The Awakening

 (Photo credit:
www.freedigitalphotos.net)

Lonely, depressed, the old man took to riding the subway.

Moving aimlessly in the company of strangers

was preferable to sitting aimlessly at home alone.

The rocking soothed, as he sat worrying the sore spot

on his heart with the gnarled fingers of yesterday's pain-

ful memories, dreading the empty tomorrow still ahead.

The train rumbled on and on through the night,

announcing each stop with a squeal of pain. His eyes

were drawn by the lights that flickered by in the blackness

of a tunnel, but it was their reflection in the tears

coursing the pale, wizened cheeks beside him

that caught his eye instead.

She brought him back, that old woman hunched

against the glass of the window, dragging him
from the brink of his own misery by the sight of hers.

Though she'd always been there, weeping,

he never heard her over the whining in his head.

He'd never noticed how loudly self-pity played.

Without thought, he reached out and took her hand.

As if a phonograph needle had been lifted, the dirge in his head stopped.

.***

Linked in at dVerse Poet's Pub

.

 

Speaking in Tongues

 

Image source: WikiMedia Commons

Photo by Joshua Veitch-Michaelis,  Leamington Spa, England

Over the crest of a hill of great effort lies a word garden of dreams. The garden has many beds filled with buds of potential and bright yellow promise. Its gardener tends it (except when he doesn’t), fertilizing the shoots of new growth with bullshit and the occasional smile, then watering them down with venom and sometimes cheap wine. 

Hopeful passersby who stumble upon the garden pause to listen to the language of flowers and the sales pitch of their gardener. Both wax poetic but with words that are full of holes. “Here,” the gardener says. He hands them a lush bouquet of purple platitudes and false promises from one of the beds hidden in the back of the garden, along with his secret formula for success packaged in a mouthful of emptiness. “Take this formula and fertilize your own potential and promise, and they are sure to grow.”

The bouquet speaks the language of friendship but the words are in code.  They actually mean: “I really don’t give a damn; don’t you fuckers know that?”  Sadly, the passersby don't know that. They come from a place where the bouquets speak sweet truth and friendship means caring. The realization that they’ve been duped crashes down hard. But everyone wants to believe in dreams, don’t they, and the word garden looks like fertile ground for growing seedling dreams into blooms of success. So some (the hopelessly naïve ones, perhaps) will return to the garden again and again, hoping that the gardener and his bouquets might really mean it next time. Fortunately, most of them will eventually figure out that the garden produces nothing but disappointing pipe dreams and heartache.

Meanwhile, back in the garden, the buds of potential never open and the promise reneges. It isn’t long before broken dreams wither and die, quickly choked back by crabby grass, cockspur, and deadly nightshade.  And the gardener grows bitter like the weeds in his garden, wondering why no one comes by anymore. Alas, he never understood the language of his own flowers when they told him with their dying breath (in code, of course) that the only thing that grows in gardens fed with toxic waste is loneliness.

***

Linked in at the Tenth Daughter of Memory

Moonrise

Daylight, melted

In rivulets of mauve and
peach, lies seeping into the edge

of night, leaving just enough light to see.
The yellow cheer and cerulean celebration

of the day have fled, leaving only a dusky gray
that outlines looming, blackened shapes no longer
clear. Shadows whisper offers of mystery and intrigue,
but I feel no longing to follow. Here, beside me are
you, a lush purple silhouette. My hand in yours,
I warm to your touch and I smile into the
twilight twinkles that are your eyes.
Soon moonlight wraps its arms
securely around  us, and
we are night.

***

This is the violet hour, the hour of hush and wonder, when the affections glow again and valor is reborn, when the shadows deepen magically along the edge of the forest and we believe that, if we watch carefully, at any moment we may see the unicorn.

                                                                                            Bernard DeVoto "The Hour"

 ***

Written for

Stream of Soup

Hmmm… Soup for supper? 

I’ve always liked Campbell’s Soup, but those kids?  Please. They look like the Katzenjammer Kids pretending to be little angels while they are mentally planning some sort of mischievous attack on the Captain. 

Who was the Captain, anyway?   I suppose he could have been a boarder, given the times, but what if he and Mama were getting it on?  Geez. 

And that’s a strange one. Read somewhere that Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On was first going to have a religious bent.  Wow, gimme some of that old time religion. 

Andy Warhol had a lot of that old time religion.  They say he was a Byzantine Catholic, whatever that is.  He sure seemed obsessed with The Last Supper, and even did a painting sort of like this one called Sixty Last Suppers.  He ate soup for lunch rather than supper, though, Andy Warhol did. 

Hmmm… Soup for supper?   I’ll have the Chicken Noodle.

***

Posted for dVerse Poets Pub, where today's prompt is Pop Art.

