marketplace,

He died last month, leaving no family. His life was spent

Behind the ivy, shaping thoughts of future wordsmiths

And in boardrooms, masking more commercial thoughts. 
Lofty ambitions.  Did they leave no time for baser goals?

Want to know more? 

****************************

Written for One Shot Wednesday.

Just Before Dawn

Some call it “the magic hour,”

When darkness lies heavy like a blanket.

From the silence beyond the circle of lamplight

Comes no sound but whispers of the night.

The old house creaks and groans

After a day on arthritic knees and

A sympathetic hoot owl calls back softly.

A night hawk swoops past, tires humming, 

At the end of a long interstate week

Or on the drunken weave home from

The after-hours bar out on Route 10.

Every so often, at the edge of hearing,

Echoes the faint cry of the woman next door

As she answers the angry call of her mate.

Just before dawn, sirens scream and

The world sighs in its sleep.

Some call it “the magic hour.”

I call it insomnia.

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Written for One Shot Wednesday.

The Theatre of You

Pretending in performance

wrapped in rhyme, each word

draped in red and gold threads,

you believe yourself invisible

behind the brocade of your poetry.  

False lines scripted onto the page,

weaving patterns of 

life and longing,

love and loss,

peace and pain,

hope and horror:

all fabricated from whole cloth. 

No director in the dark behind the scenes

nor puppeteer beyond the curtain

pulling heartstrings, you. 

With every rhyme, every weave

of word threaded with the color of life,  

the curtain of your theatre parts a bit more

and the spotlight shines brighter on your stage,

revealing the actor who has not lived at all.

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Written for One Shot Wednesday.

Bridge, Badly Played

Is that really the card

you want to play? 

Is it just sadness

that brings out the worst
or are you, deep down,
always this way?

Does bereavement entitle

the bereaved to be thoughtless?
Does your pain trump
and take the day? 

Fine.

You win.

I guess this

just isn’t my game.

****************************

Written for One Shot Wednesday.

Godspeed

When is it over?

When are we done?

When have our lives

Finished their run?

A stroke of his scythe

Took half of her brain,

And left organs failing

In a cascading chain.

Though unconscious, she lingered,

Her breath fed by machine,

In a place neither here nor there

But somewhere between.

When she was younger

And could still speak her mind

She said, “When my time comes,

Please let me die. That would be kind.”

But now the end is near and

Her old body is ready to go.

It’s so hard for them to say goodbye,

And accept what they know.

Because she loved them,

There was nothing they lacked.

Because they love her,

It’s time to give back.

The machines and tubes are gone now.

The lights are dimmed and she’s resting in peace.

They sit by her side and watch her last breaths.

“We love you, Mom.  Thank you.  Godspeed.”

As I write this, my husband and his sisters are sitting with their 94-year-old mother as she dies. She often said that the one thing she feared the most was to have a stroke that would destroy her brain, leaving her to linger trapped in a useless body.  She had watched her mother-in-law’s life end that way, and she asked her children not to let that happen to her.

Yesterday morning (Saturday), she had a massive stroke that destroyed the right side of her brain. Medical science can keep her alive, but it can never give her back what she has lost. Were she to live, she would be paralyzed on the left side and blind in the left eye, which is the only eye with any vision left.  She would probably be unable to speak and be understood. And she would never again be able to appreciate music, which was one of the few pleasures she had left. 

As hard as it is for her children to honor her wishes, they love her, and so they have.  Tonight, the respirator and all the tubes were removed.  Without them, her breath will likely slow, and then end in a few days. She will be kept comfortable, and allowed to go peacefully, her family at her side.

Godspeed, Mary.

Update:  She died Wednesday night, slipping away peacefully with her family around her.

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Written for One Shot Wednesday.

One Night Stand

 

At her door, Jack Frost wrapped himself around her,

Thrilling her with his chill breath upon her neck,

Running frigid fingers up and down her spine, and

Playing cool jazz on her ribcage as if it were a xylophone.

