books
Friday, July 30, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Monday, March 1, 2010
By Now The Red Sun
By Now The Red Sun
By now the red sun rise should be bordering
the outskirts of dark sea.
There should be white ruffled waves
moving just beyond the gray,
far, far, behind me.
By now the arms of the sun have stretched
their fingers into mountain homes,
scalpeling her warm spots
on the walls and floors,
far, far, behind me.
I should be studying this tablet of road
with pencil marks and maps,
notching here and there, an interest,
taking note of future plans.
Instead, I am driving toward the flat lands,
and nothing meets my eyes,
but an occasional silo,
and long distances of quiet.
By now, I should have reached a destination,
or circled a new city from the map of my mind,
but there is a xylophone of warm notes
playing lightly on the road,
and I have passed all the atlas points
of where I meant to go.
By now the red sun rise should be bordering
the outskirts of dark sea.
There should be white ruffled waves
moving just beyond the gray,
far, far, behind me.
By now the arms of the sun have stretched
their fingers into mountain homes,
scalpeling her warm spots
on the walls and floors,
far, far, behind me.
I should be studying this tablet of road
with pencil marks and maps,
notching here and there, an interest,
taking note of future plans.
Instead, I am driving toward the flat lands,
and nothing meets my eyes,
but an occasional silo,
and long distances of quiet.
By now, I should have reached a destination,
or circled a new city from the map of my mind,
but there is a xylophone of warm notes
playing lightly on the road,
and I have passed all the atlas points
of where I meant to go.
The Runner
The Runner
The retirement home was quiet, except for an occasional elderly shuffle down the hall. It was ten a.m. and everyone had been fed and ushered into chairs by their beds and by the windows.Some had to be tied in because they could not sit up alone, but the policy was to have the beds made by eight and the patients sitting or standing. They looked like stiffened dolls arranged against their will. I could hear Mr. Hill cursing in the next room. In a moment, Edna, red faced and angry stalked in.
"You wanna do Hill," she asked. It was more of a demand than a question.
I nodded and hurried on over. He was still shouting, Go to hell, at top volume.
"Mr. Hill," I said, "Would you like to sit up?"
"Yes," he said, "I would like to be left alone, but since that is impossible, you may help me sit up."
I bent over the back of his chair, hooked my arms under his, and pulled. He pushed hard with his feet.
The other aides had a problem assisting him. He would flatten his entire body, so that he was halfway in the
floor. He was strong. Even the stroke had failed to render him helpless, but he would become that way instantly if he disliked the aide. Unfortunately, he disliked most of them, which is why I was sent in so often.
It was actually simple to assist him, but he was furiously independent and easily angered. I was constantly
trying to convince my co-workers to call him Mr. Hill, and to treat him with respect. His first name was Worley, and they continued to enrage him by calling him, Whirly Bird and Bad Boy.
His only way of retaliation lay in making himself impossible to move or arrange in a chair.
I had just finished making him comfortable when the alarm went off. It was the alarm I dreaded most. We had a runner. The male aides were dashing down the hall like quarterbacks. They were headed for the exit. It was against the law to bolt the exit doors, so, inevitably , patients would discover this, and make a run for it. I could not blame them. They all wanted to go home. They wanted their lives and families back.
Careers, cooking, kids, and purpose all lay beyond the steel doors. In the spring, many of the old men brooded on planting, and the old women had canning to do. Even the paint in this place was blue and cold looking. It was supposed to be a comforting color, but it came across as frozen and sterile.
When an alarm rang, we had to close the doors to the rooms, and take a watchful position. I hurried over to the window and saw three male aides running toward the highway. I could see Emily Elizabeth, moving with the amazing speed of the desperate, ahead of them. She was still fairly new. New enough to think she could make it to the main road and hitch a ride. She was seventy two years old and I was impressed with her fast clip of speed. She was looking back over her shoulder to gauge the distance of her pursuers when she stumbled on something and went down. I saw her try to rise to her feet again but the men held her down. It was also policy that once a patient fell, they were not allowed up until a medical evaluation had been performed. We called an ambulance and they arrived swiftly. Emily Elizabeth was pronounced ambulatory and the ambulance brought her back up to the home. They handed her over to me for clean up.
She was shaking with exhaustion and cold. Her gray hair still retained streaks of its former darkness. It was pulled back in a bun. It made her blue eyes appear even larger. Her skin was paper thin and pale. She had a delicate sort of beauty and an aura of gentle sadness. She looked at me with frantic appeal.
"I want to go home," she said, "If I could just call my son, he would come for me."