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.

160: Mother Love

We have slept here for more than100 years.

Every autumn Mother Nature tiptoes in and

drapes a warm quilt of many colors over us.

It’s going to be a cold winter.

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

This is my offering for Sunday 160, hosted by Monkey Man,

Climate Change

Back in the day, we lived in a little neighborhood of cottages clustered around a lake. It was a summer community, a silver lake, an inviting place to come to escape the hot summer sun. But we lived there year-round, even when the lake was white with ice, its black inhospitable depths lurking below. We weren’t alone. Several families braved the winters in that summer place, not because they wanted to look out at the cold and unfriendly landscape, but because that was what life was, a four-room year-round place.

One winter day, around dusk, a knock came at the door. It was the mother of a 10-year-old neighborhood boy, asking, “Is Joey here? He hasn’t come home.” The words were like a stop sign, stopping the heart, stopping time, stopping all thoughts of dinner. She went from one door to another, asking the same question at every house where Joey had a friend. None of these few wintertime residents answered, “Sure, he’s here. Come in, get warm, have a cup of tea.”

At one house, however, one of Joey’s friends said they’d played together that day. "I said bye to Joey a while ago, and came home. Joey prob’ly beat me, though, ‘cause he took a shortcut.” Joey lived on the farthest edge of this almost empty summer community, and the long walk home in the near dark must have been scary. So he’d taken a shortcut.

The next day, we heard the news. Joey’s shortcut through the dusky light had turned into a shortcut through his life. The gaping hole in the ice atop the tarnished silver lake told the story of a small boy’s failed attempt to outrun the dark.

It was strange, but somehow summers on that sparkling silver lake in the small summer community were never warm again.

A Friend Gone Bad

For months, she’s been r-i-n-g-i-n-g,

Hounding me morning, noon and late at night,

And leaving a message if I don’t answer her call.

Lately, she hauls me from my sleep at quarter to three.

In the beginning, when I answered, “Hello. Hello?? Hello!!!”

I heard only echoing nothingness, a round black void of sound.

But eventually, she started leaving me odd cryptic demands,

Weird and hollow, delivered in a slow, menacing drone.

They’re always the same, in code, I’ve no doubt.

And, today?  Today she brazenly spoke to me,

So sure she is safe in her anonymity.

Her cold and mechanical voice commands:

“Three. Three. Please hang up and try your call again.”

Her voice isn’t human. It's tinny and canned.

I’m sure my phone is stalking me.  

Don’t you just hate it when a trusted friend turns on you?

The poem that follows is by one of my favorite poets, Louis Jenkins, posted here with the gracious permission of the poet.  If you haven’t had the pleasure, you can get a small taste of his prose poetry here.  But I warn you, it’ll leave you wanting more.

The Telephone

by Louis Jenkins

In the old days telephones were made of

rhinoceros tusk and were big and heavy enough

to be used to fight off an intruder. The telephone

had a special place in the front hallway, a shrine

built into the wall, a niche previously occupied

by the blessed virgin, and when the phone

rang it was serious business. "Hello." "One if

by land and two if by sea." "What?" "Unto you

a child is born." "What?" "What did he say?"

"Something about the Chalmers' barn." The

voice was carried by a single strand of bare wire

running from coast to coast, wrapped around a

Coke bottle stuck on a tree branch, dipping low

over the swamp, it was the party line, all your

neighbors in a row, out one ear and in another.

"We have a bad connection, I'm having trouble

understanding you."                     

Nowadays telephones are made of recycled

plastic bags and have multiplied to the point

where they have become a major nuisance.

The point might ring at you from anywhere, the

car, the bathroom, under the couch cushions...

Everyone hates the telephone. No one uses the

telephone anymore so telephones, out of habit

or boredom or loneliness perhaps, call one

another. "Please leave a message at the tone."

"I'm sorry, this is a courtesy call. We'll call back at

a more convenient time. There is no message."

Botanist's Journal April 26

Your weekly letter came in today’s mail, scrawled on a pink paper garden dotted with violets. 

When we first began this postal exchange, you were suffocating in the dark winter of depression, gasping for breath and praying for sunlight.  Your writing shifted between thorny anger refusing to be subdued and pain flourishing  relentlessly, overtaking everything else.  Every week, I’ve shivered in the frigid air as I struggled though the ice-crusted nettle weeds killing the flowers and strangling hope to death. 

But today, at the sight of new growth, I felt the promise of summer.  Like crocuses pushing through the thawing earth, I see the seedlings of recovery and optimism in your note, straining toward the sun and ready to bloom. Were I a botanist, and could graph the tone and lightness emerging tentatively from your words on the page, my graph lines would climb slowly toward that place on the hill, where budding wildflowers and young green grasses sway in the spring breezes.