It didn’t occur to her to ask him in for a nightcap,

But the moment she’d opened the door a crack

His pushed it wide and rushed in past her,

Entering into her home like he lived there.

She’d always had a weakness for bad boys.

You know the mild, gentle ones whose delicate touch,

Barely there, tracing softly with warmth

you barely noticed?  They simply bored her.

Oh, but this one was very bad indeed.  No gentle

Touch or warm caress.  There was little doubt

About his hunger, his need, his drive to devour,

Like a starving polar bear who hasn’t eaten in days.

He howled and whirled like a dervish, spinning

And swirling and piercing her skin with his icy touch,   

And then blew through, as his type always do,

Leaving her shivering and ready for a hot shower.

*********************************

Written for One Shot Wednesday.

Genie-ology

   

Once upon a time, there was a creative genie.

Sometimes, when he was in a good mood, the genie

Bestowed great riches, lighting the way through the dark.

And words never before spoken began to flow

From the enlightened, woven into fanciful tapestries,

Startling and delightful to even themselves.

As we could have predicted, those lucky enough to be

Favored by the genie became addicted, 

Believing him to be their muse.  Inevitably, however, 

There came the day – as it did, oh, maybe once a decade or so 

(Or maybe not) - when the faithful fell out of favor and the genie

Became bored.  Lured by an obsession with muse-ical entertainments 

Unattainable, poof, the genie was gone, taking hearts with him 

(For sustenance?), disappearing like a thief in the night.

The genie’s faithful fell to their knees, and 

Tore their hair, and beat their empty chests, and

Wailed, and there was great sadness and turmoil in the land.

So dependent had they become on the genie’s largess and 

Guidance, without him, creative words froze in their mouths and, 

Though they tried to speak anyway, they failed and fell mute.   

Hands outstretched, groping, feeling their way, they bumbled 

About in the dark, but could find nothing of value to say.

Ah, but when the genie disappeared, in his place appeared 

Another gift,one perhaps more precious than all the rest.   

Lacking the guidance they’d come to expect from the genie, 

The abandoned were forced to look for it within themselves.

And, lo. Much to their surprise, they rediscovered their hearts, and

The strength within, and many words they never knew they had.   

And there was peace again in the land.

Say, did I mention that as well as creative, the genie was

Unusually smart? Oh, yes, indeed, that he was.

Though he hadn’t completely accepted the unattainability of

His own fantasy muse, he may have recognized a degree of difficulty

Or maybe he just realized the value of what he had tossed aside.

In any case, he returned.to the land.

I wish I could say "And they lived happily ever after."

But the end of the story remains unwritten.

And so shall it stay. At least by this story-teller.

This is all I have to say about the genie. It remains to him

To write the rest of the story.  

Genie, over to you.  

And out.

***

This was written for One Shot Wednesday.

Is there anything?

Is there anything lonelier 

Than the emptiness after someone has gone

No farewell,  no "see you soon"

One minute there, the next minute not, and you're alone

Is there anything sadder than knowing
How little your friendship meant
Easy to leave, easier to forget
Ended without regret

Is there anything worse than wondering
Was it something that you did or said
Or if it never mattered at all
Was the connection all in your head

Is there anything
That makes you feel
More like a fool
For caring?

***********************************

This was written for One Shot Wednesday.

Step Away from the Peanut Butter!

 Once I thought you were adorable,

But that was all beforable.

You showed your really true, true self

And, oh! That self was horrible.

Your selfishness makes me shudder.

What awful words I’ve heard you utter...

But you know what did it? The final straw?

You ate up all my peanut butter!

So I’m away without a backwards glance.

I’m done with giving you another chance.

I’ll find a new guy who's adorable

To join with me in a hot romance.

But he'd best leave my peanut butter alone!

************************************

This was written for One Shot Wednesday.