Of course her son had filled out the papers that kept her here. He had signed for her admittance on a Saturday morning. Later that day, his wife had brought her in. She had been told that the two of them were going shopping. Now she harbored a conviction that her daughter in law had committed her behind her son's back. She was certain that if she could contact him, he would come for her.
I washed her gently and put salve on her arm. I slipped a flannel gown over her head. Once she was clean and dressed warmly, I placed her in her chair, and pulled mine up beside of her.
"I want to go home," she repeated.
"I know," I said, "but I would miss you so much. I have some things I need your help with."
I pulled a blouse from a bag I had brought in with the salve. It was my emergency sewing, the stitches all crooked and looped too large. I placed the blouse on Emily Elizabeth's lap. She stared at it in astonishment.
"Who did this work," she said, "it is terrible".
" I was trying to sew up a rip under the arm," I said.
She held the work up and shook her head. She tried to pull the bad stitches out with her hands. I handed her a pair of kindergarten scissors. She cut carefully and ripped out the bad seam of sewing.
"Who taught you to sew?" she asked in amazement.
"My mother," I said, "but I guess I wasn't listening."
She nodded in agreement and demanded her glasses be brought from the drawer beside of her bed. I offered to thread the needle, but she insisted on doing it herself. I went into the kitchen for cake and milk.
When I brought it back into the room, she was just finishing up.
"There", she said, "that should do it."
She handed me the blouse as I handed her the milk and cake. Since she was watching my reaction, I gasped in astonishment, and fell across the bed.
"It is a miracle", I said, "to have a blouse with two good sleeves. To no longer have one underarm shivering in the cold, while the other one sleeps warmly."
"Stop being foolish," she said, but she was smiling with amusement. Sometimes a smile is enough.
The retirement home was quiet, except for an occasional elderly shuffle down the hall. It was ten a.m. and everyone had been fed and ushered into chairs by their beds and by the windows.Some had to be tied in because they could not sit up alone, but the policy was to have the beds made by eight and the patients sitting or standing. They looked like stiffened dolls arranged against their will. I could hear Mr. Hill cursing in the next room. In a moment, Edna, red faced and angry stalked in.
"You wanna do Hill," she asked. It was more of a demand than a question.
I nodded and hurried on over. He was still shouting, Go to hell, at top volume.
"Mr. Hill," I said, "Would you like to sit up?"
"Yes," he said, "I would like to be left alone, but since that is impossible, you may help me sit up."
I bent over the back of his chair, hooked my arms under his, and pulled. He pushed hard with his feet.
The other aides had a problem assisting him. He would flatten his entire body, so that he was halfway in the
floor. He was strong. Even the stroke had failed to render him helpless, but he would become that way instantly if he disliked the aide. Unfortunately, he disliked most of them, which is why I was sent in so often.
It was actually simple to assist him, but he was furiously independent and easily angered. I was constantly
trying to convince my co-workers to call him Mr. Hill, and to treat him with respect. His first name was Worley, and they continued to enrage him by calling him, Whirly Bird and Bad Boy.
His only way of retaliation lay in making himself impossible to move or arrange in a chair.
I had just finished making him comfortable when the alarm went off. It was the alarm I dreaded most. We had a runner. The male aides were dashing down the hall like quarterbacks. They were headed for the exit. It was against the law to bolt the exit doors, so, inevitably , patients would discover this, and make a run for it. I could not blame them. They all wanted to go home. They wanted their lives and families back.
Careers, cooking, kids, and purpose all lay beyond the steel doors. In the spring, many of the old men brooded on planting, and the old women had canning to do. Even the paint in this place was blue and cold looking. It was supposed to be a comforting color, but it came across as frozen and sterile.
When an alarm rang, we had to close the doors to the rooms, and take a watchful position. I hurried over to the window and saw three male aides running toward the highway. I could see Emily Elizabeth, moving with the amazing speed of the desperate, ahead of them. She was still fairly new. New enough to think she could make it to the main road and hitch a ride. She was seventy two years old and I was impressed with her fast clip of speed. She was looking back over her shoulder to gauge the distance of her pursuers when she stumbled on something and went down. I saw her try to rise to her feet again but the men held her down. It was also policy that once a patient fell, they were not allowed up until a medical evaluation had been performed. We called an ambulance and they arrived swiftly. Emily Elizabeth was pronounced ambulatory and the ambulance brought her back up to the home. They handed her over to me for clean up.
