Some of these have photos I take that inspire the writing. Other stuff I've written can have a not so warm and sunny side to it.
I try to get stuff down as quickly as possible, but often the original idea evolves before I finish, so I end up with lots of beginnings and not so many endings. I recently found some old, old floppy disks that had stuff on them, and I had to laugh at the way they all just stop, like in mid thought.
This came after having a nasty cold and waking up when the Nyquil wore off. You know, that 'what's the meaning of life' state of mind when you're sick... And it really did happen. Commandment Trace it back to a time when life was one Cell, the first cell; the creator of all life That issued its newborn second self A single command . . . Survive! Follow those cells as they change, Each copy slightly flawed, slightly better, Except for the command, the unchanging command That gives life purpose. Continue until this night of stars And frosted grass under a full white moon, Lifeless light piercing The darkness of this cliché: The forms of cats fighting each other For the right to deliver their cells; In some bloody competition, obeying The demands of those cells. Feel the maddening urge; So deadly real it is That this winner, this Oedipus of cats Will mount his own mother. He is divided from her, and she, Always the good mother, nurtures Within and without, sacrifices, Surrenders to the murderous call of cells. Cells that will define themselves As mouths, brains, gonads, or uterus. Each feeling the ceaseless call That is greater than any religion. Step forward and watch The eggs hatch in the robin’s nest. Hear the chicks call desperately See the mother cat scoop them out. Who cares that the cat had kittens? Or that one mother kills another’s babies To feed her own? This deadly commandment can’t be ignored. The first cell lives and has reproduced; It plays music everyday on the way to work, Or screeches like cats in heat, Or shrieks like dying chicks. And this moon light, On finally reaching the ground, Finds only the frosted grass Littered with cats Out of their minds With lust and hunger, And has not enough energy left
Chilled in breaths mist, muffled by wind Screaming in your head Walking with the dead This darkness breeds a fear, of something near A child of blood and another a sprite Dressed as they are to instill my fright Sweets corrupted by thoughts of monster imposters All for the fun of imagination A night of abandon sweeps the nation
Here's a challenge for you--think back on a time in your life that had some meaning you weren't aware of at the time. This one is from a memory that stayed with me for many years and I didn't really understand it all until after I started writing it out. Miss Mildred’s Class Coldspring, Texas--1965 Not far from the Trinity River Back before there was a lake Miss Mildred’s third grade class Sat in the afternoon stillness Looking through open windows Watching the occasional breeze Nudge the live oaks It is the quietness I remember most Silence broken by the warm air Taking refuge in the shade of trees Locusts humming from somewhere in the brown grass A boy scraping his pocket knife on the remains of a pencil The soft creak of the old wooden rocker Miss Mildred sat in to read Little House in the Big Woods with her genteel Southern drawl Each syllable, each vowel graceful and proper… I took the story and her voice home with me each day Staring blankly out of the bus window As we passed the other school With its single-hoop basketball court on red clay I thought of Ma Ingalls’s fear and hatred of the Indians And wondered why Miss Mildred had said we shouldn’t be afraid like Ma Ingalls When our ‘guests’ come next year
Ode to a bowl-full of candy corn Frost white tips orange of a pumpkin yellow sun setting behind a corn field. I scoop a handful of candy corn drop it in my mouth, bite slowly and feel the sweetness glaze my tongue. The hell with the kids, I'm eating these.
Want and desire in my heart, run if you will or be torn apart Dripping my hands or sometimes paws Licking the liquid from my jaws Dog days of summer gone awaiting this darkness spawn Shreds of the suit of human form linger A talon of your death in place of a finger The growl and howl does fine hair arise Reflection of you appear in my eyes Final view before …..the cries.
I should have cried, let Grampa see Something real, a part of me Even though he may not hear, he may have seen that he was dear Known a little child was there Known he loved and that he cared Now I'm grown and its too late to tell the kindest man hes great I guess that missing chance is fate
That's what I'm talking about. Most of us can relate to that kind of thing. Such memories are painful. In that sense, I think it's good to keep them short and direct. Any longer and tears get in the way. I'm trying to post a Halloween photo, but not having any luck. I'll try again later.
Ok, happiness in a moment. Don't know if it explains it, but let's do this. The Eternal Bliss of Grandchildren in the Early Morning breathing wakes me a child through my sleepy eyes standing by the bed whispers, “breakfast”
Petulant Perversion The old man child Playing his tin soldiers in the sand He can be wild when not given a hand He plays unfair in petulant stand Expecting the world obey his command The weak of heart and mind bow to demand Give the kid his candy...if only to shut him up When charges filed Ruin the brand Tarnished brass instead of Gold Will adults see what they behold, listen to what they are told Return to the sanity of old Or have their sensibilities been sold Deny the Candy and make him cry Otherwise my hopes will die.
How about some work poems? I have some from long ago when I worked in a steel mill. They reflect a sense of being trapped in an uncomfortable proletarian existence--a sense of hopelessness in which retirement was the only real salvation. This is all automated now. It used to have about a dozen workers poking the steel into the rollers.
I wrote this about working there. Millrats In a dim, corrugated tin cavern a quarter mile of sun fingers stream through a cloud of steel dust falling on the furrows of the face, the ears and shoulders. Dust that gets sucked into the lungs of men with long-handled tongs who poke heavy ribbons of sun colored steel into rollers turning against one another, squeezing old rail-road rails into sign posts, fence posts, and rebar. Heat blisters rise on the knuckles of gloved hands; the soles of boots smoke; muscles and tendons strain against bones. The sweat of last night's beer flows from whiskered chins, tempering the metal in a violent, sizzling dance, this dance of the mill-hand this same bending, the same shoving, the same turn of the face away from the heat, the same step backwards, the same reach for the next bar, the same heat blistering the skin, repeating every day, and again the next; this workday dance in the black dust of white hot steel to the faulty rhythm of roaring motors, blasting a monotone to dance to. bg 95
