my childhood demons
far outnumber my remaining years
i could waste a lifetime
mitigating them
i shan’t
i’ll do a few shots of holy water instead
these motherfuckers
don’t get
free rent in my head
Categories
Tag: childhood
Memaw,
I have dreamed about you
every night this week.
I would like to think you are visiting me
from the great beyond.
We’re in your house and
I can hear your voice,
I can smell your skin,
I can hear you laugh,
I can hear you sigh.
I can watch you smooth the table cloth
down with your hands
and wash the kitchen counter.
We watch Gone With the Wind together,
then have tea.
We look through an old Sears catalog,
we sort your quilt pieces,
we string buttons.
After we visit the Halls Gap Overlook,
we end the night at The Dairy Freeze.
I love you immeasurably.
The older I get,
the more I miss you.
Your absence is enough
to fill the world,
Mabel Spaw Bates.
*
Rest In Peace
Categories
under catalpa trees
no death
represents a single loss
it is a lifetime of little ones
i didn’t just lose my father
i lost his voice
his cologne
him beaming as i accepted my diploma
the father daughter dance at my wedding
him teaching my sons to fish
family reunions under catalpa trees
but i remember the way he laughed
it was left behind in his grandsons eyes
and in
their gleeful bellies
his joy rising from the deep
it is simply
my favorite mercy
Categories
Spring Play
I thought
I understood what
love
truth
and beauty
were
until I saw the smile
beam from the face
of my son
taking
his leading role bows
before the applauding theatre
as he realized
he had just achieved
something
he never thought possible
it began to notice it midsummer
when i initiated the ritual
of my daily
life affirming
early evening
bicycle rides
.
my perfect aerial
machine so blue
cutting through
a synthetic mist
of suburban dryer vent exhaust
lavender lilac and vanilla scented chemicals
emitted from the latest
maytag gag-o-matic
into one bastard cloud
.
i decided
.
all of suburban cincinnati is covered in a
gently revolting incidental smog
of old lady perfume
.
in this gloaming time
the cul-de-sac wives
huddle into two groups
.
those who drink wine and smoke
while waiting for the pills to kick in
and those who just drink wine
while waiting for the pills to kick in
.
bitching about their husbands on cue
as they stand indignant
in various shades of pink velour yoga pants
at the end of their driveways
.
just far enough away
so the enemy
won’t hear
.
the hot-boxed group
of matching husbands
wearing
“i pay the mortgage and the only place
i have any privacy from that bitch and these kids
is the fucking garage”
t-shirts
whist drinking middling domestic imports
in a town whose pricey micro brews they can’t afford
.
all to protect the delicate sensibilities
of the lord of the flies children
playing between them
on tonka battery powered humvees
bedecked with
nerf machine gun turrets
smuggling
duct taped half-chewed barbies
with their eyes gouged out
to tiny-tot thailand
.
i get the sense
there is death in the water
a key mineral lacking
in our national diet
.
the country is filled
with these fleeting nightmares
.
communities of sheep
vying for space at a diseased trough
.
american wastelands
.
where the coffee tastes of bad choices
and everyone is waiting
for the kids to be old enough
to get a divorce
.
there was little indication
i was not a part of the sunlit green
moss covered bridge
afternoon
summer creeping
along the gorge
me
perfectly still
save the rise and fall
of grateful lungs
taking deep lustful breaths
of rushing creek below
my eyes set upon the soaring
white sycamore trees
where the indigenous people
of this carved miami valley
sought refuge
after glaciers melted
musing that
200 million years
isn’t so long
in the grand scheme
when my sacred peace was disturbed
by the sounds of new things
tremors caused by seven year old feet
across creaking boards
three little boys
too varied in appearance to be brothers
accompanied by an aloof
iPhone addicted mother
walking along oblivious behind them
i turned my head slowly
to observe the play
and
wait for the poem to come
the tallest of the prepubescent trio
crouched down
scooping up a daddy long legs spider
off the trail
before running onto the bridge
he set to taunting the other two boys
with the harmless creature
then dangled it toward his still absent
phone call mother
on whom
the gesture barely registered
a turn of her head
darkness came into his eyes
his gapped teeth gave way to a wicked laugh
as he cast the spider to its end
over the side of the bridge
the other two boys were distraught
over his brutality toward the arachnid
the youngest of them looked around
for an adult to whom he could run
for solace
for sense in the matter
choosing me and my quiet
over his uninvolved chaperone
he ran desperately toward my calm
to ask
if what his companion
had so cruelly
done to the spider
had killed it
could the spider survive
that fall?