She was shaking with exhaustion and cold. Her gray hair still retained streaks of its former darkness. It was pulled back in a bun. It made her blue eyes appear even larger. Her skin was paper thin and pale. She had a delicate sort of beauty and an aura of gentle sadness. She looked at me with frantic appeal.
"I want to go home," she said, "If I could just call my son, he would come for me."
Of course her son had filled out the papers that kept her here. He had signed for her admittance on a Saturday morning. Later that day, his wife had brought her in. She had been told that the two of them were going shopping. Now she harbored a conviction that her daughter in law had committed her behind her son's back. She was certain that if she could contact him, he would come for her.
I washed her gently and put salve on her arm. I slipped a flannel gown over her head. Once she was clean and dressed warmly, I placed her in her chair, and pulled mine up beside of her.
"I want to go home," she repeated.
"I know," I said, "but I would miss you so much. I have some things I need your help with."
I pulled a blouse from a bag I had brought in with the salve. It was my emergency sewing, the stitches all crooked and looped too large. I placed the blouse on Emily Elizabeth's lap. She stared at it in astonishment.
"Who did this work," she said, "it is terrible".
" I was trying to sew up a rip under the arm," I said.
She held the work up and shook her head. She tried to pull the bad stitches out with her hands. I handed her a pair of kindergarten scissors. She cut carefully and ripped out the bad seam of sewing.
"Who taught you to sew?" she asked in amazement.
"My mother," I said, "but I guess I wasn't listening."
She nodded in agreement and demanded her glasses be brought from the drawer beside of her bed. I offered to thread the needle, but she insisted on doing it herself. I went into the kitchen for cake and milk.
When I brought it back into the room, she was just finishing up.
"There", she said, "that should do it."
She handed me the blouse as I handed her the milk and cake. Since she was watching my reaction, I gasped in astonishment, and fell across the bed.
"It is a miracle", I said, "to have a blouse with two good sleeves. To no longer have one underarm shivering in the cold, while the other one sleeps warmly."
"Stop being foolish," she said, but she was smiling with amusement. Sometimes a smile is enough.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Four Poems
She Said No At Intervention
The cameras rolled when she walked in.
She took a seat thinking it was a show
on addiction & how she would be seen.
So heavy to roll a joint or light a pipe on tv.
But suddenly someone was reading a letter,
and it was to her, her mother's voice, cracking
and berserk, her dad crying, her sister furious,
but clenching her lips in a smile, saying
get help, while her eyes said, you always manage
to be the center of attention.
The counselor, knowing and cold, speaking
her script of you have to go right now...
and her brother-in-law, the one with the fast
hands & hard thighs, as he dished out
money for meth, said, try, try for the family.
And she gagged at them all in a rage
and a lonely loss & betrayal that no one said
anything long ago, when she was top of the
class, bringing home the blue, cleaning her room,
tucking a pillow under her mother's head.
Then, she was invisible, but hopeful,
until she came home from a friend's house,
high for the first time & she slept forty eight hours
and no one missed her dinner plate, no-one
said goodnight, so she went again & again.
Drugs for money, drugs for sex, drugs for
a friend, and finally, anything for drugs.
Pregnant & not stopping & the baby born
with a hole in its belly & so small...so small,
she couldn't stand to look, so her family
took it away to some other family and now..
this! this farce of sending her, Now! Now!
to some place where no one would know
her face, no sunshine pill to warm that narrow
hurt, that huge hope splattered at the bottom
of her heart..
She cursed them all from the depths of her soul.
But they didn't air that show.
___________________________
Girl With Brown Hair
During my internship at the mental hospital,
a young woman greeted me, day after day,
to ask if she was pretty and if I loved her.
I said, yes. yes.
because she was pretty and because
I wanted to please her, and affection
is not that difficult to distribute, especially
if you have been given plenty of it.
So each day she abducted my attention
and wondered if I might be her sister
and did I have a boyfriend or a baby?
and would I be her friend, would i be her friend,
Would I Be Her Friend!!?
I said yes, yes, yes.
and she said, here..
and handed me a comb
so i combed her hair.
I touched her hair and she grew still.
sometimes she would reach up
and touch my fingers on the comb
and follow the strokes down
sometimes she would hold her head
all the way back so that she could stare
into my face
and always, do you love me, in that voice
of child like desperation,
as she searched for someone I might be,
or may have been, long ago.
her hair was beautiful and brown.
Before I left there, she pulled the plaster
from a high, barred window
and used it as a knife
so the aides hurried and took her to isolation,
the last place she had meant to be,
as though isolation would cure
that terrible need.
I wish someone had combed her hair
all of her life. She had such pretty hair.