he pleaded to me
hurriedly pointing to the water
tears streaming down his face
as if i were
the one
who made such choices
in that moment
i felt the age of my bones
older than pious pebbles
praying silently
in the stream
beneath us
i knelt down
so that i could look directly into his eyes
and said
no, son
i’m sorry
it’s likely
the spider did not survive the fall
but this moment
has more to teach us
about the nature of humans
than the nature of the spider
doesn’t it?
his brown eyes grew amber and wide
with new understanding
as he turned to look at his friend
the spider slayer
triumphant
in a low voice
uttering
…yes, m’am
…it does
it was a sunny summer afternoon
i don’t remember exactly when
but i must have been around 3
because we still lived in the little farmhouse
on ellison ridge
where uncle louis hung himself
the day felt the same way i feel
when i hear the cowboy junkies sing
sweet jane
lush and southern
dad was sitting with me
at the white picnic table
he built with his hands
i climbed on top of the table
to be closer to the large overhanging tree limbs
telling him i wanted to hang from them like a monkey
he hopped to his feet and i remember the jangle of keys and change coming from his pocket
his watch flashed in the sunlight when he picked me up and put me on his shoulders
then we walked to the lowest sturdy branch
within my reach and he said
“Grab on a-hold…”
i remember giggling with glee
as i latched on
he slowly crouched down and turned
to face me
freeing my swinging legs to dangle
he never took his hand off my shoe
“Daddy, let me swing!”
“I’m not lettin’ go-ah you, little girl…”
i held on for as long as i could but
my hands began to lose their grip
i clutched at him with my chubby legs
as he caught me in his arms
all i saw were his smiling dark eyes and glimmering green leaves
he was dead within three years
from kentucky fried booze and pills
and i’ve spent everyday thereafter reaching for him in various ways
uncle louis’ ghost isn’t the only one still hanging in that tree
Categories
prophecy
i don’t want to know
what happened to her
because i’m certain the knowledge
would only confirm my fears
my smart little girlfriend
from elementary school
whose family were mormons
and made their herd of children rise at
4:30 in the morning to be at the temple by 6 am
for their mental conditioning
before arriving at school at 7
of all my friends mothers
hers was the most unhappy
i noticed during sleep overs
her red faced mom
was perpetually emerging from a room
looking as though she had been weeping
barring that she was always cooking
a statue of a latter day saint
stirring macaroni n’ cheese
in a five bedroom split-level
my friend gave me a mormon bible in the 7th grade
i told her i had no use for my king james bible
why would i be interested in a sequel
but she saw my dissatisfaction with being a baptist
as an opportunity for recruitment
we grew apart as the years passed
her eyes never smiled even when her mouth was insisting otherwise
and by high school she had developed a marked disdain for my free manner of speech and behavior
my thoughts on the mormon religion
had evolved by my sophomore year
i saw it as a misogynist hierarchy
where every man got to pretend to be a god
and fuck as many women and little girls
into subservient wives
as he was physically able
all the while
convincing them their only role on earth
was to produce more little boys who would become masters of their own heavenly domains
and more little girls
who would grow to be human incubators
she moved away junior year
to a more rural area of ohio
the year i graduated early
i heard she got a scholarship to brigham young
ah, utah
the mormon holy land
she probably met a nice mormon boy in college who allowed her to keep teaching
in a mormon primary school
until she became pregnant with the fourth baby
i’ll bet her eyes still don’t match her lips when she smiles
and now she’s the one
emerging from empty rooms
having looked as though she cried
i still have that mormon bible
and my free manner of thinking
i know the very moment
he fell in love with me
it was when i walked up
to face his head fallen sadness
and asked
if he needed to borrow my puppy
me
at maybe three
new to the world
already punk rockin’
in Sesame Street pajamas
and Grover slippers on my feet
liked to curl up
under the christmas tree
staring up through lit branches
sure i had found
where magic sleeps