Shiny, and very, very brown.
_____________________________________________________
The Despite Clause
You are older now & still angry
at the half baked cake of your life.
You believe I pocketed the lucky charms
from the family fortune & that I smile so much
because I have no troubles;
I have none that you have ever noticed.
But I love you, despite the fact,
that you cannot wish me well,
that you believe my life is a vista,
my whole world a vacation,
even when I wade in grief or cry,
you see a magic formula pouring from my eyes.
And I love you, because I know you are still waiting
for the opportunities to knock.
Your dreams lie dormant with a boneless
sullen sound & you have pruned your life
toward tomorrow winnings.
You will never see me today.
My hand in down feathers stroking your brow.
My feelings passed your way in a million gestures.
And I am kind to you, but you see condescending.
And I defend you but you look for the lock catch.
So I have added a despite clause.
It is for my own protection.
It is to wipe away the pain when I smile
and you see a smirk.
It says that I love you
past the impossible paranoia & suspicion,
past the blood love forced on families.
It says I love the way you looked
when we were small..
your small fingers pointing
into a summer sky.
_______________________________________
Panic Attack
Tonight, I need you to pretend to listen.
You have heard it all before.
There is a train whistle in my head
and on some days it passes through
a flower garden & on other days it whines
high pitched, like nails on the outside
of a car, moving fast & numb with screeching.
On garden days, the boxcars pass
in the glisten of sunny steel.
Some of us can not love without the sliver
of doubt & desperation, even when we smile
a girlhood smile of blank eyed optimism,
even when our performance has reached perfection,
there is a panic button that nice girls stir
into the ice cubes of sweet, southern tea.
I am never what you picture me to be.
My bones quake, my eyelids roll upward,
and I am so afraid that you hope I will leave
and I hurry out & drive into well lit areas.
I tie up at the hospital hitching post & wait
for long periods in my car & I listen
to the same cd of american pie, because I know
most of the words & sometimes I sing
everybody loves me baby, both at the same time,
so that i cannot think of anything but double dubbing,
one out loud, one silently, so that I block
everything & I return home, exhausted, to my bedroom,
to the fan, that hums nothing loud & steady.
So loud, that even fear, has to pause & block his ears.
And some days I clean in a she devil dodge & move
too quickly to stop, until I am too tired to care
if fear crouches on the sweat of my brow.
Tonight, I need you to pretend to listen, but instead,
I pretend that you wish to know more of me
than my friendly face hidden in a sense of humor,
my hospitality, my dancing, my soothing touch.
But you are always sleeping, even when your eyes are open.
Even when sadness haunts the depths of my being,
you are still seeing, nothing.
In the morning I will whip you up a fine breakfast.
We will enjoy another make believe morning.
The cameras rolled when she walked in.
She took a seat thinking it was a show
on addiction & how she would be seen.
So heavy to roll a joint or light a pipe on tv.
But suddenly someone was reading a letter,
and it was to her, her mother's voice, cracking
and berserk, her dad crying, her sister furious,
but clenching her lips in a smile, saying
get help, while her eyes said, you always manage
to be the center of attention.
The counselor, knowing and cold, speaking
her script of you have to go right now...
and her brother-in-law, the one with the fast
hands & hard thighs, as he dished out
money for meth, said, try, try for the family.
And she gagged at them all in a rage
and a lonely loss & betrayal that no one said
anything long ago, when she was top of the
class, bringing home the blue, cleaning her room,
tucking a pillow under her mother's head.
Then, she was invisible, but hopeful,
until she came home from a friend's house,
high for the first time & she slept forty eight hours
and no one missed her dinner plate, no-one
said goodnight, so she went again & again.
Drugs for money, drugs for sex, drugs for
a friend, and finally, anything for drugs.
Pregnant & not stopping & the baby born
with a hole in its belly & so small...so small,
she couldn't stand to look, so her family
took it away to some other family and now..
this! this farce of sending her, Now! Now!
to some place where no one would know
her face, no sunshine pill to warm that narrow
hurt, that huge hope splattered at the bottom
of her heart..
She cursed them all from the depths of her soul.
But they didn't air that show.
___________________________
Girl With Brown Hair
During my internship at the mental hospital,
a young woman greeted me, day after day,
to ask if she was pretty and if I loved her.
I said, yes. yes.
because she was pretty and because
I wanted to please her, and affection
is not that difficult to distribute, especially
if you have been given plenty of it.
So each day she abducted my attention
and wondered if I might be her sister
and did I have a boyfriend or a baby?
and would I be her friend, would i be her friend,
Would I Be Her Friend!!?
I said yes, yes, yes.
and she said, here..
and handed me a comb
so i combed her hair.
I touched her hair and she grew still.
sometimes she would reach up
and touch my fingers on the comb
and follow the strokes down
sometimes she would hold her head
all the way back so that she could stare
into my face
and always, do you love me, in that voice
of child like desperation,
as she searched for someone I might be,
or may have been, long ago.
her hair was beautiful and brown.
Before I left there, she pulled the plaster
from a high, barred window
and used it as a knife
so the aides hurried and took her to isolation,
the last place she had meant to be,
as though isolation would cure
that terrible need.
I wish someone had combed her hair
all of her life. She had such pretty hair.
Shiny, and very, very brown.
_____________________________________________________
The Despite Clause
You are older now & still angry
at the half baked cake of your life.
You believe I pocketed the lucky charms
from the family fortune & that I smile so much
because I have no troubles;
I have none that you have ever noticed.
But I love you, despite the fact,
that you cannot wish me well,
that you believe my life is a vista,
my whole world a vacation,
even when I wade in grief or cry,
you see a magic formula pouring from my eyes.
And I love you, because I know you are still waiting
for the opportunities to knock.
Your dreams lie dormant with a boneless
sullen sound & you have pruned your life
toward tomorrow winnings.
You will never see me today.
My hand in down feathers stroking your brow.
My feelings passed your way in a million gestures.
And I am kind to you, but you see condescending.
And I defend you but you look for the lock catch.
So I have added a despite clause.
It is for my own protection.
It is to wipe away the pain when I smile
and you see a smirk.
It says that I love you
past the impossible paranoia & suspicion,
past the blood love forced on families.
It says I love the way you looked
when we were small..
your small fingers pointing
into a summer sky.
_______________________________________
Panic Attack
Tonight, I need you to pretend to listen.
You have heard it all before.
There is a train whistle in my head
and on some days it passes through
a flower garden & on other days it whines
high pitched, like nails on the outside
of a car, moving fast & numb with screeching.
On garden days, the boxcars pass
in the glisten of sunny steel.
Some of us can not love without the sliver
of doubt & desperation, even when we smile
a girlhood smile of blank eyed optimism,
even when our performance has reached perfection,
there is a panic button that nice girls stir
into the ice cubes of sweet, southern tea.
I am never what you picture me to be.
My bones quake, my eyelids roll upward,
and I am so afraid that you hope I will leave
and I hurry out & drive into well lit areas.
I tie up at the hospital hitching post & wait
for long periods in my car & I listen
to the same cd of american pie, because I know
most of the words & sometimes I sing
everybody loves me baby, both at the same time,
so that i cannot think of anything but double dubbing,
one out loud, one silently, so that I block
everything & I return home, exhausted, to my bedroom,
to the fan, that hums nothing loud & steady.
So loud, that even fear, has to pause & block his ears.
And some days I clean in a she devil dodge & move
too quickly to stop, until I am too tired to care
if fear crouches on the sweat of my brow.
Tonight, I need you to pretend to listen, but instead,
I pretend that you wish to know more of me
than my friendly face hidden in a sense of humor,
my hospitality, my dancing, my soothing touch.
But you are always sleeping, even when your eyes are open.
Even when sadness haunts the depths of my being,
you are still seeing, nothing.
In the morning I will whip you up a fine breakfast.
We will enjoy another make believe morning.
Chafed Knees
Chafed Knees
I cannot blame the texture of the soil
for my chafed knees, when I kneel
too heavily on the floor of the world
I polish, over and over, one home section
until it gleams the basics of earth and sweat,
until the spot is wiped clean.
When I stand, I cannot blame the world
for my chafed knees, and I cannot blame
the knees, that only obeyed and bent
beneath the pressure of thought.
I do not blame the sky.
A majestic, blooming blue just beyond
the reach of my tiptoes, lofty and cool.
A cliff of clouds that design a variety of form,
floating broad choices and narrower ones.
I cannot blame the texture of the soil
for my chafed knees, when I kneel
too heavily on the floor of the world
I polish, over and over, one home section
until it gleams the basics of earth and sweat,
until the spot is wiped clean.
When I stand, I cannot blame the world
for my chafed knees, and I cannot blame
the knees, that only obeyed and bent
beneath the pressure of thought.
I do not blame the sky.
A majestic, blooming blue just beyond
the reach of my tiptoes, lofty and cool.
A cliff of clouds that design a variety of form,
floating broad choices and narrower ones.
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